Mourn not your Dead

floor by her bed again. I was always fussing at her to pick up things, and now it doesn’t matter. Why did I ever think it did? Can you tell me that?” She stopped as they had first seen her, her back to them, facing the terrace. “They’ve given me indefinite ‘compassionate’ leave from work. To do what? Coming home to this empty flat in the evenings will be bad enough; the thought of spending days here alone is unbearable.”
    “What about your sister?” asked Gemma. “Can she stay with you for a bit?”
    Susan nodded. “She’s packed her kids off to Grandma for a few days. She’ll help me go through... Jackie’s things. She... Jackie, I mean... hadn’t any family, so there’s no one else to see to things...” Susan stopped, and for a moment Kincaid thought she would lose control, but she managed to go on. “She didn’t want to be cremated. She actually worried about it, and I used to laugh at her. Do you suppose she knew...I’ll have to try to find a cemetery that will take her. Then I’m going back to work—I don’t care how callous anyone thinks me.”
    She turned around and faced them. “Jackie talked about you a good bit in the last few days, Gemma. It meant a lot to her to see you again. I know there was something she was anxious to talk to you about, but I don’t know what it was—only that I heard her mumble something about a ‘bad apple where you’d least expect it.’ ”
    “I saw her yesterday. Before her shift. She told me—”
    “You saw her? How did she—what did she—” Susan swallowed and tried again. “She didn’t happen to say anything about me, did she?”
    Kincaid saw Gemma hesitate, then quickly collect herself. “She talked about your promotion. She was really proud of you.”
    The front door opened and Cecily came in with a shopping bag full of purchases. Twisting her hands together again, Susan smiled at her sister, then said to Gemma, “You will let me know, won’t you, if you find out... anything?”
    “We’ll be in touch.” Gemma stood and gave her a quick hug. Cecily let them out and they descended the stairs in silence.
    By the time they reached the street, tears were streaming down Gemma’s face. “It’s not bloody fair,” she said furiously as she got into the car. “Susan should have seen her last, not me.” She slammed the door so hard the car shook. “It’s not bloody fair. Jackie shouldn’t be dead—and if it’s because of me, I’ll never forgive myself.”
     
    “WE’RE TREADING ON VERY DELICATE GROUND HERE,” KINCAID said as he pulled into the Notting Hill Police Station car park. “We have absolutely no grounds for pursuing inquiries concerning the involvement of a senior Met officer, other than an unsubstantiated rumor. I’d suggest that we begin with discretion.” He pulled the car into an empty space, then thought for a moment, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. “I think we’ll have to disclose Jackie’s interest in the Gilbert case in order to justify our poking our noses into her murder, but I don’t know that we need go any further at this point.”
    Gemma nodded, then fished a tissue from her bag and blew her nose.
    “We could just say that Jackie told you she’d heard something dodgy about Gilbert, but that you don’t know what it was. Then in the meantime, let’s see if we can trace Ogilvie’s movements last night and the night of Gilbert’s murder, but in a roundabout way. That’ll be enough to get the wind up him, if he’s dirty.”
    “Chat up his secretary, why don’t you?” Gemma suggested. “She has an eye for a pretty face.”
    Kincaid glanced at her, wondering if the comment was a dig or an attempt at banter, but she was examining her fingernails with great concentration. “Who was the sergeant that Jackie said stonewalled her?” he asked.
    “Talley. I remember him from my days here.”
    “I think we might want to have a word with him, too.” Watching her, Kincaid wished again for something he might say, some comfort he might offer without sounding condescending, but no words seemed adequate. He resisted the urge to touch her shoulder, her cheek. “Are you ready?” She nodded. “As I’ll ever be.”
     
    “THIS IS A STROKE OF LUCK,” KINCAID MURMURED TO Gemma as they were shown into Superintendent Marc Lamb’s office. He and Lamb had met during their first development course, but it had been several years since they had bumped into each other.
    “Duncan, old