A Share In Death

by Deborah Crombie

  The door from the opposite wing swished open. Kincaid turned to see Angela Frazer slide through it and stop, watching him. Cassie had been right. All vestiges of a normal fifteen-year-old had disappeared, camouflaged by punk-vampire. Her face and lips were artfully chalky, her eyes dark-ringed as Cleopatra’s, her hair mace-spiked.

  As a defense mechanism he supposed it worked fairly well-she certainly looked unapproachable. What, Kincaid wondered, had driven Angela Frazer back undercover? He pushed his worry about Hannah aside for a moment and concentrated on Angela. The girl’s stare made him feel like a fly under a microscope. Hitching his hip on the window sill and folding his arms, he fumbled for the thread of their earlier rapport. “Where’ve you been hiding yourself?”

  No answer. That didn’t surprise him. His opening sortie had sounded patronizingly cheerful even to his own ears. He tried a more combative tack. “What’d I do to deserve the silent treatment?”

  The dark eyes disengaged as Angela ducked her head and moved around the wall toward him, running her finger along the molding top as if checking for dust. She halted just out of reach and her eyes flicked up at him again. “Nothing.”

  “Nothing? Come on, Angela, what’s eating you? Nobody sees you for a couple of days and then you reappear looking like the Bride of Frankenstein. What’s happened?”

  Angela’s eyes strayed toward her studded, black denim jacket and leather mini. Beneath the black skirt’s hem her knees looked absurdly pale and chubby-a child’s knees, even to the dimples.

  Hug her or turn her over his knee and spank her-either option probably effective, neither available to him. Kincaid waited.

  “You called me Angie before.”

  “So I did. I thought we were friends.”

  Her head jerked up at that and she said fiercely, “You didn’t do anything. You promised you would. Now no one cares what happened to Sebastian. I don’t mean,” she added, suddenly tangled in her middle-class upbringing, “that I don’t care about poor Miss MacKenzie and Miss Alcock. But Sebastian was…”

  “I know. It’s right that you should feel that way.” Sebastian, whatever his faults, had deserved Angela’s loyalty. Kincaid reached out, taking advantage of the thaw, and gripped her shoulder. “I’ve been trying, Angie. I’m still trying.”

  Angela’s face crumpled and suddenly she was sobbing against his chest, her arms wrapped tightly around his waist. Kincaid made soothing noises and stroked the back of her head, where her untreated hair felt as soft as duck’s down. He wished he could soak up her grief like a sponge.

  Finally the sobs subsided to hiccups and she pushed herself away from him, wiping her hands across her eyes. Not possessing the snowy, white handkerchief the situation demanded, Kincaid dug a crumpled tissue from his pocket. “Here. I think it’s relatively clean.”

  Angela turned her back to him and blew her nose, then said quietly, vindictively, “She made him do it.”

  Kincaid felt like he’d missed a cue. “Who made whom do what?”

  “Don’t be so stuffy.” Angela sniffed. “You know.”

  “No, actually, I don’t. Tell me.” His pulse quickened but his voice reflected only mild, friendly interest-the wrong word or gesture could send Angela scuttling back to safe ground.

  She hesitated now, pulling the zipper on her jacket back and forth. “That night Sebastian was… he said he didn’t go out, but he did. I heard him.”

  “Your father?”

  She nodded. “And the morning Miss MacKenzie died, I got up and he wasn’t there. He said he was there all the time.”

  Kincaid pushed a little. “Angie, what do you think your father’s done?”

  “I don’t know.” Her voice rose in a wail. “But if he’s done anything, she put him up to it.”

  “Cassie?” Kincaid asked, sure of the answer. Angela nodded.

  “Why do you think so?”

  “They’re always meeting and whispering. They think I don’t know.” Kincaid heard the satisfaction beneath the censure. “They stop and move apart whenever I come in. With that look. You know.”

  “But you haven’t heard anything specific?” Angela shook her head and moved back a few steps, the instinct to defend her father perhaps getting the better of her desire to accuse him. “It could be perfectly innocent, don’t you think? Maybe you’re blowing things out of proportion.” Kincaid spoke lightly, a little derisively, goading her.

  “I heard him tell her he was going to fix my mum,” Angela snapped back at him, stung. “That she’d be sorry, and so would anybody else who tried to bugger things for him. What if…” Angela stopped, her eyes frightened. She had gone farther than she intended. “I have to go.”

  “Angie-”

  “See you.” She slipped out the far door and a second later he heard her soft tread on the main stairs.

  Kincaid stared after her as the door sighed shut. Graham might have indulged in a little veiled bullying. On the other hand, what if… If only they could get a definite grip on the man, instead of a collection of rumors and second-hand accusations. Graham Frazer was as slippery as an ice cube and just as cold.

  Kincaid met Maureen Hunsinger at the top of the stairs, her round face shining like a scrubbed apple, her hair frizzing damply as if she’d come straight from the bath. “I’d just come to find you,” she said, beaming at him, then sobered. “I wanted to tell you good-bye.”

  “You’re leaving, then?” Kincaid asked.

  Maureen nodded. “Chief Inspector Nash gave us leave to go.” She sounded almost apologetic. “It’s been too difficult for the children. No point in prolonging it. Besides,” she looked away, and Kincaid thought he detected embarrassment, “after what happened to Hannah yesterday, it could be… well, it could happen to anyone, couldn’t it? We dare not let the children out of our sight. It’s just too worrying.” Maureen sighed and brushed a stray hair away from her face. Kincaid found he hated to see even a dent in her robust cheerfulness.

  “I’m sure you’re quite right,” he consoled her. “I’d do the same.”

  “Would you? Maybe we’ll sell our week here, or trade it for somewhere else. I don’t think I could ever feel the same about this place. Have you…”

  “No. Nothing definite.” Kincaid answered the question she hadn’t formed and asked the one worrying him. “Have you seen Hannah this morning, Maureen?”

  “Not to speak to.”

  “Wh-”

  “We were taking the first loads to the car. Oh, it must have been at least an hour ago. You know how it is when you travel with a family-you can’t imagine how you ever got all those things in the car to begin-”

  “Maureen.” Kincaid tried to nudge her back on track.

  “Anyway, I was just coming out of the house as she pulled away. She waved at me and I tried to wave back, only I had my arms full of Lego.” She smiled. “Emma helped me pick them up.”

  “Emma-”

  “Was coming in as I was going out. Maybe she spoke to Hannah.”

  “Thanks, love. I’ll see if I can find her.” Kincaid grinned at her fondly. “Good luck to you, Maureen.”

  He had taken a step toward the stairs when Maureen stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. “Take care,” she said quietly, then stretched up on her toes and kissed him, her lips exerting a warm pressure against his jaw, her heavy breasts grazing his chest.

  He felt oddly comforted.

  Emma found him before he found her. Everyone, thought Kincaid, seemed to be looking for him this morning except the one he most wanted to find.

  They met in the entry hall, Emma nodding at him briskly, as if he had appeared on command. The nod, however, seemed a last remnant of her gruff strength. She looked exhausted, and somehow-Kincaid searched for the right adjective-unstarched. Her spine slumped in a way he didn’t remember, and even her iron-gray hair clung limply to her head.

  “Let’s go out, shall we?” Her voice, he noted gratefully, had not lost its resonance. Emma led him out onto the porch and
lifted her face for a moment to the sun. “Yorkshire’s decided to give us one more day of glorious autumnal weather before we go. They’re forecasting rain for tomorrow.

  “Did you know,” she turned to him, “that Sebastian’s funeral is tomorrow? And I’m having Penny’s body sent home, now that they’ve released it.” Her shoulders sagged. “I’ll be going home myself after the service tomorrow, to make what arrangements I can for Penny.”

  Kincaid thought that more than grief weighed on Emma-added to it was her need to do what she felt necessary and proper for Penny, to say a final goodbye. “I didn’t know about Sebastian’s service. I’ll be there.” And he would make sure that Angela Frazer came with him.

  “Emma, Maureen said you might have spoken to Hannah this morning, as she was leaving.”

  “I did that.”

  “What did she say? I mean,” he added impatiently, “did she say where she was going, or why?”

  “I should think why would be rather obvious,” Emma said tartly. “If someone had shoved me down the stairs, I’d get farther away than that.”

  “Than where?”

  “She said she was going to see the falls, while the weather lasted. She was on holiday, after all, and the rest of you be damned. That’s what she said, more or less,” Emma finished with some satisfaction.

  “What falls?” Kincaid kept his voice level.

  “Aysgarth, I’d imagine. Up in Wensleydale. Only falls to speak of around here.” Emma reached for the door, then turned back to him, adding, “She moved pretty well this morning, I’d say, considering the tumble she took. Didn’t look a day over seventy.” She gave him a ghost of her ferocious grin and went into the house.

  Kincaid had started toward his car for a map when Janet Lyle stumped around the corner of the house, head down, hands shoved in the pockets of her lightweight anorak. She was scowling, the first expression of bad temper Kincaid had seen in her. Her face cleared when she saw him and she quickened her step, changing course to intercept him. “Say, you wouldn’t be going into Thirsk, by any chance, would you?

  “Hadn’t planned on it. Need a lift?”

  “Oh, Eddie hared off in the car this morning.” Exasperation animated her gestures, and for the first time Kincaid could imagine her nursing with the necessary take-charge, no-nonsense manner. “Something about sending a fax to the office. The thing is, I’d ordered some boots for Chloe-there’s a marvelous bootmaker here. They were to be ready this morning, and the shop closes half-day on Friday. It’s very annoying.”

  She did look put out, but without her usual mousy manner she looked quite chipper as well. “Your husband said you weren’t feeling well.”

  “Oh, that.” Janet shrugged it off. “It’s just his way. When his mother died he made up his mind I was languishing and needed a regular holiday. Transference, isn’t that what it’s called?” She smiled at him, showing even white teeth against her olive skin. “If I’d been the one wanting a holiday, I’d have gone to Majorca.”

  Gemma nosed her car carefully through the gates of Followdale House and let it idle while she looked about her. She knew she had the right place because the first thing to meet her eye was Kincaid’s Midget, angled jauntily on the gravel forecourt.

  The next was the Super himself, standing beside it with a map spread on the bonnet. Cords and sea-green pullover, a tweedy jacket with elbow patches, toffee-colored hair artfully ruffled by the breeze-he made, Gemma thought, a pretty picture indeed. She pulled up beside him and climbed out of the car, slinging her bag over her shoulder. “My, we’re looking the country gent today, aren’t we? Planning your next hunt, or just posing for Country Life?”

  He swung around. “Gemma!” The flash of pleasure on his face faded so quickly she thought she’d imagined it. “Where the hell have you been?”

  “And greetings to you, too, ta very much. I’ve just busted my bum to get here and that’s all you can say?” Gemma answered him good-naturedly but a little prickle of alarm ran up her spine. Although Kincaid didn’t suffer fools gladly, it was unlike him to jump down her throat.

  “Sorry, Gemma.” The familiar smile returned, though with less than its usual wattage.

  Gemma touched a fingertip to his chest. “Been changing a tire?”

  Kincaid looked down at the dark, irregular smudges across the breast of his sweater. “No. It’s mascara, I imagine.” He shaded his eyes against the sun and searched her face. “Now, tell me where you’ve been.”

  She leaned back against the Escort, remembering too late that it needed a wash, and dug in her bag for her notebook. The pages fluttered as she flipped through it-they both knew she didn’t need it, but the routine prop allowed them to make a smooth transition to business. “I finally managed to see Miles Sterrett. That dragon of a secretary at his clinic guards him like the Crown Jewels, so I tried his housekeeper and easy as kiss your hand, I’m in. ‘A brief appointment after dinner,’ she says, ‘so as not to tire him’.” Gemma paused, closing the notebook over her fingers. “I did try to phone you last night. You didn’t answer.”

  “Point accepted. Go on.”

  “He’s had a slight stroke, but he’s still sharper than a lot I could name who’re supposed to be in full possession.” Gemma paused, considering. “Younger than I expected, too-sixty, maybe-and still very attractive, in a gaunt and sober sort of way.” Something in the angle of Kincaid’s brows hurried her on. “He didn’t know anything about what’s happened here, and he was quite concerned about Hannah. I had the impression he thought this whole timeshare scheme a bit out of character for her, and it made him uneasy. Seems she runs that clinic practically single-handed and he hasn’t got a bit of use for the rest of the staff. Without Hannah, he says, the relatives and the Inland Revenue would have to fight over the place, or maybe he’d just give it to the National Trust.” Gemma smiled. “He’s kept his sense of humor, considering his circumstances.”

  “Well, I’ve lost mine,” Kincaid said. “Something has happened to Hannah-someone pushed her down the stairs yesterday.”

  “Is she-”

  “She’s all right. Or at least she was-she’s disappeared this morning.”

  Gemma glanced at the map still spread on the bonnet. No wonder he’d been so uncommunicative. “You’re going to look for her,” she said, making it a statement. “Any idea where?”

  Hmm?” His gaze seemed fixed on a large garden urn. “A possibility,” he answered vaguely. “Place called Aysgarth Falls.”

  “I’m coming with you. Don’t argue,” she added, although he gave no sign of having heard her. “Let me get my things from the car. You can fill me in on the way.”

  Gemma’s case file had slid under the passenger seat and she was stretched half across the driver’s seat digging it out when Kincaid said, “Oh, dear god.”

  The flat, utterly expressionless quality of his voice pulled her out of the car so fast that she banged her head on the roof and didn’t feel it.

  His mobile face was as blank and still as marble. Gemma’s stomach contracted. “What is it?”

  He focused on her with an effort and she saw his chest move as he drew a breath. “Hannah.” His voice gained force. “Sebastian had nothing to do with it. He just got in the way, like Penny.”

  “Wh-”

  “It wasn’t what Hannah knew, or heard, about Sebastian’s murder.” Kincaid’s hands came up to grip Gemma’s shoulders. “Hannah was the target all along.”

  CHAPTER 19

  It came to Hannah, as she stood shivering in the cold seeping from the great stone slabs beneath her feet, that she had deceived herself. The feverish energy that had gripped her on waking had drained away and left her as light and hollow as an empty husk, and what seemed sensible enough then failed the test of logic now.

  Bravado, that’s what had sent her slamming out of the house this morning. She wouldn’t let fear dictate her life, wouldn’t be coddled and cosseted like some feeble old woman.

  It had sounded convincin
g enough. But she might as well face it-she’d been running away as if all the hounds of hell were on her tail, away from the house and its faceless, hovering malice.

  She pushed the thought away and looked downriver at the gentle valley of the Ure spread beneath her. A cloud blotted out the sun and Hannah hugged her cardigan closer. She might be alone in the world for all the signs of human habitation visible-not even sheep or drystone walls, only the falling slope of trees and a blue horizon, and on the opposite bank a shining carpet of russet leaves.

  The sound of the water gurgling and murmuring across its stone bed should have been soothing, but it only increased her sense of isolation. Up toward the Middle Falls a family jumped about between the half-submerged stones, but she could only see their mouths moving, as if they were laughing and shouting in a silent film.

  Hannah sighed, absently cradling her sore wrist against her chest. There was no comfort here. She might as well go back and face the music. Duncan would be furious, and Patrick-if Patrick saw her as a burden to be looked after, there was no help for it.

  Hannah turned to the slope behind her, her tenuous resolve flagging at the thought of the steep climb back to the path. A figure appeared at the trail’s head and slipped and slid down the incline toward her, tweed-jacketed, a Tyrolean hat set at a jaunty angle, walking stick swinging, round spectacles reflecting the light. With a start she recognized Eddie Lyle.

  How odd, thought Hannah. He didn’t strike her as the outdoors type. And how irritating-he was an irritating little man at the best of times, and just now she hadn’t the energy to cope with him. She couldn’t escape-he’d seen her and picked up his pace, waving cheerfully at her.

  “How jolly to see a familiar face,” Lyle said as he came abreast of her. “Thought I recognized your car in the car park.” Hannah could think of no polite rejoinder, so she smiled at him rather weakly. He expanded his narrow chest with a deep breath and exhaled noisily. “Lovely, isn’t it? Have you seen the Upper Falls as well? I must say I find these the most pleasant, whatever anyone else might say.”