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.