Water Like a Stone (14 page)

“Like a kitten, love?” asked the stallholder, in the too-jolly tone people used with children, as if anyone under the age of reproductive ability was an imbecile. “They’re five pounds, mind,” she added, with a smile that revealed bottom teeth like leaning gravestones. “Just to ensure they go to a good home.”

“How old are they?” he asked, touching one of the bundles with a fingertip. A tongue emerged, rasping his bare skin. The kitten’s eyes, he saw, were blue, and still slightly clouded, as if it hadn’t quite learned to focus.

“Six weeks today. They can eat kibble, mushed up with a bit of milk. Would your parents let you have a cat, love?”

He smiled, imagining his mother’s response if he brought home a kitten. Neither of his parents cared for animals at all, and his mother had a phobia about cats.

“Oh, yes,” he said. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a handful of coins. “I think I’ve got five pounds. I could surprise my mum.” He counted out three of the heavy coins, made a face, then began sorting through the small change.

The woman stopped him with a touch on his hand. “No, no, love. That’s all right. For you, I’ll make it three. No need to spend all your pocket money. Is it the gray one you like?” She plunged her hand into the basket and extricated the bit of gray fluff he’d prodded. “He’s a grand one. Can you get him home, or will you have your mum bring you back?”

Giving the woman his best smile, he took the kitten, tucking it into the anorak he wore over his school blazer and pulling up the zip. “I’m sure I can manage. I’ve got my bike, and I don’t live far.”

He supported the little body with one hand as he slipped away through the crowd. The kitten wriggled, then quieted, as if comforted by the warmth of his body. “Good luck, sonny,” the woman called after him, but he pretended he hadn’t heard.

Riding his bike one-handed was easy enough, but instead of turning towards home he rode towards the western edge of town and onto the canal towpath. The days were lengthening, so he still had time before dark, and the ground was dry enough that he needn’t worry about splashing mud on his school clothes. He rode north, and when the town had dropped away behind him, he stopped the bike and leaned it against the budding branches of a hawthorn hedge. Just ahead, the canal curved, and the edging had crumbled, providing a fertile hold for reeds at the water’s edge.

He came here sometimes when he wanted to think. Hunkering down on a dry hummock among the reeds, he was invisible, but he could hear a boat or pedestrian coming from a good distance away. A faint hum of traffic reached him from the Chester Road and the
wind stirred the reed tops, but he found a sheltered spot and folded his legs beneath him. Alerted by the movement, three swans came gliding over, pecking at the tufts of grass lining the canal’s edge.

The kitten had been lulled by the movement of the bike, but now it stirred and squirmed, digging tiny needles of claws into his skin through blazer and shirt. Annoyed, he pulled it out and lifted it by the scruff of its neck, examining it. It hung paralyzed in his grip, its wide blue eyes unblinking.

What
was
he going to do with the thing? The anticipation of his mother’s horror had lost some of its appeal. His pleasure would be short-lived. She might screech, but then she would retreat to her room, and he would be left finding a home for the cat, a tedious task.

The water rippled as the swans moved away. When the surface stilled, he held the kitten over the canal and studied its wavery reflection. It seemed unreal, a figment of his imagination.

Without conscious thought, he lowered his hand. The kitten struggled as it met the water, twisting and raking his wrist with its claws, then the cold closed over the small gray body, and his grip held fast.

The temporary incident room at divisional headquarters had been filled with a jumble of scarred and dented furniture not needed elsewhere, and computers had been set up haphazardly on desks and tabletops. Wiring trailed across the scuffed flooring like an infestation of snakes, and Babcock, technophobe that he was, suspected it was almost as dangerous.

It was cold, as it was summer or winter in the nether regions of the old building, and to add an even more festive touch to the atmosphere, the room smelled strongly of potatoes, onions, and dough. Someone had obviously indulged in a morning snack of Cornish pasty. The idea made Babcock’s stomach churn.

Ignoring the discomfort, he turned back to the whiteboard set up against one wall and wrote “Baby Jane Doe.”

“Unless we hear otherwise,” he said, “we are going to assume the child is female.”

His team had made themselves as comfortable as possible, and he glanced at them to make sure he had their attention before he continued. He listed the pathologist’s conclusions on the board with a dried-out red marker that had an annoying tendency to squeak: “Six
to eighteen months old. Interred at least one year, probably during winter. Cause of death not obvious.”

One of the detective constables groaned. “You’re joking, boss. That’s all we have to go on?”

“What? You expect miracles?” asked Babcock in a fair imitation of Dr. Elsworthy, and got a laugh from the group. They’d been grousing among themselves, resenting working on their holiday, and he needed their wholehearted cooperation.

“That rules out the newest owners, the ones doing the construction,” said Rasansky. He’d slouched in the chair nearest the board, his long legs stretched out almost in Babcock’s path.

“Possibly. Probably. But not the Fosters.” Babcock tapped the end of the marker against the side of his nose while he thought. “Although if they’d disposed of an infant in the barn, it seems unlikely they’d have been eager to sell to someone who was going to take the place apart. I’d put them on the back burner for the moment, although we’ll need to talk to them again. That leaves—”

“Excuse me, boss.” It was Sheila Larkin, the detective constable who had groaned over the postmortem results. She was a sharp young woman and Babcock was always glad to have her on his team, except for the fact that her very short skirts distracted his male officers, not to mention himself. This morning she sat on the edge of a table with her feet propped on a chair, and he had to drag his gaze away from her bare thighs. He wondered how she managed to avoid freezing.

“Isn’t it possible,” she continued, “that if the Fosters didn’t use the barn, the job could have been done without their knowledge?”

“Good point. I don’t think our Mr. Foster stirs out of his armchair too often. And I suppose it could have been done at night, in what—an hour or two? I’m not much of DIY man myself,” Babcock added.

“Piece of cake,” said Rasansky. “A lantern, a pail of mortar, a trowel. Of course, that’s assuming there was already a space in the wall suitable for filling in.”

Babcock frowned. “Even so, I doubt whoever did this wandered around with his mortar, hoping he’d run across the perfect spot to inter a baby. This required forethought, and foreknowledge. Our perpetrator had to have been familiar with the barn, and would have to have known when he was least likely to be observed.”

“Could a builder estimate the age of the mortar?” asked Larkin, crossing one leg over the other and exposing another few inches of plump white thigh. Travis, his scene-of-crime officer, was riveted, and Babcock wondered if he could have a discreet cautionary word with Larkin without being accused of making inappropriate sexual comments.

“I need to interview Juliet Newcombe again,” he said. “I’ll have a word with her about it.” He turned to Travis. “Any luck with the fingertip search?”

Not the least bit flustered, Travis gave a last lingering glance at Larkin’s legs before turning his attention to Babcock. “Sod all, boss. Used condoms, fag ends, lunch wrappers, beer cans. Just the combination you’d expect from a construction site that’s also been accessible to teenagers looking to have a bit of fun.”

Babcock hadn’t expected anything more helpful. He singled out Larkin, who had been assigned to search the missing-persons database. “Any luck with mis-per, Sheila?”

“It’s difficult without parameters, boss. I started with the last five years, children under two, confining the search to South Cheshire. No matches, male or female.”

“We’ll stick to South Cheshire for now, as I think it highly unlikely that someone from out of the area would have known about the barn. But let’s go back twenty years. Dr. Elsworthy says the fabrics look to be fairly modern synthetic blends, but twenty years is strictly a guess at this point—we could be looking at twenty-plus. When we get the fabric analysis from the lab, we may be able to narrow it down a bit further.”

“Yes, boss,” said Larkin, with her usual gung-ho attitude.

He nodded his approval before turning back to the others. “I think our biggest priority, after identifying a missing child that fits our parameters, is to trace the former owners, the Smiths. Kevin, I want you to extend the house-to-house. There’s
bound
to be someone who knows where they went.”

“I’ve sent someone round to the big house at the top of the lane twice, but no one’s at home,” Rasansky said a little defensively. “They’re the nearest neighbors other than the Fosters, and the most likely prospect.”

“Well, keep trying. But, Kevin,” he continued, “I want you to see if you can track down Jim Craddock, the estate agent who handled the Smiths’ sale of the property, Christmas or no. And while you’re at it, stop at Somerfield’s and Safeway, and anywhere else you can think of that carries baby products—Oh, hell.” He rubbed at his chin in frustration. “I keep forgetting everything’s closed. We’ll have to put that off until after Boxing Day. Must be your lucky day, Sergeant.”

The look Rasansky shot him was gratifyingly sour, and as everyone turned to his assigned task, Babcock suddenly found himself whistling under his breath.

After the brilliance of sun on snow, it took Annie’s eyes a moment to adjust to the dim light in the narrowboat’s cabin. The curtains had been pulled almost closed, and a single oil lamp burned on the drop-down table. A low fire smoldered in the woodstove, but the cold seemed dense, as if it had settled in the small space like a weight.

Although Gabriel had built a galley, bathroom, and sleeping quarters into what had once been the boat’s cargo space, he had kept the main cabin as unaltered as possible. As Annie looked round, she felt she had stepped back in time.

The woodwork was dark, with trim picked out in a cheery red, and every available inch of flat wall space was covered either with
polished brasses or with the laceware china plates that the boaters had traditionally collected. Rowan had once told Annie that she had inherited the pieces from her mother. The back of the cross seat had been embellished with a miniature castle—as was the underside of the drop table, Annie remembered—and painted roses cascaded down a side storage box—all Rowan’s work.

But today only Joseph sat at the table, his dark, curly head bent over paper and pencils. He hadn’t looked up since Annie had stepped down into the cabin. Gabriel and the little girl, Marie, had stopped on the steps behind her, adding to Annie’s sense of unease.

“Hello, Joe,” she said. He must be getting on for nine, she thought, a handsome, well-made boy who seemed to have outgrown the problems that had plagued him as a baby and toddler.

He had been two when his parents had first taken him to the local hospital. They’d told the attending doctor that the boy was having fits, and had several times stopped breathing.

After examining the boy, the doctor reported that he could find no evidence of seizures, but that the child had bruising on his arms and legs that might have been due to a violent fit.

Over the next few months, the Wains took Joseph to the hospital again and again, although the staff ’s findings continued to be inconclusive. Up until that time, the Wains had lived a nomadic life, but because of the child’s poor health, Gabriel had found temporary work near Nantwich. Also, Rowan had become pregnant again, and was having a difficult time.

Frustrated and unused to dealing with the hospital bureaucracy, Gabriel Wain had become increasingly belligerent with the doctor and the nursing staff. The boat people had always had a healthy disregard for hospitals, and Gabriel himself had been one of the last babies delivered by Sister Mary at Stoke Bruene on the Grand Union Canal, the nursing sister who spent her life ministering to the needs of the canal community.

On calling up the child’s National Health records, the doctor
learned that this was not the first time the Wains had sought help for their son. When Joseph was an infant, they had taken him to a Manchester hospital, saying that he couldn’t keep food down. Again, no diagnosis had been made.

The doctor’s suspicions were aroused, and after a particularly difficult altercation with Gabriel, he had turned Joseph’s records over to Social Services.

His accompanying report was damning. He believed the parents were manufacturing symptoms, and possibly abusing the boy, for attention. His official accusation—Annie could no longer think of it as a diagnosis—had been MSBP, Munchausen syndrome by proxy.

It had been her job, as the social worker assigned to the case, to investigate the doctor’s allegations.

“You probably won’t remember me, Joe,” she said now, “but I knew you when you were little.”

Joseph glanced at her, then nodded, his eyes downcast again, and from the color that rose in his cheeks she realized that he must be painfully shy. She wondered if the family had stayed in one place long enough for either child to be enrolled in school.

“Your mummy wanted to see—” she had begun, when Gabriel spoke from behind her.

“Through there,” he said, gesturing towards the passageway that led to the galley and the sleeping cabins beyond. He stepped down into the cabin, Marie clinging to his leg like a limpet, and the small space seemed suddenly claustrophobic. For a moment Annie felt frightened, then she told herself not to be absurd. Gabriel wouldn’t harm her—and certainly not in front of his wife and children.

She followed his instructions, moving through the tidy galley and into the cabin beyond. Here, the curtain had been pulled back a few inches, enough to illuminate the figure lying propped up in the box bed.

“Rowan!” Annie breathed, unable to stop herself. If she had thought the woman looked ill when she had seen her yesterday, today her skin
seemed gray, and even in the filtered light of the cabin, her lips had a blue tinge.

Rowan Wain smiled and spoke with obvious effort. “I heard you.” She nodded towards the window that overlooked the towpath. “I couldn’t let you go, thinking we didn’t appreciate what you did for us all that time ago. But there’s nothing we need now. We’re just fine on our own.”

Annie was conscious of Gabriel standing in the doorway, with both children now crowded behind him, but she tried to ignore their presence. As there was no other furniture in the small cabin and she didn’t want to talk to Rowan while hovering over her, she sat down carefully on the hard edge of the box bed. Gabriel had made it himself, she remembered, a fine example of his carpentry skills.

“You’ve got yourself a boat now,” Rowan continued with a smile. “You and your husband?”

Facing this woman who had given her entire life to her family, Annie found herself suddenly unable to admit she’d abandoned her husband on what she suspected Rowan would see as a whim. “Finding oneself” was a strictly middle-class luxury. Nor, aware of Gabriel’s hostile presence behind her, was she sure she wanted to admit to being alone. “Yes,” she said at last, nodding.

“But yesterday you were working her on your own. And well, too.”

“My husband—he had some business at our house in Tilston.” The prevarication came a little more easily, but then she remembered she’d told Gabriel she’d gone back to using her maiden name. Well, she’d just have to bluff it out as best she could. “He’ll be back soon,” she said with an internal grimace, knowing she had just marked herself out as someone who used a narrowboat for an occasional second home, a practice that earned little respect from the traditional boater. “I’m surprised I—we hadn’t run across you before now.”

Rowan looked away. “We were up Manchester way for a while, but the jobs dried up.”

From the silence of the generator, the mean fire, and the slight shabbiness of the boat itself, things had not improved on the Shropshire Union. The boat was so cold that Rowan was covered in layers of blankets over the old woolen jumper she wore, and when she spoke, her breath made tiny clouds of condensation. Annie said, “Rowan, if things aren’t going well, I could—”

“No.” Rowan glanced at her husband as she cut Annie off. “We’ll do fine. You should g—”

Annie wasn’t going to let herself be fobbed off so easily. “Rowan, you’re obviously not well. How long has this been going on? Have you seen a doctor?”

“I’m just a bit tired,” Rowan protested, but her voice was breathy, a thread of sound. “With Christmas and all. I’ll be fine when I’ve had a rest.”

It was a game effort, but Annie now saw things besides the pallor—the hollows under the woman’s eyes, the protrusion of the bones from the stick-thin wrists, the lank hair that had once been glossy.

“Rowan,” she said gently. “I think you haven’t been well for some time. You must get some help.”

“You know I can’t.” Rowan sat up, grasping Annie’s arm with unexpected strength. “No doctors. No hospitals. I won’t take a chance with my children.”

Annie laid her hand over the other woman’s fingers, gently, until she felt Rowan’s grip relax. “There’s no reason why your seeing a doctor should put the children at risk. They’re both well. You must—”

“You know what my records will say.” Rowan’s voice rose with urgency. “It never comes off—you told me that yourself—even though I was cleared. Someone will come, looking, prying, and this time it won’t be you.”