A Share in Death

She flushed, and spoke with a trace of the animation he had seen earlier in the day. “We have a daughter, Chloe.” In response to his slightly questioning look—he supposed he had expected a Cindy or a Jennifer—Janet said, “Eddie named her. He wanted her to be cultured, so he thought she should start off with a name that would suit her later.”

“Did it work?” Kincaid asked.

Janet’s eyes strayed to Eddie, who had moved off with Marta in the direction of the bar. “Not so you’d notice.” She grinned. “She’s a typical teenager, only her father’d never believe it. Chloe’s just about the same age as Angela Frazer, only she’s away at school and Angela’s… um, between schools, as I understand it.” Janet fell silent, her momentary energy dissipated.

Kincaid drained his glass in one swallow. The room felt stuffy and stale. The late afternoon sun beat upon the closed French windows and crumpled cigarette butts overflowed the ashtrays. Even Maureen seemed wilted by the atmosphere, not ready to charge into the gap in the conversation with her usual gusto. The tidying up, thought Kincaid, the airing and ashtray cleaning and magazine straightening, those had been Sebastian’s touches, the little bits of grease that made the whole house run smoothly.

Kincaid changed in record time, even for one who was accustomed to being summoned at inopportune moments. Shoving a tie in the pocket of his tweed jacket, he locked the door of the suite behind him and ran down the stairs, escaping into the cool forecourt with a feeling of relief.

48 deborah crombie

As he nosed the Midget through the gate, he spotted Hannah walking down the road from the village. He waited, watching as she came toward him with her purposeful stride. She wore a long Aran cardigan, and the last of the sun lit the dark cap of her hair. When Hannah reached his car she opened the door and got in, without looking at him, without speaking. Kincaid drove on a half mile past the gate and pulled the car onto the verge.

“They interviewed us, Duncan.” She spoke into the sudden silence as the engine died, her face still averted. “One by one, in Cassie’s office. They asked if we were together last night. Corroborating your statement, they said. They seemed to assume that I knew you were a policeman, and Nash, the fat one, insinuated … all sorts of things.” She looked at him then, her color rising as she spoke. “Can you imagine what a fool I felt? ‘A policeman?’ I said, like some fatuous idiot. Why did you lie to me, Duncan?”

Kincaid stalled, gathering his thoughts. “Oh, he’s a right sod, our jolly Inspector Nash. I’m sure it’s his standard interrogation procedure, making the …” he hesitated over his choice of words, “person uncomfortable.”

“If you mean ‘suspect,’ say so. Don’t bother to mince terms with me. Besides, I thought Chief Inspector Nash said it was suicide.”

“That’s the official line,” he said slowly. “But he has to go through the motions.” Kincaid shifted around in his seat so that he could more easily see her face in the fading light.

“But… I would have thought that we alibied each other.”

“The high temperature of the water is going to make establishing the exact time of death difficult. But I personally think it likely he was already dead when we were walking in the garden last night. Think about it. He would have gone to the pool between finishing up his duties and going home for the night, not too late, say ten or eleven.”

Hannah’s face had lost its quick color. “Before he went home for the night? You don’t think… it was suicide at all, do you?”

A share in death 49

“I don’t think it likely, no.”

“Oh, god. You mean somebody … did that to Sebastian while we were talking just outside? And I was acting such a silly fool.”

“Quite probably, yes.”

“Now it all seems so stupid and inconsequential.” She pushed her hair back from her forehead with her fingers and sagged a little in the seat.

“We couldn’t have known. And your life isn’t trivial or inconsequential. If the things that matter to us every day weren’t important, no one’s death, Sebastian’s included, would be much loss.”

“Could we have done anything, helped him, if we’d known?”

Kincaid took her hand and held it in his, palm up, as if reading her fortune. “I doubt it. The shock would have been massive. His heart probably stopped almost instantly. Immediate resuscitation might have saved him, but there’s no way to be sure.” She withdrew from him, and her voice came, sharply now, in the near darkness. “Of course, you know about these things. You’re the expert. And you still haven’t answered my question.”