“Mum?” he called softly from the top of the stairs. Since Ian’s disappearance, Kit had begun checking on her, as if afraid she might vanish, too. And he’d been having nightmares. She’d heard him whimper in his sleep, but when she questioned him about it he’d merely shaken his head in stoic pride.
“Be up in a tic. Go back to sleep, love.” The old house groaned, responding to his footsteps, then seemed to settle itself to sleep again. With a sigh Vic turned back to the computer and pulled her hair from her face. If she didn’t stop she wouldn’t be able to get up for her early tutorial, but she couldn’t seem to let go of that last image of Lydia. Something was nagging at her, something that didn’t quite fit, and then with a feeling of quiet surprise she realized what it was, and what she must do about it.
Now. Tonight. Before she lost her nerve.
Pulling a London telephone book from the shelf above her desk, she looked up the number and wrote it down, deliberately, conscious of breathing in and out through her nose, conscious of her heart beating. She picked up the phone and dialed.
Gemma James put down the pen and wiggled her fingers, then raised her hand to her mouth to cover a yawn. She’d never thought she’d get her report finished, and now the tension flowed from her muscles. It had been a hard day, at the end of a difficult case, yet she felt a surprising surge of contentment. She sat curled at one end of Duncan Kincaid’s sofa while he occupied the other. He’d shed his jacket, unbuttoned his collar, pulled down the knot on his tie, and he wrote with his legs stretched out, feet rather precariously balanced on the coffee table between the empty containers from the Chinese take-away.
Sid took up all the intervening sofa space, stretched on his back, eyes half-slitted, an advert for feline contentment. Gemma reached out to scratch the cat’s exposed stomach, and at her movement Kincaid looked up and smiled. “Finished, love?” he asked, and when she nodded he added, “You’d think I’d learn not to nitpick. You always beat me.”
She grinned. “It’s calculated. Can’t let you get the upper hand too often.” Yawning again, she glanced at her watch. “Oh, Lord, is that the time? I must go.” She swung her feet to the floor and slid them into her shoes.
Kincaid put his papers on the coffee table, gently deposited Sid on the floor, and slid over next to Gemma. “Don’t be daft. Hazel’s not expecting you, and you’ll not get any good mum awards for waking Toby just to carry him home in the middle of the night.” With his right hand he began kneading Gemma’s back, just below the shoulder blades. “You’ve got knots again.”
“Ouch … Mmmm … That’s not fair.” Gemma gave a halfhearted protest as she turned slightly away from him, allowing him better access to the tender spot.
“Of course it is.” He scooted a bit closer and moved his hand to the back of her neck. “You can go first thing in the morning, give Toby his breakfast. And in the meantime—” The telephone rang and Kincaid froze, fingers resting lightly on Gemma’s shoulder. “Bloody hell.”
Gemma groaned. “Oh, no. Not another one, not tonight. Surely someone else can take it.” But she reached for her handbag and made sure her beeper was switched on.
“Might as well know the worst, I suppose.” With a sigh Kincaid pushed himself up from the sofa and went to the kitchen. Gemma heard him say brusquely, “Kincaid,” after he lifted the cordless phone from its cradle, then with puzzled intonation, “Yes? Hullo?”
Wrong number, thought Gemma, sinking back into the cushions. But Kincaid came into the sitting room, phone still held to his ear, his brow creased in a frown.
“Yes,” he said, then, “No, that’s quite all right. I was just surprised. It
“All right,” he said finally, giving in to some entreaty. “Right. Hang on.” Coming back to the coffee table, he picked up his notepad and scribbled something Gemma couldn’t decipher upside down. “Right. On Sunday, then. Good-bye.” He pressed the disconnect button and stood looking at Gemma, phone in hand as if he didn’t know what to do with it.
Gemma could contain herself no longer. “Who was it?”
Kincaid raised his eyebrow and gave her a lopsided smile. “My ex-wife.”
CHAPTER
2
I only know that you may lie
Day-long and watch the Cambridge sky,
And, flower-lulled in sleepy grass,
Hear the cool lapse of hours pass,
Until the centuries blend and blur
In Grantchester, in Grantchester …
RUPERT BROOKE,
from “The Old Vicarage,
Grantchester”
Following Vic’s directions, Kincaid left the M11 at Junction 12, just before Cambridge, and took the Grantchester Road from the roundabout. The Cambridgeshire sky spread wide before him in a clear light, for the April day had dawned exceptionally mild. He’d tried to persuade Gemma to change her mind and come with him, but she’d been adamant, saying she’d planned to take Toby to her parents. They’d had their Sunday breakfast and tidied up, and she’d kissed him when he’d left her Islington flat, but he felt some discomfort between them. Well, he’d see what Vic wanted—it seemed the least he could do for courtesy’s sake, if nothing else—then that would be that.
He slowed as the first straggling houses appeared, then soon the road became a neatly tended village street. At the T-junction he turned right, into the High Street as Vic had told him, watching carefully for the house on his left. “You can’t miss it,” she’d said, a smile in her voice. “You’ll see.” And almost immediately he did, for it was a higgledy-piggledy tile-roofed house washed in bright Suffolk pink, surrounded by the new growth of roses.
Kincaid pulled into the graveled area in front of the detached garage, stopped the car, and got out, and it was only then that he realized he had absolutely no idea what he was going to say to her. He’d spent the journey remembering Vic as she’d been when he’d first known her. Her reserve had intrigued him—he’d taken it for shyness—and he’d found the seriousness with which she approached her studies endearing, even amusing. “Bloody arrogant, condescending idiot,” he said aloud, his mouth twisting with disgust. He’d assumed knowledge of her that he hadn’t earned, and had paid the consequences when she left him without a word. And now, more than ever, they were two strangers, made more so by the awkward history between them.
