Leave the Grave Green

Sir Gerald held out his right arm, baring a hairy wrist for their inspection. “Don’t wear a watch, Mr. Kincaid. Never found it comfortable. And a nuisance taking it off for every rehearsal or performance. Always lost the bloody things. And the car clock never worked properly.”

“You didn’t stop at all?”

Shaking his head, Sir Gerald answered with the finality of one used to having his word taken as law. “I did not.”

“Did you speak to anyone when you came in?” Gemma asked, feeling it was time she put an oar in.

“The house was quiet. Caro was asleep and I didn’t wake her. I can only assume the same for Vivian. So you see, young lady, if it’s an alibi you’re after,” he paused and twinkled at Gemma, “I suppose I haven’t one.”

“What about your daughter, sir? Was she asleep as well?”

“I’m afraid I can’t say. I don’t remember seeing Julia’s car in the drive, but I suppose someone could have given her a lift home.”

Kincaid stood. “Thank you, Sir Gerald. We will need to talk to Dame Caroline again, at her convenience, but just now we’d like to see Julia.”

“I believe you know your way, Mr. Kincaid.”

“Good God, I feel like I’ve been dropped right in the bloody middle of a drawing room comedy.” Gemma turned her head to look at Kincaid as she preceded him up the stairs. “All manners and no substance. What are they playing at in this house?” As they reached the first landing, she stopped and turned to face him. “And you’d think these women were made of glass, the way Sir Gerald and Mrs. Plumley coddle them. ‘Mustn’t upset Caroline… mustn’t upset Julia,’” she hissed at him, remembering a bit belatedly to lower her voice.

Kincaid merely raised an eyebrow in that imperturbable manner she found so infuriating. “I’m not sure I’d consider Julia Swann a good candidate for coddling.” He started up the next flight, and Gemma followed the rest of the way without comment.

The door swung open as soon as Kincaid’s knuckles brushed it. “Bless you, Plummy. I’m star—” Julia Swann’s smile vanished abruptly as she took in their identity. “Oh. Superintendent Kincaid. Back so soon?”

“Like a bad penny,” Kincaid answered, giving her his best smile.

Julia Swann merely stuck the paintbrush she’d held in her hand over her ear and stepped back enough to allow them to enter. Studying her, Gemma compared the woman to the thin, serious child in the photo downstairs. That Julia was certainly visible in this one, but the gawkiness had been transmuted into sleek style, and the innocence in the child’s gaze had been lost long ago.

The shades were drawn up, and a pale, watery light illuminated the room. The center worktable, bare except for palette and white paper neatly masking-taped to a board, relieved the studio’s general disorder. “Plummy usually brings me up a sandwich about this time,” Julia said, as she shut the door and returned to the table. She leaned against it, gracefully balancing her weight, but Gemma had the distinct impression that the support she drew from it was more than physical.

A finished painting of a flower lay on the table. Gemma moved toward it almost instinctively, hand outstretched. “Oh, it’s lovely,” she said softly, stopping just short of touching the paper. Spare and sure in design, the painting had an almost oriental flavor, and the intense greens and purples of the plant glowed against the matte-white paper.

“Bread and butter,” said Julia, but she smiled, making an obvious effort to be civil. “I’ve a whole series commissioned for a line of cards. Upscale National Trust, you know the sort of thing. And I’m behind schedule.” Julia rubbed at her face, leaving a smudge of paint on her forehead, and Gemma suddenly saw the weariness that her smart haircut and trendy black turtleneck and leggings couldn’t quite camouflage.

Gemma traced the rough edge of the watercolor paper with a finger. “I suppose I thought the paintings downstairs must be yours, but these are quite different.”

“The Flints? I should hope so.” Some of the abruptness returned to Julia’s manner. She shook a cigarette from a pack on a side table and lit it with a hard strike of a match.

“I wondered about them as well,” Kincaid said. “Something struck me as familiar.”

“You probably saw some of his paintings in books you read as a child. William Flint wasn’t as well known as Arthur Rackham, but he did some marvelous illustrations.” Julia leaned against the worktable and narrowed her eyes against the smoke rising from her cigarette. “Then came the breastscapes.”

“Breastscapes?” Kincaid repeated, amused.

“They are technically quite brilliant, if you don’t mind the banal, and they certainly kept him comfortably in his old age.”

“And you disapprove?” Kincaid’s voice held a hint of mockery.

Julia touched the surface of her own painting as if testing its worth, then shrugged. “I suppose it is rather hypocritical of me. These keep me fed, and they supported Connor in the lifestyle to which he’d become accustomed.”