All Shall Be Well Read Free Page A

South End Green. Balancing her bag against her hip, Margaret picked her way down the stairs and came blinking out into the sunshine. The huge, old plane trees and willows of the South Heath marched away to her right as she started up the hill. Sun sparkled on the waters of the ponds, and people flowed around her with that festive air that an unexpectedly warm spring day gives the English.
    The unsettled feeling that had been nagging her since last night coiled more tightly in the pit of her stomach.
    From Willow Road she turned away from the Heath and trudged up Pilgrim’s Lane. Just as she reached Carlingford Road she looked up and saw the rear of an ambulance disappear as it turned left into Rosslyn Hill. Margaret’s stomach spasmed and her knees threatened to give way beneath her.
    Felicity stripped the bed, then straightened the spread over the bare mattress, tucking the corners with precision. Kincaid, having raised the blinds, stood staring down into the patch of garden. After a moment he shook himself and ran his fingers through his hair, then turned to face her. “Who’s next of kin, do you know?”
    “A brother, I think, called Theo,” Felicity answered, giving the spread a final smoothing across the pillow. She surveyed the bed for a moment, gave a satisfied nod and turned to the sink. “Although I’m not sure they got on well,” she continued over her shoulder as she washed her hands before filling the copper kettle from the tap. “She mentioned him several times. He lives in Surrey, or Sussex, but I never met him.” Felicity nodded toward the small, inlaid secretary Jasmine had used for her papers. “I imagine you’ll find his number and address in that lot.”
    Kincaid was a bit taken aback by her assumption that he would be responsible for notifying Jasmine’s relatives, but he had no idea who else might perform the unpleasant task. He didn’t relish the prospect.
    “It does take them like that sometimes—suddenly, you know.” Felicity turned and examined him with concern, and Kincaid marveled at the speed with which she had regained her equilibrium. A few seconds shock—eyes closed, face wiped blank—then she had taken over with brisk professional competency.A common enough occurrence for her, he supposed, the loss of a patient.
    “But she didn’t seem—”
    “No. I’d have given her another month or two, at the least, but we’re not God … our predictions aren’t infallible.” The kettle whistled and Felicity turned away, scooping mugs off a rack and pouring boiling water over tea bags in one smooth motion. The dark, business-like suit seemed at odds with such household proficiency, and Felicity herself, soberly neat against the welter of Jasmine’s exotic belongings, reminded Kincaid of a hawk among peacocks.
    “She never spoke about it … her illness, I mean,” Kincaid said. “I didn’t realize it was so far—”
    The front door swung open and bounced against the wall. Kincaid and Felicity Howarth spun around, startled. A woman stood framed in the doorway, clutching a shopping bag to her breast.
    “Where is she? Where have they taken her?” She took in the neatly made bed and their arrested postures, and the bag slipped as she swayed.
    Felicity was quicker off the mark than Kincaid. She had the bag safely on the floor and her hand under the woman’s elbow before Kincaid reached them.
    They guided her toward a chair and she slumped into it, unresisting. Not yet thirty, Kincaid judged her, a trifle plump, with wayward brown hair and painfully fair skin, and a round face now crumpled with distress.
    “Margaret? It is Margaret, isn’t it?” Felicity asked gently. She glanced at Kincaid and explained, “She’s a friend of Jasmine’s.”
    “Tell me where they’ve taken her. She won’t want to be alone. Oh, I knew I shouldn’t have left her last night—” The sentence disintegrated into a wail and she turned her headfrom side to side as if searching for Jasmine in