Water Like a Stone (21 page)

“Boiler’s still out,” he admitted. He’d spent another night on the sofa in front of his sitting-room fire, sleeping fitfully while huddled under every duvet in the house, and had again missed his morning coffee.

“We could do with one of those Caribbean holidays,” she said sympathetically, and he noticed that her eyes were a sea green deep enough to swim in. Process of association, he told himself as he blinked and looked away, combined with sleep and caffeine deprivation.

There was only one other officer left in the incident room, collating reports. The case wasn’t a high enough priority, and there hadn’t been enough information coming in, to justify tying up more manpower. The main phone line rang and Larkin slipped off the desk to answer. She listened briefly, said, “Right, thanks,” and rang off.

“Your star witness has arrived,” she told him. “Shall I bring her down?”

“No, I think we’ll use my office rather than the dungeon. Much more likely to inspire confidence, I should think.”

“Does she need inspiring, your Mrs. Newcombe?” Larkin asked as they made their way up to reception. “All we need is her formal statement describing the discovery of the body, and the names of the lads in her crew.”

Babcock thought of Juliet Newcombe’s frightened face yesterday evening, and of the rather obvious effort Piers Dutton had made to cast doubt on her credibility. “I think it might be a bit more complicated than that,” he said, forbearing to add his hope that Kincaid’s girlfriend had brought Mrs. Newcombe, as she’d promised. He wouldn’t mind another chat with the copper-haired Gemma James.

But when they reached the lobby, it was Kincaid himself who stood beside his sister.

Kincaid, in jeans and a scuffed leather bomber jacket, looked more relaxed than when Babcock had seen him on Christmas Eve, while Juliet Newcombe looked unhappy but less frantic.

When Babcock made introductions, Larkin widened her eyes at Kincaid and said, “Ooh, Scotland Yard! Nice to meet you, sir. If you ever need any help in this part of the world—” Babcock’s reproving
glare only made her grin unrepentantly as she turned back to him. “You want me to take Mrs. Newcombe’s statement, boss?” she asked.

“Why don’t you take Mrs. Newcombe to the family room,” he suggested. That would allow Larkin to take care of the formalities, and he could take Kincaid to his own office for a natter. There was always a chance that Larkin, for all her cheekiness, would elicit something from Juliet Newcombe that he might not.

Turning to her brother with a distressed expression, Juliet said, “But—I thought you’d be with me—”

Kincaid squeezed her arm. “Don’t worry. You just tell the constable exactly what happened the other night. It’s only for the record.”

“The coffee here is rubbish,” Babcock said when Larkin had led Juliet away, “but I keep a kettle and some tea bags in my office for special visitors. Care for a cuppa?”

“I’m flattered.” Kincaid followed him, and when they were settled in the two chairs on the visitors’ side of Babcock’s desk, dunking their tea bags in mismatched mugs, he looked round the cramped space. “You’ve not done too badly for yourself, Ronnie,” he commented.

“Don’t condescend to me, mate,” said Babcock lightly. “You’ve probably got a suite overlooking the bloody Thames.”

Kincaid laughed and shook his head. “Not likely, although you can get a glimpse of the river from my guv’nor’s office if you stand on a chair.” He fished out his tea bag and lobbed it accurately into the bin. “So, any developments with the case?” he asked, settling back in his chair with his hands wrapped round his mug for the warmth.

“Bugger all,” Babcock told him with a grimace. He outlined the results of the pathologist’s report and the negative progress in other areas. “I don’t suppose you’ve any suggestions? Not that I’m officially asking for Scotland Yard’s assistance, of course.”

“Patience, my son?” Kincaid ventured, then held up a hand to ward off an imaginary blow. “No, seriously, I’d say you’re pretty well stymied until the neighbors come back from their holiday and businesses reopen. Have you put a notice in the local media?”

“There’ll be a story in this week’s
Chronicle.
Maybe someone will remember a baby of an unspecified age who disappeared an unspecified number of years ago.”

“Stranger things have happened,” Kincaid said. “But you might have someone contact you with the Smiths’ address. I remember them, you know, although I’m not sure I’d have recalled the name. But the barn was still a working dairy when we were kids. Jules and I—”

“Jules?”

“Sorry, Juliet. Juliet and I used to roam the canal like little fiends, not something you could let your kids do these days. We were chased off by more than one farmer and his dog, but not by the Smiths. They seemed a kindly couple, and although I thought of them as being ancient, I suspect they were only middle-aged.”

“You were close, then, you and your sister?” Babcock asked.

Kincaid hesitated for a moment, then said, “There’s only three years’ difference in our ages and, especially when we were small, our life was fairly isolated, so we spent a good deal of time together. But even then, I’m not sure I really knew her.” He shrugged. “And I suppose it’s only natural that you grow apart as you get older.”

Babcock saw an opportunity to satisfy his curiosity about Juliet Newcombe. “Is she all right, your sister? Yesterday, she seemed more upset than I’d have expected.”

“Um, she’s having some…domestic issues,” Kincaid answered after a moment’s hesitation.

“Anything to do with this baby?”

“No, of course not.” Kincaid seemed surprised by the question. “Although I don’t think finding the thing did wonders for her emotional equilibrium.”

“Understandable.” Babcock grimaced at the memory of the desiccated little form, then turned his mug in his fingers while he considered how much to reveal. “I had a chat with your brother-in-law’s
partner last night. He’s a right tosser. And I got the distinct impression he has it in for your sister.”

“Has it in—”

“As in active ill will.” Babcock clarified. “As in making an opportunity to suggest she’s hysterical and not to be relied upon.”

“Why the hell—” Kincaid began, then stopped and sipped carefully at tea that was now tepid. Wariness had slipped over his face like a mask, and Babcock knew he wasn’t going to hear everything his friend knew. “Why would Piers Dutton want to undermine my sister?” Kincaid asked after a moment, his voice under control once more.

Frowning, Babcock mused aloud. “Dutton said he’d been in his house five years. But even if the child was buried before that, he could have known about the barn before he moved into the area.”

“You’re suggesting Dutton had something to do with this baby? But then why would he recommend my sister for the renovation?”

“Well, say he knew the new owners were determined to go ahead with the job. If he was sure the baby would be found, maybe he saw an opportunity to make life difficult for your sister.”

“Implicating himself in the process? That’s pretty far-fetched, don’t you think, Ronnie? And if he was responsible for the baby and he knew the renovation was inevitable, why not just remove the body?”

“Too risky?” Babcock suggested.

“There’s only one house between Dutton’s and the canal. All he’d need to do was pick a night when he knew his neighbors wouldn’t be home. It didn’t take Jules that long to chip out that mortar—Dutton could have done it in a few hours, then tossed the body in a ditch somewhere.”

Babcock sighed. “That’s a point. Tom Foster’s not exactly the Cerberus of South Cheshire.” Rubbing at his lower lip, he found a spot of stubble he’d missed that morning in his rush to shave in his
arctic bathroom. He cast an envious glance at his old friend. Kincaid was one of those men who would look rakish with a day’s growth of beard, while he, with his battered face, would merely look like he’d spent the night in a skip. “Still, it’s worth checking,” he continued. “Dutton was going through a divorce at the time. Maybe he had an illegitimate child he didn’t want complicating things—”

“And the baby’s mother went along with the interment? Or maybe she’s buried somewhere, too? Ronnie, you’re building sand castles.”

Babcock countered with a grin. “Where’s your imagination, lad? All those bureaucrats at the Yard drummed it out of you? For all we know, he’s walled her up in the cellar of his Victorian monstrosity. Didn’t you read your Poe?”

“You’d better have a little firmer foundation than ‘The Cask of Amontillado’ before you apply for a warrant to start digging up Dutton’s house.”

“Okay, okay. Touché. But I think I’ll have Larkin do a little research into Dutton’s background.”

“Your detective constable?” Kincaid raised an amused eyebrow. “Sharp girl. And I do believe she fancies you, you know.”

Babcock was momentarily rendered speechless. “You’re taking the piss. She’s cheeky with everyone, including you—and you’re happily attached, I take it. I met your…girlfriend?”

“So she said, although I think she’d prefer the term ‘partner.’ And you’re changing the subject.”

“Even if you were right—and I’m not saying you are—I have enough problems with my ex without getting involved with someone on the job. Although I have to admit, my options for meeting eligible women who’ll put up with a copper’s life are just about nil,” Babcock conceded. Even as he spoke he remembered that Kincaid had been divorced, and that he’d heard his ex-wife had died tragi
cally. To cover his momentary awkwardness, he said, “So, how did you get together with your Gemma?”

This time Kincaid’s smile was wicked. “She was my sergeant.”

When Althea Elsworthy saw Rowan Wain, she knew. Still, she went through the motions, listening to heart and lungs, checking capillary refill, lips and gums. The woman’s labored breathing echoed in the boat’s small cabin.

The social worker—Annie Lebow, as she was calling herself now—had given the doctor a brief history of the Wains, explaining why Rowan Wain and her husband refused to seek medical help through the system.

“Munchausen’s by proxy?” Althea had said. “Christ. Who made the diagnosis?”

When Annie told her, she shook her head and compressed her lips. “The man’s a poisonous toad. I’m not saying that such things don’t happen now and again, mind you, parents abusing their children in order to get attention, but it should be called just that—abuse—and dealt with as such. But Sprake pulls MSBP out of his hat whenever he can’t diagnose a child or the parents refuse to cooperate with his conception of himself as God.”

“And there’s no way to have the diagnosis removed from Rowan’s records?”

“Not likely, even if the couple had unlimited funds and fancy lawyers. The boy seems all right now?”

“Remarkably well, as far as I can tell,” Annie had answered, and Althea nodded. She’d seen cases like that, where a young child failed to thrive, then, without any visible explanation, suddenly seemed to turn a corner. Certainly, both children, seen briefly peeking from behind their father in the main cabin of the narrowboat, had looked healthy, if a trifle thin. Better that, in her opinion, than
the pudginess she saw so often these days in children who spent hours in front of the telly.

“Doctor.” The whisper of Rowan Wain’s voice snapped Althea out of her woolgathering. The thin fingers Rowan placed on her arm were cold and blue as ice. “It’s bad, isn’t it?”

“Well, it’s not good, I’m afraid,” Althea admitted. “I don’t suppose I can change your mind about going to hospital?”

Rowan gave only the slightest shake of her head, but her eyes were adamant, and filled with a calm acceptance that made the doctor look away. Carefully coiling up her stethoscope and placing it in her bag, she said, “I can try to make you more comfortable. Perhaps some oxygen would help.”

“It won’t go on any records?”

“I’ll see it doesn’t.”

“Then that would be good. Thank you.” Rowan smiled. “Will you speak to my husband?”

“If you’d like, yes.” Thinking of the anxious faces of those waiting outside the tiny cabin, Althea was reminded of why she had become a pathologist—she found it much easier to deal with the dead than with the pain of the living. “I’ll come back soon,” she said. “When I’ve arranged for the oxygen.”

Rowan’s eyes were drifting closed; even their short interview had tired her.

When the doctor emerged into the main cabin, she found only Annie and the husband, Gabriel Wain. There seemed to be a tension between them, and Althea wondered briefly if it was due to more than concern.

“I’ve sent the children up top,” Wain said, without offering any pleasantries. He, too, was thin, she realized, with the gauntness of worry, and his dark eyes were as feverish in their intensity as his rough demand when he spoke. “Say what you have to say.”

“I suspect you know what I’m going to tell you, Mr. Wain,” said Althea, speaking softly enough that she hoped her voice wouldn’t
carry into the next cabin. “Your wife is suffering from congestive heart failure. I understand your feelings about treatment, and in Rowan’s case I must say I fear her heart is too damaged for surgical intervention to be effective, even if it were possible. There are drugs that might help temporarily, but again…I’ve said I’d arrange some oxygen, to make her more comfortable. You do understand that this is strictly my opinion?” she added.

He stared at her. “You’re saying there’s nothing can be done for her? Even if she went into hospital?”

“In the long term, I fear not.”

She heard the quick intake of Annie Lebow’s breath and glimpsed her stricken face, but it was Gabriel Wain who held her gaze. His eyes drew her in, and for an instant she felt herself falling into the pit of his grief. But then she saw a flicker of something that might have been relief in those depths, and he seemed to diminish. If the will to keep his wife alive had driven him beyond his limits for too long, it had now released its hold.

“Have you told her,” he asked, “that she’s dying?”

“Not in so many words, no. Do you want me to speak to her again?”

He drew himself up, once more dominating the claustrophobic confines of the cabin, and his dignity made her suddenly feel an intruder. “No,” he said quietly. “I thank you for your help, Doctor, but that burden is mine.”