“Is there any news?” he asked, and one of the women shook her head.
“No. He’s out of surgery, but they won’t tell us anything. Sheila’s gone to bully the doctor.” She managed a faint smile.
It was only then that Kincaid realized he hadn’t seen Larkin at the crime scene or the station—she must have gone directly to hospital.
He found a vacant spot of wall and leaned against it, settling in to wait with the others. The woman who had spoken offered him coffee from an urn on the table and he accepted, knowing it would be swill, but, like the others, needing something to hold in his hands.
It was another half hour before the doors swung open and Sheila Larkin came through. Her skin was pasty with exhaustion, her eyes s
ringed with smudged mascara. His heart plummeted, and he heard little gasps of dismay travel round the room like a wave.
But then she was shaking her head and wiping her eyes, half laughing and saying hurriedly, “No, no. He’s all right. The doctor says he looks like a sieve, but that he was too bloody- minded to die on the operating table. He’s going to be okay. He’s going to be okay.”
Chapter Twenty- seven
New Year’s Day dawned clear and unseasonably mild. After breakfast, Kincaid started to Leighton for one last visit with Ronnie Babcock. He’d been every day, but had found his friend sedated and sprouting enough tubes to qualify as the Bionic Man. The nurses had insisted he was improving, however, and promised that today would see some of the tubes out and the pain medication reduced.
“He may be a bit bad- tempered, though,” the head sister had added with a grin.
Bad- tempered would be welcome, in Kincaid’s view, as long as his friend was conversant. He and Gemma and the boys would be heading back to London that afternoon, and Gemma having agreed that they should tell Babcock the Wains’ story, he would much prefer to do it in person.
He found a space in the hospital’s still-slushy car park. Passing through the area reserved for hospital personnel, he glanced at a Morris Minor and started as deep brown eyes in an large shaggy head stared back at him. Remembering Gemma’s description of Dr.
Elsworthy’s dog, he laughed, and as the windows were half down, said, “Hello, boy. Are you waiting for your mistress?”
The beast’s ears went back, and the car rocked as the giant tail thumped. Kincaid took that as a good sign, but wasn’t quite brave enough to put his hand through the window to pet the dog. The pathologist needn’t worry about car burglars—not that it looked as though there was anything in it worth stealing.
Once inside, he found his friend indeed looking more chipper, sitting up in bed and, although still hooked to a drip, missing the gastric tube that had been snaked from his nose.
“Jelly,” said Babcock disgustedly when Kincaid commented on his improved status. “That’s what they call real food.
Lemon-
flavored jelly and a can of some revolting boost drink.”
Kincaid grinned. “I’m sure you’ll be up to steak and whisky tomorrow.”
Babcock rolled his eyes but said, “Well, eventually, or so they say, thank God. It seems they were able to repair all the major bits.”
Sighing, he added, “I just want to go home. This place smells like a funeral parlor.” He gestured at the bouquets covering every available surface. “All my officers, sucking up. My ex-wife even sent a meager offering, although she didn’t come to wish me well in person. Probably a good thing—the sight of her might have set me back days.”
He paused, resting for a moment as Kincaid pulled up a chair, then said, “Your sister sent a card, by the way. Very kind of her, considering the fact that we’ve charged her husband with arson. How is she doing, after all this?” Although shadowed, his blue eyes showed the concern that had made Kincaid like Ronnie Babcock from the day he’d met him.
“She seems to be coping. The dairy renovation’s going again, and with a streak of mild weather she might even get it back on schedule.
And she’s started divorce proceedings. I don’t know how things will work out.”
“Your brother- in- law is an idiot,” Babcock said testily. “She deserves better.”
“Yes.” Kincaid’s agreement was heartfelt. She’d deserved better from him, too, and he meant to remedy that.
“I heard you, that night.” Babcock’s words snapped his attention back to his friend.
“What?”
“Telling Leo Dutton he’d get away with murder if he turned himself in. Mind you, I’m not criticizing. I’d have done the same, and it probably saved my life. But that’s not going to happen, not if I have breath left in my body. I don’t care if he is only fourteen. He’s vicious.”
“A bad seed?”
“Born or made, I don’t care. But I will find evidence to link him to those crimes, no matter how long it takes. The high-fl ying solicitor Piers Dutton wanted for his son turned down the case,” he added with a smile of satisfaction. “Seems he wasn’t confident of papa’s ability to pay, considering his present diffi culties.”
“Not surprising, but good news.”
“It would make me even happier if I could link Dutton Senior to the baby.”
“Ronnie.” Kincaid adjusted his chair. “You won’t.”
“What are you, clairvoyant?” Babcock asked, but the acerbity was a bit forced, his voice going thready. He was tiring.
“No,” Kincaid told him. “Just listen.”
While he talked, Babcock’s eyes drifted closed, and when he’d fi nished, his friend lay still for so long that Kincaid thought he had fallen asleep.
Then Babcock opened his eyes and fixed Kincaid with a blue glare. “Let sleeping dogs lie, then? Is that what you’re suggesting?”
Before Kincaid could protest, Babcock silenced him with a wave. “I daresay you’re right. Annie Constantine believed in the Wains, and although she may have been compensating for past mistakes, she was a good judge of character. It sounds as if that family has suffered enough.
“But before you go thinking I’ve gone soft, I’ve more reasons than the kindness of my heart for not pursuing it.” He ticked them off on his fingers, making the drip dance. “Even if I could get CPS to take on the case, I doubt any jury would convict. It would serve only to get Social Services involved and lose the man what family he has left.
“And most important, I’ve enough on my plate trying to get Piers and Leo Dutton banged up for a good long time. I don’t need to waste time and resources on something with no return.”
Kincaid grinned. “Said like a good bureaucrat. But you are a softie.”
“There’s a caveat,” Babcock countered. “I need to tell my aunt Margaret. She said when I told her about the case that someone had grieved for that child, and it seems she was right.” He thought for a moment, the creases in his face deepening. “And there’s one other person should know the truth.”
Before Kincaid could question him, there was a light tap at the door and Sheila Larkin came in. She wore a short skirt, a fuzzy pink jumper, and patterned tights, and the sight of her round, snub- nosed face seemed to bring the color back to Babcock’s cheeks. “Oh, am I interrupting?” she asked, looking prepared to back out again.
“Not a bit.” Kincaid stood, offering his chair. “I’ve got to dash.
We’re off home to London this afternoon, after my mother’s traditional New Year’s lunch.”
Larkin took the chair, producing a bunch of carnations she’d held behind her back.
“Don’t tell me you’ve brought flowers,” Babcock groaned. “You know I hate fl owers.”
“Couldn’t get the single malt past the matron.” Larkin winked at Kincaid, suppressing a smile. “Besides, I thought the more miserable I made you, the sooner you’d get yourself back to work. There are going to be dire consequences if you don’t, boss.”