“Not a bit.” Kincaid stood, offering his chair. “I’ve got to dash.
We’re off home to London this afternoon, after my mother’s traditional New Year’s lunch.”
Larkin took the chair, producing a bunch of carnations she’d held behind her back.
“Don’t tell me you’ve brought flowers,” Babcock groaned. “You know I hate fl owers.”
“Couldn’t get the single malt past the matron.” Larkin winked at Kincaid, suppressing a smile. “Besides, I thought the more miserable I made you, the sooner you’d get yourself back to work. There are going to be dire consequences if you don’t, boss.”
“What?” said Babcock, taking the bait.
This time Larkin’s grin threatened to split her face. “Rasansky’s
going to get himself promoted to chief superintendent, that’s what.
He’s already taken over your desk.”
Juliet was loading the children’s things into the van when she saw Duncan turn into the drive. She stopped, shielding her eyes from the sun, and watched him get out of the car.
“Here,” he said as he reached her. “Let me help.” He lifted the last bag with a surprised “Oof,” and hefted it into the van. “What have you got in here, rocks?”
“Probably a few. It’s Sammy’s. He tends to accumulate things.”
“You’re going home, then?”
She had given Caspar the last few days to get his things out of the house and to make arrangements for somewhere else to stay, but this afternoon she and the children were going back to North Crofts.
“Yes. At least for the time being.”
“Chief Inspector Babcock sends his regards.”
“How is he?”
“Recovering.” Duncan said it lightly, but she heard his relief. She studied her brother, realizing that for the first time, free of the lens of resentment, she was seeing him as he really was. He was no superman to be lived up to, but just an ordinary man—although sometimes an annoying one—with troubles of his own. And she loved him.
“I’m glad about your friend Ronnie,” she said. Then, “Duncan, what will happen to Caspar? Will he go to prison?”
“I don’t know. His sentencing might be lenient if he makes a good plea for disturbance of the balance of his mind, especially as, so far, the police have found no evidence linking him to Piers’s fraud scheme.” He looked away, then went on a little awkwardly. “Jules, I’m sorry—”
“No. Don’t say it. You were right. Even though Piers wasn’t guilty of murder, he deserved to be caught out.”
He nodded. “What will you do—about Caspar, I mean? Mum s
says he’s been ringing every day, wanting to reconcile. Will you take him back?”
She watched a car travel down the farm lane and disappear round a curve as she thought about it. “No. I might forgive what he did to me, eventually. But the children—he twisted them. He played them against me for his own emotional gratification. I should have stopped it long ago, but I didn’t. It’s going to take a lot of work on my part to remedy the damage.”
She had begun that very morning, taking Lally into the upstairs bathroom and locking the door. She pulled the bags Gemma had given her from her pocket, and when Lally’s startled eyes met hers, she’d emptied both bags carefully into the toilet and pulled the chain.
“No more,” she said. “From now on, I’m going to be watching you like a hawk, and if I even suspect you’re doing anything like this, I’ll lock you up until you’re toothless. Is that understood?”
Lally nodded, wordlessly, but the relief in her eyes had been clear.
Now the front door opened and Lally came out with Geordie scampering at her heels. She’d been grooming him, with instructions from Kit, and the little dog’s silky coat glistened in the sun.
“He’s lovely, isn’t he, Mum?” called out Lally, and when Juliet saw the uncomplicated smile of pleasure on her daughter’s face, she thought that perhaps all things were possible, even new beginnings.
Gemma sat at the kitchen table drinking tea with Rosemary. The past few days had been good, and it surprised her now that she had ever wondered if she would fit in here. Even Juliet seemed to have forgiven her breach of confidence, and had hugged her tightly when she and Sam and Lally had left just after their New Year’s lunch.
Duncan had gone with Kit to take Tess and Geordie for a last walk, and Hugh, who had taken Toby under his wing as if he were his own grandchild, was leading the little boy round and round the
field on one of the Shetland ponies. Even from the kitchen she could hear Jack’s barks and Toby’s shrieks of excitement, and was grateful for the pony’s placid temperament.
“They’re getting on well, aren’t they?” said Rosemary, echoing her thoughts. “Hugh’s missed having little ones, with Lally and Sam getting older.”
“He’s good with the children.”
“Too good, I sometimes think,” answered Rosemary, laughing.
“He’s a child at heart. I don’t suppose that’s altogether a bad thing, although there have been times when it has tried my patience sorely.
But we’ve rubbed off on each other, over the years.” She set down her cup and studied Gemma as if debating something, then said, “It’s been good to see you and Duncan together. You’re truly partners, in a way that he and Victoria never were. Nor could they have been, I think, even if things had turned out differently.”
Gemma flushed. She had always supposed Duncan’s parents would compare her to Vic, and find her lacking. “I—”
But Rosemary cut her off, shaking her head. “Forgive my being blunt, but it’s a gift, what you and Duncan have. It shouldn’t be taken lightly. It’s a balancing act, I know, juggling the different pieces of your life, but don’t let this pass you by, or let loss harden you against it.”
Gemma went still inside, and when she met the older woman’s gaze she felt as if she had been stripped naked, and was suddenly ashamed.
Then Rosemary smiled. “He’s not perfect, I admit, even though he is my son. But then I should think perfection would be very hard to live with.”
They took the footpath across the field, towards the Middlewich Junction, letting the dogs run free. The ground had begun to dry and the going was easier than it had been in the snow.
Tess stayed close to Kit, her eyes on her master, but Geordie zig-zagged in front of them, sniffi ng the ground excitedly. Then a low-flying bird caught the cocker spaniel’s eye and he froze, his docked tail straight out, one paw raised.
“Look, he’s pointing,” said Kit. “He does that at home when he sees squirrels.”
“Cocker spaniels are flushing dogs, not pointers,” Kincaid commented, “but he doesn’t seem to know the difference.”
He surveyed the rolling Cheshire landscape with a pang, wondering when he would see it again, and why he had waited so long to come back. Glancing at his son, he asked, “Do you like it here?”
“Yes. It reminds me of Grantchester, a bit.” Then Kit added thoughtfully, “But I’m not sure I’d want to be reminded, not all the time. And I miss our house, and Wesley, and the park, and the market on Saturday—”
“Okay, okay,” Kincaid said, smiling. “I get it. I’m glad. I miss it, too. I’ll be glad to get home.”
They walked on in easy silence, then, as they climbed down to the Middlewich towpath, Kit said, “Will Lally be all right?”
Kincaid considered what to say. “I think so. But it wouldn’t hurt to keep in touch, let her know you’re there. She is your cousin, after all.”
When they reached Barbridge he stopped, looking down the Shropshire Union and thinking of the associations that stretch of the canal must have for Kit, and would have now for him, as well. “We should go back.”
But Kit surprised him, saying, “No. I want to go on, just for a bit.”
“All right.” Kincaid shrugged assent, wondering if this was Kit’s way of laying his demons to rest. The dogs ran ahead and Kincaid follow
ed his son’s determined stride as they left pub and moorings behind. The curving reaches of the cut looked enchanted in the early-afternoon sunlight, a place of dreaming stillness, impervious to violence.
Kit’s steps slowed as they rounded a now-familiar curve and saw the Horizon still at her mooring. The crime-scene tape was gone, but the blinds were tightly closed, and it seemed to Kincaid that the boat had already taken on a neglected air.
“What will happen to her?” asked Kit.
“I should imagine Roger Constantine will sell the boat, after a time. I can’t imagine that he would want to use it. It’s too much Annie’s.”
“Ghosts,” Kit said softly, and with a last look, called the dogs and turned away.
Glancing at the boy’s quiet face, Kincaid asked the question that had been haunting him. “Kit, when you said those things to Leo, about Annie not deserving to die, you were thinking of your mum, too, weren’t you?
“I suppose I was,” Kit admitted, and after a moment added, “It’s funny. The dreams have stopped.”
“What dreams?”
“I’d been having dreams, about Mum, for a long time. Bad ones.
Every night.” His expression told Kincaid he wasn’t going to say more.
“But not since the night with Leo?”
Kit shook his head. “Is it true what you said that night, that nothing will happen to him?”
“No. Now that the police know he was responsible for those deaths, they’ll do all they can to find evidence that will tie Leo to the crimes. And I don’t think a court will let him off lightly.”
“It’s not enough.”
“No.”
“He’ll hurt someone else, eventually. He likes it.”
Startled by his son’s insight, Kincaid said, “Yes, I suspect he does. But we’ll do our best to stop him doing more damage.”
Kit nodded and walked on without speaking, but his silence was companionable, so Kincaid ventured, “I know it must seem a minor s
thing now, but about school . . . Do you want to tell me why you were having trouble? Besides the dreams?”
Shrugging, Kit said, “There were these boys. They were bullying me. But it doesn’t seem important now.” He looked up at Kincaid.
“You know what Leo said, there at the last? Well, it’s not true. He didn’t win. I did.”
Epilogue
“Good God,” said Althea Elsworthy. “How on earth did the boatmen ever get their horses across this thing? The beasts must have been terrifi ed.”
“I expect they used blinders,” answered Gabriel. “Might be useful for people as well,” he added, with a hint of teasing.
They stood in the stern well deck of the Daphne, Gabriel holding the tiller, Althea on one side and the children on the other. They were crossing the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct over the Dee Gorge on a crisp, clear day in early February. The great stone pillars of Thomas Telford’s engineering marvel spanned over a thousand feet, one hun-dred and twenty-six dizzying feet above the ground.
“Rowan loved this place,” Gabriel went on. “She was born not far from Wrexham, and she always said she felt freer here than anyplace else in the world.”
The great iron trough was just a bit wider than the seven- foot boat, flanked on one side by the towpath the nineteenth-century boatmen had needed for the sturdy horses that pulled the boats.
Now people walked the towpath for the thrill, but Althea thought she was doing very well to let herself be carried across in what s
seemed the relative safety of the boat’s well deck. She had a mission, however, and was not about to be deterred by a small discomfort with heights.
On a bench at her side rested two urns, one large, one small.
They had come to disperse mother’s and daughter’s ashes over the expanse of the Dee Gorge.
Rowan had died in her own bed on the Daphne in mid-January, with Gabriel and the children at her side, and Althea standing by to make her passing as comfortable as possible. She had been at peace, Althea thought, knowing her children were safe, and no longer burdened by a secret grief. When she still had the strength to talk, she’d made Althea promise to take in hand the children’s education.
“The world’s changing,” she said. “We were the last of our generation, and past our time. The children will need to make a life outside the boats, and for that they need proper schooling.”
“I could help Gabriel find steady work here, so that the children can enroll in school,” Althea had agreed, liking the thought of continuing her connection with the children, and with Gabriel, whom she had come to like and respect.
“Unless you want to teach them yourself. That boyfriend the children have told me about could help you—”
“If you mean Paul, he’s no such thing,” Althea had protested, but she had flushed, and Rowan had smiled, pleased. Soon after that she had drifted into the twilight of coma, and then she had slipped away.
Althea had paid for Rowan’s cremation. She had also, after a visit with Ronnie Babcock before Rowan’s death, paid for the cremation of the remains of Baby Jane Doe. None of her colleagues knew what she had done for Rowan, and if anyone thought it odd that she had claimed responsibility for the body of the unidentified child, they hadn’t remarked on it.
Rowan had not questioned Althea’s knowledge of the child’s identity, and had seemed to find solace in knowing her baby would at last have the acknowledgment she deserved.
Gabriel, however, had required an explanation.
“It’s in his hands, then,” he’d said with a stoic resignation, when Althea had explained about Babcock.
“Yes. But he’s a good man, Ronnie Babcock, and he was a friend of Annie Constantine. He’ll not bring any harm to you and the children.” After that, there had been an easing in Gabriel, even through his grief over Rowan.
“Are we at the middle yet?” asked Joseph, who had been watching their progress across the aqueduct carefully. Gabriel checked aft, to make certain there were no boats coming behind them, then killed the Daphne’s engine. The boat drifted to a stop, suspended in the air.
At first the silence seemed absolute, then gradually Althea’s ears became attuned to the sigh of the wind, the twitter of birds below, and what she imagined was the very faint groaning of the structure that supported them, almost as if the bridge were breathing.
“Are you ready?” asked Gabriel, and the children nodded, their faces solemn. Gabriel handed them their mother’s urn, and took little Marie’s for himself. Together they removed the seals and, at a nod from Gabriel, let the ashes drift into space.
They all watched in silence until the last particle vanished, then Althea took a small box from her coat pocket. She had made a request of Roger Constantine, and although puzzled, he’d willingly complied.
Now Althea lifted the lid from the box, and with a swing of her arm, scattered the contents as Gabriel and the children had done.
“Top of the world, Annie,” she said.
Ac knowledgments
Thanks to all the usual suspects: my husband, Rick; my daughter, Kayti; my agent, Nancy Yost, for her unfailing support, acumen, and good humor; everyone at William Morrow whose combined efforts bring a novel to life—my incomparable editor, Carrie Feron; also Lisa Gallagher; Tessa Woodward; Danielle Bartlett; Virginia Stan-ley; Christine Wheeler; and Victoria Mathews, whose copyediting no doubt made Water Like a Stone a better book.
My readers are indefatigable: Steve Copling, Dale Denton, Jim Evans, Viqui Litman, and Gigi Norwood, patient members of the Every Other Tuesday Night Writers’ Group; my friends Diana Sulli-van Hale, Marcia Talley, Kate Charles, Tracy Ricketts, and Theresa Badylak, all of whom read the manuscript and offered advice and encouragement.
On the other side of the Pond, thanks to Sarah Turner at Pan Mac-millan, Arabella Stein at Abner Stein, and all those who provided information or hospitality; Richard Abraham, fi nancial investigation officer, North West Surrey Fraud Team, Surrey Police; Neil and Kathy Ritchie at T
ilston Lodge, Tilston, Cheshire; Georgina West at Stoke Grange Farm, Barbridge, Cheshire; and the Olde Barbridge Inn, S ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Barbridge, Cheshire, and the Salt City Jazzmen, to whom I hope I’ve done justice. (If the Olde Barbridge Inn doesn’t have a mummer’s play on Boxing Day, they should!)
And a special thanks to illustrator Laura Maestro, who has once again graced my book with her enchanting map.
Any mistakes I have made in procedure or geography are entirely my own.
About the Author
was born and educated in Texas.
After living in both England and Scotland, she wrote her first novel, A Share in Death, which was nominated for both an Agatha and a Macavity. Her fifth novel, Dreaming of the Bones, was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, and was chosen by the Independent Mystery Booksellers of America as one of the Best Crime Novels of the Century.
Her novels have been published in Japan, Ger-many, Italy, Norway, the Netherlands, France, the Czech Republic, and the United Kingdom. Crombie travels to England several times a year, and has been a featured speaker at St. Hilda’s College, Oxford.
She lives in a small North Texas town, sharing a turn-of-the-century house with her husband, her seventeen-year-old daughter, three cats, and a German shepherd.
www.deborahcrombie.com
Also by
A Share in Death
All Shall Be Well
Leave the Grave Green
Mourn Not Your Dead
Dreaming of the Bones
Kissed a Sad Goodbye
A Finer End
And Justice There Is None
Now May You Weep
In a Dark House
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