A Finer End

pedestrians in order to stay beside him, his shoulder brushing Kincaid’s arm in comfortable contact. Kincaid thought of the time just a few short months ago when the precariousness of their relationship had made every word or touch a potential hazard. There was still the occasional minefield, but they’d come a long way.

As he looked down at his son’s fair head, he realized that one day soon he would no longer be able to look down at Kit, full stop. As yet, Kit had not outgrown childish things, and for that Kincaid was eminently grateful. Kit’s friend Nathan Winter had given the boy a microscope for his birthday, and their agenda for the morrow was collecting pond-water samples on Hampstead Heath. Girls and rock music would intervene soon enough; in the meantime, Kincaid had a lot of making up to do.

His marriage to Kit’s mother had ended stormily and abruptly, and it was not until a few months ago that Kincaid had learned Vic had been pregnant when they separated. She’d been having an affair with one of her professors and had subsequently married him, passing the child off as his. It must have been obvious to her very early on that the boy was not Ian McClellan’s son, but Kincaid’s. Whether she’d meant to confess as much when she’d contacted him last spring, Kincaid would never know.

She had been killed just a few weeks after she’d asked his help in the investigation of another death, leaving him with the sense of much unfinished between them.

Now as he looked at Kit matching him stride for stride, he realized it no longer shocked him to see a younger version of himself. Nor did the boy’s resemblance to Vic—her smile, her gestures, her mannerisms—cause him as much pain as it had in the first weeks after her death.

In due course, they reached Piccadilly Circus and from there made their way down Piccadilly towards Hyde Park. As they walked, some of Kit’s excitement infected Kincaid and he remembered how glorious he’d found the city when he’d first come to London two decades earlier. Kit met his eyes and they shared a smile of sheer delight in the bustle and color of it all.

By the time they reached the Hard Rock Cafe, they were warm and ravenous. They emerged from the cafe an hour later, replete with cheeseburgers, French fries, and chocolate milkshakes, and with Kit in possession of a much-coveted T-shirt proclaiming the London Hard Rock as the Original.

Across Piccadilly, Green Park beckoned, and they soon found a choice spot to stretch out in the grass. People sprawled on blankets or in awning-striped deck chairs, making the most of summer’s end. Although Kincaid usually found it difficult to relax in a public place, the sun soaked into his skin like a drug and his eyelids began to droop.

He came awake with a start when Kit rolled over on his stomach and declared, “I wish we could have brought Tess.” Kit gestured at the number of dogs walking or trotting beside their masters, chasing Frisbees or just panting happily in the sun.

“We couldn’t have done the videos, then,” Kincaid reminded him, rousing himself.

“I know. I’m not complaining. It’s just nice here, that’s all.” Kit chewed a blade of the springy grass meditatively. “It’s sort of like wanting it to be just the two of us, but at the same time missing Gemma and Toby.”

“That’s why Zen philosophers teach concentrating on the moment. Otherwise you miss now because you’re too busy wanting other things.”

“Are you good at that—what did you call it?”

“Concentrating on the moment? I don’t do it half as well as I’d like. But you’ve helped me be better.”

“Me?”

“When I’m with you, I don’t want to think about stuff like work. So when something niggly crops up in my head, I just think, Go away. And usually it does.”

“But it doesn’t stop you missing Gemma, does it?”

The question caught Kincaid like a punch. He stared at his son. Kit usually approached emotional issues with crablike self-protectiveness. “No,” he said, surprised into honesty. “It doesn’t.”

“I don’t understand why she had to go away.”

“She’s off on a training course, Kit. You know that.”

“But why’d she have to put in for a promotion? Why couldn’t she just leave things the way they were?”

Why indeed, Kincaid thought bitterly. Oh, he knew all the rational arguments—he had even given them lip service—but in his heart he felt as abandoned and unhappy as Kit. She had left him, and days on the job without her company seemed interminable. The succession of temporary assistants only made him more irritable. At least when Gemma returned from Bramshill they’d have some off-duty time together, depending on her posting, but there would be no replacement for their partnership. “It’s something she needed to do,” he said, hearing the lack of conviction in his voice.

Kit scowled at him, unmollified. “So why can’t you just get married, and we could be like a … you know, a regular family?”

“That’s not in the cards,” Kincaid said, more sharply than he’d intended. Gemma had made that quite clear, and he’d done his best to be content with what they had. Neither of them, after all, had made a success of marriage the first time round, and now that Gemma had separated herself from him so deliberately, he felt even less certainty about their future.

But what had got into Kit? Their relationship as father and son was still a touchy subject, and this was the first time he’d heard Kit directly acknowledge that they were—or could possibly be—family. “Is something going on with Ian, Kit?” he asked, studying the boy’s averted face. Kit spent the week with the man he had known for almost twelve years as his father, Ian McClellan, and most weekends with Kincaid.

Kit chewed his lip, his eyes half shielded by the wayward lock of hair that fell across his forehead. “I’m not supposed to know. But I saw the letter, and I’ve heard him talking on the phone.”

“What letter?”

“The one from the university in Quebec. Offering him a job. ‘… his academic career, more opportunities, blah, blah …’ What they mean is more money.”

“And you think Ian means to accept?”