She checked the number over its door. “Mr. Brent, I believe.”
“The inspector said something about his prize flowers.”
“An understatement.” No bead curtain covered this doorway, and as they brushed their way down the narrow path, the smell of roasting meat competed with the cloying scent of the flowers. From inside, a telly blared forth the theme from Grandstand.
Kincaid tapped on the doorjamb, waited a moment, then called “Hullo!” over the din.
“Just coming,” answered a woman’s voice. She appeared from the rear of the house, wiping her hands on a flowered pinny. “Can I help you?”
“We’re here to see Mr. Brent.”
Grimacing, the woman said, “Hang on a moment while I turn this racket down.”
As she slipped through the sitting room door, they saw a flash of television screen, then the noise stopped.
Returning to them, she nodded. “That’s better. Bloody thing drives me crazy. Now, what did you say you wanted?”
“Mr. Brent,” answered Gemma. “We’re from the police. We’d like to talk to him about this morning.”
The woman’s face instantly creased with concern. “A terrible thing. Dad’s been that upset, it’s taken me the whole morning to get him settled. I had to promise him roast chicken and potatoes, in this heat, and now you want to get him all riled up again.” She was small and wiry, with cropped hair kept black with the help of the dye bottle. Beneath the flowered pinny she wore stretchy trousers and an open-necked tee shirt.
Kincaid smiled. “I’m sorry, Mrs.—”
She touched her hair, then held her hand out to Kincaid. “Hubbard. Brenda Hubbard, née Brent. I’ll just—”
“Bren!” a man’s voice called from the back of the house. “Who is it, Bren?”
Brenda hesitated a moment, then shrugged. “It’s the police, Dad. They’ve come to see you.” Stepping back, she led the way into the sitting room.
Gemma instinctively drew in her arms as they entered, for the small room was stuffed so full of things that movement was restricted to a narrow path through its center. The fringed lamp shades competed with the poppy-sprigged wallpaper, which shouted in turn at what was visible of the bold floral carpet. Souvenir-type knickknacks and family photographs jostled for space on every flat surface, but the photos held the advantage by spilling over onto the walls.
Brenda Hubbard looked back at Gemma, then gestured at the photos. “I tell Dad there’ll be no room for him one of these days, but he can’t bear to part with any of them.”
Pausing, Gemma examined a group of particularly ornate frames atop a bookcase. “School class?” she asked, pointing at the photo in the largest.
Smiling, Brenda said, “Family. There were fourteen of us. Thirteen girls and a boy, the last. Mum was determined, I’ll give her that.” She briefly touched a photo of a faded, sweet-faced woman surrounded by children, then moved on.
The blue plush reclining chair in front of the television provided the room’s sole island of solid color, but it was empty. The glass door to the small, concrete patio stood open, and in the shade of a garden umbrella sat an elderly man in a white plastic patio chair. Beside him, a Patterdale terrier raised its slender black head from its paws at their approach.
“Mr. Brent.” Kincaid held out his warrant card as they followed Brenda onto the patio. Glancing at the dog, which was now sniffing his ankles, he added, “I’m Superintendent Kincaid and this is Ser—”
“Get down, Sheba.” George Brent scolded the dog gently, then scrutinized them with alert blue eyes. “Janice Coppin sent you, did she? I’d not have credited her with that much sense.”
Brenda Hubbard gave an exasperated shake of her head. “Dad, that’s not a nice thing to say and you know it.” With a look at Gemma and Kincaid, she added apologetically, “Janice was at school with our Georgie, and Dad took against her over some silly thing that no one else even remembers.”
“Your mum remembered. And it wasn’t a silly thing to our Georgie—she stood him up for the Settlement Dance.” Having made his point to his daughter, George Brent held out his hand to Kincaid. His grip was strong, and the arms and shoulders revealed by his cotton vest still showed muscular definition.
Kincaid pulled over two more plastic patio chairs. “Do you mind if we sit down, Mr. Brent?”
“Oh, forgive my manners.” Brenda Hubbard sounded a bit flustered as she helped them arrange the chairs. “Can I get you something to drink? Tea? Or some orange squash?”
“Squash would be lovely,” said Gemma, as much to remove the distraction of bickering with his daughter from Mr. Brent as to quench a genuine thirst.
As Brenda disappeared into the kitchen, Kincaid began again. “Mr. Brent, we don’t want to upset you, but we need you to tell us about what happened this morning.”
“Whoever said I was upset?” Brent gave a dark glance towards the house. “Load of bollocks,” he added under his breath, but as he spoke he reached down and buried his fingers in the dog’s rough coat.
“It’s not every day you find a dead body, Mr. Brent,” Gemma said gently. “It would upset anyone.”
Brent looked away. Gemma saw the movement of his Adam’s apple as he swallowed, and the spasm clenching the hand still resting in the dog’s fur. “Beautiful. She was so beautiful. I thought she was sleeping, like a fairy princess.”
Returning with their drinks, Brenda served them without interrupting, then pulled another plastic chair into the shade and sat down.
“Why don’t you start from the beginning, Mr. Brent,” suggested Kincaid. “You took your dog to the park?”
“You’d had your breakfast, hadn’t you, Dad?” prompted Brenda. “You always take Sheba for her run after breakfast.”
“That’s right. Right round the park we go, every morning and every evening. Keeps us fit, doesn’t it, girl?” He stroked the dog’s head; the animal’s tail thumped.
“What time was this, Mr. Brent?”
“A bit later than usual, on account of helping Mrs. Singh next door with her telly. About half past eight, I’d say, and already hot as blazes.”
Gemma sipped her drink, then asked, “Did you take your usual route?”
“We always go the same way, don’t we, girl?” said Brent, and Sheba’s tail moved again in assent. “Up from the bottom of Stebondale Street, into the park at the Rope Walk, across and up the other side.” He shook his head. “Bloody construction mucking things about. Can’t hear yourself think.”
“That’s along East Ferry Road?” asked Kincaid.
“Farm Road, we always called it. There were still farms round about when I was a boy, though you’d not think it now. I remember when we lived in Glengall Road, before the bombings—”
“Mr. Brent,” Kincaid interrupted gently. “Tell us what happened next.”
George Brent took a handkerchief from his trouser pocket and rubbed it slowly across the polished dome of his head as he watched Sheba, now happily digging in a patch of the small flower bed at the edge of the patio. “You’re a right devil, aren’t you, girl?” he said softly, then met Kincaid’s eyes. “Most mornings I stop at the ASDA for a cuppa, meet my old mates, you know, though Harry Thurgar for one is getting a bit past it … but I was too late this morning, so we went on along the top.”
His gaze strayed again, back to the dog. “I let her off the lead—she’s always after rabbits, or what she thinks is rabbits. Then I heard her whining, and when I caught up to her …”
At the word “rabbits” Sheba sat back on her haunches and cocked her head expectantly, then moved to her master’s side. Her long, elegant profile made Gemma think of the paintings of dogs on Egyptian friezes. Hadn’t the Egyptians believed that dogs followed their masters to the underworld?