“Peter, you don’t by any chance have Dr. Percy’s address?”
Raskin choked a little on his beer. “She’s married, you know.”
“I’d rather assumed she was,” Kincaid said, but his heart sank a little, and he hastened to assure himself that his interest was strictly professional. “There are some questions I wanted to ask her, not being invited to attend the postmortem…” He kept his expression bland, standing on his dignity.
“Okay, I’ll buy that. And the Great Wall of China,” Raskin said, and Kincaid grinned in spite of himself.
“Mr. Kincaid.” The voice came softly from the darkened garden. “Or is Superintendent the correct address?” Kincaid recognized the speaker now. Edward Lyle moved from the shadow of a decorative urn, gesturing toward Kincaid’s car. “I’m sorry to disturb you if you’ve an appointment to keep, but I wondered if I might have a word.”
Lyle’s manner was more ingratiating than usual, and Kincaid sighed. He had been expecting this from some quarter. “No, no. What can I do for you?”
“I realize this is all very distressing, Superintendent, but I feel Chief Inspector Nash is overstepping his rights. This holiday was to be a special treat for my wife, to rest her nerves, and she’s been upset enough by all this without the Chief Inspector’s bullying. And any rest I might have expected has been quite shattered. I certainly didn’t come here to be-”
“Mr. Lyle,” Kincaid said patiently, “I have no jurisdiction over Chief Inspector Nash, as I’ve explained before. I’m strictly on sufferance myself. I’m sure he’s just doing his job.” Kincaid heard himself uttering clichés and grimaced-Lyle seemed to inspire them.
“My work, Superintendent, is quite taxing, and no one seems to take into account-”
“Just what is it you do, Mr. Lyle?” Kincaid attempted to stem the flow of grievances. “I don’t believe you’ve ever said.”
“Civil engineering. Firm’s doing quite well.” Lyle puffed up a bit. “Good opportunity for investment just now, if you’re in-”
Kincaid cut him off. “Thanks, but coppers don’t usually have enough to float a fiver. Now, if you don’t mind, I’d better be off. I’m afraid I can’t help you with Inspector Nash-a word from me wouldn’t predispose him in your favor.” Pompous self-serving little bugger, he thought as he got in his car and waved at Lyle. He and Nash deserved one another.
The single-track road wound back toward the very base of the hills. Kincaid had left the Midget’s top down and turned the heater up full blast, hoping the crisp evening air would clear the cobwebs from his brain. The sky looked faintly luminous against the opaque shapes of the trees.
Presently he saw the lights of the bungalow through the trees on his left and pulled the car carefully into the leaf-covered drive. It was a low house of rose-colored brick, with light streaming from the large French-paned windows either side of an arched front door.
He rang the bell, and the door swung open, revealing two small girls with dark hair surrounding heart-shaped faces. They gazed at him solemnly, then before he could speak they burst into a fit of giggles and ran toward the back of the house, shouting, “Mummy, Mummy!” Kincaid thought he’d better have a look in a mirror before long, if the mere sight of him reduced children to hysteria.
The room stretched the width of the house, with dining furniture to his left and the sitting room to his right. What he could see of a worn rug was liberally covered with doll-hospital casualties. Books flowed off the tables, a fire burned steadily in the sitting-room grate, and the temptation to sit down and go to sleep became almost unbearable.
Anne Percy appeared, wiping her hands on her white cotton apron, and saved him from embarrassment. She smiled with pleasure when she saw who it was, then looked at him more critically. “You look exhausted. What can I do for you?” The little girls were peeking out from behind her like Chinese acrobats, only slightly subdued by their mother’s presence. “Molly, Caroline, this is Mr. Kincaid.”
“Hallo,” he said, gravely. They giggled again, and swung out of sight behind her back in unison.
“Come into the kitchen, if you don’t mind my cooking while we talk.” She led him through the swinging door in the back of the sitting room into a large, cheerful room full of the aroma of roasting chicken and garlic.
Anne shooed the children out with a reminder that supper wouldn’t be ready for a half hour yet, pulled up a tall stool for Kincaid, and went back to stirring something on the cooktop, all with a graceful economy of movement. “Drink? I’m having Vermouth, since it went in the chicken, but you look as though you could use a whiskey. Off-duty and all that. Is it really true that policemen don’t drink on duty, or is it just a myth perpetrated by the telly?”
“Thanks.” Kincaid gratefully accepted the whiskey she splashed into a glass, and after the first sip warmth began to radiate from the pit of his stomach. “And no, it’s not true. I’ve known quite a few who do. Chronic alcoholism is just as likely to turn up on a police force as anywhere else, I guess. Maybe more so, considering the stress level. But I don’t, if that’s what you’re wondering. Don’t like to feel muddled.”
“I know your rank but not your given name. I can’t go on calling you Mister or Superintendent. Doesn’t seem appropriate in the kitchen.”
“It’s Duncan.” He grinned at her surprised expression. “Scots forebears. And my parents had an inordinate fondness for Macbeth. It could have been worse. They could have saddled me with Prospero or Oberon.”
“Lucky you. My family still calls me Annie Rose. It makes me feel three years old, not a grown woman with children of my own and a fairly respectable profession. My patients call me Dr. Anne. It makes them feel more comfortable.”
“I’d settle for just plain Anne.” He sat and sipped his drink while she moved from cabinet to cooktop and back, feeling the warmth of the room and the whiskey move through him like a tide. He felt as though he had been sitting on this stool, in this kitchen, for years, and could go on sitting there for as many more. Concentration became Anne Percy, he thought, watching her tuck her hair behind one ear as she stirred. She had the same heart-shaped face as her daughters, but the soft, fine hair was lighter, the color of demerara sugar.
She checked a casserole in the oven, then dusted her hands off and turned to face him, leaning against the counter. “Now. Everything should take care of itself for a few minutes.’’
Kincaid found himself at a loss, distracted by a floury smudge on her eyebrow. What he wanted from her was so formless, so nebulous, that he couldn’t think where to begin. “I’m finding myself in a very awkward position. I’ve no official sanction to investigate either Sebastian’s or Penny’s death-not yet, anyway. And yet I’m involved, even more so than I would be under ordinary circumstances, because I was acquainted with them both.”
Anne Percy studied him with the same serious regard she had given her casserole, and Kincaid felt suddenly uncomfortable, as if his face might reveal secrets he hadn’t intended. “I’ve been known to lose my professional detachment upon occasion, too.” Her apparent non sequitur, thought Kincaid, went right to the heart of the matter. “I checked on Emma this morning, to see if she wanted a sedative or-”
“She didn’t,” Kincaid interrupted, smiling at the thought.
“Damn right, she didn’t. She gave me hell. But she talked to me. People do, sometimes, when they’re in shock. They tell you things that ordinarily they wouldn’t dream of revealing. Emma had been worried about Penny’s behavior for months, and it seemed to be getting progressively worse. Episodes of forgetfulness, confusion. It sounds as if it might have been the onset of Alzheimer’s, or some form of premature senility. I don’t know if it’s any comfort to you, but the quality of her life probably would have deteriorated rapidly.”
“No,” Kincaid said angrily, “no, it bloody well isn’t.
Whatever the quality of her life, no one had the right to take it from her. And I’m an utter fool. It might have been prevented. Sh
e tried to talk to me and I wouldn’t take time to listen, because it wasn’t my case, because I didn’t want to take responsibility, because I judged her as foolish and ineffectual. I should have known better-it’s my job, for god’s sake. Now we’ll never be sure just what she saw. The night Sebastian died, Penny waited until Emma fell asleep and then went downstairs. She’d forgotten her handbag and didn’t want Emma to know. A silly little thing, but if she knew Emma was worried about her forgetfulness-”
“You think that Penny was killed because she saw something that would lead to Sebastian’s murderer? That just one person is responsible for both deaths?”
“I think, from something Emma overheard Penny say, that Penny saw two people that night-two people not where they were supposed to be. Did she remember where she had left her bag, and slip into the sitting room in the dark? Did she see someone coming out of Cassie’s office?”
“Did they see her?” Anne asked, caught up in his reconstruction.
“Well, we don’t know, do we?” Kincaid asked softly. “But I think not. Either the plan would have changed, or Penny would have died then and there. This… person… is a remarkable opportunist. It seems to me that neither killing was premeditated, not in the usual sense, but they were both done with great ruthlessness and a willingness to take almost insane risks. It was sheer, tremendous luck to have managed both these killings without being observed-”
“Except, perhaps, by Penny,” Anne interrupted.
“Yes. But it’s rather an odd profile. People who kill on the spur of the moment usually do it in anger and regret it afterwards. Those who premeditate like to plan it carefully and execute it from a distance, with as little risk of discovery as possible. Poisoners are the perfect example.”
“Maybe this person has an inflated idea of his own invincibility.”
“Could be, but I don’t think these are random killings by a psycho, violence for violence’s sake. There’s an objective in this, a sort of single-minded cunning.” Kincaid laughed abruptly, then shrugged. “Sounds fanciful, doesn’t it?”
“Possibly. But back up a minute, Duncan.” Anne frowned, the smooth skin between her brows crinkling with her intensity. “If the murderer didn’t see Penny, how did he know she’d seen him?”
“I think,” Kincaid measured his words carefully, “that she told him.” Seeing Anne’s incredulous expression, he shook his head before she could interrupt him. “I know it sounds crazy, but Penny…” He searched for words that would make Anne see Penny the way he had seen her, hoping the whiskey hadn’t made him maudlin. “Penny lived with scrupulous honesty-except perhaps in protecting Emma. She wouldn’t have wanted to falsely accuse someone.”
“You think she just walked up to this murderer and said ‘I saw you. What are you going to do about it?’ But that’s-” Anne’s voice rose with righteous indignation, and Kincaid thought he’d hate to be a patient who’d disobeyed a reasonable doctor’s order.
“Foolish. And if Penny saw two people, she picked the wrong one to speak to first.” Kincaid stretched and looked at his watch, took another swallow of the whiskey. “I should be getting back, just in case something turns up. Peter Raskin’s taken some pity on me-if he hears the p.m. results tonight he might let me know. Thanks for letting me sound off.” In spite of his words, he stayed slumped on his stool, swirling the remains of the whiskey in his glass.
“Stay for dinner. There’s plenty. Tim’s out on call so we won’t wait for him. We never know how long he’ll be.”
“What does he do, your husband?”
“He’s an obstetrician.” She spluttered a laugh at the sight of his face. “Close your mouth. That’s most people’s reaction. But who could be more sympathetic to a doctor’s schedule than another doctor, or a vet? Or a policeman,” she added thoughtfully.
“Now I know where I went wrong. I should have married a doctor. My ex-wife wasn’t sympathetic to my schedule at all.” He finished his drink and stood, finding it a great effort. “I’d love to stay, but I’d better not. Maybe some other time.” They stood, suspended in a brief awkward silence, then Kincaid reached over and rubbed the smudge from her eyebrow with his thumb. Anne caught his wrist and held it for a moment, then turned away.
“I’ll show you out, then.”
The children were arguing intensely over whose turn it was to bandage the doll, their faces rosy in the firelight.
“Goodbye, Molly and Caroline.”
“Are you going to visit us again?” said Molly, curiously.
“I hope so.”
“Come any time.” Anne’s fingers brushed his arm, light as down.
As the door closed behind him Kincaid saw that all the light had gone from the sky behind the hills.
CHAPTER 13
“I’m the queen,” Bethany said imperiously, adjusting the white square of cloth on her head, “and this is my crown. You be the baby prince.”
“Don’t wanna be the baby prince.” Brian stuck out his lower lip.
“You be the baby prince or I won’t play.”
Brian shuffled his feet, hands in pockets, defeated but not about to give in gracefully. “Why? Why do I always have to be the baby?”
“Because.” Bethany spoke with the certainty of a seven-year-old’s power over a younger brother, the wisps of brown hair escaping from her braid detracting not a whit from her command. Kincaid stood in the hall outside his door and watched in amusement as Bethany draped a small blanket over her brother’s unwilling shoulders. The children were camped on the broad first-floor landing, illuminated by shafts of early morning sun from the three windows overlooking the drive.
“Once upon a time,” began Bethany, “there was a queen who lived in a castle with her darling baby, the prince.”
“Yuck!” said Brian vehemently. Bethany ignored him.
“One day an evil wizard came to the castle and stole the prince away to his cave. The queen didn’t know what to do.” Kincaid wondered how the queen had so conveniently rid herself of the king, and wondered at the thoroughly modern Maureen exposing her children to old-fashioned fairy tales. Maybe it was a modern fairy tale, with a liberated queen.
“Hullo,” he said, walking down the hall to join them.
“You two are up early.” His own night had been so unsatisfactory that he’d been glad to see the first faint light at the windows, and had waited impatiently, action constrained, until the house began to stir. “Is this the castle?” Kincaid indicated the landing with his hand.
Bethany nodded seriously. “You’re stepping in the moat.”
“Oh. Sorry.” Kincaid stepped back a pace and squatted on his heels. “Better?” A ghost of a smile accompanied the nod this time. “If I were the prince,” he continued, looking at Brian, “I’d think of some really super way to escape from the wizard. Put his dragon to sleep, or steal the wizard’s spells. The queen wouldn’t have to rescue you at all.”
The balance of the children’s expressions changed, Brian’s more cheerful, Bethany’s sliding toward belligerence. Brian wouldn’t keep the upper hand for long. Kincaid spoke to Bethany, a forestalling tactic. “I like your crown, Beth.” The children looked at one another and drew closer together, squabbles forgotten in sudden discomfort.
Kincaid’s attention sharpened. He looked more closely at the white cloth. A handkerchief, slightly frayed at the edges, most likely a man’s since it lacked any lace or embroidery. A small spot of rust marred one corner. Kincaid’s heart jumped. “Where did you get the crown, Beth?” He kept his voice calm.
The children only stood silently, their eyes widening. Kincaid tried again. “Is it your daddy’s?” Negative head shakes greeted this-an improvement over no response at all. “Did you find it somewhere?”
Brian looked at Bethany in mute appeal, and after Kincaid waited another patient moment, she spoke. “We were playing in the front hall. Mummy and Daddy said we could play anywhere in the house except the pool, but we weren’t to go outside.”
; “Quite right, too, I should think,” Kincaid prompted, when she paused. “What were you playing?”
Bethany cast a quick glance at her brother and decided he wasn’t going to speak for himself. “Brian was playing with his Matchbox cars. He was driving one on the edge of the umbrella stand and it fell in.”
“And when you reached in for it, you found the handkerchief?”
Brian found his tongue, perhaps encouraged by Kincaid’s friendly tone. “Right at the bottom. All wadded up. Like this.” He made a fist. “Squashed.”
“Do you mind if I take it for a bit? I think Chief Inspector Nash might like to see it.” The children nodded vigorously. Kincaid imagined that their brief encounters with the Chief Inspector had not made them anxious to repeat the experience. He thought for a moment, decided two polythene bags from the kitchen might just do the trick. “Leave it just where it is for a minute, okay? I’ll be right back.” Next time he went on holiday, if ever there was a next time, he’d pack his murder kit.
Voices came clearly through the open door of the untenanted ground-floor suite. Kincaid stood in the hall, his prize held gingerly between his fingers, and listened. “If God had given you sense enough to wipe your ass, laddie, you’d do as you’re told and not stand there gawking like a halfwit.” There was no mistaking Chief Inspector Nash’s dulcet tones. The indistinguishable reply must be Raskin, not off to a jolly start with his superior.
“Damn.” Kincaid swore under his breath. He’d seen Raskin’s battered Austin from the first-floor landing and had hoped to catch him alone, hoped to let Raskin take credit for the find. Bearing such a gift himself would do nothing to improve his working relationship with Nash, but getting it to the lab was too urgent to wait for a better moment. He stuck his head around the corner and peered in.
Nash sat at the small dining table, surrounded by files. The telephone cable stretched dangerously across the room from the sofa table so that the instrument could rest at Nash’s elbow. Probably Raskin’s point of contention, thought Kincaid. “Temporary incident room?” he asked pleasantly.
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