Two figures—no, three—were silhouetted briefly in an archway beside the hotel’s front door. Teenagers, Gemma felt sure, from their slenderness, and a certain slouchy cockiness in their postures. There had been a hint of furtiveness as well, she thought as they disappeared into the darkness of what she now realized must be the old carriage entrance. Or was that just her, bringing the job with her?
She shrugged and turned away—it was none of her business what kids got up to here—then stopped and looked back once more. The girl—yes, she was sure one of the three had been a girl—had been dark haired, and the boy she’d seen most clearly, blond. Lally and Kit? But they were in church, she reminded herself, and the boy had been too tall, too thin. Nor would Kit have been smoking—he hated it with a passion. She was letting her imagination run away with her.
“Gemma?” Hugh’s voice came warmly beside her. “Are you all right?”
“Yes.” She took the arm he offered and smiled up at him. “I’m fine.”
The smell of old incense, woodworm, and damp stone hit Kincaid like a sensory bomb as he followed his family into the porch of St.
Mary’s. It happened when he entered any church, the scent-triggered barrage of memories, but it was most intense at St. Mary’s.
He had grown up in this place—the cathedral of South Cheshire, it was often called. Although in truth it was only a town church, it was one of the finest in England, built on the scale of a cathedral by masons who had worked on York Minster, then later completed by men who had built the cathedrals at Gloucester and Lichfield.
It was a cavernous church, but to him it seemed intimate, comforting even. If he closed his eyes, his feet could find the worn places
in the stones unaided, his fingertips the nicks and gouges made by bored children in the backs of the pews. Here he had been baptized and confirmed.
His father, who had rebelled early against his Scots Presbyterian upbringing and declared himself an “intellectual agnostic”—or had it been “agnostic intellectual”?—had protested, but his mother insisted that the human animal had a need for structure, for ritual and discipline, for the ties with the community that the church provided, and for a sense of something larger than itself. His mother had won, as she usually did, but it was the sort of argument that had often echoed through house and bookshop in his childhood.
The porch, crowded with congregants jostling to break through the bottleneck into the nave, smelled of sweat and wet wool. Before him, Kincaid could see his parents, then the top of Juliet’s dark head. He knew that Sam, although momentarily invisible, was clinging to his mother’s hand. Rather to Kincaid’s surprise, Caspar had joined them on their walk to church, but he seemed to have disappeared in the shuffle through the porch doors.
Kincaid’s fingertips rested on Gemma’s shoulder as insurance against separation, and Toby, his view limited to waistbands and coattails, butted against his leg like a frustrated calf.
“Where’s Kit?” Toby asked, picking at Kincaid’s trousers, his voice rising perilously close to a whine. “I want to see Kit.”
It was long past the five-year-old’s bedtime, and Kincaid suspected they’d be lucky to get through the service without a melt-down. Bending over, he hefted the boy to his hip, a harder task than it been only a few months ago. “We’ll look together,” he suggested,
“and if you find him first, I’ll give you a pound to put in the collection box. Deal?”
“Deal,” agreed Toby, looking much happier now.
At that moment, the organist launched into a Bach prelude and the sound rolled over them like a thunderclap, vibrating teeth and
bones. Kincaid felt an unexpected lurch of joy, and tightened his grip on Gemma’s shoulder. She looked back at him in surprise, and he saw his delight mirrored in her face.
“The organist was always good,” he said, with proprietary pride, but she was gazing upwards, transfixed.
“The windows are wonderful. But look at that one”—she pointed—“it’s modern, isn’t it?”
Kincaid’s gaze followed her finger. “Ah. That’s the Bourne window. It’s my favorite, although it was installed just about the time I left home for London. It’s a memorial to a local farmer named Albert Bourne. It depicts God’s creations.” He pointed in turn. “See, at the very top of the arch, God’s hand? And below that, the swirl of the cosmos, then the birds of the heavens and the creatures of the sea, then the world’s wildlife.” His hand had traveled two-thirds of the way down the window. “But here’s the surprise. Here the designer moves from the general to the particular. Those are the rolling hills of Cheshire. And the house, there in the center, that’s Cheshire brick. Then the animals of farm and field and thicket, and there, on the right, the very best bit.”
Gemma searched for a moment, then gave a laugh of pleasure as she saw what he meant. “It’s a man, walking his spaniel through the field.”
“Bourne himself. No man could ask for a more fitting memorial—
or woman, either,” he corrected quickly, as she turned on him a look of reproach. “Although I suspect the dog is a springer, not a cocker like Geordie.”
“There’s Kit!” called Toby, who from his elevated height had been peering through the crowd shuffling in front of them. “And Lally.”
The teenagers were not near the front, as Kincaid had expected, but halfway down the nave on the outer aisle. There was a gap of several feet between, and when Kincaid neared the spot, he saw that they had filled it with coats, hats, and gloves.
“It’s the best we could do,” Lally said to her mother as their group reached the pew. “The church filled early. And people are giving us dirty looks.”
“Never mind,” Juliet told her. “We’re here now. We’ll squeeze in as best we can.”
“Where’s Dad?” Lally asked, as Kit stood aside to make room for them.
“Oh. He’s here somewhere,” Juliet said, as casually as if she had mislaid a handbag, but Kincaid thought no one was fooled, particularly Lally.
“I want to sit with him.”
“Well, you’ll have to make do with me for the moment,” snapped Juliet, her attempt at calm normality slipping. “You’re not to wander off looking for him. The service is about to start.”
Any further argument was quelled as the organ stopped and a hush fell on the congregation. As the family jammed into a space meant for half as many people, Kincaid with an arm round Gemma’s shoulders and Toby half in his lap, the processional began.
Kincaid slipped easily into the familiar rhythm of lessons and carols. He was home, and nothing had changed—or at least the things that had changed were for the better. He had his own family here now, Gemma and the boys, and he felt that at last all the pieces of his life had come together.
As if to punctuate his thoughts, the choir launched into “O Holy Night,” one of his favorite carols, and the congregation followed suit. Behind him, a clear alto voice rose. The voice was untrained, but powerful and true, with a bell- like quality that sent a shiver down his spine.
His curiosity overcoming his good manners, he turned round until he could see the woman singing. She was tall, with short blond hair going gray. Lines of care were etched into a strong, thin face he suspected was not much older than his own, and she seemed unconnected to the family groups around her.
As she became aware of his gaze, the woman’s voice faltered, then faded altogether as she stared back at him.
Embarrassed by the alarm in her eyes, Kincaid nodded and gave her what he hoped was a reassuring smile, then turned round and joined in the carol. After a moment, she began to sing again, hesitantly at first, then more strongly, as if caught up in the music.