A Share In Death

by Deborah Crombie

  This last remark was uttered with that air of righteous superiority that she found so annoying, but she merely said, “yes, quite,” not willing to prolong the encounter by disagreeing. Hannah wondered how the man’s wife tolerated him. She’d seemed pleasant enough, the few times they’d spoken. Maybe she escaped him whenever possible, thought Hannah, with a faint inward smile.

  Lyle rattled on, pointing his stick about as he described the geographical features of the valley. Hannah made monosyllabic replies and glanced at him curiously. His manner seemed oddly agitated. He kept turning and scanning the banks behind them as he talked, as if watching for someone.

  Hannah followed his gaze upstream and saw that the stone-jumping family were straggling toward the wooden steps that led from the Middle Falls up to the path. The last child vanished behind a screen of trees, its head hanging dejectedly.

  “Look. Just here, in these stones.” Lyle bent forward and aimed his stick at the river’s edge. “Fossilized bracken, if I’m not mistaken.”

  Rather unwillingly, Hannah crossed to him and peered down. The fern shape in the white sheet of rock might have been a photograph, its clear outline as strong and delicate as ancient bones.

  “Get Peter Raskin on the phone. Tell him-”

  “Let me come with you,” Gemma interrupted. “I’ll phone from the car.”

  As Kincaid hesitated, Patrick Rennie came out the front door and walked toward them, his expression concerned. “Hullo!” he called to them. “Have you seen Hannah?”

  Kincaid met Gemma’s eyes. “There’s no time. Find Peter Raskin, then bring Rennie with you. He’ll insist on it, and I might need him if Peter doesn’t make it.” He grabbed the map from the bonnet and slid into the Midget, blessing the quick rumble of the engine.

  “But what do I tell-” Gemma’s fingers grasped the window’s edge.

  “Anything you like. Just come.” Kincaid slipped the car into gear and pulled away, leaving Gemma to cope with Rennie’s open-mouthed bewilderment. As Kincaid glanced back Gemma took Rennie’s hand, saying, “He’s going to look for Hannah. Come on…” Her voice faded as he turned into the road. Trust Gemma to have things well in hand.

  The way Kincaid downshifted into the curves he might have been going for the cup at Monaco. The map lay open on the passenger seat, a snaky route marked quickly in ink so he wouldn’t have to keep hunting for it. He left the main road at Thirsk, trusting to luck that the more direct B roads wouldn’t slow him down. Looking down, Kincaid saw his knuckles bleached white and loosened his grip on the wheel. He drove on with methodical concentration, checking the map, scanning the road, but all the while the thoughts ran unbidden through his mind.

  He should have seen it. All the bits and pieces had slotted into place as neatly as a shuffled deck and he’d held them in his hand. Could little things-contradictions, coincidences-add up to such a fatal sum? Eddie Lyle had apparently told his wife that he’d been unable to buy a week outside term-time. Yet when Kincaid, thinking about the Frazers, had suggested such a difficulty to Cassie, she’d been astonished. And Lyle had intimated more than once that the holiday had been Janet’s idea, when according to both Janet and her neighbor, it had been entirely his. Gemma had described Lyle as overextended… with aspirations beyond his means… Kincaid’s mind went back to the conversation he’d overheard that day in The Blue Plate-Janet worrying over Eddie’s plans to send their daughter to a university she was sure they’d never be able to afford… Eddie’s aunt dying young of a rare disease, as had Miles Sterrett’s wife… Miles’ despised nephew, and Hannah barring the way to Miles’ estate.

  Kincaid shook his head. Perhaps he was making it up out of whole cloth, his fear for Hannah distorting his logic. But then he thought of Eddie Lyle tearing off, shortly after Hannah’s departure, on an unnecessary and unexplained errand, and his hands tightened again on the wheel.

  The light shifted across the tops of the moors as Kincaid entered Wensleydale. He pushed his speed up on the straight stretches until the pastures ran into a green blur.

  The ancient town of Middleham registered only as bright flags on the castle battlements and the steaming hindquarters of racehorses disappearing around a corner. Wensley and sleepy West Witton slowed him as old men and pram-pushing mothers turned to stare-then one last stretch of clear road to Aysgarth.

  Just when he’d begun to breathe a little easier, a flock of sheep ambled across the road in front of him. He came to a dead stop and swore. There was no hurrying sheep. They milled about, a wooly, white, pulsating mass, marked with great splashes of red or blue dye. Kincaid leaned on his horn and nudged the stragglers with his bumper. The shepherd shook his crook at him, and the last sheep cleared the road with a scatter of stones.

  The road made one last sharp turn and swooped down to cross the River Ure, and there on the left lay the car park for Aysgarth Falls. Kincaid left the Midget skewed across the first empty space and stood up to get his bearings. Hannah’s green Citroën sat sedately in a corner by itself, empty.

  Before him lay the path to the Upper Falls; behind him, across the road and down the valley, the path led to the Middle and Lower Falls.

  Kincaid hesitated a moment, then sprinted down the Upper path, bumping sightseers and backpackers as he ran. The way grew dark with overhanging trees, mossy underfoot and filled with the sound of running water. Foreboding clutched him, but when he came into the open all he found were family picnics and booted hikers posing on the great stones. Of Hannah there was no sign.

  The path across the road was as calm as a country lane. Open meadow lay on one side, and on the other the dense growth of the river bank. A family straggled into the path from a flight of wooden steps. The children looked damp and querulous, the parents harried.

  “I want an ice cream now, Mummy. You promised!” The small boy’s voice rose ominously.

  “Hush, Trevor. I told you-”

  Kincaid almost plowed into them. Between gasps for breath he said, “Anybody else down there?”

  “Not with us.” The man pointed. “Some folks a little further downstream, though.”

  “Two people?”

  The man pursed his lips. “Think so. Wouldn’t swear to it.”

  Kincaid left them staring after him, already forgotten.

  He almost missed the signpost, and the body’s-width opening in the tangled greenery of the bank. LOWER FALLS. EXIT ONLY. Ignoring the sign’s discreet warning, he plunged down the track.

  His feet slipped in the sand and loose stones, propelling him downward at breakneck speed. With a shower of gravel and a last grasp at a bramble, he slid out of the trees and onto the level surface of the bank.

  Ten meters from him, Hannah Alcock bent over the river’s edge. Behind her, Eddie Lyle stooped and Kincaid caught the white flash of a stone in his hand.

  Kincaid shouted, afterwards he was never sure what. Memory gave it to him as a wordless, echoing yell, a soundtrack to the slow-motion scene playing before him.

  Hannah straightened and turned, breaking into a smile as she recognized him. Lyle froze. An instant later his arm shot around Hannah’s neck and he thrust his other hand into his coat pocket. Kincaid saw a dull gleam as Lyle pulled his hand out and lifted it to Hannah’s temple.

  A gun. The bastard had a gun. Hannah’s brief struggle died as the pistol’s blunt mouth pressed against her scalp.

  Kincaid raised his hands and took a few careful steps forward.

  “Don’t come any nearer.” Lyle’s voice rose shrilly. His grip tightened on Hannah’s neck and Kincaid saw her eyes roll.

  “Can you hear me, Eddie?” Kincaid didn’t shout, afraid that would make the situation even more volatile. “Listen to me, Eddie. It’s no use. Let her go.”

  “No use?” Lyle laughed. “What’s to stop me killing you both and no one the wiser?” The fussy mannerisms had been replaced by a kind a feverish excitement. He was enjoying it, Kincaid thought. Sebastian and Penny’s murders may have been expedient, but L
yle had come to like killing. The knowledge froze Kincaid’s bones.

  Hannah must have made some sound, because Lyle forced her head back further. “I can do what I like, Superintendent.” The words were contemptuous.

  “Killing us won’t stop it, Eddie. You left traces. The lab found latent prints on the handkerchief you hid, as well as Penny’s blood.”

  A flicker of doubt crossed Lyle’s face. Kincaid pressed his advantage. “You must have planned this for a long time, Eddie. You and your mother were Miles Sterrett’s only relatives. How convenient of your mother to die just about the time you broke into Hannah’s flat. Narrowing the field, were you, Eddie?”

  “Copper’s tricks, Kincaid. Going to keep me talking until the reinforcements arrive? Did you think I’d fall for that?” Beneath Lyle’s light, almost bantering words, Kincaid heard the hostility that fueled him. “You’ve left out the flattery, Superintendent.”

  Kincaid swallowed to work some saliva into his dry mouth. “I was coming to that.” Reinforcements were the last thing he wanted on Eddie Lyle’s mind-he wanted him to think he had all the time in the world. But where the hell was Gemma?

  And what argument could he use to sway this man who had nothing left to lose? Lyle would never see Miles Sterrett’s money now, and he’d face life imprisonment whether he killed Hannah and Kincaid or not. “Satisfy my curiosity, Eddie. I know Penny must have seen you the night you killed Sebastian. Did she agree to meet you on the tennis court?” Kincaid’s tone suggested they might be chatting over a pint. He weighed the possibility of reaching Lyle before he could fire the gun, then decided it was physically impossible. He’d have to rely on his tongue.

  “A passing suggestion on my part.” The smile came again. “It was as good a place as any.”

  “And Sebastian? What did Sebastian find out?”

  “The bloody snoop.” Lyle sounded peevish. “He saw me coming out of her room.” His arm tightened on Hannah’s neck, leaving no doubt whom he meant. “I’d been… checking on things. I couldn’t have any connection made afterwards, could I?”

  “No. No, I’m sure you couldn’t,” Kincaid answered as if it were the most reasonable question in the world. He thought he heard a faint scuffling from the path above, and he spoke quickly to stop Lyle hearing it as well. “Listen, Eddie-”

  “I’m getting tired of this, Superintendent. Step over there.” Lyle motioned with his head toward the riverbank. The sun caught the lenses of his glasses, giving him for an instant two round, opaque eyes, gleaming and metallic.

  Kincaid heard a slither from behind him, then a thud. Patrick’s voice came, rising on a note of panic. “Han-” It stopped abruptly, muffled, no doubt, by Gemma’s hand. The sound of their rough breathing came clearly to Kincaid over the murmur of the river and the hammering of his own heart.

  Lyle’s head whipped back toward them and Kincaid saw the tension run through his body. “Get back. All of you.” His grip on Hannah tightened.

  “Give it up, Eddie. More police are on their way. Don’t make it any worse for yourself.”

  “Worse?” Lyle’s laughter edged toward hysteria. “Why shouldn’t I have the satisfaction of taking you all with me? Especially her.” He twisted the gun against Hannah’s temple. “You make me sick, all of you.”

  “What about your wife?” Kincaid threw it out in last-ditch desperation. “And your daughter-what’s it going to be like for her when you’re plastered all over the papers? Oh, they’ll have a field day with you, Eddie, you’d better believe it. And your Chloe’ll never be free of it.”

  For the first time Lyle seemed to waver, his head twisting blindly. Suddenly Hannah crumpled at Lyle’s feet.

  Kincaid launched himself toward them. The still sunlight seemed to coalesce around him until he hung suspended in it, powerless.

  Knocking his gold-rimmed glasses askew, Eddie Lyle pressed the muzzle of the gun to his temple and fired.

  CHAPTER 20

  The humped umbrellas, black and gray, gleamed like the wet backs of whales. The Thirsk church still listed like a sinking ship, and the rain fell in a fine, soaking drizzle-appropriate, Kincaid felt, to the occasion.

  The ceremony marking Sebastian Wade’s passing had been brief, as the vicar was forced to confine his personal remarks to Sebastian’s school days. The crowd had been as sparse as the vicar’s eulogy; Sebastian’s mum, supported by two women introduced to Kincaid as cousins, a smattering of faces who might have been old school chums, and the small group from Followdale House. Sebastian’s intense and often malicious interest in the personal affairs of others had apparently not earned him many friends.

  Cassie, still sullen, declined to attend. “I’m sorry he’s dead,” she’d answered Kincaid, “but I despised him and I won’t be such a hypocrite as to go and pretend I didn’t.” Case closed. Kincaid supposed one had to admire her honesty, if not her lack of compassion.

  Emma came alone and left as soon as the service closed. Her farewells in the vestibule were even more brusque than usual, as if the foreshadowing of Penny’s funeral had stretched her endurance to its limits.

  Kincaid took her broad hand in his own for a moment. “I am sorry about Penny. If only I’d-”

  “Don’t take too much guilt on yourself, young man.” Emma’s clear gray eyes met his directly. “She should have told you what she saw that night. She had opportunity enough.” Emma looked away and continued a little absently, “My sister wasn’t a stupid woman, for all her fluttering. I sometimes wonder if she… well, never mind that. What’s done is done.” She gave Kincaid’s hand a quick pump and thrust up her umbrella to meet the rain.

  In silent accord, the four remaining moved out into the open. Patrick Rennie, who had left his wife behind, stood holding Hannah’s arm possessively. The still-shocked gauntness of their faces emphasized their likeness, plane by plane. Patrick, Kincaid thought, was making up for yesterday’s failures.

  Yesterday it had been Kincaid who held Hannah and wiped the splattered blood from her face. “It’s all right. You’re going to be all right.” The words he’d repeated came back to him, though he’d hardly been conscious of them at the time.

  He remembered Gemma crouching next to him, rubbing Hannah’s icy hands, the freckles splashed like stars against her white skin.

  Patrick had stepped away and been violently sick.

  Gemma had pleaded paperwork this morning and stayed behind at Followdale House, but Kincaid thought that had merely been her way of letting him lay his own ghosts.

  Kincaid did not, however, attend the funeral alone. He hadn’t forgotten the promise he’d made himself regarding Angela Frazer. She rode with him in the Midget, silent, even her hair subdued without its violet spikes. It was only when he’d found a parking space near the church that she spoke, staring intently at the rivulets trickling down the windscreen. “It’s not fair.”

  “No,” he answered, and went round to help her from the car.

  She stood next to him now, watching Graham’s black Ford draw up to the curb. “I’ll have to be going.” Angela looked up at him gravely. “Thanks. I’m sorry about what I said… you know.” Then, standing on tiptoe, she brushed her lips against his and ran down the walk.

  “Do you think she’ll be all right?” Hannah asked as they watched the car swallow her and draw away.

  Kincaid grinned and brushed a finger against his lips. “I see some indications of resiliency. I’d say it’s possible. If she can survive her parents another year or so. If she can leave them and their quarrels behind and make her own life. The question is,” Kincaid turned to Hannah, “will you be all right?”

  Hannah shuddered. “It still doesn’t make sense. Sebastian and Penny needn’t have died. They had no connection with me.”

  “That’s what muddled things from the beginning. If we had started out looking for someone who might want you out of the way, we would have found him sooner. He wasn’t quite as clever as he thought.”

  “Clever enough,”
said Patrick, “to have almost succeeded.”

  “He’d been planning for a long time, I think. The idea that Hannah stood between him and his uncle’s money must have become an obsession with him.”

  “But Miles never intended to leave anything to me,” Hannah protested, still bewildered.

  “Not outright. But in Eddie’s mind it made no difference whether the money went to you directly or to endow the clinic.” Kincaid paused, marshalling his thoughts. “From what Janet said last night, it seems Eddie had little personal contact with his uncle-Janet didn’t even remember his name, offhand-but his mother still corresponded with him occasionally. Some remark she passed on to Eddie must have given him the idea that you were essential to the clinic’s continuation.”

  Hannah nodded. “That’s probably true. It’s very specialized work-it’d be difficult to find anyone else qualified to head the project. But still, Miles might have left his estate to someone else-”

  “Not if he died intestate. Or Eddie might have had a plan for worming his way into his uncle’s good graces. He was very resourceful. At any rate, I don’t think Miles would have survived you by much.”

  Hannah drew a breath of dismay. “Not Miles, too?” Patrick’s arm went round her shoulders.

  “And why not?” Kincaid shrugged. He closed his umbrella and shook it. The drizzle had subsided to drips. “Our Eddie was a dab hand with a sedative as well as the blunt instrument. I imagine Eddie’s old mum had a little help in crashing that car-”

  “You’d never have proved it,” said Patrick.

  “No. Nor that he sedated Janet the night he murdered Sebastian.”

  “But what about Sebastian and Penny?”

  “Victims of both circumstance and their own characters. Eddie said Sebastian saw him going into your room that night. Opportunist that he was, Eddie must have been looking for a way to kill you that would look accidental. It’s my guess Sebastian couldn’t resist needling him about what he’d seen, and Eddie couldn’t take a chance on anyone connecting him with you after the fact.”