No Mark upon Her dk&gj-14

by Deborah Crombie

  Gemma saw him nod, and she assumed he made some reply before ringing off. Then he stood for a moment, his back to them.

  When he turned, his face had drained of color.

  “That was Denis,” he said. His eyes sought Gemma’s. “Angus Craig’s house burned to the ground in the early hours of the morning. Both he and his wife are presumed to have been in it.”

  Chapter Twenty-two

  They’d met one morning out on the river, when their two sculls nearly collided in mid-stream.

  —Daniel J. Boyne

  The Red Rose Crew: A True Story of Women, Winning, and the Water

  Kincaid could smell the fire as they came into Hambleden, even with the car windows closed.

  He and Cullen had driven from London in grim silence, Doug looking slightly green in the passenger seat, Kincaid unwilling even to speculate until he knew exactly what had happened.

  “I could have done without the mulled wine,” Doug said now.

  Kincaid nodded agreement, suspecting that he would regret even the slice of birthday cake and the cup of punch he’d finished before Childs’s phone call. He kept thinking of Edie Craig, who had been kind and gracious to him when it hadn’t been necessary.

  He’d known they should have had Craig brought in, but this—he hadn’t expected this.

  The narrow village streets were chockablock with cars, the pub car park filled to overflowing—certainly more than the usual Saturday crowd. Tragedy always made for good business.

  There were even a few bystanders in the road itself. Kincaid had to beep the horn and motion them aside as he reached the drive to the Craigs’ house.

  Rolling down the window, he flashed his warrant card to the uniformed constable blocking the drive’s entrance. As he drove through and pulled the car onto the grass, the stench hit them like a wave. Was he only imagining the distinct signature of charred flesh beneath the acrid tang of smoke?

  Then he looked up and saw the house.

  “God,” whispered Doug beside him.

  The lovely, rosy brick was blackened, the windows shattered, the roof caving in in places. It was clear that the blaze had raged out of control before the fire brigade arrived.

  Two of the pumpers still stood in the drive, like red sentinels, hoses snaking into the house. A group of men in plainclothes stood aside from the firefighters and uniformed officers, and it was impossible to mistake Chief Superintendent Denis Childs’s bulk. As Kincaid and Cullen climbed out of the Astra and walked over, he separated himself and came to meet them.

  “What happened?” Kincaid asked, not trusting himself to say more.

  “The alarm came in at two A.M., but the entire structure was fully involved by the time the brigade got here. They’ve only managed to get a team inside half an hour ago.” Childs wore his Burberry coat over corduroys and an old jumper, and his usually immaculate dark hair was uncombed and ruffled by the wind.

  The oddness of seeing his chief so disheveled added to Kincaid’s sense of unreality. “Is it true? Both of them dead?”

  Nodding, Childs looked away.

  Kincaid swallowed. “How?”

  “According to the investigator”—Childs gestured towards a man coming out of the house, and Kincaid recognized the arson specialist from the scene at Kieran Connolly’s boatshed—“it looks like murder-suicide. The first assessment is that Mrs. Craig was shot at close range. Then it appears that Craig started the fire before shooting himself.”

  Kincaid shook his head. “I want to see it.” As he started towards the house, Childs clasped his arm in a firm grip. “You can’t go in, Duncan. It’s too hot. It will be hours yet, and then the scene has to be processed. You know that.”

  Shaking him off, Kincaid turned back. “What I know is that it didn’t have to happen this way. We should have used the warrant, taken him in. Craig would be in a cell waiting for his solicitor, and Edie Craig would be alive. I want to know exactly what you said to him.”

  “Guv—” Doug was looking at him in horror.

  Kincaid ignored him. He seemed to have lost control of his tongue. “Did you tell him to fall on his own gun? Did it not occur to you that he might take his wife with him?”

  Denis Childs looked at him impassively, and only someone who knew him very well would have seen the narrowing of his dark eyes. “Superintendent. You are out of line. I did no such thing. I merely—”

  “Extended the courtesy due a senior police officer.” Kincaid didn’t try to keep the disgust from his voice. “And now we have another victim, Edie Craig, and no doubt any forensic evidence linking Craig to Rebecca Meredith’s death is gone. Did Edie Craig not count? Did Becca Meredith not count?

  “And what about the other women whose lives he damaged—or took? Did they not deserve some sort of justice?” Kincaid stopped just long enough for a breath. “But this is all much tidier for the Met, isn’t it? RESPECTED FORMER OFFICER KILLED IN TRAGIC FIRE.”

  Denis Childs shot Cullen a look that said he’d wish he were dead if he ever repeated a word of this conversation.

  Then, to Kincaid, he said in the level tones that made officers under his command tremble, “Justice? Don’t talk to me about justice, Duncan. Do you really think things would be better for these women, for their families, for their careers, if what happened to them were made public?

  “If it had been Gemma, would you want that? Would she want that?”

  “I—”

  “As for Jenny Hart”—Childs jabbed a finger the size of a sausage at him—“I will guarantee you that those DNA comparisons will be processed, and that the results of those tests will be made public, regardless of damage to the reputation of the Met.

  “And if you can find me anything concrete that ties Craig to Rebecca Meredith, I’ll do my best to see that his involvement in her death is made public as well.”

  “Off the record, is that it?”

  “If that’s the best means.” Childs gave Kincaid a considering glance. “These things can be arranged. I believe you are on close terms with an officer who has a connection to a major newspaper?”

  Kincaid gaped. He’d never repeated to anyone Melody Talbot’s confession that her father was the Ivan Talbot, owner of the London Chronicle. And although she’d told him that both Doug and Gemma knew, he couldn’t imagine that either of them had spread that information around.

  Having dropped his bombshell, Childs straightened the lapels of his overcoat, just as if he were wearing a City suit rather than a moth-eaten jumper. “And now,” he continued, “I suggest that you let these officers do their jobs, and go home. As will I.”

  “Clever bastard,” Doug said quietly when Childs had driven away. “Did you know he knew about Melody?”

  Kincaid shook his head. “No. And I wonder what else he knows that he’s not telling us.”

  “You’re not going to do what he said, are you?”

  “No.” He should, Kincaid knew. If he had any sense, he’d go back to his little girl’s birthday party and consider that all was well that ended well, at least as far as the Met was concerned.

  But it wasn’t Monday yet. He was not officially off the job for another thirty-six hours, and his case was not closed. “I’m going to have a word with the fire brigade investigator. Nice chap, wasn’t he?”

  Doug grinned and adjusted his glasses. “I thought you’d say that.”

  When Gemma had seen Kincaid hesitate after the phone call, she’d whispered to him, “Go. Just go.”

  “But what about Charlotte—the party—”

  “She’ll be fine. I’ll explain to the kids. Ring me when you know something.”

  He and Doug had made quick apologies and slipped out, fortunately before he’d seen Charlotte start to cry.

  Gemma had scooped her up and comforted her, then distracted her by asking for a drink from her little bottle.

  Charlotte gave her a pretend sip, then tucked the bottle against her chest and relaxed in Gemma’s arms with only an intermittent snif
fle.

  Would she become accustomed to disappointment? Gemma wondered as she swayed a bit and patted Charlotte’s small back.

  Were the boys any the worse for always having one or both parents haring off after some case or other?

  Of the two, Toby coped best. He’d been too young to remember being abandoned by his father, and since then, he’d accrued layers of security in his life like a little pearl in an oyster—although no one, she thought with a smile, was likely to refer to Toby as a pearl.

  Kit, like Charlotte, had suffered loss, but also betrayal—by the man he’d thought was his father, and by his grandmother. And yet, he seemed to be mending, although there was no way to tell if he would ever be entirely whole.

  At the moment, however, he was teasing his brother by playing keep-away with Toby’s pirate sword. He looked like any other mischievous fourteen-year-old. And that was good.

  Charlotte, over her tantrum and tiring of being held, began to squirm. “I want down, Mummy,” she said.

  “What?” Gemma was so startled she loosed her hold and let Charlotte slide the last foot to the floor with a thump.

  “I wanna play with Holly,” said Charlotte, more firmly. And then she was gone, skipping across the room in her blue dress, unaware that she had uttered anything significant or momentous.

  Gemma stood, knuckles pressed to her suddenly trembling lips. It was nothing, she told herself. Charlotte heard Toby call her “Mummy” all the time, and even Kit used it teasingly. It was only natural that Charlotte should start to parrot what she heard. But still—

  “You okay, boss?” asked Melody, coming up beside her. “You look a bit . . . gobsmacked.”

  “Oh.” Gemma made an effort to collect herself. “I’m fine. Too much cake, I think.”

  Melody gave her a skeptical look, perhaps having seen Gemma take a bite, then put her plate aside to tend to someone else.

  But instead of challenging Gemma’s evasion, she shifted and said a little hesitantly, “Boss, I know Charlotte’s party has been disrupted enough already, but . . . that woman, the Vice copper that Doug said Becca Meredith saw on her last day at work. Chris Abbott.”

  “What about her?” asked Gemma. She felt an odd little twist in her stomach, as if her body had foreknowledge.

  “I’ve just realized why her name seemed familiar,” said Melody. “It was in the Sapphire files.”

  “Superintendent Kincaid,” said Owen Morris, the fire brigade investigator. “And Sergeant Cullen. Sorry I can’t shake.” He raised his gloved hands in an explanatory shrug. “We seem to keep meeting this way.”

  Morris, still in full protective gear, had just come from the house, and Kincaid had glimpsed his red-haired assistant going back in.

  “Can we go in if we suit up?” Kincaid asked.

  “No, sorry. It’s still too hot, and the structure’s not safe. The pathologist and the SOCOs will have to wait as well. ”

  Frustrated, Kincaid glanced at the open front door. “Give us a description, then.”

  “Not pretty, this one,” said Morris, shaking his head, and Kincaid wondered if there were such a thing as a pretty fire scene. “But the victims were on the ground floor, and as the fire moved upwards, the bodies are still fairly intact.

  “The wife—we’ll assume it was Mrs. Craig, for the time being—was in the kitchen. It looks as though she was shot in the back of the head.”

  Edie, Kincaid thought. Not just Mrs. Craig. Not just the wife. Edie.

  “The deputy assistant commissioner was in what looked to be his study.”

  “You’re certain it was him?”

  “I’d met him a few times,” Morris said with a grimace. “What remained of the face was recognizable. The study was the fire’s point of origin. There was a petrol can near the body. He still had the gun gripped in his hand, but the weapon was pretty badly damaged. Some sort of small-caliber handgun, but big enough to do the job. I’m sure the SOCOs will be able to tell you the make.”

  “Can you tell what happened?” Kincaid asked, although his mind was playing it out, whether he liked it or not.

  “It looks like he shot his wife, then doused a good bit of the ground floor with petrol, backing into his study as he poured. Then he tossed something—a lighter or a match—into the petrol trail. After that, my guess is he’d have waited until he was sure he had a good burn. Then he shot himself in the side of the head.”

  They all stared at the house as if mesmerized, and Kincaid wondered how anyone could possibly do what Angus Craig had done.

  A horn beeped. Turning, Kincaid saw a little lime-green Ford pull through the gate. Imogen Bell got out and walked over to them, looking considerably tidier and more rested than she had the previous morning. Apparently she hadn’t felt it necessary to spend last night surveilling Freddie Atterton’s flat from her car.

  “Sir,” she said to Kincaid, including Cullen and Owen Morris in a nod of greeting. “DI Singla sent me to coordinate with you. He wanted me to tell you that the SOCOs and the Home Office pathologist are on their way. And we’ve got extra officers coming to cordon off the property. It won’t be long before the press show up in force.” She glanced at the house, shaking her head. “It’s really true? Assistant Commissioner Craig?”

  “The pathologist will have to make the formal ID, but it looks that way. Did you know him?” he asked, with a lurch of concern.

  “I’d seen him round Henley. He spoke to me once or twice. He seemed like a nice man.”

  Kincaid closed his eyes in a little prayer of thanks that Imogen Bell hadn’t got to know Angus Craig better.

  “Oh, sir,” said Bell. “There was a man at the gate just now, wanting to speak to someone in charge. A neighbor. He says he has Mrs. Craig’s dog, and he wants to know what he should do with him.”

  “No matter what Angus Craig’s done now,” said Gemma, “we still don’t know why he would have killed Becca Meredith when he did. And I can’t believe it’s coincidence that Becca talked to another of Craig’s possible victims on the day she began behaving oddly. Especially if this woman really was an old friend.” She chewed her lip as she thought. “We need to talk to her.”

  “Now?” Melody glanced round at the other guests. It looked as though the party was beginning to wind down. “What about the kids?”

  “I’ll ask Betty or Hazel if they can look after the little ones for a bit,” said Gemma. The bubble of domestic perfection had popped even sooner than she’d thought. But although she hated deserting the children and her guests, she couldn’t leave such a loose end dangling. “We don’t know yet exactly what happened at the Craigs’,” she added slowly. “If we’ve missed something, something important, Duncan and Doug need to know as soon as possible.”

  “She lives in Barnes, this Chris Abbott. I remember that from the file. I can check the address.”

  “Do it, then. There’s something not right here.” Suddenly uneasy about Duncan and Doug in Henley, Gemma felt too edgy to stand still. But before anything else, she had to speak to her parents.

  While Melody pulled out her phone, Gemma went into the dining room and knelt by her mum and dad. She was pleased to see that her mum was still looking bright.

  “Mum, Dad. I’m so sorry, but something’s come up. Melody and I have to go.”

  “Something always comes up with you,” said her dad.

  Her mother gave him a quelling glance. “Is it that business of Duncan’s?”

  “I think it might be connected, yes.” Seeing the beginning of Vi’s worried frown, Gemma hastened to reassure her. “It’s just an interview, Mum. But it needs to be done now.”

  Her mother’s gaze went to the sitting room, where the three small children had subsided into playing a game on the floor with Toby’s cars. “What about Charlotte? It’s her birthday and all.”

  “I know, Mum. But I won’t be gone that long. I’ll ask Hazel or Betty to look—”

  “We can stay,” said her dad. “Can’t we, Vi?”
/>   Gemma stared at her father as if he’d just spoken in a foreign tongue.

  Her mum looked just as surprised, but recovered more quickly. “Well, that we could, Ern. That’s a good idea. If it’s all right with Gemma, of course.”

  “There’s nothing I’d like better.” She gave her mum, then her dad, a kiss on the cheek, and she could have sworn she saw her father’s lips twitch in a smile. “You’re sure you’ll be all right? You know Toby can be—”

  “Stop fussing,” said Vi. “We’re his grandparents, in case you’ve forgotten. We’ve looked after him since he was a tot. Just mind you take—”

  “Boss.” Melody stood in the hall, her phone still clasped in her hand. “Sorry to interrupt, but I think you should see this.”

  When Gemma joined her, Melody showed her the photo she’d pulled up on the phone’s screen. A young blond woman in rowing gear smiled into the camera. The caption read “Christine Hunt; St. Catherine’s College.”

  “I should have done my research,” said Melody. “Chris Abbott, née Hunt. I should have seen the rowing connection.”

  Gemma frowned. “Why would you have looked for it?”

  “Because,” said Melody, “that’s my job. I should have checked for any previous link between Becca Meredith and any of the women who showed up in the Sapphire files. I let myself get distracted by the Hart case. I thought we’d hit eureka.”

  “We all did. And we don’t know that this Chris Abbott has anything to do with Becca Meredith’s death.”

  “So.” Melody lowered her voice. “Are you going to let Duncan know we’re going to see her?”

  Gemma debated only for a moment. “No. He’d tell us not to go.”

  Kieran had spent most of Saturday at the boatshed, armed with plywood to cover the broken windows, a broom, and industrial size rubbish bags.

  After his talk with Freddie Atterton the day before, he’d felt oddly heartened. He could at least make a stab at clearing up. Then he could assess the extent of the damage. Maybe, just maybe, he could put himself, and his business, back together again.

  In the meantime, he feared he was becoming frighteningly domestic. Tavie had ended up working a double rota last night, filling in for a crewmate who’d called in sick at the last minute. She’d come home early in the morning, exhausted and reeking of smoke. She said she’d been called to a fire scene in Hambleden—a retired police commissioner’s house, no less—but the fire had been too far advanced for the medics to get in.