Mourn Not Your Dead (15 page)

“Did you ride as a child?” he asked. She had about her a certain scrubbed outdoorsiness, not exactly a toughness but rather an air of healthy competence. Her nails, he noticed, were short and a bit grimy.

“Well, yes, actually, I did.” She regarded Kincaid with a puzzled
frown. “My aunt owned a stable in Devon and I spent my summer hols there. How odd that you should ask. I’ve just this morning come back from her funeral. She died last week.”

“So you weren’t here when Commander Gilbert died?”

“No, although the parish secretary called me yesterday with the news.” She shook her head. “I couldn’t quite believe it. I tried ringing Claire but only got the answerphone. Is she managing all right?”

“As well as can be expected, I’d say,” Kincaid answered vaguely, pursuing his own thought. “Were the Gilberts regular members of your flock?”

Rebecca nodded. “Alastair often read the lesson. He took the obligations attendant on his position in the village very seriously—” She broke off and rubbed her face with her hands. “Sorry, sorry,” she said through splayed fingers. “That was very uncharitable of me. I’m sure he meant well.”

“You didn’t like him,” Kincaid said gently.

She shook her head ruefully. “No, I’m afraid I didn’t. But I did try, honestly. Judging people hastily is one of my worst faults—”

“So when you dislike someone you go out of your way to make allowances for them?” Kincaid grinned at her in shared understanding.

“Exactly. And I’m afraid that Alastair was very good at taking advantage of me.”

“In what way?” Out of the corner of his eye, Kincaid saw Deveney shift impatiently in his chair, but he refused to be hurried.

“Oh, you know … the special service readings, opening the fete, that sort of thing—”

“Things that look important but don’t require any real effort?” Kincaid asked wryly.

“Exactly. I could never imagine Alastair canvassing the village for a good cause or washing up teacups after a parish
meeting. Woman’s work. In fact—” Rebecca paused. A faint flush of color crept into her cheeks and she stared steadily at her hands clasped on the tabletop. “To tell you the truth, I don’t think Alastair approved of me, though he never said it in so many words. I suppose that’s one reason I went out of my way to be fair … proving to myself that I was above petty retaliation.”

“A forgivable vanity, surely,” said Kincaid.

She looked up and met his eyes. “Perhaps. But it wasn’t very tactful of me to speak about him so freely. This is a terrible thing to have happened, and I wouldn’t want you to think I took it lightly.”

“Unfortunately, dying in a brutal manner does not automatically qualify one for sainthood, however much we might wish it,” Kincaid offered dryly.

“Miss Fielding … uh, Vicar,” said Deveney, “about the thefts. You reported no sign of a break-in. Could you tell us exactly what happened?”

Rebecca closed her eyes for a moment, as if summoning the details. “It was a lovely warm evening and I’d been working in the front garden. When I came in I noticed that the back door was ajar, but I didn’t think anything of it—I never lock up and that door has rather a stiff catch. It wasn’t until later when I was dressing for dinner that I noticed my pearl earrings were missing.”

“And you were sure you hadn’t misplaced them?” Kincaid asked.

“Definitely. I’m very much a creature of habit, Superintendent, and I always put them straight into the jewelry box when I take them off. And I’d worn them just two days before.”

“Was there anything else missing?” Deveney had his notebook out now, pen ready.

Frowning, Rebecca rubbed at the end of her nose. “Just some childhood keepsakes. A silver charm bracelet, some school medals. It was quite odd, really.”

Kincaid leaned towards her. “And you saw no one unusual about the place?”

“I saw no one at all, Superintendent, unusual or otherwise. I’m sorry, I’m afraid I’ve been a complete bust for you.” She looked genuinely distressed, and Kincaid hastened to reassure her as he rose.

“Not at all. And it gave me a chance to see the church. It’s quite a gem, isn’t it?”

“It was built by G. E. Street, the man who designed the London law courts,” Rebecca said as she led them into the corridor. “It’s a lovely example of Victorian church architecture but rather a sad story. It seems he meant it as a gift for his wife, but she died shortly after it was finished.” They had reached the porch, and as they stepped outside she stopped and looked up at the honey-colored stone rising above them. Slowly, she said, “I’ve felt very lucky to have come here, and I’d hate to see anything disrupt my village. One becomes proprietorial very quickly, I’m afraid,” she added with a smile.

Looking down the hill towards the vicarage, Kincaid said, “You’re the gardener, I take it?”

“Oh, yes.” Rebecca’s smile was radiant. “It’s my temptation and my salvation, I’m afraid. The place was a wilderness when I came here two years ago, and I’ve spent every spare minute there since.”

“It shows.” Infected by her enthusiasm, Kincaid found he couldn’t help grinning back.

“I can’t take all the credit,” she hastened to reassure him. “Geoff Genovase helps me on weekends. I’d never have managed the heavy work without him.”

Kincaid thanked her again and they turned away, but before they’d gone more than a few steps down the lane she called out to him. “Mr. Kincaid, the dynamics that make a village a functioning organism are really quite fragile. You will be careful, won’t you?”

* * *

“That explains why she’d missed out on the gossip,” said Kincaid as they walked down the lane. While they’d been inside the sun had dropped in its swift afternoon progress, the light had faded from gold to a soft gray-green, and the shadows stood long on the ground.

“What does?” Deveney looked up from the notebook page he’d been scanning as they walked.

“The aunt’s funeral.” Kincaid put his hands in his pockets and kicked at a stone with his toe.

“What the hell difference does it make?” Deveney asked, sounding a bit frayed. “Do you always go round the mulberry bush like that in interviews? Talk about circumlocution.”

“I don’t know what difference it makes. Yet. And no, I don’t always waffle on, but sometimes it’s the only way I know to get under the skin of things.” He stopped as they reached the bottom of the lane and turned to Deveney. “I don’t think this is going to be a straightforward case, Nick, and I want to know what these people thought of Alastair Gilbert, how he fit into the fabric of the community.”

“Well, we’re certainly not making much progress on the vagrant theory,” Deveney said disgustedly. “We’ve one name left, a Mr. Percy Bainbridge, at Rose Cottage. It’s just kitty-corner to the pub, so we might as well leave the car.” As they crossed the road and walked along the edge of the green, he added, “This is our most recent report, by the way, just last month.”

Rose Cottage might once have been as charming as its name implied, but the canes arching over the front door were bare and sere, and only a few dying chrysanthemums graced the path. Deveney pushed the bell, and after a few moments the door swung open.

“Yes?” inquired Mr. Percy Bainbridge, wrinkling his nose and pursing his thin lips as if he smelled something distasteful. As Deveney made introductions and explained their mission, the lips relaxed into a simper, and Bainbridge said with
fruity affectation, “Oh, do come in. I knew you’d be wanting a word with me.”

They followed him down a dark, narrow hallway into a sitting room that was overwarm and overdecorated—and smelled, Kincaid thought, faintly of illness.

Bainbridge was tall, thin, and stooped, with a chest so concave it looked as though it might have been hollowed out with an ice-cream scoop. Skin yellow as parchment stretched over the bones of his face and his balding skull. A death’s head with dandruff, thought Kincaid, for what was left of the man’s hair had liberally sprinkled the shoulders of his rusty black coat.

“You’ll have some sherry, won’t you?” said their host. “I always do this time of day. Keeps the evening at bay, don’t you think?” He poured from a decanter as he spoke, filling three rather dusty cut-crystal glasses, so that they could hardly refuse the proffered drinks.

Kincaid thanked him and took a tentative sip, then breathed an inward sigh of relief as the fine amontillado rolled over his tongue. At least he’d be spared having to tip his glass into a convenient aspidistra. “Mr. Bainbridge, we’d like to ask you a few—”

“I must say you took your time. I told your constable yesterday to send someone in charge. But do sit down.” Bainbridge gestured towards an ancient brocaded sofa and took the armchair himself. “I quite understand that you are at the mercy of the bureaucracy.”

At a loss, Kincaid glanced at Deveney, who merely gave him a blank look and a slight shake of the head. Kincaid sat down gingerly on the slippery fabric, taking time to adjust his trouser creases and finding a spot on the cluttered side table for his sherry glass. “Mr. Bainbridge,” he said carefully, “why don’t you begin by telling us exactly what you told the constable.”

Bainbridge sat back in his chair, his gratified smile pulling at his already too-tight skin until it looked as though it must
melt, like wax under a flame. He sipped at his sherry, cleared his throat, then brushed at a speck on his sleeve. It was clear, thought Kincaid, that Percy Bainbridge intended making the most of his moment in the limelight. “I’d had my tea and finished with the washing up,” he began rather anticlimactically. “I was looking forward to settling in for the evening with my beloved Shelley”—pausing, he gave Kincaid a ghastly little wink—“that’s the poet, you understand, Superintendent. I don’t hold with the television, never have. I am a firm believer in improving the mind, and it is a proven fact that one’s intellect declines in direct proportion to the number of hours spent in front of the little black box. But I digress.” He gave an airy wave of his fingers. “It is my habit to take some air in the evening, and that night was no exception.”

Kincaid took advantage of the man’s pause for breath. “Excuse me, Mr. Bainbridge, but are you referring to Wednesday, the evening of Commander Gilbert’s death?”

“Well, of course I am, Superintendent,” Bainbridge answered, his humor obviously ruffled. “Whatever else would I be referring to?” He took a restorative sip of his sherry. “Now, as I was telling you, although the night was quite foggy and close, I stepped outside as usual. I had gone as far as the pub when I saw a shadowy figure slipping up the lane.” His eyes darted from Kincaid to Deveney, anticipating their reaction.

“What sort of figure, Mr. Bainbridge?” Kincaid asked matter-of-factly. “Was it male or female?”

“I really am unable to say, Superintendent. All I can tell you is that it appeared to be moving furtively, slipping from one pool of shadow to the next, and I am unwilling to embellish my account for the sake of drama.”

Deveney sat forwards, his notebook open. “Size? Height?”

Bainbridge shook his head.

“What about hair and clothing, Mr. Bainbridge?” tried Kincaid. “You may have noticed more than you realize. Think back—did any part of the figure reflect light?”

Bainbridge thought for a moment, then said with less assurance than he had displayed so far, “I thought I saw the pale blur of a face, but that’s all. Everything else was dark.”

“And where exactly was the figure in the lane?”

“Just beyond the Gilberts’ house, moving up the lane towards the Women’s Institute,” answered Bainbridge with more confidence.

“What time was this?” Deveney asked.

“I’m afraid I can’t tell you.” Bainbridge’s thin lips made a regretful little moue.

“Can’t?” Kincaid said on a note of disbelief.

“I retired my watch when they retired me, Superintendent.” He tittered. “I lived my life a slave to the clock and the bell—I thought it time I had my freedom from such constraints. Oh, there is a clock in the kitchen, but unless I should have an appointment I don’t pay it much attention.”

“Do you think you could make an estimate as to the time on Wednesday evening, Mr. Bainbridge?” Kincaid asked with forced patience.

“I can tell you that it wasn’t too long afterwards that the first of the panda cars arrived at the Gilberts’. Half an hour, perhaps.” Having conveniently placed the sherry decanter within arm’s reach, Bainbridge wrapped his long fingers around its neck. “Care for some more sherry, Superintendent? Chief Inspector? No? Well, you won’t mind if I do?” He poured himself a generous measure and drank. “I’ve become quite a connoisseur since my retirement, if I say so myself. I’ve even put some bottle racks into the pantry—had young Geoffrey in to help me—as the cottage doesn’t have a cellar, of course.”

Kincaid felt the prickle of sweat under his arms and between his shoulder blades. The heat of the room had combined with the flush from the sherry to make him a bit queasy, and he felt an unexpected surge of claustrophobia. “Mr. Bainbridge,” he began, wanting to finish the interview
as quickly as possible, “we want to ask you a few questions about the thefts you reported in—”

“Don’t tell me you’ve got on to this burglar business, as well? No, no, no, I tell you. It’s absolute twaddle.” Pink splotches appeared on Percy Bainbridge’s cheeks, and the knuckles wrapped around the stem of his sherry glass turned white. “I heard them last night in the pub, the fools.
You
don’t really think some stranger appeared in the village and just happened to bash the commander in the head, do you, Superintendent?”

“I’ll agree it’s not very likely, Mr. Bainbridge, but we have to follow—”

“I’d look a bit closer to home if I were you. Oh, she’s a cool one, is Claire Gilbert, I grant you that. Butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. But I can tell you”—he leaned towards them and put his finger beside his nose—“that our Mrs. Gilbert is no better than she should be. If I were you, I’d have a look at what she gets up to with that partner of hers, and I said as much to Commander Gilbert not too long ago.”

“Did you now?” said Kincaid, forgetting his discomfort. “And how did the commander receive your advice?”

Bainbridge sat back a bit and smoothed the fringe of hair behind his ear. “Oh, he was very appreciative, man to man, you know.”