by Zoe Sharp
Grace zoomed in on the shot as far as the resolution would allow, studied the faces in turn. Nick helped himself to olives from the bowl on the table. There was a jug of iced water, slick with condensation, the top half chock full of ice cubes and sliced fruit. He poured himself a glass. It was cold enough to spike his forehead.
He could just see the screen, at an angle. Enough to watch Grace close out of the picture, skim through the others and come back to it again. Her fingers moved adroitly on the keys and trackpad, totally absorbed in her work.
He held his impatience in check. Crowding her, he knew, would not be to his benefit. Instead, he allowed his gaze to drift around the garden, touching on the huge oak tree with the midge cloud billowing beneath the canopy, the lichen-covered sundial, the mature borders. Whatever else she was, he considered, Grace’s mother was not hurting for money.
When Nick looked toward the laptop screen once more, she had copied and divided the image so that the two faces were side-by-side, of equal size. She had overlaid them with some kind of grid which, he assumed, charted the distances between facial features. She had done something similar on a previous case, he recalled. When they had a sniper on the loose the summer before. That was the first time he’d worked with Grace—had learned to respect her abilities.
Eventually, she sat back and reached for her wine.
“Well, I’m not an expert in genetics, but I think the child may well be his.”
Nick nodded. “And yet, as far as his sister is aware, he never had any kids.”
“As far as she’s aware,” Grace agreed. She twisted the laptop toward him. “But if you look at the shape of the end of the nose, the inner corners of the eyes, the area around the mouth, what do you see…?”
It was no hardship for Nick to lean closer. “Hm. I’m not sure if I see similarities because they’re there, or because I’m trying to see them.”
“OK, how about…this?”
The picture of Owen Liddell was replaced by one of Max, looking sombre and serious, alongside the face of the baby.
“For goodness sake, Grace. If you’re going to show me graphic images, some kind of warning would have been nice.”
She flashed him a quick smile that managed both to censure and conspire. “All that aside, look at those same areas of the faces again and you’ll see—no match. Not even close.”
“OK, so where does that get us?”
“More questions than answers,” she said, eyes on the screen again—back to the full shot of Owen cradling the baby. She was frowning, a deep vee formed between her eyebrows. “There’s something about this picture and I can’t put my finger on exactly what it is…”
“Don’t chase it. It will sneak up on you when you least expect.”
Eleanor reappeared through the conservatory, carrying a bowl of fresh salad. She reached between Nick and Grace to put it onto the table. But as she caught sight of the image on the computer screen, she suddenly stilled.
“Oh,” she said.
“‘Oh’?” Grace repeated. “Why ‘oh’?”
“Well, isn’t that…the little boy who was here—the one we rescued? Ocean?”
Grace blinked. “I wonder…”
Nick could hardly follow what she did next, going back to the close-up of the baby’s face with the overlaid grid, then searching through folders until she came to the thumbnail she was looking for, opening that and zooming in again, overlaying the same grid lines.
“Hm,” she said at last. “The angle’s not quite right to get a proper comparison—he was a little too side-on to the camera—but what do you think?”
She turned the screen toward them both.
“It’s hard to tell,” Eleanor said after a moment or two. “When I first saw that picture—the one of the baby—there was something about the face I recognised instantly. But now, I’m not sure.”
“No, no, you’re right. I felt the same thing but couldn’t place it…” Grace caught Nick’s eye. “I wonder if the name ‘Ocean’ is as near as she dare get to naming him after the man who was his father?”
“Maybe.”
“And how old did he say he was—ten?” She glanced at Eleanor, who nodded. “That would make him a year or eighteen months old when we think Owen Liddell went missing, wouldn’t it?”
“But we don’t know when that picture was taken,” Nick pointed out.
“Don’t we?” Grace smiled at him, zoomed out of the image, shifted the cursor and zoomed in again on a different point. “Back when this is likely to have been taken, what always used to be in the front passenger-side corner of a vehicle windscreen?”
“Ah, of course,” Nick said, looking more closely. “A tax disc.”
“Exactly—with the expiry date on it. That narrows it down to a twelve-month period at the most. If we could really zoom in, we could see the date-of-issue stamp but the resolution won’t stand it, I’m afraid.”
“The DVLA may be able to help there,” Nick said, reaching for his notebook.
“Well, from the look of the foliage on that tree in the background, I’d say it’s late summer, maybe early autumn—too late in the season to be Horse Fair time of year.”
Nick nodded his thanks and made another scribble, then put the notebook aside. “It occurs to me, also, that if Queenie’s brother and this Patrick Doherty bloke were prepared to put Owen in hospital for starting a relationship with her, just imagine what they might do if she got pregnant by him?”
“What, something like bludgeon him to death and bury him next to the river at Water Yat where they camp and graze their horses, you mean?” Grace asked. She sat up suddenly, eyes shooting to her mother. “Ah, the horse!”
Lost, Nick said, “What horse?”
“The china horse,” Grace said, still focused on Eleanor. “The one Ocean took a fancy to when they were here. He tried to pinch it. It may still have enough of his epithelial cells on it to give us DNA, if—”
Eleanor’s face fell. “Oh dear,” she said. “I washed it. He had sticky fingers, you see, from the cake…”
She looked so disappointed that Nick felt compelled to say, “Not to worry. It gives us another line of enquiry to pursue, anyway. And my DI would probably have baulked at paying for another fast-track DNA test. He’s having kittens about the budget as it is.”
Eleanor beamed at him and, as her mother turned away, Grace mouthed, “Thank you.”
He smiled at her. No, thank you.
“That picture of the chap with the baby,” Eleanor said. “The background looks local. In which case, you might want to go and have a chat with old Agnes Trelawney.”
“Oh?” Nick picked up his water glass and drained it. “Who is she and why is that?”
“She’s retired now, I believe, but she was the local midwife in this area for donkey’s years. And why, because she’s delivered more babies than a whole flock of storks put together,” Eleanor said. She flicked her eyes to her daughter. “She even delivered you, though I don’t expect you to remember much about it. I don’t remember too much about it, come to that, and I’m almost certain I was there at the time.”
Nick reached for his notebook and pen again. “Any ideas where I might find this Agnes?”
“She had a farm on the top of Stainmore, I seem to remember. There were times in the middle of winter—if the A66 was shut because of snow—when she turned out clinging to the back of a tractor to help women in labour, but she always got through.”
“Eleanor, that’s great. Thank you—thank you both,” Nick said. “Truly, you’re amazing.”
Max emerged from the conservatory just in time to hear that last remark. He gave Nick a long, level stare.
“Yes, they are rather, aren’t they?” he said, with a certain proprietorial note in his voice. “Now, who’s ready to eat?”
75
Grace couldn’t help noticing that, although Nick confessed he hadn’t eaten all day, he did little more than pick at the plate put in front of him. And it was
nothing to do with Max’s food. The man prided himself at his skills over hot coals. Some kind of guy thing, she thought, connected to cooking in the outdoors, using real fire.
As soon as the last knife and fork had been set down, Nick stood, said his polite thanks and announced he had best be on his way. But she sensed the reluctance in him—either to leave or to stay. He was conflicted, angry. Maybe even hurting.
“I’ll walk you out,” she said, rising also.
Eleanor gave him a hug and offered her cheek for his kiss.
“You know you’re welcome any time,” she said, holding his gaze with sincerity.
“I do know, thank you.”
Max held out a hand and their shake was cordial to Grace’s narrowed eye. Neither man tried to crush the bones of the other—a juvenile habit which would have earned them both short shrift.
At the other end of the hallway, Grace opened the front door and pulled it almost shut behind them.
“Will you tell me what’s wrong?” She put no edge into the words, kept them soft and even. No pleading, either, just calm and matter-of-fact.
“We’re keeping Dylan in overnight on the assault,” Nick said after a moment. “But he’s in the clear as far as Jordan’s death is concerned.”
“I see,” Grace said carefully. “That’s…disappointing, yes, but what am I missing?”
He sighed. “The reason he’s in the clear is that he had an alibi for that evening. He was with Lisa.”
“Oh.” She stared at him blankly. “Oh.”
“Yeah, ‘oh’ indeed.”
“I’m so sorry, Nick. That must have come as quite a shock. Or…was it?”
“Not really, if I’m honest. She’s been ‘working late’ on days when I know full well the salon isn’t open late—making excuses that don’t ring true. I suppose I knew what she was doing, on some level. I just succumbed to the ostrich theory of problem solving.”
“Buried your head in the sand and hoped it would all go away?”
“That’s the one. And Lisa, by the sounds of it, was banking on much the same thing—that they’d be bored with each other long before I found out.”
“But they weren’t.”
“No, they weren’t.”
“And…you’ve already talked to her about it.”
He nodded.
“Talked? Or yelled?”
“Talked.” He leaned on the stonework of the porch, side on to her with arms folded and jaw tense. “I mean, a part of me was angry, yes, as you might expect—at the sneakiness of it, more than anything. But other than that, I just felt…weary, I suppose.”
Without thinking, Grace put her hand on his back, between his shoulder blades, and rubbed gently, as you’d comfort a child. Through his shirt, he was almost hot to the touch. She was acutely aware of the width of him, and the solid muscle. If he had the same kind of temper as Dylan Elliot, she thought, he could have put Lisa in hospital without breaking sweat. She let her hand drop away.
“I’m sorry, Nick. I know how much you wanted things to work out—for Sophie’s sake.”
“Yeah, the trouble is, I think it was more for Sophie’s sake than for Lisa’s, if that makes sense?”
“It does.” They stood there for a moment in silence, then Grace asked, “What are you going to do?”
He drew his hands over his face, pausing there before they dropped away. She heard the rasp of stubble against his palms.
“Well, mostly that depends on Lisa,” Nick said. “It’s better for Sophie to have both her parents, but not if we’d end up rowing all the time. I know Soph missed me, when Lisa moved out before, even though she was too young really to understand what was going on. I don’t know if it would be easier or harder for her, if it happens again. She loves all of us being together, doing stuff as a family, but…”
His voice trailed away. Grace nodded. “But, from what I’ve seen of her, Lisa does have a tendency to score points. And, much as I hate to say this, it won’t do your little girl any good in the long run if that’s how her parents’ relationship ends up.”
“I know.” He straightened. “Look, I need to get going.”
“Of course.” She stepped back, cupped her elbows with her hands, suddenly feeling chilled, when a last thought occurred to her. “Is Lisa at the flat tonight?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, if you need somewhere to stay”—she saw the surprise, chased away by something darker—“then there’s plenty of spare room here.”
“Ah, no. That’s very kind but I’ll manage. Thanks.”
“I’m sure my mother wouldn’t mind. And, to be honest, the way things are at the moment, she might be glad of having someone else in the house.”
“The way things are?”
“Mm, they’re starting to become somewhat uncomfortable in Appleby.”
He stilled, cop instinct to the fore. “In what way ‘uncomfortable’?”
“She was saying that some of the local pubs have turned away the Travellers. A couple of the shops have refused to serve them. There has been a bit of name-calling and some vandalism—windows broken, cars keyed, that kind of thing.”
“I was given to understand that was only to be expected around this time of year?”
She shrugged. “Some of it, but we’ve now had two bodies turn up—of local people—while the Fair is in town, and the rumours are rife. I have a nasty feeling it may get worse before it gets better.”
“Well, if she has any worries, she only has to call one of us,” he said. He even managed a smile as he pulled out his car keys. “And if it’s you she calls, then I hope you’ll call me before you turn out to take on marauders single-handed?”
“Of course.” Grace flashed him a quick smile. “Although in my defence, I’d bring Tallie as well. Her bark is definitely worse than her bite, but they won’t know that.”
She watched him walk away and climb into the Subaru, parked out on the road.
When she got back to the terrace, she found that between them, Eleanor and Max had cleared the table of debris. A pot of coffee now stood in the centre, with cups, sugar and cream. Eleanor was lighting citronella candles to deter the evening insects.
She’d left her laptop lid closed but it was now open again, and Max had taken Nick’s chair. From there, he had a good view of the screen. Nick’s copies of the original photographs were clearly visible.
And that in itself points to the age of the pictures—physical prints rather than digital images. She could see that Nick had laid out a series of what looked like six-by-fours, full bleed—no white border around the edge of the print—and had snapped them with his phone.
The corners were crumpled on the prints. One had a slight tear along the edge. The shot of Owen holding the baby bore the worst damage.
As though it received the most handling, had been picked up time after time…
Max lifted his cup from its saucer and gestured to the image of the baby. “She’s a tiny little thing, isn’t she? Is there a connection to your case?”
“‘She’?” Grace queried.
Max shrugged. “Well, isn’t it a she?” He leaned over and poured himself the last of the wine, gestured with his glass toward the screen. Grace wondered, briefly, if he intended driving himself home or if he was taking advantage of Eleanor’s hospitality overnight.
Perhaps it’s just as well Nick turned down the offer to stay.
“What makes you think so?”
Max said, “I rather thought the pink blanket was a bit of a giveaway.”
Grace stared again. She’d thought the blanket to be white, and it still could be. Difficult to know, dealing with an old print, if the colour balance was off or if it had simply faded over the years. The light meter in the camera used to take the original shot must have been fairly rudimentary, too. And the make of film used would affect it. Kodak stock, in her experience, tended to show reds as orange. Agfa shifted them closer to crimson.
She clicked on one of the close-ups of
the infant in what looked like a carry cot. The blanket was blasted out, over-exposed, dropping the background into near-darkness.
And the auto-flash had tripped, which pained Grace every time she saw it in baby pictures. The reflex responses of new-borns took a little while to develop. One of the most important was the reaction of their eyes to sudden changes in light levels. A photographic flash, fired without the short preliminary bursts modern cameras used, designed to shut down the pupil to conquer red-eye, could permanently damage the child’s vision.
Grace looked again at the blanket, tilting her head on one side as if that might make the colour tone more obvious. It didn’t.
“Are you sure it’s pink?”
Eleanor moved to hover behind her other shoulder. “Well, it certainly looks pink to me and I’ve had the surgery for my cataracts, so I can see reds again. You know how bad I was before.”
“Hm,” Grace said. “I’m not sure I’d count the colour of the blanket as a definitive method of sexing a baby but I will make a note of it, nonetheless.”
“Thank you,” Eleanor said. She picked up the empty wine bottle. “I’ll fetch another, shall I?”
“Not on my account,” Grace said. “I have to get home to my dog, but you carry on, by all means.”
When they were alone, Max said softly, “I always dreamed of one day seeing you with a baby in your arms—my baby.”
Grace swallowed before turning to glance up at him. “It wasn’t to be,” she said stiffly. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. It takes two to tango, as they say. Who knows why—”
“It was me,” she said, the words coming out in a rush, as if she might lose her nerve if she didn’t jettison them quickly. “I went to see a specialist, after…”
“After we divorced? Why on earth…?” His voice turned blank, his face followed. “You wanted a child.”
This last was not a question but a flat statement. He did not add “without me” but they both heard it, even so.
“I…considered it, yes. But I found out the problem was mine rather than yours. They told me it was highly unlikely I would ever conceive.”