Not one to let good beer go to waste, Kincaid drained the last drop of his pint. He considered briefly having another, but the pub’s atmosphere didn’t encourage lingering.
Out in the street, he sniffed the air curiously. He’d noticed the smell when he arrived in town, but it seemed stronger now. Familiar but elusive… tomatoes cooking, perhaps? Finding his car free of sprayed graffiti and still in possession of its wheel covers, Kincaid stood still for a moment and closed his eyes. Hops. Of course it was hops-it was Monday and the brewery was in full operation. The wind must have shifted since he’d arrived at the pub, bringing the rich odor with it. The brewery would be closing soon, as well as most of the shops, he thought as he glanced at his watch-rush hour, such as it was, had begun in Henley.
He’d navigated his way onto the Reading Road, intent on exchanging the day’s findings with Gemma back at the Chequers, when the signpost for the Station Road carpark caught his eye. Almost without thinking he found himself making the turn and pulling the car into a vacant slot. From there it was only a few hundred yards’ walk down the Station Road to the river. On his right lay the boathouse flats, serene behind their iron fence in the dusk.
Something had been niggling at him-he couldn’t swear to the date of the last check Connor had written Kenneth. Kincaid had never finished his interrupted search of Con’s desk, and now he let himself into the flat with the key he’d used earlier, intending to have another look at the checkbook.
He stopped just inside the door. Looking around, he tried to pinpoint why the flat felt different. Warmth, for one thing. The central heating had been switched on. Con’s shoes had disappeared from beneath the settee. The untidy stack of newspapers on the end table had gone as well, but something even less definable spoke of recent human occupation. He sniffed, trying to place the faint scent in the air. Something tugged at the fringes of his mind, then vanished as he heard a noise above.
He held his breath, listening, then moved quietly toward the stairs. A scrape came, then a thump. Someone moving furniture? He’d only been a few minutes behind Kenneth leaving the pub-had the little sod beat him here, bent on destroying evidence? Or had Sharon come back, after all?
Both doors on the first landing had been pulled to, but before he could investigate, the noise came again from above. He climbed the last flight of steps, carefully keeping his feet to the edge of the treads. The studio door stood open a few inches, not enough to give him a clear view into the room. Taking a breath, he used his fist to slam the door open. He charged into the room as the door bounced against the wall.
Julia Swann dropped the stack of canvases she held in her hands.
“Jesus, Julia, you gave me a fright! What the hell are you doing here?” He stood breathing hard, adrenaline still rushing through his body.
“I gave you a fright!” She stared at him wide-eyed, holding her balled hand to her chest and flattening her black sweater between her breasts. “You probably just cost me ten years off my life, Superintendent, not to mention damage to my property.” She bent to retrieve her paintings. “I might ask you the same question-what are you doing in my flat?”
“It’s still under our jurisdiction. I’m sorry I frightened you. I had no idea you were here.” Trying to regain a semblance of authority, he added, “You should have notified the police.”
“Why should I feel obliged to let the police know I’d come back to my own flat?” She sat on the rolled arm of the chair she used for a prop in her paintings and looked at him challengingly.
“Your husband’s death is still under investigation, Mrs. Swann, and he did live here, in case you’d forgotten.” He came nearer to her and sat on the only other available piece of furniture, her worktable. His feet dangled a few inches above the floor and he crossed his ankles to stop them swinging.
“You called me Julia before.”
“Did I?” Then, it had been instinctive, involuntary. Now he used it deliberately. “Okay, Julia.” He drew the syllables out. “So what are you doing here?”
“I should think that would be rather obvious.” She gestured around her and he turned, examining the room. Paintings, both the small flower studies and the larger portraits, had been stacked against the walls, and a few had been hung. Dust had vanished from the visible surfaces, and some of the paints and paper familiar to him from her workroom at Badger’s End had appeared on the table. She had brought in a large pot plant and placed it near the blue velvet chair-those, along with the faded Persian rug and the brightly colored books in the case behind the chair, formed the still-life tableau he’d seen in several of the paintings at the gallery.
The room felt alive once more, and he finally identified the scent that had eluded him downstairs. It was Julia’s perfume.
She had slid down into the depths of the chair and sat quietly smoking with her legs stretched out, and as he looked at her he saw that her eyes were shadowed with fatigue. “Why did you give this up, Julia? It doesn’t make any sense.”
Studying him, she said, “You look different out of your proper policeman’s kit. Nice. Human, even. I’d like to draw you.” She stood suddenly and touched her fingers to the angle of his jaw, turning his head. “I don’t usually do men, but you have an interesting face, good bones that catch the light well.” Just as quickly, she sank into the chair again and regarded him.
He still felt the imprint of her fingers against his skin. Resisting the urge to touch his jaw, he said, “You haven’t answered me.”
Sighing, she ground the half-smoked cigarette into a pottery ashtray. “I don’t know if I can.”
“Try me.”
“You would have to know how things were with us, toward the end.” Idly, she rubbed the nap on the chair arm the wrong way. Kincaid waited, watching her. She looked up and met his eyes. “He couldn’t pin me down. The more he tried the more frustrated he got, until finally he started imagining things.”
Fastening on the first part, Kincaid asked, “What do you mean, he couldn’t pin you down?”
“I was never there for him, not in the way he wanted, not when he wanted…” She crossed her arms as if suddenly cold and rubbed her thumbs against the fabric of her sweater. “Have you ever had anyone suck you dry, Superintendent?” Before he could answer, she added, “I can’t go on calling you Super-bloody-intendent. Your name’s Duncan, isn’t it?” She gave his name a slight stress on the first syllable, so that he heard in it a Scots echo.
“What kind of things did Connor imagine, Julia?”
Her mouth turned down at the corners and she shrugged. “Oh, you know. Lovers, secret trysts, that sort of thing.”
“And they weren’t true?”
“Not then.” She lifted her eyebrows and gave him a little flirtatious smile, challenging him.
“You’re telling me that Connor was jealous of you?”
Julia laughed, and the smile that transformed her thin face moved him in a way he couldn’t explain. “It’s so ironic, isn’t it? What a joke. Connor Swann, everyone’s favorite Lothario, afraid his own wife might be messing him about.” Kincaid’s consternation must have shown, because she smiled again and said, “Did you think I didn’t know Con’s reputation? I would have to have been deaf, dumb and blind not to.” Her mirth faded and she added softly, “Of course, the more I slipped away, the more women he notched on his braces. Was he punishing me? Or was he just looking for what I couldn’t give him?” She stared past Kincaid at the window he knew must be darkening.
“You still haven’t answered my question,” he said again, but this time gently.
“What?” She came back to him from her reverie. “Oh, the flat. I was exhausted, in the end. I ran away. It was easier.” They looked at each other in silence for a moment, then she said, “You can see that, can’t you, Duncan?”
The words “ran away” echoed in his mind and he had a sudden vision of himself, packing up only the most necessary of possessions, leaving Vic in the flat they had chosen with such care. It had been easier, easier to start over with nothing to remind him of his failure, or of her. “What about your studio?” he said, shutting off the flow of memory.
“I’ve missed it, but I can paint anywhere, if I must.” She leaned back in the chair, watching him.
Kincaid thought back to his earlier interviews with her, trying to put a finger on the change he sensed. She was still sharp and quick, her intelligence always evident, but the brittle nervousness had left her. “It wasn’t easy for you, was it, those months you spent at Badger’s End?” She stared back at him, her lips parted, and he felt again that frisson along his spine that came with knowing her in a way more intimate than words.
“You’re very perceptive, Duncan.”
“What about Trevor Simons? Were you seeing him then?”
“I told you, no. There wasn’t anyone.”
“And now? Do you love him?” A necessary question, he told himself, but the words seemed to leave his lips of their own accord.
“Love, Duncan?” Julia laughed. “Do you want to split philosophical hairs over the nature of love and friendship?” She continued more seriously, “Trev and I are friends, yes, but if you mean am I in love with him, the answer is no. Does it matter?”
“I don’t know,” Kincaid answered truthfully. “Would he lie for you? You did leave the opening that night, you know. I have an independent witness who saw you go.”
“Did I?” She looked away from him, fumbling for the cigarette packet that had slipped under the chair. “I suppose I did, for a bit. It was rather a crush. I don’t like to admit it, but sometimes things like that make me feel a little claustrophobic.”
“You’re still smoking too much,” he said as she found the packet and lit another cigarette.
“How much is too much? You’re splitting hairs again.” Her smile held a hint of mischief.
“Where did you go, when you left the gallery?”
Julia stood up and went to the window, and he twisted around, watching her as she closed the blinds against the charcoal sky. Still with her back to Kincaid, she said, “I don’t like bare windows, once it’s dark. Silly, I know, but even up here I always feel someone might be watching me.” She turned to him again. “I walked along the River Terrace for a bit, had a breath of air, that’s all.”
“Did you see Connor?”
“No, I didn’t,” she answered, coming back to her chair. This time she curled herself into it with her legs drawn up, and as she moved the bell of her hair swung against her neck. “And I doubt I was gone more than five or ten minutes.”
“But you saw him earlier that day, didn’t you? At Badger’s End, after lunch, and you had a row.”
He saw her chest move with the quick intake of breath, as if she might deny it, but she only watched him quietly for a moment before answering, “It was such a stupid thing, really, such a petty little end note. I was ashamed.
“He came upstairs after lunch, bounding in like a great overgrown puppy, and I lit into him. I’d had a letter that morning from the building society-he’d not made a payment in two months. That was our arrangement, you see,” she explained to Kincaid, “that he could stay in the flat as long as he kept up the payments. Well, we argued, as you can imagine, and I told him he had to come up with the money.” Pausing, she put out the cigarette she’d left burning in the ashtray, then took another little breath. “I also told him he needed to think about making other arrangements. It was too worrying, about the payments, I mean… and things were difficult for me at home.”
“And he didn’t take that well?” Kincaid asked. She shook her head, her lips pressed together. “Did you give him a time limit?”
“No, but surely he could see that we couldn’t go on like that forever…”
Kincaid asked the question that had been bothering him from the beginning. “Why didn’t you just divorce him, Julia? Get it over with, make a clean break. This was no trial separation-you knew when you left him that it couldn’t be mended.”
She smiled at him, teasing. “You of all people should know the law, Duncan. Especially having been through it yourself.”
Surprised, he said, “Ancient history. Are my scars still visible?”
Julia shrugged. “A lucky guess. Did your wife file against you?” When he nodded, she continued, “Did you agree to her petition?”
“Well, of course. There was no point going on.”
“Do you know what would have happened if you had refused?”
He shook his head. “I never thought about it.”
“She would’ve had to wait two years. That’s how long it takes to prove a contested divorce.”
“Are you saying that Connor refused to let you divorce him?”
“Got it in one, dear Superintendent.” She watched him as he digested this, then said softly, “Was she very beautiful?”
“Who?”
“Your wife, of course.”
Kincaid contrasted the image of Vic’s delicate, pale prettiness with the woman sitting before him. Julia’s face seemed to float between the blackness of her turtlenecked jersey and her dark hair, almost disembodied, and in the lamplight the lines of pain and experience stood out sharply. “I suppose you would say she was beautiful. I don’t know. It’s been a long time.”
Realizing that his rear had gone numb from sitting on the hard table edge, he pushed off with his hands, stretched and lowered himself to the Persian rug. He wrapped his arms around his knees and looked up at Julia, noticing how the difference in perspective altered the planes and shadows of her face. “Did you know about Con’s gambling when you married him?”
She shook her head. “No, only that he liked to go racing, and that was rather a lark for me. I’d never been-” She laughed at his expression. “No, really. You think I had this very sophisticated and cosmopolitan upbringing, don’t you? What you don’t understand is that my parents don’t do anything unless it’s connected with music.” She sighed, then said reflectively, “I loved the colors and the movement, the horses’ grace and perfect form. It was only gradually that I began to see that it wasn’t just fun for Con, not in the sense it was for me. He’d sweat during the race, and sometimes I’d see his hands tremble. And then I began to realize he was lying to me about how much he’d bet.” Shrugging, she added, “After a bit I stopped going.”
“But Con kept betting.”
“Of course we had rows. ‘A harmless pastime’ he called it. One he deserved after the pressures at work. But it was only toward the end that it became really frightening.”
“Did you bail him out, pay his debts?”
Julia looked away from him, resting her chin on her hand. “For a long time, yes. It was my reputation, too, after all.”
“So this row you had last Thursday was old business, in a sense?”
She managed a small smile. “Put that way, yes, I suppose it was. It’s so frustrating when you hear yourself saying things you’ve said a hundred times before-you know it’s useless but you can’t seem to stop.”
“Did he say anything different when he left you? Anything that varied from the normal pattern of these arguments?”
“No, not that I can remember.”
And yet he had gone straight to Kenneth. Had he meant to borrow the money for the mortgage? “Did he say anything to you about going to London that afternoon, to the Coliseum?”
Julia lifted her head from her hand, her dark eyes widening in surprise. “London? No. No, I’m sure he didn’t. Why should he have gone to the Coli? He’d just seen Mummy and Daddy.”
The childish diminutives sounded odd on her lips, and she seemed suddenly young and very vulnerable. “I’d hoped you might tell me,” he said softly. “Did you ever hear Connor mention someone called Hicks? Kenneth Hicks?” He watched her carefully, but she only shook her head, looking genuinely puzzled.
“No. Why? Is he a friend?”
“He works for a local bookie, does some collecting for him, among other things. He’s also a nasty piece of work, and Connor paid him large amounts of money on a regular basis. That’s why I came back, to have another look at Connor’s checkbook.”
“I never thought of looking through Con’s things,” Julia said slowly. “I’ve not even been in the study.” She dropped her head in both hands and said through her splayed fingers, “I suppose I was putting off the inevitable.” After a moment she raised her head and looked at him, her lips twisting with a mixture of embarrassment and bravado. “I did find some woman’s things in the bedroom and in the bath. I’ve packed them up in a box-I didn’t know what else to do with them.”
So Sharon had not come back. “Give them to me. I think I can return them to their rightful owner.” Although he read the question in her expression, she didn’t speak, and they regarded one another in silence. He sat near enough to touch her, and the desire came to him to raise his hand and lay the backs of his fingers against the hollow of her cheek.
Instead, he said gently, “He was seeing someone, you know. A quite steady arrangement, from the sound of it. She has a four-year-old daughter, and Con told her that he would marry her and look after them both, just as soon as you’d let him have a divorce.”
For a long moment Julia’s face went blank, wiped as clean of expression as a mannequin’s, then she gave a strangled laugh. “Oh, poor Con,” she said. “The poor, silly bastard.”
For the first time since Kincaid had met her, he saw her eyes film with tears.
Gemma finished her second packet of peanuts and licked the salt from the tips of her fingers. Looking up, she saw Tony watching her and smiled a little shamefacedly. “Starving,” she said by way of apology.
“Let me have the kitchen fix you something.” Tony seemed to have adopted her as his own personal responsibility and was even more solicitous than usual. “We’ve got lovely pork chops tonight, and a vegetarian lasagna.”
Surreptitiously, Gemma glanced at her watch beneath the level of the bar. “I’ll wait a bit longer. Thanks, Tony.” After leaving Dame Caroline, she had driven to the pub and carried her case upstairs. Suddenly overcome by a wave of exhaustion, she’d stretched out on top of the duvet in her good clothes and slept deeply and dreamlessly for an hour. She’d awakened feeling cold and a little stiff, but refreshed. After a good wash and brush, she’d changed into her favorite jeans and sweater and gone down to wait for Kincaid.
Tony, polishing glasses at the far end of the bar, still kept an anxious eye on the level of cider in her glass. She had almost decided to let him refill it when he looked toward the door and said, “There’s your boss now, love.”
Kincaid slid onto the stool beside her. “Has Tony been plying you with drink?” He went on without waiting for an answer, “Good, because I’m going to ply you with food. Sharon Doyle told me that Connor favored the Red Lion in Wargrave-only place the food was up to his standards. I think we should suss it out for ourselves.”
“Will you be having a drink before you go, Mr. Kincaid?” asked Tony.
Kincaid looked at Gemma. “Hungry?”
“Famished.”
“Then we had better go straight on, Tony.”
Tony flapped his dishcloth at them. “Cheerio. Though if you don’t mind my saying so,” he added in a slightly affronted tone, “their food’s no better than ours.”
Having lavished reassurances upon Tony, they escaped to the car and drove to Wargrave in silence.
Only when they had settled at a table in the cheerful atmosphere of the Red Lion did Gemma say, “Tony said you had a message from Sergeant Makepeace. What did he want? Where have you been?”
Kincaid, intent on his menu, said, “Let’s order first. Then I’ll tell you. See anything you fancy? Gratin of haddock and smoked salmon? Prawns in garlic sauce? Chicken breast with red and green peppercorns?” He looked up at her, grinning, and she thought his eyes looked unusually bright. “Con had it right-no shepherd’s pie or bangers and mash to be found here.”
“Are you sure our expenses will run to this?” Gemma asked.
“Don’t worry, Sergeant,” he said with exaggerated authority. “I’ll take care of it.”
Unconvinced, Gemma gave him a doubtful glance, but said, “I’ll have the chicken, then. And the tomato and basil soup for starters.”
“Going the whole hog?”
“Pudding, too, if I can find room for it.” She closed her menu and propped her chin on her hands. He had seated her with her back to the crackling fire and the warmth began to penetrate her sweater. “I feel I deserve it.”
The barman came round to them, his pad ready. He had a dishcloth tucked into his belt, dark, curling hair restrained in a pony-tail, and an engaging smile. “What will you have?”
Kincaid ordered the gratin for himself and added a bottle of American Fume Blanc. When they had finished the young man said, “Right, then. I’ll just turn this in to the kitchen.” As he slipped back behind the bar, he added, “My name’s David, by the way. Just give me a shout if you need anything else.”
Gemma and Kincaid looked at each other, brows raised, then she said, “Do you suppose the service is always this good, or is it just because it’s slow tonight?” She looked around the room. Only one other table was occupied-in the far corner a couple sat, heads bent close together.
“I’ll bet he has a good memory for customers. After we eat, we’ll give it a go.”
When David had returned and filled their glasses with chilled wine, Kincaid said, “Tell me.”
Gemma related her interview with Tommy Godwin, omitting her rather inglorious arrival. “I’m not sure I buy the bit about his coming into the theater from the front and standing up at the back of the stalls. Doesn’t feel quite right.”
Their starters came, and as Kincaid tucked into his pate, he said, “And what about Dame Caroline? Any joy there?”
“It seems their lunch didn’t go quite as smoothly as they claimed at first. Connor excused himself to help with the washing up, but Plummy says he never came in the kitchen, and he left without saying good-bye to Gerald and Caroline.” She scraped the last bit of soup from the cup. “I think he must have gone upstairs to Julia.”
“He did, and they had a nasty row.”
Gemma felt her mouth drop open. She closed it with a snap, then said, “How could you possibly know that?”
“Kenneth Hicks told me, then Julia herself.”
“All right, guv,” Gemma said, exasperated. “You’ve got that cat-in-the-cream look. Give.”
By the time he’d recounted his day, their main courses had come and they both ate quietly for a few minutes. “What I can’t understand,” he said as he finished a bite of fish and sipped his wine, “is how a yobbo like Kenneth Hicks managed to hook Connor so thoroughly.”
“Money can be a powerful incentive.” Gemma deliberated between more braised leeks or more roasted potatoes, then took both. “Why did Julia lie about the row with Connor? It seems innocent enough.”
Kincaid hesitated, then shrugged. “I suppose she didn’t think it significant. It certainly wasn’t a new argument.”
Fork halfway to her mouth, Gemma said hotly, “But this wasn’t a case of failing to mention something that might or might not have been significant. She deliberately lied. And she lied about leaving the gallery as well.” She returned her fork with its speared chicken to her plate, and leaned toward Kincaid. “It’s not right the way she’s behaved, refusing to take care of the funeral arrangements. What would she have done, let the county bury him?”
“I doubt that very much.” Kincaid pushed his plate aside and leaned back a little in his chair.
Although his tone had been mild enough, Gemma felt rebuked. Feeling a flush begin to stain her cheeks, she retrieved her fork, then set it down again as she realized she’d lost her appetite.
Watching her, Kincaid said, “Finished already? What about that pudding?”
“I don’t think I can possibly manage it.”
“Drink your wine, then,” he said, topping up her glass, “and we’ll have a word with David.”
Gemma bristled at this avuncular instruction, but before she could respond he caught the barman’s eye.
“Ready for your sweets?” David said as he reached their table. “The chocolate roulade is heavenly-” As they both shook their heads he continued with hardly a break in stride, “No takers. Cheese, then? The cheese selection is quite good.”
“A question or two, actually.” Kincaid had opened his wallet. First he showed David his warrant card, then a snapshot of Connor he had begged from Julia. “We understand this fellow was a regular customer of yours. Do you recognize him?”
“Of course I do,” answered David, puzzled. “It’s Mr. Swann. What do you mean, ‘was’?”
“I’m afraid he’s dead,” Kincaid said, using the standard formula. “We’re looking into the circumstances of his death.”
“Mr. Swann-dead?” For a moment the young man looked so pale that Kincaid reached out and pulled up a chair from the next table.
“Sit down,” said Kincaid. “The mob is not exactly queuing up for service at the bar.”
“What?” David folded into the proffered chair as if legless. “Oh, I see what you mean.” He gave a wan attempt at a smile. “It’s just a bit of a shock, is all. Seems like just the other night he was here, and he was always so… larger-than-life. Vital.” Reaching out, he touched the surface of the photograph with a tentative fingertip.
“Can you remember what night it was you saw him last?” Kincaid asked quietly, but Gemma could sense his concentrated attention.
David drew his brows together, but said quickly enough, “My girlfriend, Kelly, was working late checkout at the Tesco, didn’t finish till half-past nine or thereabouts… Thursday. It must have been Thursday.” He glanced at them both, expecting approbation.
Kincaid met Gemma’s eyes across the table and she saw the flash of victory, but he only said, “Good man. Do you remember what time he came in on Thursday?”
“Late-ish. Must have been after eight.” Warming up to his tale, David continued, “Sometimes he came in by himself, but usually he was with people I thought must be clients of some sort. Not that I eavesdropped on purpose, mind you,” he added, looking a bit uncomfortable, “but when you’re waiting tables sometimes you can’t help but overhear, and they seemed to be talking business.”
“And that night?” Gemma prompted.
“I remember it particularly because it was different. He came in alone, and even then he didn’t seem his usual self. He was short with me, for one thing. ‘Something’s really got on his wick,’ I thought.” Remembering Gemma, he added, “Sorry, miss.”
She smiled at him. “Don’t mind me.”
“Mr. Swann, now, he could put it away with the best of them, but he was always jolly with it. Not like some.” David made a face and Gemma nodded sympathetically. As if that had reminded him of his other customers, he glanced at the table in the back, but its occupants were still too engrossed in one another to notice his lack of attention. “Then this other bloke came in, and they took a table for dinner.”
“Did they know each other?” Kincaid asked.
“What did-” Gemma interjected, but Kincaid stopped her with a quickly lifted hand.
“Oh, I’m sure they must have done. Mr. Swann stood up as soon as the other bloke came in the door. They went straight to their table after that, so I didn’t hear what they said-custom was fairly good that night-but things seemed friendly enough at first.”
“And then?” Kincaid said into the moment’s pause.
David looked from one to the other, less comfortable now. “I guess you could say they had a heated discussion. Not a shouting match-they didn’t really raise their voices, but you could tell they were arguing. And Mr. Swann, well, he always enjoyed the food here, made a point to compliment the cook, that sort of thing.” He paused, as if making sure they fully understood the import of what he was about to say. “He didn’t even finish his dinner.”
“Do you remember what he had?” Kincaid asked, and Gemma knew he was thinking of the still incomplete lab report on the contents of Connor’s stomach.
“Steak. Washed down with a good part of a bottle of Burgundy.”
Kincaid considered this, then asked, “What happened after that?”
David shifted in his chair and scratched his nose. “They paid their bills-separately-and left.”
“They left together?” Gemma asked, clarifying the point.
Nodding, David said, “Still arguing, as far as I could tell.” He was fidgeting more obviously now, turning around in his chair to glance at the bar.
Gemma looked at Kincaid, and receiving an almost imperceptible nod, said, “Just one more thing, David. The other man, what did he look like?”
David’s smile lit his face. “Very elegant, nice dresser, if you know what I mean. Tall, thin, fairish-”he puckered his brow and thought for a moment-“in his fifties, I should think, but he’d kept himself well.”
“Did he pay by credit card?” Kincaid asked hopefully.
Shaking his head and looking genuinely regretful, David said, “Sorry. Cash.”
Making an effort to keep the excitement out of her voice, Gemma congratulated him. “You’re very observant, David. We seldom get a description half as good.”
“It’s the job,” he said, smiling. “You get in the habit. I put names with the faces when I can. People like to be recognized.” Pushing back his chair, he looked questioningly from one to the other. “All right if I clear up now?”
Kincaid nodded and handed him a business card. “You can ring us if you think of anything else.”
David had stood and deftly stacked their dirty dishes on his arm when he stopped and seemed to hesitate. “What happened to him? Mr. Swann. You never said.”
“To tell you the truth, we’re not quite sure, but we are treating it as a suspicious death,” said Gemma. “His body was found in the Thames.”
The plates rattled and David steadied them with his other hand. “Not along here, surely?”
“No, at Hambleden Lock.” Gemma fancied she saw a shadow of relief cross the young man’s face, but put it down to the normal human tendency to want trouble kept off one’s own patch.
David reached for another dish, balancing it with nonchalant ease. “When? When did it happen?”
“His body was found early Friday morning,” Kincaid said, watching David with a pleasant expression that Gemma recognized as meaning his interest was fully engaged.
“Friday morning?” David froze, and although Gemma couldn’t be sure in the flickering reflection from the fire, she thought his face paled. “You mean Thursday night…”
The front door opened and a large and fairly well-heeled party came in, faces rosy with the cold. David looked from them to the couple in the back, who were finally showing signs of restiveness. “I’ll have to go. Sorry.” With a flash of an apologetic smile and a rattle of crockery, he hurried to the bar.
Kincaid watched him for a moment, then shrugged and smiled at Gemma. “Nice lad. Might make a good copper. Has the memory for it.”
“Listen.” Gemma leaned toward him, her voice urgent.
At that moment the two rosy-faced couples, having ordered drinks at the bar, sat down at the next table. They smiled at Gemma and Kincaid in a neighborly fashion, then began a clearly audible conversation among themselves. “Here, David’s left us a bill,” said Kincaid. “Let’s settle up and be on our way.”
Not until they had stepped out into the street again was Gemma able to hiss at him, “That was Tommy Godwin.” Seeing Kincaid’s blank expression, she said, “The man with Connor that night. I’m sure it was Tommy Godwin. That’s what I kept trying to tell you,” she added testily.
They had stopped on the pavement just outside the pub and stood holding their coat collars up around their throats, a defense against the fog that had crept up from the river. “How can you be certain?”
“I’m telling you, it had to be him.” She heard her voice rise in exasperation and made an attempt to level it. “You said yourself that David was observant. His description was too accurate for it to be anyone but Tommy. It’s beyond the bounds of probability.”
“Okay, okay.” Kincaid held up a hand in mock surrender. “But what about the theater? You’ll have to recheck-”
The pub door flew open and David almost catapulted into them. “Oh, sorry. I thought I might catch you. Look-” He stopped, as if his impetus had vanished. Still in shirtsleeves, he folded his arms across his torso and stamped his feet a little. “Look-I had no way of knowing, did I? I thought it was just a bit of argy-bargy. I’d have felt a right prat interfering…”
“Tell us what happened, David,” said Kincaid. “Do you want to go back inside?”
David glanced at the door. “No, they’ll be all right for a bit.” He looked back at them, swallowed and went on. “A few minutes after Mr. Swann and the other bloke left, I came out for a break. Kelly usually stops by for a drink when she gets off work, and I like to keep an eye out for her-a bird on her own at night, you know. It’s not as safe as it used to be.” For a moment he paused, perhaps realizing just whom he was lecturing, and Gemma could feel his embarrassment intensify. “Anyway, I was standing just about where we are now, having a smoke, when I heard a noise by the river.” He pointed down the gently sloping street. “It was clear, not like tonight, and the river’s only a hundred yards or so along.” Again he stopped, as if waiting to be drawn.
“Could you see anything?” Kincaid asked.
“The street lamp reflecting off fair hair, and a slightly smaller, darker figure. I think it must have been Mr. Swann and the other bloke, but I couldn’t swear to it.”
“They were fighting?” Gemma couldn’t keep the disbelief from her voice. She found the idea of Tommy Godwin involved in a physical confrontation almost inconceivable.
“Scuffling. Like kids in a school yard.”
Kincaid glanced at Gemma, his eyebrows raised in surprise. “What happened then, David?”
“I heard Kelly’s car. Loose muffler,” he added in explanation. “You can hear the bloody thing for a mile. I went to meet her, and when we came back, they were gone.” He scanned their faces anxiously. “You don’t think… I never dreamed…”
“David,” said Kincaid, “can you tell us what time this happened?”
He nodded. “Quarter to ten, or near enough.”
“The other man,” put in Gemma, “would you know him if you saw him again?”
She could see the gooseflesh on his arms from the cold, but he stood still, considering. “Well, yes. I suppose I would. Surely, you don’t think he-”
“We might want you to make an identification. Just a matter of routine,” Gemma added soothingly. “Can we reach you here? You’d best give us your home address and telephone as well.” She passed her notebook to him and he scribbled in it, squinting in the orange glow of the street lamps. “You’d better see to your customers,” she said when he’d finished, smiling at him. “We’ll be in touch if we need you.”
When David had gone, she turned to Kincaid. “I know what you’re thinking, but it’s not possible! We know he was in London a few minutes after eleven-”
Kincaid touched his fingers to her shoulder, gently turning her. “Let’s have a look at the river.” As they walked the fog enveloped them, sneaking into their clothes, beading their skin, so that their faces glistened when caught by the light. The pavement ended and their footsteps scrunched on gravel, then they heard the lapping of water against shoreline. “It must be close now,” said Kincaid. “Can you smell it?”
The temperature had dropped noticeably as they neared the water, and Gemma shivered, hugging her coat around her. The darkness before them became denser, blacker, and they stopped, straining their eyes. “What is this place?”
Kincaid shone his pocket torch on the gravel. “You can see the wheel ruts where cars have been parked. Forensic will love this.”
Gemma turned to him, clamping down on her chattering teeth. “How could Tommy have done it? Even if he’d choked Connor and dumped him in the boot of his car, he would have to have driven like a demon to be in London before eleven o’clock. He couldn’t possibly have driven to Hambleden and carried Con’s body all that way.”
“But,” Kincaid began reasonably, “he could have left the body in the boot, driven to London to establish an alibi, and dumped the body later.”
“That doesn’t make sense. Why go to the theater, the one place that would connect him with the Ashertons, and through them, with Connor? And if he wanted to establish an alibi, why not sign in with the porter? It was only chance that Alison Douglas saw him in Gerald’s dressing room, and Gerald certainly hasn’t mentioned it.” Having forgotten the cold and damp in the heat of her argument, Gemma drew breath for her final salvo. “And even if the rest of it were true, how could he possibly have carried Con’s body from the Hambleden carpark to the lock?”
Kincaid smiled his most infuriating smile, the one that meant he found her vehemence amusing. “Well, I guess we had better ask him, hadn’t we?”