“Any luck finding the farm’s previous owners?”
“No. House-to-house has had a go again this morning. Apparently quite a few of the surrounding properties have changed hands, and the one neighbor we’ve been told might have an address is away on holiday.”
Babcock absorbed this. It meant they’d have to widen their inquiry, and that meant more manpower. “What about the incident room?” he asked. Late the previous evening, Babcock had organized a temporary incident room at the divisional headquarters in Crewe. “Do we have anyone to spare for slogging round the countryside?”
“We’ve managed to find a few warm bodies, although not particularly happy ones. They seem to think the villains should agree to a Christmas truce.”
Babcock glanced at his sergeant, surprised at the reference. During the Great War, in the first battle of Ypres, the soldiers on the British and German sides of the lines had left their trenches to exchange Christmas greetings and make gifts of their few possessions. Rasansky seemed an unlikely student of history.
“Ah, well,” he said instead, “we’d still have to deal with the holiday suicides.” With that cheerful pronouncement, the inner doors to the morgue swung open.
Dr. Elsworthy’s assistant, a large ginger-haired young woman, led them back to the examination room, saying, “She’s just starting.”
The doctor acknowledged them with a nod. In her scrubs and apron, with her flyaway gray hair tucked under a cap, she looked years younger, and Babcock was struck again by the strong planes and angles of her face.
But if Althea Elsworthy looked more human this morning, the tiny form on the examination table looked less so. With the removal of the blanket and clothing, the child might have been a tattered scrap of a doll made from leather and hair, or the remains of a small animal left to shrivel by the side of a road. He noticed that there was very little smell, merely a faint mustiness. That, at least, was a relief. For once, he wouldn’t have to spend the postmortem trying to work out how to talk and breathe through his mouth at the same time.
When Rasansky shook his head and made a clicking sound of disgust with his teeth, Babcock remembered that the sergeant had an infant at home. If he was ever tempted to envy other people their children, a child’s body in the morgue was a sure cure.
He transferred his gaze to the X-rays clipped to the lightboard, where the white tracery of bones shone like frost on black velvet.
Elsworthy followed his glance. “Skeleton’s intact,” she said with her usual economy of words. “No evidence of blunt-force trauma, no previous fractures.”
“So what does that leave us?” Babcock asked.
“Suffocation. Drowning. Poisoning. Natural causes.” There was a gleam of humor in her eye as she added the last.
“Right.” Babcock’s lip curled with the sarcasm. “What about stabbing or puncture wounds? Gunshot?”
“Possible, but I’ve not found any damage to what’s left of the tissue, nor nicks on the bones. And I’ve very rarely seen an infant shot or stabbed. It could have been shaken, of course, but any swelling or bruising of the brain tissue has long since disappeared.”
“It, you said. Can you tell if the child was male or female?”
“Not conclusively, no. There’s not much organic matter left in the pelvic area, certainly not enough to tell if this child possessed a penis. And at this age it’s hard to differentiate the skeletal structure.
“But from the clothing, I’d guess female. The DNA testing should clarify it, but you’ll have to be patient.” The glance the doctor flicked at him told Babcock she knew patience was not his strong suit.
“Okay. Female, then. Jane Doe. Age?”
“From the measurements, anywhere from six months to a year, perhaps even eighteen months. Development can vary greatly, depending both on genetics and the child’s health and environment. If the child was malnourished, for instance, she might have been well under the predicted size and weight.”
As she spoke, she’d turned back to the corpse and begun probing with tweezers. Her touch seemed surprisingly gentle for such a brusque woman.
“There’s no sign of insect activity,” she went on, “so I think you can assume that the child died during a period of low temperature and was interred quite soon after death.”
Rasansky spoke for the first time. “You think she was abused, then?”
“As I’ve just said, Sergeant, there’s no specific evidence,” Elsworthy said testily. “It’s quite common that babies who have been abused show healed fractures, but the lack of such doesn’t rule out mistreatment. And most people who care for their children well don’t inter them in old barns.”
Her comment made Babcock think of his aunt’s parting words, and he asked the question he’d been holding back: “How long do you think she’d been there?”
Elsworthy frowned and continued her examination in silence for a few moments before she answered. “Probably more than a year. That, of course, is just a guess.”
“More than a year? As in five, ten, fifteen, twenty? That’s all you can tell me?”
This time Babcock was the object of the doctor’s glower. “You wanted miracles? The degree of mummification will have been affected by the amount of lime in the mortar and the stone. The lab results may help narrow your time span down a bit, but in the meantime, you may do better with the clothing.
“Both the sleep suit and the blanket appear to contain some synthetic fibers, and the snaps on the sleep suit are only partially corroded. And”—she paused, ostensibly to probe the child’s rib cavity, but Babcock was beginning to suspect she enjoyed teasing him—“best of all, there’s still a tag on the sleep suit.”
“Wh—”
She nodded towards her assistant. “I’ve written down the brand information. The manufacturer should at least be able to give you a production span.”
“Bloody marvelous,” Babcock said with bad grace. Knowing the production span on the suit or blanket would give them a starting point, but not an end point. The things could have been stored away in a cupboard for years before they were used in the makeshift burial. “We’ll not be able to reach anyone at the manufacturer’s until after Boxing Day, at the least.” Tracing that information would be a job for Rasansky.
Ignoring his grousing, the doctor said thoughtfully, “You’ll notice that although the child was dressed in a sleeper and wrapped in a blanket, there’s no sign of a nappie. That’s rather odd, don’t you think? It suggests that the child was dressed—or re-dressed—after death. That might indicate care on the part of whoever interred her, or on the other hand, it might be part of a ritual that increases some satisfaction to the perpetrator.”
“You’re not saying we’re dealing with a serial baby killer?”
Elsworthy shrugged. “Unlikely, with the absence of gross injuries, but one should always keep an open mind, Chief Inspector. I take it you’ve had no luck tracking down the property’s previous owners?” she asked, with what might have been a trace of sympathy. “It would seem that either the mortar work was done by one of the owners, or with their knowledge.”
Babcock shook his head. “The Smiths, who were apparently an eminently respectable older couple, seem to have vanished without a trace.”
As Annie motored north from Nantwich Basin, she felt as if she were leaving a calm oasis. Not that there was much movement evident on the canal, but in her brief stay in the basin she’d felt more at peace than she could remember in a very long time. She’d rung Roger, and although she hadn’t reached him, she had left a message suggesting they meet for a Christmas meal. Knowing Roger, he was out walking Jazz, the German shepherd he’d bought himself when she’d left—his consolation prize, he’d told her. She suspected the dog had proved better company.
And she had resolved herself to her fool’s errand. There was no reason to think that she would find the Wains’ boat where it had been yesterday, or that Gabriel and Rowan Wain would talk to her if she did, but having made the decision
to try, she felt oddly euphoric. The glitch in her electrical system seemed to have healed itself. An omen, perhaps, that she was taking the right course.
Bundled in her warmest jacket and scarf, she stood at the tiller, guiding the boat back over the route she had traveled just yesterday. The smoke from the cabin drifted back and stung her eyes, but she loved the smell of it, a distillation of comfort on the crisp, cold air. Over the past few years she had learned to steer instinctively, making infinitesimal adjustments to the tiller with the slightest sway of her body.
She smiled, thinking of her first few awkward weeks on the boat, when she had bounced from one side of the canal to the other like a Ping-Pong ball. The tunnels had been the worst, the unfamiliar darkness skewing her perception so that she continually overcorrected, crashing into the dank and dripping walls.
Although she still didn’t like the tunnels, she had learned to cope, and in the process she and the Horizon had become an entity, the boat an extension of her body. The boat had her own personality, her moods, and Annie had learned to sense them. Today was a good day, she thought, the tiller sensitive as a live thing, the engine thrumming like a big, contented cat.
All her perceptions seemed heightened. Perhaps it was merely the snow-muffled quiet that made her hearing sharper, the searing blue of the sky that made the scenes unfolding before her seem to jump out in crystalline definition. The snow remade the landscape, masking the familiar contours of the land and the ever-present green of the English countryside in winter. And yet what she could see—the corn stubble, the twisted shape of a dead tree, the fine tracery of the bare, shrubby growth that lined the towpath, the black iron bones of a bridge—seemed more brilliant, more intense.
She passed Hurleston Junction and the temptation of the Llangollen Canal snaking down into Wales, but for once she found escape less enticing than the course she had set. As she neared Barbridge, she began to see boats moored along the towpath, and her heart quickened as she picked out the one she sought at the line’s end.
Reducing her speed to a crawl, she slipped the Horizon into an empty mooring spot and jumped to the towpath to tie up. When she’d fastened the fore and aft lines to the mooring spikes, she dusted the snow from her knees and studied the Daphne.
The wooden hull of the Wains’ boat was distinctive, but it seemed to Annie that the bright paint seemed slightly faded, the shine on the brass chimney bands less brilliant than she had remembered. Gabriel had told her once that the Daphne was one of the last wooden boats built in Nurser’s Boatyard in Braunston.
When Annie had worked with the Wains, Rowan had supplemented the family’s income by painting the traditional diamond patterns and rose-and-castle designs on boats, and the Daphne had been a floating advertisement for her work. Rowan had also painted canalware, covering the Buckby cans used by the boat people to carry water, as well as bowls and dippers, with her cheerful rose designs.
At their last meeting, Rowan had presented Annie with a dipper she had painted especially for her, her way of communicating the thanks her husband had been too proud and angry to offer.
Not that Annie had expected thanks. Dear God, she had only done what she could to redress the wrong they had already suffered, their unconscionable betrayal by the system that was meant to protect them.
At first Annie thought the Daphne was uninhabited. The curtains were drawn and there was no sign of movement. Then she saw the faintest wisp of smoke rising from the chimney, and a moment later, Gabriel Wain emerged onto the stern deck.
He started to nod, the easy greeting of one boater to another, then froze. Expression drained from his face like water from a lock, until all that remained was the wariness in his eyes. His thick dark hair was now flecked with gray, like granite, but his body was still strong. When Annie had first met Gabriel Wain, she had thought him too big to fit comfortably on a narrowboat, but he moved so nimbly and gracefully about the cabin and decks that he might never have set foot on land.
Now he stood, feet slightly apart as he balanced against the slight rocking generated by his own movement, and watched her. When he spoke, his voice held a challenge. “Mrs. Constantine. To see you once, after so long, I might think chance. But twice in as many days? What do you want with us?”
Annie flicked the last of the snow from her trousers and straightened to her full height. “It’s not Constantine these days, Gabriel. It’s Lebow. I’ve gone back to my maiden name. And I’m not with Social Services anymore. I left not long after I worked with you. I bought the boat,” she added, gesturing towards the Horizon. When he merely raised an eyebrow, she faltered on. “It was good to see you yesterday. The children look well. I’m glad. But Rowan—I wondered if I might have a word with Rowan. I thought yesterday—She didn’t seem—”
“She’s resting. She doesn’t need your interference.”
Annie took a step nearer the boat. “Look, Gabriel, I understand how you feel. But if she’s ill, maybe I could help. I—”
“You can have no idea what I feel,” he broke in, his voice quiet for all the fury behind it. “And she’s not ill. She’s just—she’s just tired, that’s all.” There was the fear again, a chasm yawning behind his eyes, but this time Annie thought she wasn’t to blame.
“You know I helped you before,” she said more firmly. “You know I was on your side. I might be able—”
“Our side? You, with your tarted-up boat”—he cast a scornful glance at the Horizon and spat into the canal—“you don’t know anything about our lives. Now leave us alone.”
“You can’t throw me off the towpath, Gabriel.” She knew the absurdity of her position as soon as the words left her mouth. What was she going to do? Call Social Services?
“No.” For the first time, there was a hint of bitter humor in the curve of his mouth. “But I can give up a good mooring if you insist on making a nuisance of yourself, woman.”
And she could cast off the Horizon and follow. Annie had a ridiculous vision of herself trailing down the Cut after the Daphne at three miles per hour, a slow-motion version of a car chase in an American film. She sighed, feeling the tension drain from her shoulders, and said quietly, “Gabriel, I know what happened to your family was wrong. I only want—I suppose what I want is to make up for it in some way.”
“There is nothing you can do.” There was a bleak finality in his expression that made her wish for a return of his anger. “Now—”
The cabin door had opened a crack. The little girl slipped out and Gabriel glanced round, surprised, as she tugged at his trousers leg. She was fairer than Annie had noticed yesterday, and in the clear light her eyes were a brilliant blue. “Poppy,” she whispered. “Mummy wants to see the lady.”
It had, in spite of Gemma’s worries, turned out to be a nearly perfect Christmas. She’d been a little ashamed of her relief when she learned that Juliet and Caspar and their children would be having their Christmas dinner with Caspar’s parents. Her heart went out to Juliet—she couldn’t imagine how Duncan’s sister was coping after Caspar’s behavior last night—but she hadn’t wanted the couple’s feuding to poison her own children’s day.
Kit and Toby had slept in, only tumbling downstairs with Tess after Hugh had got the bacon frying and Geordie, her cocker spaniel, and Jack, the sheepdog, had started a rough-and-tumble game in the kitchen. Kit had thrown on jeans and a sweatshirt, but Toby still wore pajamas and dressing gown, and clutched his Christmas stocking possessively to his small chest.
When Rosemary said there would be no presents until after breakfast, not even Toby had complained, although Gemma knew that at home he’d have thrown a wobbly and whinged all the way through the meal.
Half an hour later, replete with eggs, bacon, and sausage, the adults carrying refills of coffee, the dogs damp from a romp in the snow, they all trooped into the sitting room. Hugh had built a roaring fire and switched on the tree lights, and with the sun sparkling on the snow outside the window, the room looked magical.
Perch
ed on the arm of the chesterfield, leaning against Duncan’s warm shoulder, Gemma watched the children. Rosemary had asked Kit to help his younger brother hand round the presents, but as soon as Toby found a few gifts bearing his name, he ripped into them, tossing shreds of paper about like a storm of New Year’s confetti. Kit, on the other hand, waited until he’d passed round a few gifts for everyone, then, only at his grandmother’s urging, carefully removed the paper from one of his own packages. First he pulled loose the tape, then folded the used paper, then wound the ribbon into a neat roll.
Gemma marveled at the difference in the boys—Toby a miniature marauder, Kit hoarding his gifts while he watched everyone else, as if he wanted to postpone the pleasure for as long as possible. Would he ever dive into anything with abandon, she wondered, without fearing that it would be snatched from him?
But in spite of his habitual caution and the slight shadows round his eyes, she thought he looked happier and more relaxed than he had in weeks. And he had stayed close to Duncan all morning, the tension of yesterday’s row apparently forgotten.
Now his eyes widened in pleasure as he finished unwrapping his gift from his grandparents—a trivia game he’d been admiring in the shops for months.
“How did you know?” Gemma asked Rosemary, laughing, as Kit went to give his grandmother a hug.
“A good guess,” Rosemary said lightly, but she looked pleased.
“Oh,” breathed Toby, his flurry of motion stilled as he uncovered his own gift from Rosemary and Hugh, a large wooden box filled with multicolored pastels, and a pad of drawing paper. “What are they?” he asked, running his fingers over the sticks. “Are they like crayons?”
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