A finer end - Deborah Crombie [76]
Fastening her lightweight jacket, she looked round the kitchen with unabashed curiosity. There was a good supply of staples on the open shelves, but no perishables that she could see other than milk, cheese, butter, and eggs. Garnet would have been a vegetarian, no doubt, and had probably done her shopping daily. The table held a casserole dish carefully covered with tinfoil. Using the handkerchief again, Gemma peeled back a corner, looked, and sniffed. A cheese and vegetable dish of some sort, still fresh.
There were no dirty dishes in the deep, old-fashioned farmhouse sink, and the washing up had been carefully left to dry on a tea towel. It looked as if Garnet had prepared their evening meal as usual, but then what? Had she gone out, expecting to come back and share the casserole with Faith?
The rumble of an approaching car startled her out of her ruminations. She nudged aside the faded curtains just in time to see Kincaid pull her Escort into the yard. As he got out, Gemma had the momentary pleasure of watching him unobserved. Relaxed in jeans and his old leather bomber jacket, the wind ruffling his chestnut hair, he moved with a grace unusual in a tall man.
Coming back across the yard after closing the gate, he stopped abruptly and peered at the ground. Curious, Gemma went out to join him.
Kincaid looked up at the sound of the door and flashed his quick grin. “So you are here. Good. But I see Greely’s men haven’t made it yet.”
“You must have been back to the house.”
“Um-hmm. And met Jack’s young friend Carlisle. Did you happen to notice his motorbike?”
“Vaguely. Why?”
“I used to have a bike like that, before I came down to London. I was the terror of the countryside, and my parents were certain I was going to end up glued to a tree. The thing is”—he knelt and touched a finger to the rutted surface of the yard—“I’d recognize those tracks anywhere.”
Gemma looked more carefully at the ground. Of course he was right. The tread marks were too narrow for a car, much less a van, and they were recent. She shouldn’t have missed them. “Bloody hell. How fresh are they, do you think?”
“We’ll have to find out when it rained, but I’d say these tracks were probably made this morning or yesterday.”
Their eyes met. “When I spoke with Nick he said he had driven by this morning. He didn’t mention coming into the yard.”
“I’d say that puts him right in the frame for Garnet’s murder.”
Gemma picked up his thought. “In which case, maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to leave Faith alone with him. We should go back—but I meant to pick up a few of Faith’s things, if I can do it without disturbing the scene.” She turned back to the house and Kincaid followed. She heard his snort of surprise when he stepped through the door.
“I don’t suppose Garnet had any Y-two-K worries. Talk about off the grid.”
The cats, sated now and prone to view Gemma as their savior, rubbed madly about her ankles, purring, until she let them out. “I’ll just see what I can turn up upstairs.”
Leaving him, she made her way through the dim corridor and up the staircase. She found Faith’s room first, as comfortless a retreat as she had ever seen. The sight of the folded nightdress and the plush bunny on the pillow moved her almost to tears.
Suddenly she wanted desperately to hold her son, to feel his small body warm against hers and rub her nose in his silky hair. Gathering a few meager things for Faith, she left the room quickly.
However, she couldn’t resist a peek in the bedroom across the hall. On the threshold, she stopped in surprise. The room was unexpectedly feminine, considering the rest of the house. The high four-poster bed was neatly made, and the room as undisturbed as the kitchen. There had been no struggle here.
When Kincaid pulled the Escort into Jack’s drive, Jack’s blue Volvo stood in its usual spot and there was no sign of Nick Carlisle’s motorbike. “An unexpected changing of the guard?” Kincaid asked. “Let’s see what’s up, shall we?”
They found Jack in the kitchen,