Leave the Grave Green

“With a bloody good Cap d’Antibes, too. Con would have liked a wake, don’t you think? He was all for Irish tradition.” Tasting what remained of her wine, she made a face. “Warm.” She refilled her glass, then lit a cigarette. “I’m going to cut down, I promise,” she said in anticipation of Kincaid’s protest, smiling.

“What are you doing, barricading yourself up here like this, Julia? The rest of the house doesn’t look like anyone’s been in it.” He examined her face, deciding that the shadows under her eyes were more pronounced than they had been the day before. “Have you eaten anything?”

Shrugging, she said, “There were still some bits and pieces in the fridge. Con’s sort of bits, of course. I would have settled for bread and jam. I suppose I hadn’t realized,” she paused to draw on her cigarette, “that it would have become Con’s house. Not mine. Yesterday I spent most of the day cleaning, but it didn’t seem to make any difference—he’s everywhere.” She made a circular gesture with her head, indicating the studio. “Except here. If he ever came up here, he left no traces.”

“What makes you want to eradicate him so thoroughly?”

“I told you before, didn’t I?” She knitted her brow and gazed at him over the rim of her glass, as if she couldn’t quite remember. “Con was a first-class shit,” she said without heat. “A drinker, a gambler, a womanizer, a lout with a load of Irish blarney that he thought would get him anything he wanted—why would I want to be reminded of him?”

Kincaid raised a skeptical eyebrow and sipped his wine. “Can we attribute this to Con, too?” he asked, tasting its crisp delicacy against the roof of his mouth.

“He had good taste, and he was surprisingly adept at finding a bargain,” Julia admitted. “A legacy of his upbringing, I would imagine.”

Kincaid wondered if Connor’s attraction to Sharon Doyle stemmed from his upbringing as well—a spoiled only son of a doting mum might have considered devotion his due. He hoped that Con had also seen her value.

Uncannily echoing his thoughts, Julia said, “The mistress—what did you say she’s called?”

“Sharon. Sharon Doyle.”

Julia nodded, as if it fit an image in her mind. “Blond and a little plump, young, not very sophisticated?”

“Have you seen her?” Kincaid asked, surprised.

“Didn’t need to.” Julia’s smile was rueful. “I only imagined my antithesis,” she said, having a little difficulty with the consonants. “Look at me.”

Kincaid found it all too easy to oblige. Framed in the dark bell of her hair, her face revealed humor and intelligence in equal measure. He said, teasing her, “I’ll only follow your hypothesis so far. Are you suggesting I should regard you as ancient and world-weary?”

“Well, not quite.” This time she gave him the full benefit of her grin, and Kincaid thought again how odd it seemed to see Sir Gerald’s smile translated so directly onto her thin face. “But you do see what I mean?”

“Why should Connor have wanted someone as unlike you as he could find?”

She hesitated a moment, then shook her head, shying away from it. “This girl—Sharon—how is she taking it?”

“I’d say she’s coping, just.”

“Do you think it would help if I spoke to her?” She ground out her cigarette and added more lightly, “I’ve never quite been sure of the proper protocol in these situations.”

Kincaid sensed how vulnerable Sharon would feel in Julia’s presence, and yet she had no one with whom she could share her grief. He had seen stranger alliances formed. “I don’t know, Julia. I think she’d like to attend Connor’s funeral. I’ll tell her she’s welcome, if you like. But I wouldn’t expect too much.”

“Con will have told her horror tales about me, I’m sure,” Julia said, nodding. “It’s only natural.”

Regarding her quizzically, Kincaid said, “You’re certainly feeling magnanimous tonight. Is it something in the air? I just had a word with Trevor Simons and he was in the same frame of mind.” He paused, swallowing a little more of his wine, and when Julia didn’t respond, he went on, “He’s says he’s willing to swear under oath that you were together the entire night, regardless of the damage to his marriage.”

She sighed. “Trev’s a decent sort. Surely it won’t come to that?” Wrapping her arms around her calves, she rested her chin on her knees and looked at Kincaid steadily. “You can’t really think I killed poor Con, can you?” When Kincaid didn’t answer she lifted her head and said, “You don’t think that, do you, Duncan?”

Kincaid ran the evidence through his mind. Connor had died between the closing of the gallery show and the very early hours of the morning, the time for which Trevor Simons had given Julia a cast-iron alibi. Simons was a decent sort, as Julia had so aptly put it, and Kincaid had disliked goading him, but he felt more certain now than ever that he would not have compromised himself by lying for Julia.