Water Like a Stone

by Deborah Crombie

  “Sir.” Leo acknowledged him with a nod, but didn’t come into the room. He turned his attention to his father. “Dad. I’m going out.”

  “Where?” asked Dutton, but the question seemed perfunctory.

  “Barbridge. To meet some of my mates.”

  “All right, then. Don’t be late.”

  “Yeah,” answered Leo, and with another nod at Babcock, disappeared as silently as he’d appeared.

  Barbridge was a few minutes’ walk, but there was nothing in the hamlet other than the pub, and even had the pub been open, Leo Dutton was too young to be admitted to the premises unaccompanied by an adult. What did his father imagine the boy and his friends were doing?

  “Probably wants to show his friends his new mobile,” Dutton said, apparently unperturbed by the image of roaming underage boys, cadging beers from those old enough to buy alcohol, and smoking illicit cigarettes, or worse, in the bus shelter.

  Perhaps he’d been a policeman too long, Babcock thought, and at any rate it was none of his business. Leo Dutton was too young to have been responsible for an abandoned baby, unless he’d been fathering children in primary school. Babcock was more interested in Juliet Newcombe. “Mr. Dutton, about Mrs. Newcombe. You were saying—?”

  “Oh, yes. Sorry. It’s just that it must have been a dreadful experience for Juliet, finding that child. I feel a bit responsible, having recommended her for the job.”

  “Tom Foster seemed to have had some doubt as to Mrs. Newcombe’s being capable of doing the work. I’d have thought you’d want your new neighbors to be satisfied with their contractor.”

  Dutton’s heavy face creased in annoyance. “Foster obviously misinterpreted something I said. I’d never have given Juliet’s name to the Bonners if I hadn’t thought her qualified. There’s no questioning her skills…”

  “But?” asked Babcock, quick to pounce on Dutton’s hesitation.

  Clasping his hands behind his back, Dutton shifted his stance and looked away. “It’s nothing, really.”

  Babcock didn’t respond, letting the silence settle over the room until the sizzle and pop from the hearth sounded as loud as the roar of a brushfire.

  Dutton broke the tension, as Babcock had guessed he would. Clearing his throat, he said, “It was a difficult time for everyone concerned, Juliet’s leaving. Of course, I wish her success with her venture, for her own sake as well as my partner’s. I’d never say anything to jeopardize that. It’s just—” His pained expression grew more intense and he cleared his throat again, but this time he held Babcock’s gaze, his blue eyes crinkled with earnest sincerity. Then he sighed and went on. “It’s just that, emotionally, Juliet can go off the deep end a bit. I’m afraid she’s not always entirely reliable.”

  Lally had pulled a stool into a corner of her grandparents’ kitchen, where she perched, isolated as an island in a sea of conversational crosscurrents. For a moment, she wondered what it would be like to be deaf, to watch the movement of mouths and register only meaningless visual static. But even the deaf could read expressions, and that, sometimes, was bad enough.

  God, she hated the way they looked at each other, her uncle Duncan and his Gemma. He sat at the far end of the kitchen table, with her grandfather and Kit, while Gemma had just turned from the fridge. Across the hubbub of the room, he inclined an eyebrow, and she gave the slightest of nods, one corner of her mouth lifting in an infinitesimal smile. The communication was more intimate than any touch, and made Lally as ashamed to have witnessed it as if she’d seen them naked. Somehow the fact that she liked Gemma, had felt a connection with her, made it worse.

  She couldn’t imagine that her parents had ever looked at each other that way, and that realization made her gut clench with a sick feeling she couldn’t quite name.

  Duncan had been helping her granddad and Kit finish Toby’s Harry Potter puzzle while Toby played on the floor with Sam, zooming Star Wars figures around with annoying little-boy sound effects. Now, apparently having received confirmation from Gemma, Duncan stood and scooped Toby up under his arm, announcing, “Bath time, mate.” When Toby protested, Duncan tickled his ribs and made growling noises until the little boy squealed with laughter and let himself be carried away, still giggling.

  Had her father ever played with her or Sam like that? Thinking about it, Lally couldn’t actually remember her father playing with them at all. The attention he’d been paying them lately was a new thing, something that had only started since he’d been so angry with her mum. And although she knew that, when he was nice to her she wanted it to go on, and that made her feel sick in quite a different sort of way.

  Gemma followed Duncan and Toby from the room, giving Lally a smile and a feather touch on her shoulder as she passed, but Lally found she couldn’t meet her eyes. That left her mum and Nana huddled by the cooker, talking in the sort of low voices that meant they didn’t want the children to hear. Nana was using her hands, the way she did when she wanted to make a point, and her mum looked frightened and stubborn, as though Nana was telling her something she didn’t want to hear. But there was something more, something in her mother’s face it took Lally a moment to recognize—a sort of triumphant excitement.

  Lally felt the familiar cramping in her stomach intensify, and the turkey sandwich she’d nibbled at tea rose into her throat. She swallowed hard against the nausea and bit her lip. How could her mother be anything but terrified when her dad was so furious? Why had her mum walked out in the middle of Christmas dinner, knowing how he would react?

  When Lally and Sam had arrived at the farmhouse and found her waiting, she’d rattled off a story about having gone back for something at home and then having car trouble. Lally, an experienced liar herself, hadn’t believed it for a moment.

  If that was true, why hadn’t she said she was leaving or rung them? And why were they here now instead of at home? Home, where her dad would be waiting—no, that didn’t bear thinking about, either. But she’d told Leo she’d be home, and it didn’t do to disappoint Leo.

  Of course, she was nearer Leo here than she would be back in Nantwich, but that meant sod-all when she was stuck under the watchful gaze of both her mother and her grandmother. Her chances of sneaking out were pretty much nil—at least on her own.

  She cast a speculative look at Kit, still at the far end of the table with Granddad. Sam, who had joined them, was hopping from one foot to the other, jabbing his finger at an empty space he thought might fit the puzzle piece Kit held in his hand. Kit, however, ignored him, and with great deliberation slotted the piece into another spot. He looked up, met her eyes, then flushed and glanced away.

  Rejection jabbed Lally like a fist. Her tentative smile died half formed and her eyes stung with sudden, humiliating tears. Jumping from her stool, she slipped out into the quiet solace of the hall. Sound was sliced off in midmurmur as the door latch clicked behind her, and the air felt cold and heavy, a tangible weight against her burning cheeks.

  She stood, shivering with the shock of the temperature change, pressing the back of her hand against her nose to stop any more telltale blubbing. What had changed since last night? Kit had liked her, she’d been sure of it, and she’d felt giddy with the unaccustomed sense of power. She hadn’t been able to resist showing off to Leo, even though she’d known it was unwise. Animosity had crackled like static between the two boys from the instant they’d met.

  But Kit had seemed all right in church afterwards…maybe it was just her dreadful family, and the things that had happened today, that had made him want nothing to do with her. Or maybe his dad had had a word with him. When her uncle Duncan looked at her, she felt as if he could see right through her, and unlike Gemma, there was no understanding in his eyes.

  Defiance flared in her. Leaving the hall, she let herself quietly into the empty sitting room. Only embers glowed in the hearth, and the tree looked naked, stripped of all its presents. It was pathetic, Christmas, a stupid sham, when no one really cared anything about anyone els
e.

  She turned away from the gifts, picking her way across the minefield of toys Toby and Sam had left littered on the carpet until she reached the drinks cabinet. Good, it looked undisturbed. It seemed her grandmother hadn’t offered round the after-dinner sherry bottle. She checked the liquid level, then tossed back a swallow or two while she thought what to do. A comforting warmth began to burn in her middle. Dutch courage, she thought it was called, although she didn’t know where the Dutch came into it. After another sip, she corked the bottle and lowered it carefully back into its spot.

  “Presto,” she whispered. The bottle had vanished and returned, just like her mum. If her mother could simply walk out, without any explanation, why shouldn’t she do the same?

  “What are you doing?” Kit’s voice was sharper than he’d intended. Lally had been behaving oddly ever since she’d arrived at the farmhouse with Nana and Granddad, and when he’d seen her leave the room, his uneasiness intensified. Managing to slip out of the kitchen when his granddad was occupied with Sam, he’d found Lally by the front door, half into her pink fleece jacket. At the sound of his footsteps she’d frozen like a startled hare, but when she saw it was him she relaxed and shrugged into the other sleeve.

  “Going out,” she answered coolly. “I should think that’s obvious.”

  “Now?” Kit’s voice squeaked alarmingly and he cleared his throat before trying again. “Where?”

  “Why is it any of your business?”

  Unprepared for her belligerence, Kit stuttered, “Because you didn’t tell anyone. And it’s…dark.” His face flamed. God, he sounded a complete prat.

  “Dark?” Lally echoed, her voice dripping scorn. “You’re telling me I can’t go out in the dark, like I’m a little kid? Who do you think you are, coming into my grandparents’ house, bossing me around, turning your nose up at me?”

  “What?” Kit stared at her, completely lost. “But I never—I didn’t—”

  “You did, just now, in the kitchen. You looked at me like I was something you’d wipe off your shoe.” Her voice rose shrilly.

  “Lally, what are you talking about?” Kit moved closer, afraid someone would hear them, and caught a faint whiff of her perfume. He shoved his hands into his pockets, resisting the urge to touch her. “Look, I know you’re upset about your parents, but I never—”

  “What about my parents?” She’d gone quiet again, but her chest rose and fell with the quick rhythm of her breathing and he knew he’d said the wrong thing.

  “Nothing. It’s just that—I heard them talking just now, your mum and Rose—Nana. They said you were going to stay here tonight, and I thought—”

  “Here?” Lally stared at him, uncomprehending. “Sam and me?”

  “And your mum.” He didn’t want to add that Rosemary seemed worried that Lally’s dad might do something bad to her mother.

  Lally didn’t seem to take in the import of what he’d told her. “But I don’t want to stay here,” she said, stubbornly. “I want to go home. And I promised—”

  “Promised what?” Kit pressed when she didn’t go on.

  She shook her head, lifting her hand to the door latch as if coming to a decision. “I’m going out. I’m going to walk to Leo’s, if you really want to know. You can come if you want.”

  “My dad would kill me,” Kit said. He might as well have tattooed “wanker” on his forehead.

  “So? My dad gets mad at me all the time.” She threw this out as if it were a badge of honor.

  His mind flashed back to the afternoon, walking with his dad, talking to the woman with the boat—Annie—and he knew he could never explain that he didn’t want to lose what he’d felt.

  Sounds drifted down from upstairs: the deeper rumble of his father’s voice, Gemma’s lighter tone, a laugh. Toby’s bath must be finished. They would be coming down again, Toby allowed to stay up a bit longer in his pajamas.

  Lally had heard them, too. “Come on, hurry,” she hissed at him.

  “Wait.” Kit reached for her then, his hand finding the thick fleece of her coat sleeve. He couldn’t go with her, yet if he didn’t, he’d lose all credibility in her eyes. “Don’t go tonight,” he said, struggling to find a delaying tactic. “Wait till tomorrow. Then I’ll go with you.”

  Lally hesitated, then the energy seemed to drain from her. She looked suddenly younger than her fourteen years, and frightened. Her eyes met his in a plea. “Promise?”

  “I promise,” Kit said, and wondered just what sort of trouble he’d bound himself to.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  “I’ve left a ready meal by the microwave,” Althea Elsworthy told her sister, Bea. It was just shy of eight o’clock, and she’d said the same thing, at the same time, every morning for as long as she could remember. It was a necessary part of their ritual, however, and any deviation would cause Bea to grow agitated and have to be calmed down before Althea could leave for the hospital.

  “My lunch,” said Bea. “Is it mac cheese?” she added querulously, her broad brow furrowed.

  “Yes, and I’ve left an apple for you,” Althea answered with a smile. It was always mac cheese, but Bea never failed to ask. In the evenings, Althea tried to vary her sister’s diet, but it took coaxing, and she’d long ago decided that the repetitive lunch was a small compromise to make for her sister’s continued independence during the day.

  Beatrice Elsworthy had been brain damaged since the age of eight, when she suffered a head injury in the car crash that had killed their father. He had been drinking and, against their mother’s wishes, had insisted on taking the two girls out for a Sunday afternoon ice cream. At the roundabout nearest their house, he had failed to yield right-ofway to an oncoming lorry. It had been Althea’s turn to ride in the backseat; she had escaped with a broken arm and a chipped tooth.

  Her father’s death had not been punishment enough to assuage her mother’s anger. She’d spent the rest of Althea’s childhood nursing her bitterness as well as her injured younger daughter, until she succumbed to cancer the year Althea graduated from medical school. Althea had cared for Bea ever since.

  Now she settled Bea in her favorite armchair, overlooking the cottage’s back garden. Already she had filled the bird feeders and put out nuts for the squirrels on the old tree stump that served as a feeding table. Bea would spend the morning watching the birds and listening to the radio. At noon she would heat her ready meal, and at one she would turn on the telly, already set to BBC1.

  The intricacies of the human brain never failed to amaze Althea—why was it that her sister, who was incapable of organizing her own lunch, could name every character on The Archers, or describe in great detail who had appeared on the afternoon chat shows on the telly?

  Around four, their neighbor, Paul Doyle, would come across for a cup of tea with Bea, and sometimes they would play simple card games for pennies. Nothing made Bea happier than accumulating a pile of gleaming copper coins, and Althea suspected Paul got them new from the bank, although he’d never admitted doing so.

  More and more often lately, she found herself rushing to get home before Paul left, to enjoy a drink and a half hour’s visit in front of the fire. She and Bea had known Paul and his late wife for years, but it was only since he’d retired from his teaching position at a local school the previous year that he’d begun visiting on a regular basis.

  Althea told herself it was only natural to enjoy a little companionship. She had never shared her personal circumstances with any of her work colleagues, nor had she any intention of doing so. Pity was the one thing she couldn’t bear. Nor was it justified—she needed Bea just as much as Bea needed her—but her reticence made friendship difficult.

  Calling the dog, who got up from his rug by the Rayburn and stretched with a popping of joints, she’d just switched on Radio 4 when the doorbell rang. The dog gave one deep woof and trotted towards the door, his claws clicking on the tiled floor.

  Althea frowned. The isolated cottage didn’t invite casual
visitors, and Paul seldom called round in the mornings. Giving her sister a pat on the shoulder, she said, “I’ll be right back, love.”

  “You won’t leave without telling me?”

  “No. I promise.” Althea followed the dog into the front hall, pushing aside his head so that she could crack open the door, then stared in surprise at the woman standing on her doorstep. It took her a moment to place the face, older and thinner than when she had last seen it, but the name clicked just as the woman said, “Dr. Elsworthy? Do you remember me? It’s Annie Le—” She paused, then seemed to correct herself. “Annie Constantine. I’m sorry to bother you at home.”

  Not sorry enough to refrain from doing it, Althea thought, but her curiosity was aroused. She’d dealt with Constantine professionally on several occasions when Social Services had been involved in investigating a death, but hadn’t seen her in some years.

  She felt the dog’s warm breath on her hip and noted the woman’s anxious glance in his direction. “Don’t mind Dan, he’s quite harmless,” she said, swinging the door wide enough to allow the dog access to the garden.

  “Dan?” asked Annie Constantine, drawing her arms close to her body as the dog pushed past her in pursuit of a squirrel.

  Althea smiled to herself. The dog was half Irish wolfhound and half mastiff, and everyone assumed he was called something like Boris or Fang. She had named him Danny Boy, and sang his song to him when they were alone in the car, but she had no intention of sharing her little private joke. Nor was she going to ask the woman in. A stranger’s visit would agitate Bea for days.

  “What can I do for you, Mrs. Constantine?” she asked, stepping out and pulling the door closed behind her.

  “It’s Lebow now,” she said, explaining her earlier hesitation. “I’ve gone back to my maiden name.”

  Not sure whether this called for condolences or congratulations, Althea merely nodded. “Do go on.” The previous day’s crisp blue skies had given way to tattered gray clouds that mirrored the slush remaining underfoot, and the chill was beginning to seep through her heavy sweater.