Deborah Crombie - Duncan Kincaid & Gemma James 11 - Water Like A Stone

company.

And she had resolved herself to her fool’s errand. There was no reason to think that she would find the Wains’ boat where it had been yesterday, or that Gabriel and Rowan Wain would talk to her if she did, but having made the decision to try, she felt oddly euphoric.

The glitch in her electrical system seemed to have healed itself. An omen, perhaps, that she was taking the right course.

Bundled in her warmest jacket and scarf, she stood at the tiller, guiding the boat back over the route she had traveled just yesterday.

The smoke from the cabin drifted back and stung her eyes, but she loved the smell of it, a distillation of comfort on the crisp, cold air.

Over the past few years she had learned to steer instinctively, making infinitesimal adjustments to the tiller with the slightest sway of her body.

She smiled, thinking of her first few awkward weeks on the boat, when she had bounced from one side of the canal to the other like a Ping-Pong ball. The tunnels had been the worst, the unfamiliar darkness skewing her perception so that she continually overcorrected, crashing into the dank and dripping walls.

Although she still didn’t like the tunnels, she had learned to cope,

and in the pro cess she and the Horizon had become an entity, the boat an extension of her body. The boat had her own personality, her moods, and Annie had learned to sense them. Today was a good day, she thought, the tiller sensitive as a live thing, the engine thrumming like a big, contented cat.

All her perceptions seemed heightened. Perhaps it was merely the snow- muffled quiet that made her hearing sharper, the searing blue of the sky that made the scenes unfolding before her seem to jump out in crystalline definition. The snow remade the landscape, masking the familiar contours of the land and the ever- present green of the English countryside in winter. And yet what she could see—the corn stubble, the twisted shape of a dead tree, the fine tracery of the bare, shrubby growth that lined the towpath, the black iron bones of a bridge—seemed more brilliant, more intense.

She passed Hurleston Junction and the temptation of the Llangollen Canal snaking down into Wales, but for once she found escape less enticing than the course she had set. As she neared Barbridge, she began to see boats moored along the towpath, and her heart quickened as she picked out the one she sought at the line’s end.

Reducing her speed to a crawl, she slipped the Horizon into an empty mooring spot and jumped to the towpath to tie up. When she’d fastened the fore and aft lines to the mooring spikes, she dusted the snow from her knees and studied the Daphne.

The wooden hull of the Wains’ boat was distinctive, but it seemed to Annie that the bright paint seemed slightly faded, the shine on the brass chimney bands less brilliant than she had remembered. Gabriel had told her once that the Daphne was one of the last wooden boats built in Nurser’s Boatyard in Braunston.

When Annie had worked with the Wains, Rowan had supplemented the family’s income by painting the traditional diamond patterns and rose-and-castle designs on boats, and the Daphne had been a floating advertisement for her work. Rowan had also painted

canalware, covering the Buckby cans used by the boat people to carry water, as well as bowls and dippers, with her cheerful rose designs.

At their last meeting, Rowan had presented Annie with a dipper she had painted especially for her, her way of communicating the thanks her husband had been too proud and angry to offer.

Not that Annie had expected thanks. Dear God, she had only done what she could to redress the wrong they had already suffered, their unconscionable betrayal by the system that was meant to protect them.

At first Annie thought the Daphne was uninhabited. The curtains were drawn and there was no sign of movement. Then she saw the faintest wisp of smoke rising from the chimney, and a moment later, Gabriel Wain emerged onto the stern deck.

He started to nod, the easy greeting of one boater to another, then froze. Expression drained from his face like water from a lock, until all that remained was the wariness in his eyes. His thick dark hair was now flecked with gray, like granite, but his body was still strong. When Annie had first met Gabriel Wain, she had thought him too big to fit comfortably on a narrowboat, but he moved so nimbly and gracefully about the cabin and decks that he might never have set foot on land.

Now he stood, feet slightly apart as he balanced against the slight rocking generated by his own movement, and watched her. When he spoke, his voice held a challenge. “Mrs. Constantine. To see you once, after so long, I might think chance. But twice in as many days?

What do you want with us?”

Annie flicked the last of the snow from her trousers and straightened to her full height. “It’s not Constantine these days, Gabriel. It’s Lebow. I’ve gone back to my maiden name. And I’m not with Social Services anymore. I left not long after I worked with you. I bought the boat,” she added, gesturing towards the Horizon. When he merely raised an eyebrow, she faltered on. “It was good to see you yesterday.

The children look well. I’m glad. But Rowan—I wondered if I might have a word with Rowan. I thought yesterday— She didn’t seem—”

“She’s resting. She doesn’t need your interference.”

Annie took a step nearer the boat. “Look, Gabriel, I understand how you feel. But if she’s ill, maybe I could help. I—”

“You can have no idea what I feel,” he broke in, his voice quiet for all the fury behind it. “And she’s not ill. She’s just—she’s just tired, that’s all.” There was the fear again, a chasm yawning behind his eyes, but this time Annie thought she wasn’t to blame.

“You know I helped you before,” she said more firmly. “You know I was on your side. I might be able—”

“Our side? You, with your tarted-up boat”—he cast a scornful glance at the Horizon and spat into the canal—“you don’t know anything about our lives. Now leave us alone.”

“You can’t throw me off the towpath, Gabriel.” She knew the absurdity of her position as soon as the words left her mouth. What was she going to do? Call Social Services?

“No.” For the first time, there was a hint of bitter humor in the curve of his mouth. “But I can give up a good mooring if you insist on making a nuisance of yourself, woman.”

And she could cast off the Horizon and follow. Annie had a ridiculous vision of herself trailing down the Cut after the Daphne at three miles per hour, a slow- motion version of a car chase in an American film. She sighed, feeling the tension drain from her shoulders, and said quietly, “Gabriel, I know what happened to your family was wrong. I only want— I suppose what I want is to make up for it in some way.”

“There is nothing you can do.” There was a bleak finality in his expression that made her wish for a return of his anger. “Now—”

The cabin door had opened a crack. The little girl slipped out and Gabriel glanced round, surprised, as she tugged at his trousers leg.

She was fairer than Annie had noticed yesterday, and in the clear s

light her eyes were a brilliant blue. “Poppy,” she whispered. “Mummy wants to see the lady.”

It had, in spite of Gemma’s worries, turned out to be a nearly perfect Christmas. She’d been a little ashamed of her relief when she learned that Juliet and Caspar and their children would be having their Christmas dinner with Caspar’s parents. Her heart went out to Juliet—she couldn’t imagine how Duncan’s sister was coping after Caspar’s behavior last night—but she hadn’t wanted the couple’s feuding to poison her own children’s day.

Kit and Toby had slept in, only tumbling downstairs with Tess after Hugh had got the bacon frying and Geordie, her cocker spaniel, and Jack, the sheepdog, had started a rough-and- tumble game in the kitchen. Kit had thrown on jeans and a sweatshirt, but Toby still wore pajamas and dressing gown, and clutched his Christmas stocking possessively to his small chest.

When Rosemary said there would be no presents until after breakfast, not even Toby had complained, although Gemma knew that at home he’d have thrown a wobbly and whinged all the way through the meal.

Half an hour later, replete with eggs, bacon, and sausage, the adults carrying refills of coffee, the dogs damp