A Bitter Feast(16)

Grace went out onto the terrace and ran to greet the dogs, suddenly looking more like a child than a sulky preteen.

“Is it just you and Addie, then?” she added with a frown, glancing out. “I thought Nell was helping out this morning.”

“Nell?” Gemma echoed, realizing with dismay that Viv hadn’t heard the news.

“Yeah. Nell Greene, from the village. Nice woman. She’s supposed to be doing the setup.”

“Viv.” Gemma touched her arm. “I’m sorry, but there’s something you should know.”





Chapter Five

“Why is it,” asked Ivan, “that senior police officers are always total idiots in films and on the telly? I haven’t found that to be the case.” He gave Kincaid a sideways glance. “And you’re a superintendent, after all.”

“But not a chief superintendent,” Kincaid replied with a grin. “Therein lies the difference.”

“Well, your own super—former super, I should say—is not bad at all, and I think you’ll pass ACC Shelton. Why haven’t you gone for promotion?” added Ivan, this time keeping his eyes on the road.

“Because I don’t play golf,” Kincaid quipped, refusing to be drawn, even by Ivan.

“Neither do I,” said Ivan. “Bloody waste of time, if you ask me.”

Kincaid surveyed the workaday interior of Ivan’s country car. It was a classic Land Rover Defender from the 1980s, dark blue and lovingly restored. His father would love it, but it was certainly unexpected for a man of Ivan’s position.

He wondered how Ivan Talbot managed to navigate the spaces between his working-class background and his roles as a newspaper baron and a country gent with such apparent ease. “Isn’t it expected of you, the golfing?” he asked.

“The nice thing about money,” Ivan said, “I learned early on. You don’t have to do what people expect. Not that folks expected much of me in the beginning,” he added with a shrug of his big shoulders.

“That didn’t bother you?”

“I came from a two-up, two-down with the necessary in the back garden. My nan struggled to put tea on the table. How could they damage me? Not to mention I had Addie and the paper. Folks could think what they liked.”

Kincaid thought that one of the secrets to Ivan’s success—and his integrity—was just that: he met no one’s expectations but his own.

The green rolling countryside had flashed by them as they left the village, and it wasn’t until Ivan pulled to a stop at a T-junction that he realized where he was. The depressions left by the wrecked cars were still visible in the turf on the opposite verge. “Wait,” he said. “This is where she—Nell Greene— She must have come this way.”

Checking the rear mirror, Ivan idled the Land Rover at the stop. “This road’s the fastest way from the village to Cheltenham or Gloucester. All the surrounding villages use it.”

“But—” Kincaid surveyed the junction with dismay. “If she used this road regularly, how could she miss the stop?”

“Nell Greene, you mean?”

Kincaid nodded. His head hurt and he felt suddenly queasy. Why did he keep smelling blood?

“Maybe she felt ill,” Ivan suggested.

“Yes, but—” Kincaid stopped. That didn’t explain the dead passenger. Damn. He hated not having access to information. Maybe the local force had an identity on the man. Ivan turned into the main road and they left the junction behind, but that didn’t stop the scene from replaying in Kincaid’s head.



“Sorry, mate.” The man at the recovery yard in Cheltenham shook his head as Kincaid surveyed what remained of the Astra. “We’ve sent photos to your insurer. I’m sure they’ll be in touch. On the plus side, we recovered your mobile phone and an overnight bag. They’re in the office.”

But the phone, when removed from its plastic bag, was a total loss, its screen and casing shattered.

Ivan, who had come into the office with him, touched him on the shoulder. “Phone shop first, police station second.”

While Ivan drove to a nearby shopping district, Kincaid tried to come to grips with the loss of the car. Not that he hadn’t expected it, but seeing it had still been a shock. It was stupid, he knew. The Astra had little monetary value, and they had all hated it. But it had been a gift from his dad, and somehow the destruction of the car brought home his dad’s fragile health. He would have to tell his parents the car was gone. And then what? He had no idea what he would do to replace it.

While Kincaid dealt with the purchase of a new mobile phone and the data transfer, Ivan brought them coffee from a nearby Caffè Nero.

“I remembered how you liked it from breakfast,” Ivan said as they walked back to the Land Rover. “All set?”

Kincaid scrolled through text messages. There was one from Gemma: “Doug and boys coming early. All under control. Love you.”

“Yes.” Kincaid looked up, trying to place where they were on the map of Cheltenham he’d looked at that morning. “Are we close enough to walk to the station?”

“Not unless you’re very fit,” said Ivan. “We’re going to county HQ outside Gloucester.”



“Wally! Sprig!” Mark Cain whistled his dogs to him in the farmyard, then added, “Bella, good girl,” as the black-and-white bitch trotted behind them. He rubbed her head as she came to him, then finished locking the four-wheeler in the barn. He’d done his morning check on the flocks, Bella following the other dogs without much prompting, but he wondered how she’d do left on her own in the house when she’d been used to Nell being home most of the day.