The choleric Sergeant Rasansky had been out as well, and it had been DC Larkin who’d told them that Babcock had already gone to interview Piers Dutton, warrant in hand, with the fraud team scheduled to meet him there at a prearranged time. Impressed with his efficiency, Gemma had said, “He’s got skates on, your guv’nor.”
Larkin had shaken her head. “You’d not have wanted to cross him this morning. He was up half the night getting that warrant, and he’ll be paying back favors until doomsday. Piers Dutton has a lot of infl uence in this town.” She gave Kincaid a searching look. “I hope you’re right about this. The fraud lads won’t be happy if he’s given them a false lead, either.”
With that disapproving comment, she’d gone back to her desk and her reports, and although she gave them the occasional curious glance, she didn’t protest their presence. But a few moments later, a phone call took all her attention.
Gemma watched her, liking the young DC’s brisk manner, and when Larkin rang off, she navigated her way across the floor obstacles and perched on the edge of the constable’s desk. “Anything interesting?” she asked.
Larkin hesitated, then gave a slight shrug, apparently deciding that if they were in Babcock’s confidence she might as well share.
“That was Western Division. The constable who most often patrols Tilston knows Roger Constantine. Says he keeps to himself, but according to neighbors, he’s been seen occasionally having dinner in the pub with a younger woman.”
Kincaid had joined them in time to hear her summary. “That gives him motive in spades,” he said, looking distinctly more cheerful. “But we know Annie rang him at home that night—could he have driven from Tilston to Barbridge in the fog after that? And if so, could he have found the boat?”
“She might have given him specific directions,” suggested Gemma, but Kincaid was already frowning.
“I’d think that unless he was very familiar with that stretch of the Shroppie, he’d quite likely have ended up in the Cut rather than alongside it. You’ve seen how it twists and turns along that stretch.
Unless—”
He stopped as Larkin’s attention shifted towards the door. Turning, Gemma saw not Babcock, but Sergeant Rasansky, looking happier than she’d imagined possible.
“What’s up, Sarge?” asked Larkin, sounding equally surprised.
“You look like the proverbial cat in the cream.”
“I found the bloody Smiths.” Rasansky nodded at Kincaid and Gemma, and seated himself on the edge of Larkin’s desk, regardless of carefully arranged paperwork. “Settled in a retirement fl at in Shrewsbury—not a bad place if you like that sort—”
“Sarge,” Larkin interrupted, and Gemma guessed Rasansky had a tendency to be long-winded when he had an audience. “What did they say about the baby?”
He clicked his tongue. “Shocked, absolutely shocked. I thought the missus might have a coronary on me, poor old dear. Husband had to sit her down and fetch a glass of water. They said they’d no idea how something like that could have happened in their barn,
and they certainly hadn’t lost any infants. Their grandkids were ten and twelve when they moved away, so I suppose that lets them out as potential parents.” He scanned the room, ignoring Larkin’s look of disappointment. “Where’s the boss?”
“Still interviewing Piers Dutton. So what’s all the fuss about, then?”
Rasansky hesitated, as if debating whether he was willing to lose the cachet of telling Babcock first, but the temptation of listeners on tenterhooks proved too much. “Well, I thought it was a bust, but they insisted on giving me tea and cakes, for all the trouble I’d taken to drive there.”
Larkin, sitting just out of her sergeant’s line of sight, rolled her eyes, and Gemma suppressed a smile. From the comfortable curve of Rasansky’s belly and the crumbs dotting his tie, this wasn’t an unusual occurrence.
“Good thing, too,” Rasansky went on, “because it was only when the old man had calmed down and had a few minutes to think that he remembered he’d had some masonry work done in the old dairy, not too long before they decided to sell the place. Hired a fellow off the boats, name of Wain.” He pulled a notebook from his jacket pocket and made a show of consulting his notes. “Gabriel Wain. Now all we have to do is find this bloke—”
“Oh, Christ.” Sheila Larkin’s normally rosy cheeks had gone pale. “Gabriel Wain. He was right under our noses the whole time, and I didn’t bloody see it.”
“What are you talking about?” broke in Kincaid.
“His wife’s name is Rowan—it must be.” She shook her head, impatient with their lack of understanding. “I interviewed him. His boat’s moored at Barbridge, and a woman who lives along the canal said he had a row with Annie Lebow on Christmas Day. He said she’d scraped his boat—he even showed me the damage—and it seemed plausible enough. I didn’t—”
“Sheila, I’ve told you you’re too gullible—” Rasansky began, but Kincaid cut him off.
“You’re saying that the same man who might be connected with the baby had an argument with Annie Lebow?”
Larkin nodded miserably. “There’s more. I was reading through the victim’s case files—Annie Constantine, as she was then. I had them sent over from Social Services. I was just skimming, really, so I didn’t—” The color had crept back into her cheeks, but this time it was a blush of embarrassment. “I didn’t make a connection.
“There was a case, not long before Constantine retired. The mother was accused of MSBP—Munchausen syndrome by proxy. She kept telling the doctors that her little boy had fits and stopped breathing, but they couldn’t find anything, so the doctor in charge of the case referred it to Social Services. Annie Constantine had the case dismissed, so I didn’t pay all that much attention. But the thing is, the woman had a second baby while the case was under investigation, a little girl called Marie. And the mother . . . the mother’s name was Rowan Wain.”
The gears in his brain visibly clicking, Rasansky said, “The Smiths sold up five years ago, so it must have been a bit longer than that when they had the work done in the dairy. Mr. Smith said it was dead of winter—he worried about the mortar setting in the cold.”
“That would fit with what the pathologist found,” Kincaid put in. “No sign of insect activity on the corpse.”
Sheila Larkin scrabbled through the papers on her desk until she found the file she wanted, then scanned the pages, running down the text with her forefinger. Her nail, Gemma noticed, was bitten to the quick.
Larkin stopped, her lips moving with concentration as she read to herself, then looked up at them. “The timing might fi t. Constantine worked the case the year before she left the job.”
“So this Wain bloke, or his wife, was abusing the older kid.”
Rasansky sounded positively gleeful at the prospect. “Then they start on the baby, but this one dies. Wain just happens to be working in the dairy, repairing a bit of masonry, so he thinks, ‘Bob’s your uncle,’ the perfect opportunity to dispose of the body, no one the wiser. And they’re gypsies, these boat people. No one keeps track of their kiddies, so afterwards they move on and no one notices they’re one tyke short.”
“Except Annie Constantine,” Larkin said softly. “When she met up with the Wains on Christmas Day. If that was why she argued with Gabriel Wain, if she threatened to go to the authorities—”
“Motive.” Rasansky ticked one meaty forefinger against the other.
“And he certainly would have had opportunity—if anyone could have found her boat in the dark, it was this Wain fellow. He must know the Cut like the back of his hand.”
Larkin glanced at the clock on the basement wall. “Where the hell is the guv’nor? I don’t know if he’s going to kill us or kiss us, but we’ve got to get Wain in—”