A Share In Death

by Deborah Crombie

  “Yes, she’s fifteen, but-”

  “Most fifteen-year-olds don’t read the papers, Mr. Lyle. I wouldn’t worry.”

  “Chloe’s not a bit like Angela Frazer, Mr. Kincaid. She’s a very good student, and I’ve always encouraged her to keep up with world affairs.”

  “She’s away at school, then?”

  “Yes, but close enough that we can have her home most weekends.” Lyle took off his spectacles and pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. “My daughter’s going to have all the advantages, Mr. Kincaid. She won’t need to scrape and struggle for things the way I did.”

  Finding Lyle almost bearable now that he wasn’t spouting pompous grievances, Kincaid refrained from saying that few children seemed to appreciate being given advantages their parents lacked-they saw such benefits as their due.

  Lyle must have done well enough for himself, though-a daughter away at school, clothes which looked expensive even if ill-fitting, and timeshare holidays didn’t come cheaply. “I understand you were in the army?”

  “They educated me, but I got no free ride, if that’s what you’re thinking. I paid my dues, Mr. Kincaid, I paid my dues.” Lyle looked back at his paper, folding it and snapping the crease in sharply.

  Having a conversation with Eddie Lyle was a bit like treading on eggshells, thought Kincaid, no matter how carefully you stepped, you made a mess of it.

  The address was a narrow, terraced house in one of the winding alleys behind Thirsk’s market square. A brass knocker shone and a few defiant petunias still brightened the window boxes. Before he could ring, the door opened and he faced a middle-aged woman with faded, fair hair.

  “Mrs. Wade?” The woman nodded. “May I come in? My name’s Kincaid.” He handed her his I.D. card and she examined it carefully, then stepped back in silent acquiescence. She wore what appeared to be her Sunday best, a navy, serge shirtwaist with white cuffs and collar. The pale hair was carefully combed, but her eyes were red and swollen with weeping and her face sagged as if gravity had become an unbearable burden. Even her lipstick seemed to be slipping from her lips, a slow, red avalanche of grief.

  “I knew he was dead.” Her voice, when it came, was flat, uninflected, and directed somewhere beyond him.

  “Mrs. Wade.” Kincaid’s gentle tone recalled her, and her eyes focused on his face for the first time. “I don’t want to mislead you. I’m not really here on police business. The local C.I.D. is officially investigating your son’s death. I had met Sebastian at Followdale, where I’m staying as a guest, and I wanted to offer my condolences.”

  “She said, that nice policewoman who came yesterday, that a policeman staying in the house had found him. Was that you?”

  “Yes, more or less,” Kincaid said, afraid the knowledge that the children had actually discovered her son’s body would only add to her distress.

  “Did you… how…” She abandoned whatever she had been going to ask, finding, Kincaid felt, that hearing a physical description of the circumstances of her son’s death was beyond her present level of endurance. Instead she looked at him again, and asked, “Did you like him?”

  “Yes, I did. He was kind to me, and very amusing.”

  She nodded, and some tension in her relaxed. “I’m glad it was you. No one’s come. Not even that Cassie.” She turned from him abruptly and led the way into the sitting room. “Would you like some tea? I’ll just put the kettle on.

  The room in which she left him was cold, clean, well-kept and utterly devoid of charm or comfort. The air had the stale odor of an old steamer trunk. The wallpaper had once been rose. The furniture might have belonged to Mrs. Wade’s parents, new and dubiously respectable fifty years ago. There were no books, no television or radio. She must live in the kitchen, Kincaid thought, or a back parlour. This room had surely not been used since the last death in the family.

  The tea things were carefully arranged on an old tin tray, with mismatched, faded china cups and saucers. “Mrs. Wade,” Kincaid, began, when she had settled herself in one of the horsehair chairs and was occupied pouring the tea, “how did you know, yesterday, that your son was dead? Did someone tell you?”

  “He did.” She answered flatly, glancing quickly at him and then back at her tea. She held the cup close to her chest, both hands wrapped around it as if its warmth could revive her. “I woke in the night, early morning really, and I felt him there, in my room. He didn’t speak to me, not out loud like, but somehow I knew that he wanted me to know that he was all right, not to worry about him. And I knew he was dead. That’s all. But I knew.”

  And so she had risen, and dressed, and waited all those hours for someone to come and tell her, to make death official. Ten years ago Kincaid would have scoffed at her story, put it down to overwrought imagination charged by grief, convenient hindsight. But he had heard too many similar accounts not to have some respect for the lingering power of the spirit.

  Kincaid set his cup down gingerly in its saucer, the violets on the cup meeting the saucer’s roses in delicate profusion. Mrs. Wade’s attention had wandered from him again. She sat with her eyes fixed on the opposite wall, the forgotten teacup still clasped in her hands. “Mrs. Wade,” he said quietly, “who were Sebastian’s particular friends?”

  Her eyes came back to him, startled. “I can’t say as he had any, not really. He was at work all day and into the evening, most days. He liked to use the…” she faltered for a moment, “pool, after work. One of the perks of having a cushy job, he called it. I know he didn’t get on with that Cassie. Said she lorded it over everybody, and her no better than she should be. A construction foreman’s daughter from Clapham. Liked them to think she came from landed gentry, or some such. He used to tell me about the folk who came to stay, what they wore, how they talked. Sometimes he could make it seem like they were right there in the room with you.” She smiled, remembering, and Kincaid could hear Sebastian’s light voice, wickedly mimicking the pompous utterances of his unsuspecting victims. “But no one ever came back here with him. Mostly when he wasn’t working he stayed in his room.”

  “Would you mind if I had a look at Sebastian’s room, Mrs. Wade?”

  He didn’t know what he’d expected. But whatever preconceptions had hovered on the fringe of his imagination-posters of rock stars, perhaps, remnants of adolescence-they had been nothing like this.

  This, it seemed, was where Sebastian had spent his money, apart from the payments on his motorbike, and what he spent on his clothes. The room was fitted with a pale gray Berber wool carpet, a flat commercial weave, very expensive looking. Lustrous green plants filled strategic corners. The dresser and side chairs looked like antiques, or good reproductions. The bed had high, matching curved ends. Kincaid believed it was called a sleigh bed, and again, probably a reproduction. Hanging on the pale gray walls were museum-quality framed prints, some Modernists, one or two Kincaid thought he recognized as American Impressionists.

  Sebastian’s reading matter was equally eclectic, housed in a simple pine bookcase which was the only visible holdover from his boyhood years. Childhood classics propped up stacks of magazines detailing the art of motorcycle maintenance. Stephen King mingled with espionage and the latest techno-thrillers-Sebastian’s taste had apparently run to the complicated and the devious. On the top shelf Kincaid discovered an old edition of the Complete Sherlock Holmes, and a worn set of Jane Austen.

  Clothes hung neatly in the wardrobe, organized by type as well as color. The sight of those garments, waiting for their owner to pick and choose, match and discard them, struck Kincaid as almost unbearably sad.

  He found the files in the back of the wardrobe, stowed carefully in a cardboard box marked “Insurance.”

  CHAPTER 7

  Kincaid thanked Mrs. Wade as kindly as he could, taking her small hand in his for a moment. She had drifted away again while he was upstairs, and her eyes focused on him with difficulty. She smelled faintly, he noticed, of chewing gum and fresh-cut tob
acco, the aromas of the tobacconist’s shop.

  “What about the shop, Mrs. Wade? Have you got someone to take over for you?”

  “I’ve shut it just now. Didn’t seem right. I meant to leave it to Sebastian, you know. Not for him to serve behind the counter, not with his advantages, but he could have hired someone and still had a nice little income. I put all the insurance money from his dad into it. It should have been his.”

  Kincaid patted the limp hand, searching for some words of comfort. “I’m sure he would have appreciated it, Mrs. Wade. I’m sorry.”

  The brass knocker winked brightly at him as he closed the door. The morning had turned fair and blowy while he’d been inside. A piece of yellow paper fluttered under the Midget’s wiper like a butterfly trapped in the sun. He’d collected a parking ticket for his trouble-the local traffic constable, at least, was vigilant.

  Kincaid retrieved the ticket and stuck it into his wallet. He folded the Midget’s top down, lowered himself into the driver’s seat and sat in the silent street, thinking. What to do, now, with this unexpected information? He couldn’t ignore it. Why, in the name of all that was competent, hadn’t Nash’s men searched the room already? It had been nearly thirty-six hours since Sebastian’s body had been discovered, and Nash had only sent a W.P.C. to break the news-he hadn’t even interviewed the mother, for Christ’s sake. Actually, he amended, ‘thank god’ might be a better qualification, as he couldn’t imagine that Nash would have done anything to ease her distress.

  Nash would have to be told, there was no help for it. And help, decided Kincaid, was just what he needed. He turned the key in the ignition and lifted the car phone from its cradle.

  Kincaid counted himself extremely fortunate in his immediate superior. Chief Superintendent Denis Childs was an intelligent man whom Kincaid liked personally and respected professionally-and Kincaid knew that the luck of the draw could have just as easily given him a chief like Nash, although he liked to think that a copper of Nash’s caliber would never make it past Detective Constable at the Yard.

  Denis Childs was a massive man, dwarfing Kincaid’s rangy six feet, and with his olive skin and bland inscrutability of feature, he sometimes made Kincaid think of an Eastern potentate-one finger on the political pulse and the other on his harem.

  “Sir,” Kincaid said, when they were finished with the standard greetings, “I’ve run into a little problem.”

  “Oh, you have, have you?” Childs said equably, with his usual disinclination to be ruffled. “And just how little is it?”

  “Um,” Kincaid hesitated, “the situation’s a bit tricky. Yesterday morning I found the house’s assistant manager electrocuted in the swimming pool. The local D.C.I, is of the opinion that it was suicide, but I think he’ll find it’s not when the lab reports come back. At any rate, I’m not too happy about the whole thing. I just… um… happened across some files of the victim’s that contain some fairly damaging information on some of the timeshare owners.”

  “Just happened, my ass. You’ve been snooping, Kincaid, where you’d no right to stick your nose.” Childs’ voice contained a note of approval. “Blackmail, eh?”

  “Funnily enough, I don’t really think so. Not directly, anyway. I wondered if you could smooth the way for me to make a few discreet inquiries. Don’t want to step on any toes-” Kincaid paused. “Actually, I’d like to stomp the bastard’s shins, but in the interest of departmental good will…”

  “I imagine you’ve already stepped on plenty, if you’ve been looking about. The A.C. will appreciate your restraint,” Childs added sarcastically. “But I’ll see what I can do. I believe the Chief Constable up there is an old friend of the A.C. Perhaps the A.C. would be willing to have a word with him on your behalf. Offer the Squad’s assistance if the business does turn nasty. I’ll have a word in his ear. In the meantime, try to keep out of trouble.”

  “I’ll tread like an angel,” Kincaid said. “All right if I call Sergeant James?”

  “On your head be it,” Childs answered, and Kincaid hung up, satisfied.

  Gemma James shoved two combs into her ginger curls, one more attempt on her part to bulldoze them into professionalism. She frowned at herself in the mirror, pulled the combs free and quickly brushed her hair into a pony-tail at the nape of her neck. “I give up,” she said aloud. If God had seen fit to give her red hair and freckles, she might as well accept them gracefully and stop harboring secret desires to be an icy blond or a sultry brunette. A little make-up toned the freckles down to a barely noticeable dusting, and that would have to do.

  The phone rang just as she scooped up a rambunctious Toby, ready to take him to the sitter’s. The morning off had improved her outlook, and she reached for the receiver with a return of her usual energy. “No, no, love. Let Mummy get it.” She gripped Toby’s clutching fingers with one hand and picked up the phone with the other, shifting her handbag and balancing the toddler on her hip. Gemma rested her cheek for a moment against his flaxen hair. It was straight as a die, thank god, a genetic wild card, unlike either her own or his dad’s dark mop.

  “Gemma?”

  “Sir. How’s your holiday?” Gemma grinned into the phone, both surprised and pleased to hear Kincaid’s voice. She toed the uneasy line between Christian name and title.

  “Sorry to interrupt your morning, Gemma. Are you working on anything in particular?”

  It was business, then, and she’d called it right. “Not really. Why?”

  “I’d like you to do some checking for me, and I’d like you to do it as unofficially as possible. I’ve cleared it with the Guv’nor, but I don’t really have any official jurisdiction.”

  “Gossip with the old biddies?” Gemma knew Kincaid’s indirect methods.

  “Right. Although in some cases you may have to speak directly to relatives. The problem is that I don’t really know what I’m looking for. Anything in these people’s lives that doesn’t mesh, doesn’t seem quite right. Let me fill you in.”

  Gemma listened, and wrote, having long since set the squirming Toby down. With half her mind she heard him pulling pots and pans out of the cupboard, his favorite pastime, but her attention was concentrated on Kincaid, and when she finally hung up she wore a small, satisfied smile.

  As Kincaid locked the Midget and started across the gravel toward Followdale House, Inspector Peter Raskin came out the door and ran nimbly down the steps to meet him.

  “Sir, I’d just about given up on you,” said Raskin, by way of greeting. “Thought you might like to know what the scene of crime lab came up with.”

  Kincaid glanced up at the blank faces of the windows above them. “We do need to talk. Let’s move away a bit.” They strolled down to the bench at the end of the garden-the same spot where he and Hannah had stood two nights before and thought how gay and welcoming the house looked with the light spilling from its windows. “You first,” said Kincaid, when they had settled themselves on the bench.

  “You were right about the heater and the plug. There’s not a smudge of a print anywhere on it that doesn’t belong to Cassie Whitlake. So, either Cassie plugged it in, and in that case why would she implicate herself, or the person who did wore gloves. Now, if it were Sebastian-and I never heard of a suicide wearing gloves-what did he do with them? His clothes, his shoes, his wallet, even his handkerchief and comb were folded in a neat stack by the bench. Did he plug the heater in, go dispose of the gloves somewhere, then come back and undress and hop in? I don’t buy it.” Raskin paused. “The heater might have shorted itself out before he could get in the pool. And I never knew a neat suicide not to leave a note.”

  “I didn’t buy it, either,” said Kincaid. “What about the p.m.?”

  “The best the doc can give us from the stomach contents is between ten and midnight.”

  “Not much help, but then I didn’t expect it would be. None of the guests have a definite alibi?”

  “Not to speak of.” Raskin ticked them off his fingers. “Cassie says
she went to her cottage, alone, around ten, and didn’t come out again. The Hunsingers had gone to bed and to sleep, after tucking in the children and having some herbal tea. Marta and Patrick Rennie say they were in their suite all the time, but she doesn’t look too comfortable about it. The MacKenzie ladies retired around ten, were both asleep by eleven. Janet Lyle had a headache, and her husband fixed her a cup of tea. She then went to sleep and he did, too. Um, let’s see, who’s left?”

  “The Frazers?” Kincaid prompted.

  “The Frazers, father and daughter, arrived back from dinner in York about ten-thirty, whereupon they both went to bed.”

  “And Hannah and I,” Kincaid continued for him, “were walking in this garden around eleven o’clock-”

  “After which you each went, alone, to your separate suites,” finished Raskin, and stretched his fingers until the knuckles popped.

  “Pretty bloody useless, the whole lot,” said Kincaid in disgust. “Any of them could be lying and we’d never be the wiser. For starters, I don’t think Angela Frazer has a clue whether her dad was in the suite or not. They had a terrible row on the way home and she locked herself in the bathroom. Went to sleep on the tiles.”

  Raskin grinned. “Your interrogation technique must be a sight better than my chief’s-he didn’t get more than sullen ‘yeses’ and ‘noes’ out of her.”

  “I don’t doubt it. Peter,” said Kincaid, feeling his way cautiously, “I paid a call on Sebastian’s mum.” Raskin merely raised his eyebrows. “I had a look at his room. He kept files on the timeshare owners, some of them potentially damaging.”

  Both Raskin’s eyebrows shot up this time. “Nash’ll have you on a platter, sir. Since the lab work came back he’s sent a team round there-he’ll likely have a stroke when he finds out you’ve been there before him.”