But it was odd, he thought, swaying slightly as he made an effort to set the glass neatly on his desk. Piers had been angry, there was no mistaking that, but just as he’d turned away, Caspar could have sworn he’d seen a gleam of satisfaction in his partner’s eye.
Annie Lebow had no trouble getting a mooring at Nantwich Canal Center. On Christmas Eve, most sane boaters were happily landlocked with family or friends.
The canal center occupied the old Chester Basin, once the terminus of the Chester Canal. Finished in 1779, the canal had been cut wide to accommodate the barges carrying heavy goods, including the famous Nantwich cheeses, across the Cheshire Plain from Nantwich to Chester. After years of decline, the basin had been resurrected in the nineties by an industrious couple, becoming an important center for boatbuilding and boat repair, as well as providing everyday services for boaters.
Annie needed some work done on the Horizon—the electrical system had developed a glitch—and Nantwich had seemed the obvious choice. Or so she had told herself, disregarding the fact that she was unlikely to find anyone to do the necessary repairs during Christmas week. The truth was that she found herself more and more often drawn back to the scenes of her working life, the very places she had once so desperately wanted to put behind her.
How odd that today she had seen the very family who had been primarily responsible for her leaving her job, and who had also inspired her to take up the boating life. She’d been tempted to tell Gabriel Wain that she owed him a debt of gratitude, but suspected he’d think her daft.
No matter how competent or how experienced she’d become, she’d never really belong to the world of the traditional boat people. Not that there were many like the Wains left on the canals. She’d wondered, in the years since she’d handled their case, if she’d let her fascination with their way of life affect her judgment.
The sight of the children today, so obviously happy and healthy, had relieved any nagging doubts. The mother, however, had looked wan and ill—and frightened. Annie had known better than to comment—she understood the reason for the Wains’ distrust all too well. She’d told herself it was none of her business, but it seemed that once a social worker, always a social worker, like it or not, and she found it hard to let go of her concern for Rowan Wain.
With the boat safely moored in the quiet marina, she’d used her torch to pick her way along the towpath and onto the aqueduct that carried the Shropshire Union over the Chester Road. The Shroppie, as the boaters affectionately called it, was actually a connected system of canals built at different times by different canal companies. It was here at Nantwich that the old Chester Canal met the narrow Liverpool to Birmingham Junction Canal, built by the Scottish engineer Thomas Telford in the late 1820s. While the iron aqueduct was not as impressive as Telford’s stone aqueduct at Pontcysyllte, in Wales, Annie had always loved its soaring lines. This aqueduct and the Birmingham Junction Canal had been Telford’s last projects—he had, in fact, died before their completion—and that somehow added a bittersweet touch to their beauty.
It had been Rowan Wain who had told Annie about the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct, which carried the Llangollen Canal across the entire span of the Dee Valley. The first time Annie had taken the Horizon down the Llangollen and worked up the nerve to cross the aqueduct, she’d been terrified and exhilarated. The boat seemed to float in midair like a spirit, high above the valley, and it was like nothing else Annie had ever experienced. Afterwards, she felt she was a true boater.
From where she stood now, she could see the snow dusting the rooftops of Nantwich, and she thought she could just make out the dark shadow that was the tower of St. Mary’s Church. Even as a child, visiting from her home near Malpas, in southern Cheshire, she’d been fascinated by Nantwich. The black-and-white-timbered shops facing the green had made her think of a picture on a chocolate box, and she’d liked the way the massive red stone bulk of St. Mary’s had balanced the prettiness of the surrounding buildings.
Once, she’d asked her parents to take her to Christmas Eve mass at St. Mary’s. Her mother had refused, with her usual scorn, saying there was a perfectly good church in Malpas that they were expected to attend and it would be idiotic to consider driving twenty miles through darkness and bad weather to go somewhere else.
It had been no less than Annie had expected, but to her surprise, her father had agreed, and they had gone, just the two of them. Annie had known, even then, that her father would suffer the consequences of her mother’s anger for days, but her guilt had not been able to dampen her pleasure. It had been one of the few times she’d spent alone with her busy father. They hadn’t talked much, but there had been a shared sense of adventure between them, spiced by the rebelliousness of defying her mother. She couldn’t remember another occasion when she had felt so close to him.
Years later, living with her husband in the house she’d inherited from her parents, she’d thought of asking him to go with her to midnight mass at St. Mary’s. Roger, cheerful atheist that he was, would have indulged her, but it was that very indulgence that had made her decide against it. Roger had viewed all her passions with an air of affectionate but slightly amused condescension, and that particular memory had been too precious to taint with ridicule.
Still, after five years of separation, and knowing Roger as well as she did, the temptation to confide in him was strong. She’d wanted to tell him about her encounter with the Wains, about her fears for Rowan Wain’s health. She’d even gone so far as to punch his number into her mobile phone, but at the last minute had disconnected.
It was Christmas Eve. Roger would interpret a phone call as an admission of loneliness, perhaps even an admission of defeat.
Loneliness, yes, but she’d been lonely when they were together, sometimes more than she was now. Defeat, no, not yet, even if she hadn’t found the peace she’d sought in her roving life on the Cut.
The muted throb of a diesel engine signaled the progress of a narrowboat. Looking back towards the basin, Annie saw a light moving low on the water. As the boat entered the aqueduct and glided past her, close enough to touch, the muffled figure at the tiller nodded a silent greeting. Annie watched the boat’s light until it disappeared, then turned back to the glimmering rooftops of Nantwich. She no longer felt so alone.
There was nothing stopping her, she realized, other than a brisk and solitary walk through the streets of the town. She would go to midnight mass at St. Mary’s, and she would celebrate in her own way those things for which she was thankful.
CHAPTER FIVE
Babcock chuckled aloud as he watched his old friend drive away. Having caught the brief, unguarded expression on Kincaid’s usually composed face, he had recognized naked lust for the chase. He felt a surprising satisfaction at having discovered a kindred spirit, rising so unexpectedly from the ashes of his past life.
Brushing at a feather touch of damp on his cheek, he realized it was snowing again. “Sod it,” he said aloud, casting a glance at the sky, which seemed to loom within touching distance. He scrubbed the accumulating flakes from his hair in irritation and set off after his crime-scene techs, his amusement forgotten.
He stopped at the open doorway of the barn, nodding at the constable standing watch. What would be the doorway, Babcock amended, as he could see now that the opening was merely roughly framed. The interior was littered with the debris of construction—a few planks and pails lay scattered about, and a power saw had been propped against the leg of a wooden sawhorse. Near the far wall, a pick had been dropped on the dirt floor, its blade catching the light from the battery-powered lamps.
Clive Travis, his chief forensics officer, stood just inside the door, struggling to get his paper suit on over bulky warm clothing. Travis was a small, lean man who wore his thinning sandy hair pulled back in a ponytail, and whose energetic personality mirrored his whippet-like appearance. Tonight, however, he looked anything but happy, and his fellow officer seemed no more cheerful. Sandra Barnett, the scene photogr
apher, was quick and competent, but always appeared as if she’d rather be doing something else. Tonight, her broad face looked positively funereal.
“So, what do we have here, troops?” Babcock asked. After slipping off his overcoat and handing it to a constable, with a grimace he accepted gloves and another paper suit from Travis. Protecting the evidence from contamination was a bloody waste of time, he was sure, in an old scene that had been openly accessible, but it had to be done. It would be his head on a platter if there was a balls-up, and he hadn’t got where he was by indulging his rebellious streak—at least not very often.
“Have a look for yourself, boss.” When Babcock was properly suited, Travis slipped a torch into Babcock’s freshly gloved hand. “A babe in a manger, you might say.”
Sandra Barnett glanced at Travis and thumped down her camera case with unnecessary force. Babcock supposed he couldn’t blame her for being irritated by Travis’s irreverence, but it was one of the reasons he liked the man, that and Travis’s appreciation of the bizarre—and bizarre this case certainly was.
From where he stood, Babcock could see the pickwork in the far wall, and in the opening, a scrap of pinkish cloth and what looked like a cluster of tiny brown twigs. Maneuvering carefully around the dropped pick, he stepped closer as Travis repositioned a light so that it provided better illumination. Suddenly, his brain assembled the component parts of what he was seeing into a coherent whole.
“Jesus,” he said involuntarily, not caring if it earned a glower from Barnett. The twigs were the curled brown bones of a tiny hand. What he had seen as a clump of root filament was the tuft of fine hair left above a wizened face. The empty and sunken eye sockets seemed to peer back at him.
No wonder Juliet Newcombe had seemed shaken. Babcock had seen much worse in the course of his career, in terms of blood and mutilation, but there was something pathetically vulnerable in this little corpse. Who could have done such a thing to a child?
The lower half of the child’s body was still encased in its mortar shroud, but from what Babcock could see, there was no obvious sign of physical trauma, nor any bloodstains on the blanket or clothing. Voices at the doorway alerted him to the arrival of the Home Office pathologist and he turned away, glad enough to have someone else take over the examination.
Dr. Althea Elsworthy strode into the barn, disdaining Travis’s offer of a paper suit with an irritable flick of her wrist. She always carried her own supply of latex gloves, and paused just inside the doorway to stuff her heavy woolen pair in the pocket of her coat and puff air into the latex replacements before pulling them on. “Mummified, is it?” she said, directing her inquiry in Babcock’s direction, although she hadn’t acknowledged him. Before he could finish nodding, she continued, “No point bothering with the astronaut gear, then, and I’m not taking off my coat in this bloody cold. I’ll be buggered if I’m courting pneumonia on Christmas Eve without a bloody good reason.”
As she paused to take stock of the room, Babcock studied her with the amazement he always felt. Tonight, her tall, thin figure was enveloped in what looked like a man’s ancient tweed overcoat, and her flyaway gray hair was covered by a navy wool watch cap. Her face, however, was as stern and uncompromising as ever. Although from her vigor he guessed her to be in her sixties, her skin was so webbed with fine lines that it resembled tanned leather.
As she passed by him, he caught a faint whiff of dog. Her dog accompanied her everywhere, in all weathers, stolidly waiting in the back of her ancient moss-green Morris Minor car. The beast appeared to be a cross between an Irish wolfhound and the Hound of the Baskervilles, and Babcock had been known to speculate as to whether it was actually stuffed and permanently bolted into place as a deterrent against car burglars.
But that the dog was alive and not taxidermically enhanced he could personally testify. He’d once made the mistake of accepting a lift from the doctor, and the dog’s hot breath had prickled his neck all the way back to the station. He could have sworn a few drops of saliva dribbled down his collar. Riding in Elsworthy’s car had been a mistake in other respects as well—the upholstery had been so coated with dog hair that its original color was indistinguishable, and it had taken him days to remove the thick gray mat from his suit.
Tonight, he thought he detected an odor other than eau de dog emanating from the good doctor—the sharp tang of whisky. But the doctor’s eyes gleamed with their usual intelligence, and her manner was as brisk as ever. Had she been celebrating, Babcock wondered? Was there a Mr. Elsworthy waiting at home? It was not the sort of thing one would ever dare ask her, and he couldn’t imagine her offering a personal confidence. Nor was he sure he really wanted to know.
He stepped farther back, giving the doctor room to work. Stooping like a bulkily clad crane, she carefully eyed the body, then probed gently here and there with a gloved finger. She offered no commentary—small talk was never the doctor’s habit—and after a few minutes Babcock couldn’t contain his impatience.
“Well?” he asked. “How long do you think it’s been here? How old is it? Is it male or female?”
The look she shot him might have been aimed at a schoolboy talking out of turn in class. She turned back to the gaping mortar. “You might assume from the clothing that the child is female,” she said at last, with only a trace of sarcasm. “Further than that, I can’t say until I can do X-rays and a proper examination.” She peered down into the lower part of the wall cavity. “From the length of the body, I’d guess the infant was less than a year old, but not newborn.”
Babcock snorted. “Very helpful.”
“You were expecting miracles, Chief Inspector?”
He thought he glimpsed a flash of humor in her eyes. “I wouldn’t mind.”
“As to your first question,” she continued, “once your technicians have finished documenting the scene and we can remove the remains, I’ll do the preliminary exam at the morgue. Then we’ll see.” Elsworthy straightened up and peeled off her latex gloves, stuffing them into another capacious pocket as she moved towards the door.
He had reached for his mobile phone to request reinforcements, uniforms to man the perimeter and begin the house-to-house, when the doctor turned back.
“I can tell you one thing,” she said, and he paused, phone open in his hand. “This was no casual burial, no callous dumping of a corpse. If you want my opinion, I’d say it was a ritual interment.”
When Gemma and the children returned from their trek to the pony pasture, they found the kitchen tidy again and Rosemary gathering the ingredients for punch. There had been no word from Kincaid or his sister.
Sam led the children off to see his hoard of presents under the tree, and Hugh had gone up to his study, for “just a few minutes,” Rosemary informed Gemma with a roll of her eyes, adding, “He’s just acquired a rare edition of one of Dickens’s lesser-known Christmas stories. Once he gets immersed in a book, he’ll forget to eat if I don’t remind him. I suppose that sounds rather charming, but in reality, it’s quite irritating.”
Gemma had seen the same sort of single-minded focus all too often when Kincaid was working a case—in fact, it had recently almost cost him the custody of his son. She, on the other hand, found it difficult to compartmentalize the different aspects of her life. Even while concentrating on work, some part of her mind would be wondering what sort of day Kincaid was having, and whether there was something in the fridge for the children’s dinner. She’d seen it as a curse, this inability to shut down her emotional radar when she wanted so badly to succeed at her job.
But lately she’d begun to think that the feminine hardwiring of her brain might have its compensations. The personal ones were more obvious—God forbid that she had failed to turn up at Kit’s custody hearing—but there were professional blessings as well.
Her promotion had required her to learn to lead her team effectively, and she’d discovered that her awareness of their moods and shifting allegiances was an invaluable tool. She was also finding
that an ability to see the big picture, to synthesize, sometimes allowed the disparate pieces of an investigation to slip into place.
Now, if she could just apply some of those same skills to navigating the complexities of Duncan’s family, maybe she would actually get through this holiday. She liked Rosemary, although she didn’t know her well. Their phone conversations had consisted of superficial chitchat. Gemma had no idea what lay beneath this woman’s competent exterior.
“What are you making, exactly?” she asked, watching Rosemary transfer an assortment of bottles into a box for easy carrying to the car.
“It’s called cardinal’s hat. Very festive—and lethal if overindulged in.” She touched the bottle tops in turn. “Claret. Cognac. White rum. Red vermouth. Cranberry juice. Rose water.” Reaching into the fridge, she pulled out a bottle of champagne and held it aloft like a trophy. “Champagne. And”—she reached into the fridge again and removed a plastic bag—“rose petals to float on the top. Scavenged from my friend the florist on the square.”
Gemma couldn’t remember her parents ever drinking champagne. From the photos, she knew their wedding had been strictly chapel, a tea-and-cake affair, and any family gatherings where alcohol was served tended to run to beer and port. “Sounds very elegant just for us,” she said, glancing a little uneasily at her casual slacks and sweater. The punch sounded as if it called for a velvet dress.
“It’s a bit much for Juliet’s taste, to be honest,” Rosemary told her, placing the rose petals carefully atop the bottles. “But Caspar likes the show.”
Gemma’s curiosity prompted her to forget her caution. “You didn’t sound earlier as if you were much bothered by what Caspar thought.”
“Oh, dear.” Rosemary glanced up, a guilty expression on her face. “Didn’t I? In front of the children?”
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