Leave the Grave Green

“Crikey!” His eyes widened and he looked her up and down. “You don’t look like a copper.”

“Don’t get cheeky with me, mate,” she said, grinning. Resting her elbows on the counter-sill, she leaned forward earnestly. “Can you tell me what time Sir Gerald signed out last Thursday evening, Danny?”

“Ooh, alibis, is it?” The glee on Danny’s face made him look like an illustration right out of an Enid Blyton novel.

“Routine inquiries just now,” Gemma said, managing to keep a straight face. “We need to know the movements of everyone who might have had contact with Connor Swann the day he died.”

Danny lifted a binder from the top of a stack and opened it at the back, flipping through the last few pages. “Here.” He pointed, holding the page up where Gemma could see. “Midnight on the dot. That’s what I remembered, but I thought you’d want—what is it, corroboration?”

Sir Gerald’s signature suited him, thought Gemma, a comfortable but strong scrawl. “Did he usually stay so long after a performance, Danny?”

“Sometimes.” He glanced at the sheet again. “But he was last out that night. I remember because I wanted to lock up—had a bird waiting in the wings, you might say.” He winked at Gemma. “There was something, though,” he said more hesitantly. “That night… Sir Gerald… well, he was half-cocked, like.”

Gemma couldn’t keep the surprise from her voice. “Sir Gerald was drunk?”

Danny ducked his head in embarrassment. “I didn’t really like to say, miss. Sir Gerald always has a kind word for everybody. Not like some.”

“Has this happened before?”

Danny shook his head. “Not so as I can remember. And I’ve been here over a year now.”

Gemma quickly entered Danny’s statement in her notebook, then closed it and returned it to her bag. “Thanks, Danny. You’ve been a great help.”

He passed over the sign-in sheet for her initial, his grin considerably subdued.

“Cheerio, then,” she said as she turned toward the door.

Danny called out to her before she could open it. “There’s one other thing, miss. You know the son-in-law, the one what snuffed it?” He held up his ledger and pointed to an entry near Sir Gerald’s. “He was here that day as well.”

CHAPTER

6

Eggs, bacon, sausage, tomatoes, mushrooms—and could that possibly be kidneys? Kincaid pushed the questionable items a little to one side with the tip of his fork. Kidneys in steak-and-kidney pie he could manage, but kidneys at breakfast were a bit much. Otherwise the Chequers had done itself proud. Surveying his breakfast laid out on the white tablecloth, complete with china teapot and a vase of pink and yellow snapdragons, he began to think he should feel grateful for Sir Gerald Asherton’s influence. His accommodations when out of town on a case were seldom up to these standards.

As he’d slept late, the more righteous early risers had long since finished their breakfasts and he had the dining room to himself. He gazed out through the leaded windows at the damp and windy morning as he ate, enjoying his unaccustomed leisure. Leaves drifted and swirled, their golds and russets a bright contrast against the still-green grass of the churchyard. The congregation began to arrive for the morning service, and soon the verges of the lanes surrounding the church were lined with cars parked end to end.

Wondering lazily why a church in a village as small as Fingest would draw such a crowd, he was suddenly struck by the desire to see for himself He pushed a last bite of toast and marmalade into his mouth. Still chewing, he ran upstairs, grabbed a tie from his room and hastily knotted it on his way back down.

He slipped into the last pew just as the church bells began to ring. The notices tacked up in the vestibule answered his question quickly enough—this was the parish church, of course, not just the village church, and he must have been living too long in the city not to have realized it. It was also most likely the Ashertons’ church. He wondered who knew them and if some of those gathered had come out of curiosity, hoping to see the family.

None of the Ashertons were in evidence, however, and as the peaceful order of the service settled over him, he found his mind drawn back to the previous evening’s revelations.

It had taken him a few minutes to calm her down enough to get her name—Sharon Doyle—and even then she’d taken his warrant card and examined it with the intensity of the marginally literate.

“I’ve come for me things,” she said, shoving the card back at him as if it might burn her fingers. “I’ve a right to ’em. I don’t care what anybody says.”

Kincaid backed up until he reached the sofa, then sat down on its edge. “Who would say you didn’t?” he asked easily.

Sharon Doyle folded her arms, pushing her breasts up against the thin weave of her sweater. “Her.”

“Her?” Kincaid repeated, resigned to an exercise in patience.