“What?” said Babcock, taking the bait.
This time Larkin’s grin threatened to split her face. “Rasansky’s
going to get himself promoted to chief superintendent, that’s what.
He’s already taken over your desk.”
Juliet was loading the children’s things into the van when she saw Duncan turn into the drive. She stopped, shielding her eyes from the sun, and watched him get out of the car.
“Here,” he said as he reached her. “Let me help.” He lifted the last bag with a surprised “Oof,” and hefted it into the van. “What have you got in here, rocks?”
“Probably a few. It’s Sammy’s. He tends to accumulate things.”
“You’re going home, then?”
She had given Caspar the last few days to get his things out of the house and to make arrangements for somewhere else to stay, but this afternoon she and the children were going back to North Crofts.
“Yes. At least for the time being.”
“Chief Inspector Babcock sends his regards.”
“How is he?”
“Recovering.” Duncan said it lightly, but she heard his relief. She studied her brother, realizing that for the first time, free of the lens of resentment, she was seeing him as he really was. He was no superman to be lived up to, but just an ordinary man—although sometimes an annoying one—with troubles of his own. And she loved him.
“I’m glad about your friend Ronnie,” she said. Then, “Duncan, what will happen to Caspar? Will he go to prison?”
“I don’t know. His sentencing might be lenient if he makes a good plea for disturbance of the balance of his mind, especially as, so far, the police have found no evidence linking him to Piers’s fraud scheme.” He looked away, then went on a little awkwardly. “Jules, I’m sorry—”
“No. Don’t say it. You were right. Even though Piers wasn’t guilty of murder, he deserved to be caught out.”
He nodded. “What will you do—about Caspar, I mean? Mum s
says he’s been ringing every day, wanting to reconcile. Will you take him back?”
She watched a car travel down the farm lane and disappear round a curve as she thought about it. “No. I might forgive what he did to me, eventually. But the children—he twisted them. He played them against me for his own emotional gratification. I should have stopped it long ago, but I didn’t. It’s going to take a lot of work on my part to remedy the damage.”
She had begun that very morning, taking Lally into the upstairs bathroom and locking the door. She pulled the bags Gemma had given her from her pocket, and when Lally’s startled eyes met hers, she’d emptied both bags carefully into the toilet and pulled the chain.
“No more,” she said. “From now on, I’m going to be watching you like a hawk, and if I even suspect you’re doing anything like this, I’ll lock you up until you’re toothless. Is that understood?”
Lally nodded, wordlessly, but the relief in her eyes had been clear.
Now the front door opened and Lally came out with Geordie scampering at her heels. She’d been grooming him, with instructions from Kit, and the little dog’s silky coat glistened in the sun.
“He’s lovely, isn’t he, Mum?” called out Lally, and when Juliet saw the uncomplicated smile of pleasure on her daughter’s face, she thought that perhaps all things were possible, even new beginnings.
Gemma sat at the kitchen table drinking tea with Rosemary. The past few days had been good, and it surprised her now that she had ever wondered if she would fit in here. Even Juliet seemed to have forgiven her breach of confidence, and had hugged her tightly when she and Sam and Lally had left just after their New Year’s lunch.
Duncan had gone with Kit to take Tess and Geordie for a last walk, and Hugh, who had taken Toby under his wing as if he were his own grandchild, was leading the little boy round and round the
field on one of the Shetland ponies. Even from the kitchen she could hear Jack’s barks and Toby’s shrieks of excitement, and was grateful for the pony’s placid temperament.
“They’re getting on well, aren’t they?” said Rosemary, echoing her thoughts. “Hugh’s missed having little ones, with Lally and Sam getting older.”
“He’s good with the children.”
“Too good, I sometimes think,” answered Rosemary, laughing.
“He’s a child at heart. I don’t suppose that’s altogether a bad thing, although there have been times when it has tried my patience sorely.
But we’ve rubbed off on each other, over the years.” She set down her cup and studied Gemma as if debating something, then said, “It’s been good to see you and Duncan together. You’re truly partners, in a way that he and Victoria never were. Nor could they have been, I think, even if things had turned out differently.”
Gemma flushed. She had always supposed Duncan’s parents would compare her to Vic, and find her lacking. “I—”
But Rosemary cut her off, shaking her head. “Forgive my being blunt, but it’s a gift, what you and Duncan have. It shouldn’t be taken lightly. It’s a balancing act, I know, juggling the different pieces of your life, but don’t let this pass you by, or let loss harden you against it.”
Gemma went still inside, and when she met the older woman’s gaze she felt as if she had been stripped naked, and was suddenly ashamed.
Then Rosemary smiled. “He’s not perfect, I admit, even though he is my son. But then I should think perfection would be very hard to live with.”
They took the footpath across the field, towards the Middlewich Junction, letting the dogs run free. The ground had begun to dry and the going was easier than it had been in the snow.
Tess stayed close to Kit, her eyes on her master, but Geordie zig-zagged in front of them, sniffi ng the ground excitedly. Then a low-flying bird caught the cocker spaniel’s eye and he froze, his docked tail straight out, one paw raised.
“Look, he’s pointing,” said Kit. “He does that at home when he sees squirrels.”
“Cocker spaniels are flushing dogs, not pointers,” Kincaid commented, “but he doesn’t seem to know the difference.”
He surveyed the rolling Cheshire landscape with a pang, wondering when he would see it again, and why he had waited so long to come back. Glancing at his son, he asked, “Do you like it here?”
“Yes. It reminds me of Grantchester, a bit.” Then Kit added thoughtfully, “But I’m not sure I’d want to be reminded, not all the time. And I miss our house, and Wesley, and the park, and the market on Saturday—”
“Okay, okay,” Kincaid said, smiling. “I get it. I’m glad. I miss it, too. I’ll be glad to get home.”
They walked on in easy silence, then, as they climbed down to the Middlewich towpath, Kit said, “Will Lally be all right?”
Kincaid considered what to say. “I think so. But it wouldn’t hurt to keep in touch, let her know you’re there. She is your cousin, after all.”
When they reached Barbridge he stopped, looking down the Shropshire Union and thinking of the associations that stretch of the canal must have for Kit, and would have now for him, as well. “We should go back.”
But Kit surprised him, saying, “No. I want to go on, just for a bit.”
“All right.” Kincaid shrugged assent, wondering if this was Kit’s way of laying his demons to rest. The dogs ran ahead and Kincaid followed his son’s determined stride as they left pub and moorings behind. The curving reaches of the cut looked enchanted in the early-afternoon sunlight, a place of dreaming stillness, impervious to violence.
Kit’s steps slowed as they rounded a now-familiar curve and saw the Horizon still at her mooring. The crime-scene tape was gone, but the blinds were tightly closed, and it seemed to Kincaid that the boat had already taken on a neglected air.