Pushing her head through the sheets that separated the two studios from each other to enter Ian’s part, she heard a high-pitched laugh and saw, sitting on the only chair in the unheated space, a dark-haired little boy. One of his hands was bright blue, as if it had been dipped to the wrist in a pot of paint, and the other one was bright red. Seeing her, he instantly held them both up to show them off, and then clasped them together, marvelling loudly to himself as parts of them turned purple. He then clamped one onto each side of his face and, as if life was for laughter, giggled again at her, showing his magically perfect little milk teeth and creasing his fat red and blue cheeks.
Then, as if it was the most natural thing in the world, he wriggled off the seat of his chair, bent forwards to splay his hands on the stone floor, admired their imprint and toddled across to her. When she stooped down beside him, wanting to be nearer his level, he looked with his innocent eyes into hers and then, saying nothing, held out a red hand for her to clasp in her own. Taking it, feeling the slimy, warm paint between their palms, she realised with pleasure that all her attention, all her being, had, for the last few minutes at least, been focused on the small child, drawn completely into his world, his life as he lived it moment by moment.
About the Author
Gillian Galbraith grew up near Haddington in Scotland. She worked for many years as an advocate, specialising in medical negligence and agricultural law cases. Before qualifying in law she worked for a time as an agony aunt in magazines for teenagers. She was also the legal correspondent for the Scottish Farmer and has written law reports for The Times. Her first book,
Blood in the Water, An Alice Rice Mystery, was published in 2007, and this was followed in 2008 by Where the Shadow Falls. A third Alice Rice mystery, Dying of the Light, was published in 2009. She lives deep in the country near Kinross with her husband and child, cats, dogs, hens and bees.