Leave the Grave Green

“Connor was living in Julia’s flat?” He found the idea very odd indeed. Why hadn’t she booted him out and stayed herself, rather than going back home to her parents? It sounded much too amicable an arrangement for a couple who had supposedly not been speaking to one another.

Of course, he added to himself as he considered the girl sitting across from him, it might not have been true. Perhaps Connor had needed a handy excuse. “Is that why Connor didn’t have you move in with him?”

His jacket slipped from Sharon’s shoulders as she shrugged, reexposing the pale swell of her breasts through the weave of the pink fuzzy sweater. “He said it wasn’t right, it being Julia’s house and all.”

Kincaid hadn’t imagined Connor Swann being a great one for moral scruples, but then Connor was proving to be full of surprises. Glancing at the open-plan kitchen, he asked, “Do you cook?”

Sharon looked at him as if he had a slate loose. “Course I can cook. What do you take me for?”

“No, I mean, who did the cooking here, you or Connor?”

She thrust her lower lip out in a pout. “’E wouldn’t let me touch a thing in there, like it was a bloody church or something. Said fry-ups were nasty, and he’d not have anything boiled in his kitchen but eggs and water for the pasta.” Still absently holding her glass, she stood and wandered over to the dining table. She traced a finger across its surface. “’E cooked for me, though. No bloke ever did that. Nobody ever cooked anything for me but me mum and me gran, come to think of it.” Looking up, she stared at Kincaid as if seeing him for the first time. “You married?”

He shook his head. “I was once, a long time ago.”

“What happened?”

“She left. Met someone else.” He said the words flatly, with an ease born of years of practice, yet it still amazed him that such simple sentences could contain such betrayal.

Sharon considered that, then nodded. “Con made me supper—‘dinner,’ I mean—he’d always remind me to say ‘dinner.’ Candlelight, best dishes. He’d make me sit while he brought me things—‘Try this, Shar, try that, Shar.’ Funny things, too.” She smiled at Kincaid. “Sometimes I felt like a kid playing dress-up. Would you do things like that for a girl?”

“I’ve been known to. But I’m afraid I’m not up to Con’s standards—my cooking runs more to omelets and cheese-on-toast.” He didn’t add that he’d never been inclined to play Pygmalion.

The brief animation that had lit Sharon’s face faded. She came slowly back to her chair, empty glass trailing from her fingertips. In a still little voice she said, “It won’t happen to me again.”

“Don’t be silly,” he scolded, hearing the false heartiness in his voice.

“Not like with Con, it won’t.” Looking directly at Kincaid, she said, “I know I’m not what blokes like him go for—always said it was too good to be true. A fairy tale.” She rubbed the sides of her face with her fingers, as if her jaws ached from unshed tears. “There’s not been anything in the papers. Do you know about the… arrangements?”

“No one in the family’s rung you?”

“Rung me?” she said, some of her earlier aggression returning. “Who the hell do you think would’ve rung me?” She sniffed, then added, mincing the names, “Julia? Dame Caroline?”

Kincaid gave the question serious consideration. Julia seemed determined to ignore the fact that her husband had existed, much less died. And Caroline? He could imagine her performing a distasteful, but necessary, duty. “Perhaps, yes. If they had known about you. I take it they didn’t?”

Dropping her gaze to her lap, she said a little sullenly, “How should I know what Con told them—I only know what he told me.” She pushed the hair from her face with chubby fingers, and Kincaid noticed that the nail on her index finger was broken to the quick. When she spoke again the defiance had gone from her voice. “He said he’d take care of us—little Hayley and me.”

“Hayley?” Kincaid said blankly.

“My little girl. She’s four. Had her birthday last week.” Sharon smiled for the first time.

This was a twist he hadn’t expected. “Is she Con’s daughter, too?”

She shook her head vehemently. “Her dad buggered off soon as he knew I was going to have her. Rotten swine. Not heard a word from him since.”

“But Con knew about her?”

“Course he did. What do you take me for, a bloody tart?”

“Of course not,” Kincaid said soothingly, and, eyeing her empty glass, unobtrusively fetched the bottle. “Did Con get on with little Hayley, then?” he asked, dividing the last of the sherry between them.

When she didn’t answer, he thought perhaps he’d gone over the mark with the sherry, but after a moment she said, “Sometimes I wondered… if it was really her he wanted, not me. Look.” Digging in her handbag, she pulled out a worn leather wallet. “That’s Hayley. She’s lovely, isn’t she?”