Mourn Not Your Dead (31 page)

“He’s only drugged,” said Ogilvie. “You really should teach him not to accept steak from strangers. He should come round in a bit.” He turned his attention back to Claire. “But you were
afraid
of me. Do you remember telling me that, when you broke the news you were going to marry Alastair? You said I had a wild streak, and you had to consider Lucy’s need for a stable home.” He gave a snort of derision.

Claire drew Lucy close. “I only did what—”

“He blackmailed me into following you. His suspicion consumed him like a disease—he was riddled with it. For months I spent my off-duty hours watching your every move. You really lead a rather dull life, my love, with the occasional exception.” Ogilvie smiled at Claire. “You’d better be glad I didn’t tell him everything I discovered.”

His sharp gray eyes came back to Gemma and Kincaid. “Now, this has been quite pleasant, but I think we’ve chatted long enough. There’s an upstairs bedroom with a locking door, I believe?”

Claire nodded confirmation.

“All together now, like good girls and boys.” Ogilvie motioned towards the hallway with the gun.

The mudroom door banged again. They all turned like marionettes, waiting.

“Mrs. Gilbert, the door was standing open, and you’ve left your—” Will Darling came to a halt just inside the kitchen. “What the hell …” In a fraction of a second he took in the scene, then he spun around and dove for the door.

The gun cracked, and Will went down with a shout of pain. Rolling, he clutched at his thigh, and Gemma saw the bright stain blossom and spread on the light fabric of his
trousers. Her ears ached from the sound, and she swallowed against the acrid smell of gunpowder.

Too much blood, she thought wildly. Oh, please God, don’t let it be the femoral artery. He’ll bleed to death. She tried to remember her first-aid training. Pressure. Apply pressure directly to the wound. Ignoring Ogilvie, she grabbed a tea towel from the cooker and ran to crouch beside Will. Folding the cloth into a thick pad, she pressed it against Will’s leg with all her weight. Will tried to push himself up, then fell back with a grunt of pain. He grabbed Gemma’s arm, pulling at her sleeve. “Gemma, help me. I’ve got to call for backup. What hap—”

“Shhh. You’ll be all right, Will. Lie still.” She glanced at Ogilvie then. His lips were clamped in a thin white line, his arm rigid. It could go either way, she thought. He’d broken the barrier that separated most people from the possibility of violence; now anything might happen.

“Listen, mate.” Kincaid took a slow step towards him, then another. “You can see there’s no point going on with this. What are you going to do—gun us all down? You’re not going to hurt Lucy or Claire, so give it up.”

“Back off.” Ogilvie turned the gun on Kincaid, raised it level with his heart.

Kincaid stopped, hands up, palms out. “Okay. You could lock us up, but you can’t leave the constable here without medical help. He was doing his job—you want that on your conscience?” He took another step towards Ogilvie, palms still out. “Give me the gun.”

“I’m telling you—” Ogilvie raised his left arm to support his right.

Firing stance, thought Gemma, watching in helpless, furious dismay. No.

“I’m cold, Gemma,” said Will. The tug at her sleeve was weaker. “The car lights. She’d left the car lights on. Why am I so cold?” His face was white now, covered with sweat, and the towel under Gemma’s hands felt warm and wet.

“Somebody help him,” Gemma said, clenching her teeth to stop them chattering.

Claire thrust Lucy behind her and stepped forwards. “David, listen to me. You can’t do this. I know you. I may have been wrong about Alastair, but I’m not wrong about you. If you shoot him you’ll have to take me next. Give it up.”

Gemma heard Lucy whimper, but she couldn’t look away from the frozen triad of Kincaid, Claire, and Ogilvie.

For a moment she thought she saw a tremor run down Ogilvie’s arm and his finger tighten on the trigger, then he smiled. “There is something to be said for a graceful defeat. And I suppose that one body on your kitchen floor was more than enough for you to have to deal with, my dear.” He transferred the gun to his left hand and handed it butt first to Kincaid, but he kept his eyes on Claire. He added softly, a little regretfully, “I could never refuse you anything.”

Claire stepped up to him and laid the back of her hand against his cheek. “David.”

Gun still raised, Kincaid backed across the kitchen, scrambled for the phone on the breakfast table, and punched 999.

Kincaid stood alone in the Gilberts’ kitchen. Gemma had gone with Will in the ambulance, and a squad car had picked up the unresisting David Ogilvie. Alerted by the lights and sirens, Brian had come across the road and shepherded a shaken Claire into the conservatory with a stiff drink.

The adrenaline rush had taken its toll on Kincaid as well. He raised his hands, wondering if the tremble he felt were visible. They would do, he thought, by the time he reached the station and began interviewing David Ogilvie. Later he would think about the possible consequences of what had happened.

He heard the mudroom door creak and a soft step, then Lucy entered the kitchen. She still wore her afternoon outfit, a high-waisted, calf-length dress in dark green. It made her look innocently old-fashioned and far removed from the cur
rents of violence that had flowed through this house. He smiled at her.

“Mr. Kincaid?” She came to him and touched him lightly on the arm. On closer inspection he could see the tear streaks on her cheeks and a slight swelling of her eyelids. “It’s Lewis. I still can’t wake him and I don’t know what to do. Do you think you could have a look at him?”

“Let’s see what we can do.” He followed the bright path of her torch across the garden and knelt beside the dog.

Crouching next to him, Lucy said, “I’ve called the vet and left word with his answering service, but they said he may not be back for hours yet.”

Kincaid felt the dog’s respirations again, then pulled back an unresponsive lid and examined the eye with the aid of the torch. “It’s too bloody dark out here. Even with the torch I can’t make anything out. Shall we get him inside?”

“Oh, please,” said Lucy. “I tried to lift him, but he’s a bit much for me to manage on my own.”

Kincaid slid his arms under Lewis and heaved himself up. “There, just steady him.” The dog’s body felt reassuringly warm. Together he and Lucy crossed the garden and maneuvered through the doors, then Kincaid gratefully eased the dog onto the kitchen floor, half in Lucy’s lap.

He pulled back the dog’s lip and examined the gum. “See, there? His gums are pink and healthy looking. That means he’s got good circulation. And his breathing’s regular,” he added, watching the steady rise and fall of Lewis’s chest. I don’t know what else we can do until the vet comes, except maybe keep him warm. Have you a blanket?”

Lucy looked up from stroking the dog’s ears. “There’s a quilt at the foot of my bed. Would you—”

“I’ll be right back.”

Finding Lucy’s room easily enough, he stood in the doorway for a moment as he surveyed it in surprise. Except for a motley collection of stuffed animals on the bed, there was
none of the clutter he associated with teenagers’ rooms—no posters of rock bands or fashion models, no piles of clothes making an obstacle course of the floor. It had, in fact, the same air of simplicity as Geoff’s room at the pub, and Kincaid wondered if Lucy had been influenced by him or if it were a natural expression of her own personality.

The furniture looked old but well loved, and an Irish wool blanket in lovely shades of lilac and green covered the single bed. He picked up the faded and tattered quilt that lay neatly folded at the bed’s foot, yet still he lingered.

Framed newspaper and magazine clippings covered the wall above the small desk—the simple wooden frames more of Geoff’s handiwork, thought Kincaid. Moving to examine them more closely, he saw that all the articles bore the byline of Lucy’s father, Stephen Penmaric.

Hanging shelves either side of the window held books, and most prominently displayed was a set of C. S. Lewis’s Narnia books, complete with dustjackets. Pulling one from the shelf, he checked the copyright and whistled. They were first editions, and in flawless condition. His mother would likely give her firstborn grandchild for these.

Beside the books rested a small cage filled with cedar shavings and a wire wheel. He tapped on it and was rewarded by a scuffling sound and the emergence of a tiny white mouse. It blinked its ruby eyes at him and scurried back under cover.

Kincaid switched off the light and carried the quilt downstairs.

Lucy looked at him expectantly as he entered the kitchen. “Did you meet Celeste? I forgot to tell you about her. I hope you’re not afraid of mice.”

“Not at all. I kept them myself, until they had an unfortunate encounter with the family cat.” He knelt and tucked the quilt around Lucy as well as Lewis, for it felt chilly near the tile floor. “You don’t look very comfortable there. Will you be all right?”

“I couldn’t bear to leave Lewis.” She glanced at Kincaid from
under her lashes, then said hesitantly, “Mr. Kincaid, who was that man? He seemed so familiar, but I couldn’t quite place him.”

“He worked with your stepfather and was a friend of your mother’s after your dad died.” He’d leave it to Claire to explain the intricacies of that relationship, if she wished.

“I couldn’t help but notice your C. S. Lewis books. Did you know they’re quite valuable?”

“They were my dad’s. He named me for Lucy in the stories.” She gazed past Kincaid, and the hand stroking the dog’s head went still. “I always wanted to be like her. Brave, courageous, cheerful. The other children were tempted, but never Lucy. She was good, really good, all the way through. But I’m not.” She turned to Kincaid, and it seemed to him that her eyes held a sadness beyond her years.

“Maybe,” he said slowly, “that was an unreasonable expectation.”

“Looks like we’ve got this one nailed,” said Nick Deveney to Kincaid. They sat in the Guildford Police Station canteen, having a quick sandwich and coffee while David Ogilvie waited in Interview Room A.

“He hasn’t admitted to anything,” Kincaid answered through a squishy bite of cheese and tomato. “And I don’t think we’re going to rattle him by making him wait. He’s been on the other side of the table too often.”

“No way he can wiggle out of Gilbert, after what he’s done. Jackie Temple may be a bit more difficult, if he can prove he was lecturing that evening.” Deveney grimaced. “God, I hate to see a copper go bad. And shooting another officer—” Finding no words to express his disgust, he shook his head.

“He wouldn’t have known Will was a cop,” Kincaid said reasonably, then wondered why he was defending Ogilvie, and why Ogilvie’s ignorance should make what he’d done any less reprehensible. “Any news of Will?”

“He’s in surgery. Fractured femur, they think, and ruptured femoral vein.”

Finishing his sandwich, Kincaid rolled the cling film into a tiny ball. “He was fast. Faster than I was. If I’d got out and called for backup, none of it might have happened.”

Deveney nodded, not bothering to excuse him. “You get slow in CID. You lose your edge. You spend too much time writing bloody reports, sitting on your backside at a desk.”

“I don’t think you’ll find that David Ogilvie’s gone soft at all,” said Kincaid.

Ogilvie looked none the worse for wear. He’d hung his anorak neatly over the back of his chair, and his white cotton shirt looked as crisp as if it had just come from the laundry. He smiled at Kincaid and Deveney as they came in and sat opposite him. “This should be an interesting experience,” he said as Deveney turned on the tape recorder.

“I should think you’re about to have quite a few new experiences,” said Kincaid, “including a very long stay in one of Her Majesty’s finer accommodations.”

“I’ve been intending to catch up on my reading,” countered Ogilvie. “And I have an exceptionally good solicitor, who is on his way here, by the way. I could refuse to say anything until he arrives.”

And why doesn’t he? Kincaid wondered as he tried to read the expression in Ogilvie’s dark eyes. David Ogilvie was highly intelligent as well as experienced in the rules of interviews. Did he want to talk, perhaps even need to talk?

Kincaid cast a warning glance at Nick Deveney—this was definitely an occasion when aggression wouldn’t get them anywhere. “Tell us about Claire,” he said to Ogilvie, leaning back in his chair and folding his arms.

“Have you any idea how lovely she was ten years ago? I could never fathom what she saw in him.” Ogilvie sounded incredulous, as if the years had not dimmed his amazement. “It can’t have been sex—she always came to me starved, and I think she must have kept up her ice-queen façade until after
they were married. Maybe she sensed that was what he wanted … I don’t know.”

So that had been the way of it, thought Kincaid. “I take it he didn’t know she was sleeping with you?”

Ogilvie shook his head. “I certainly didn’t tell him.”

“Not even after she told you she meant to marry him?”

“Don’t insult me, Superintendent. I’d not stoop to that.”

“Even though it might have botched things for Gilbert?”

“To what end? Claire would have despised me for betraying her. And I think by that time he was so determined to have her that it wouldn’t have stopped him. She was his porcelain prize, to be shown off as his latest accomplishment. The phrase ‘trophy wife’ might have been invented for Gilbert and Claire, but he underestimated her. I’ve often wondered how long it took for him to realize he’d got a real person.” Ogilvie’s face had relaxed as he talked about Claire, and for the first time Kincaid could imagine what she might have seen in him.

“You had no contact with her?”

“Not until tonight.” Ogilvie sipped from the cup of water on the table.

Kincaid sat forwards, hands on the table. “What evidence did Gilbert have against you?”

“Trying to take me by surprise, Superintendent?” The mocking wariness returned to Ogilvie’s mouth. “I think that’s something I’d prefer to discuss with my solicitor.”