He thought immediately of Kit, and of his own failure to anticipate trouble in that quarter. And his niece, he remembered, was almost the same age. “Jules, are you having trouble with Lally?” he asked.
“No. No, of course not.” Juliet pulled off her glove again, but this time, after testing the vent, she stripped off the other glove, too, and rubbed her hands together in the airstream. After a moment, she said, “It’s just that . . . a month ago, a boy from Lally’s school was found in the canal, drowned. He was fourteen. They said there was alcohol involved.” She looked up at him, her hands still. “He was a good kid, Duncan. A good kid, a good student, never in any kind of trouble. If it can happen to a child like that . . .”
“I know. It means none of them is safe.” It occurred to him then that he didn’t know his niece at all, that he couldn’t begin to guess whether or not she was at risk. “Is Lally all right? I’m sure it was very upsetting for her.”
“I don’t know. The school provided counseling for those who wanted it, but I’m not sure if she went. She doesn’t talk to me anymore. But she’s seemed different the last few weeks, more with-drawn.” Juliet sighed. “Maybe it’s just her age. I suppose I was difficult at fourteen, too.”
“Worse than difficult,” he said, teasing. If he had hoped for an answering smile, he was disappointed. Juliet flashed him a look he couldn’t read, then yanked her gloves on again and huddled deeper into her jacket.
Why was it, Kincaid wondered, that he always managed to put his foot wrong with his sister?
Ronnie Babcock felt his adrenaline start to pump as he backed out of his drive. As glad as he was of any excuse to avoid his own company, he’d expected nothing more exciting than an alcohol- fueled domestic, or perhaps a burglar taking advantage of someone away for the holiday. Certainly when his phone rang he hadn’t imagined the interred body of a child—at the least a suspicious death, at the most a homicide.
He forced himself to slow the powerful BMW. It was still snowing and the roads would be growing treacherous. Although he liked to drive fast, he was careful of his car—God help anyone who put a nick or dent in the Black Beast, as he liked to call it. He’d bought the used after Peggy had walked out, and if there were whispered comments about the male menopause around the station, he didn’t care. He’d been a poor kid, and to him the car represented everything he’d never thought he could achieve.
Not that he thought of himself as middle-aged, mind you. As he slowed for the A roundabout, he tightened the knot in his tie and glanced at himself in the driving mirror. At forty-one, his hair was still thick, springing from the widow’s peak on his brow, and if there were a few gray threads mixed with the blond, they didn’t show.
He’d kept his footballer’s physique, too, as well as the broken nose and the scar across his cheek where a football boot had caught him full in the face. His rather battered visage often came in handy in the interview room, and he liked to think there were women—his ex-wife notwithstanding—that found it attractive.
The traffic was lighter than he’d expected, and he had an easy shot of it to the location of the call, skirting the north side of Nantwich on the A. At the Burford roundabout the A turned north, towards Chester, and the visibility dropped to near nil in the blowing
snow. He crawled along, swearing under his breath, thinking about the logistics of getting the crime-scene unit out in this weather. From the brief report he’d been given, he wasn’t sure if the actual site of the corpse was sheltered from the elements.
His swearing increased in volume as he saw the turning too late to negotiate it. He had to drive another mile into Barbridge before he could find a place to turn the car, and this time he crept back towards the farm track at a snail’s pace. His moment of triumph was short-lived, however, when he discovered he couldn’t even see which way the track turned. Nor was the high- powered BMW designed for driving in accumulating snow on unpaved roads. He coasted to a stop, wondering if he was going to have to get out and leg it the rest of the way with the help of a torch. His overcoat was lightweight; his shoes were new and expensive and would be soaked through in minutes.
Then, as he checked the batteries in the torch he kept in the door pocket, the curtain of white surrounding his car began to thin.
After a moment, it was once more possible to pick out individual flakes, and then there were only a few solitary, erratically drifting crystals.
Babcock suspected the reprieve was temporary, but he could now see the road a few yards beyond the car’s bonnet, and he meant to take advantage of it. He put the BMW into gear again and crept along the track, and soon he saw the panda cars’ blue lights fl ashing like beacons.
When he came out into the clearing, he saw that the headlamps of the patrol cars illuminated a Ford Escort and the sort of white van used by builders and plumbers. One of the patrol officers stood talking to two civilians, and as he drew nearer Babcock could see that the taller figure was a man in a City overcoat, and the smaller, which he had first assumed to be male, seemed to be a woman dressed in rough clothing. Behind them, torches flashed within the shadowy huddle of outbuildings.
What a godforsaken place, and how had these people come to discover a body here on Christmas Eve? He picked his way across the snowy ruts, careful of his shoes although he knew it was a hope-less prospect. At least he wouldn’t be the only one with ruined foot-wear, he thought with some satisfaction, considering the cut of the other man’s overcoat.
The woman was quite pretty, dark-haired, and there was something about her that tickled his memory. Then, as the man turned towards him, his face fully illuminated in the glare of the lights, Ronnie Babcock gave an involuntary grunt of surprise. What the hell was he doing here?
“Well, I’ll be buggered,” he said as he reached the waiting group.
“If it isn’t my old mate Duncan Kincaid. Trouble himself.”
Her skin was pale, and felt clammy to the touch. Worse, even in the dim light of the cabin, it seemed to Gabriel Wain that his wife’s lips were tinged with blue. When he smoothed her dark hair from her brow, she moved restlessly under his touch and opened her eyes.
“Gabe, you won’t forget, will you?” she whispered. “They’d be so disappointed—”
“Of course I won’t forget, woman. I’ll do it as soon as they’re asleep, I promise.” From the next-door cabin, he could hear the rustlings and occasional giggles of their son and daughter, awake past their bedtime with Christmas Eve excitement. The stockings would be laid at the ends of their bunks, even if the knitted socks held only oranges, boiled sweets, and a few knickknacks from the shop at the Venetian Marina.
There were a few other surprises wrapped in colored paper and tucked away in the main cabin: crayons and paints, some clever three-dimensional cards depicting canal life that the children could tack up by their beds, a book for each of them. And for seven-year-old Marie there was a doll; for nine-year-old Joseph, his first pocketknife. To
provide these things, Rowan had worked extra hours painting the traditional roses-and-castles canalware she sold to supplement their income, and the effort had exhausted her.
Not that it took much to exhaust her these days. Worry gnawed in his belly like a worm, and his helplessness in the face of her growing weakness made him so angry his hands had begun to shake continually, but he tried to hide such feelings from her. He knew why she wouldn’t seek help at a hospital or clinic—he understood the consequences as well as she did. So he did what he could: he managed the boat and the locks with only the children’s help, he’d taken over almost all the domestic chores as well, and he did what he could to comfort the children and attend to their lessons.