Mourn not your Dead

physical or emotional. Who would have borne the brunt of it?” He glanced at Gemma’s profile, then said emphatically, “His wife. I’ve always said this murder was committed in rage, and I think Claire Gilbert hated her husband.”
    “If you’re right,” said Gemma, “how are you going to prove it?”
     
    CLAIRE MET THEM AT THE BACK DOOR WITH AN ANXIOUS EXpression. “I’ve called the hospital and they’re being very closemouthed about Constable Darling. Have you heard anything?”
    “Better than that,” Gemma reassured her. “I’ve seen him, first thing this morning, and he’s doing fine.”
    Kincaid paused in the mudroom, running his eye along the macintoshes hanging on a row of hooks. When he saw what he was searching for he didn’t know whether he felt jubilant or sorry.
    “And... David?” Claire asked as they entered the kitchen. She looked at Kincaid.
    “He’s still helping us with our inquiries.”
    Lewis was lying on Lucy’s quilt, but this morning he lifted his head and thumped his tail. Kincaid knelt and scratched his ears. “I see this patient is improving, too, though he’s not entirely back to his rambunctious self.”
    “Lucy insisted on staying up with him all night. It was only after the vet came an hour ago that I was able to convince her to curl up on the sofa in the conservatory.” Claire hesitated, fingering the silk scarf bunched in the neck of the crisply tailored white shirt she wore. “About David... he was a good man, once. Whatever has happened to him in the last few years, I still can’t imagine him capable of... killing anyone.”
    “I’m inclined to agree with you,” Kincaid said, feeling Gemma’s sharp glance.
    Claire gave him a relieved smile. “Thank you for coming to set my mind at rest. Can I get you a coffee or some tea?” Kincaid took a breath. “Actually, we’d like a word with you. Someplace a bit more private, if you wouldn’t mind.” Her smile faltered, but she agreed readily enough. “We can use the sitting room. I’d rather not disturb Lucy just now.”
    They followed her into the room that had seemed so welcoming the night Alastair Gilbert died, leaving the door just slightly ajar. The fire was cold in the hearth, and the red walls seemed tawdry in the thin daylight streaking through the shutters.
    Kincaid sat stiffly on the armchair’s chintz seat. He had rehearsed angle after angle, how he might surprise her, trick her, but in the end he began simply.
    “Mrs. Gilbert, I’ve learned several things this last week that have led me to believe your husband physically abused you. Perhaps this happened only on one or two occasions, perhaps it had been going on from the very beginning of your marriage. I don’t know.
    “I do know, however, from sources other than David Ogilvie, that your husband suspected you of having an affair. He went so far as to accuse Malcolm Reid, and he threatened him.”
    Claire put a hand to her mouth, pressing hard on her lips with her fingers. Reid hadn’t told her, thought Kincaid. What else had Claire Gilbert’s friends kept from her in their desire to protect her? And what had she kept from them?
    “But Reid was guilty of no more than helping you hide financial assets, and he told Gilbert where to get off. How close did your husband get to the truth, Claire? Did he threaten Brian, too?”
    The silence stretched as Claire twisted her hands together in her lap. This was the watershed, Kincaid knew, and he had to remind himself to breathe. If she denied her relationship with Brian, he had no other lever to use and no evidence against her but his own wild suppositions. Her face seemed shuttered and remote, as if none of this quite touched her, then she took a little breath and said, “David knew, didn’t he?”
    Kincaid nodded and made an effort to keep the relief from his voice. “I think so, but he didn’t tell us.”
    “It was no great middle-aged passion, you know, Brian and me,” she said with a trace of a smile. “We were lonely, both of us, and needy. He’s been a good friend.
    “And Malcolm. I never told Malcolm the whole truth about Alastair, only as much as I could bear. I said I was tired of being condescended to, of being treated like a chattel, and Malcolm helped me any way he could. I was so careful not to take that bankbook home. I even hid it away in a secret place in the shop, in case Alastair managed somehow to search my desk. He was very plausible when he wished it, you know. I