Leave The Grave Green

by Deborah Crombie

“I can’t imagine. He certainly didn’t say anything to us about going to London-are you saying he visited the theater?”

  “According to the porter’s sign-in sheet, but no one else admits to seeing him.”

  “How very odd,” Caroline said slowly, and for the first time Gemma sensed her departing from a comfortably rehearsed script. “Of course, he did leave in rather a tiz-”

  “What happened?” Gemma felt a prickle of excitement. “You said he hadn’t done anything out of the ordinary.”

  “I don’t know that I’d describe it as out of the ordinary. Con was never very much good at sitting still. He excused himself for a moment while Gerald and I were having our coffee. He said he meant to give Plummy a hand in the kitchen, and that’s the last we saw of him. A few minutes later we heard his car start up.”

  “And you thought something had upset him?”

  “Well, I suppose we did think it a bit odd that he hadn’t told us good-bye.”

  Gemma turned carefully back through the pages of her notebook, then looked up at Caroline. “Mrs. Plumley said she did the washing up alone. She didn’t see Connor again after she left the dining room. Do you think he went upstairs to see Julia? And perhaps they had a row?”

  Caroline clasped her hands in her lap, and the shadows shifted on the garnet sweater as she took a breath. “I can’t say, Sergeant. If that were the case I’m sure Julia would have said something.”

  Gemma didn’t share her sentiments. “Did you know that Connor had a girlfriend, Dame Caroline? Technically, I suppose she would have been his mistress, since he and Julia were still married.”

  “A girlfriend? Con?” Caroline said quietly, then as she looked into the fire she added more softly still, “He never said.”

  Remembering what Kincaid had told her, Gemma said, “Her name is Sharon Doyle, and she has a four-year-old daughter. Apparently it was a fairly serious relationship, and he… um, entertained her quite often at the flat.”

  “A child?” Caroline returned her gaze to Gemma. Her dark eyes had dilated and Gemma saw the fire reflected in their liquid and luminous surface.

  The afternoon had drawn in as they talked, and now the fire and the lamps cast a noticeable glow in the quiet room. Gemma could imagine serene hours spent here with music and conversation, or time whiled away on the comfortably worn chintz sofa with a book, but never voices raised in anger. “What if Julia found out about Sharon? Would they have argued over it? Would Julia have liked Connor having another woman in her flat?”

  After a long moment, Caroline said, “Julia is often a law unto herself, Sergeant. I can’t begin to guess how she would react to a given situation. And why does it matter anyway?” she added wearily. “Surely you don’t think Julia had anything to do with Con’s death?”

  “We’re trying to find an explanation for Connor’s behavior that last afternoon and evening. He made an unexpected visit to the theater. He also met someone later that evening, after he’d returned to Henley, but we don’t yet know who it was.”

  “What do you know?” Caroline straightened her back and regarded Gemma directly.

  “The results of the autopsy didn’t tell us much. We’re still waiting on some of the forensic reports-all we can do until then is gather information.”

  “Sergeant, I think you’re being deliberately vague,” said Caroline, teasing her a little.

  Unwilling to be drawn any further, Gemma focused on the first thing that came to mind. She’d been absently examining the paintings Kincaid and Julia had talked about-what had Julia said the painter was called? Flynn? No, Flint. That was it. The rosy bare-breasted women were voluptuous, somehow innocent and slightly decadent at the same time, and the sheen of their satin gowns made Gemma think of the costume fabrics she’d seen that morning at LB House. “I met an old friend of yours today, Dame Caroline. Tommy Godwin.”

  “Tommy? Good God, what on earth could you possibly want with Tommy?”

  “He’s very clever, isn’t he?” Gemma settled back more comfortably on the sofa and tucked her notebook into her bag. “He told me a lot about the early days, when you were all starting out with the Opera. It must have been terribly exciting.”

  Caroline’s expression softened. She gazed absently into the fire, and after a moment said, “It was glorious. But, of course, I didn’t realize quite how special it was, because I had nothing to compare it to. I thought that life could only get better, that everything I touched would turn to gold.” She met Gemma’s eyes again. “Well, that’s the way of it, isn’t it, Sergeant? You learn that the charmed times can’t last.”

  The words held an echo of such sorrow that Gemma felt their weight upon her chest. The photographs on the piano pulled at her insistently, but she kept her eyes on Caroline’s face. She had no need to look at them-Matthew Asherton’s smiling image had burned itself upon her memory. Taking a breath, she said with a daring born out of her own fear, “How do you manage to go on?”

  “You protect what you have.” Caroline said quietly, vehemently. Then she laughed, breaking the spell. “Tommy wasn’t quite so elegant in those days, though you wouldn’t think it to look at him now. He shed his background like a snake sloughing off its skin, but he hadn’t completed the process. There were still a few rough edges.”

  Gemma said, “I can’t imagine,” and they both laughed.

  “Tommy was never less than amusing, even at his least polished. We did have some lovely times… and we had such vision. Gerald and Tommy and I-we were going to change the face of opera.” Caroline smiled fondly.

  How could you bear to give it up? thought Gemma. Aloud, she said, “I’ve heard you sing. I bought a tape of Traviata. It’s marvelous.”

  Caroline folded her arms loosely under her breasts and stretched her dainty feet toward the fire. “It is, isn’t it? I’ve always loved singing Verdi. His heroines have a spiritual quality that you don’t find in Puccini, and they allow you more room for interpretation. Puccini you must sing exactly as it’s written or it becomes vulgar-with Verdi you must find the heroine’s heart.”

  “That’s what I felt when I listened to Violetta,” Gemma said with delight. Caroline had given definition to her own vaguely formed impressions.

  “Do you know the history of Traviata?” When Gemma shook her head, Caroline continued. “In Paris in the 1840s there lived a young courtesan named Marie Duplessis. She died on the second of February, 1846, just nineteen days after her twenty-second birthday. Among her numerous lovers in her last year were Franz Liszt and Alexandre Dumas, fils. Dumas wrote a play based on Marie’s life called La Dame aux Camélias, or Camille-”

  “And Verdi adapted the play as Traviata.”

  “You’ve been swotting,” said Caroline in mock disappointment.

  “Not really, just reading the liner notes. And I didn’t know that Violetta was based on a real person.”

  “Little Marie is buried in the cemetery at Montmartre, just below the church of Sacre Coeur. You can visit her grave.”

  Gemma found herself unable to ask if Caroline herself had made such a pilgrimage-it came too near the forbidden territory of Matthew’s death. She shivered a little at the thought of such waste. Marie Duplessis must have held on to her life with all the passion Verdi wrote into Violetta’s music.

  A bell rang, echoing in the passage outside the sitting room. The front door-Plummy had said Caroline had another student coming. “I’m sorry, Dame Caroline. I’ve kept you too long.” Gemma slid the strap of her handbag over her shoulder and stood up. “Thank you for your time. You’ve been very patient.”

  Caroline rose and once again offered Gemma her hand. “Good-bye, Sergeant.”

  As Gemma neared the sitting room door, Plummy opened it and said, “Cecily’s here, Caro.”

  As Gemma passed the girl in the hall, she had a brief impression of dark skin and eyes and a flashing shy smile, then Plummy ushered her gently out into the dusk. The door closed and Gemma stood breathing the cool, damp air. She shook
her head to clear it, but that made the dawning realization no less uncomfortable.

  She had been seduced.

  “A message for you, Mr. Kincaid,” Tony called out cheerfully from the bar as Kincaid entered the Chequers. “And your room’s ready for you.” Tony seemed to do everything around the place, and all with the same unflagging good nature. Now he fished a message slip from beneath the bar and handed it to Kincaid.

  “Jack Makepeace called?”

  “You’ve just missed him by a few minutes. Use the phone in the lounge if you like.” Tony gestured toward the small sitting area opposite the bar.

  Kincaid rang High Wycombe CID and shortly Makepeace came on the line. “We’ve run down a possible lead on your Kenneth Hicks, Superintendent. Rumor from some racing sources has it that he does his drinking in a pub in Henley called the Fox and Hounds. It’s on the far side of town, off the Reading Road.”

  Kincaid had just come through Henley on his way from Reading, and would now have to turn right around and backtrack. He swore under his breath but didn’t criticize Makepeace for not contacting him by bleeper or car phone-it wasn’t worth the loss of good will. “Anything known about him?”

  “No record to speak of-a few juvenile offenses. He’s a petty villain from the sound of it, not a serious one. Hand in the till here and there, that sort of thing.”

  “Description?”

  “Five foot eight or nine, nine stone, fairish hair, blue eyes. No available address. If you want to talk to him I guess you’ll have to do a spot of drinking at the Fox and Hounds.”

  Kincaid sighed with resignation at the prospect. “Thanks, Sergeant.”

  Unlike the pub where he’d lunched in Reading, the Fox and Hounds turned out to be every bit as dreary as he’d imagined. The sparse late afternoon activity centered around the snooker table in the back room, but Kincaid chose the public bar, seating himself at an inadequately wiped plastic-topped table with his back against the wall. Compared to the other customers, he felt conspicuously well groomed in jeans and a fisherman’s knit jersey. He sipped the foam from his pint of Brakspear’s bitter and settled back to wait.

  He’d killed half the pint as slowly as he could when a man came in who fitted Kenneth Hicks’s general description. Kincaid watched as he leaned on the bar and said a few low words to the barman, then accepted a pint of lager. He wore expensive-looking clothes badly on his slight frame, and his narrow face had a pinched look that spoke of a malnourished childhood. Kincaid watched over the rim of his pint as the man glanced nervously around the bar, then took a seat at a table near the door.

  The sneaky bugger’s paranoia would have given him away even if his looks hadn’t, thought Kincaid, and he smiled in satisfaction. He drank a little more of his beer, then stood and casually carried his glass across to the other man’s table. “Mind if I join you?” he said as he pulled up a stool and sat down.

  “What if I do?” the man answered, shrinking back and holding his glass before his body like a shield.

  Kincaid could see specks of dandruff mixed with the styling cream that darkened the fair hair. “If you’re Kenneth Hicks, you’re out of luck, because I want a word with you.”

  “What if I am? Why should I talk to you?” His eyes shifted from one side of Kincaid’s body to the other, but Kincaid had sat between him and the door. The gray light from the front windows illuminated the imperfections of Hicks’s face-a patch of pale stubble missed, the dark spot of a shaving cut on his chin.

  “Because I asked you nicely,” Kincaid said as he pulled his warrant card from his hip pocket and held it open in front of Hicks’s face. “Let me see some identification, if you don’t mind.”

  A sheen of perspiration appeared on Hicks’s upper lip. “Don’t have to. Harassment, that’s what that is.”

  “Oh, I don’t think it’s harassment at all,” Kincaid said softly, “but if you like we’ll call in the local lads and have our little chat in the Henley nick.”

  For a moment he thought Hicks would bolt, and he balanced himself a little better on the stool, his muscles tensing. Then Hicks set his glass down on the plastic table with a thump and wordlessly handed Kincaid his driving license.

  “A Clapham address?” Kincaid asked after he had examined it for a moment.

  “It’s me mum’s,” Hicks said sullenly.

  “But you stay here in Henley, don’t you?” Kincaid shook his head. “You really should keep these things current, you know. We like to know where to find you when we want you.” He pulled a notebook and pen from his pocket and slid them across the table. “Why don’t you write down your address for me before we forget. Make sure you get it right, now,” he added as Hicks reluctantly picked up the pen.

  “What’s it to you?” Hicks asked as he scribbled a few lines on the paper and shoved it back.

  Kincaid held his hand out for the pen. “Well, I have a vested interest in staying in touch with you. I’m looking into Connor Swann’s death, and I think you know a good deal about Connor Swann. It would be very odd if you didn’t, considering the amount of money he paid you every month.” Kincaid drank off another half-inch of his pint and smiled at Hicks, whose sallow skin had faded almost to green at the mention of Connor’s name.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Hicks managed to squeak, and now Kincaid could smell his fear.

  “Oh, I think you do. The way I heard it is that you do some unofficial collecting for a bookie here in town, and that Connor was in over his head-”

  “Who told you that? If it was that little tart of his, I’ll fix her-”

  “You’ll not touch Sharon Doyle.” Kincaid leaned forward, abandoning his amiable pretense. “And you’d better hope she’s not accident prone, because I’ll hold you responsible if she so much as breaks a little finger. Have you got that, sunshine?” He waited until Hicks nodded, then said, “Good. I knew you were a bright boy. Now unfortunately, Connor didn’t discuss his financial problems with Sharon, so you’re going to have to help me out. If Connor owed money to your boss, why did he pay you directly?”

  Hicks took a long pull on his lager and fumbled in his jacket pocket until he found a crumpled packet of Benson & Hedges. He lit one with a book of matches bearing the pub’s name, and seemed to gather courage as he drew in the smoke. “Don’t know what you’re talkin’ about, and you can’t-”

  “Connor may not have taken very good care of some parts of his life, but in others he was quite meticulous. He recorded every check he wrote-did you know that, Kenneth? You don’t mind if I call you Kenneth, do you?” Kincaid added, all politeness again. When Hicks didn’t reply, he continued. “He paid you large amounts on a very regular basis. I’d be curious to see how those amounts tally with what he owed your boss-”

  “You leave him out of this!” Hicks almost shouted, sloshing beer on the table. He looked around to see if anyone else had heard, then leaned forward and lowered his voice to a hiss. “I’m telling you, you leave him-”

  “What were you doing, Kenneth? A little loan-sharking on the side? Carrying Con’s debts with interest? Somehow I don’t think your boss would take too kindly to your skimming his clients like that.”

  “We had a private arrangement, Con and me. I helped him out when he was in trouble, same as he’d have done for me, same as any mates.”

  “Oh, mates, was it? Well, that puts a different complexion on it entirely. I’m sure in that case Connor didn’t mind you making money off his debts.” Kincaid leaned forward, hands on the edge of the table, resisting the urge to grab Hicks by the lapels of his leather bomber jacket and shake him until his brains rattled. “You’re a bloodsucker, Kenneth, and with mates like you nobody needs enemies. I want to know when you saw Connor last, and I want to know exactly what you talked about, because I’m beginning to think Con got tired of paying your cut. Maybe he threatened to go to your boss-is that what happened, Kenneth? Then maybe the two of you had a little scuffle and you pushed him in the river. What do you th
ink, sunshine? Is that how it happened?”

  The bar had begun to fill and Hicks had to raise his voice a little to make himself heard over the increasing babble. “No, I’m telling you, man, it wasn’t like that at all.”

  “What was it like?” Kincaid said reasonably. “Tell me about it, then.”

  “Con had a couple of really stiff losses, close together, couldn’t come up with the ready. I was flush at the time so I covered him. After that it just got to be sort of a habit.”

  “A nasty habit, just like gambling, and one I’ll bet Con got fed up with pretty quickly. Con hadn’t written you a check the last few weeks before he died. Was he balking, Kenneth? Had he had enough?”

  Perspiration beaded on Hicks’s upper lip and he wiped it with the back of his hand. “No, man, the horses had been good to him the last couple of weeks, for a change. He paid off what he owed-we were square, I swear we were.”

  “That’s really heartwarming, just like good little Boy Scouts. I’ll bet you shook hands on it, too.” Kincaid sipped from his glass again, then said conversationally, “Nice local beer, don’t you think?” Before Hicks could reply he leaned across the little table until he was inches from the man’s face. “Even if I believed you, which I don’t, I think you’d look for some other way to soak him. You seem to know a lot about his personal life, considering your business arrangement. Looking for another foothold, were you, Ken? Did you find something out about Connor that he didn’t want anyone else to know?”

  Hicks shrank back. “Don’t know what you’re talkin’ about, man,” he said, then wiped spittle from his lower lip. “Why don’t you ask that slut of his what she knows? Maybe she found out hell’d freeze over before he’d marry her.” He smiled, showing nicotine-stained teeth, and Kincaid found it no improvement over his sneer. “Maybe she shoved him in the river-did you ever think about that one, Mr. Bloody Know-it-all?”

  “What makes you think he wouldn’t have married Sharon?”

  “Why should he? Get himself stuck with a stupid little cow like that-take on some other bugger’s bleedin’ kid? Not on your nelly.” Sniggering, Hicks pulled another cigarette from the packet and lit it from the butt of the first. “And her with a gob like a fishwife.”