But there was no defiance in Gabriel Wain’s stance, and when he spoke his voice rang with desperation. “No. I’d swear she didn’t know. And if she heard little Marie had been found, she never said.” Resting his hand on his wife’s shoulder, he went on, his words a plea. “I’d not have hurt her, even so.”
The possibilities ran through Gemma’s mind. Annie might not have seen the girl for a changeling at first, but what if something had triggered a memory on Boxing Day morning, when she’d brought Dr. Elsworthy to see to Rowan? Had she come back, later in the day, to confront the couple?
No, not Rowan. Rowan would have told her the truth—she owed Annie Constantine that, and she had been ready to tell the truth. But if Annie had spoken to Gabriel alone…How far had Gabriel Wain been willing to go to protect his family?
Yet they had no proof. And if they made an accusation against Gabriel, there could be no reprieve for this family, or for Rowan, who had so little time.
Gabriel regarded them in silence. He had put himself at their mercy; now he could only wait. But Rowan said, “What will you do?” and there was hope in her voice for her children, if not for herself.
“I—” Gemma hesitated, painfully aware of the risk in either action. But then she knew, with sudden clarity, that she wouldn’t sacrifice this family without proof of Gabriel’s guilt. And that meant they had to find out who had killed Annie Constantine.
The fire was guttering by the time Juliet reached Nantwich and found a place for her van outside the ring of fire engines and snaking hoses. Two firefighters still stood, directing streams of water into the sodden remains of Newcombe and Dutton. She pushed through the crowd of onlookers until she saw a familiar face.
“Chief Inspector! What happened? Did you—Was anyone—”
“There was no one inside, Mrs. Newcombe,” Babcock hastened to reassure her. “As to what happened, we released your husband’s partner about an hour before the blaze began. The door was padlocked, as we hadn’t got all the files out, but someone remedied that with a pair of bolt cutters.” He surveyed the damage with disgust. “It was lucky all of Monk’s Walk didn’t go up.”
“You think Piers did this?” Juliet’s first relief was replaced with uneasiness.
“It would seem the logical assumption, yes. There’s only so much even a high-priced lawyer can do if there’s sufficient evidence of wrongdoing. It would have been worth the risk to get rid of it. A can of petrol tucked under an overcoat—” He shrugged.
“You’re sure the fire was set, then?”
“You could still smell the petrol. I’ve sent a car to Mr. Dutton’s house. If he’s not at home, do you know where we might find him?”
“I—His parents live in Chester. I don’t know where else he might go,” Juliet answered, but she was thinking furiously. This seemed much too blatant for Piers. He was a string puller, a manipulator—direct action was not his style. And looking at the smoldering, blackened shell of what had been Newcombe and Dutton, she sensed there had been more at stake than covering up evidence.
“—looks worse than it is,” Babcock was saying. “Even though some of the papers were strewn around the office, you’d be surprised at what we can re—”
But Juliet didn’t hear the rest. Muttering “Excuse me,” she eased through the crush and slipped into the tree-covered tunnel of Monk’s Lane. Only light powder had drifted through the foliage, and it crunched under her feet as she ran.
By the time she veered into North Crofts and reached her front porch, a stitch in her side made her bend over, gasping until it had passed. Then she saw that the door stood slightly ajar. Her heart thumping with fear, she pushed it open and walked into her house.
It took her a moment to identify the unfamiliar smell. Petrol. Dear God. Her feet felt weighted now as she followed the scent, and the wet footprints, down the hall and into the kitchen.
Still wearing his coat, Caspar stood at the kitchen sink, scrubbing at his hands. He looked up when she came into the room, but didn’t seem surprised to see her. “It won’t come out,” he said. “I can’t get it out.”
“Caspar, what have you done?”
He turned back to his scrubbing, his words made indistinct by the sound of the running water. “They let me watch while they carried out the files. But they didn’t get them all, so they put a padlock on the door and said they’d come back for the rest in the morning.
“Some of Piers’s things were left. I wanted to see for myself. To prove you wrong. So I went back as it was getting dark. When no one was watching, I cut the lock.”
“You cut the padlock?” Juliet said. This was a man who was known for his inability to change a lightbulb.
Caspar, seemingly unaware of the incredulity in her voice, went on. “I found your bolt cutters in the garage. I put them under my coat. A flimsy thing, the lock. It was easy, like slicing butter. Once I was inside, I made sure the blinds were closed tight, then I used a torch to look through Piers’s files.” He turned to her, heedless of the soapy water dripping from his hands, down the front of his coat and onto the floor.
“He was cheating them. Almost all of them.” His eyes were dark with shock. “I couldn’t believe—I couldn’t—I came back from the house and got a can of petrol. I scattered the papers from the files. I thought if I set them alight—”
“Good God, Caspar, you could have been killed!” Juliet shouted at him. “Pouring petrol and setting it alight! Are you completely mad?” She shook her head in disgust. “And for nothing. You couldn’t have saved Piers. The police already have enough evidence to build a case against him; the rest was just icing on the cake. You might have got by, but now they’ll have you for arson and destroying evidence, and anything you could have salvaged from the business is ruined. What in bloody hell were you thinking?”
Caspar collapsed into the nearest chair, like a scarecrow in a cashmere overcoat. Water still trickled from the tap, an echo of the tears flowing unchecked down his cheeks.
“I thought we were—I thought Piers would have done anything for me. I thought that if I burned the office he’d be—” He sounded baffled by his own emotions. “I just wanted to hurt him, Jules, that’s all.”
Kit followed Lally down the lane, trying to keep up with her when he felt blind and disoriented and she seemed able to see in the dark. Gradually, the snow grew lighter, diminishing to a few dancing flakes, and Lally’s outline solidified.
“Where the hell are we?” he asked, panting, when he managed a few paces by her side. They’d turned right out of the farmhouse drive, rather than left, the way he’d become accustomed to going in the car.
“Shortcut to Barbridge. You’ll see. We’ll come out at the bridge over the canal.”
“Lally, you said you had to meet Leo, but I thought you hadn’t talked to him. I mean yesterday you seemed—I don’t know—pissed off. And you haven’t been allowed to use the phone—”
“Doesn’t matter,” she said shortly. “Remember yesterday he said for us to meet him? He will have waited last night. He’ll be there tonight.”
“But I don’t un—”
“I have some things of his. Or at least, I’m supposed to have some things of his. The problem is, I don’t.” She giggled, the sound brittle as glass. “And Leo never stops until he gets what he wants.”
“What do you mean, things of his. What sort of things?”
Lally slowed enough to look at him. “Oh, Kit, don’t be so dense. Pills. And other stuff. You sound just like Peter.”
“Peter?” Kit struggled to place the name. “Your friend who died?”
“Drowned. He drowned,” said Lally, with a vehemence Kit didn’t understand. “You even look a bit like him—that schoolboy-innocence thing.”
Kit felt the blood rise to his face, but before he could protest, she went on, “Leo called him a ponce, but he wasn’t. He was just…gentle. He was smart, and he was funny, and he could tell how I was feeling, you know? Without me saying.” Lally’s steps lagg
ed until Kit had to slow his own. “And he knew how to touch me. It wasn’t that he’d been with other girls, it was just that he seemed to know what I was thinking, every minute, and he—”
“There’s the bridge,” Kit said, knowing it was idiotic but desperate to stop her saying more. He hadn’t realized Peter had been that kind of friend, and he didn’t want to think about what Lally had been doing with him—but then she’d said that he reminded her of Peter—
After that thought he no longer felt the cold, and was glad the darkness hid his blush. “About Leo,” he said, trying to focus on the other thing Lally had said. Somehow he found he wasn’t surprised that Lally had been holding drugs, or that Leo had given them to her. “You said you had Leo’s stuff, but you don’t anymore. Why not?”
“Because someone went through my fucking backpack and took it.” The swearing didn’t quite hide the fear in her voice. They’d reached the stone arch of the bridge, and instead of crossing it, Lally leapt down onto the canal towpath like a mountain goat. “It must have been my mother, but then why hasn’t she said anything?” she went on. “She should have killed me, grounded me for life, and then some.”
Kit was forced to follow her again, single file, and her words came back to him in bursts, carried by the wind.
“Won’t Leo be worried about you getting in trouble?”
“No—can’t be traced to him, can it? He’ll want me to get it back, or make it up—”
“What do you mean, make it up?” asked Kit, not liking the sound of that at all.
But Lally only muttered, “You wouldn’t understand,” and kept walking, head down, as if suddenly afraid she’d said too much.
It was dark, so dark that Kit could only make out the water to his left as a deeper blackness. When something white flapped at them from the void, he jumped, grabbing Lally’s shoulder and pulling her to a halt. “What the—” Then, as his eyes adjusted, he realized where he was and what he was seeing. Beneath the wind he heard a creak of mooring ropes, saw the faint gleam of letters materializing against a dark hull. It was the Lost Horizon, and the streamer cracking in the wind was a loose end of the blue-and-white crime-scene tape wrapped round the boat. He was standing within inches of where Annie Lebow’s body had lain.
“Christ, Lally.” Kit thought he might be sick. “What do you mean, bringing me here?” he shouted at her. “Don’t you know—”
“Sorry, sorry.” Lally pulled at his jacket. “We’re not stopping here, but we have to go past. I didn’t think. Come on. We have to hurry.” She tugged at him until he stumbled after her, trying to shut out the images crowding into his mind: Annie, lying in the emerald grass of the towpath…his mother, lying against the white tile in their kitchen…
Then he was caught in the rushing corridor of his dream, running, running, trying to get help, while the room where his mother lay receded endlessly in front of him.
Lally’s shaking him brought him out of it.
“Kit, what’s the matter with you, for God’s sake? We have to climb the stile here. Come on.” Lally turned and vaulted halfway up, one leg over, and it looked to Kit as if she were disappearing into the hedge. He followed her, clumsily, the brambles scratching his hands. Jumping down on the far side, his feet sank into snow that had settled in the lee of the hedge.
Lally was moving up the hill, opening a gate and motioning him through. The surface under his feet grew firmer, and he realized they were on a bridge, crossing back over the canal. “Where are we?”
“My mum’s dairy. Don’t you want to see where they found the dead baby?”
“No!” Kit said, then amended, “It’s a crime scene.”
“So what’s a little tape?” Her teeth flashed as she glanced back at him. “Besides, it’s only a couple of minutes from Leo’s house, and this is where he said to come.”
Squinting at the outline of a peaked roof against the lighter sky, Kit caught a flicker of artificial light lower down, a match or lighter, or a quickly covered torch.
“He’s here,” said Lally, her voice gone suddenly flat. She stepped over the crime-scene tape that had drooped between its stakes.
“Took your time, didn’t you?” said a voice from the darkness. Leo stepped out of the barn’s entrance. He drew on a cigarette and the tip’s brief flare lit his face at odd angles, so that the planes stood out like shapes in a Cubist painting.
“Aren’t we going in?” asked Lally, with what Kit now recognized as manufactured disinterest.
“Nothing to see but some crumbling mortar. Disappointing.” Leo shrugged. “I should know. I waited last night.”
“My mum didn’t let me out of her sight last night. It’s only because she went out that we could come tonight.”
“Did you bring it?” Leo asked, as if her excuses were meaningless static, and Kit felt Lally go suddenly still.
“No. It’s at our house. My mum won’t let Sam and me go back there. She doesn’t want us to see our dad.”
“So they haven’t kissed and made up, your parents?” There was something in Leo’s voice that made the hair on Kit’s neck stand up.
Lally took a little hiccupping breath. Dead giveaway, thought Kit. Instinctively, he reached for her, a protective hand on her shoulder.
She stepped away, but not before Leo had seen. There was a new tension in his posture, but he said lightly, “Is this your hostage, then?”
“What do you mean?” Lally asked.
“Coz, here. It’s a good night for a boys’ night out. What do you say, coz? I’ve a bottle of Absolut tucked away—no need to chill it in this weather. We can go to the clubhouse.”
“Leo—”
“Not you, Lally.” His voice was suddenly hard. “I said ‘boys’ night out.’ Go home. Go home and start thinking how you’re going to get your mother to let you back into your house.”
“Leo, I—”
“That’s the bad thing about letting people in on your secrets, Lal.” Leo spoke the words with a smile, but Kit knew it was a threat. “You can never be sure they’ll keep quiet.”
“Go on, Lally,” said Kit, knowing only that he wanted her to get away, and that he meant to find out what Leo was holding over her. If it was drugs, Leo would implicate himself if he told. But had he seen the scars on her arms?
“But—”
“You heard the man,” echoed Leo. “Run along now. There’s a good girl.”
“You’re a bastard, Leo,” said Lally, her voice shaking, but she turned away, without another look at Kit, and in an instant was lost in the darkness.
Kit’s mouth went dry as he realized he wasn’t sure he could find his way back on his own. Follow the towpath, that was all. If he’d done it once, he could do it again.
“Not having second thoughts, are you, Kit?” Leo put the emphasis on his name, now that Lally was gone. “Come on, have some fun. I thought you city boys were sophisticated.”
“I don’t—”
But Leo threw an arm over his shoulders, propelling him away from the barn, and Kit realized that not only was the other boy a good six inches taller, but he was stronger than he looked. “It’s not far. Just across this field and into those trees up ahead. I’ve got a special place. I found it not long after we moved here. I could never see what my dad wanted with this old pile of a house, but the property had its unexpected bonuses,” he continued conversationally, but he didn’t let up his grip on Kit’s shoulder.
“Why’s Lally afraid of you?” said Kit, determined to take control of the situation, in spite of the hand at his back.
“Afraid of me?” Leo sounded hurt. “Lally’s not afraid of me. We look out for each other, that’s all. She has some habits that need to be kept in check. And I make sure she doesn’t get involved with people who might not be good for her. She’s a bit fragile. I wouldn’t want someone to take advantage of her.”
“I’m not going to take advantage of her,” Kit said angrily. He tried to shrug away, but Leo’s fingers gripped like steel.
“But you like her. Admit it.”
They entered the woods. The darkness closed in until there was nothing in Kit’s universe but Leo’s hand, and Leo’s voice.
When he didn’t answer, Leo said, “That’s a shame. Peter liked her, too.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
“I don’t like it,” Kincaid said as soon as they had stepped back onto the towpath. “What if we’re wrong and we haven’t told Babcock? We’re obligated, and even if the Wains are telling the truth, Ronnie will spend valuable time and resources trying to solve the case—”
“You’d sacrifice this family to save police resources?” Gemma stopped, turning to face him, and even though he couldn’t see her face clearly, he could hear the censure in her voice. “Gabriel Wain would lose his wife and his children—because wherever little Marie came from, she is his child,” Gemma went on.
“Babcock may get there by himself. He has access to the same records you saw. And if he does, and realizes we withheld information—”
“What? Your reputation would suffer a little damage?”
“And yours,” he retorted, stung. “We could both face disciplinary action.”
“If you think that matters more than people’s lives, then you’re not the man I thought.”
Kincaid heard echoes of his sister’s condemnation, and thought of the consequences of his insistence on doing what he thought right.
“Twenty-four hours,” he said. “We’ll sit on it for twenty-four hours, see what progress Ronnie Babcock makes on the Lebow case. We’ve got to make sure that Gabriel Wain is not connected to Annie Lebow’s death. You have to give me that.”
“Yes.” Gemma sighed and turned away, and as Kincaid followed, she added reluctantly, “I suppose I do, although I don’t believe he’s guilty.”
They crossed under the bridge, each occupied with his own thoughts, but as they emerged from the shelter of the arch, a figure came hurtling out of the darkness and cannoned into Gemma.
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