residences, and even most of those who lived marginal lives on the boats had someone to go to at Christmas.
Not that she’d been without an invitation, she reminded herself as the abyss of self- pity cracked open before her. Roger had asked her to come, as he always did, and she had refused, as she always did. What would he do with her, she wondered with grim amusement, if she should change her mind?
He had stayed in her family home when they had separated. It had seemed a sensible solution to her at the time, as she wasn’t ready to sell the property but didn’t want to leave it unattended. He paid her a nominal rent, and she’d told him that if they divorced and decided to sell, she would give him first option to buy the place. She didn’t like to think that only self- interest had kept Roger from dissolving their marriage, although she knew that, realistically, it was unlikely he could ever pay her what the house was worth.
Nor could she deceive herself into thinking he missed her terribly.
Roger was an even- tempered man who disliked disruption as much as he liked his creature comforts—living with her had not been easy for him. Still, he was thoughtful when it suited him, and she remembered that he had sent her a Christmas gift.
Nipping back inside, she retrieved the package from the drawer where she had stowed it and took it out into the sunshine. It was
neatly wrapped in hand- printed paper, and she felt sure Roger had done it himself. He was a competent, thorough man with an artistic flair, all qualities that made him a good journalist—and a good husband. It was she who had not been able to function in the marriage.
Carefully, she pulled loose the package’s taped ends and peeled the paper off without tearing it. “Oh!” she said aloud as the gift slipped from its wrappings. That it was a book didn’t surprise her—
that much she’d guessed from the package’s shape and weight—but this she hadn’t expected. Checking the flyleaf, she saw that it was a first edition of Tom Rolt’s
Annie owned a modern copy, of course, and had reread it many times for its lyrical prose and haunting evocation of bygone days on the canals, but she had never seen an original edition. How like Roger to have found it for her—she would have to ring and thank him. Perhaps she’d even suggest they meet for a holiday meal.
Slowly, she leafed through the volume, examining the woodcuts that prefaced each chapter. The artist, Denys Watkins-Pitchford, had captured the essence of life on the canals with a lovely economy of shape and line. She remembered reading in her modern edition that the drawings had been based on photographs taken by Angela Rolt, Tom’s wife.
There was a traditional Buckby water can, the top lock at Fox-ton, a heron poised in marshy grass, the long- vanished ware house that had spanned the Shropshire Union Canal at Barbridge . . . As Annie gazed at the images, they brought back all the enchantment she had felt at her first introduction to boating life, and that she had owed entirely to her contact with Gabriel Wain and his family.
Of course, she had seen the canals and boats all her life, had occasionally walked a towpath or stopped to watch a boat going through
a lock at Audlem. But she had never set foot on a narrowboat until the day she had been sent to interview the Wains.
How odd that she should have seen them again just yesterday, after all these years. The worry that had nagged at her then returned with full force. The system had betrayed the Wains, and she had failed to protect them.
Her own disillusionment was still sour in her mouth. She had been driven to social work by a profound guilt because of her own privileged upbringing, and by a hope that she could fill a void in herself by giving something to others. But over the years the hopelessness of the work had eaten away her youthful optimism. She saw so much pain and misery and cruelty that she felt the weight of it would crush her, all her actions a remedy as futile as trying to stem a flood with a finger in the dike.
When a child she’d had removed from his own family had died from abuse inflicted by his foster father, she had wondered how long she could go on. Then what had happened to the Wains had been the last straw.
She had walked away, shutting herself off from human contact like a crab crawling into its shell, but the damage had gone on around her. Rowan Wain and her family were still at risk.
Could Annie live with herself if she turned away again? But if she tried to help them, had she anything to offer? Had she the strength to emerge from her self- imposed cocoon?
The revelation came suddenly. It didn’t matter whether or not she was up to the task, or whether her infinitesimal actions would make a dent in the world’s ills. All that counted was that she should act.
Chapter Eight
As Babcock squelched across the rutted ice in the hospital car park, he passed Dr. Elsworthy’s Morris Minor in the section reserved for doctors’ vehicles. From the rear seat, the dog’s head rose like a monolithic monster emerging from the deep. The beast gave him a distant and fathomless stare, then looked away, as if it had assessed him and found him wanting, before sinking out of sight once more. No wonder the doctor had no use for anything as modern as a car with an alarm system, Babcock thought as he gave both dog and vehicle a wide berth. She was more likely to be sued by a prospective burglar complaining of heart failure than to have her car violated.
The sight of his sergeant, Kevin Rasansky, leaning against the wall near the morgue entrance was only slightly more heartening.
“Morning, boss. Happy Christmas,” Rasansky called out, seemingly unperturbed by the cold or by the holiday call-out.
Babcock merely grimaced in return. “Don’t be so bloody cheerful.
What are you doing here? I thought you’d not want to miss Christmas morning with your family.”
“Thought you might need a hand. Besides, forgot the batteries for the toys, didn’t I? The wife and kiddies aren’t too happy with me.
And my mother- in- law’s there for the duration. Who’d have thought the morgue would be preferable?” Rasansky added as he held the door for Babcock.
Ashamed of the relief he’d felt on leaving the care home, Babcock wasn’t about to admit he agreed, especially to his sergeant.
Kevin Rasansky was a large young man with a round country-man’s face and clothes that never quite seemed to fit. Beneath his unprepossessing exterior, however, resided a sharp intelligence and a streak of ambition that bordered on the ruthless. Babcock found him useful, but never entirely trusted him.
He knew from past experience that if a successful conclusion to a case meant there was any capital to be gained with the powers- that-be, Rasansky would find a subtle way to claim it. There were the self-deprecating stories told round the water cooler or in the can-teen, in which Rasansky would just happen to mention how his own humble insight or suggestion had led his superior officers to make the collar. The said superior officer could then hardly refute Rasansky’s version without sounding petty, but Babcock retaliated by making every effort to keep his sergeant firmly in his place. There was no task too unpleasant or menial for Rasansky, but this morning he had been willing to give the sergeant a break.
“Have you been to the scene yet?” he asked as they waited for someone to buzz them through the inner doors.
“First thing this morning.”
“Any sign of the media?”
“A stringer from the
Dealing with the media was always a two-edged sword—the
