Mourn not your Dead

habits, you know. I’m sorry if I overstepped your boundaries, but I care about you, and I want to help if I can.”
    The kindness in Hazel’s voice brought an ache to Gemma’s throat, and she felt a sudden longing to pour out her troubles and be comforted. Instead, she swallowed and asked tentatively, “How could you bear it, Hazel? Giving up your job like that? Weren’t you afraid of losing yourself?”
    Hazel watched the children for a long moment before answering. “It hasn’t been easy, but I haven’t regretted it, either. I’ve learned from experience that it’s a great emotional risk to ground one’s identity entirely in one’s work. Life is entirely too tumultuous for that—you can lose a job or a career tomorrow, and then where are you? The same is true of marriage and motherhood. You have to rely on something deeper than that, something inviolate.” She looked up and met Gemma’s eyes. “Easier said than done, I know, and I’m not avoiding the personal question. I waited until fairly late to have a child, and as much as I enjoyed my work I decided that being with Holly the first few years of her life was an experience I wouldn’t have a chance to repeat. I sometimes feel guilty about that, knowing so many women who don’t have that option—like you.” Hazel’s dimples appeared as she grinned at Gemma. “But then I’m not sure you’d take it if you could.”
    Brow furrowed, Gemma studied her mug as if the contents held an answer. “No way, I’d have said in the beginning. I saw being pregnant and having a baby as a bloody nuisance, to tell the truth—just another way I’d let Rob’s carelessness spill over into my life. But now...”
    Toby, perhaps sensing some current of unease in his mother’s voice, stopped his play and came to stand beside her, butting his head against her arm.
    Gemma cuddled him and tousled his hair. “But now I don’t know. There are days when I envy you.” She thought of Jackie Temple’s unexpected revelation. Was anyone ever satisfied with her lot?
    “And there are days when I think I’ll go mad if I hear another toy advert,” countered Hazel, laughing. “So I cook. That’s my defense.” She stood up and carried their empty mugs to the sink. “And I think it’s time to switch from restoratives to sedatives.” She pulled a bottle of white wine from the fridge. “This Gewurztraminer’s lovely with the spices in North African food.” Retrieving a corkscrew from a drawer, she started to peel the foil cap off the bottle, then stopped and turned back to Gemma. “Just one more thing. I’ll not push you, but I want you to know that I’m always here if you want to talk. And I’ll not let the therapist get in the way of the friend.”
     
    GEMMA FELL ASLEEP THAT NIGHT IN THE CURVING LEATHER chair in the flat, Toby sprawled across her lap, only to wake in the wee hours, chilled, numb from the weight of her son’s relaxed body, with Claire Gilbert’s face burnt into her mind like the bright afterimage of a flare.
     

Seven
     
    THE DOORBELL PEALED AS KINCAID AND NICK DEVENEY waited on the steps of Dr. Gabriella Wilson’s creeper-covered cottage, a few doors up the lane from the Gilberts’.
    Escaping gratefully after a morning of meetings at Guildford Police Station, they’d left Will Darling to collate the still-incoming reports. When Dr. Wilson’s name had appeared on the list of burglary victims gleaned from yesterday’s house-to-house of the village, they’d made her their first priority.
    As they drove into the village, Deveney had mumbled something around the cheese roll he clutched in his right hand while shifting with his left. Swallowing, he said more clearly, “Kill two birds. And make Gemma happy, at any rate,” he’d added with a cryptic glance at Kincaid.
    They’d begun to feel the cold by the time the door swung open. A small, competent-looking, middle-aged woman studied them. She seemed to have taken up where Kincaid and Deveney left off, for she held half a sandwich in her left hand, a perfect half-moon-shaped bite missing from its edge. “You’ll be the police, I expect,” she said equably. “I wondered when you’d get around to me again. Come in, but you’ll have to be quick about it.” Turning, she led them down a passage towards the back of the house. “I barely manage a bite as it is, between morning surgery and afternoon calls.”
    Passing through a swinging door, they entered the kitchen and she