She stopped, her hand on the knob of the back door. “I’ll go on my own, then. You can cover for me.” Her eyes held disdain, and a challenge.
Kit flushed, shamed at being treated like a child. But worse was the thought of Lally alone on the street. What if her dad saw her and snatched her up? Then he, Kit, would be responsible for losing her.
If Lally was determined to go out, he would have to go with her.
“Make it quick,” Kit hissed at her as they stood on the pavement outside the pub. It was a quiet time of day, and he could see through the leaded window that the bar was almost empty. “How are you going to manage this, anyway? You can’t go in.”
They had gone out without coats, and he was already shivering.
The sky had darkened to the purple-gray of tarnished silver, and he thought he could smell snow in the air.
“You’ll see.” Lally tugged down the hem of her cotton sweatshirt, raised her chin, and pulled open the door. Stepping over the threshold, she called out, “Can I use your loo?”
Through the window, Kit saw the barman look up. He had spots on his pudgy face, and was probably not much more than eighteen.
“Sorry, love.” The barman shook his head as he wiped a cloth across the bar top. “You’re underage. Find the public toilets, or go to the Crown. They’ll let you in.”
Making a show of jiggling impatiently, Lally said, “Please. I’m desperate. I don’t think I can make it that far. I’ll be really quick.”
“Oh, all right. But shut the bloody door, and hurry up.”
Lally flashed Kit a smile and slipped inside. He saw her disappear into a passage that led towards the rear of the pub. After one more flourish with his cloth, the barman reached for something under the bar, then stepped casually into the same passage.
A moment later, he reappeared, then Lally emerged and quickly crossed the room, hands in the pockets of her sweatshirt. “Ta, love,”
she tossed cheekily over her shoulder as she pushed her way out the door.
“That’s Sean,” she explained as they started back towards the bookshop, Kit hurrying her along with a hand on her elbow. “Lives down the road from us. He’d do anything for me.” Lally fi shed a packet of Benson & Hedges from her sweatshirt pocket and began peeling the cellophane from the top. The wind caught the ephemeral scrap as she tossed it away, spinning it like a bit of tinsel come to life before it disappeared.
Pulling a cigarette from the pack and a plastic lighter from her pocket, she slowed and ducked under a shop-window awning. “Wait,”
she said, holding the cigarette to her lips and shielding the tip with her hand as she flicked the lighter.
“Lally, stop pissing about. You can’t stand here in the street and smoke. Someone will see you.” Nervous impatience edged Kit’s voice.
“So? What am I going to do? Wait until we get back to the shop and have a smoke in the back room? That was the point of this whole exercise, remember, for me to have a smoke.” She inhaled and leaned a little farther back into the awning’s cover, watching him with narrowed eyes before looking away.
Kit stared at her profile. For just an instant, he had the oddest sensation that he was seeing her as she might look in ten years, or twenty, the delicate contours of her face drawn and hardened by time and experience.
But he said only, “They’ll miss us. What on earth are we going to say if they’ve been looking for us?”
“I’ll think of something,” she snapped back at him. “For God’s sake, Kit, don’t be so wet. You sound just like my friend Peter. ‘Don’t smoke, Lally,’ ” she mimicked. ‘Don’t drink, Lally. Don’t do this, don’t do that. You might get into trouble, Lally.’ ” Dropping her half-smoked cigarette, she ground it viciously into the pavement with her heel. “It was all bollocks. In the end, he was no different— No, he was worse.” She glared at Kit, as if daring him to argue. Her eyes brimmed with unshed tears as she turned away, starting back towards the shop.
An icy dart of rain stung Kit’s cheek, then another. It had started to sleet. Running after her, he struggled to find his voice. “Why?
Why was he worse?”
The rising wind snatched her words, throwing them back at him in a gust of disembodied fury. “Because. Because he was a fucking hypocrite, that’s why.”
Chapter Nineteen
“He’s lying, I’d say.” Babcock gave a last glance at the house before turning the BMW into the main road.
“About last night?” Kincaid snapped the lock on his seat belt and turned the heater vent—now spewing frigid air—away from his face.
“Yes, I think so,” he agreed. “And maybe more besides, but something about the last question really put the wind up him.”
He was still sorting his own impressions of Roger Constantine, and found himself missing Gemma. They used each other as sounding boards, and no idea was too far- fetched to be tossed into the pot.
Ronnie Babcock, however, had proved himself a good listener. “Constantine seems a clever man, though,” he allowed himself to muse aloud. “You’d think if he meant to kill his wife, he’d have a ready-made alibi.”
As they left the leafy village of Tilston behind and the heater began to generate some welcome warmth, Babcock said, “But what if it wasn’t planned? What if Annie didn’t just ring him to set a date for dinner? After all, we only have his word for that. What if she dropped a bombshell? Told him she wanted to meet and discuss a divorce? No more living the good life in the Victorian villa for poor
Roger.” He gestured behind them. “Not only would he lose the house, but I’d wager he could never afford to keep up a comparable lifestyle on a journalist’s pay. Now he gets it all, plus the life insurance, with no strings attached. I’d say he had a good deal to lose.”
Kincaid considered this, frowning. “Or what if it was just the opposite—she rang up and said she was coming home, for good? In the five years she’s been gone, he may have come to like the status quo very well. Maybe he didn’t want her to come back. Either way—”
“Either way, he’s got a motive, but the logistics are diffi cult. Say he was surprised by her phone call, whatever the content, and wanted to talk to her in person. I’m not sure he could have driven from Tilston to Barbridge in last night’s fog, much less have found his way to the boat, especially if he didn’t know exactly where she was moored.”
They had just swept round a ninety-degree blind turn on a lane not much wider than the car. Kincaid shuddered at the thought of driving this road at night, in bad conditions. It was possible, but was it likely? “Was the fog as heavy to the west?” he asked.
“I don’t know, but we’ll find out.” Babcock slipped his phone from his pocket and hit speed dial. “Sheila? Are you still on the boat?
Okay, listen. I’ve some things I want you to check. I need to know if last night’s fog extended as far west as Tilston. What?” He glanced at Kincaid and grinned. “I know you’re not the weather bureau,” he continued. “But we’re going to need someone from that area to knock on doors, chat up the neighbors about Roger Constantine. We need to know any tidbits of gossip, as well as whether anyone noticed his movements last night. And if you get on to Tilston, I’m sure the locals can tell us if they had a pea-souper last night.
“Oh, and when you’ve got that sorted, pull any financial records you find on the boat—in fact, pull any sort of papers you can find.
And what about the house- to- house in Barbridge?”
A tinny squawk of protest issued from the phone’s speaker and
Babcock rolled his eyes. “Of course you can do all that,” he said soothingly. “I’ve great confidence in you. I’ll ring you when we get to the station. ’Bye now.”