A Bitter Feast(49)

“Did he go back to the loo?”

“Once, yeah, and was in there a few minutes.”

Ibby pumped his fist. “This could be it. The big one.”

“If he’s looking at us, he’ll come back one more time,” said Fergus. He’d gone upstairs and come back with the bottle of twenty-five-year-old Glenfarclas he kept locked under the bar. Now, he gave it a wipe with the towel in his apron, and pulled the cork. “Gather round, children,” he said, and they all held out a random assortment of cups and glasses.

Viv watched him as he poured and they all raised their drinks in a toast. He was too bright, almost feverish, and she didn’t like it. She knew about the coke, of course. It went along with the after-hours drinking and the leggy society girls who were slumming it a bit with the Irish chef. But she’d never seen him use during service, and she had a nasty suspicion that was what accounted for the missing half hour tonight.

When she looked up, he was watching her. “Viv, darlin’, not celebrating? It’s all down to you, you know, the evening’s success.” His tone was teasing, but the look in his eyes said he was not. Fergus O’Reilly knew he had lost it.

Viv raised her glass. They were watching her, Fergus and Ibby and Danny, Mikey and John, Magnus the kitchen porter and Geraldo the dishwasher. “It was a good effort tonight on everyone’s part. But we can’t coast on this. We were good but we can be better. If he comes back, Mr. Michelin, whatever his name is, we are going to have to raise our game. To O’Reilly’s.” She drank, and the whisky went down like fire.

Supper had been a casual affair. Addie had brought in cold meats and salads from the Daylesford farm shop, along with a selection of cheeses and fresh-baked baguettes. They’d served their plates from platters in the kitchen, then carried them through to the long table in the dining room.

“We can seat ten,” Addie had told Gemma, “so nine is quite comfortable.”

“Are you sure you want children in the dining room?” Gemma had asked, worrying about Charlotte and Toby’s table manners.

“They’ll be fine,” Addie assured her, bringing Charlotte a booster cushion from the sitting room.

Gemma hated to admit how seldom they ate anywhere but the kitchen in their own house and vowed to do a better job of civilizing her children.

But in the end there was no worse damage than scattered bread crumbs, and no worse gaffes than Toby feeding a bite of something he didn’t like to Polly the terrier under the table. Still, Gemma breathed a sigh of relief when it was time to clear up.

Everyone had been quiet during dinner, subdued perhaps by the events of the day, although Addie and Ivan had kept polite conversation going. Sitting across from Kincaid, Gemma watched his eyelids droop and his face become more drawn as the meal went on. “Go and take another one of your pills,” she whispered to him as she helped clear the table, and it was rather to her surprise that he nodded and disappeared up the stairs.

All three of the Talbots waved off her offers of help with the washing up. “You need to get the kids settled,” Melody told her, adding, “and besides, Dougie needs to make himself useful,” earning her an offended look from Doug.

But Gemma was glad of the respite. She made sure the boys had everything they needed, then took Charlotte upstairs. They found Kincaid stretched out on the bed, still in his clothes and shoes, his eyes closed. “I’m just resting,” he said, blinking and starting to sit up. “Ivan wanted me to have a drink.”

“Nonsense. He’s just being polite. And you have no business drinking alcohol with pain pills.”

“I can just have a tonic or something to be sociable.”

“Stay put while I get Charlotte ready for bed. Char, give Daddy a kiss. Gently.”

Kincaid gathered Charlotte into his uninjured arm, murmuring, “Love you, sweet pea,” into her hair.

By the time Gemma had got Charlotte into jammies, teeth brushed, and tucked into bed with her new Alfie book, Charlotte’s eyes were closing. Kissing her, Gemma pulled up her covers and went back to check on Kincaid.

He was sound asleep. Carefully, she pulled off his shoes, then covered him with a spare blanket. He didn’t stir. With a sigh, she sat beside him and smoothed the hair from the unblemished side of his brow. The bruising around the cut on his forehead was ugly, the skin beneath his eye beginning to darken. The stubble on his cheeks and chin looked patchy—he’d done a lousy job of shaving left-handed that morning—making him look even more disreputable.

In the few minutes she’d had to talk to him in the hall before dinner, he’d told her what he and Booth had learned at the hotel. “Was it Viv, do you think, that O’Reilly met in the garden?” Gemma asked.

Kincaid shrugged, then winced and touched his ribs. “There’s too much we don’t know. We can’t even be certain it was a woman—the receptionist just said that was her impression.”

“What about Nell Greene’s cottage, then? Did you find anything there?”

“There was nothing to indicate she had any connection with O’Reilly.” Kincaid sounded irritated, as if she’d touched a nerve with the question. “She was just an ordinary woman living an ordinary life. Divorced. Maybe lonely. Making the best of things. She loved her dog.”

“Well, if O’Reilly was here three weeks ago, who did he see if it wasn’t Viv? Or Nell?”