A Share in Death by Deborah Crombie Page B

looked like antiques, or good reproductions. The bed had high, matching curved ends. Kincaid believed it was called a sleigh bed, and again, probably a reproduction. Hanging on the pale gray walls were museum-quality framed prints, some Modernists, one or two Kincaid thought he recognized as American Impressionists.
    Sebastian’s reading matter was equally eclectic, housed in a simple pine bookcase which was the only visible holdover from his boyhood years. Childhood classics propped up stacks of magazines detailing the art of motorcycle maintenance. Stephen King mingled with espionage and the latest techno-thrillers—Sebastian’s taste had apparently run to the complicated and the devious. Onthe top shelf Kincaid discovered an old edition of the Complete Sherlock Holmes, and a worn set of Jane Austen.
    Clothes hung neatly in the wardrobe, organized by type as well as color. The sight of those garments, waiting for their owner to pick and choose, match and discard them, struck Kincaid as almost unbearably sad.
    He found the files in the back of the wardrobe, stowed carefully in a cardboard box marked “Insurance.”

CHAPTER 7
    Kincaid thanked Mrs. Wade as kindly as he could, taking her small hand in his for a moment. She had drifted away again while he was upstairs, and her eyes focused on him with difficulty. She smelled faintly, he noticed, of chewing gum and fresh-cut tobacco, the aromas of the tobacconist’s shop.
    “What about the shop, Mrs. Wade? Have you got someone to take over for you?”
    “I’ve shut it just now. Didn’t seem right. I meant to leave it to Sebastian, you know. Not for him to serve behind the counter, not with his advantages, but he could have hired someone and still had a nice little income. I put all the insurance money from his dad into it. It should have been his.”
    Kincaid patted the limp hand, searching for some words of comfort. “I’m sure he would have appreciated it, Mrs. Wade. I’m sorry.”
    The brass knocker winked brightly at him as he closed the door. The morning had turned fair and blowy while he’d been inside. A piece of yellow paper fluttered under the Midget’s wiper like a butterfly trapped in the sun.He’d collected a parking ticket for his trouble—the local traffic constable, at least, was vigilant.
    Kincaid retrieved the ticket and stuck it into his wallet. He folded the Midget’s top down, lowered himself into the driver’s seat and sat in the silent street, thinking. What to do, now, with this unexpected information? He couldn’t ignore it. Why, in the name of all that was competent, hadn’t Nash’s men searched the room already? It had been nearly thirty-six hours since Sebastian’s body had been discovered, and Nash had only sent a W.P.C. to break the news—he hadn’t even interviewed the mother, for Christ’s sake. Actually, he amended, ‘thank god’ might be a better qualification, as he couldn’t imagine that Nash would have done anything to ease her distress.
    Nash would have to be told, there was no help for it. And help, decided Kincaid, was just what he needed. He turned the key in the ignition and lifted the car phone from its cradle.
    *   *   *
    Kincaid counted himself extremely fortunate in his immediate superior. Chief Superintendent Denis Childs was an intelligent man whom Kincaid liked personally and respected professionally—and Kincaid knew that the luck of the draw could have just as easily given him a chief like Nash, although he liked to think that a copper of Nash’s caliber would never make it past Detective Constable at the Yard.
    Denis Childs was a massive man, dwarfing Kincaid’s rangy six feet, and with his olive skin and bland inscrutability of feature, he sometimes made Kincaid think of an Eastern potentate—one finger on the political pulse and the other on his harem.
    “Sir,” Kincaid said, when they were finished with the standard greetings, “I’ve run into a little problem.”
    “Oh, you have,