A Bitter Feast Read online

  “No. I mean the bloke in the passenger seat. There was barely a trickle from that head wound. I’d swear he was already bloody dead when the car crashed.”

  The woman in scrubs, he learned, was called Tracey, Tracey Woodman, and she’d been on her way home from an ambulance shift out of Cheltenham.

  “I was only a half mile behind you,” she told him. “I heard the crash.” Her shoulders twitched in an involuntary shudder. “There’s nothing else sounds like that. I feared the worst.” She glanced down at him. “You were lucky.”

  One of the ambulance crew called to her and, after telling Kincaid firmly to stay put, she walked away. The police arrived shortly after, first one panda car, then a second. The fire brigade was not far behind. Kincaid watched as the police and the firefighters conferred with the medics, set flares across the road to redirect traffic, then began setting up a cordon round the accident scene. Used to being in charge, he felt oddly helpless. It was only when an officer came over to speak to him that he realized he not only had no transportation, he had no means of communication. His mobile had been on the car seat.

  “My mobile phone,” he said. “Did anyone find it?”

  The officer, whose name badge read hawkins, shook his head. “No joy, I’m afraid. You’ll have to wait for the scene investigators to finish, and while I’m sure they’ll do their best, that won’t be anytime soon.” Hawkins took Kincaid’s details, raising his eyebrows at Kincaid’s rank. Kincaid at least had identification. His driving license and warrant card were still in his jacket pocket. He winced as he drew them out. His hand was throbbing and every breath brought a stabbing pain in his ribs.

  “And what were you doing here? Sir,” Hawkins added hastily.

  “Meeting my wife. We’re visiting friends for the weekend. At Beck House.”

  This garnered another raised eyebrow. “Just so we can contact you, sir. And we’ll need a blood draw before you leave the scene. You’ll need to come into the station at Cheltenham to make a full statement tomorrow.”

  He’d thought about asking if he could borrow the officer’s phone to ring Gemma when Tracey Woodman returned. “When they’re finished with you, I’d be happy to give you a lift.”

  Kincaid accepted gratefully.

  Woodman examined him, frowning. “You’ll need that cut on your forehead stitched.”

  He shook his head, suddenly feeling exhausted. “Not tonight.”

  “Then let me at least clean you up a bit, after they stick you.” Leading him over to the ambulance, she sat him on the tailgate, where one of the ambulance medics took a blood sample and labeled it. Then Woodman swabbed gently at the cut in his hairline, finishing with some strips of tape. “There. You’re going to look quite rakish, even once it’s stitched. Downright piratical.”

  “My kids will be impressed.” He managed a smile. “Not to mention my wife. Once she gets over killing me for worrying her. I’m hours late, and I lost my mobile in the crash.”

  “Do you want to use mine to ring her?”

  Kincaid thought, then shook his head, gingerly. “It’s not far, I don’t think. Better I tell her in person. It’s Beck House, near Upper Slaughter.”

  Woodman whistled. “The Talbot place? You do move in fine company. You know,” she added as they walked back to her car, “I think I heard at the hospital that Nell Greene had retired to one of the Slaughters. Inherited a cottage or something. We should all be so lucky.” She glanced at the mangled remains of Nell Greene’s little car and shrugged. “Or maybe not.”

  Chapter Three

  The Talbots had come out to greet Gemma and Melody as soon as Melody’s car came to a full stop on the gravel drive. “My mum has radar. She’ll have sensed us coming up the lane,” Melody whispered as Gemma got out and lifted Charlotte from her car seat. Charlotte clung to her, taking in the house and the strangers with wide eyes.

  Lady Adelaide Talbot had given her daughter a peck on the cheek, then held out her hands to Gemma. “I’m so pleased to meet you at last. And you must be Charlotte,” she said, bending down so that she could look the child in the eye as Gemma let Charlotte slide to the ground. “Welcome to Beck House, darling. We’re going to have lots of fun. Would you like to see the house?”

  Charlotte nodded, still shy.

  “Thank you for having us, Lady Adelaide,” Gemma began, but Melody’s mother was already shaking her head.

  “Call me Addie. Everyone does. Can you imagine being saddled with Adelaide? And I’m only a lady when I’m not at home.” Her smile was infectious and Gemma relaxed. Melody had always given her the impression that her mother was quite starchy. She’d been expecting prim, proper, and possibly matronly. Glancing at Melody, she thought she should have known better. Addie Talbot was small, dark-haired, and even more delicate than her daughter. She was also effortlessly elegant in a way that made Gemma doubt her own choice of work trousers and nubby jumper, and wonder just how badly her hair needed a brush.

  To cover her discomfort, she exclaimed over the cascades of pink roses surrounding the front door. “Oh, these are gorgeous. What are they?”

  “St. Swithun’s. A David Austin climber. Ivan chose them because he misses his dreadful Newcastle weather,” Addie added as she linked her arm through her husband’s.

  “St. Swithun’s Day, if it does rain, full forty days it will remain,” said Ivan with a twinkle. “Famously inaccurate.”

  “Do come in,” Addie urged. “Ivan can bring your things.” She took Charlotte’s hand and whispered something in her ear that made her giggle.

  From inside the house came the sound of excited barking, one dog a high, shrill yap, the other a deeper rumble. “Puppies,” said Charlotte, jiggling with excitement now.

  “We put the dogs in the study,” explained Addie, nodding towards the room on the front of the house. “Until we knew if you were comfortable with them.”

  “Oh, we have tw—” Gemma began, just as an enormous furry head appeared in the window and a loud “Woof” rattled the glass.

  Gemma and Charlotte both jumped, and all of the Talbots grinned. “That’s MacTavish, Mum’s dog,” said Melody. “He’s the size of a horse. But don’t worry, he’s a sweetheart.”

  “MacTavish?”

  “He’s a Scottish deerhound,” Addie explained. “We thought he deserved something appropriately north of the border.”

  Ivan held the door for them, and Gemma caught her breath as she stepped inside. The covered entry opened into a large dark-beamed hall that ran the depth of the house. Sun falling through the west windows painted the pale cream walls with blocks of gold, and through windows on either side of a staircase at the back, Gemma saw a garden and the green of rising hills. A fire already crackled in a large fireplace set at a right angle to the front door.

  “It’s beautiful,” Gemma murmured. “And so unusual.”

  “My great-grandfather built it in 1905,” said Addie. “The architect was a disciple of Luytens and a devoted follower of the Arts and Crafts movement. They believed in function as well as comfort.”

  “I’ll take you for a tour,” put in Melody, nodding towards the study, where the barking was now interspersed with frantic whining, “but first things first. You might want to pick up Charlotte so that Mac doesn’t knock her down.”

  Ivan opened the study door and the dogs came bounding out. The small bark, Gemma saw, belonged to a Jack Russell that leapt excitedly at Melody’s legs. “That’s Polly,” said Melody, “Dad’s favorite girl.”

  Ivan shook his head, laughing. “Jealousy will get you nowhere, sweetheart.”

  The deerhound, an enormous gray beast with a head so large he seemed almost prehistoric, trotted towards them. Charlotte buried her head in Gemma’s shoulder and even Gemma tensed a bit. But the dog was as gentle as Melody had promised, and when he came to sniff and lick at Gemma’s fingers, Charlotte reached out, too, and giggled at the dog’s wet tongue.

  Catching the heady scent of roses beneath the resinous sme
ll of the fire, Gemma turned and saw a bowl filled with roses on a side table. Some were the pale pink of the climber by the front door, others deeper pinks and reds. “Are these all from your garden?” she asked.

  Smiling, Addie said, “The last flush. It’s a bit of a hobby.”

  Melody rolled her eyes. “A bit, yeah. You wouldn’t think Mum is happiest with a trowel in her hand, would you? Come on, I’ll show you round.”

  The house was smaller than Gemma had expected, and much more homey. From the deep Mediterranean blue of the sitting room that overlooked the gardens, to the pale blush pink of the kitchen/dining area that opened out from the kitchen side of the central fireplace, the place looked well lived in. Sir Ivan’s deep red study faced the drive, as did a formal dining room. There were just enough touches of chintz to add country charm, enough leather to add masculinity, and the oil paintings of Cotswold landscapes glowed like jewels on the walls. The reds, pinks, and blues flowed from room to room in harmony, and Gemma couldn’t help but notice that all the colors set off Addie Talbot’s flawlessly pale complexion. She also realized that the casualness of the house was quite deliberately—and very expensively—achieved, with the sort of expertise that came only with generations of money and taste.

  She felt suddenly much less at ease.

  There were four bedrooms on the first floor, and four smaller bedrooms in what had once been the nursery and servants’ quarters on the second floor. She and Duncan had been given a room on the first floor, adjoining a dressing room fitted with a small bed for Charlotte. The windows overlooked the gardens and the hills that were now only deep shadows in the dusk.

  “This is perfect,” she said to Melody. A shelf of worn books ran the length of the wall above the bed. The wallpaper was rose-sprigged, the bed linens white and puffy, but one corner of the room held a small desk and a slightly tattered slipper chair with an ottoman and reading lamp. “Was this room yours?” she asked, as it struck her.

  Melody nodded. “And it usually still is, when I come to stay, but it’s the only room other than Mum and Dad’s with an en suite bath and a bed for Charlotte. I’m happy to take one of the guest rooms,” she added before Gemma could protest. “And I certainly wasn’t giving this one to Doug.”

  From the dressing room, Charlotte said, “Mummy, is this for me?”

  Turning, Gemma saw that she meant not the little bed, but a picture book that had been placed on the pillow. When Gemma joined her, she saw that a note had been clipped to the front. “Charlotte, welcome to Beck House,” she read. The heavy paper was signed with a large stylized A. “Yes, darling, it is,” Gemma told her. “A present from Lady Addie. You’ll have to thank her.”

  “It’s an Alfie! A new one!” Charlotte clutched the book to her chest. The books by Shirley Hughes about a little boy named Alfie were Charlotte’s favorites, as they had been Toby’s.

  “How thoughtful of your mother,” Gemma told Melody.

  “One of her many talents. She wanted everyone to feel welcome.”

  But Addie wouldn’t have known that the books were Charlotte’s favorites unless Melody had told her. Like mother, like daughter, Gemma thought, remembering all the seemingly casual little things that Melody did for her and for others on the team, things that meant she’d been paying attention to what pleased them.

  “Your mum seems awfully calm for having such a big event tomorrow.”

  Melody laughed. “I wouldn’t count on that. I would guarantee you that she’s making last-minute calls right now, just making sure she has all her ducks in a row.”

  “What’s the luncheon in aid of, exactly? You never said.” Gemma had been in court that week, so she and Melody had spent most of the drive catching up on work news.

  “The two local churches. Upper and Lower Slaughter are in different parishes, so supporting one without the other would be a political minefield.” Melody frowned. “But I think the real reason is that Mum wants our local chef—remember the pub I pointed out?—to up her game. She’s invited food critics and bloggers and the event will get lots of media attention. I hope Viv is up for it.”

  “Why wouldn’t she be?”

  “Rumor is that Viv was a rising star on the London food scene ten or twelve years ago. Then she just disappeared. Turned up here a couple of years ago and bought into the Lamb. Wanted a quiet life, apparently. I’d say she got that.”

  “Mummy.” Book in one hand, Charlotte tugged at Gemma’s jumper with the other. “Read it to me.”

  “Let’s take it downstairs, shall we?” Melody told her. “Dad will have poured drinks and we don’t want to keep them waiting.”

  “I can’t think what’s keeping him,” said Gemma a few hours later. She felt it was rude to sit clutching her mobile in the Talbots’ sitting room, but she’d tried Kincaid half a dozen times without a response. It was nearing nine o’clock and he should have arrived shortly after them. She’d even contemplated ringing Kit or Doug, to see if they’d heard from him, but didn’t want to worry them unnecessarily.

  “Do you want us to mount a search party?” asked Addie. Gemma thought she was joking until Addie continued, “Ivan can take the Land Rover while Melody and I take our cars. You need to stay with your daughter, of course.”

  “Oh, no, I’m sure he’ll turn up,” protested Gemma, shaking her head. Kincaid would be mortified if she called out the cavalry.

  But Melody was frowning. “It’s not like him.”

  “Maybe his mobile battery died,” Gemma suggested, trying to convince herself. “It wouldn’t be the first time he forgot his car charger. Or he could have had car trouble. I keep telling him he’s got to replace the old boat, even if it hurts his dad’s feelings.” The Astra estate had been a gift from Hugh, Kincaid’s father, when the demands of family life had finally forced Kincaid to give up driving his classic MG. A wife, three kids, and two dogs simply had not fit.

  She put her phone on the side table and sipped at the brandy Sir Ivan had insisted on pouring her after dinner. Waiting for Kincaid, they’d put off the light supper the Talbots had prepared until Charlotte had been almost too sleepy to eat. Cold salads, pâté, cheeses, and bread had been laid out in the comfortable eating area in the kitchen.

  “We didn’t want to worry about getting a hot meal on the table with everyone in transit and the little one up past her bedtime,” Addie had said. “I raided Daylesford Organic,” she added with a conspiratorial smile. Gemma had no idea what she was talking about.

  “The Fortnum and Mason of the countryside,” Melody explained. “The poshest farm shop you can imagine. Run by the family who owns JCB.” When Gemma still looked blank, she elaborated. “You know. Tractors. Earth movers. Pots of money. And the shop is so upmarket it even has a spa.” When Gemma raised her eyebrows, Melody said, “Seriously. That’s where you’ll find all the Chipping Norton set. Even the Camerons, if the stars are in your favor.”

  Ivan’s mouth twitched in amusement. “Or not, more like.”

  In spite of what she’d heard from Kincaid, Sir Ivan Talbot had been a surprise to Gemma. She’d seen photos, of course, so she’d known he was impressively tall and blond, but nothing had prepared her for his sheer presence. Or for the remnants of his Geordie accent. Melody had told her his story; a Newcastle grammar school boy, he’d come to London and taken a job as a fledgling reporter for the Chronicle, the newspaper owned by Addie’s family. Smart and fiercely ambitious, his wooing of the boss’s daughter had made London tongues wag. But anyone who wondered whether plain Ivan Talbot had courted Lady Adelaide Mann out of a desire to move up in the world had only to see the two of them together to know otherwise.

  More and more of the running of the paper had fallen to Ivan, and when Addie’s parents died, Ivan had taken over, shaping the paper to his vision. They had all, in the last few months, had reason to be thankful for it.

  Gemma was wondering if there was any way she could tell him how much she appreciated what he’d done for Kincaid when both dogs lifte
d their heads, ears pricked. She heard it then, the crunch of tires on gravel, and then the dogs began to bark.

  Later, Kincaid would only remember the swoop of the drive in the dark, then the shape of the house, blotting out the sky. It seemed formidable, but light shone from the lower windows, a good sign, surely.

  Tracey Woodman brought the car to a halt in front of the door. Then, reaching up, she switched on the dome light and examined his face one more time. “Are you sure you’re okay?” she asked. “I’d be happier if you’d go to A and E.”

  “I’m fine,” Kincaid assured her. In fact, he didn’t feel fine at all, but the last thing he wanted to do was go to hospital. “Nothing that a good night’s sleep won’t mend.”

  “Promise me you’ll at least have someone look at that cut tomorrow. And at your hand.”

  Ouch. Obviously he hadn’t managed to hide the fact that his hand was swelling and hurt like blazes. “Right. I will.” He could hear dogs barking now, from inside the house.

  Tracey seemed to hesitate a moment, then pulled her handbag from the footwell and dug round in it. She fished out a pen and a scrap of paper with a look of triumph. “Just in case you need anything,” she said, scribbling, “like some more medical advice to ignore”—she looked up with a grin—“here’s my number. I only live in Bourton.”

  “Thank you,” Kincaid said, offering her his left hand. “Really.” Light spilled from the door of the house. “I’d better go.” As he climbed out and shut the car door, Tracey switched off the dome light, then gave him a friendly wave as she drove away.

  Kincaid turned to see Gemma coming towards him, followed by Ivan Talbot, Melody, and a small, dark-haired woman he assumed must be Melody’s mother. The barking continued from inside the house.

  “Duncan! Where’s your car? What happened? Are you all right?” Peering at him, Gemma touched his arm, her face creased with concern. “What have you done to your face? I was so worried.”