Mourn not your Dead

snake sloughs an old skin?
    “But why are you here?” She turned to Will and Gemma as if the thought had just occurred to her. “I don’t know why you’d need to talk to Malcolm.” She hugged herself as if cold, and a note of fear crept into her voice as she added, “Has something happened? What’s go—”
    “Routine inquiries,” Reid said with a grin before Gemma could answer. “Nothing to worry about. Right, Sergeant?”
    “Mrs. Gilbert,” said Gemma, “could I have a word with you?”
     
    HAVING SUGGESTED A WALK, GEMMA LED THE WAY ACROSS the bridge and took the path along the little Tillingboume River. Birches grew right along the water’s edge, and their bare silvery branches reached towards the sky as if seeking the last of the pale sun.
    Gemma wondered how best to frame her questions. Claire seemed at ease, content to walk in silence. She smiled at Gemma, then stooped for a stone and stood hefting it in the palm of her hand. Shaking her head, she bent and looked for another one. The wind parted her hair as she knelt, revealing a flash of pale and slender neck. The sight made Gemma feel oddly and uncomfortably protective, and she looked away.
    Claire found another stone, stood, and skipped it expertly across the water. When the last set of ripples had stilled, she said, “I haven’t done that in years—I’m surprised I remember how. Do you think it’s like riding a bike?” Then, as if continuing a conversation, “Thank God for Becca. I don’t know what I’d do without her. She’ll make all the arrangements for the funeral when... when they release Alastair’s body.”
    “Becca?”
    “Our vicar, Rebecca Fielding.”
    Gemma saw an opening. She was willing to abandon Malcolm Reid for the moment in order to delve into the past. “I don’t suppose experience makes these things any easier. I didn’t know about your first husband when we talked the other day. I’m sorry.”
    “There’s no need for you to be—you couldn’t have known. And Stephen was always a great one for getting on with things. I tried to remember that on those days it didn’t seem worthwhile getting up.” Claire stopped and turned towards the river. Hands shoved in her trouser pockets, she stared into the water where it ran like molten pewter over the stones. “But that all seems a very long time ago. I’m not even sure I know her anymore, that distant Claire.”
    “That was when you met Commander Gilbert, after Stephen died?”
    Claire’s smile held no mirth. “Alastair thought I needed looking after.”
    “And did you?”
    “I thought I did,” answered Claire, walking again. “Stephen and I married very young, just out of school. Childhood sweethearts. He was a journalist, you know, a brilliant one.” With a glance at Gemma she added fiercely, “We had a good life. And after Lucy was bom it was even better, but it wasn’t what you’d call secure, living from assignment to assignment.
    “So there I was, my husband dead, my parents dead, no job skills at all, and a five-year-old daughter to care for. Stephen had a bit of life insurance, not enough to last more than a year or two even if we pinched every penny.” The path had narrowed and now stopped abruptly against a stone wall. Claire turned and started back. “Alastair seemed safe.” Gemma followed her silently as they reached the road again and crossed over. They followed the lane leading to the church, skirting the tubs of bright flowers that half blocked the pavement.
    Gemma followed her silently as they reached the road again and crossed over. They followed the lane leading to the church, skirting the tubs of bright flowers that half blocked the pavement.
    What would she have done without her job and her parents’ support when Rob left? Would she, like Claire, have chosen security had it been offered her? “What about David Ogilvie?” she asked. “Was he in love with you, too?”
    “David?” Claire stopped with her hand on the church gate and gave her a startled glance.
    “We had to interview him as your husband’s staff officer. There was something in what he didn’t say that made me wonder.”
    “Oh, David…” Claire said on a sigh that echoed the creak of the gate. As they picked their way through the tall grass surrounding the gravestones, she plucked a spear and twisted it in her fingers. “David was... difficult. At the time I convinced myself that I was just another of David’s potential conquests, a notch on his