Leave the Grave Green

Kincaid knew he’d received the tail end of the anger she couldn’t vent on Connor—anger at Connor for dying, for leaving her. “It’s difficult for a grown man to fall in and drown, unless he’s had a heart attack or is falling-down drunk. We won’t be able to rule those possibilities out until after the autopsy, but I think we’ll find that Connor was in good health and at least relatively sober.” As he spoke her eyes widened and she shrank back in her chair, as if she might escape his voice, but he continued relentlessly. “His throat was bruised. I think someone choked him until he lost consciousness and then very conveniently shoved him in the river. Who would have done that to him, Sharon? Do you know?”

“The bitch,” she said on a breath, her face blanched paper-white beneath her makeup.

“What—”

She stood up, propelled by her anger. Staggering, she lost her balance and fell to her knees before Kincaid. “That bitch!”

A fine spray of spittle reached his face. He smelled the sherry on her breath. “Who, Sharon?”

“She did everything she could to ruin him and now she’s killed him.”

“Who, Sharon? Who are you talking about?”

“Her, of course. Julia.”

The woman sitting beside Kincaid nudged him. The congregation was rising, lifting and opening hymnals. He’d heard only snippets of the sermon, delivered in a soft and scholarly voice by the balding vicar. Standing quickly, he scrabbled for a hymnal and peeked at his neighbor’s to find the page.

He sang absently, his mind still replaying his interview with Connor Swann’s mistress. In spite of Sharon’s accusations, he just didn’t think that Julia Swann had the physical strength necessary to choke her husband and shove him into the canal. Nor had she had the time, unless Trevor Simons was willing to lie to protect her. None of it made sense. He wondered how Gemma was getting on in London, if she had found out anything useful in her visit to the opera.

The service came to a close. Although the congregants greeted one another and chatted cheerfully as they filed out, nowhere did he hear Connor or the Ashertons mentioned. They glanced curiously and a little shyly at Kincaid, but no one spoke to him. He followed the crowd out into the churchyard, but instead of returning to the hotel, he turned his collar up, stuck his hands in his pockets and wandered among the headstones. Distantly, he heard the sounds of car doors slamming and engines starting, but the wind hummed against his ears. Leaves rustled in the thick grass like small brown mice.

He found what he had been halfway looking for behind the church tower, beneath a spreading oak.

“The family,” said a voice behind him, “seems to have been more than ordinarily blessed and cursed.”

Startled, Kincaid turned. Contemplating the headstone, the vicar stood with his hands clasped loosely before him and his feet spread slightly apart. The wind whipped his vestments against his legs and blew the strands of thinning, gray hair across his bony skull.

The inscription said simply: MATTHEW ASHERTON, BELOVED SON OF GERALD AND CAROLINE, BROTHER OF JULIA. “Did you know him?” Kincaid asked.

The vicar nodded. “In many ways an ordinary boy, transformed into something beyond himself by the mere act of opening his mouth.” He looked up from the headstone and Kincaid saw that his eyes were a fine, clear gray. “Oh yes, I knew him. He sang in my choir. I taught him his catechism, as well.”

“And Julia? Did you know Julia, too?”

Studying Kincaid, the vicar said, “I noticed you earlier, a new face in the congregation, a stranger wandering purposefully about among the headstones, but you did not seem to me to be a mere sensation seeker. Are you a friend of the family?”

In answer Kincaid removed his warrant card from his pocket and opened the case. “Duncan Kincaid. I’m looking into the death of Connor Swann,” he said, but even as he spoke he wondered if that were now the entire truth.

The vicar closed his eyes for a moment, as if conducting a private communication, then opened them and blinked before fixing Kincaid with his penetrating stare. “Come across the way, why don’t you, for a cup of tea. We can talk, out of this damnable wind.”

*      *      *

“Brilliance is a difficult enough burden for an adult to bear, much less a child. I don’t know how Matthew Asherton would have turned out, if he had lived to fulfill his promise.”

They sat in the vicar’s study, drinking tea from mismatched mugs. He had introduced himself as William Mead, and as he switched on the electric kettle and gathered mugs and sugar onto a tray, he told Kincaid that his wife had died the previous year. “Cancer, poor dear,” he’d said, lifting the tray and indicating that Kincaid should follow him. “She was sure I’d never be able to manage on my own, but somehow you muddle through. Although,” he added as he opened the study door, “I must admit that housekeeping was never my strong suit.”