Water Like a Stone

by Deborah Crombie

  “Gemma, if you’re right, we should have told Babcock.”

  “Not until we talk to Gabriel Wain.”

  Squeaky clean and dressed in jeans and a nubby jumper, Juliet came downstairs to find her mother home from the bookshop and rushing round the kitchen like a whirlwind.

  “I’ve put some things out for the children’s tea,” said Rosemary. “There’s a cauliflower bake I had in the freezer, and some things for salad. If you can just—”

  “Mummy, please. I can manage,” Juliet interrupted, but without heat. Her parents had a long-planned dinner engagement with friends in Barbridge, and she knew Rosemary was overcompensating. “Go.

  Have a good time. We won’t starve.” Giving her mother an impulsive hug, she caught the familiar scent of Crabtree & Evelyn’s Lily of the Valley, and was oddly comforted.

  What scents would her own children associate with her, she wondered, when they were grown? Sweat, brick, and sawdust?

  “Are you certain?” asked Rosemary, touching her cheek. “Duncan and Gemma should be back soon.”

  “Yes. And if you don’t get Daddy out of the house, he’ll get sucked back into the perpetual Monopoly game. I’m glad you’re not going far, though. It’s shaping up to be a foul night.”

  She had bundled her mother into her coat and waved both parents off at the door, like a mother sending kids off to school, when the phone rang. Her first instinct was to reach for her mobile, then she realized she’d left it with her work clothes upstairs, and it was the house phone ringing.

  The children were all in the sitting room, and when neither Lally nor Sam—who usually responded to a ringing phone with Pavlovian promptness—appeared, she padded into the kitchen herself. Lifting the handset, she gave her parents’ number.

  “Juliet? Is that you?”

  Surprised, she recognized her friend Gill, who had a fine-arts shop near the square in Nantwich.

  “Gill?”

  “I’ve been ringing and ringing your house, and your mobile,” Gill went on. “And then I thought to try your parents.”

  Juliet felt a little lurch of unease. Gill would never go to such trouble for social reasons, and it was past time for her to have closed up shop and set off for her cottage near Whitchurch. “What is it? Has something happened?”

  “It’s Newcombe and Dutton. The building’s on fire. The fire brigade’s there but they haven’t got things under control yet. I don’t think anyone is inside, but when I couldn’t reach you or Caspar—”

  “Caspar? You rang his mobile, too?”

  “Yes. You mean he’s not with you?”

  “No. Gill, look, I’m sorry. I’ve got to go. I’ll ring you later.” Juliet hung up before her friend could respond. She couldn’t answer questions, not now. Her knees felt weak with panic. Having heard the alarm in her voice, Jack got up from his bed by the stove and came over to her, wagging his bushy tail and watching her with his alert sheepdog eyes.

  “It’s all right, boy,” she said, trying to reassure herself as well as the dog, but she had to grasp the kitchen table for a moment. What if Caspar had done something stupid? What if Caspar was in that building?

  She had to go. She had to see what was happening.

  Purpose galvanized her, channeling the rush of adrenaline into flight. It was only as she was into her coat and halfway out the door that she remembered the children.

  “I have to go out. There’s a fire.” Kit’s aunt Juliet had run into the sitting room, banging the door so loudly that all the children jumped. “Lally,” she said breathlessly, “Kit. You look after the boys. Sammy, you do what your sister tells you. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  With that, she was gone, and the children sat staring at one another in frozen surprise until Sam said, “A fire? What’s she talking about? Why would she have to go? Do you think it’s our house?”

  “Of course not, silly,” answered Lally. “She’d have said.” She caught Kit’s eye, then added as she uncurled herself from the corner of the chesterfield and stood, “I have to go out, too. Kit, can you look after Sam and Toby?”

  “But I don’t want—”

  “Mum said for you to do what I told you. Don’t argue. And don’t snitch, or you’ll be sorry.”

  Without another glance at the younger boys, she slipped into the hall and started tugging on boots and coat.

  “Lally, this is daft,” protested Kit, following her. “It’s dark and it’s snowing. Where do you have to go that’s so important?”

  Pulling a fleece hat from the rack by the door, she said, “I have to meet Leo. I promised. I—it doesn’t matter. I don’t have to tell you why.”

  There was something in her face that frightened him, a recklessness—no, more than that, a desperation. It made him think that if he let her go alone, she might not come back.

  And that meant he had no choice. “All right,” he said. “I’m coming with you.”

  Gemma had taken the pocket torch from the door of the car, but once they left the bridge for the towpath, they discovered it only made the visibility worse, trapping them in an illuminated cone of swirling snowflakes. They moved into the shelter of the bridge, then switched the torch off and stood until their eyes adjusted. Beside her, Kincaid was a comforting presence.

  The snow made a curtain on either side of the stone archway, but the flakes were bigger and softer than when they had left Crewe, and when Gemma stepped out into the open she found she could make out the outline of the canal’s edge, and the shapes of the boats huddled against it. Then she saw a sliver of light, the glow of a lamp seeping through a gap in curtains pulled tight over a porthole, and she knew the Daphne was still moored where she had last seen it.

  She moved forward, Kincaid near enough behind her that she could hear him muttering as the snow soaked through his shoes. When she reached the boat, she stopped, feeling the warmth of his body as he halted behind her and gave her shoulder a brief squeeze.

  This time, she didn’t call out, but felt for the gunwale and climbed carefully into the well deck, then made room for Kincaid to do the same. Knowing the slight movement of the boat under their combined weight had announced their presence, she rapped sharply on the cabin door. “Mr. Wain, it’s Gemma James. We need to talk to you.”

  The door opened quickly, to Gemma’s surprise, and Gabriel Wain looked out at them without speaking. After a moment, he stepped back and down, and she saw that three steps led into the tiny cabin. Gemma caught her breath as she peered in, thinking for an instant that she had happened upon a child’s playhouse. The space was so tiny, so cleverly arranged, and so welcoming with its dark-paneled walls decorated with gleaming brasses and delicate lace-edged plates. There were homely touches of red in the curtains and the cushions on the two benches, a fire burned in the cast-iron stove tucked neatly into the corner nearest the steps, and a lantern hung from a hook in the sloping paneled ceiling.

  But everything drew the eye towards the painting on the underside of a folding table now stowed in its upright position. A pale winding road, flower lined, led to a castle dreaming on a hilltop. The colors were brilliant, the grass magically green, the sky a perfect blue, the clouds a luminous white, and the detail and perspective were the work of a master artist.

  “My wife’s,” said Gabriel Wain, his voice filled with unexpected pride. “There’s no one on the Cut paints in the old way like my Rowan.”

  Gemma now saw that there were other pieces on display bearing Rowan’s signature touch—a metal canalware cup in blue embellished with red and yellow roses, a water can, a bowl.

  “You’ll let the cold in,” Wain added, nodding towards the door behind Gemma.

  She started, realizing she’d stood frozen, with Kincaid trapped behind her, and stepped down into the cabin proper.

  “You’ve kept the cabin in its original state,” Kincaid said as he came down after her, his admiration evident. He nodded at the passageway leading towards the bow. “But you’ll have built more living quar
ters into the old cargo space?”

  “This boat was the butty of a pair, originally, so the cabin was larger,” Wain agreed. “But you didn’t come out in this weather to admire my boat, Mr.—Kincaid, is it?” He didn’t invite them to sit.

  Gemma moved a bit farther into the center of the cabin and knew, from the way Kincaid positioned himself behind her, that he meant for her to take the lead. Gathering herself, she said, “Mr. Wain, we need to know what happened to Marie.”

  Wain stared at them, his eyes widening. He’d been wary, she thought, but he had not expected this. “Marie? She and Joseph are with the doctor. She’ll have told you—”

  “No,” said Gemma, and although she hadn’t raised her voice, Wain stopped as if he’d been struck. “I want you to tell us what happened to Marie.”

  The silence stretched in the small space, then Wain recovered enough for an attempt at bluster. “I don’t know what you’re on about. Marie’s staying with Dr. Elsworthy, just for a few—”

  There was movement in the passageway, and a woman came into the cabin. Standing beside Gabriel, she laid thin fingers on his arm, the touch enough to silence him.

  She had once been pretty, thought Gemma, but now she wore death like a pall. Her clothes hung loosely on her gaunt frame, her lank hair was pulled back carelessly, her skin tinged with gray. With her free arm she cradled an oxygen tank like an unnatural infant, tethered to her by a plastic umbilicus that ended in the twin prongs of a nasal canula.

  “You must be Rowan,” Gemma said gently. “I’m Gemma James, and this is Duncan Kincaid.”

  “You’re with the police?” asked Rowan Wain.

  “We’re police officers in London, yes,” Gemma temporized, wishing she and Kincaid had discussed beforehand how they meant to handle this, “but we’re not here officially.”

  “Then you’ve no right to be asking—”

  “Gabriel, please.” Rowan used his arm for support as she lowered herself onto a bench. “It’s no use. Can’t you see that?” She looked up at him imploringly. “And I need to tell it. Now, while I can.”

  Gabriel Wain seemed to shrink before Gemma’s eyes, as if the purpose that had sustained him had gone. He lowered himself to the bench, beside his wife, and took her hand but didn’t speak. The only sound in the small space was the rhythmic puff of the oxygen as it left the tank.

  “She was so perfect.” Rowan’s lips curved in a smile at the memory. “After Joseph, we were terrified it would start again, the vomiting, the seizures. And it had been a hard pregnancy, with everything that had happened.” She stopped, letting the oxygen do its work, closing her eyes in an effort to gather strength before going on. “But she ate, and she slept, and she grew rosy and beautiful, with no hint of trouble.

  “Then, on the day she turned eight months old, I put her down for her afternoon sleep, just there.” She gestured at the passageway, and Gemma saw that a small bed was fitted into one side, just the size for a baby or a toddler. “I was making mince for tea,” continued Rowan. “It was cold that day, and I knew Gabriel had been working hard.” Her expression grew distant; her voice faded to a thread of sound. “Gabe had taken Joseph with him. Joseph was almost three by then, and he was so much better, we didn’t worry as much. He liked helping his papa with his work, and I was enjoying the bit of time to myself.

  “I was singing. With the radio. A man Gabriel had worked for had given him a radio that ran on batteries, so it was a special treat to listen. It was a silly song. I don’t know what it was called, but it made me happy.” She hummed a few breathy bars, and Gemma recognized the tune—ABBA’s “Dancing Queen.”

  “I know the one you mean,” she said, and Rowan nodded, as if they had made a connection.

  “I was thinking of what I might paint that night, when the children were in bed.” Rowan stopped. Her face grew even paler, her breathing more labored.

  Moving towards her, Gemma said, “Are you all right? Let me—” But Rowan lifted her hand from her husband’s and waved her back.

  “No. Please. Let me finish. I had the mince almost ready. The light was going, and I realized it was past time for Marie to wake. I wiped my hands on the tea towel and went in to her. I was still singing.”

  Gabriel shook his head, a plea of denial, but he seemed to realize he was powerless to stop her. Bowing his head, he took her hand again and they all waited. Gemma could feel Kincaid’s breath, warm on the back of her neck as he stood behind her.

  “I knew straightaway. In the verses I learned as a child, the poets always compared death to sleep, but you can’t possibly mistake it. Even under her little pink blanket, she was too still. When I touched her, she was cold, and her skin was blue.”

  No one spoke. The hypnotic hiss of the oxygen regulator filled the room, until it seemed to Gemma that it synchronized with her heartbeat. She realized her cheeks were damp, and scrubbed at them with the back of her hand.

  She had held her own child in her arms, so tiny, so perfect, and knew one couldn’t mistake the absence of life. “I’m so sorry. That must have been terrible for you,” she said, and her words seemed to give Rowan a last burst of energy.

  “I tried. Oh, I tried. I did everything we’d been taught with Joseph. I puffed my own breath into her lungs until I could feel the rise and fall of her chest under my hand, but it was no use. We were down near Hurleston, and there was no one moored nearby to call for help. By the time Gabriel came…”

  “I found them,” said Gabriel hoarsely. “Rowan holding little Marie to her breast. It was too late. Too late,” he repeated, his face etched with pain. “And then I realized what would happen if anyone knew. We would lose Joseph, too, and Rowan might go to prison. I couldn’t let that happen.

  “I knew I hadn’t much time. Rowan washed her, and dressed her in her best little suit.”

  “No nappy. That’s why there was no nappy,” Kincaid said softly, as if he’d just remembered something that had bothered him, and Gabriel nodded.

  “It was full dark by that time. I wrapped her in her blanket and carried her to the old dairy. We couldn’t risk Rowan coming, and besides, there was Joseph to look after.” Now that he’d begun, Gabriel seemed to feel the same relief as his wife, the long-dammed words flowing from him.

  “I’d been working that week for old Mr. Smith. The dairy hadn’t been used as such for years, but he’d got in mind to sell the place, and much of the mortar work was crumbling. I’d not quite finished the repairs, so I’d left my tools. Everything was to hand. There was a manger, half hidden behind some old milking equipment and bits of cast-off furniture—I’d seen it when I’d checked for damage. I made—I did the best I could for Marie—” He stopped, swallowing, his face nearly as ashen as his wife’s. “And then I closed her up, safe, where nothing could get at her, and I put everything back the way it was before.

  “The next day I took my pay from Mr. Smith. I didn’t want any talk—nothing out of the ordinary. Then we left the Shroppie, went up north, mostly, where no one knew us. But somehow it got harder and harder to stay away. Maybe it was meant we should be here when she was found.”

  “But I don’t understand,” said Gemma. “Your daughter, the girl you call Marie, who is she?”

  “I can’t tell you who she is,” answered Gabriel. Then he must have seen something in Kincaid’s expression because he added, quickly, “I don’t mean I won’t tell you. I mean I can’t, because I don’t know. But I can tell you where she came from. That first year or so, we lived in fear, thinking someone would find our baby, would somehow connect her with us. But we couldn’t leave the boat—we had nothing else—so it seemed easiest to disappear in the cities. The canals run through the worst parts, the old warehouses and slums, and they’d only begun to be called ‘waterfront properties.’” There was a hint of derision in his voice.

  “We were in Manchester—I’d found some day work in a factory there—but the warehouses near the mooring were squats, taken over by drug users, prostitutes, runawa
ys sleeping rough. Rowan got to know some of the women; she helped them when she could. One day they told her they’d found this girl dead, apparently from an overdose, her toddler crouched beside her body.”

  “The mother wasn’t much more than a child herself,” put in Rowan, a spark of pity in her eyes. “And the baby, she looked as if her mother had tried to care for her, in spite of everything. She was well fed, and as clean as could be expected. But she was that frightened, poor little mite, and no one would call for help—the squatters didn’t invite the police or the socials onto their patch for any reason—and no one would take her. So we did.” Rowan said it as if it had been the simplest thing in the world, and the memory made her smile. After a moment she went on. “She was about the age our Marie would have been, and now…She is Marie. She doesn’t remember anything else. This life is all she knows. And we—she is our daughter, just as if I’d borne her myself.”

  All the protests ran through Gemma’s head. If the mother had been identified, there might have been a father to take the child, or grandparents, all with more right than Gabriel and Rowan Wain. And yet…would anyone have loved her more?

  Breaking into Gemma’s musing, Rowan asked quietly, “How did you know? About Marie?”

  “It was her eyes. In Annie Constantine’s notes, she said Marie’s eyes were brown.”

  Rowan sighed. “Dear God. I never thought. I never knew she wrote things like that about the children.”

  Moving Gemma aside, Kincaid spoke to Gabriel, his voice hard. “Did she see it, too? Annie Constantine, when you met her again on Christmas Day? She saw the children that day, and again when she came back with Dr. Elsworthy. Was that why you argued, because she realized Marie wasn’t your daughter? And then, if she learned about the infant found in the barn, she would have put two and two together. You would have had to stop her, whatever it took.”

  Gabriel loosed his hand from his wife’s and stood. The two men faced each other across the small confines of the cabin, and Gemma felt a sudden surge of claustrophobia, as if all the air had been sucked from the space.