that?”
Caroline turned to her husband, hand out in a gesture of supplication. “Gerald—”
He looked away.
In the silence that followed, a gust of wind blew a spatter of rain against the window, and the fire flared up in response. Kincaid met Gemma’s eyes. He nodded slightly and she came to stand beside him. He said, “I’m sorry, Dame Caroline, but I’m afraid you’ll need to come with us to High Wycombe and make a formal statement. You can come in your own car, if you like, Sir Gerald, and wait for her.”
Julia looked at her parents. What judgment would she pass on them, wondered Kincaid, now that they had revealed themselves as all too fallibly human, and flawed?
For the first time Julia’s hand strayed to her cheek. She went to Gerald and briefly touched his arm. “I’ll wait for you here, Daddy,” she said, then she turned away and left the room without another glance at her mother.
When they had rung High Wycombe and organized the preliminaries, Kincaid excused himself and slipped out of the sitting room. By the time he reached the top landing he had to catch his breath, and he felt a welcome ache in his calves. He tapped lightly on the door of Julia’s studio and opened it.
She stood in the center of the room, holding an open box in her arms and looking about her. “Plummy’s cleaned up after me, can you tell?” she said as he came in.
It did look uncharacteristically clean and lifeless, as if the removal of Julia’s attendant clutter had stripped it of its heart.
“There’s nothing left I need, really. I suppose what I wanted was to say good-bye.” She gestured around the room with her chin. The mark of her mother’s hand stood out clearly now, fiery against the pale skin of her cheek. “I won’t be back here again. Not in the same way. This was a child’s refuge.”
“Yes,” said Kincaid. She would move on now, into her own life. “You’ll be all right.”
“I know.” They looked at one another and he understood that he would not see her again, that their coming together had served its purpose. He would move on now as well, perhaps take a leaf from Gemma’s book—she had been hurt, as he had, but she had put it behind her with the forthright practicality he so admired.
After a moment, Julia said, “What will happen to my mother?”
“I don’t know. It depends on the forensic evidence, but even if we turned up something fairly concrete, I doubt we’ll make anything stiffer than involuntary manslaughter stick.”
She nodded.
Near to the eaves as they were, the sound of the rain beating against the roof came clearly, and the wind rattled the windows like a beast seeking entrance. “Julia, I’m sorry.”
“You mustn’t be. You only did your job, and what you knew was right. You couldn’t violate your integrity to protect me, or my family. There’s been enough of that in this house,” she said firmly. “Are you sorry about what happened with us, as well?” she added, with a trace of a smile.
Was he sorry? For ten years he had kept his emotions safely, tightly reined, until he had almost forgotten how it felt to give another person access. Julia had forced his hand, made him see himself in the mirror of her isolation, and what he found frightened him. But probing beyond the fear, he felt a new and unexpected sense of freedom, even of anticipation.
He smiled back at Julia. “No.”
CHAPTER
16
“We should have taken the Midget,” Kincaid said testily as Gemma pulled the Escort up in front of the Carlingford Road flat.
“You know as well as I do that the bloody thing leaks in the rain,” she retorted, glaring at him. She felt as miserable and bedraggled as a cat forced into the bath, and he wasn’t much of an improvement. As she watched, a rivulet of water trickled down his forehead from his matted hair.
He wiped it away with the back of his hand, then burst out laughing. “Gemma, look at us. How can you be so stubborn?”
After what seemed an interminable session at High Wycombe, they had started back to London on the M40, only to have a puncture before they reached the North Circular Road. Gemma had pulled over to the verge and plunged out into the driving rain, refusing his help in changing the tire. He had stood in the rain, arguing with her while she worked, so that in the end they were both soaked to the skin.
“It’s too late to collect Toby tonight,” he said. “Come in and get some dry things on before you catch your death, and have something proper to eat. Please.”
After a moment, she said, “All right,” but the words she’d meant to be acquiescent came out grudging and sullen. Her bad temper seemed to be out of control, feeding on itself, and she didn’t know how to break the cycle.
They didn’t bother with umbrellas as they crossed the road to Kincaid’s building—how could they get any more wet, after all?—and the pellets of water stung against her skin.
When they reached the flat, Kincaid went straight to the kitchen, leaving a dripping trail on the carpet. He pulled an already uncorked bottle of white wine from the fridge and poured two glasses. Handing her one, he said, “Start on this. It will warm you up from the inside. Sorry I haven’t anything stronger. And in the meantime I’ll get you something dry to put on.”
He left her standing in the sitting room holding her glass, too wet to sit down, too exhausted to sort out her own feelings. Was she angry with him because of Julia? She had felt a communion between them, an understanding that excluded her, and the strength of her reaction dismayed her.
She tasted the wine, then drank half the glass. Chill in her mouth, it did seem to generate some warmth in her middle.
