Mourn not your Dead

pupils were dilated with distress.
    She shook her head. “No. I don’t believe it. It’s just jumble sale stuff he collected for the game.”
    “What game?” He could read her withdrawal in the half step she took away from him and the tight set of her mouth. “Lucy, if you don’t tell me, I can’t help him. I have to know what this is all about.”
    “It’s just a computer game we were playing,” she said, shrugging. “Roles, you know, and a quest. In the game you have to find certain objects, talismans, to help you along the way, and Geoff said that if we had representations, it would help us visualize better.”
    “And these things that Geoff collected, were the representations?” When Lucy nodded, he said, “Would he have taken things from your house, too?”
    “Never!” Her hair swung as she shook her head.
    Such fierce loyalty was admirable, thought Kincaid, but he wondered if it were justified.
    “It wouldn’t have worked, you see,” she said earnestly, trying to convince him. “It can't be your own things—that would negate any help they might provide in the quest.” Deciding to accept Lucy’s explanation of game logic for the moment, Kincaid went back to something that had been niggling at him. “Lucy, what did you mean when you said Geoff couldn’t bear to be taken from here?”
    She hesitated for a moment, then said slowly, “He’s frightened. I don’t know why. Brian says it has something to do with being in prison, but he never leaves the village if he can help it, and sometimes on bad days he doesn’t leave the pub. And he doesn’t like serving behind the bar—says the noise makes him feel funny—and that gets right up Brian’s nose when he’s short-handed,” she added with a ghost of a smile. “I wish I could—”
    A small white van turned into the car park and jerked to a stop beside them. The windows were darkly tinted, so Kincaid didn’t recognize Claire Gilbert until she jumped out and started round the van’s bonnet towards them. In her casual clothes she looked almost as young as her daughter, but her expression was both frightened and furious.
    “Lucy! What are you doing out? I’ve told you—”
    “They’ve taken Geoff away. They think he’s stolen things and that he killed Alastair.” She stepped forwards until her nose nearly touched her mother’s. “And it’s all your fault.”
    Claire recoiled visibly, but when she spoke her voice remained level and controlled. “Lucy, that’s enough. You have no idea what you’re talking about. I’m sorry about Geoff, and I’ll do whatever I can to help him, but right now I want you to go home.”
    For a moment mother and daughter stood face-to-face, the air between them vibrating with tension, then abruptly Lucy turned on her heel and walked away.
    Claire watched until Lucy disappeared into the lane, then she sighed and rubbed at her face as if to ease strained muscles.
    “What’s all your fault?” asked Kincaid, before she could regain her equilibrium.
    “I haven’t the slightest idea.” She leaned against the van and closed her eyes. “Unless... Did she say you thought Geoff had stolen things?”
    “We discovered that Geoff had worked for everyone in the village who reported jewelry and other small items missing over the last year.”
    “Oh, dear,” Claire mulled this over for a moment. “Then it may be that she’s angry with me because I mentioned my missing jewelry. But it never occurred to me that Geoff might be responsible, and I still don’t believe it. And I won’t even consider the possibility that Geoff killed Alastair.”
    “Have he and Lucy been friends long?”
    Claire smiled. “Lucy and Geoff formed an odd alliance from the time we came to the village. Lucy must have been eight or nine, and Geoff well into his teens, but there’s always been something a bit childlike about him. Not childish,” she clarified, frowning, “but he has a sort of innocence, if you know what I mean.
    “He even looked after Lucy for me until she was old enough to stay alone in the house. Of course, when Geoff left school and took that job in Wimbledon they drifted apart a bit, but since he’s come back they’ve seemed closer than ever.”
    Kincaid wondered if they were sleeping together—Lucy was certainly over the age of consent—but his instinct told him no. There had been something almost monastic in the atmosphere of Geoff s room. “It must have been hard for Lucy when he went to