All Shall Be Well (17 page)

She stared at him in consternation. “Of course I remember Jasmine and Theo, as well as I do my own name. But that’s been thirty years if it’s been a day. Why on earth would you want to know about them?”

Taking a breath, he tried to organize his approach. “It’s about—”

Alice Finney shook her head. “No, no.” She nodded toward the blank faces of the cottages. “I can tell this isn’t going to be a ‘middle-of-the-village’ matter. You’d better come in. I’ll make us some tea, and you can tell me properly, from the beginning.”

“Yes, Mrs. Finney,” Kincaid answered, meek as a schoolboy, and followed her up the walk.

*   *   *

Saucer balanced on his knee, Kincaid lifted a china cup so delicate he was afraid his breath might crack it. Outside the sitting room windows, mist had settled in again, fading the plum blossom to a pale wash of color. Alice Finney knelt at her grate, lighting a small, coal fire. When Kincaid moved to help her, she waved him back. “I’ve done it myself for nearly fifty years. No use being coddled now.”

She sat down opposite him in a brocade armchair, its seat-cover a bit shiny with wear. At Kincaid’s inquisitive glance, she picked up her cup and continued. “My Jack and I would have been married fifty-five years this spring. He was a pilot, so he died a little more gloriously than some—in the air rather than the trenches. Not that it was much comfort to him, I imagine.” She smiled at him, suddenly, impishly. “Don’t look so properly funereal, Mr. Kincaid. To tell you the truth there are days I can’t remember what he looked like, it’s been so long ago. And at my age remembering is just a sentimental indulgence. Tell me about Jasmine and Theo Dent.”

In the warmth and comfort of Alice Finney’s faded sitting room, all of Kincaid’s rehearsed introduction dissolved. “Jasmine Dent was my neighbor. And my friend. She was terminally ill with lung cancer, so when she died at first we assumed that the disease had progressed faster than expected.”

Alice Finney listened intently, not taking her eyes from Kincaid’s face even to sip her tea. At the mention of Jasmine’s death she pinched her lips together in a small grimace.

“Then we discovered that Jasmine had asked a young friend to help her commit suicide, but had backed out at the last minute. I ordered an autopsy.” Kincaid paused, but Alice didn’t interrupt. “She died from a morphine overdose, and I don’t believe it was self-administered.”

“Why?”

He shrugged. “I could give you lots of logical reasons, but
it’s more gut-reaction than anything else, to tell you the truth. I just don’t believe it.”

“And it’s brought you here.” Alice leaned forward and lifted the teapot from the small, oval table, then refilled both their cups. “I’ll tell you what I can.” She sat quietly for a moment, her eyes unfocused as she gathered her thoughts, then she sighed. “It was a bad business from the very beginning. May Dent was never meant to have children. She hadn’t the capacity to love them, thought to give her credit, perhaps she tried with Theo. She was a bitter woman, one of those people who always feel life has short-changed them. Perhaps she loved her brother more than she should, though in those days,” the corners of Alice’s mouth turned up in amusement, “one didn’t speculate about such things. Whatever the cause, she despised her sister-in-law, never had a good word to say about her.”

“And Jasmine?” Kincaid got up, went to the grate and banked the settling fire.

“Jasmine must have reminded May of her mother. Whatever the cause, those two rubbed each other the wrong way from the moment they set eyes on one another. And Jasmine … Jasmine was difficult. I’d retired from teaching when they closed the village school—the children went to the nearest comprehensive—but I still had connections, privy to gossip, you might say.”

“You were the village schoolmistress?” Kincaid was enchanted with a vision of a younger Alice, guiding her charges with the same gentle humor.

“I had two young children to raise by myself, and neither the luxury nor the inclination to be idle,” she answered crisply. “Jasmine,” she continued as if he hadn’t interrupted, “was not liked. Not actively disliked, perhaps, but she didn’t fit in, she made the other children uncomfortable.” Alice paused, frowning. “Jasmine was a beautiful girl, but in a haunting sort of way.
Different. They didn’t know what to make of her. I tried to befriend her myself—I thought she might need someone to confide in, and it certainly wouldn’t have been May—but she wasn’t having any. There was a reserve about her, a secretiveness, that one couldn’t penetrate.”

Kincaid nodded. “What about Theo? Did he fit in any better?”

Alice leaned back in her chair and stretched her legs toward the fire. Kincaid noted that her ankles, above the padded tongues of the trainers, were still trim.

“I suppose you could say Theo adjusted more easily. He looked more English, for a start. He lost his colonial accent as quickly as he could. I don’t imagine Jasmine ever did, completely?” Alice inquired of Kincaid. “She had that very precise enunciation, and a trace of the sing-song that comes from speaking the Hindustani dialects.”

“No, she never lost it. And it grew more pronounced with her illness.” Kincaid realized that Jasmine’s voice had been one of the things that had attracted him to her—that, and her intelligence, and her sharp, dry humor.

“Theo did make friends with the local children, or was at least allowed to tag along. And May coddled him a bit in the beginning. He was only ten when they came, after all. Still practically an infant. But he always had this lost-puppy air about him, as if he might be kicked any minute.”

“And as they got older?”

“What always surprised me,” said Alice, “was that Jasmine stayed as long as she did. I imagine it was her sense of duty to Theo that kept her here. She was very protective of him, and very jealous of May. Especially when Theo began to get into trouble.”

“Trouble? Theo?” Kincaid straightened up, his interest quickening.

Alice moderated her comment. “Well, I don’t think Theo
ever did anything wrong in a malicious sense. He was just one of those boys that attract bad luck, and unsavory friends, and it began to tell. Always in the wrong place at the wrong time, if you know what I mean.”

Kincaid smiled. “I’ve heard that once or twice before. And how did May react to Theo’s little escapades?”

“She defended him at first, but after Jasmine left, the escapades became more serious than setting pastures alight and joyriding in other people’s autos.” Leaning forward, Alice took a biscuit from the plate and nibbled at its edge. “Chocolate digestives. My one vice,” she added apologetically. “May stopped talking about sending him to university. It was a pipe dream, anyway, he’d never done well enough at school to merit it.”

“Do you know why Jasmine left?” Kincaid asked, treading delicately now.

“No. But I always wondered. She just quit her job and disappeared. Literally here one day and gone the next. May was absolutely furious. Called her an ungrateful bitch, which was strong language for May. Of course, from the time Jasmine left school May had done nothing but complain about her, what a burden she was and how anxious she was to be rid of her—though I think Jasmine began paying her share of the housekeeping as soon as she found her first job. And it wasn’t as if May couldn’t afford to keep her.”

“So you’d have thought May would have been thrilled.”

“Exactly. But that was May for you. Never satisfied, especially when she got what she wanted.” Alice stared into the fire, and Kincaid waited, not interrupting. “There was something, though … I would have put it down to malicious gossip and forgotten all about it, if Jasmine hadn’t disappeared so soon afterwards.”

“A rumor?”

“Yes—that Jasmine was going around with that boy from
over in Bladen Valley, the one who wasn’t quite right. Did you come through Bladen Valley?” She gestured to the west. “Another experiment, that. Built during the first War, though, to house the estate workers. A fitting place, I suppose, for a war memorial.”

“Is that what that is? The stone cross?”

Alice nodded. “Done by the sculptor Eric Gill. It’s supposed to be one St. Juliana, a fifteenth-century mystic. What she had to do with war I never discovered.”

“Mrs. Finney,” Kincaid led her gently back, “what was wrong with the boy?”

“I’m not sure. Not retarded. More unbalanced, mentally ill, perhaps. Given to sudden fits of violence, if the stories were true, but it’s been a very long time ago.” She sighed.

“I’ve tired you,” Kincaid said, instantly contrite. “I’m sorry.”

“No, no, it’s not that.” Alice Finney straightened up, some of her crisp demeanor returning. “I’m aggravated with myself, if you must know, because I can’t remember the boy’s name. I don’t like not being able to remember things—makes me feel old.” She smiled. “Which I’m not, of course.”

“Of course,” Kincaid agreed.

“All his people are gone now, too, I think. The boy’s mother had him institutionalized, not long after Jasmine left, I believe. And she’s been dead for a good fifteen or twenty years now. There was no other family that I know of.”

“What happened to Theo, after Jasmine left?”

“He did finish school, if I remember rightly, but couldn’t seem to find his feet afterwards. Couldn’t find work, got into a bit more trouble all the time. And then May died. Took pneumonia and was gone, just like that. Jasmine never came back, not even for the funeral, and after May’s affairs were settled and the cottage sold, Theo disappeared, too. And I never heard another word of either of them, until this day.”

“Did May leave them anything, do you know?”

“She must have had quite a tidy nest egg. Tight as an old trout, May was. Managed her inheritance a sight better than her brother managed his, apparently, but I’ve no idea how she divided it between the children—there was no other family. She could have left everything to a home for wayward cats, for all I know.” She paused, her brows drawing together in concentration. “You might try the solicitor’s office in Blandford Forum.”

“The one where Jasmine worked? It’s still there?”

“It was the only one at the time, so naturally they handled May’s affairs. Old Mr. Rawlinson’s dead, and the son may not remember Jasmine, but it might be worth a try.”

Kincaid rose. “You’ve been a great help. I never meant to take so much of your time.”

“Nonsense.” She stood, shaking off Kincaid’s proffered help. “Do you think I have better things to do than take tea with an attractive young man who’s interested in everything I have to say? It’s an old woman’s dream, my dear.”

Kincaid had the sudden urge to do something very improper, very un-English. Placing his fingertips on her shoulders, he said, “You’re delightful. Your Jack was a very lucky man, and if I were a few years older, Alice Finney, I’d marry you myself.” He leaned over and kissed her cheek, and her skin felt as soft as a young girl’s lips.

Blandford Forum, Alice had informed him, had burned nearly to the ground in the summer of 1731. The fire had started in the tallow-chandler’s house and spread quickly from one thatched roof to another. Tragic as the destruction must have seemed at the time, Blandford Forum had risen from its ashes as a Georgian gem. The offices of Rawlinson and Sons, Solicitors, had been housed in a Georgian building in the rebuilt Market Place as long as anyone could remember.

Peering through the frosted glass of the inside door, Kincaid could make out only fuzzy shapes. He pulled open the door and the lumps resolved themselves into ordinary waiting room furniture, a desk, and behind it, a receptionist.

She swiveled away from her typewriter and smiled at him. “Can I help you?”

“Uh, I’m not sure, to tell you the truth. Is Mr. Rawlinson in?”

“He’s in court this afternoon.” Glancing at her watch, she added, “I’m afraid he may be a while yet. Would you like to make an appointment?”

She diplomatically didn’t add, thought Kincaid, that any self-respecting idiot would have made one in the first place. The nameplate on her desk read ‘Carol White’, a good, solid English name. It suited her. Middle-aged and well-built, with an open, friendly face and a glorious head of wavy, shoulder-length chestnut hair—in a few years she would begin the slide toward matronly, but she was still very attractive indeed.

“Would that be young Mr. Rawlinson?”

She stared at him, perplexed, but still polite. “Old Mr. Rawlinson passed away ten years ago. You’re not from around here, then?”

“London, actually.” Kincaid again fished his warrant card from his pocket, and extended it to her.

“Oh.” Her eyes widened and she glanced up at his face, then back at the folder. “Fancy that. What would Scotland Yard want with us?”

Kincaid heard the sharp, little intake of breath—the ordinary citizen’s response to the copper’s unexpected appearance—and he hastened to reassure her. “Just some very dusty information. Is there any chance Mr. Rawlinson might remember a girl who worked here almost thirty years ago? Her name was Jasmine Dent.”

Carol White stared at him, then said slowly, “No. Mr.
Rawlinson would have still been away at school. But I do. I remember Jasmine.”

Unasked, Kincaid picked up a visitor’s chair and swung it around next to the desk, never taking his eyes from Carol White’s face. “
You
do?”

Still hesitant, she continued. “I know it’s a bit silly of me, but I hate to admit I’ve been here as long as I have. I came here straight from leaving school, same as Jasmine, but she was a couple of years older.”

“Mr. Rawlinson needed two secretaries?”

“You could say that.” She smiled, showing even, white teeth. “Mr. Rawlinson liked pretty young girls, and we were both that, if I do say it myself.” Holding up a hand to forestall Kincaid interrupting, she added, “Oh, I don’t mean he was a real dirty old man—never tried anything on, as far as I know—he just fancied himself a bit of a rogue. And since he paid us the bare minimum in those days, I guess he could afford us.”

Having moved around to the side of Carol’s desk, Kincaid discovered that what he had thought to be a dress was actually a thigh-length tunic, beneath which she wore skin-tight, black, stretch trousers and high-heeled sandals. Following his appreciative gaze, she laughed. “Dressed courtesy of my teenage daughter, who can’t stand for her old mum to go out looking like a frump.” Then sobering, she said, “Truthfully, I think Mr. Rawlinson intended from the beginning to groom me as Jasmine’s successor. She must have made it as clear to him as she did everyone else that she didn’t intend to stay in this poky town any longer than she had to. Jasmine was ferociously ambitious, Mr. Kincaid. What became of her? Is she a great success? I could never see her as housewife and kids material.”