Water Like a Stone

by Deborah Crombie

  Then the recessional began and they filed slowly out after the choir, joining the queue of those waiting to pay their respects to the priest. Kincaid spotted Caspar Newcombe standing to one side, shaking hands and chatting with passersby, ignoring his wife and family as if they didn’t exist. Beside him stood a large, handsome man whose well-cut clothes didn’t quite disguise the fact that he was running to heaviness. His good looks and wavy fair hair made Kincaid think of a matinee idol, from the days when film stars had looked like men, not androgynous boys. He, too, was meeting and greeting, but not alone. Beside him stood a tall boy with the stamp of the older man’s features beneath his bored expression, and fair hair that might wave if not cut stylishly short.

  “Who’s the bloke with Caspar?” he whispered to his mother, who stood nearest him in the queue.

  Rosemary looked at him in surprise. “That’s Piers Dutton. Caspar’s partner. I didn’t realize you’d never met him. And that’s his son, Leo. He and Lally are in the same class.”

  So this was the partner with whom Caspar had taunted Juliet during their row. At first sight, Kincaid couldn’t imagine a man less likely to appeal to his sister—but then he’d not have wagered on Caspar, either.

  “Caspar and Piers never miss a chance to oil their connections,” said his mother, the softness of her voice not disguising the bite. “The churchwardens are good clients.”

  “Somehow that doesn’t surprise—”

  Kincaid looked round as he felt a bump against his shoulder, followed by a murmured apology. A woman had nudged past him, slipping out of the queue and making her way towards the porch doors. Although she moved with her head ducked, avoiding eye contact with those she passed, he recognized the slightly untidy short hair, the slender body whose movement hinted at unexpected fitness.

  It was the woman who had sung so beautifully, leaving as she had come, alone.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The Newcombes had walked back from church, the four of them together, Sam and Lally forging ahead with their father while Juliet lagged behind. They would have looked a proper family to anyone watching, thought Juliet, the children boisterous with the cold and the excitement of the occasion, the father doting, the mother tired from the day’s preparations.

  But when they’d reached the house, Caspar had disappeared into his study without a word, and Juliet had gone up with the children. Then, when she’d seen Sam and Lally settled and kissed them good night, she’d gone into her bedroom and carefully, deliberately, locked the door.

  She leaned against it, breathing hard, her hands trembling and her heart pounding in her ears. It was over. Her marriage was over. She couldn’t deny it any longer. She’d lived with the sarcasm, the veiled accusations, the ridicule, refusing to acknowledge the extent of the rot.

  But tonight Caspar had gone too far. The things he’d said to her, his humiliation of her in front of her family, were unforgivable. There could be no going back.

  But how could she manage if she left him? What could she do? She had virtually no income; drawing a pittance of a salary, she only barely managed to keep her fledgling business out of the red. Of course, she could do the sensible thing. She could give it up, find an ordinary, respectable office job that would bring in a regular paycheck.

  But oh, she loved her building work with a passion she’d never expected, loved even the days spent in blistering sun and freezing rain, days she came home so exhausted she fell asleep over her dinner. She had a knack for seeing what things could become, and for bringing brick and stone to life under her hands.

  No, she wouldn’t let it go, wouldn’t let Caspar take that from her, too, not if there was any way she could help it. What, then? Ask her parents for help? Bad enough that she would have to admit she had failed at her marriage, without begging for money as well.

  Of course, she wouldn’t be penniless. Caspar would have to give her some financial assistance. But she knew him now, knew he would use his connections to find the best solicitor, knew he would juggle funds to reduce his apparent means and that Piers would help him, regardless of the cost to the children.

  And the children—dear God, how could she tell the children she meant to leave their father? Lally would never forgive her. And Sam, what would it do to Sam, so vulnerable beneath his constant chatter?

  But she could see now that she’d been a fool to think the children didn’t know what was happening, a fool not to realize that Caspar was poisoning them against her every day in little, insidious ways, and that he was prepared to do worse.

  She had to think. She had to come up with a strategy that would protect her and the children. Steeling herself, she unlocked the door, switched off the light, and climbed into bed, her body tense as a spring. But there was no tread on the stairs, no click of the doorknob turning.

  Slowly, the traumas of the day caught up with her. Her body warmed under the duvet, her muscles relaxed, and against her will, her eyelids drifted closed. Hovering in that halfway state between sleeping and waking, she knew when the dream began that it was a dream.

  She held a baby in her arms…Sam…no, Lally…She recognized the pink blanket with its leaping white sheep. The child stirred in her arms…She could feel the warmth of it against her breast…Then, as she looked down, the tiny red face melted away, bone blossoming beneath the skin, eyes sinking into the gaping pits of the sockets.

  Juliet gasped awake and sat up, panting in terror. It was a dream, only a dream of the poor child she had found. Sam and Lally were safe. “Only a dream,” she whispered, easing herself down under the covers again. “Only a dream.”

  But as her heart slowed, her senses began to register the faint predawn creakings of the house. She had slept longer than she thought, and the night was almost over. Caspar wasn’t coming to bed at all.

  A wave of fury washed over her, leaving her sick and shaking, slicked with sweat. He’d never meant to come up, never meant to face her after the things he’d said. Avoiding a confrontation was his way of punishing her, of keeping the upper hand.

  Now she would have to get up in the morning, go down, and manage Christmas for the children as if nothing had happened, and he would be smug and vicious in his little victory.

  And then a new thought struck her. Was he ahead of the game? Was he plotting already, calculating the damage he could do? And the children—there had been something sly tonight in the way he had sucked up to Sam and Lally, complimenting and cajoling them.

  The children. She clutched at the bed, as if the room had rocked on its foundations. What if he meant to take the children?

  Christmas morning dawned cold and clear, with a sparkling layer of frost laid over the packed snow like icing on a cake. Ronnie Babcock greeted the beautiful day with a distinct lack of appreciation, and a reminder to himself to dig out his sunglasses or he’d have a permanent squint. His central-heating boiler had not miraculously repaired itself in the night, and after sleeping under every spare blanket and duvet he could find, he’d plunged out of bed with the temerity of an arctic explorer, bathing (thank God for immersion heaters) and shaving with dangerous haste. His reward for his fortitude was a seeping cut on his chin. Lovely, just bloody lovely.

  And to top it off, he knew he couldn’t forgo his duty visit to his great-aunt Margaret, case or no case, and he had better get it over with before his appointment with Dr. Elsworthy at Leighton Hospital.

  Margaret was his mother’s mother’s sister, and the only link remaining to his family. Nor had she anyone else. A childless spinster, she had been a fiercely independent career woman, overcoming her working-class background as her sister and his mother had never been able to do. Ronnie had admired her, even as a child, although he couldn’t say that he had known her well. Great-aunt Margaret hadn’t been a woman with a knack for children, and it was only in the last few years, with his mum gone, that he had begun to develop a relationship with her.

  Unfortified even by his usual coffee—it was too cold in the kitchen to stand a
bout while it brewed, much less drink it—he shrugged into his overcoat and headed for the door. But with his hand on the knob he hesitated, then, with another curse, turned back and picked up the single-malt whisky, red bow and all. He could always buy himself another—and better—bottle, but he couldn’t go calling on Christmas morning without a gift.

  The private care home was on the outskirts of Crewe, in a neighborhood of quiet and prosperous semidetached houses. He knew the place wasn’t bad as far as care homes went—he’d had enough experience in his job with council-run establishments that skirted the health-code criteria—but no amount of wood polish and fresh flowers could quite disguise the underlying odor of human incontinence and decay.

  It was early for visitors, but he knew the residents were given their breakfast at what Great-aunt Margaret always called an uncivilized hour, and he also knew that Margaret would be most alert early in the day.

  Although the matron, a large and obnoxiously cheerful woman, greeted him with even more than her usual bonhomie, he’d taken the precaution of slipping the whisky bottle into a shopping bag. The residents were not supposed to have alcohol on the premises, but he sidled past Matron with a smile and not the slightest twinge of guilt.

  He found Margaret alone in the residents’ sitting room, her chair tucked in beside a gaudy artificial tree. In a bright red woolen suit, she looked like a present left behind by an absentminded Father Christmas. Her fine white hair had been styled into a wreath of curls, her nails varnished in the same cheery color as her suit.

  “You look fetching,” Ronnie told her, bending to kiss her papery cheek.

  “For all the good it does me.” Her voice was still strong, with the slight huskiness he suspected was due to the unfiltered cigarettes he remembered her smoking when he was a child. Her bones, however, had felt fragile as dried twigs when he’d rested his hand on her shoulder, and she looked frailer than the last time he’d seen her.

  “Where are the other inmates, then?” he asked, pulling the nearest chair a bit closer to her. It was one of their standing jokes, and she smiled appreciatively.

  “Off enduring their families for the day, most of them. Makes me glad I’ve only you to torment me.” She never said she liked his visits, or asked when he was coming again, but he suddenly guessed that the bright suit, the nail varnish, the freshly styled hair were all in his honor. She had looked forward to his coming, and he felt a rush of shame.

  To cover his discomfort, he rustled in the bag and revealed the bottle of whisky. “Thought you might want to keep this a secret from Matron,” he whispered.

  “Too bloody right,” agreed Margaret. Taking the bag from him, she tucked it beside her in the wheelchair and gave him a conspiratorial smile as she covered it with the rug she kept over her knees. “There should be some use for being crippled, I always say.

  “Now,” she said, fixing him with a beady gaze, “tell me what you’re doing here at this ungodly hour on your holiday. Has that wife of yours mended her ways?” Margaret had never had anything good to say about Peggy, but at least now Babcock wasn’t obligated to defend his ex-wife.

  “Afraid not, Auntie.”

  “Lucky for you,” she sniffed. “So it will be work, then, unless your prompt appearance is just an excuse for avoiding our little Christmas feast.”

  Babcock colored, knowing he would have made an excuse if one hadn’t presented itself. Murder scenes were one thing, but mealtimes at the care home were beyond his powers of endurance.

  His struggle must have been apparent, because she sighed and said, “It’s all right, boy. I can’t say I blame you, especially considering the state of Reggie Pargetter’s bowels these days. Why don’t you tell me about your case?”

  He could see no need for secrecy, as what little he knew would be public knowledge as soon as the local presses recovered from their Christmas hiatus. So he told her what they had found, and where, ending by saying, “I’m just on my way to Leighton for the postmortem.”

  Margaret sat silently, her head bowed, for so long he thought she had lost the drift of the conversation, or perhaps even dozed. But then she looked up, and he saw that although the lines in her face seemed etched more deeply than before, her eyes gleamed with understanding.

  “It was an act of desperation,” she said softly. “Do you see? Whoever buried that child suffered an unthinkable grief.”

  The dream began, as it always did, with Kit running through the Cambridgeshire cottage in search of his mother. He felt an increasing sense of urgency, but the rooms seemed to elongate ahead of him, as if he’d fallen into the wrong end of a telescope. He ran faster, his panic mounting as the rooms seemed to stretch into tunnels. Suddenly the kitchen door appeared before him. He stopped, his chest aching, seized by a dread that froze his fingers even as he reached for the doorknob. His mother needed him, he told himself, but his hand felt leaden, his feet rooted to the floor. His mother needed him, he knew that, but he couldn’t make himself go farther.

  Then, before he could back away, the door swung open of its own accord. Kit swayed as he saw the room before him. The floor and walls curved upwards like the sides of a bowl, and at the bottom lay his mother. She lay on her side, her knees drawn up, her head resting on one arm, as if she had just lain down for a nap.

  It’s a cradle, he thought, the room was her cradle and it had rocked her to sleep. He would wake her. She was depending on him to wake her and he mustn’t fail.

  But when he knelt beside her and brushed back the fine fair hair that had fallen across her face like a veil, he found that her skin was as blue as glacier ice, and felt as cold to the touch. The sound of his own scream echoed in his head.

  Kit’s eyes sprang open and he kicked and pummeled the bedclothes as if he could free himself from the nightmare’s grip. As the cold air hit his sweat-soaked T-shirt, he shivered convulsively and came fully awake. For a moment, the dream’s disorientation continued, then he realized that not only was he not in the Grantchester cottage where he had grown up, but he wasn’t in his room in the Notting Hill house, either. He was in Nantwich, at his grandparents’, in Duncan’s old room.

  Jerking himself upright, he peered at Toby, still sleeping soundly in the next bed. Good. That meant he hadn’t screamed aloud. He didn’t want to think of the humiliation if he’d brought the whole bloody house running. He wiped his still-damp face with the corner of the duvet and considered the slice of light showing through the gap in the curtains. It seemed to be morning, but there was no sound of movement in the house, and Tess still slept curled in a hairy ball at his feet. Beside her lay a dark oblong. Squinting, Kit edged his foot closer to the object, until he could feel its weight and its odd-shaped lumps. His sudden spurt of fear resided and he felt an idiot.

  It was a stocking. Now he saw that there was one across the foot of Toby’s bed as well. Someone had come in while they slept and left them. It was Christmas.

  He started to reach for the stocking, but his hand trembled. He lay back, pulling the duvet up to his chin. The dream was still too close.

  The wave of homesickness that swept over him was so intense that he bit back a groan. He wanted to be in London, in his own room, in his own bed, with familiar sounds and smells drifting up the stairs from the kitchen. Sid, their black cat, would nose open the door and stalk across the room with his tail waving, his way of telling Kit it was time to get up. Kit would go down and help with preparing the Christmas dinner, and their friends Wesley and Otto would drop by to exchange gifts while Gemma played the piano…

  As hard as Kit tried to sustain it, the comforting fantasy evaporated. He knew too well that being home wouldn’t have stopped the dream—hadn’t stopped it these past few months. It had come often, in various guises, in the weeks after his mother’s death. Then the dream had faded and he had begun to hope it had gone for good, that he could tuck it away along with the images he couldn’t bear to remember.

  But it had returned, in isolated snatches at first, then with
more detail and greater regularity. Now he counted the nights he didn’t have the dream as blessings, and he dreaded sleep. His heart was beginning to race again as the distorted scenes flashed through his mind, and he felt his throat close with the familiar choking nausea.

  To distract himself, he looked round the room. Toby had pulled the covers up over his face, but a cowlick of blond hair rose from the top of the duvet like a feather, and Kit was glad of his sleeping presence.

  It was a calm room, with French-blue walls and white trim. Kit wondered if it had looked this way when it had been his dad’s. There were a few framed prints of famous locomotives, but most of the available wall space was taken up by bookcases. He’d had a quick look at the titles the night before. There was science fiction, fantasy, detective stories, as well as childhood classics he recognized, like Arthur Ransome’s Swallows and Amazons and the Narnia books, but he’d also seen volumes of history and biography and a book of famous trials. Were these things Duncan had read, or did Hugh use the room these days as storage?

  Tess raised her head and yawned, showing her small pink tongue, then stretched and padded up the duvet to settle next to his side. Freeing an arm from the covers to stroke her, Kit let his mind wander further. What had his dad been like when he’d slept in this room at thirteen? Had he known what he wanted to do with his life? Had he kept secrets from his parents, and got in trouble for it? Had there been a girl, like Lally?

  But that idea made him flinch, and his hand fell still on the dog’s flank. He shouldn’t even be thinking of Lally that way. It was wrong. She was his cousin, and his face flamed at the thought of anyone in the family discovering how he felt.

  Besides, last night he’d realized what a fool he’d made of himself when he’d met Leo Dutton.