A Share in Death

“Wait.” Kincaid interrupted her. “Let’s assess the damage first.” He ran his fingers lightly over the back of her head. Near the crown a lump was already rising. “You’re definitely going to have an egg, but the skin’s not broken. What else?”

She clasped her right wrist in her left hand. “My wrist hurts like hell, but I can move it.”

“Anything else?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Okay. I imagine you’re going to have some bruising.” As he straightened up he found his hands were trembling, and his fingertips seemed to retain an imprint of the texture of her hair and the swelling of the lump beneath it. The reaction would pass, he knew, and he pushed away that first image etched in his brain—Hannah lying still and broken beneath him.

“Now, tell me what happened.”

For the first time Hannah looked afraid. “I was standing at the top of the stairs. The landing door opened—I remember wondering in a vague sort of way why I didn’t hear footsteps or the normal jingly noises people make when they walk. Then I felt a hand at my back.”

“Did you see—”

“No. There wasn’t time. Just a hard shove and that’s really all I remember.” She felt her wrist gingerly. “I must have tried to stop myself falling.”

Kincaid touched her arm. “Hannah, are you sure you don’t know who it was? Not even an impression?”

She shook her head. “No. Why would—”

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The front door slammed and they heard quick footsteps crossing the porch. Patrick Rennie came into the hall, his color high as if with anger or excitement. He stopped when he saw them and looked from one to the other, puzzled. “Hannah? Why … what happened?” His tone shifted from bewilderment to concern as he took in Kincaid’s protective posture. “Are you all right?”

Kincaid, his hand still on Hannah’s arm, felt her stiffen. When she didn’t speak he answered for her. “She’s quite bruised and shaken.” He paused, studying Rennie’s face. “Someone pushed her down the stairs.”

Rennie looked at them incredulously for a moment. When he managed to speak he stumbled and stammered like a schoolboy. “Wh— Pushed? Pushed, did you say? Why in hell’s name would anyone want to push Hannah? She could have been …”

Kincaid thought nastily that for once Rennie’s aplomb had deserted him. “I thought you might be able to—” he began, when Rennie interrupted him.

“Have you phoned for the doctor? What about the police? They’ve been hanging about all day and now when they could be doing something useful—”

“Calm down, man. I hadn’t time to ring anyone. Perhaps —” Kincaid felt Hannah jerk beside him and she said softly, urgently, “Don’t. Don’t leave me.”

“Perhaps,” he continued to Rennie, without looking at her, “you could go and ring them now.”

“You seem to be forever making me cups of tea.” Hannah gave a wan attempt at a smile.

“My lot in life,” answered Kincaid from the kitchen. “Born into the wrong era. I’m sure I would have made an excellent ‘gentleman’s gentleman.’ ”

“You as Jeeves? I don’t think so.” This time her smile was genuine, and it relieved Kincaid to see the lines in her face relax. With Rennie’s help he’d walked her up the stairs and into her suite, where they’d settled her on the sofa.

Rennie hovered around Hannah, obviously wanting to speak to her without Kincaid’s watchdog presence. Hannah

A share in death 153

seemed to have relaxed since her earlier, almost instinctive recoil from her son, but she hadn’t looked at or spoken to him directly. Kincaid had no intention of leaving as yet.

Rennie gave in, finally, with a return of some of his habitual grace. “Look, I can see I’m not wanted just now. But you will let me know if I can do anything?” He spoke to Hannah, not Kincaid, and when he reached the door he turned and addressed her once more. “I’m sorry, Hannah.” Kincaid had the impression he had not been referring to her fall.

Kincaid returned from the kitchen bearing a tray with two cups of tea and a plate of digestive biscuits. “Teatime.”

“Is it?” Hannah took a biscuit tentatively. “Do you know, I don’t think I had any lunch. No wonder I feel so weak.” Kincaid pulled the armchair across and sat near enough to hand her tea and biscuits. He searched her face as she accepted the cup.

When she had eaten and drunk a little, he spoke. “Hannah, tell me what happened today between you and Patrick. I think you must, you know,” he added, softening the demand a bit.

She swallowed some tea and the cup rattled as she replaced it in the saucer. “I never meant it to go like that. I never meant—” Hannah turned her head away, her eyes, already red and swollen with earlier weeping, filling. “First I accused him of all these horrible things, all those things you told me. The words just came out. I couldn’t seem to stop them. Then I told him…”

“That you were his mother?” Kincaid prompted.

She gave a little hiccuppy laugh. “What a prize I am. Suspicious. Shrewish. No wonder he wasn’t too thrilled with the prospect.” Hannah hugged her arms against her chest and began to shiver in earnest.