A Share in Death

thing you could for her. The important thing now is to look after you. You’ve had quite a shock.” He looked around. Raskin knelt over Penny’s body, not touching her, and Nash, having stopped to phone divisional headquarters, had not yet appeared. “But I’m afraid you’d better stay at least until Chief Inspector Nash arrives. He’ll want a statement from you. Why don’t I take you up there?” He nodded toward the bench on the path above the court and helped Hannah to her feet.

“Duncan.” Hannah turned to him as he pushed aside the gate for her. “It couldn’t have been an accident, could it? She couldn’t have fallen and hit her head?”

“I don’t know yet, love, but I doubt it very much.”

“But why?” Hannah’s fingers tightened convulsively on his arm. “Why would somebody want to hurt Penny?”

Why, indeed, thought Kincaid as he made his way back to the court. Because Penny had seen or heard something that threatened someone’s security, and if he hadn’t been so dense, he’d have found out what it was.

Kincaid squatted reluctantly beside Raskin.

Penny lay on her right side, her fist curled beneath her cheek, her bright blue eyes closed. Only the awkward angle of her legs indicated something amiss, until one saw the back of her head. The indentation, though small, had bled freely, and a little blood had puddled beneath her. A tennis racquet lay a few inches from her outstretched left hand, as if she had fallen in the midst of a leaping volley at the net. A smear of blood showed rust-colored on the racquet’s edge. Penny’s binoculars lay partially beneath her side, and Kincaid fought the sudden urge to move them, as if it mattered whether or not she were comfortable. “Oh, Christ,” he said, his eyes stinging and his throat suddenly contracting. He pressed his fingers underneath his cheekbones until the pressure eased.

“Hmmm.” Raskin didn’t look up, his gaze focused intently on the injury to Penny’s skull. “Not nice. Not nice at all, I don’t think. I’d say she was standing at the net, possibly looking at something through her binoculars, when chummy snuck up behind.”

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“And I’d say,” added Kincaid, when he could trust himself to speak again, “that chummy has had a run of bloody good luck. Acts on impulse, grabs the first thing to hand and what do you know, it works. But it might not have. That portable heater might have blown every fuse in the house and shorted itself out without frying Sebastian. And Penny …” He looked away. “… It wasn’t that hard a blow. I’ve seen people walk to hospital with head injuries worse than that.”

“I thought the same,” Peter said thoughtfully. “But in either case he didn’t have much to lose. Sebastian wouldn’t have seen him. He could have hit Penny again if she hadn’t fallen unconscious. Do you suppose he waited?” Peter looked at Kincaid from under his raised brow. “I don’t think she died right away. She bled quite a bit.”

“Bloody bastard.” The dam Kincaid had clamped on his anger cracked and he drew a deep breath, fighting it back. “I doubt it. Too chancy, even for our chummy. Now we’re both saying ‘he.’ There’s no indication.”

“Merely generic,” Peter answered. “No, there’s nothing in either case to rule out a woman. If it is the same person.”

“Oh, I think so. I’d even bet on it. The same person, both times for the same reason. Penny saw something connected with Sebastian’s death, I’m sure of it. She started to tell me, but we were interrupted and I never found out what it was. But Sebastian … what did Sebastian see? Or find out? That’s the question. What runs behind all this? And,” Kincaid stood up and straightened his stiff knees as he looked toward the gate, “just where the hell is your chief? He’s taking his own sweet time about it.”

“Well, you know Chief Inspector Nash, sir,” said Raskin, sardonically, “he likes to delegate.”

“Then he can delegate someone to take Miss Alcock’s statement later. I’m going to take her up to the house. He can erupt as much as he likes.” But Kincaid stood a moment longer, staring at the tennis racquet. Most of the varnish had long since disappeared from its wooden perimeter, some of the webbing had sprung and the grip was stained and frayed.

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Not. thought Kincaid, exactly state of the art. “Where did he—chummy—get the racquet? He couldn’t have carried it with him just on the off-chance he might find someone to bash with it.”

“There,” Raskin pointed, “behind the gate.” The wooden box blended into the shrubbery outside the fence, its faded green paint acting almost as camouflage. About the size of a child’s coffin, the box was secured with a simple metal hasp. “For guests’ use, I imagine.”