The trees arched overhead, their branches interlocking like twined fingers, squeezing tighter and tighter-Gemma blew a wisp of hair from her face and said, “Silly goose.” The words seemed to bounce back at her, then it was quiet again inside the car except for an occasional squeaking as the twigs and rootlets protruding from the banks brushed against the windows. The sound reminded her of fingernails on chalkboard. London and Tommy Godwin’s urbane civility seemed a world away, and for a moment she wished she’d insisted on attending the autopsy with Kincaid. He had left a message for her at the Yard, summing up the rather inconclusive results.
She shifted down into second gear as the gradient grew steeper. Kincaid had been with her when she’d driven this way the first time, his presence forestalling any lurking claustrophobia. It was all quite silly, really, she chided herself. It was just a narrow road, after all, and some of her discomfort could surely be put down to her London-bred distrust of the country.
Nevertheless, she spied the turning for Badger’s End with some relief, and soon bumped to a stop in the clearing before the house. She got out of the car and stood for a moment. Even in the chill air, the damp scent of leaf mold reached her nose, rich as autumn distilled.
In the stillness she heard the same curious, high-pitched humming sound she and Kincaid had noticed before. She looked up, searching for power lines, but saw only more leaves and a patch of uniformly gray sky. Perhaps it was some sort of generator or transformer, or-she smiled, her temper improving by the moment-UFOs. She’d try that one on the guv.
Her lips still curved in the hint of a smile as she rang the bell. Vivian Plumley opened the door, as she had before, but this time she smiled as she recognized Gemma. “Sergeant. Please come in.”
“I’d like a word with Dame Caroline, Mrs. Plumley,” Gemma responded as she stepped into the flagged hall. “Is she in?”
“She is, but she’s teaching just now.”
Gemma heard the piano begin, then a soprano voice singing a quick, lilting line. Words she couldn’t distinguish interrupted the singing, then a second voice repeated the line. Darker and more complex than the first voice, it possessed an indefinable uniqueness. Even through the closed sitting room door, Gemma recognized it instantly. “That’s Dame Caroline.”
Vivian Plumley regarded her with interest. “You have a good ear, my dear. Where have you heard her?”
“On a tape,” Gemma said shortly, suddenly reluctant to confess her interest.
Vivian glanced at her watch. “Come and have a cuppa. She should be finished shortly.”
“What are they singing?” Gemma asked as she followed Vivian down the hall.
“Rossini. One of Rosina’s arias from The Barber of Seville. In Italian, thank goodness.” She smiled over her shoulder at Gemma as she pushed open the door into the kitchen. “Although in this household that’s not the most politically correct thing to say.”
“Because of the ENO’s policy?”
“Exactly. Sir Gerald is quite firm in agreeing with their position. I think Caro has always preferred singing an opera in its original language, but she doesn’t express her opinion too forcefully.” Vivian smiled again, affectionately. The disagreement was obviously a long-standing family tradition.
“Something smells heavenly,” Gemma said, taking a deep breath. After her previous visit, the kitchen seemed as comforting and familiar as home. The red Aga radiated heat like a cast-iron heart, and on its surface two brown loaves rested on a cooling rack.
“Bread’s just out of the oven,” Vivian said as she assembled mugs and a stoneware teapot on a tray. On the Aga a copper teakettle stood gently steaming.
“You don’t use an electric kettle?” Gemma asked curiously.
“I’m a dinosaur, I suppose. I’ve never cared for gadgets. Turning her attention fully on Gemma, Vivian added, “You will have some hot bread, won’t you? It’s getting on for teatime.”
“I had some lunch before I left London,” Gemma said, remembering the cold and greasy sausage roll hastily snatched from the Yard canteen after her interview at LB House. “But yes, I’d love some, thanks.” She went nearer as Vivian poured boiling water into the pot and began slicing the bread. “Whole meal?”
“Yes. Do you like it?” Vivian looked pleased. “It’s my trademark, I’m afraid, and my therapy. It’s hand kneaded twice, and takes three risings, but it puffs up in the oven like a dream.” She gave Gemma a humorous glance. “And it’s hard to stay frustrated with life when you’ve done that much pounding.”
As they seated themselves at the scarred oak table, Gemma confided, “I grew up in a bakery. My parents have a small shop in Leyton. Most everything’s done by machine, of course, but Mum could usually be persuaded to let us get our hands in the dough.”
“It sounds a good upbringing,” Vivian said approvingly as she poured tea into Gemma’s mug.
A flowery cloud of steam enveloped Gemma’s face. “Earl Grey?”
“You do like it, I hope? I should have asked. It’s a habit-that’s what I always have in the afternoons.”
“Yes, thank you,” Gemma answered demurely, thinking that if she were to make a practice of taking afternoon tea in houses like this, she had bloody well better learn to like it.
She ate her bread and butter in appreciative silence, wiping the last crumbs from the plate with her fingertip. “Mrs. Plumley-”
“Everyone calls me Plummy,” Vivian said in invitation. “The children started it when they were tots, and it stuck. I’ve rather grown to like it.”
“All right, then. Plummy.” Gemma thought the name suited her. Even dressed as she was today, in a brightly colored running suit and coordinating turtleneck, Vivian Plumley had about her an aura of old-fashioned comfort. Noticing that the other woman still wore her wedding ring, Gemma half-consciously rubbed the bare finger on her left hand.
They sat quietly, drinking their tea, and in the relaxed, almost sleepy atmosphere, Gemma found that a question came as easily as if she had been talking to friend. “Didn’t you find it odd that Connor stayed on such close terms with the family after he and Julia separated? Especially with no children involved…”
“But he knew them first, you see, Caro and Gerald. He’d met them through his job, and cultivated them quite actively. I remember thinking at the time that he seemed quite smitten with Caro, but then she’s always collected admirers the way other people collect butterflies.”
Although Plummy had uttered this without the least hint of censure, Gemma had a sudden vision of a struggling moth pinned ruthlessly to a board. “Ugh,” she said, wrinkling her nose in distaste. “I could never stand the thought.”
“What?” asked Plummy. “Oh, butterflies, you mean. Well, perhaps it was an unkind comparison, but men always seem to flutter so helplessly around her. They think she needs looking after, but the truth of it is that she’s quite capable of looking after herself. Personally, I can’t imagine it.” She smiled at Gemma. “I don’t think I’ve ever inspired that desire in anyone.”
Gemma thought of Rob’s automatic assumption that she would provide for his every need, both physical and emotional. It had never occurred to him that she might have a few of her own. She said. “I never thought of it quite like that, but men haven’t fallen over themselves trying to look after me, either.” Sipping her tea, she continued, “About Dame Caroline-you said you were at school together. Did she always want to sing?”
Plummy laughed. “Caro was front and center from the day she was born. At school she sang the leading part in every program. Most of the other girls quite despised her, but she never seemed to notice. She might as well have worn blinkers-she knew what she wanted and she never gave a thought to anything else.”
“She launched her career quite early for a singer, didn’t she?” Gemma asked, remembering the snippets she’d heard from Alison Douglas.
“That was partly Gerald’s doing. He plucked her out of the chorus and set her down center-stage, and she had the drive and ambition to meet the challenge, if not the experience.” She reached out and broke a corner from a slice of the bread she’d set on the table, then took an experimental nibble. “Just checking,” she said, smiling at Gemma. “Quality control.” Taking a sip of her tea, she continued, “But you realize that this all happened more than thirty years ago, and there are only a few of us who remember Gerald and Caro before they were leading lights.”
Gemma contemplated this for a moment, following Plummy’s example and reaching for another slice of bread. “Do they like being reminded that they were ordinary once?”
“I think there is a certain comfort in it.”
What had it been like for Julia, Gemma wondered, growing up in her parents’ shadow? It was difficult enough under any circumstances to shake off one’s parents’ influence and become a self-governing individual. She washed her bite of bread down with tea before asking, “And that’s how Julia met Connor? Through her parents?”
After a moment’s thought, Plummy said, “I believe it was an ENO fund-raising reception. In those days Julia still occasionally attended musical functions. She was just beginning to make her mark as an artist, and she hadn’t completely left her parents’ orbit.” She shook her head. “It took me by surprise from the start-Julia had always preferred the sort of intellectual and arty types, and Con was about as far removed from that as one could imagine. I tried talking to her, but she wouldn’t hear a word of it.”
“And were they as ill-matched as you thought?”
“Oh yes,” she answered with a sigh, swirling the tea in the bottom of her cup. “More so.”
When Plummy didn’t elaborate, Gemma asked, “Did you know that Connor had been seeing someone?”
She looked up in surprise. “Recently, you mean? A girlfriend?”
“A young woman with a small daughter.”
“No. No, I didn’t.” With the compassion Gemma had begun to expect of her, Plummy added, “Oh, the poor thing. I suppose she will have taken his death quite badly.”
The words unlike Julia seemed to hang unspoken between them. “She’s moved back, you know,” said Plummy. “Julia. Into the flat. I told her I didn’t think it looked well at all, but she said it was her flat, after all, and she had the right to do whatever she liked with it.”
Gemma thought of the upstairs studio, empty of Julia Swann’s disturbing presence, and felt an unaccountable sense of relief. “When did she go?”
“This morning, early. She has missed her studio, poor love-I never understood why she let Con stay on in the house. But there’s no reasoning with her once she’s made up her mind about something.”
The exasperated affection in Plummy’s voice reminded Gemma of her own mum, who swore that her red-haired daughter had been born stubborn. Not that Vi Walters was one to talk, Gemma thought with a smile. “Was Julia always so headstrong?”
Plummy regarded her steadily for long moment, then said, “No, not always.” She glanced at her watch. “Have you finished your tea, dear? Caro should be free by now, and she has another student coming this afternoon, so we’d better sandwich you in between.”
“Caro, this is Sergeant James,” Plummy announced as she ushered Gemma into the sitting room. Then she withdrew, and Gemma felt the draft of cool air as the door clicked shut.
Caroline Stowe stood with her back to the fire, as had her husband when Gemma and Kincaid had interviewed him two days earlier. She stepped toward Gemma with her hand outstretched. “How nice to meet you, Sergeant. How can I help you?”
Her hand felt small and cool in Gemma’s, as soft as a child’s. Involuntarily, Gemma glanced at the photograph on the piano. While it had given her a hint of the woman’s feminine delicacy, it hadn’t begun to express her vitality. “It’s just a routine follow-up on the report you gave Thames Valley CID, Dame Caroline,” said Gemma, and her own voice sounded harsh in her ears.
“Sit down, please.” Dame Caroline moved to the sofa and patted the cushion invitingly. Over white wool trousers she wore a long garnet-colored sweater. The soft cowl neck framed her face, its color the perfect foil for her pale skin and dark hair.
Gemma, who had dressed with particular care that morning, suddenly found her favorite olive silk skirt and blouse as drab as camouflage, and as she sat down she felt awkward and clumsy. A flush of embarrassment warmed her cheeks and she said quickly, “Dame Caroline, I understand from your initial statement that you were at home last Thursday evening. Can you tell me what you did?”
“Of course, Sergeant, if you find it necessary,” Caroline said with an air of gracious resignation. “I had dinner with Plummy-that’s Vivian Plumley-then we watched something on the telly, I’m afraid I can’t remember what. Does it matter?”
“Then what did you do?”
“Plummy made us some cocoa, that must have been around ten o’clock. We talked for a bit, then went to bed.” Apologetically, she added, “It was a very ordinary evening, Sergeant.”
“Do you remember what time your husband came in?”
“I’m afraid not. I sleep quite soundly, and we have separate beds, so he seldom disturbs me when he comes in late after a performance.”
“And your daughter didn’t disturb you when she returned in the early hours of the morning?” Gemma asked, wanting to shake Caroline’s polished complacency just a bit.
“She did not. My daughter is a grown woman and comes and goes as she pleases. I’m not in the habit of keeping tabs on her whereabouts.”
Bull’s-eye, thought Gemma. She’d hit a sensitive spot. “I understand from Mrs. Plumley that your daughter has gone back to the flat she shared with Connor. Did you approve of her being on her own again so soon, considering the circumstances?”
Caroline seemed to bite back a response, then sighed. “I thought it rather ill-advised, but then my approval has never had much effect on Julia’s actions. And she has behaved very badly over Connor’s death from the first.” Looking suddenly tired, Caroline rubbed her fingers over her cheekbones, but Gemma noticed that she didn’t stretch the skin.
“In what way?” Gemma asked, although she’d had proof enough that Julia wasn’t playing the grieving widow to perfection.
Shrugging, Caroline said, “There are things that must be done, and people have certain expectations… Julia has simply not met her obligations.”
Gemma wondered if Julia would have done what was necessary if she hadn’t been sure her parents would step in and take care of everything. The fact that Julia seemed to resent them doing so only served to illustrate the perversity of human nature, and Gemma had begun to think that their relationship might be more perverse than most. She turned a page in her small notebook, running through her questions in her mind. “I believe Connor came here for lunch last Thursday?” At Caroline’s nod, she continued, “Did you notice anything unusual about his behavior that day?”
Smiling, Caroline said, “Con was very entertaining, but there was nothing unusual about that.”
“Do you remember what you talked about?” Gemma asked, and as she watched Caroline ponder the question, she realized she’d never before seen a woman capable of furrowing her brow prettily.
“Oh, nothing memorable or weighty, Sergeant. Local gossip, Gerald’s performance that night-”
“So Connor knew your husband would be in London?”
Looking perplexed, Caroline answered, “Well, of course, Con knew Gerald would be in London.”
“Do you know why Connor would have visited the Coliseum that same afternoon?”
“I can’t imagine. He certainly didn’t say anything to us about going to London-are you saying he visited the theater?”
“According to the porter’s sign-in sheet, but no one else admits to seeing him.”
“How very odd,” Caroline said slowly, and for the first time Gemma sensed her departing from a comfortably rehearsed script. “Of course, he did leave in rather a tiz-”
“What happened?” Gemma felt a prickle of excitement. “You said he hadn’t done anything out of the ordinary.”
“I don’t know that I’d describe it as out of the ordinary. Con was never very much good at sitting still. He excused himself for a moment while Gerald and I were having our coffee. He said he meant to give Plummy a hand in the kitchen, and that’s the last we saw of him. A few minutes later we heard his car start up.”
“And you thought something had upset him?”
“Well, I suppose we did think it a bit odd that he hadn’t told us good-bye.”
Gemma turned carefully back through the pages of her notebook, then looked up at Caroline. “Mrs. Plumley said she did the washing up alone. She didn’t see Connor again after she left the dining room. Do you think he went upstairs to see Julia? And perhaps they had a row?”
Caroline clasped her hands in her lap, and the shadows shifted on the garnet sweater as she took a breath. “I can’t say, Sergeant. If that were the case I’m sure Julia would have said something.”
Gemma didn’t share her sentiments. “Did you know that Connor had a girlfriend, Dame Caroline? Technically, I suppose she would have been his mistress, since he and Julia were still married.”
“A girlfriend? Con?” Caroline said quietly, then as she looked into the fire she added more softly still, “He never said.”
Remembering what Kincaid had told her, Gemma said, “Her name is Sharon Doyle, and she has a four-year-old daughter. Apparently it was a fairly serious relationship, and he… um, entertained her quite often at the flat.”
“A child?” Caroline returned her gaze to Gemma. Her dark eyes had dilated and Gemma saw the fire reflected in their liquid and luminous surface.
The afternoon had drawn in as they talked, and now the fire and the lamps cast a noticeable glow in the quiet room. Gemma could imagine serene hours spent here with music and conversation, or time whiled away on the comfortably worn chintz sofa with a book, but never voices raised in anger. “What if Julia found out about Sharon? Would they have argued over it? Would Julia have liked Connor having another woman in her flat?”
After a long moment, Caroline said, “Julia is often a law unto herself, Sergeant. I can’t begin to guess how she would react to a given situation. And why does it matter anyway?” she added wearily. “Surely you don’t think Julia had anything to do with Con’s death?”
“We’re trying to find an explanation for Connor’s behavior that last afternoon and evening. He made an unexpected visit to the theater. He also met someone later that evening, after he’d returned to Henley, but we don’t yet know who it was.”
“What do you know?” Caroline straightened her back and regarded Gemma directly.
“The results of the autopsy didn’t tell us much. We’re still waiting on some of the forensic reports-all we can do until then is gather information.”
“Sergeant, I think you’re being deliberately vague,” said Caroline, teasing her a little.
Unwilling to be drawn any further, Gemma focused on the first thing that came to mind. She’d been absently examining the paintings Kincaid and Julia had talked about-what had Julia said the painter was called? Flynn? No, Flint. That was it. The rosy bare-breasted women were voluptuous, somehow innocent and slightly decadent at the same time, and the sheen of their satin gowns made Gemma think of the costume fabrics she’d seen that morning at LB House. “I met an old friend of yours today, Dame Caroline. Tommy Godwin.”
“Tommy? Good God, what on earth could you possibly want with Tommy?”
“He’s very clever, isn’t he?” Gemma settled back more comfortably on the sofa and tucked her notebook into her bag. “He told me a lot about the early days, when you were all starting out with the Opera. It must have been terribly exciting.”
Caroline’s expression softened. She gazed absently into the fire, and after a moment said, “It was glorious. But, of course, I didn’t realize quite how special it was, because I had nothing to compare it to. I thought that life could only get better, that everything I touched would turn to gold.” She met Gemma’s eyes again. “Well, that’s the way of it, isn’t it, Sergeant? You learn that the charmed times can’t last.”
The words held an echo of such sorrow that Gemma felt their weight upon her chest. The photographs on the piano pulled at her insistently, but she kept her eyes on Caroline’s face. She had no need to look at them-Matthew Asherton’s smiling image had burned itself upon her memory. Taking a breath, she said with a daring born out of her own fear, “How do you manage to go on?”
“You protect what you have.” Caroline said quietly, vehemently. Then she laughed, breaking the spell. “Tommy wasn’t quite so elegant in those days, though you wouldn’t think it to look at him now. He shed his background like a snake sloughing off its skin, but he hadn’t completed the process. There were still a few rough edges.”
Gemma said, “I can’t imagine,” and they both laughed.
“Tommy was never less than amusing, even at his least polished. We did have some lovely times… and we had such vision. Gerald and Tommy and I-we were going to change the face of opera.” Caroline smiled fondly.
How could you bear to give it up? thought Gemma. Aloud, she said, “I’ve heard you sing. I bought a tape of Traviata. It’s marvelous.”
Caroline folded her arms loosely under her breasts and stretched her dainty feet toward the fire. “It is, isn’t it? I’ve always loved singing Verdi. His heroines have a spiritual quality that you don’t find in Puccini, and they allow you more room for interpretation. Puccini you must sing exactly as it’s written or it becomes vulgar-with Verdi you must find the heroine’s heart.”
“That’s what I felt when I listened to Violetta,” Gemma said with delight. Caroline had given definition to her own vaguely formed impressions.
“Do you know the history of Traviata?” When Gemma shook her head, Caroline continued. “In Paris in the 1840s there lived a young courtesan named Marie Duplessis. She died on the second of February, 1846, just nineteen days after her twenty-second birthday. Among her numerous lovers in her last year were Franz Liszt and Alexandre Dumas, fils. Dumas wrote a play based on Marie’s life called La Dame aux Camélias, or Camille-”
“And Verdi adapted the play as Traviata.”
“You’ve been swotting,” said Caroline in mock disappointment.
“Not really, just reading the liner notes. And I didn’t know that Violetta was based on a real person.”
“Little Marie is buried in the cemetery at Montmartre, just below the church of Sacre Coeur. You can visit her grave.”
Gemma found herself unable to ask if Caroline herself had made such a pilgrimage-it came too near the forbidden territory of Matthew’s death. She shivered a little at the thought of such waste. Marie Duplessis must have held on to her life with all the passion Verdi wrote into Violetta’s music.
A bell rang, echoing in the passage outside the sitting room. The front door-Plummy had said Caroline had another student coming. “I’m sorry, Dame Caroline. I’ve kept you too long.” Gemma slid the strap of her handbag over her shoulder and stood up. “Thank you for your time. You’ve been very patient.”
Caroline rose and once again offered Gemma her hand. “Good-bye, Sergeant.”
As Gemma neared the sitting room door, Plummy opened it and said, “Cecily’s here, Caro.”
As Gemma passed the girl in the hall, she had a brief impression of dark skin and eyes and a flashing shy smile, then Plummy ushered her gently out into the dusk. The door closed and Gemma stood breathing the cool, damp air. She shook her head to clear it, but that made the dawning realization no less uncomfortable.
She had been seduced.
“A message for you, Mr. Kincaid,” Tony called out cheerfully from the bar as Kincaid entered the Chequers. “And your room’s ready for you.” Tony seemed to do everything around the place, and all with the same unflagging good nature. Now he fished a message slip from beneath the bar and handed it to Kincaid.
“Jack Makepeace called?”
“You’ve just missed him by a few minutes. Use the phone in the lounge if you like.” Tony gestured toward the small sitting area opposite the bar.
Kincaid rang High Wycombe CID and shortly Makepeace came on the line. “We’ve run down a possible lead on your Kenneth Hicks, Superintendent. Rumor from some racing sources has it that he does his drinking in a pub in Henley called the Fox and Hounds. It’s on the far side of town, off the Reading Road.”
Kincaid had just come through Henley on his way from Reading, and would now have to turn right around and backtrack. He swore under his breath but didn’t criticize Makepeace for not contacting him by bleeper or car phone-it wasn’t worth the loss of good will. “Anything known about him?”
“No record to speak of-a few juvenile offenses. He’s a petty villain from the sound of it, not a serious one. Hand in the till here and there, that sort of thing.”
“Description?”
“Five foot eight or nine, nine stone, fairish hair, blue eyes. No available address. If you want to talk to him I guess you’ll have to do a spot of drinking at the Fox and Hounds.”
Kincaid sighed with resignation at the prospect. “Thanks, Sergeant.”
Unlike the pub where he’d lunched in Reading, the Fox and Hounds turned out to be every bit as dreary as he’d imagined. The sparse late afternoon activity centered around the snooker table in the back room, but Kincaid chose the public bar, seating himself at an inadequately wiped plastic-topped table with his back against the wall. Compared to the other customers, he felt conspicuously well groomed in jeans and a fisherman’s knit jersey. He sipped the foam from his pint of Brakspear’s bitter and settled back to wait.
He’d killed half the pint as slowly as he could when a man came in who fitted Kenneth Hicks’s general description. Kincaid watched as he leaned on the bar and said a few low words to the barman, then accepted a pint of lager. He wore expensive-looking clothes badly on his slight frame, and his narrow face had a pinched look that spoke of a malnourished childhood. Kincaid watched over the rim of his pint as the man glanced nervously around the bar, then took a seat at a table near the door.
The sneaky bugger’s paranoia would have given him away even if his looks hadn’t, thought Kincaid, and he smiled in satisfaction. He drank a little more of his beer, then stood and casually carried his glass across to the other man’s table. “Mind if I join you?” he said as he pulled up a stool and sat down.
“What if I do?” the man answered, shrinking back and holding his glass before his body like a shield.
Kincaid could see specks of dandruff mixed with the styling cream that darkened the fair hair. “If you’re Kenneth Hicks, you’re out of luck, because I want a word with you.”
“What if I am? Why should I talk to you?” His eyes shifted from one side of Kincaid’s body to the other, but Kincaid had sat between him and the door. The gray light from the front windows illuminated the imperfections of Hicks’s face-a patch of pale stubble missed, the dark spot of a shaving cut on his chin.
“Because I asked you nicely,” Kincaid said as he pulled his warrant card from his hip pocket and held it open in front of Hicks’s face. “Let me see some identification, if you don’t mind.”
A sheen of perspiration appeared on Hicks’s upper lip. “Don’t have to. Harassment, that’s what that is.”
“Oh, I don’t think it’s harassment at all,” Kincaid said softly, “but if you like we’ll call in the local lads and have our little chat in the Henley nick.”
For a moment he thought Hicks would bolt, and he balanced himself a little better on the stool, his muscles tensing. Then Hicks set his glass down on the plastic table with a thump and wordlessly handed Kincaid his driving license.
“A Clapham address?” Kincaid asked after he had examined it for a moment.
“It’s me mum’s,” Hicks said sullenly.
“But you stay here in Henley, don’t you?” Kincaid shook his head. “You really should keep these things current, you know. We like to know where to find you when we want you.” He pulled a notebook and pen from his pocket and slid them across the table. “Why don’t you write down your address for me before we forget. Make sure you get it right, now,” he added as Hicks reluctantly picked up the pen.
“What’s it to you?” Hicks asked as he scribbled a few lines on the paper and shoved it back.
Kincaid held his hand out for the pen. “Well, I have a vested interest in staying in touch with you. I’m looking into Connor Swann’s death, and I think you know a good deal about Connor Swann. It would be very odd if you didn’t, considering the amount of money he paid you every month.” Kincaid drank off another half-inch of his pint and smiled at Hicks, whose sallow skin had faded almost to green at the mention of Connor’s name.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Hicks managed to squeak, and now Kincaid could smell his fear.
“Oh, I think you do. The way I heard it is that you do some unofficial collecting for a bookie here in town, and that Connor was in over his head-”
“Who told you that? If it was that little tart of his, I’ll fix her-”
“You’ll not touch Sharon Doyle.” Kincaid leaned forward, abandoning his amiable pretense. “And you’d better hope she’s not accident prone, because I’ll hold you responsible if she so much as breaks a little finger. Have you got that, sunshine?” He waited until Hicks nodded, then said, “Good. I knew you were a bright boy. Now unfortunately, Connor didn’t discuss his financial problems with Sharon, so you’re going to have to help me out. If Connor owed money to your boss, why did he pay you directly?”
Hicks took a long pull on his lager and fumbled in his jacket pocket until he found a crumpled packet of Benson & Hedges. He lit one with a book of matches bearing the pub’s name, and seemed to gather courage as he drew in the smoke. “Don’t know what you’re talkin’ about, and you can’t-”
“Connor may not have taken very good care of some parts of his life, but in others he was quite meticulous. He recorded every check he wrote-did you know that, Kenneth? You don’t mind if I call you Kenneth, do you?” Kincaid added, all politeness again. When Hicks didn’t reply, he continued. “He paid you large amounts on a very regular basis. I’d be curious to see how those amounts tally with what he owed your boss-”
“You leave him out of this!” Hicks almost shouted, sloshing beer on the table. He looked around to see if anyone else had heard, then leaned forward and lowered his voice to a hiss. “I’m telling you, you leave him-”
“What were you doing, Kenneth? A little loan-sharking on the side? Carrying Con’s debts with interest? Somehow I don’t think your boss would take too kindly to your skimming his clients like that.”
“We had a private arrangement, Con and me. I helped him out when he was in trouble, same as he’d have done for me, same as any mates.”
“Oh, mates, was it? Well, that puts a different complexion on it entirely. I’m sure in that case Connor didn’t mind you making money off his debts.” Kincaid leaned forward, hands on the edge of the table, resisting the urge to grab Hicks by the lapels of his leather bomber jacket and shake him until his brains rattled. “You’re a bloodsucker, Kenneth, and with mates like you nobody needs enemies. I want to know when you saw Connor last, and I want to know exactly what you talked about, because I’m beginning to think Con got tired of paying your cut. Maybe he threatened to go to your boss-is that what happened, Kenneth? Then maybe the two of you had a little scuffle and you pushed him in the river. What do you think, sunshine? Is that how it happened?”
The bar had begun to fill and Hicks had to raise his voice a little to make himself heard over the increasing babble. “No, I’m telling you, man, it wasn’t like that at all.”
“What was it like?” Kincaid said reasonably. “Tell me about it, then.”
“Con had a couple of really stiff losses, close together, couldn’t come up with the ready. I was flush at the time so I covered him. After that it just got to be sort of a habit.”
“A nasty habit, just like gambling, and one I’ll bet Con got fed up with pretty quickly. Con hadn’t written you a check the last few weeks before he died. Was he balking, Kenneth? Had he had enough?”
Perspiration beaded on Hicks’s upper lip and he wiped it with the back of his hand. “No, man, the horses had been good to him the last couple of weeks, for a change. He paid off what he owed-we were square, I swear we were.”
“That’s really heartwarming, just like good little Boy Scouts. I’ll bet you shook hands on it, too.” Kincaid sipped from his glass again, then said conversationally, “Nice local beer, don’t you think?” Before Hicks could reply he leaned across the little table until he was inches from the man’s face. “Even if I believed you, which I don’t, I think you’d look for some other way to soak him. You seem to know a lot about his personal life, considering your business arrangement. Looking for another foothold, were you, Ken? Did you find something out about Connor that he didn’t want anyone else to know?”
Hicks shrank back. “Don’t know what you’re talkin’ about, man,” he said, then wiped spittle from his lower lip. “Why don’t you ask that slut of his what she knows? Maybe she found out hell’d freeze over before he’d marry her.” He smiled, showing nicotine-stained teeth, and Kincaid found it no improvement over his sneer. “Maybe she shoved him in the river-did you ever think about that one, Mr. Bloody Know-it-all?”
“What makes you think he wouldn’t have married Sharon?”
“Why should he? Get himself stuck with a stupid little cow like that-take on some other bugger’s bleedin’ kid? Not on your nelly.” Sniggering, Hicks pulled another cigarette from the packet and lit it from the butt of the first. “And her with a gob like a fishwife.”
“You’re a real prince, Kenneth,” Kincaid said generously. “How do you know Sharon thought Con intended to marry her? Did she tell you?”
“Too right, she did. Said, ‘He’ll get shut of you then, Kenneth Hicks. I’ll make sure of it.’ Stupid-”
“You know, Kenneth, if you’d been the one found floating facedown in the Thames, I don’t think we’d have had to look far for a motive.”
“You threatening me, man? You can’t do that-that’s-”
“Harassment, I know. No, Kenneth, I’m not threatening you, just making an observation.” Kincaid smiled. “I’m sure you had Connor’s best interests at heart.”
“He used to tell me things, when he’d had a few, like.” Hicks lowered his voice confidentially. “Wife had him by the balls. She crooked her little finger, he’d come running with his tail between his legs. He’d had a hell of a row with her that day, the bitch-”
“What day, Kenneth?” Kincaid said very distinctly, very quietly.
Cigarette frozen halfway to his lips, Hicks stared at Kincaid like a rat surprised by a ferret. “Don’t know. You can’t prove nothing.”
“It was the day he died, wasn’t it, Kenneth? You saw Connor the day he died. Where?”
Hicks’s close-set eyes shifted nervously away from Kincaid’s face and he drew sharply on the cigarette.
“Spit it out, Kenneth. I’ll find out, you know. I’ll start by asking these nice people here.” Kincaid nodded toward the bar. “Don’t you think that’s a good idea?”
“So what if I did have a couple of pints with him? How was I to know it was different from any other day?”
“Where and when?”
“Here, same as always. Don’t know what time,” Hicks said evasively, then added as he saw Kincaid’s expression, “Twoish, maybe.”
After lunch, Kincaid thought. Con had come straight here from Badger’s End. “He told you he’d had a row with Julia? What about?”
“Don’t know, do I? Nothin’ to do with me.” Hicks clamped his mouth shut so decisively that Kincaid changed tacks.
“What else did you talk about?”
“Nothin’. We just had a friendly pint, like. Not against the law, is it, havin’ a friendly drink with a mate?” Hicks asked, voice rising as if he might be working himself up to hysteria.
“Did you see Connor again after that?”
“No, I never. Not after he left here.” He took a last drag on his cigarette and ground it out in the ashtray.
“Where were you that night, Kenneth? From eight o’clock or so on?”
Shaking his head, Hicks said, “None of your friggin’ business, is it? I’ve had enough of your bleedin’ harassment. I ain’t done nothin’, fuckin’ filth got no right to keep after me.” He shoved his empty glass away and pushed back on his stool, watching Kincaid, the whites of his eyes showing beneath the irises.
Kincaid debated the benefit of pushing him any farther, and decided against it. “All right, Kenneth, have it your way. But stay around where I can find you, just in case we need to have another little visit.” Hicks’s stool screeched against the floor as he stood up. As he pushed past, Kincaid reached up and sank his fingers into the sleeve of his leather jacket. “If you even think about disappearing, boyo, I’ll have the lads after you so fast you won’t be able to find a hole big enough to hide your skinny backside. Do we understand each other, mate?”
After a long moment, Hicks nodded and Kincaid smiled and let him go. “There’s a good boy, Ken. See you around.”
Kincaid turned and watched Hicks scuttle out the door into the street, then he carefully wiped his fingers against his jeans.