In A Dark House

19

THE WEATHER HAD changed at last, bringing a light frost in the night, followed by a bright, crisp day. As Gemma drove through northeast London, she saw that the city had suddenly taken on an autumn tint, and above the faint flush of color in the trees the sky looked impossibly blue.

She followed the familiar road that led to Leyton, but on this day her destination was not her parents’ bakery but Abney Park Cemetery in nearby Stoke Newington. She’d promised Kincaid she’d meet him at Bryan Simms’s funeral, but she’d been delayed at work by a meeting with her guv’nor. Knowing she’d missed the church service, she’d headed directly to the cemetery instead.

Abney Park, like Kensal Green in Notting Hill, was one of the great Victorian cemeteries, built when churchyards could no longer hold the multitude of dead. As she drove through the gates into the rambling grounds, she stopped and glanced at the map she’d downloaded from the Internet, comparing it with the directions to Bryan Simms’s grave site.

But as she scanned the page, James Braidwood’s name jumped out at her. The great Victorian fireman was buried here, she saw, in a monument on the main drive. Putting the car into gear, she drove on, gazing at the marble tomb as she bumped past it.

What, she wondered, would happen to the poor remains of Jimmy Braidwood, who had had no family to claim him?

She soon saw that her map was superfluous, as parked cars filled the roads like arterial blood pumping out from a heart. She followed the main track until she saw the crowds, then found a spot for her little Ford and walked back, leaving the road for a rough, grassy track. Her long russet coat provided a welcome protection against the chill breeze.

As she crested a rise, she looked down upon a sea of mourners, almost all in navy-blue uniforms. The fire service had turned out to honor its own.

She stood at the back of the crowd for a few minutes, listening as an occasional snatch of the burial service drifted to her on the wind. Then she moved to one side and edged her way through the packed bodies until she could see the mourning party.

The pallbearers, all firefighters, sat to one side, ramrod straight in their dress uniforms. On the other side of the grave sat Bryan Simms’s family, recognizable by their dark skin. Her throat tightened and she blinked until the feeling eased. The tears made her feel a hypocrite – she had never met the young man. And yet she knew that he had been brave, that he had been loved by friends and family, and that he had died needlessly. Surely that was reason enough to grieve for anyone.

A glimpse of the minister in his vestments made her think of Winnie, and of their conversation the previous day as they’d parted outside Guy’s Hospital.

“Gemma, I wanted to tell you straightaway,” Winnie had said. “I’m going back to Glastonbury. It’s sooner than expected, but Roberta’s doctor says she’s well enough to come back to London, especially with the cooler weather coming… and I think everything that’s happened has made her feel her parish needs her.”

“But you’ve done so much-”

“No, no.” Winnie shook her head, cutting off Gemma’s protest. “I’ve done no more than Roberta would have done, had she been here.” She touched Gemma’s arm gently. “I’ll miss you especially. We’ve become so close these last days. But I miss my parish, and I miss Jack. It’s time for me to go home.” She smiled and hugged Gemma hard. “We won’t lose touch, though. We’re family, after all.”

Gemma had returned the hug, then let Winnie go, but the sharp pinch of separation was still with her. It seemed to her that the past year had been made up of losses. First her baby. Then Hazel, gone so far away, and now Winnie. Was that what you learned as you grew older, that life was made up of a series of losses?

And now Kit… She couldn’t bear the thought of losing Kit, and the disastrous court hearing on Monday had made the possibility seem very real.

It wasn’t Kincaid’s fault – she knew that. It was the bloody job, and she’d have been forced to do the same in his position. And yet… unreasonable as it was, she still felt he had let them down, and she knew he sensed her disappointment.

This added to the constraint that had begun to build between them over the question of trying for another baby. She knew the tiny separation could grow into a chasm if they weren’t careful, but she somehow couldn’t bring herself to bridge the gap. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to talk to him, but that she didn’t understand her own hesitation well enough to explain it to anyone else.

The minister’s voice rose, bringing her back to the scene before her, and he lifted his hand in final benediction. The pipes keened, and as the uniformed pallbearers stood to make their last salute, Gemma saw that one was female. This must be Rose Kearny, whom Gemma had not met, but she knew that Kincaid had been particularly drawn to her. Tall, fair, and coltish, even with her blond hair restrained in a knot – something about the young woman struck a chord in Gemma’s memory.

The mourners shifted and began to drift away. Gemma caught sight of Kincaid at last, standing a few yards back from the pallbearers. As she began to make her way down the slope, she saw Rose Kearny come up to him and, after a brief conversation, slip her arms around him. Kincaid returned the hug, a little awkwardly, then they stepped apart.

Another firefighter approached, the dark-haired fire investigator with the sniffer dog, whom Gemma had seen briefly the day of the first fire. After a moment, he and Rose walked away side by side.

Kincaid turned and saw her. “Gemma! I thought you hadn’t made it.”

“That was Rose, wasn’t it?” she said as she reached him.

“Oh.” He flushed as he realized she’d seen the embrace. “That wasn’t what-”

“No, no, I know that. It’s just-” She studied him. “You don’t see it, do you?”

“See what?” He frowned, puzzled, and she thought of the strange ways that grief could disguise itself in the labyrinth of the human heart. Kit’s mother had had that same fair grace, that same look of innocence burnished by intelligence.

“It’s Vic,” she said, touching his cheek. “She reminds you of Vic.”

Kincaid left the cemetery with every intention of driving straight back to the Yard. Instead, he found himself winding west through the early-afternoon traffic and then on the M4, heading towards Reading.

He rang Cullen. “Listen,” he said when Cullen picked up. “I – I’ve got some personal business. Cover for me for a couple of hours, will you?”

Cullen hesitated, as if about to ask a question, then said, a touch too heartily, “Right. Let me know when you’re on your way in.”

It occurred to Kincaid to be thankful he’d signed out a motor pool Rover rather than driving the Midget to the funeral – his mother-in-law had always hated that car.

How could he not have seen that Rose reminded him of his ex-wife? It was more than a fleeting physical resemblance. He thought of Vic as she had been at twenty-two or twenty-three – she’d had that same air of quiet gravity, of taking life just a little too seriously.

The realization jabbed him like a pike, opening a wound he thought he’d plastered over, and then, to his astonishment, he’d found himself thinking of Eugenia.

What must it be like to lose a child, to have every reminder of that child bring fresh pain, and yet to know that the loss of that pain was a death in itself?

When he reached Reading, he exited the motorway and drove to the quiet suburb where Vic had spent her childhood, and where Bob and Eugenia Potts still lived. He pulled up in front of the house and stopped the car.

The brick semidetached was one of identical dozens built in the sixties, when they had represented the ideal of middle-class affluence. Now, they seemed merely dreary, and stultifyingly dull. The house hadn’t changed, although the garden seemed more neglected than when he’d been there last. It was here Eugenia had brought Kit when his mother died; it was from here that Kit had run away.

Kincaid had always wondered how such an environment could have produced Vic – it had seemed as unlikely as a stone hatching a butterfly. And yet there must have been something in this household, in this family, that had nourished her uniqueness.

The net curtain at the front window twitched – identical curtains were probably twitching all down the street. It was his cue to charge the citadel or die trying. He brushed a bit of imaginary lint from his lapel – his best dark suit, along with the sober Rover, might buy him an entry point – and got out of the car.

Bob Potts opened the door before Kincaid could ring. His father-in-law’s hair had thinned to reveal shiny pink scalp, his gray cardigan bagged at the elbows. He had become an old man. “Duncan,” he said. “You shouldn’t have – this isn’t a good-”

“Bob, please. Just give me a few minutes. Let me talk to you both.”

“You don’t understand. I don’t want her upset.” Bob Potts had spent forty years trying to prevent his wife from being upset, and the effort had sucked him dry. “She-”

“Hear me out. What can it-”

“Let him in.” The voice came from the darkened room beyond the door.

As Bob stepped back, his shoulders drooping in resignation, Kincaid followed. It took his eyes a moment to adjust to the dimness, then he made out his mother-in-law, seated in the worn armchair near the fire. One of the electric bars was lit, an unheard-of concession for a crisp and sunny afternoon, and the room was stuffily warm.

She, too, had aged visibly. He had not seen her since the spring, since the first letter had come from her solicitor, and his own solicitor had banned any direct contact between them. Her frame seemed to have shrunk, and the flesh sagged at her cheeks and jaws.

“Duncan. You had better sit down,” she said. Eugenia had never been one to forget the proprieties, even under duress. “I’m surprised you could find the time to drive to Reading, when you couldn’t manage to appear at Christopher’s hearing.”

Kincaid bit back a retort. He’d long ago learned the folly of trying to justify himself to Eugenia, especially where his job was concerned. “I want to talk to you both about Kit. I want to see if we can reach an understanding, without lawyers, for his sake.”

“You’ve given up your advantage, so now you want us to give up ours?” she asked, a gleam of malice in her eyes. “Why should we make any concession to you?”

“This isn’t a chess game,” he snapped, his anger flaring. “This is a child we’re talking about, and a child’s life. We need to consider what’s best for him.”

“And that has nothing to do with you. Christopher is our grandson, and only we have the right to make decisions concerning him.”

“Yes,” Kincaid said, as levelly as he could manage. “He is your grandson. But he’s my son, and I will not let you continue to make his life a misery.”

The spark of anger faded from Eugenia’s eyes, and her face settled into a frozen mask. “I will not discuss this with you. Now, get out of our house.”

“Why can’t you face the truth? Is it because you still blame me for Vic’s death?” He realized he was shouting and made an effort to lower his voice. “Eugenia, please. Listen to me. I understand how you feel. I understand that every time you look at Kit you see Vic, and that it hurts you terribly, but that you can’t bear the pain to stop because that’s all you have left of her.

“But you have to let him go. Kit is not his mother, and he deserves to live his own life. You have to let him go… and you have to let her go. It’s the only way you’ll heal.”

She stared at him in silence, her eyes hollow, and for an instant he thought he’d reached her. Then she said, “How dare you tell me what I feel? You always were an arrogant bastard. You know nothing, nothing, do you hear me?”

Bob cleared his throat, a nervous stutter of sound. “You’d better go now, Duncan. You’d better do as she says.”

Kincaid stood. “All right. But let me tell you this. I will do whatever it takes to keep my son with me – whatever it takes. And if you keep on with this, you will rue the consequences. Do you understand me?”

When neither of them replied, he turned away and let himself out of the house. As he got into the car and pulled away from the curb, he realized his hands were shaking from the flood of fury and adrenaline.

He felt oddly and surprisingly liberated, as if he’d crossed some unexpected Rubicon. He had meant it. He would do whatever it took to keep Kit with him, even if it meant sacrificing his job, or his life as he knew it.

He would never know, now, if Tony Novak had been justified in taking his daughter, but he knew that were he faced with giving Kit up to his grandparents, he would do the same.

It was evening by the time he reached Notting Hill again. Dusk was stealing round the brown house with the cherryred door, and a welcoming light shone out from the windows.

The dogs barked as he came in, then leapt at his knees, tails wagging. He greeted them and went through to the kitchen. Gemma stood by the table, still in her workclothes, going through the post.

“Where are the boys?” he asked, kissing her cheek.

“Upstairs.” She looked up at him, frowning in concern. “Where have you been? You didn’t answer your phone, and Doug said you were out.”

“I went to see Bob and Eugenia. They’re not going to budge, Gemma. They mean to take him away from us, and I won’t let them do it. I don’t care what it takes, even if it means giving up the job. If we have to go away somewhere, make a fresh start, would you-”

“You would do that for me?” It was Kit, standing in the kitchen doorway.

Kincaid turned and saw his son’s face lit with surprise, and a wondrous dawning hope. “Yes. You’re my son, Kit. I won’t let you go.”

“What…” Kit hesitated, then seemed to come to a decision. “What if I had the test? Would that help?”

“It might. But I thought you didn’t want-”

“And if it’s not true, if I’m not really your son, will you still-”

“Kit, do you think I love Toby any less because we don’t share genes?” He glanced at Gemma and saw that her eyes were bright with tears. “What matters is that we’re family. We stick together, okay?”

Kit took a breath and grinned. “Right. Okay. Then I’ll do it.”

They celebrated with the boys’ favorite takeaway pizza and a riotous game of Scrabble in the sitting room, the boys’ shouts punctuated by the dogs’ barking. Kit radiated an infectious joy new to Kincaid, and he wondered if he was seeing his son for the first time as he’d been before grief entered his life.

Toby, charged up by an excitement he didn’t understand, bounced round the room like a table-tennis ball, until Gemma laughingly shepherded him upstairs for his bath.

Later, when both boys were in bed and Gemma lay curled in Kincaid’s arms, she said, “Will the test be enough, do you think?”

“I hope so. We’ll see.”

She turned a little, until he could just make out her profile in the dark. “And did you mean what you said, about being willing to give up everything?”

Kincaid felt he’d stood at the edge of a chasm and found himself willing to leap. If he’d been given a reprieve by Kit’s decision, at least he knew he possessed enough courage for the plunge. “I think so, yeah.”

“Even the job?”

He traced a finger along her bare shoulder. “I’d like to think I’m more than the job.”

“Oh, I think you’re much more than that,” she said softly, and kissed him.

It was only much later, as he lay drowsily beside her, listening to her breathing steady into the slow rhythm of sleep, that the realization struck him. When he’d asked her if she would be willing to give up the life they’d built, for Kit’s sake, she had not given him an answer.

Harriet had had to stay two days in hospital, for observation. Her arm had been set, and the doctors had said she needed fluids and rest. She didn’t remember much of the first day, only her father, sitting beside her bed, gaunt and unshaven. He’d cried when he’d told her about her mum, gripping her good hand as if it might keep him from drowning, but Harriet couldn’t find anything to say.

It seemed to her that she’d known, somehow, that her mother was gone, when she’d cried for her as she lay on the bed in the dark house. Now she just felt numb, as if it had all happened to someone else, or to her a long time ago. Her mind wouldn’t go any further than that; she couldn’t visualize what her life was going to be without her mother in it.

She slept again, and when she woke she had visitors. Her father spoke to them, then went out, leaving her alone with the newcomers. She recognized the policewoman with the pretty red hair who had found her, and the priest who’d been with her, with her kind face and funny collar.

With them was a small Asian woman in a wheelchair. When the others had greeted Harriet, the woman rolled her chair up to the bed and took Harriet’s hand. Her thin face bore lines of pain, as if she’d been ill, but there was also something calm in it that Harriet found comforting.

“I’m so sorry about your mother, Harriet,” the woman said, her soft voice strained with the effort. “And I’m so sorry about what happened to you.”

Harriet didn’t understand who she was or why it should matter to her so much, but she nodded as if she did.

The woman looked relieved and smiled. She pulled something wrapped in tissue paper from her bag. “This is for you – not for here, of course, because you can’t light it – but for when you get home.”

Harriet couldn’t manage the tissue paper with one hand, so the woman helped her pull it away, lifting out a candle in a square of pale green glass. It smelled sweet and made Harriet think of something nice, but she couldn’t quite remember what it was. “Thank you,” she said, and the woman seemed pleased.

“We’d better let you get some rest,” said the priest, and as they moved towards the door her father came back into the room.

“Have you – Is there any news of her?” he asked the policewoman in a low voice.

“No, nothing yet,” she answered.

“And-” Her father shifted uneasily and rubbed at his chin. “Will I – Will there be… charges?”

“No,” the policewoman said again. “No, I don’t think so. You only took your daughter out of school, after all.”

When they’d gone, Harriet thought about asking her dad what he’d meant, but instead she drifted off to sleep again.

She had one more visitor, on the second day. Her dad had gone down to the canteen for coffee when Mrs. Bletchley sidled in the door, looking warily round the room. She wore what Harriet knew to be her best dress, and a smear of orange lipstick like a gash across her mouth.

She gave Harriet a brusque nod, then stood awkwardly at the foot of the bed. “Just came to say sorry about your mum,” she blurted at last. “A good woman, your mother. You shouldn’t forget it. She remembered them as was less fortunate than her.” Mrs. Bletchley nodded again, as if satisfied with her pronouncement, then frowned at Harriet. “Don’t suppose you’ll be coming to stay, now.”

“No,” Harriet answered cautiously. “I shouldn’t think so.”

“Well. There’s that, then.” Mrs. Bletchley turned away but stopped at the door. “You could maybe stop in sometime after school,” she said, not looking at Harriet, but there was an odd expression on her face.

Harriet struggled to cover her surprise. “I – yeah, okay, I suppose I could do that,” she said. Mrs. Bletchley made a funny sort of screwed-up face, then nodded once more as she went out, leaving Harriet to try to make sense of it all. When her dad came back, she didn’t mention the odd visit. It seemed, somehow, to be something that should be kept between her and Mrs. Bletchley… and her mum.

Her dad came to the hospital for her in his car, on the evening of the second day, and she saw that the back was filled with all the bits and pieces from his flat. They drove to Park Street, and when he pulled up in front of the house, Harriet saw Ms. Karimgee still working at her desk next door. She lifted her hand in a wave, and Ms. Karimgee waved back.

They went into the house in silence. Harriet walked from room to room, wondering what to do. None of the ordinary things seemed right. Where did she begin this new life, without her mother?

Hearing sounds from the kitchen, she went in and saw her father at the sink, doing the washing up. She stood, stricken with the realization that she’d never see her mum in that spot again, and the world felt as if it were caving in beneath her feet.

Her dad turned and saw her. He dropped the pan and dishcloth and came to her, scooping her into his arms. Cradling her carefully, so as not to jar her arm, he sat down in the kitchen chair and held her in his lap. Her head just fit beneath his chin, and she could feel his heart beating in his chest.

“We’ll be all right, won’t we, Harriet?” he whispered, smoothing her hair. “We’ll take care of each other.”

“Yes,” she said. “We will.”