Water Like A Stone

Chapter Eight

As Babcock squelched across the rutted ice in the hospital car park, he passed Dr. Elsworthy’s Morris Minor in the section reserved for doctors’ vehicles. From the rear seat, the dog’s head rose like a monolithic monster emerging from the deep. The beast gave him a distant and fathomless stare, then looked away, as if it had assessed him and found him wanting, before sinking out of sight once more. No wonder the doctor had no use for anything as modern as a car with an alarm system, Babcock thought as he gave both dog and vehicle a wide berth. She was more likely to be sued by a prospective burglar complaining of heart failure than to have her car violated.

The sight of his sergeant, Kevin Rasansky, leaning against the wall near the morgue entrance was only slightly more heartening.

“Morning, boss. Happy Christmas,” Rasansky called out, seemingly unperturbed by the cold or by the holiday call-out.

Babcock merely grimaced in return. “Don’t be so bloody cheerful.

What are you doing here? I thought you’d not want to miss Christmas morning with your family.”

“Thought you might need a hand. Besides, forgot the batteries for the toys, didn’t I? The wife and kiddies aren’t too happy with me.

And my mother- in- law’s there for the duration. Who’d have thought the morgue would be preferable?” Rasansky added as he held the door for Babcock.

Ashamed of the relief he’d felt on leaving the care home, Babcock wasn’t about to admit he agreed, especially to his sergeant.

Kevin Rasansky was a large young man with a round country-man’s face and clothes that never quite seemed to fit. Beneath his unprepossessing exterior, however, resided a sharp intelligence and a streak of ambition that bordered on the ruthless. Babcock found him useful, but never entirely trusted him.

He knew from past experience that if a successful conclusion to a case meant there was any capital to be gained with the powers- that-be, Rasansky would find a subtle way to claim it. There were the self-deprecating stories told round the water cooler or in the can-teen, in which Rasansky would just happen to mention how his own humble insight or suggestion had led his superior officers to make the collar. The said superior officer could then hardly refute Rasansky’s version without sounding petty, but Babcock retaliated by making every effort to keep his sergeant firmly in his place. There was no task too unpleasant or menial for Rasansky, but this morning he had been willing to give the sergeant a break.

“Have you been to the scene yet?” he asked as they waited for someone to buzz them through the inner doors.

“First thing this morning.”

“Any sign of the media?”

“A stringer from the Chronicle, Megan Tully. But it will be old news by the time the paper comes out, and I doubt she can interest a national unless it’s a very slow news day.” By the Chronicle, Rasansky meant the local weekly.

Dealing with the media was always a two-edged sword—the

dissemination of information could be helpful to an inquiry, but the untimely release of an investigation’s details could be disastrous.

Babcock was glad, therefore, to have a few days’ grace before deciding what should be released to the public. That way, if they hadn’t made an identification by the time the paper went to press, he could use the opportunity to make a public appeal.

“Any luck finding the farm’s previous own ers?”

“No. House- to- house has had a go again this morning. Apparently quite a few of the surrounding properties have changed hands, and the one neighbor we’ve been told might have an address is away on holiday.”

Babcock absorbed this. It meant they’d have to widen their inquiry, and that meant more manpower. “What about the incident room?” he asked. Late the previous evening, Babcock had organized a temporary incident room at the divisional headquarters in Crewe. “Do we have anyone to spare for slogging round the countryside?”

“We’ve managed to find a few warm bodies, although not particularly happy ones. They seem to think the villains should agree to a Christmas truce.”

Babcock glanced at his sergeant, surprised at the reference. During the Great War, in the first battle of Ypres, the soldiers on the British and German sides of the lines had left their trenches to exchange Christmas greetings and make gifts of their few possessions.

Rasansky seemed an unlikely student of history.

“Ah, well,” he said instead, “we’d still have to deal with the holiday suicides.” With that cheerful pronouncement, the inner doors to the morgue swung open.

Dr. Elsworthy’s assistant, a large ginger- haired young woman, led them back to the examination room, saying, “She’s just starting.”

The doctor acknowledged them with a nod. In her scrubs and apron, with her flyaway gray hair tucked under a cap, she looked

years younger, and Babcock was struck again by the strong planes and angles of her face.

But if Althea Elsworthy looked more human this morning, the tiny form on the examination table looked less so. With the removal of the blanket and clothing, the child might have been a tattered scrap of a doll made from leather and hair, or the remains of a small animal left to shrivel by the side of a road. He noticed that there was very little smell, merely a faint mustiness. That, at least, was a relief.

For once, he wouldn’t have to spend the postmortem trying to work out how to talk and breathe through his mouth at the same time.

When Rasansky shook his head and made a clicking sound of disgust with his teeth, Babcock remembered that the sergeant had an infant at home. If he was ever tempted to envy other people their children, a child’s body in the morgue was a sure cure.

He transferred his gaze to the X-rays clipped to the lightboard, where the white tracery of bones shone like frost on black velvet.

Elsworthy followed his glance. “Skeleton’s intact,” she said with her usual economy of words. “No evidence of blunt-force trauma, no previous fractures.”

“So what does that leave us?” Babcock asked.

“Suffocation. Drowning. Poisoning. Natural causes.” There was a gleam of humor in her eye as she added the last.

“Right.” Babcock’s lip curled with the sarcasm. “What about stabbing or puncture wounds? Gunshot?”

“Possible, but I’ve not found any damage to what’s left of the tissue, nor nicks on the bones. And I’ve very rarely seen an infant shot or stabbed. It could have been shaken, of course, but any swelling or bruising of the brain tissue has long since disappeared.”

“It, you said. Can you tell if the child was male or female?”

“Not conclusively, no. There’s not much organic matter left in the pelvic area, certainly not enough to tell if this child possessed a penis.

And at this age it’s hard to differentiate the skeletal structure.

“But from the clothing, I’d guess female. The DNA testing should clarify it, but you’ll have to be patient.” The glance the doctor flicked at him told Babcock she knew patience was not his strong suit.

“Okay. Female, then. Jane Doe. Age?”

“From the measurements, anywhere from six months to a year, perhaps even eighteen months. Development can vary greatly, depending both on genetics and the child’s health and environment. If the child was malnourished, for instance, she might have been well under the predicted size and weight.”

As she spoke, she’d turned back to the corpse and begun probing with tweezers. Her touch seemed surprisingly gentle for such a brusque woman.

“There’s no sign of insect activity,” she went on, “so I think you can assume that the child died during a period of low temperature and was interred quite soon after death.”

Rasansky spoke for the first time. “You think she was abused, then?”

“As I’ve just said, Sergeant, there’s no specific evidence,” Elsworthy said testily. “It’s quite common that babies who have been abused show healed fractures, but the lack of such doesn’t rule out mistreatment. And most people who care for their children well don’t inter them in old barns.”

Her comment made Babcock think of his aunt’s parting words, and he asked the question he’d been holding back: “How long do you think she’d been there?”

Elsworthy frowned and continued her examination in silence for a few moments before she answered. “Probably more than a year.

That, of course, is just a guess.”

“More than a year? As in five, ten, fifteen, twenty? That’s all you can tell me?”

This time Babcock was the object of the doctor’s glower. “You wanted miracles? The degree of mummification will have been affected by the amount of lime in the mortar and the stone. The lab

results may help narrow your time span down a bit, but in the meantime, you may do better with the clothing.

“Both the sleep suit and the blanket appear to contain some synthetic fibers, and the snaps on the sleep suit are only partially corroded. And”—she paused, ostensibly to probe the child’s rib cavity, but Babcock was beginning to suspect she enjoyed teasing him—

“best of all, there’s still a tag on the sleep suit.”

“Wh—”

She nodded towards her assistant. “I’ve written down the brand information. The manufacturer should at least be able to give you a production span.”

“Bloody marvelous,” Babcock said with bad grace. Knowing the production span on the suit or blanket would give them a starting point, but not an end point. The things could have been stored away in a cupboard for years before they were used in the makeshift burial. “We’ll not be able to reach anyone at the manufacturer’s until after Boxing Day, at the least.” Tracing that information would be a job for Rasansky.

Ignoring his grousing, the doctor said thoughtfully, “You’ll notice that although the child was dressed in a sleeper and wrapped in a blanket, there’s no sign of a nappie. That’s rather odd, don’t you think? It suggests that the child was dressed—or re-dressed—after death. That might indicate care on the part of whoever interred her, or on the other hand, it might be part of a ritual that increases some satisfaction to the perpetrator.”

“You’re not saying we’re dealing with a serial baby killer?”

Elsworthy shrugged. “Unlikely, with the absence of gross injuries, but one should always keep an open mind, Chief Inspector. I take it you’ve had no luck tracking down the property’s previous own ers?” she asked, with what might have been a trace of sympathy.

“It would seem that either the mortar work was done by one of the owners, or with their knowledge.”

Babcock shook his head. “The Smiths, who were apparently an

eminently respectable older couple, seem to have vanished without a trace.”

As Annie motored north from Nantwich Basin, she felt as if she were leaving a calm oasis. Not that there was much movement evident on the canal, but in her brief stay in the basin she’d felt more at peace than she could remember in a very long time. She’d rung Roger, and although she hadn’t reached him, she had left a message suggesting they meet for a Christmas meal. Knowing Roger, he was out walking Jazz, the German shepherd he’d bought himself when she’d left—his consolation prize, he’d told her. She suspected the dog had proved better company.

And she had resolved herself to her fool’s errand. There was no reason to think that she would find the Wains’ boat where it had been yesterday, or that Gabriel and Rowan Wain would talk to her if she did, but having made the decision to try, she felt oddly euphoric.

The glitch in her electrical system seemed to have healed itself. An omen, perhaps, that she was taking the right course.

Bundled in her warmest jacket and scarf, she stood at the tiller, guiding the boat back over the route she had traveled just yesterday.

The smoke from the cabin drifted back and stung her eyes, but she loved the smell of it, a distillation of comfort on the crisp, cold air.

Over the past few years she had learned to steer instinctively, making infinitesimal adjustments to the tiller with the slightest sway of her body.

She smiled, thinking of her first few awkward weeks on the boat, when she had bounced from one side of the canal to the other like a Ping-Pong ball. The tunnels had been the worst, the unfamiliar darkness skewing her perception so that she continually overcorrected, crashing into the dank and dripping walls.

Although she still didn’t like the tunnels, she had learned to cope,

and in the pro cess she and the Horizon had become an entity, the boat an extension of her body. The boat had her own personality, her moods, and Annie had learned to sense them. Today was a good day, she thought, the tiller sensitive as a live thing, the engine thrumming like a big, contented cat.

All her perceptions seemed heightened. Perhaps it was merely the snow- muffled quiet that made her hearing sharper, the searing blue of the sky that made the scenes unfolding before her seem to jump out in crystalline definition. The snow remade the landscape, masking the familiar contours of the land and the ever- present green of the English countryside in winter. And yet what she could see—the corn stubble, the twisted shape of a dead tree, the fine tracery of the bare, shrubby growth that lined the towpath, the black iron bones of a bridge—seemed more brilliant, more intense.

She passed Hurleston Junction and the temptation of the Llangollen Canal snaking down into Wales, but for once she found escape less enticing than the course she had set. As she neared Barbridge, she began to see boats moored along the towpath, and her heart quickened as she picked out the one she sought at the line’s end.

Reducing her speed to a crawl, she slipped the Horizon into an empty mooring spot and jumped to the towpath to tie up. When she’d fastened the fore and aft lines to the mooring spikes, she dusted the snow from her knees and studied the Daphne.

The wooden hull of the Wains’ boat was distinctive, but it seemed to Annie that the bright paint seemed slightly faded, the shine on the brass chimney bands less brilliant than she had remembered. Gabriel had told her once that the Daphne was one of the last wooden boats built in Nurser’s Boatyard in Braunston.

When Annie had worked with the Wains, Rowan had supplemented the family’s income by painting the traditional diamond patterns and rose-and-castle designs on boats, and the Daphne had been a floating advertisement for her work. Rowan had also painted

canalware, covering the Buckby cans used by the boat people to carry water, as well as bowls and dippers, with her cheerful rose designs.

At their last meeting, Rowan had presented Annie with a dipper she had painted especially for her, her way of communicating the thanks her husband had been too proud and angry to offer.

Not that Annie had expected thanks. Dear God, she had only done what she could to redress the wrong they had already suffered, their unconscionable betrayal by the system that was meant to protect them.

At first Annie thought the Daphne was uninhabited. The curtains were drawn and there was no sign of movement. Then she saw the faintest wisp of smoke rising from the chimney, and a moment later, Gabriel Wain emerged onto the stern deck.

He started to nod, the easy greeting of one boater to another, then froze. Expression drained from his face like water from a lock, until all that remained was the wariness in his eyes. His thick dark hair was now flecked with gray, like granite, but his body was still strong. When Annie had first met Gabriel Wain, she had thought him too big to fit comfortably on a narrowboat, but he moved so nimbly and gracefully about the cabin and decks that he might never have set foot on land.

Now he stood, feet slightly apart as he balanced against the slight rocking generated by his own movement, and watched her. When he spoke, his voice held a challenge. “Mrs. Constantine. To see you once, after so long, I might think chance. But twice in as many days?

What do you want with us?”

Annie flicked the last of the snow from her trousers and straightened to her full height. “It’s not Constantine these days, Gabriel. It’s Lebow. I’ve gone back to my maiden name. And I’m not with Social Services anymore. I left not long after I worked with you. I bought the boat,” she added, gesturing towards the Horizon. When he merely raised an eyebrow, she faltered on. “It was good to see you yesterday.

The children look well. I’m glad. But Rowan—I wondered if I might have a word with Rowan. I thought yesterday— She didn’t seem—”

“She’s resting. She doesn’t need your interference.”

Annie took a step nearer the boat. “Look, Gabriel, I understand how you feel. But if she’s ill, maybe I could help. I—”

“You can have no idea what I feel,” he broke in, his voice quiet for all the fury behind it. “And she’s not ill. She’s just—she’s just tired, that’s all.” There was the fear again, a chasm yawning behind his eyes, but this time Annie thought she wasn’t to blame.

“You know I helped you before,” she said more firmly. “You know I was on your side. I might be able—”

“Our side? You, with your tarted-up boat”—he cast a scornful glance at the Horizon and spat into the canal—“you don’t know anything about our lives. Now leave us alone.”

“You can’t throw me off the towpath, Gabriel.” She knew the absurdity of her position as soon as the words left her mouth. What was she going to do? Call Social Services?

“No.” For the first time, there was a hint of bitter humor in the curve of his mouth. “But I can give up a good mooring if you insist on making a nuisance of yourself, woman.”

And she could cast off the Horizon and follow. Annie had a ridiculous vision of herself trailing down the Cut after the Daphne at three miles per hour, a slow- motion version of a car chase in an American film. She sighed, feeling the tension drain from her shoulders, and said quietly, “Gabriel, I know what happened to your family was wrong. I only want— I suppose what I want is to make up for it in some way.”

“There is nothing you can do.” There was a bleak finality in his expression that made her wish for a return of his anger. “Now—”

The cabin door had opened a crack. The little girl slipped out and Gabriel glanced round, surprised, as she tugged at his trousers leg.

She was fairer than Annie had noticed yesterday, and in the clear s

light her eyes were a brilliant blue. “Poppy,” she whispered. “Mummy wants to see the lady.”

It had, in spite of Gemma’s worries, turned out to be a nearly perfect Christmas. She’d been a little ashamed of her relief when she learned that Juliet and Caspar and their children would be having their Christmas dinner with Caspar’s parents. Her heart went out to Juliet—she couldn’t imagine how Duncan’s sister was coping after Caspar’s behavior last night—but she hadn’t wanted the couple’s feuding to poison her own children’s day.

Kit and Toby had slept in, only tumbling downstairs with Tess after Hugh had got the bacon frying and Geordie, her cocker spaniel, and Jack, the sheepdog, had started a rough-and- tumble game in the kitchen. Kit had thrown on jeans and a sweatshirt, but Toby still wore pajamas and dressing gown, and clutched his Christmas stocking possessively to his small chest.

When Rosemary said there would be no presents until after breakfast, not even Toby had complained, although Gemma knew that at home he’d have thrown a wobbly and whinged all the way through the meal.

Half an hour later, replete with eggs, bacon, and sausage, the adults carrying refills of coffee, the dogs damp from a romp in the snow, they all trooped into the sitting room. Hugh had built a roaring fire and switched on the tree lights, and with the sun sparkling on the snow outside the window, the room looked magical.

Perched on the arm of the chesterfield, leaning against Duncan’s warm shoulder, Gemma watched the children. Rosemary had asked Kit to help his younger brother hand round the presents, but as soon as Toby found a few gifts bearing his name, he ripped into them, tossing shreds of paper about like a storm of New Year’s confetti. Kit, on the other hand, waited until he’d passed round a few gifts for everyone, then, only at his grandmother’s urging, carefully removed the

paper from one of his own packages. First he pulled loose the tape, then folded the used paper, then wound the ribbon into a neat roll.

Gemma marveled at the difference in the boys—Toby a miniature marauder, Kit hoarding his gifts while he watched everyone else, as if he wanted to postpone the pleasure for as long as possible.

Would he ever dive into anything with abandon, she wondered, without fearing that it would be snatched from him?

But in spite of his habitual caution and the slight shadows round his eyes, she thought he looked happier and more relaxed than he had in weeks. And he had stayed close to Duncan all morning, the tension of yesterday’s row apparently forgotten.

Now his eyes widened in pleasure as he finished unwrapping his gift from his grandparents—a trivia game he’d been admiring in the shops for months.

“How did you know?” Gemma asked Rosemary, laughing, as Kit went to give his grandmother a hug.

“A good guess,” Rosemary said lightly, but she looked pleased.

“Oh,” breathed Toby, his flurry of motion stilled as he uncovered his own gift from Rosemary and Hugh, a large wooden box filled with multicolored pastels, and a pad of drawing paper. “What are they?” he asked, running his fingers over the sticks. “Are they like crayons?”

“A bit,” answered Hugh. “And a bit like chalk. We heard you were quite the artist. I’ll show you how to use them later on.”

Giving Gemma’s shoulder a squeeze, Duncan stood up and rooted under the tree until he found his gift for his father. “I know it’s a bit like coals to Newcastle,” he said, passing it across with studied nonchalance, but she heard the anticipation in his voice.

Hugh hefted the package in his hand and grinned. “Feels like a book.” But when he had peeled off the paper, he sat for a moment, gaping at the small volume, before looking up at his son. “Where did you find this?” he whispered.

Kincaid had come back to the sofa and slipped his arm round s

Gemma. “A bookseller in Portobello. I thought you might like it.” It was, as he had explained to Gemma in great detail, a copy of Conversations About Christmas, by Dylan Thomas, one of only two thousand printed in for the friends of publisher J. Laughlin, none of which was then offered for sale. The text was a segment of Thomas’s “A Child’s Christmas in Wales,” altered by the poet into dialogue form.

“I don’t know what to say.” Hugh pressed his lips together but didn’t quite stop a tremble.

Kincaid cleared his throat and said a little too heartily, “Read it to us, then.”

“Now?” asked Hugh, looking at his wife.

Rosemary nodded. “Why not? The turkey’s in the oven. We’re in no rush.”

And so Hugh stood with his back to the fire, a pair of reading glasses on his nose, and, in a credible Welsh accent, began to declaim the lines that took Gemma instantly back to her own sitting room the previous Christmas. Duncan had read the poem aloud to her and the children, and she had imagined a string of Christmases to come, with the boys and the child she carried snuggled beside her.

She shivered and Duncan hugged her a little closer. “Cold?” he murmured in her ear.

She shook her head and put her finger to her lips, listening intently as the words rolled over them, painting pictures more vivid than memories. Even Toby sat quietly, his pastels held tightly in his lap.

Duncan had outdone himself, Gemma thought, as if this Christmas, and this homecoming, had been particularly important to him.

He had woken her that morning by setting a box beside her pillow.

“What?” she’d said, blinking sleepily and pulling herself up against the headboard as he sat on the edge of the bed.

“Open it.” He was dressed, she saw, but tousled and unshaven, and she guessed he had tiptoed down to the sitting room to retrieve the package.

“Now? But what about the child—”

“This isn’t for the children, it’s for you. Go on, open it.”

She was fully awake now, and her heart gave an anxious little jerk. Pushing her hair from her face, she delayed. “It’s bigger than a bread box.”

“If you don’t open the damned thing, you’ll be lucky to get a loaf of bread, much less a bread box,” he’d said with mock severity, so she had peeled off the wrapping as carefully as Kit had. “And no, it’s not a toaster,” he’d added as she saw the appliance label on the card-board box.

She’d pulled back the box flaps and dug into the nest of tissue paper, easing out first a pottery sugar bowl, then a jug, in the same bright Clarice Cliff pattern as the teapot a friend had given her after her miscarriage.

“Oh,” she’d breathed, “you shouldn’t have— Wherever did you—

They’re lovely.” The pieces were rare, and bloody expensive, and she guessed he—and their friend Alex—had spent months looking for them.

“You like them?” He’d looked suddenly unsure.

“Of course I like them!” Pulling him to her, she brushed her lips across his stubbly cheek. His skin felt warm in the room’s chill, and smelled of sleep.

For just a moment, she’d hoped he’d chosen something a little more romantic, something that represented their future together . . .

Then she’d mentally kicked herself for being a fool. If she wanted something as mundane as a ring, all she had to do was ask and he would take her to the nearest jeweler. Instead, he had gone to a great deal of time and expense to find something that had personal meaning for her—not only a personal meaning, but something that symbolized her recovery. What could possibly be more romantic than that?

Dear God, did she think a little thing like a ring was proof against emotional disaster? Her thoughts strayed to Juliet and Caspar and

she shuddered, ashamed of her brief lapse into the pettiness of traditional expectations.

No, ta very much, she would much rather keep things the way they were. To prove it, she’d thanked Duncan with great enthusiasm, and now the memory of that warm half hour made her move a little closer into the circle of his arm.

Later, when the presents had all been opened, Hugh had finished his reading, and the sitting room tidied, they’d had turkey and all the trimmings at the long kitchen table. They’d pulled Christmas crackers to the accompaniment of the dogs’ barking, and had all put on their silly paper hats, much to Toby’s delight. Gemma knew that Rosemary and Hugh must be worried about Juliet, but they had done their best to make the day special for the children.

When they had eaten as much of the turkey as they could manage, they all pushed back their chairs with groans, and by mutual consent agreed to postpone the Christmas pudding until teatime.

Gemma insisted on helping Rosemary with the washing up while the men and boys got out the trivia set. She watched them—Hugh, Duncan, and Kit—as they sat over the game board, their lean Kincaid faces stamped with the same intent expression. And then there was Toby, the odd duckling in the brood. How lucky for him, Gemma thought, that he was not the sort to notice that he didn’t belong.

She was glad they had come, she mused as she wiped plates with a tea towel. She hadn’t realized until they’d got away just how much they’d needed a change, a break from work for her and for Duncan, a break from school for Kit.

When the phone rang, Rosemary was up to her elbows in the washing-up water. “I’ll get it, shall I?” said Gemma, and at Rosemary’s nod picked up the handset.

“Gemma?” The word was little more than a whisper, but Gemma recognized Lally’s voice. “Look, I don’t want my dad to hear me,”

the girl went on hurriedly. “I’m at my grandma’s—my other grand-

ma’s. I’m in the loo, ringing from my mobile. Have you seen my mum? ”

“Here?” Gemma asked, surprised. “No. Why?” Rosemary had turned to listen, her face frozen in instant alarm, her hands still sub-merged in the soapy water.

“She left here ages ago, before dinner,” said Lally, choking back a little hiccup of distress. “She said she’d forgotten something and she’d only be a few minutes, but she never came back.”

On a blustery day in early spring, he was idling through the covered market in the town center after school, bored with lessons that were too easy, bored with teachers taken in by his excuses, bored with stupid classmates too easily influenced.

He moved from stall to stall, examining the merchandise under the watchful eye of the stallholders, enjoying the knowledge that he could easily lift something if he chose. It was all worthless tat, though, not worth the bother.

Then a basket beside the fruit-and-veg stall caught his eye. Had it moved? Leaning closer, he heard a high-pitched mewling, and what he’d initially thought was a bundle of yarn resolved itself into a mass of tiny, squirming kittens.

“Like a kitten, love?” asked the stallholder, in the too-jolly tone people used with children, as if anyone under the age of reproductive ability was an imbecile. “They’re five pounds, mind,” she added, with a smile that revealed bottom teeth like leaning gravestones.

“Just to ensure they go to a good home.”

“How old are they?” he asked, touching one of the bundles with a fingertip. A tongue emerged, rasping his bare skin. The kitten’s eyes, he saw, were blue, and still slightly clouded, as if it hadn’t quite learned to focus.

“Six weeks today. They can eat kibble, mushed up with a bit of milk. Would your parents let you have a cat, love?”

He smiled, imagining his mother’s response if he brought home a kitten. Neither of his parents cared for animals at all, and his mother had a phobia about cats.

“Oh, yes,” he said. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a handful of coins. “I think I’ve got fi ve pounds. I could surprise my mum.” He counted out three of the heavy coins, made a face, then began sorting through the small change.

The woman stopped him with a touch on his hand. “No, no, love.

That’s all right. For you, I’ll make it three. No need to spend all your pocket money. Is it the gray one you like?” She plunged her hand into the basket and extricated the bit of gray fluff he’d prodded. “He’s a grand one. Can you get him home, or will you have your mum bring you back?”

Giving the woman his best smile, he took the kitten, tucking it into the anorak he wore over his school blazer and pulling up the zip. “I’m sure I can manage. I’ve got my bike, and I don’t live far.”

He supported the little body with one hand as he slipped away through the crowd. The kitten wriggled, then quieted, as if comforted by the warmth of his body. “Good luck, sonny,” the woman called after him, but he pretended he hadn’t heard.

Riding his bike one-handed was easy enough, but instead of turning towards home he rode towards the western edge of town and onto the canal towpath. The days were lengthening, so he still had time before dark, and the ground was dry enough that he needn’t worry about splashing mud on his school clothes. He rode north, and when the town had dropped away behind him, he stopped the bike and leaned it against the budding branches of a hawthorn hedge. Just ahead, the canal curved, and the edging had crumbled, providing a fertile hold for reeds at the water’s edge.

He came here sometimes when he wanted to think. Hunkering down on a dry hummock among the reeds, he was invisible, but he could hear a boat or pedestrian coming from a good distance away.

A faint hum of traffic reached him from the Chester Road and the

wind stirred the reed tops, but he found a sheltered spot and folded his legs beneath him. Alerted by the movement, three swans came gliding over, pecking at the tufts of grass lining the canal’s edge.

The kitten had been lulled by the movement of the bike, but now it stirred and squirmed, digging tiny needles of claws into his skin through blazer and shirt. Annoyed, he pulled it out and lifted it by the scruff of its neck, examining it. It hung paralyzed in his grip, its wide blue eyes unblinking.

What was he going to do with the thing? The anticipation of his mother’s horror had lost some of its appeal. His pleasure would be short-lived. She might screech, but then she would retreat to her room, and he would be left finding a home for the cat, a tedious task.

The water rippled as the swans moved away. When the surface stilled, he held the kitten over the canal and studied its wavery reflection. It seemed unreal, a figment of his imagination.

Without conscious thought, he lowered his hand. The kitten struggled as it met the water, twisting and raking his wrist with its claws, then the cold closed over the small gray body, and his grip held fast.

Chapter Nine

The temporary incident room at divisional headquarters had been filled with a jumble of scarred and dented furniture not needed else-where, and computers had been set up haphazardly on desks and tabletops. Wiring trailed across the scuffed flooring like an infestation of snakes, and Babcock, technophobe that he was, suspected it was almost as dangerous.

It was cold, as it was summer or winter in the nether regions of the old building, and to add an even more festive touch to the atmosphere, the room smelled strongly of potatoes, onions, and dough. Someone had obviously indulged in a morning snack of Cornish pasty. The idea made Babcock’s stomach churn.

Ignoring the discomfort, he turned back to the whiteboard set up against one wall and wrote “Baby Jane Doe.”

“Unless we hear otherwise,” he said, “we are going to assume the child is female.”

His team had made themselves as comfortable as possible, and he glanced at them to make sure he had their attention before he continued. He listed the pathologist’s conclusions on the board with a dried-out red marker that had an annoying tendency to squeak: “Six

to eighteen months old. Interred at least one year, probably during winter. Cause of death not obvious.”

One of the detective constables groaned. “You’re joking, boss.

That’s all we have to go on?”

“What? You expect miracles?” asked Babcock in a fair imitation of Dr. Elsworthy, and got a laugh from the group. They’d been grousing among themselves, resenting working on their holiday, and he needed their wholehearted cooperation.

“That rules out the newest owners, the ones doing the construction,” said Rasansky. He’d slouched in the chair nearest the board, his long legs stretched out almost in Babcock’s path.

“Possibly. Probably. But not the Fosters.” Babcock tapped the end of the marker against the side of his nose while he thought. “Although if they’d disposed of an infant in the barn, it seems unlikely they’d have been eager to sell to someone who was going to take the place apart. I’d put them on the back burner for the moment, although we’ll need to talk to them again. That leaves—”

“Excuse me, boss.” It was Sheila Larkin, the detective constable who had groaned over the postmortem results. She was a sharp young woman and Babcock was always glad to have her on his team, except for the fact that her very short skirts distracted his male offi -

cers, not to mention himself. This morning she sat on the edge of a table with her feet propped on a chair, and he had to drag his gaze away from her bare thighs. He wondered how she managed to avoid freezing.

“Isn’t it possible,” she continued, “that if the Fosters didn’t use the barn, the job could have been done without their knowledge?”

“Good point. I don’t think our Mr. Foster stirs out of his armchair too often. And I suppose it could have been done at night, in what—

an hour or two? I’m not much of DIY man myself,” Babcock added.

“Piece of cake,” said Rasansky. “A lantern, a pail of mortar, a trowel. Of course, that’s assuming there was already a space in the wall suitable for filling in.”

Babcock frowned. “Even so, I doubt whoever did this wandered around with his mortar, hoping he’d run across the perfect spot to inter a baby. This required forethought, and foreknowledge. Our perpetrator had to have been familiar with the barn, and would have to have known when he was least likely to be observed.”

“Could a builder estimate the age of the mortar?” asked Larkin, crossing one leg over the other and exposing another few inches of plump white thigh. Travis, his scene-of-crime officer, was riveted, and Babcock wondered if he could have a discreet cautionary word with Larkin without being accused of making inappropriate sexual comments.

“I need to interview Juliet Newcombe again,” he said. “I’ll have a word with her about it.” He turned to Travis. “Any luck with the fingertip search?”

Not the least bit flustered, Travis gave a last lingering glance at Larkin’s legs before turning his attention to Babcock. “Sod all, boss.

Used condoms, fag ends, lunch wrappers, beer cans. Just the combination you’d expect from a construction site that’s also been accessible to teenagers looking to have a bit of fun.”

Babcock hadn’t expected anything more helpful. He singled out Larkin, who had been assigned to search the missing-persons database. “Any luck with mis-per, Sheila?”

“It’s difficult without parameters, boss. I started with the last fi ve years, children under two, confining the search to South Cheshire.

No matches, male or female.”

“We’ll stick to South Cheshire for now, as I think it highly unlikely that someone from out of the area would have known about the barn. But let’s go back twenty years. Dr. Elsworthy says the fabrics look to be fairly modern synthetic blends, but twenty years is strictly a guess at this point—we could be looking at twenty- plus.

When we get the fabric analysis from the lab, we may be able to narrow it down a bit further.”

“Yes, boss,” said Larkin, with her usual gung- ho attitude.

He nodded his approval before turning back to the others. “I think our biggest priority, after identifying a missing child that fits our parameters, is to trace the former own ers, the Smiths. Kevin, I want you to extend the house- to- house. There’s bound to be someone who knows where they went.”

“I’ve sent someone round to the big house at the top of the lane twice, but no one’s at home,” Rasansky said a little defensively.

“They’re the nearest neighbors other than the Fosters, and the most likely prospect.”

“Well, keep trying. But, Kevin,” he continued, “I want you to see if you can track down Jim Craddock, the estate agent who handled the Smiths’ sale of the property, Christmas or no. And while you’re at it, stop at Somerfield’s and Safeway, and anywhere else you can think of that carries baby products— Oh, hell.” He rubbed at his chin in frustration. “I keep forgetting everything’s closed. We’ll have to put that off until after Boxing Day. Must be your lucky day, Sergeant.”

The look Rasansky shot him was gratifyingly sour, and as everyone turned to his assigned task, Babcock suddenly found himself whistling under his breath.

After the brilliance of sun on snow, it took Annie’s eyes a moment to adjust to the dim light in the narrowboat’s cabin. The curtains had been pulled almost closed, and a single oil lamp burned on the drop-down table. A low fire smoldered in the woodstove, but the cold seemed dense, as if it had settled in the small space like a weight.

Although Gabriel had built a galley, bathroom, and sleeping quarters into what had once been the boat’s cargo space, he had kept the main cabin as unaltered as possible. As Annie looked round, she felt she had stepped back in time.

The woodwork was dark, with trim picked out in a cheery red, and every available inch of flat wall space was covered either with

polished brasses or with the laceware china plates that the boaters had traditionally collected. Rowan had once told Annie that she had inherited the pieces from her mother. The back of the cross seat had been embellished with a miniature castle—as was the underside of the drop table, Annie remembered—and painted roses cascaded down a side storage box—all Rowan’s work.

But today only Joseph sat at the table, his dark, curly head bent over paper and pencils. He hadn’t looked up since Annie had stepped down into the cabin. Gabriel and the little girl, Marie, had stopped on the steps behind her, adding to Annie’s sense of unease.

“Hello, Joe,” she said. He must be getting on for nine, she thought, a handsome, well- made boy who seemed to have outgrown the problems that had plagued him as a baby and toddler.

He had been two when his parents had first taken him to the local hospital. They’d told the attending doctor that the boy was having fits, and had several times stopped breathing.

After examining the boy, the doctor reported that he could find no evidence of seizures, but that the child had bruising on his arms and legs that might have been due to a violent fit.

Over the next few months, the Wains took Joseph to the hospital again and again, although the staff ’s findings continued to be inconclusive. Up until that time, the Wains had lived a nomadic life, but because of the child’s poor health, Gabriel had found temporary work near Nantwich. Also, Rowan had become pregnant again, and was having a difficult time.

Frustrated and unused to dealing with the hospital bureaucracy, Gabriel Wain had become increasingly belligerent with the doctor and the nursing staff. The boat people had always had a healthy disregard for hospitals, and Gabriel himself had been one of the last babies delivered by Sister Mary at Stoke Bruene on the Grand Union Canal, the nursing sister who spent her life ministering to the needs of the canal community.

On calling up the child’s National Health records, the doctor

learned that this was not the first time the Wains had sought help for their son. When Joseph was an infant, they had taken him to a Manchester hospital, saying that he couldn’t keep food down. Again, no diagnosis had been made.

The doctor’s suspicions were aroused, and after a particularly difficult altercation with Gabriel, he had turned Joseph’s records over to Social Services.

His accompanying report was damning. He believed the parents were manufacturing symptoms, and possibly abusing the boy, for attention. His official accusation—Annie could no longer think of it as a diagnosis—had been MSBP, Munchausen syndrome by proxy.

It had been her job, as the social worker assigned to the case, to investigate the doctor’s allegations.

“You probably won’t remember me, Joe,” she said now, “but I knew you when you were little.”

Joseph glanced at her, then nodded, his eyes downcast again, and from the color that rose in his cheeks she realized that he must be painfully shy. She wondered if the family had stayed in one place long enough for either child to be enrolled in school.

“Your mummy wanted to see—” she had begun, when Gabriel spoke from behind her.

“Through there,” he said, gesturing towards the passageway that led to the galley and the sleeping cabins beyond. He stepped down into the cabin, Marie clinging to his leg like a limpet, and the small space seemed suddenly claustrophobic. For a moment Annie felt frightened, then she told herself not to be absurd. Gabriel wouldn’t harm her—and certainly not in front of his wife and children.

She followed his instructions, moving through the tidy galley and into the cabin beyond. Here, the curtain had been pulled back a few inches, enough to illuminate the figure lying propped up in the box bed.

“Rowan!” Annie breathed, unable to stop herself. If she had thought the woman looked ill when she had seen her yesterday, today her skin

seemed gray, and even in the filtered light of the cabin, her lips had a blue tinge.

Rowan Wain smiled and spoke with obvious effort. “I heard you.” She nodded towards the window that overlooked the towpath.

“I couldn’t let you go, thinking we didn’t appreciate what you did for us all that time ago. But there’s nothing we need now. We’re just fine on our own.”

Annie was conscious of Gabriel standing in the doorway, with both children now crowded behind him, but she tried to ignore their presence. As there was no other furniture in the small cabin and she didn’t want to talk to Rowan while hovering over her, she sat down carefully on the hard edge of the box bed. Gabriel had made it himself, she remembered, a fine example of his carpentry skills.

“You’ve got yourself a boat now,” Rowan continued with a smile.

“You and your husband?”

Facing this woman who had given her entire life to her family, Annie found herself suddenly unable to admit she’d abandoned her husband on what she suspected Rowan would see as a whim. “Finding oneself ” was a strictly middle-class luxury. Nor, aware of Gabriel’s hostile presence behind her, was she sure she wanted to admit to being alone. “Yes,” she said at last, nodding.

“But yesterday you were working her on your own. And well, too.”

“My husband—he had some business at our house in Tilston.” The prevarication came a little more easily, but then she remembered she’d told Gabriel she’d gone back to using her maiden name. Well, she’d just have to bluff it out as best she could. “He’ll be back soon,” she said with an internal grimace, knowing she had just marked herself out as someone who used a narrowboat for an occasional second home, a practice that earned little respect from the traditional boater. “I’m surprised I—we hadn’t run across you before now.”

Rowan looked away. “We were up Manchester way for a while, but the jobs dried up.”

From the silence of the generator, the mean fire, and the slight shabbiness of the boat itself, things had not improved on the Shropshire Union. The boat was so cold that Rowan was covered in layers of blankets over the old woolen jumper she wore, and when she spoke, her breath made tiny clouds of condensation. Annie said,

“Rowan, if things aren’t going well, I could—”

“No.” Rowan glanced at her husband as she cut Annie off. “We’ll do fine. You should g—”

Annie wasn’t going to let herself be fobbed off so easily. “Rowan, you’re obviously not well. How long has this been going on? Have you seen a doctor?”

“I’m just a bit tired,” Rowan protested, but her voice was breathy, a thread of sound. “With Christmas and all. I’ll be fine when I’ve had a rest.”

It was a game effort, but Annie now saw things besides the pallor—

the hollows under the woman’s eyes, the protrusion of the bones from the stick-thin wrists, the lank hair that had once been glossy.

“Rowan,” she said gently. “I think you haven’t been well for some time. You must get some help.”

“You know I can’t.” Rowan sat up, grasping Annie’s arm with unexpected strength. “No doctors. No hospitals. I won’t take a chance with my children.”

Annie laid her hand over the other woman’s fingers, gently, until she felt Rowan’s grip relax. “There’s no reason why your seeing a doctor should put the children at risk. They’re both well. You must—”

“You know what my records will say.” Rowan’s voice rose with urgency. “It never comes

off—you told me that yourself—even

though I was cleared. Someone will come, looking, prying, and this time it won’t be you.”

Annie closed her eyes and took a breath as the memories fl ooded back. The case had landed on her desk, one of many, and she’d seen enough abuse in her years as a social worker that at first she’d been predisposed to take the report at face value, a fact that now shamed

her. She’d held such power, to have taken it so lightly. If her findings had agreed with the doctors’, the Wains’ case would have gone to the civil courts. There, the family, marginally literate and with no funds for counsel, would have been helpless against the unlimited resources of the state and the testimony of so-called expert witnesses. It was almost certain that both Joseph and little Marie would have been taken into foster care, and possible that one or both parents would have faced criminal charges.

She had first interviewed the Wains aboard the Daphne. She’d been unexpectedly charmed by the boat, and by Rowan’s shy hospitality. The first niggle of doubt had crept in as she’d observed a mother whose devoted care of her son seemed in no way calculated to call attention to herself, a father who was surly to her but unfailingly gentle with the little boy. By this time, Joseph’s seizures seemed to have stopped, and neither parent displayed anything but heartfelt relief.

Although puzzled as she continued to visit the family, as she watched them time after time with their child, Annie became more and more convinced that the charges against them were unfounded.

So she had gone with her instincts, but it had taken her months of investigation, of interviews, of sifting through medical records, to come up with the means to prove herself, and them, right.

Their nomadic life had made the process enormously difficult.

They spent little time in one place, had no extended family, no intimate contact with others who could substantiate their accounts of little Joseph’s illnesses. But during one interview, Rowan told her about Joseph’s first seizure.

They’d been on the Grand Union Canal, below Birmingham, moored alongside several other boats. Gabriel had been on deck and Rowan in the cabin with the sleeping toddler when the boy had stiffened, his back arching, his arms and legs flailing. Then the child had gone limp, his skin turning blue. Rowan had lifted him, shaking him frantically while shouting to Gabriel for help.

Gabe had come plunging down the hatchway with Charlie, a quiet, lanky young man who drifted from one mooring to the next on an old Josher. But when Charlie saw the still child in Rowan’s arms, his indolence vanished. “Ambulance training,” he’d said shortly. Taking Joseph from Rowan, he’d laid him out on the cabin floor, and after checking his airway, had given the baby a quick puff of breath, then pressed on his chest. Once, twice, three times, and then Joseph’s body had jerked in a spasm and he’d begun to wail.

They had never run across Charlie again, however, and Rowan didn’t even know if he was still on the boats.

But Annie was determined to substantiate Rowan’s story, and her search for the elusive Charlie proved her true introduction to the Cut. She’d begun by car, working in a widening circle from Cheshire, crisscrossing middle England as she tried canal-side shops and marinas, pubs and popular mooring spots, talking to anyone who might have had contact with the Wains or might have news of Charlie.

She soon discovered not only that had she set herself a well- nigh impossible task, but that there were places boaters congregated that couldn’t be reached by car. She had almost despaired when a boater told her he knew Charlie; had, in fact, recently seen him on the Staff and Worcs Canal, below Stoke.

The next day Annie had hired a boat with her own funds. She knew her department would never deem it a reasonable expense.

But she also realized that somewhere over the past few weeks, she’d slipped over the line between reason and obsession.

She’d had little idea how to handle the boat. Even remembering the mess she’d made of her first few locks made her shudder. Terrified and clumsy, she was kept from swamping the boat or falling from a lock gate only by blind luck and help from fellow boaters. But she had persevered, her enchantment with the Cut growing over the next few days as she worked her way south along the Shropshire Union towards Birmingham. She learned to recognize the Joshers, the restored boats that had once belonged to the Fellows, Morton, and s

Clayton carrying company, and when one evening she saw the distinctive silhouette of a Josher moored near the bottom of the Wolver-hampton , her heart had raced. As she drew nearer, she made out the faded letters on the boat’s side: Caroline. That was the name both the Wains and her boater informant had given her. Charlie did exist, and she had found him. Jubilation fizzed through her.

He was just as the Wains had described him, although not now so young, a thin, freckle-faced man with his sandy hair drawn back in a ponytail. When he understood what Annie wanted, he’d invited her into his tiny cabin for a beer, and he’d given her an account of the incident almost identical to Rowan Wain’s. Trying to contain her excitement, Annie wrote out his statement and had him sign it.

“Poor little bugger,” he’d said when they’d finished. “It was obviously some sort of seizure. Did they ever get him sorted out? The mother said he’d been unwell as an infant. Gastric reflux. I remember thinking it odd that she knew the term.”

Back aboard her hire boat, settled in her cabin with a celebratory glass of wine, Annie tried to work out what to do next. If Joseph’s seizures were real, why had the doctor been so ready to discount his parents’ accounts? And was there some connection between the problems he’d had as an infant and his later seizures?

With regret, she’d returned to Nantwich and traded her hire boat for piles of paper. Eventually, her diligence paid off. She found the anomaly in the records from the Manchester hospital where Joseph had previously been treated. One report mentioned an earlier admission, to a hospital near Leeds, where Joseph had been prescribed medication for gastric reflux. And yet in the current doctor’s report to Social Services, he stated that Joseph had never been treated for any of the ailments described by his parents. How had he missed it?

Or perhaps more to the point, Annie thought, why had he missed it? She knew the system could fail, knew both doctors and nurses were overworked and overtired, but surely such a serious accusation had merited a thorough review of the little boy’s case?

Her suspicions aroused, she began interviewing hospital staff and checking the doctor’s record. The doctor had a reputation, she found, for his lack of patience with parents who questioned his judgment or took up too much of his time. He had, in fact, made a diagnosis of MSBP in three other cases. Even assuming one believed in the validity of the diagnosis, such a high incidence of the disorder was statistically absurd. All the families had been low income; all had lost their children to foster care.

Annie had, of course, recommended that Joseph and Marie Wain not be added to the council’s “at risk” register, or placed in foster care. Joseph’s health continued to improve, an occurrence that the other doctors Annie consulted told her was not unusual—sometimes children simply healed themselves as their development progressed.

She had also made a formal complaint against the doctor in question, but no action had been taken by the hospital authorities. And in spite of all her efforts, Rowan Wain’s records still carried the diagnosis of MSBP, and the stigma of child abuse and mental illness.

It could not be expunged.

Now Annie patted Rowan’s hand in an effort at reassurance.

“There’s no reason anyone should look at the children,” she said, yet the scenarios played out in her head. What if Rowan were seriously, even terminally, ill? What if some eager doctor or nurse looked at her records and decided that Rowan—or Gabriel, on Rowan’s death—could not provide suitable care? It could start all over again, and this time she would be unable to protect them.

Rowan simply shook her head, as if the effort of speech had exhausted her.

With growing panic, Annie turned to Gabriel. “You must see she can’t go on like this. You’ve got to do something.” The sight of the children’s anxious faces as they pressed against their father kept her from adding Or she might die, but his expression told her he knew. He knew, but he couldn’t risk his children, and the choice was tearing him apart.

“No hospitals,” he repeated, but the force had gone from his voice and his rugged face was creased with anguish.

No hospitals. An idea took root in Annie’s mind. It might work—

at the very least it would tell them what they were dealing with.

She gave Rowan’s hand a squeeze, then looked back at Gabriel.

“What if . . . what if I could find someone to come and have a look at Rowan? What if it were strictly off the record?”

“I’m sure there’s no reason to worry,” Kincaid said. “You know Jules’s temper—after last night, I’m not surprised she couldn’t get through Christmas dinner with Caspar. And she’s always liked to go off on her own when she’s in a funk.”

After speaking to Lally, his mother had rung Juliet’s mobile number and her home phone, with no response. Then, despite Lally’s pleas, she had rung Caspar to confirm the girl’s story. Rosemary’s mouth had tightened as she listened, then she’d hung up with unnecessary force. “He says it’s true,” she’d told them. “Juliet walked out without a word to anyone before dinner was even served. He says she meant to inconvenience everyone.”

Now his mother shook her head. “I don’t like it.” Worry shadowed her eyes, and with a pang, Kincaid saw that she had aged more than he’d realized since he’d seen her last.

Gemma had gone back to the washing up, but he could see that she was listening with quiet attention. A strand of hair had come loose from her clip, curling damply against her cheek, but he wasn’t quite close enough to reach out and smooth it back.

His father had come to stand beside his mother; Toby had slipped away from the table and settled on the dog bed, alternating tussling with the three dogs and stroking Geordie’s long ears. And Kit, Kit was watching them, fear flickering in his eyes.

If Kincaid’s job inclined him to glimpse the potential tragedy in the commonplace, for Kit the possibility was ever real and ever present.

In Kit’s world, mothers who left their children might not return. This was a strain the boy didn’t need.

Inwardly cursing his sister, Kincaid said, “Mum, let’s not call out the cavalry just yet. We know she’s taken the car. She’s probably just gone home for a good sulk, and you may not be doing her any favors by interfering. And in the meantime, Gemma and I can take the boys for a walk while the light lasts. We’ll give the queen a miss, eh?” he added with a wink at Kit. It was a family joke that the queen’s traditional Christmas Day speech was the perfect soporific.

Gemma nodded towards Toby, who had curled up with an arm round the cocker spaniel, his eyelids at half- mast. “You and Kit go,”

she said softly. “Toby and I will stay here and keep your mum and dad company.”

Tess, Kit’s little terrier, raised her head and tilted it expectantly.

“Leave her,” Kincaid said softly, not wanting to disturb Toby, and Kit signaled her to stay. They slipped into the front hall, grabbed their coats from the pegs, and eased out the door, quiet as burglars.

The snow still lay bright on the land, but the light had softened, a harbinger of the early winter dark. The scent of wood smoke, pure and painfully sweet, caught at Kincaid’s throat.

Without speaking, he led the way around to the back of the house and picked up the footpath that led across his parents’ field. After all these years, his feet still seemed to know every rise and hollow, and after so long in London, it surprised him how little the countryside had changed. Once, he glanced back, but the farmhouse had disappeared behind its sheltering screen of trees.

Tromping along beside him, Kit placed his feet with deliberation, as if the imprint of each boot were of colossal importance. He seemed equally determined not to meet Kincaid’s gaze, but after a few moments he said, “Aren’t you going to lecture me?”

“I hadn’t planned on it.” Kincaid kept his tone light. He’d realized, after yesterday’s shouting match, that his first priority was to reestablish communication with his son. “Do you want me to?”

This provoked a surprised glance. “Um, no, not really.”

“Do you want to tell me what’s going on at school, then?” Kincaid asked, just as easily.

Kit hesitated for so long that Kincaid thought he might not answer, but at last he said, “Not now. Not today, anyway.”

Kincaid nodded, understanding what was unsaid. After a moment, he squeezed Kit’s shoulder. “It’s been a good Christmas.”

“Brilliant,” agreed Kit. Swinging his arms, the boy picked up his pace, as if he’d been given permission to delight in the walk.

The tension had drained from him, and suddenly he seemed an ordinary boy, one without the weight of the world on his shoulders—

or as ordinary as any thirteen-year-old could be, Kincaid reminded himself.

They went on, the silence between them now stretching in an almost tangible bond. Round spots of color bloomed on Kit’s cheeks from the cold and exertion. Then they crested a small hill and saw the sinuous curve of the canal before them, like a hidden necklace tossed carelessly across the rolling Cheshire countryside.

Kit stopped, looking puzzled, then scanned the horizon as if trying to get his bearings. “But I thought— Last night, I thought the canal was running alongside the main road.”

“It was.” Kincaid stooped and drew a line in the snow with his finger to illustrate. “That was the main branch of the Shropshire Union, which goes more or less north to Chester and Ellesmere port.”

He then drew another line, intersecting the first at right angles, and nodded at the canal in front of them. “This is the Middlewich Branch, which meanders off to the northeast, towards Manchester. The two intersect at Barbridge, where we turned onto the main road last night.

It’s a challenge getting a boat round the bend at Barbridge Junction, I can tell you.”

“Can we see?” Kit asked, with a simple enthusiasm that Kincaid had not expected.

“I don’t see why not.” Having intended to go that way all along, Kincaid was pleased at having found something to interest his son.

He led the way through the field gate and down onto the towpath.

Here the snow had been compacted by the passage of feet, both human and canine. Bare trees stood crisply skeletal against the snow, and in the distance a trio of black birds circled. Crows, Kincaid thought, searching for carrion, and if he guessed right, not far from the site of last night’s grisly discovery.

Not that there was anything left for them to fi nd, of course, but the reminder made him wonder what was happening at the crime scene. Had they identified the child? Old cases, cold cases, were the most difficult. He didn’t envy his former schoolmate Ronnie, he told himself firmly. And yet, his curiosity nagged him.

He thought of Juliet, wondering if the image of the dead child was haunting her, wondering if that and worry over the fate of her project might have driven her back to the building site. And what in hell’s name was going on between Juliet and Caspar?

“Do you really think Aunt Juliet is all right?” asked Kit, as if he’d read his mind.

“Of course she is. Your aunt Jules is tougher than she looks, and very capable of looking after herself. I’m sure she had a good reason for going walkabout for a bit,” he answered, but even as he spoke he realized how little he really knew about his sister.

There was little wind, and in the bright sunshine he hadn’t felt the cold at first. But now he realized that his nose and the tips of his ears had gone numb, and even in gloves his hands were beginning to stiffen. Shoving his hands firmly into his pockets, Kincaid said,

“Juliet loved this walk when we were kids. She could tramp round the countryside all day, and in all weathers. She used to say she was going to be an explorer when she grew up, like Ranulph Fiennes.”

She had been full of dreams, his sister. Had any part of her life turned out as she had imagined?

“But she’s a builder instead. Isn’t that a funny job for a woman?”

Kincaid smiled. “Better not let Gemma hear you say a thing like that. It’s no more odd than a woman police officer. And Jules was always good at making things. My father used to build us stage sets, and Jules would help him.”

“You put on plays?” Kit asked, with a trace of wistfulness.

Guilt stabbed at Kincaid. Wasn’t he always too busy with work to spend time with his son?

“Shakespeare, usually,” he forced himself to answer cheerfully,

“given my dad’s penchant for the bard. I used to be able to declaim whole bits of Hamlet, but I’ve forgotten them now.”

Kincaid had a sudden vision of a summer’s afternoon, and Juliet, as Ophelia, sprawled on a blue tarp they had appropriated for a river.

“Can’t you die a little more gracefully?” he’d groused, and she’d sat up and scowled at him.

“Dead people don’t look graceful,” she’d retorted, and he’d had plenty of opportunities since to discover that she had been right. He pushed the memory away, searching for a distraction.

Kit provided it for him, pointing. “Look, there’s a boat.”

They were nearing Barbridge, and Kincaid thought it only due to the slowness of the season that they hadn’t encountered moored boats before now. “And a nice one it is, too,” he said admiringly as they drew closer. Its hull was painted a deep, glossy sapphire, with trim picked out in a paler sky blue. The elum, as the tiller was called on a narrowboat, was striped in the same contrasting colors, and everything on the boat, down to the chimney brasses, sparkled with loving care. The craft’s name was painted on its bow in crisp white script: Lost Horizon. A steady column of smoke rose from the chimney, and he heard the faint hum of the generator. Someone was definitely aboard.

As they drew alongside, the bow doors opened and a woman stepped up into the well deck. She was tall, with a slender build un-

disguised by her heavy padded jacket, and her short fair hair gleamed in the sunlight. Catching sight of them, she nodded, and Kincaid felt a start of recognition.

Last night in church she had seemed an outsider, her shield against the world penetrable only when she sang; here, she moved with the grace of familiarity. Here, he had found her in her element.