Water Like A Stone

Chapter Three

The unopened bottle of ten-year-old Aberlour stood on Ronnie Babcock’s kitchen table, its ready-made red bow still attached. Babcock regarded it sourly as he added the day’s post to the already toppling pile beside the bottle, then tossed his coat over a chair filled to overflowing with unopened newspapers.

The scotch was a gift from his guv’nor, Superintendent Fogarty, and you could always trust the super to judge the appropriate level of gift giving to a T. Not a blended bottle of Bell’s, which might make it seem he undervalued his team, but nor could he be bothered to spend a quid or two extra on the twelve-year-old Aberlour. No point in splashing out more than was absolutely necessary, he would say. A diplomat to the bone, was Fogarty—no wonder he’d gone far in the force.

Not that Fogarty was a bad copper, as much as it sometimes galled Babcock to admit it. He was just a better politician, and that was what up- to-date policing required. Fogarty played golf regularly with the right county officials; he lived in a detached bungalow in the toniest part of suburban Crewe; his unfortunately bucktoothed wife appeared often in the pages of Cheshire Life.

The Fogartys’ life had, in fact, been Peggy Babcock’s ideal, and she’d told Ronnie often enough what a fool he was not to emulate it.

Babcock had sneered at that, and look where it had got him.

Alone in a sedate semidetached house on the Crewe Road outside Nantwich, a house he had hated from the day the estate agent had shown it to them. And Peggy, who had insisted they buy the place, had packed her bag and walked out, straight into the arms—and the flat—of the same estate agent.

He gave a convulsive shiver as the cold began to seep through the thin fabric of his suit jacket. The central- heating boiler had been wonky the past few days, but he hadn’t mustered the time or energy to have a look at it, and tonight it seemed to have gone out altogether. Now there was no chance in hell of getting the heating man to come, which meant it was going to be a long, cold Christmas.

Slipping back into his overcoat, Babcock tore the bow off the bottle of Aberlour, but stopped short of breaking the seal. The question was, did he put himself out of his misery now and suffer the hangover on Christmas morning, when he had to pay a courtesy call on his aged aunt, or did he put it off until he’d discharged his one social obligation and could sink as deep as he liked into alcohol-induced self- pity?

There were a couple of beers in the fridge, if not much else—he could make himself a sandwich and drink them while he watched Christmas Eve rubbish on the telly. Either choice was pathetic.

He’d volunteered for the holiday-call rota rather than face the evening on his own, but the citizenry of South Cheshire seemed remarkably well- behaved this Christmas Eve, more’s the pity, and he had finally given up a hope of action and left a stultifyingly quiet station.

For a moment he toyed with the idea of calling Peggy to wish her a happy Christmas, but that meant he’d probably have to carry on a civil conversation with Bert, and he doubted his Christmas spirit would stretch quite that far.

Beer and telly it was, then, and he’d better bring the duvet down

from the bedroom for a little extra warmth. He’d hate for his offi -

cers to find him frozen on his sofa when he didn’t turn up for work after the holiday. Serve Peggy right, though, the cow, he thought with a snort, if she had to make social capital out of his embarrassing demise. On the other hand, “Killed in the line of duty” would provide her with conversational fodder for years, and he didn’t intend to give her the satisfaction.

He had opened the fridge, groaning when he saw only a solitary can of Tennents and an open packet of ham that curled up at the edges, when the mobile phone clipped to his belt began to vibrate.

Even before he glanced at the number he knew it was Area Control—

no one else would be ringing him on Christmas Eve.

“Thank you, God,” he said with a sigh, and raised his eyes heav-enward in salute as he flipped open the phone.

They sat huddled in Juliet’s van, with the motor running in hopes of coaxing a little warm air from the heating vents. The windows were already fogging from their breath, and outside, the snow still drifted down, cocooning them from the outside world.

Kincaid found himself thinking of the time when he and Jules, as children, had managed to get themselves locked in their neighbor’s coal cellar for an afternoon. He’d been devouring science fi ction at the time, and as they’d sat scrunched together in the dark in what had seemed utter isolation, he’d imagined they were the last two people on earth. Fortunately, the neighbor had come home and heard their shouts, so they’d got off with no more than a bollocking and a missed meal, but he’d never forgotten the exhilarating terror of those long hours.

Beside him, Juliet took off one glove and held her bare hand in front of the vent, then grimaced and pulled it on again. “It’s bloody freezing,” she said. “Do you think the police will be long?”

Remembering how she had always refused comfort, he didn’t s

give her a reassuring answer. “Quite likely. They’ll be short-staffed tonight, and the bad weather won’t help.” After notifying the local police, he’d rung Gemma and his parents to explain the situation, but when he’d offered his phone to Juliet and asked if she needed to call Caspar, she’d said no.

Kincaid had never been particularly fond of his brother- in- law—

he found the man’s supercilious attitude exasperating—but he was distressed to hear the evident unhappiness in his sister’s voice. He knew better than to pry, however—unless he did it very tactfully.

“How’s your new business going?” he asked.

From the look on Juliet’s face, it had been the wrong question.

“This was my first big commission. We were already behind schedule because of the weather, and now with this—” She gave a despairing little shrug. “What makes it worse is that the client is a friend of Piers—” A few more strands fluttered loose from her ponytail as she fell silent, shaking her head. “Oh, God, listen to me. I’m a selfi sh cow to even think about my problems, when that poor child— What do you think happened to it, Duncan? And the pink suit—was it a little girl?”

“We can’t know that yet,” he answered gently. “But try not to think about it. Whatever happened was a long time ago—”

“Not that long,” she broke in, surprising him. “That blanket—

the children had one in the same fabric when they were small. It must have been Lally’s, I think, because it was pink, but we used it for Sam as well.”

“Do you remember where it came from?” he asked, unable to damp down the quickening of his pulse as his investigative instincts kicked in. This was not his case, he reminded himself—it had nothing to do with him.

“The supermarket, maybe. Or one of the chain baby shops. It was nothing special.”

He pictured the child only a few yards distant, its flesh wasting away from its small bones, and wondered at the care with which it had been wrapped in the cheap blanket. But he had seen parents

batter their children to death, then cover them tenderly, so he knew it meant nothing. Nor did he want to think about those things, not here, not now.

“How do you do it?” Jules said softly, as if she’d read his mind.

“How do you deal with things like this every day, and still put your children to bed at night without panicking? They’re so fragile, so vulnerable. You think it’s the most frightening when they’re babies, but then they get old enough to be out of your sight, out of your care, and you know that anything can happen . . .”

He thought immediately of Kit, and of his own failure to anticipate trouble in that quarter. And his niece, he remembered, was almost the same age. “Jules, are you having trouble with Lally?” he asked.

“No. No, of course not.” Juliet pulled off her glove again, but this time, after testing the vent, she stripped off the other glove, too, and rubbed her hands together in the airstream. After a moment, she said, “It’s just that . . . a month ago, a boy from Lally’s school was found in the canal, drowned. He was fourteen. They said there was alcohol involved.” She looked up at him, her hands still. “He was a good kid, Duncan. A good kid, a good student, never in any kind of trouble. If it can happen to a child like that . . .”

“I know. It means none of them is safe.” It occurred to him then that he didn’t know his niece at all, that he couldn’t begin to guess whether or not she was at risk. “Is Lally all right? I’m sure it was very upsetting for her.”

“I don’t know. The school provided counseling for those who wanted it, but I’m not sure if she went. She doesn’t talk to me anymore. But she’s seemed different the last few weeks, more with-drawn.” Juliet sighed. “Maybe it’s just her age. I suppose I was difficult at fourteen, too.”

“Worse than difficult,” he said, teasing. If he had hoped for an answering smile, he was disappointed. Juliet flashed him a look he couldn’t read, then yanked her gloves on again and huddled deeper into her jacket.

Why was it, Kincaid wondered, that he always managed to put his foot wrong with his sister?

Ronnie Babcock felt his adrenaline start to pump as he backed out of his drive. As glad as he was of any excuse to avoid his own company, he’d expected nothing more exciting than an alcohol- fueled domestic, or perhaps a burglar taking advantage of someone away for the holiday. Certainly when his phone rang he hadn’t imagined the interred body of a child—at the least a suspicious death, at the most a homicide.

He forced himself to slow the powerful BMW. It was still snowing and the roads would be growing treacherous. Although he liked to drive fast, he was careful of his car—God help anyone who put a nick or dent in the Black Beast, as he liked to call it. He’d bought the used after Peggy had walked out, and if there were whispered comments about the male menopause around the station, he didn’t care. He’d been a poor kid, and to him the car represented everything he’d never thought he could achieve.

Not that he thought of himself as middle-aged, mind you. As he slowed for the A roundabout, he tightened the knot in his tie and glanced at himself in the driving mirror. At forty-one, his hair was still thick, springing from the widow’s peak on his brow, and if there were a few gray threads mixed with the blond, they didn’t show.

He’d kept his footballer’s physique, too, as well as the broken nose and the scar across his cheek where a football boot had caught him full in the face. His rather battered visage often came in handy in the interview room, and he liked to think there were women—his ex-wife notwithstanding—that found it attractive.

The traffic was lighter than he’d expected, and he had an easy shot of it to the location of the call, skirting the north side of Nantwich on the A. At the Burford roundabout the A turned north, towards Chester, and the visibility dropped to near nil in the blowing

snow. He crawled along, swearing under his breath, thinking about the logistics of getting the crime-scene unit out in this weather. From the brief report he’d been given, he wasn’t sure if the actual site of the corpse was sheltered from the elements.

His swearing increased in volume as he saw the turning too late to negotiate it. He had to drive another mile into Barbridge before he could find a place to turn the car, and this time he crept back towards the farm track at a snail’s pace. His moment of triumph was short-lived, however, when he discovered he couldn’t even see which way the track turned. Nor was the high- powered BMW designed for driving in accumulating snow on unpaved roads. He coasted to a stop, wondering if he was going to have to get out and leg it the rest of the way with the help of a torch. His overcoat was lightweight; his shoes were new and expensive and would be soaked through in minutes.

Then, as he checked the batteries in the torch he kept in the door pocket, the curtain of white surrounding his car began to thin.

After a moment, it was once more possible to pick out individual flakes, and then there were only a few solitary, erratically drifting crystals.

Babcock suspected the reprieve was temporary, but he could now see the road a few yards beyond the car’s bonnet, and he meant to take advantage of it. He put the BMW into gear again and crept along the track, and soon he saw the panda cars’ blue lights fl ashing like beacons.

When he came out into the clearing, he saw that the headlamps of the patrol cars illuminated a Ford Escort and the sort of white van used by builders and plumbers. One of the patrol officers stood talking to two civilians, and as he drew nearer Babcock could see that the taller figure was a man in a City overcoat, and the smaller, which he had first assumed to be male, seemed to be a woman dressed in rough clothing. Behind them, torches flashed within the shadowy huddle of outbuildings.

What a godforsaken place, and how had these people come to discover a body here on Christmas Eve? He picked his way across the snowy ruts, careful of his shoes although he knew it was a hope-less prospect. At least he wouldn’t be the only one with ruined foot-wear, he thought with some satisfaction, considering the cut of the other man’s overcoat.

The woman was quite pretty, dark-haired, and there was something about her that tickled his memory. Then, as the man turned towards him, his face fully illuminated in the glare of the lights, Ronnie Babcock gave an involuntary grunt of surprise. What the hell was he doing here?

“Well, I’ll be buggered,” he said as he reached the waiting group.

“If it isn’t my old mate Duncan Kincaid. Trouble himself.”

Her skin was pale, and felt clammy to the touch. Worse, even in the dim light of the cabin, it seemed to Gabriel Wain that his wife’s lips were tinged with blue. When he smoothed her dark hair from her brow, she moved restlessly under his touch and opened her eyes.

“Gabe, you won’t forget, will you?” she whispered. “They’d be so disappointed—”

“Of course I won’t forget, woman. I’ll do it as soon as they’re asleep, I promise.” From the next-door cabin, he could hear the rustlings and occasional giggles of their son and daughter, awake past their bedtime with Christmas Eve excitement. The stockings would be laid at the ends of their bunks, even if the knitted socks held only oranges, boiled sweets, and a few knickknacks from the shop at the Venetian Marina.

There were a few other surprises wrapped in colored paper and tucked away in the main cabin: crayons and paints, some clever three-dimensional cards depicting canal life that the children could tack up by their beds, a book for each of them. And for seven-year-old Marie there was a doll; for nine-year-old Joseph, his first pocketknife. To

provide these things, Rowan had worked extra hours painting the traditional roses-and-castles canalware she sold to supplement their income, and the effort had exhausted her.

Not that it took much to exhaust her these days. Worry gnawed in his belly like a worm, and his helplessness in the face of her growing weakness made him so angry his hands had begun to shake continually, but he tried to hide such feelings from her. He knew why she wouldn’t seek help at a hospital or clinic—he understood the consequences as well as she did. So he did what he could: he managed the boat and the locks with only the children’s help, he’d taken over almost all the domestic chores as well, and he did what he could to comfort the children and attend to their lessons.

But it wasn’t enough—he knew it wasn’t enough, and he knew he would be lost without her.

He shifted a little on the bed’s edge so that he could pull the blanket more firmly over his wife’s shoulders. Even through his thick wool jumper he could feel the chill creeping into the boat. The narrowboat’s only heat came from the stove in the main cabin, but he dared not add more wood this late in the evening. He stored a supply on top of the boat, both for their own use and to sell to other boaters, and with the Christmastime slowdown in odd jobs, he couldn’t afford to burn their only source of cash. Nor would he be able to forage easily for more wood with snow on the ground—if the cold snap lasted more than a few days, they would be in real trouble.

Rowan’s eyelids had begun to droop again. “You sleep now, do you hear?” he whispered. “I’ll take care of everything.” And he would, too—it was just that it was becoming harder and harder to see how he was going to manage it.

Rowan was asleep, her breathing shallow but regular, and from next door the children’s voices had faded from drowsy whispers to silence. Giving his wife’s shoulder a squeeze, he moved quietly through the children’s cabin and into the stern.

He stood for a moment, gazing at the remains of the stew he’d s

made for dinner, still standing on the hob; at the laceware and brasses decorating the polished wood of the cabin walls; at the bright detail of the castle scene Rowan had painted on the underside of the drop table. The children had strung tinsel and a red-and-green paper chain over the windows and Marie had tacked up a drawing she’d made of Father Christmas wearing a pointed red hat.

Only embers glowed in the stove. With sudden decision, Gabe took a log from the basket and fed it into the fire. It was Christmas Eve, and he’d be damned if they’d spend it freezing. Maybe tomorrow the weather would break. Maybe he’d find a carpentry job before the New Year. He had contacts here—it was the only thing that had brought him back to the Nantwich stretch of the Cut.

Right, he thought, with the wave of bitterness that swamped him all too often these days. Maybe Father Christmas would come.

Maybe the boat’s makeshift loo would work properly for once. And maybe his wife would miraculously get better, instead of more frail by the moment.

Tears stung his eyes and he blinked furiously, stabbing at the fi re with the poker until the heat scorched his face. She was slipping away from him and he couldn’t bear it, not after everything they’d been through.

There was only one option that he could see. He could sell the boat. There were always collectors sniffing around the Cut, looking for traditional working narrowboats built before the s, the less altered, the better. Willing to pay a handsome price to do without plumbing or central heating, they would restore the boats to their original state and show them off at boat shows. Never mind that entire families had lived in seven- by-eight-foot cabins and babies had played on top of the sheeted coal or cocoa in the cargo space—

that only added to the romance.

Gabe snorted in disgust. They were fools, playing at being boatmen, and he’d not give up the Daphne to the likes of them. He’d

been born on this boat, as had his father, and now his family was one of the last still clinging to the old way of life.

And selling the boat would only be a stopgap mea sure at best—

he knew that. Where would they go? What would they do? They knew nothing else, and there was nowhere else they would be safe.

He thought of the face from the past that had appeared so unexpectedly today. The woman had been maneuvering her boat round the angle where the Middlewich fed into the main branch of the canal at Barbridge; skillfully, he thought, for a woman alone. Then she had looked up.

It had taken him a moment to place her in the strange context, and then he’d felt the old, familiar lurch of fear. She had recognized them as well, and had spoken to Rowan and the children in a friendly way, but he didn’t trust her. Why should he, even after what she had done for them?

She and her kind, no matter how well-meaning, meant nothing but trouble—had never meant anything but trouble for him or his people. He’ d been the fool to think they could run away from it for-ever.

Moving slowly back into the children’s cabin, he stared down at their sleeping forms. The light reflecting off the snow came through the small window more brightly than a full moon. He knelt, touching his daughter’s curls with his large, calloused hand, and a fi erce resolve rose in him.

He knew one thing, and it was enough. He would do whatever it took to keep what remained of his family from harm.