A Share in Death

Hannah’s eyes strayed to his plate. “Oh, god, I’ve spoiled your breakfast. You haven’t touched it.” Her thighs bumped the table as she stood and more coffee joined the drying puddle on the table. “I’d better go. I really am sorry about all this, Duncan.”

“Stop apologizing, for god’s sake. You’ve nothing to be sorry for, and besides, it’s out of character.” He fol- 88 deborah grombie

lowed her to the door. “And I don’t mind about the bloody breakfast.”

 

“My whole life is out of character right now.” She laughed, the first sound of spontaneous pleasure he’d heard from her that morning. ‘Thanks. Just be patient with me. Please. I know I’ve no right to ask.” “Sure.” Kincaid stood with his hand on the door and spoke to her back as she walked away from him down the hall. “I’m good at that.”

 

“Sir,” Gemma’s voice practically vibrated with early morning efficiency, “I’ve got some news on those inquiries you wanted.”

 

Kincaid swallowed a mouthful of makeshift bacon sandwich. His short absence had not improved the eggs, and the cold toast and bacon he’d rescued as an afterthought as he dumped his plate in the sink.

“Gemma. God, I hate people to sound so bloody cheerful in the morning.”

“Sir?”

“Sorry. Never mind. Any trouble getting clearance?”

“No, sir. The Guv’nor oiled the machinery pretty well, I think.”

Kincaid smiled at the thought of his chief having a few discreet words in a few shell-like ears—Gemma’s previous assignments had probably vanished in an eddy of paper in the secretarial pool. “Spill away, then. No, hold on”—he scrambled for a pen and notebook he’d left on the sofa, pulled the phone over to the small table and took a sip of his cold coffee—“okay.”

“I’ve been to Dedham Vale. Dull as dishwater, in my opinion.” Gemma, with the ingrained prejudice of the North Londoner, didn’t find much to recommend in rural villages.

“That doesn’t surprise me. What else?”

“I wandered around for a bit until I found the local G.P.‘s office. It seems he took care of the Reverend MacKenzie in his last illness. Knows everyone, of course, even with the National Health sending a lot of his old patients to the new clinic at Ipswich.”

 

A share in death 89