Mourn not your Dead

house.
    “Chief Inspector Deveney is waiting for you in the kitchen, sir,” said the constable. The gate moved silently as he opened it and led them through. ‘There’s a path just here that goes round the back. The scene-of-crime lads will have some lamps rigged up shortly.”
    “No sign of forced entry?”
    “No, sir, nor any tracks that we’ve been able to see. We’ve been careful to keep to the stones.”
    Kincaid nodded in approval. When his eyes adjusted to the dimness within the precincts of the garden wall, he could see that the house was large and stolidly Tudor. Red brick, he thought, squinting, and above that black-and-white half timbering. Not the real thing, surely—more like Victorian, a representation of the first migration of the well off into suburbia. A faint light shone through the leaded panes in the front door, echoed by faint glints from the upstairs windows.
    Carefully he knelt and touched the grass. The lawn that separated them from the house felt as smooth and dense as black velvet. It seemed that Alastair Gilbert had lived very well.
    The flagged path indicated by the constable took them along the right side of the house, then curved around to meet light spilling out from an open door. Beyond it Kincaid thought he could see the outline of a conservatory.
    A silhouette appeared against the light, and a man came down the steps towards them. “Superintendent?” He extended his hand and grasped Kincaid’s firmly. “I’m Nick Deveney.” An inch or so shy of Kincaid’s height and near his age, Deveney flashed them a friendly smile. “You’re just in time to have a word with the pathologist.” He stepped aside, allowing Kincaid, Gemma, and the still-silent Williams to enter the house before him.
    Kincaid passed through a mudroom, registering a few pairs of neatly aligned wellies on the floor and macintoshes hanging from hooks. Then he stepped through into the kitchen proper and halted, the others piling up at his back.
    The kitchen had been white. White ceramic floors, white ceramic walls, set off by cabinets of pale wood. A detached part of his mind recognized the cabinets as something he had seen when planning the refitting of his own kitchen— they were freestanding, made by a small English firm, and quite expensive. The other part of his mind focused on the body of Alastair Gilbert, sprawled facedown near a door on the far side of the room.
    In life, Gilbert had been a small, neat man known for the perfection of his tailoring, the precision of his haircuts, the gloss upon his shoes. There was nothing neat about him now. The metallic smell of blood seemed to lodge at the back of Kincaid’s nose. Blood matted Gilbert’s dark hair. Blood had splattered, and smeared, and run in scarlet rivulets across the pristine white floor.
    A small sound, almost a whimper, came from behind Kincaid. Turning, he was just in time to see a pasty-faced Williams push his way out the door, followed by the faint sound of retching. Kincaid raised an eyebrow at Gemma, who nodded and slipped out after Williams.
    A woman in surgical scrubs knelt beside the body, her profile obscured by a shoulder-length fall of straight, black hair. She hadn’t looked up or paused in her work when they had entered the room, but now she sat back on her heels and regarded Kincaid. He came nearer and squatted, just out of the blood’s path.
    “Kate Ling,” she said, holding up her gloved hands. “You won’t mind if I don’t shake?”
    Kincaid thought he detected a trace of humor in her oval face. “Not at all.”
    Gemma returned and dropped down beside him. “He’ll be all right,” she said softly. “I’ve sent him along to the duty constable for a cuppa.”
    “Can’t tell you much,” Dr. Ling said as she began stripping off her gloves. “Blood’s not congealing, as you can see.” She gestured at the body with the deflated latex fingers of an empty glove. “Possibly taking some sort of anticoagulant. From the body temperature I’d say he’s been dead four or five hours, give or take an hour or two.” Her eyelid drooped in a ghost of a wink. “But look at this,” she added, pointing with a slender index finger. “I think the weapon has left several crescent-shaped depressions, but I’ll know more when I get him cleaned up.”
    Looking closely, Kincaid thought he detected fragments of skull in the blood-matted hair, but no crescent shapes. “I’ll take your word for it, Doctor. Any defense