Leave the Grave Green

Julia yanked open the kitchen door and stopped just inside, water pooling around her on the flags. Plummy turned from the Aga, spoon in hand, her dark hair disheveled as always when she cooked. “Julia! Where have you been? What will your mother have to say…?” The good-natured scolding faded. “Julie, child, you’re bleeding. Are you all right?” She came toward Julia, spoon abandoned, her round face creased with concern.

Julia smelled apples, cinnamon, saw the streak of flour across Plummy’s bosom, registered in some compartment of her mind that Plummy was making apple pudding, Matty’s favorite, for tea. She felt Plummy’s hands grasp her shoulders, saw her kind and familiar face draw close, swimming through a film of tears.

“Julia, what is it? What’s happened? Where’s Matty?”

Plummy’s voice was breathy now with panic, but still Julia stood, her throat frozen, the words dammed behind her lips.

A gentle finger stroked her face. “Julia. You’ve cut your lip. What’s happened?”

The sobs began, racking her slight body. She squeezed her arms tight to her chest to ease the pain. A stray thought flickered disjointedly through her mind—she couldn’t remember dropping her books. Matty. Where had Matty left his books?

“Darling, you must tell me. What’s happened?”

She was in Plummy’s arms now, her face buried against the soft chest. The words came, choked out between sobs like a tide released. “It’s Matty. Oh, Plummy, it’s Matty. He’s drowned.”

CHAPTER

1

From the train window Duncan Kincaid could see the piles of debris in the back gardens and on the occasional common. Lumber, dead branches and twigs, crushed cardboard boxes and the odd bit of broken furniture—anything portable served as fair game for Guy Fawkes bonfires. He rubbed ineffectually at the grimy windowpane with his jacket cuff, hoping for a better view of one particularly splendid monument to British abandon, then sat back in his seat with a sigh. The fine drizzle in the air, combined with British Rail’s standard of cleanliness, reduced visibility to a few hundred yards.

The train slowed as it approached High Wycombe. Kincaid stood and stretched, then collected his overcoat and bag from the rack. He’d gone straight to St. Marleybone from the Yard, grabbing the emergency kit he kept in his office—clean shirt, toiletries, razor, only the necessities needed for an unexpected summons. And most were more welcome than this, a political request from the AC to aid an old school chum in a delicate situation. Kincaid grimaced. Give him an unidentified body in a field any day.

He swayed as the train lurched to a halt. Bending down to peer through the window, he scanned the station carpark for a glimpse of his escort. The unmarked panda car, its shape unmistakable even in the increasing rain, was pulled up next to the platform, its parking lights on, a gray plume of exhaust escaping from its tailpipe.

It looked like the cavalry had been called out to welcome Scotland Yard’s fair-haired boy.

*      *      *

“Jack Makepeace. Sergeant, I should say. Thames Valley CID.” Makepeace smiled, yellowed teeth showing under the sandy bristle of mustache. “Nice to meet you, sir.” He engulfed Kincaid’s hand for an instant in a beefy paw, then took Kincaid’s case and swung it into the panda’s boot. “Climb in, and we can talk as we go.”

The car’s interior smelled of stale cigarettes and wet wool. Kincaid cracked his window, then shifted a bit in his seat so that he could see his companion. A fringe of hair the same color as the mustache, freckles extending from face into shiny scalp, a heavy nose with the disproportionate look that comes of having been smashed—all in all not a prepossessing face, but the pale blue eyes were shrewd, and the voice unexpectedly soft for a man of his bulk.

Makepeace drove competently on the rain-slick streets, snaking his way south and west until they crossed the M40 and left the last terraced houses behind. He glanced at Kincaid, ready to divert some of his attention from the road.

“Tell me about it, then,” Kincaid said.

“What do you know?”

“Not much, and I’d just as soon you start from scratch, if you don’t mind.”

Makepeace looked at him, opened his mouth as if to ask a question, then closed it again. After a moment he said, “Okay. Daybreak this morning the Hambleden lockkeeper, one Perry Smith, opens the sluicegate to fill the lock for an early traveler, and a body rushes through it into the lock. Gave him a terrible shock, as you can imagine. He called Marlow—they sent a panda car and the medics.” He paused as he downshifted into an intersection, then concentrated on overtaking an ancient Morris Minor that was creeping its way up the gradient. “They fished him out, then when it became obvious that the poor chappie was not going to spew up the canal and open his eyes, they called us.”