Water Like a Stone

by Deborah Crombie

  “I’ve come to ask a favor,” said Lebow, huddling a bit closer into her fleece jacket, as if preparing for a long stay. Then she told Althea what she wanted.

  “I don’t see why I have to do this.” Juliet Newcombe sounded as truculent as a ten-year-old whisked off to visit an ailing and disliked relative.

  Kincaid took his eyes off the road long enough to glance at his sister, who sat beside him in the passenger seat of Gemma’s Escort. The day was shaping up to be gray and unremittingly frigid, and even halfway to Crewe the car’s heater hadn’t managed to dent the chill. Juliet held her coat closed at the throat, as if warding off something more solid than the cold air issuing from the heater vents, and even with her face averted, he could see the dark shadows under her eyes.

  His excuse in taking her had been that he wanted to talk to his sister—true—but he suspected Gemma knew him well enough to guess that he also wanted to see what progress the local police had made in identifying the mummified child.

  With another glance at Juliet’s intractable expression, he said reasonably, “It’s routine, I’ve told you. And as you can’t start work again until the police release the crime scene, I should think you’d want to be as cooperative as possible.” Then, reminding himself that his objective was to communicate with her, he added, “Look. I know things are a bit rough for you at the moment with Caspar. If there’s anything I can—”

  She shook her head so violently that strands of her dark hair flew loose from her clip. When she spoke, the words seemed to explode without volition. “There’s nothing anyone can do. He’s a total shit, and I’m a complete idiot for not having seen it years ago.” She stopped, clamping her lips together as if to stop the flow, and shrugged. “But thanks.”

  “I take it you’re not going to go home and kiss and make up, then,” Kincaid said, then asked, “Jules, are you afraid of him?”

  Her shoulders jerked, an involuntary spasm. “No. Yes. I don’t know. He’s never, you know, hit me or anything. But…he’s changed lately. Those things he said on Christmas Eve…” He saw the color creep up her cheeks at the memory. “And then yesterday, things just seemed to get blown all out of proportion. I don’t see how I can go home and pretend nothing’s happened.”

  “Has he tried to ring you?”

  “I don’t know. Not at Mum and Dad’s, anyway, and I turned my mobile off. I took Lally’s away as well—I didn’t want him ringing her. She’s furious with me. You’d think I’d amputated an arm.”

  Kincaid wasn’t to be distracted. “You don’t think Caspar’s worried about you?”

  This time Juliet looked at him, just long enough to roll her eyes. “He must know where I am, otherwise Mum and Dad would have called out the cavalry. And besides, where else would I go? It’s not like I lead the jet-setter’s lifestyle and can run off and borrow a friend’s villa in Cap-Ferrat for a few days while I have a think.”

  Sarcasm had always been his sister’s weapon; that, at least, hadn’t changed. “Well, you’ll have to talk to him at some point. If you like, I can go round with you. To the house, or the office.”

  “No!” Juliet’s voice soared in panic. “I can’t speak to him. Not yet. Not until I’ve worked out what to do. The children—The house—How can I possibly—”

  “Jules,” he interrupted gently, “you can’t imagine the current state of affairs is good for the children.”

  “No, but…I just can’t see any options.” The car had warmed and she had stopped clutching her coat, but now her fingers picked restlessly at a loose button.

  “You ask Caspar to move out. Then you get a lawyer and file for divorce.”

  Juliet sucked in a breath, as if she’d been punched in the solar plexus.

  “That is what all this means, Jules. Unless you think counseling or some sort of intervention—”

  “Oh, God, no.” She gave a bitter whoop and wiped at her eyes. “Caspar in counseling? He’d die first.”

  “Then—”

  “You think everything’s so bloody simple, don’t you?” Turning to him for the first time, she said, “So tell me how I’m going to support my kids.”

  “Your business—”

  “I just barely manage to pay my crew and keep my head above water. Maybe when this job is finished, there’ll be a bit left over, but we were already behind schedule, and now—”

  “It’s called maintenance, Jules.” Kincaid’s patience was failing. “Caspar will have to contribute to his children’s upkeep. That’s only to be expect—”

  “You don’t understand. You don’t know him. He’ll find some way to get out of it. Just because you do the right thing, you assume other fathers will do the same.” Then she suddenly slumped in her seat and touched his arm. “I’m sorry,” she said softly. “That’s not fair. And I’ve never said, about Kit, that I was glad for you, or that I was proud of what you’ve done for him. I was so busy resenting you for being perfect that I never realized how much I took for granted.”

  Kincaid gave his sister a startled glance. What had he ever done that she should think him perfect? Was that why she always seemed angry with him?

  “I was so naive that I thought all men were like you and Daddy,” she went on. “Sometimes I think growing up in a so-called normal family wasn’t adequate preparation for life. But you—your experiences can’t have been that different from mine. How do you do what you do? Take things like mummified babies in your stride?”

  “It’s not like that,” he responded, stung. “It’s not a matter of taking things in stride. It’s just that you learn to…separate…what you see. It’s a problem to be solved, and I like knowing that there’s something I can do.” He wouldn’t tell her how often the lines bled, how often the horror crept in on everyday life, especially since he had found Gemma and the boys.

  “Power, then. Is that what it is? You like thinking you’re an instrument of justice?” She was challenging him again, her earlier moment of contrition seemingly forgotten.

  “No.” In his early days on the job, he might have been forced to admit that there was some truth in her accusation. Now, however, there were too many days when the beastliness and sheer pettiness he encountered threatened to overwhelm him, when he had to force himself to look for the embers of humanity that sparked among the dregs.

  Juliet must have heard the weariness in his voice, because after a quick glance she averted her face again. As he negotiated a roundabout, he sifted through the things his sister had told him, wondering how he could begin to respond. And then, with a spike in his pulse, he realized what she’d avoided so adroitly by turning the conversation to their own family.

  “Jules,” he said sharply, “those things Caspar said the other night—is there any truth to them? Is that why you won’t stand up to him?”

  It was not that Ronnie Babcock was unaccustomed to frustration. A good part of policing involved frustration—cases were seldom solved in the day or two allowed in the crime dramas on the telly—but at least there were usually some small avenues of progress.

  There would be family, acquaintances, neighbors to interview. Scene-of-crime would have turned up one or two things of possible interest, or the forensic pathologist could tell them the assailant had been right-handed, or the victim had been double the legal limit when he’d been knocked down by a car.

  But so far this case had produced nothing but a series of roadblocks. Dr. Elsworthy had sent the child’s remains off to the Home Office forensic anthropologist, but Babcock knew it would be another day or two before he could expect a report.

  Although scene-of-crime had extended their search from the building to the surrounding lane and pasture, they had turned up nothing more of interest—not that the bits they’d found in the barn itself qualified as interesting, although they had found a stash of vodka bottles beneath some stacked boards in a corner.

  Nor had the neighbors who might have an address for the elusive Smiths, the barn’s previous owners, returned from their holiday.
The manufacturer of the baby’s blanket was still closed, and Babcock’s old mate Jim Craddock, who had handled the Smiths’ sale of the property to the Fosters, was on holiday in Tenerife.

  Rasansky’s canvass of the local shops that might have sold the child’s blanket had proved fruitless as well. In what he knew was an unfair fit of pique, Babcock had sent Rasansky back to reinterview the Fosters, although he suspected Rasansky would probably not find it a punishment—he and the Fosters would probably get on like a house afire.

  “Penny for them, boss,” said Sheila Larkin, perching on the corner of the desk he’d commandeered in the incident room. She’d made a concession to the cold today, he saw, and wore tights and boots under her scrap of a skirt. “You look like you got out of the wrong side of the bed,” she added, eyeing him critically.

  “Boiler’s still out,” he admitted. He’d spent another night on the sofa in front of his sitting-room fire, sleeping fitfully while huddled under every duvet in the house, and had again missed his morning coffee.

  “We could do with one of those Caribbean holidays,” she said sympathetically, and he noticed that her eyes were a sea green deep enough to swim in. Process of association, he told himself as he blinked and looked away, combined with sleep and caffeine deprivation.

  There was only one other officer left in the incident room, collating reports. The case wasn’t a high enough priority, and there hadn’t been enough information coming in, to justify tying up more manpower. The main phone line rang and Larkin slipped off the desk to answer. She listened briefly, said, “Right, thanks,” and rang off.

  “Your star witness has arrived,” she told him. “Shall I bring her down?”

  “No, I think we’ll use my office rather than the dungeon. Much more likely to inspire confidence, I should think.”

  “Does she need inspiring, your Mrs. Newcombe?” Larkin asked as they made their way up to reception. “All we need is her formal statement describing the discovery of the body, and the names of the lads in her crew.”

  Babcock thought of Juliet Newcombe’s frightened face yesterday evening, and of the rather obvious effort Piers Dutton had made to cast doubt on her credibility. “I think it might be a bit more complicated than that,” he said, forbearing to add his hope that Kincaid’s girlfriend had brought Mrs. Newcombe, as she’d promised. He wouldn’t mind another chat with the copper-haired Gemma James.

  But when they reached the lobby, it was Kincaid himself who stood beside his sister.

  Kincaid, in jeans and a scuffed leather bomber jacket, looked more relaxed than when Babcock had seen him on Christmas Eve, while Juliet Newcombe looked unhappy but less frantic.

  When Babcock made introductions, Larkin widened her eyes at Kincaid and said, “Ooh, Scotland Yard! Nice to meet you, sir. If you ever need any help in this part of the world—” Babcock’s reproving glare only made her grin unrepentantly as she turned back to him. “You want me to take Mrs. Newcombe’s statement, boss?” she asked.

  “Why don’t you take Mrs. Newcombe to the family room,” he suggested. That would allow Larkin to take care of the formalities, and he could take Kincaid to his own office for a natter. There was always a chance that Larkin, for all her cheekiness, would elicit something from Juliet Newcombe that he might not.

  Turning to her brother with a distressed expression, Juliet said, “But—I thought you’d be with me—”

  Kincaid squeezed her arm. “Don’t worry. You just tell the constable exactly what happened the other night. It’s only for the record.”

  “The coffee here is rubbish,” Babcock said when Larkin had led Juliet away, “but I keep a kettle and some tea bags in my office for special visitors. Care for a cuppa?”

  “I’m flattered.” Kincaid followed him, and when they were settled in the two chairs on the visitors’ side of Babcock’s desk, dunking their tea bags in mismatched mugs, he looked round the cramped space. “You’ve not done too badly for yourself, Ronnie,” he commented.

  “Don’t condescend to me, mate,” said Babcock lightly. “You’ve probably got a suite overlooking the bloody Thames.”

  Kincaid laughed and shook his head. “Not likely, although you can get a glimpse of the river from my guv’nor’s office if you stand on a chair.” He fished out his tea bag and lobbed it accurately into the bin. “So, any developments with the case?” he asked, settling back in his chair with his hands wrapped round his mug for the warmth.

  “Bugger all,” Babcock told him with a grimace. He outlined the results of the pathologist’s report and the negative progress in other areas. “I don’t suppose you’ve any suggestions? Not that I’m officially asking for Scotland Yard’s assistance, of course.”

  “Patience, my son?” Kincaid ventured, then held up a hand to ward off an imaginary blow. “No, seriously, I’d say you’re pretty well stymied until the neighbors come back from their holiday and businesses reopen. Have you put a notice in the local media?”

  “There’ll be a story in this week’s Chronicle. Maybe someone will remember a baby of an unspecified age who disappeared an unspecified number of years ago.”

  “Stranger things have happened,” Kincaid said. “But you might have someone contact you with the Smiths’ address. I remember them, you know, although I’m not sure I’d have recalled the name. But the barn was still a working dairy when we were kids. Jules and I—”

  “Jules?”

  “Sorry, Juliet. Juliet and I used to roam the canal like little fiends, not something you could let your kids do these days. We were chased off by more than one farmer and his dog, but not by the Smiths. They seemed a kindly couple, and although I thought of them as being ancient, I suspect they were only middle-aged.”

  “You were close, then, you and your sister?” Babcock asked.

  Kincaid hesitated for a moment, then said, “There’s only three years’ difference in our ages and, especially when we were small, our life was fairly isolated, so we spent a good deal of time together. But even then, I’m not sure I really knew her.” He shrugged. “And I suppose it’s only natural that you grow apart as you get older.”

  Babcock saw an opportunity to satisfy his curiosity about Juliet Newcombe. “Is she all right, your sister? Yesterday, she seemed more upset than I’d have expected.”

  “Um, she’s having some…domestic issues,” Kincaid answered after a moment’s hesitation.

  “Anything to do with this baby?”

  “No, of course not.” Kincaid seemed surprised by the question. “Although I don’t think finding the thing did wonders for her emotional equilibrium.”

  “Understandable.” Babcock grimaced at the memory of the desiccated little form, then turned his mug in his fingers while he considered how much to reveal. “I had a chat with your brother-in-law’s partner last night. He’s a right tosser. And I got the distinct impression he has it in for your sister.”

  “Has it in—”

  “As in active ill will.” Babcock clarified. “As in making an opportunity to suggest she’s hysterical and not to be relied upon.”

  “Why the hell—” Kincaid began, then stopped and sipped carefully at tea that was now tepid. Wariness had slipped over his face like a mask, and Babcock knew he wasn’t going to hear everything his friend knew. “Why would Piers Dutton want to undermine my sister?” Kincaid asked after a moment, his voice under control once more.

  Frowning, Babcock mused aloud. “Dutton said he’d been in his house five years. But even if the child was buried before that, he could have known about the barn before he moved into the area.”

  “You’re suggesting Dutton had something to do with this baby? But then why would he recommend my sister for the renovation?”

  “Well, say he knew the new owners were determined to go ahead with the job. If he was sure the baby would be found, maybe he saw an opportunity to make life difficult for your sister.”

  “Implicating himself in the process? That’s pretty far-fetched, don’t you think, R
onnie? And if he was responsible for the baby and he knew the renovation was inevitable, why not just remove the body?”

  “Too risky?” Babcock suggested.

  “There’s only one house between Dutton’s and the canal. All he’d need to do was pick a night when he knew his neighbors wouldn’t be home. It didn’t take Jules that long to chip out that mortar—Dutton could have done it in a few hours, then tossed the body in a ditch somewhere.”

  Babcock sighed. “That’s a point. Tom Foster’s not exactly the Cerberus of South Cheshire.” Rubbing at his lower lip, he found a spot of stubble he’d missed that morning in his rush to shave in his arctic bathroom. He cast an envious glance at his old friend. Kincaid was one of those men who would look rakish with a day’s growth of beard, while he, with his battered face, would merely look like he’d spent the night in a skip. “Still, it’s worth checking,” he continued. “Dutton was going through a divorce at the time. Maybe he had an illegitimate child he didn’t want complicating things—”

  “And the baby’s mother went along with the interment? Or maybe she’s buried somewhere, too? Ronnie, you’re building sand castles.”

  Babcock countered with a grin. “Where’s your imagination, lad? All those bureaucrats at the Yard drummed it out of you? For all we know, he’s walled her up in the cellar of his Victorian monstrosity. Didn’t you read your Poe?”

  “You’d better have a little firmer foundation than ‘The Cask of Amontillado’ before you apply for a warrant to start digging up Dutton’s house.”

  “Okay, okay. Touché. But I think I’ll have Larkin do a little research into Dutton’s background.”

  “Your detective constable?” Kincaid raised an amused eyebrow. “Sharp girl. And I do believe she fancies you, you know.”

  Babcock was momentarily rendered speechless. “You’re taking the piss. She’s cheeky with everyone, including you—and you’re happily attached, I take it. I met your…girlfriend?”