All Shall Be Well by Deborah Crombie

Author:Deborah Crombie
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 1994-09-21T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER

11

“Cut and dried.”

“All right. Justify it.” Kincaid pushed his chair away from his desk and propped his feet up on the open bottom drawer. He’d gone bleary-eyed from an afternoon’s paperwork when Gemma, smelling of cold air and crackling with excitement, had charged back into the office.

“She’s bloody terrified, poor little rabbit.” Gemma stopped pacing and sat on the arm of the visitor’s chair, hands beneath her bottom. “I don’t mean I think she knew beforehand, but she let that boyfriend in on the will, and now she’s sweating it.” She leaned forward for emphasis, reaching up with quick fingers to tuck back hair that the wind had teased from the clip at the nape of her neck. “Let’s say Roger was waiting for Margaret that afternoon when she left Jasmine’s, and she told him Jasmine had changed her mind. They have a row, and Roger goes off to do his set-up. Later on he makes some excuse to push off early, then pops round to Jasmine’s flat.”

“I thought he said he’d never been there.”

Shoulders lifting in a tiny shrug, Gemma said, “So maybe he lied. Who’s going to contradict him? Margaret?” She paused for a moment, then continued more thoughtfully. “Or maybe he told the truth. That wouldn’t have stopped him showing up at her door, making some kind of excuse. He could be very … plausible, I think.”

Kincaid leaned back in his chair, hands clasped behind his head, and grinned. “Not immune to our Roger, then?”

Gemma shivered. “Like being locked up with a snake. Gave me the creeps, he did. I’d not put anything past him. What if,” she stood and began pacing the small confines of the office again, “somehow he found out about Jasmine’s will before he ever met Margaret? Why else would he chat up Margaret in the first place? He must have women queuing up to go out with him. And don’t tell me,” she added, coloring as she saw Kincaid smile, “that he sees the purity of her soul or something, because I don’t believe it.”

“I don’t either, but it may not be that simple, all the same.” Kincaid remembered the scene he’d witnessed in Margaret’s room—Roger enjoyed displaying his sexual hold over her, and that was probably only the tip of the iceberg. “Just suppose you’re right, Gemma, far-fetched as it is, how could Roger have known about Jasmine?”

“Bribed her solicitor?”

Kincaid shook his head, thinking of Antony Thomas’s gentle outrage. “Not likely. But what if you’re right about the first part and Roger did go to Jasmine’s flat that night? He’s never met her, he makes some excuse for coming, and then what? Does he say ‘Excuse me, let me give you an overdose of morphine?’” He jabbed a finger at Gemma. “I’d swear there was no struggle.”

“Maybe he told her Margaret had just been using her, and then Jasmine decided to kill herself after all.”

“All he had to do was wait. Why would he risk the final outcome?”

“Perhaps he thought he

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