Tim Franklin began to shake his head, although his eyes never left the television. The back-and-forth motion grew faster, more agitated, as the woman's moans increased in frequency.

Kincaid stood up. "Tim. Timmy!"

"No-no-no-no-no," Timmy said, head still moving, both fists now clenched and pounding on the chair arms.

Fearing that the situation would soon be completely out of control, Kincaid rushed to the door and called out into the corridor, "Nurse. Nurse!"

Her white-uniformed figure appeared around the corner. She smiled cheerfully at him. "Things getting a bit out of hand, are they? First thing to do is to get Mrs. Mason back to her bed." Kincaid stepped aside as she entered the room, still talking. "It's all right, dear, we'll just have a little nap now," she said soothingly as she wheeled the woman's chair to the door. "Be hours now before we get that one settled down," she added, nodding her head toward Tim. "You'll not get anything else out of him."

Kincaid looked back as he followed her from the room. Tim Franklin was still pounding and chanting, his head jerking to a rhythm Kincaid couldn't hear.

Chapter Eighteen

The hands on the Midget's dash clock read straight-up six o'clock when Kincaid pulled up to the curb in Carlingford Road. He killed the engine and sat in the silent car, unable to shake the depression that had ridden him all the way back from Dorset. If he'd listened to Gemma he wouldn't have wasted a day on a fool's errand and still be facing what he'd dreaded in the first place. Telling himself there was no point in putting it off any longer, he still stalled, taking his time locking the car and fastening the tarp over its cherry-red paint.

There was no answer to his knock on the Major's door. He waited a moment, then climbed the stairs and let himself into Jasmine's flat. A sleek, black body wrapped around his ankles as he turned on the lamps. "Hullo, Sid. You doing okay, mate?" Reaching down, he stroked Sid's head until the cat's green eyes closed to contented slits. "Be patient, you'll get your supper."

Kincaid unlocked the French doors and stepped outside. The Major knelt before the roses he'd bought in Jasmine's memory. Only the pale fabric of his trousers across his buttocks and the rhythmic motion of the hand holding the trowel made him visible in the dusk. Kincaid descended the steps and crossed the square of garden, then squatted beside him. "You're working late. The light's almost gone."

The Major gave one last dig with the trowel and sat back, hands on his knees. "Weeds. Can't keep up with 'em this time of year. They'll take over like the Day of the bloody Triffids if you give 'em an inch."

Kincaid smiled. Maybe the Major had another secret occupation even less likely than choral singing-an addiction to watching late-night B movies on the telly. "I wondered if I might have a word with you."

The Major looked at him for the first time. "Of course. Let me just wash up." He stood up, his knees popping audibly. Kincaid trailed behind him as he cleaned his trowel in the work area under the steps, then followed him into the kitchen as he washed his hands and scrubbed his nails.

The small kitchen was spotlessly clean, the countertops bare except for a marked-down bag of potatoes and an unopened carton of beer. "Like one?" the Major asked as he wiped his hands on a tea towel, and when Kincaid nodded he twisted two tops off and stowed them neatly in the bin under the sink. "Pensioner's luxury," he said after he'd taken a swallow and smacked his lips. "Pinch pennies on necessities in order to buy good beer once or twice a week." He smiled, his teeth still strong and white under the toothbrush mustache. "Worth it, though."

They went into the spartan sitting room. The Major switched on a lamp and motioned Kincaid to a seat on the sofa while he took the armchair himself. The brown, nubby fabric on the arms of the chair had patches rubbed shiny with wear and its seat cushion bore a permanent indentation. Kincaid imagined the Major sitting there evening after solitary evening with his bottle of beer and the telly for company, and he was more loath than ever to say what he knew he must. "Major, I understand you served in India after the war."

The Major regarded him quizzically. "Understand from whom, Mr. Kincaid? I don't believe I've ever mentioned it."

Kincaid, feeling as though he'd been caught out in a distasteful act of voyeurism, fought the urge to apologize. "I'm conducting a murder investigation, Major, and as unpleasant as I may personally find it, I've had to check background on everyone who had even the slightest connection with Jasmine. We called up your service records. You were stationed in Calcutta during the time that Jasmine's family lived there." He waited for the explosion, but none came.

After a moment the Major took another swallow from his beer and sighed. "Aye, well, I'd have mentioned it myself if I'd known it was of any importance to you. It was all a very long time ago."

"But you told Jasmine?"

"Aye, and wished I had not."

"Why was that, Major?" Kincaid asked quietly, setting his beer on the end table and leaning forward. For the first time he noticed the age spots patterning the Major's callused hands.

"Because I couldn't tell her the whole truth and it created a falseness between us. She might not have noticed, but I could never feel as comfortable with her after that." He paused, and when Kincaid didn't speak he went on after a moment. "I'm a god-fearing man, Mr. Kincaid, but I don't believe the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children. To my mind, God wouldn't be so bloody unfair. But Jasmine now, I thought she would see it differently, would take it upon herself, and she'd had her share of suffering, poor lass." Taking a final pull on his beer, he held up the empty bottle and raised an eyebrow at Kincaid.

Kincaid shook his head. "No, thanks." He waited until the Major returned from the kitchen with a fresh bottle, then said, "What would Jasmine have taken upon herself, Major?"

The Major stared at the beer bottle as he rotated it delicately between his fingertips. "Do you have any idea what happened in Calcutta in 1946, Mr. Kincaid?" He looked up, and Kincaid saw that his pale blue eyes were bloodshot. "Muslims seeking partition attacked and killed Hindus, and the rioting that followed spread through the city like wildfire. The history books refer to it as the Calcutta Killings." He gave a snort of derision. "Makes it sound like a bank robbery, or some idiot gunning people down in a supermarket." Shaking his head in disgust, he said, "They've no idea. You see horrors enough in your job, I dare say, but I hope you never see the likes of those days. Six thousand bodies in the streets by the time it was all over. Six thousand bodies rotting, or burning in the fires that smoldered for days, You could never forget the smell. It clung to your skin, the roof of your mouth, the inside of your nose." He drank deeply, as if the beer might wash the memory of the taste from his mouth.

"Jasmine would have been only a child," Kincaid said, doing some mental arithmetic. "Why should she have felt guilty?"

"Jasmine's father was a minor civil servant, a paper pusher, with a reputation for not being particularly competent. He was in charge of evacuating a small residential area, a sort of civil defense sergeant." The Major drank again, and Kincaid fancied he heard the edges of his words beginning to slur. "He bungled it. Only a few families got out before the mob poured through the streets. I've wondered since if he put his own family first, or if he just turned tail to save his own skin."

Kincaid waited silently for what he now guessed was coming. He felt the rough, brown fabric of the sofa under his fingertips, smelled a faint spicy scent that might have been the Major's aftershave, overlaid with the odor of beer.