A Share in Death

The photographer set up his lights and equipment with practiced ease and began taking shots of the body. The forensic biologist was a fair man with rabbity teeth. He wore shorts, a stained sweatshirt and tennis shoes, and looked thoroughly incongruous pulling on his thin latex gloves. He squatted by Sebastian’s clothes, as Nash had done, and began going through them with deft fingers.

There was no sign of a pathologist. Kincaid waited until Peter Raskin was free for a moment and questioned him. “Where’s your M.E.?”

“Out on another call, apparently. They’ve called in a local doctor. Not usually a good idea, but in this case it probably doesn’t matter.”

“You agree with your chief, then? That it was suicide?”

“No. I didn’t say that.” Raskin was cagey, and Kincaid saw a gleam of humor in his eyes. “Just that a preliminary examination of the body isn’t likely to reveal much, and the district M.E. will do the postmortem when he can get to it. Look,” he inclined his head toward the glass doors, “there’s your doctor, now.” Only the black medical bag gripped in her right hand identified her. She wore kelly green sweats with trainers and damp wisps of hair curled around her heart-shaped face. Nash, occupied with the photographer, hadn’t seen her. Raskin went to greet her and Kincaid followed an unobtrusive pace behind, holding his hand out in turn for her firm clasp.

“I’m Anne Percy.” She looked from their faces to Sebastian’s still form, and back again. “Are you ready for me? I came straightaway. I was running,” she gestured apologetically toward her clothes, “before morning surgery.” A small town G.P., Kincaid thought, used to officiating at family deathbeds, not murder scenes— her uneasy small talk served the same function as a police surgeon’s black jokes. “What happened here? Who was he?”

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She looked at Kincaid as she spoke, and after a barely perceptible nod from Raskin, he answered her. “Sebastian Wade, assistant manager here. Uh, suspicious death.” He caught Raskin’s quick lift of an eyebrow, a mannerism he was beginning to recognize as a sign of amusement. “Electrocution, or drowning due to electrocution. Sometime late last night, most likely.”

“He was found in the spa?”

Peter Raskin took up the story. “Mr. Kincaid found him when he came down for his swim this morning.”

“Oh.” Anne Percy seemed momentarily nonplussed. “But I had the impression you were a policeman, too.”

“I am,” Kincaid answered, “but on holiday. A guest.”

“Well, I don’t know what I’ll be able to do for you, other than certify death.” She opened her bag and knelt beside Sebastian’s body. “Body temperature will be useless for establishing time of death, as will state of rigor.” After gently flexing Sebastian’s limp arm, she pulled on her thin latex gloves. “It’ll take the postmortem to give you anything concrete.”

Kincaid felt oddly uncomfortable, as if it were indecent for him to watch Sebastian’s body violated, and turned away as Dr. Percy got down to business.

Cassie Whitlake stood in the doorway, looking unkempt and disheveled. On her the mild untidiness became shocking disarray. The oak-leaf hair was uncombed, pushed back behind one bare ear. The tail of her blouse hung half out of her skirt and she had shoved her unstockinged feet into a pair of scuffed loafers. The normal pale cream of her complexion would have looked decidedly ruddy next to her present pallor.

Kincaid had turned from contemplating the rear wall of the pool, feeling he’d been squeamish long enough. Besides, the sight of Anne Percy made up for the discomfort of watching what she was doing to Sebastian. He hadn’t heard the door swing open.

Cassie held the door’s metal handle like an anchor, her dilated eyes fixed on the scene before her. Why the hell

A share in death 37

hadn’t they put a constable on the door, Kincaid thought as he crossed to her, simply to keep things like this from happening. He touched her arm. “Cassie.” She hadn’t looked at him, all her attention frozen on the little tableau by the pool. Anne Percy carefully slipped off her gloves and closed her bag, speaking a quiet word to Peter Raskin. “Cassie,” Kincaid repeated, “let me take you—”

“No. What happened? What happened to him? He had no right. Oh, sod the little bugger.” Tears began to slip down her face, more anger and shock, Kincaid thought, than grief.

“Had no right to do what?”

“He’s killed himself, hasn’t he? Here. He had to do it here, didn’t he? Out of spite. Christ, what am I going to say … how am I going to explain …” The perfect BBC elocution had stretched with shock, the lengthened vowels betraying their South London origins.

“Explain to whom?” asked Kincaid.