“Good point. I don’t think our Mr. Foster stirs out of his armchair too often. And I suppose it could have been done at night, in what—
an hour or two? I’m not much of DIY man myself,” Babcock added.
“Piece of cake,” said Rasansky. “A lantern, a pail of mortar, a trowel. Of course, that’s assuming there was already a space in the wall suitable for filling in.”
Babcock frowned. “Even so, I doubt whoever did this wandered around with his mortar, hoping he’d run across the perfect spot to inter a baby. This required forethought, and foreknowledge. Our perpetrator had to have been familiar with the barn, and would have to have known when he was least likely to be observed.”
“Could a builder estimate the age of the mortar?” asked Larkin, crossing one leg over the other and exposing another few inches of plump white thigh. Travis, his scene-of-crime officer, was riveted, and Babcock wondered if he could have a discreet cautionary word with Larkin without being accused of making inappropriate sexual comments.
“I need to interview Juliet Newcombe again,” he said. “I’ll have a word with her about it.” He turned to Travis. “Any luck with the fingertip search?”
Not the least bit flustered, Travis gave a last lingering glance at Larkin’s legs before turning his attention to Babcock. “Sod all, boss.
Used condoms, fag ends, lunch wrappers, beer cans. Just the combination you’d expect from a construction site that’s also been accessible to teenagers looking to have a bit of fun.”
Babcock hadn’t expected anything more helpful. He singled out Larkin, who had been assigned to search the missing-persons database. “Any luck with mis-per, Sheila?”
“It’s difficult without parameters, boss. I started with the last fi ve years, children under two, confining the search to South Cheshire.
No matches, male or female.”
“We’ll stick to South Cheshire for now, as I think it highly unlikely that someone from out of the area would have known about the barn. But let’s go back twenty years. Dr. Elsworthy says the fabrics look to be fairly modern synthetic blends, but twenty years is strictly a guess at this point—we could be looking at twenty- plus.
When we get the fabric analysis from the lab, we may be able to narrow it down a bit further.”
“Yes, boss,” said Larkin, with her usual gung- ho attitude.
He nodded his approval before turning back to the others. “I think our biggest priority, after identifying a missing child that fits our parameters, is to trace the former own ers, the Smiths. Kevin, I want you to extend the house- to- house. There’s
“I’ve sent someone round to the big house at the top of the lane twice, but no one’s at home,” Rasansky said a little defensively.
“They’re the nearest neighbors other than the Fosters, and the most likely prospect.”
“Well, keep trying. But, Kevin,” he continued, “I want you to see if you can track down Jim Craddock, the estate agent who handled the Smiths’ sale of the property, Christmas or no. And while you’re at it, stop at Somerfield’s and Safeway, and anywhere else you can think of that carries baby products— Oh, hell.” He rubbed at his chin in frustration. “I keep forgetting everything’s closed. We’ll have to put that off until after Boxing Day. Must be your lucky day, Sergeant.”
The look Rasansky shot him was gratifyingly sour, and as everyone turned to his assigned task, Babcock suddenly found himself whistling under his breath.
After the brilliance of sun on snow, it took Annie’s eyes a moment to adjust to the dim light in the narrowboat’s cabin. The curtains had been pulled almost closed, and a single oil lamp burned on the drop-down table. A low fire smoldered in the woodstove, but the cold seemed dense, as if it had settled in the small space like a weight.
Although Gabriel had built a galley, bathroom, and sleeping quarters into what had once been the boat’s cargo space, he had kept the main cabin as unaltered as possible. As Annie looked round, she felt she had stepped back in time.
The woodwork was dark, with trim picked out in a cheery red, and every available inch of flat wall space was covered either with
polished brasses or with the laceware china plates that the boaters had traditionally collected. Rowan had once told Annie that she had inherited the pieces from her mother. The back of the cross seat had been embellished with a miniature castle—as was the underside of the drop table, Annie remembered—and painted roses cascaded down a side storage box—all Rowan’s work.
But today only Joseph sat at the table, his dark, curly head bent over paper and pencils. He hadn’t looked up since Annie had stepped down into the cabin. Gabriel and the little girl, Marie, had stopped on the steps behind her, adding to Annie’s sense of unease.
“Hello, Joe,” she said. He must be getting on for nine, she thought, a handsome, well- made boy who seemed to have outgrown the problems that had plagued him as a baby and toddler.
He had been two when his parents had first taken him to the local hospital. They’d told the attending doctor that the boy was having fits, and had several times stopped breathing.
After examining the boy, the doctor reported that he could find no evidence of seizures, but that the child had bruising on his arms and legs that might have been due to a violent fit.
Over the next few months, the Wains took Joseph to the hospital again and again, although the staff ’s findings continued to be inconclusive. Up until that time, the Wains had lived a nomadic life, but because of the child’s poor health, Gabriel had found temporary work near Nantwich. Also, Rowan had become pregnant again, and was having a difficult time.
Frustrated and unused to dealing with the hospital bureaucracy, Gabriel Wain had become increasingly belligerent with the doctor and the nursing staff. The boat people had always had a healthy disregard for hospitals, and Gabriel himself had been one of the last babies delivered by Sister Mary at Stoke Bruene on the Grand Union Canal, the nursing sister who spent her life ministering to the needs of the canal community.
On calling up the child’s National Health records, the doctor
learned that this was not the first time the Wains had sought help for their son. When Joseph was an infant, they had taken him to a Manchester hospital, saying that he couldn’t keep food down. Again, no diagnosis had been made.
The doctor’s suspicions were aroused, and after a particularly difficult altercation with Gabriel, he had turned Joseph’s records over to Social Services.
His accompanying report was damning. He believed the parents were manufacturing symptoms, and possibly abusing the boy, for attention. His official accusation—Annie could no longer think of it as a diagnosis—had been MSBP, Munchausen syndrome by proxy.
It had been her job, as the social worker assigned to the case, to investigate the doctor’s allegations.
“You probably won’t remember me, Joe,” she said now, “but I knew you when you were little.”
Joseph glanced at her, then nodded, his eyes downcast again, and from the color that rose in his cheeks she realized that he must be painfully shy. She wondered if the family had stayed in one place long enough for either child to be enrolled in school.
“Your mummy wanted to see—” she had begun, when Gabriel spoke from behind her.
“Through there,” he said, gesturing towards the passageway that led to the galley and the sleeping cabins beyond. He stepped down into the cabin, Marie clinging to his leg like a limpet, and the small space seemed suddenly claustrophobic. For a moment Annie felt frightened, then she told herself not to be absurd. Gabriel wouldn’t harm her—and certainly not in front of his wife and children.
She followed his instructions, moving through the tidy galley and into the cabin beyond. Here, the curtain had been pulled back a few inches, enough to illuminate the figure lying propped up in the box bed.
“Rowan!” Annie breathed, unable to stop herself. If she had thought the woman looked ill when she had seen her yesterday, today her skin
seemed gray, and even in the filtered light of the cabin, her lips had a blue tinge.
Rowan Wain smiled and spoke with obvious effort. “I heard you.” She nodded towards the window that overlooked the towpath.
“I couldn’t let you go, thinking we didn’t appreciate what you did for us all that time ago. But there’s nothing we need now. We’re just fine on our own.”
