Avoiding an answer that would implicate Sergeant Patterson, he said, “What I’d like to know is why you didn’t tell me. If there was some relationship between Rebecca Meredith and DAC Craig, it seems the fact that Craig lives a mile from where Meredith’s body was found might be relevant. That’s a bit of a coincidence, don’t you think?”
“Sarcasm doesn’t become you, Duncan. And you’re shooting in the dark, aren’t you?” Childs looked at him speculatively. “You don’t really know anything.” Then he sighed and folded his pudgy hands together on the pristine surface of his large and shiny desk. “But I know you well enough to know that you won’t leave it alone now.”
“Leave what alone, exactly?”
“Something that I’d hoped would not become an issue. Something that needs to be handled very delicately. I wouldn’t say that DCI Meredith had a relationship with Craig. But she had made certain . . . allegations . . . regarding Craig’s behavior towards her. I’m sure they have nothing to do with her death, but if they became public knowledge, it could be very ugly for the Met.”
“Ugly?” Kincaid thought of the sight of Rebecca Meredith’s body. “I can’t think of many things uglier than what looks like the murder of one of our senior officers. I think you’d better tell me exactly what’s going on here, Denis. What sort of allegations are you talking about?”
Pushing back his chair, Childs said, “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Duncan, sit down. You’re giving me a headache looming over me like that.”
Reluctantly, Kincaid pulled out the steel and leather visitor’s chair and sat on the edge.
Childs pursed his lips, as if sampling something unpleasant. “A year ago, DCI Meredith told Peter Gaskill that Angus Craig had offered her a lift after some sort of do—a leaving party, I think. He said her cottage was on his way, and when they arrived, he asked to come in for a moment. And then he—assaulted—her.”
Kincaid had never seen his boss hesitate over a word choice before. “That’s media-speak—assaulted. What exactly did Rebecca Meredith say?”
“She said”—Childs turned his chair slightly, so that he was facing the window rather than looking directly at Kincaid—“she said he raped her. And then—at least according to Meredith—he told her that if she made a complaint, she would lose her job. She had a DNA sample taken, then went to Gaskill.”
“And what,” Kincaid asked, “did Superintendent Gaskill do about it?”
Childs swiveled towards him again, his expression pained. “Peter Gaskill told her the sensible thing, which was that if her allegations were made public, the whole affair would degenerate into a he said–she said slanging match. She had no way to prove that the sex was not consensual and that she hadn’t afterwards changed her mind. It would tarnish the reputation of the force, and it would ruin her career. No male officer would want her anywhere near his team.
“He promised her that Craig would be asked to retire immediately, and quietly, so that no other female officers would be put at risk, and that Craig would receive some sort of censure within the Met.”
Kincaid simply stared at him. “You’re not serious.”
The usually unflappable Childs frowned at him and snapped, “Could you have come up with a better solution, Duncan? The force has had enough negative publicity the last few years—you know that. Senior officers have made public accusations of racism, sexual intolerance, and incompetence against their peers. Rebecca Meredith’s story would have been disastrous. And it would have ruined her career without accomplishing anything.”
Kincaid felt as though he couldn’t breathe. “But now she’s dead, so there’s no need to worry about her career, I take it? And what about other female officers? Or other women, for that matter?”
“You’re assuming that Meredith’s allegations were true. We have no way of knowing that. Craig denied it, of course.”
“Of course he did.” Kincaid stood, as if movement might contain his rising temper. “Why would Meredith make up something like that? That would have been suicidal.
“And Craig didn’t take immediate retirement, by the way—I looked it up this afternoon. He only stepped down two weeks ago. He’s still listed as a consultant. Oh, and he just happened to receive honors. That’s some censure.
“Becca Meredith must have been livid when she found out. And felt horribly betrayed by her superiors.”
A furrow creased Childs’s wide brow. He straightened the Montblanc on his leather desk blotter before he met Kincaid’s eyes. “Don’t blow this out of proportion, Duncan. There’s a bit more to it. Rebecca Meredith made life difficult for herself, and for those around her, as I’m sure you will come to see. And she had her own agenda. She wanted to row, and she wanted to do it on a fully funded leave of absence.”
“I don’t believe this,” Kincaid said, looking at Childs in astonishment. “Are you telling me that Rebecca Meredith was blackmailing the Met?”
“I’m saying that an offer had been made to her, and that she was considering it.”
“An offer.” Had Rebecca Meredith wanted to row that badly? Or had she just been looking for a way to salvage something from the damage Craig had done to her life? “And if she had turned it down?” he asked.
“Then we would all have dealt with the consequences.” Childs gave a weighty sigh.
Kincaid turned away and walked to the window. Without looking at his boss, he said, “Why, exactly, were you so determined that I should take this case?”
“Because you’re my best officer. Because I thought you could get to the bottom of things. And I thought I could count on you to be discreet.”
It was fully dark, and rain had begun to fall, blurring the lights of Victoria and Westminster beyond. Kincaid gazed out the window, struggling to find coherent words through the haze of his anger. “Angus Craig had both the motive and the physical proximity to have murdered Rebecca Meredith. Did you expect me to ignore that?”
“I expected you to do your job professionally and thoroughly. I still do. And I expect you not to make unsubstantiated allegations against another officer.
“And now,” added Childs, levering his still considerable bulk up from his chair, “I’m afraid I’ve got family obligations. Diane’s sister has come to stay for a fortnight. Damned nuisance.” He moved towards the door, but turned back as he reached it. “Oh, and Duncan, I expect you to keep me informed.”
Kincaid had been dismissed.
“ ‘O Mouse, do you know the way out of this pool?’ ” read Kincaid a few hours later, doing his best to sound like Alice. “ ‘I am very tired of swimming about—’ ”
“No.” Charlotte slipped her hand under his and turned the pages back. “Read t’other part again.”
“You mean the part about the little girl who was covered from her toes to her nose?” He sat at the head of her small white bed, book in his lap, and she had scooted over to make room for him.
Having left the Yard straight after his interview with Denis Childs, he’d come home to find the household in the full chaotic flow of evening routine.
“What are you doing home?” Gemma had asked when he’d finally managed to kiss her, having been boisterously greeted by both the dogs and the younger children. “I thought you’d be back in Henley for at least another night.”
“Got a date with the milkman again?” he’d quipped.
But Gemma had seen his face. Frowning, she said, “What’s happened? Is—”
He’d shaken his head as Toby broke in. “Who’s the milkman? We don’t have a milkman.”
“Never you mind,” Kincaid told him. “And don’t interrupt your mum.”
Toby was undeterred. “Kit’s making a stir-fry. He let me chop. Want to help?”
“Help you chop your fingers off? Of course I do.” And so he had let the current of home life sweep him up while he tried to sort out his thoughts.
It had been his turn to read to Charlotte while Gemma gave Toby his bath. It was Charlotte who had chosen the book, Kit’s ol
d copy, found on the sitting-room bookshelf. Kincaid had raised an eyebrow at Gemma when he saw it. “Isn’t she a bit young for Alice?”
Gemma shrugged. “Not according to her. She won’t have anything else at the moment. And I’m rather liking it.”
“You didn’t read it as a child?” he’d asked, surprised. But Gemma’s family had not been readers, and the children’s books were proving a voyage of discovery for her.
Now Charlotte giggled as he pulled the duvet up to the tip of her nose, but she promptly tugged it down again and tapped the book. “No. The Drink Me part.”
Obediently, he found the right page and began. “ ‘What a curious feeling!’ said Alice, ‘I must be shutting up like a telescope.’
“And so it was indeed: she was now only ten inches high, and her face brightened up at the thought that she was now the right size for going through the little door into that lovely garden. First, however, she waited for a few minutes to see if she was going to shrink any further: she felt a little nervous about this, ‘for it might end, you know,’ said Alice to herself, ‘in my going out altogether, like a candle. I wonder what I should be like then?’ ”
“Poof,” Kincaid interjected, and blew out an imaginary flame.
“You put that in,” said Charlotte. “That’s not fair, making things up.”
“The man who wrote the story, Lewis Carroll, made it all up. The whole thing.”
Charlotte’s eyes grew big, then she shook her head. “Even Alice?”
“Including Alice.”
“No,” Charlotte said with absolute certainty. “That’s silly. It’s Alice’s story. Do you think Alice liked getting littler?”
Kincaid gave the question consideration. “I don’t know. Would you?”
Charlotte shook her head. “No. I want to get bigger.”
This gave Kincaid a pang, but he said, “Then you should close your eyes and go to sleep, because the sooner it’s tomorrow, the closer it will be to your birthday.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“All right.” Charlotte shut her eyes tight, but after a moment they flew open again. “Will you stay until I’m fast asleep?”
“Yes. I promise.”
“Will you check on me after?”
“Yes. Now snuggle up, and sweet dreams.” He pulled up the duvet again, and this time Charlotte covered his hand with hers and kept it tucked under her chin.
After a moment, her eyelids fluttered, then closed, and to his amazement he felt her hand relax and saw that she was drawing the deep regular breaths of sleep.
Looking down at her hand atop his, he thought he had never seen anything so lovely. Her tiny, pale brown fingers were loosely curled, her nails like pink pearls. He felt such wonder that this child had come unexpectedly into his life, and that she had begun to love him. And he never wanted to do anything that would make him less than the father she deserved.
Very, very gently, he brushed his lips against her cheek and eased his hand free.
Looking up, he saw Gemma standing in the doorway, watching them. She smiled. “You’re a miracle worker.”
“It was Alice.” He stood. “What about Toby?”
“Reading something a bit less challenging. A Pirates of the Caribbean comic.”
“As long as it’s not the Daily Mirror.”
“Not yet, anyway.” She studied him. “Come down to the kitchen. I’m just going to put the kettle on, and you’re going to tell me what happened today.”
They sat in the kitchen, the dogs settled contentedly under their feet. Gemma’s Clarice Cliff teapot held pride of place on the table between them, but they drank out of chipped, mismatched mugs, treasures acquired on Saturday browses through Portobello Market. Kincaid had checked on Toby and Kit, and then, when he’d taken the dogs out, he’d discovered that it was still raining lightly and that the temperature had dropped. The kitchen’s dark blue Aga radiated a comforting heat.
Marshaling his thoughts, he told Gemma everything they’d learned that morning about Rebecca Meredith’s death, and then, more slowly, he related the gist of his conversation with Denis Childs. “I don’t want to take this case,” he said when he’d finished.
“You’d resign as SIO?” Gemma looked shocked. “But you can’t.”
“I’m supposed to be going on leave, in case you’ve forgotten.”
She sighed. “No, of course not. And I want you finished with this as much as you do. But to walk away from a case like this—you know what it would do to your career.”
“Would you have me . . . adjust”—his lips twisted—“the direction of an investigation to protect a senior officer in the Met?”
“No, but—” Gemma met his eyes with the honest gaze he loved. “What about Rebecca Meredith? Don’t you want to know who killed her? Doesn’t she deserve an answer, regardless of the consequences?”
“You do realize just how bad the consequences could be if it turns out that Craig killed her? And what we have at stake?” His gesture took in the house, and the children snug in their rooms upstairs.
Gemma divided the dregs of the pot between their cups, then added the last of the milk from the little Clarice Cliff jug. After a moment, she said, “I have more faith in Denis Childs than that. This senior officer—what did you say his name was? Craig?”
“Angus Craig. A good Scottish name that I’d be inclined to like under other circumstances, but—” He broke off when he saw Gemma wasn’t listening. “What—”
“Sandy-haired? Not too tall, a bit burly?” Her voice had gone up an octave.
“I’ve only met him a few times, but that would describe him. Why—”
“Oh, my God.” Gemma’s eyes were wide. “Rebecca Meredith said he offered her a lift, then asked to come in to use the loo?”
“Yes. Gemma, what—”
She stopped him, her words coming out in a rush. “It was after I’d passed my sergeant’s exam, a month or two before I was assigned to you. I went to a party at a pub in Victoria. I don’t remember the occasion—it very well may have been a leaving do for someone—but I was encouraged to go by some new mates at the Yard.
“All in all, a nice enough evening, but by the time things broke up, it was pissing down rain. I hadn’t taken my car in because I didn’t want to drink and drive, and as the group was breaking up someone said the Central Line to Leyton had been shut down.” Gemma hesitated. “He offered me a lift.”
“You mean Craig?”
“One and the same, I’m certain of it. He was very—solicitous. Courteous in a sort of paternal way. And a deputy assistant commissioner to boot . . . I suppose I was flattered.” She swallowed and rotated her mug a quarter turn on the scrubbed pine table. “So I accepted. We made chitchat on the drive, about nothing in particular. Films, I think. Then, when we got to Leyton, he asked if he could come in. He’d said he wasn’t over the limit, but he’d had a pint or two, and you know, he’d gone a bit out of his way to drive me home and he needed to use the loo.
“So I said of course, although I was horrified thinking of the state of the house, and I invited him in.”
Kincaid shifted uneasily in his chair, disturbing Geordie, their cocker spaniel, who had been sleeping on his feet. Geordie gave a disgruntled whumf and resettled himself. “Go on,” Kincaid said tightly, not taking his eyes from Gemma’s face. He didn’t like where this was going at all.
“I hadn’t said anything about my personal situation—why would I, to a senior officer I didn’t know? I was uncomfortable enough with being a newly divorced single mother, and I was hoping it wouldn’t damage my career prospects.” She glanced at him, then looked away. “So I suppose he assumed I was alone.
“But that night my mum had come over to look after Toby, and of course Toby had thrown a total wobbly and had refused to go down. So when Craig walked into the house and saw my mum pacing the sitting room with a red-faced, tear-streaked toddler over her shoulder, he turned round and walked right back out again
with barely a good night.
“I thought it was odd, but that maybe he was embarrassed at having asked to use the loo, or that maybe he thought he’d step in a dirty nappie if he came any further.” She shrugged. “And then I forgot about it. I never ran into him after that. But—”
“But what?” said Kincaid, feeling cold. He knew he was constructing the same scenario.
“What if my mum hadn’t been there that night? What if—what if Angus Craig meant to do to me what he did to Rebecca Meredith?”
By the time Kieran made it back to the boatshed, it was well past dark. Soaked through and shivering, he felt light-headed, as if his brain was disconnected from his body. His ears had begun to ring, which was often a sign that the vertigo was about to get worse.
Switching on a light, he rubbed Finn’s wet coat with a towel, then poured the dog some dry food. But the thought of making something for himself brought the hovering nausea on again.
When had he last eaten? The protein bar before they’d started yesterday’s search? No wonder he was feeling wonky.
He sank down onto the camp bed, images stuttering through his mind like frames in a bad film reel. He knew he should get dry, at least, but the steps required to achieve such a simple thing seemed beyond his capabilities.
And he knew he should tell someone what he had seen, but who?
He didn’t think Tavie would even talk to him, much less hear him out. The policeman from the Yard? He’d seemed like the sort of man who might listen, but Kieran didn’t know how to get in touch. He couldn’t imagine trying to explain himself to an officer at the local nick, even if he could get himself there.
His head swam and he gripped the edge of the bed, bracing for the onset of full-tilt vertigo. When it didn’t come, he breathed a sigh of relief. Finn finished the last scrap of his food and came over to lie on the floor at his feet, head on his paws, eyes intent on Kieran’s face.
Kieran waited, counting to himself. The seconds passed. He began to think that maybe he was going to be okay—or at least well enough to clean himself up, then get down a sandwich and some coffee. Then maybe he could work out what to do about the man on the bank.
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