chair, as if examining the room, but Dutton stepped to the ottoman and snapped the laptop shut.
“Very dedicated of you, working on Christmas,” Babcock said, giving the computer only a passing glance as he displayed great interest in a series of hunting prints on the wall behind Dutton’s chair.
“I hope I haven’t interrupted anything terribly important.”
“Just finishing up a client presentation—a little light relief after a day spent with family.” Moving back to the hearth, Dutton regarded him quizzically. “And isn’t that a case of the pot calling the kettle black? ”
“But I’ve no choice in the matter,” protested Babcock.
“Somehow I doubt that, Chief Inspector.” Amusement gleamed in Dutton’s blue eyes. Unlike Tom Foster, he seemed to have no trouble remembering Babcock’s rank. “You must have minions to do this sort of thing.”
Choking back a laugh at the idea of telling Detective Constable Larkin she’d been referred to as a “minion,” Babcock said, “The minions have tried several times to contact you since last night, Mr.
Dutton. I thought I might get lucky.” He slipped off his overcoat and, without invitation, sat on the arm of the sofa and extracted his notebook from his jacket pocket.
“Ah, down to business, then,” Dutton said, with an air of mock resignation. “How exactly can I help you, Chief Inspector?”
Babcock had his own agenda, and it didn’t include letting Piers Dutton take charge of the interview. “Nice place you’ve got here.”
He glanced round the room again, looking as callow and guileless as his battered face would allow. “Although I suspect I’d hate to pay for your central heating. Did Mrs. Dutton do the decorating?”
“I’m divorced, Mr. Babcock. I bought this house after my ex-wife and I separated.”
Babcock whistled. “And here I’m stuck paying the mortgage on my semi—either that or splitting the proceeds with my ex if I sell.
Not a pretty prospect.” He shook his head regretfully, then said, “So you live here all on your own, Mr. Dutton?”
“My son lives with me. My ex-wife and I have joint custody, but Leo prefers staying here most of the time. Boys need their fathers, don’t you agree?”
Thinking of what little he had known of his own father, Babcock forced a smile. “No doubt you’re right. And you’ve been here how long?”
“Five years.” Dutton frowned, calculating. “A bit longer, actually.”
“Then you will have known the Smiths, before they moved away?”
“The people who had the Fosters’ place? I met them, yes, but they sold up not long after I moved in. You can’t honestly think that old couple walled up a child in their dairy?” Dutton asked, sounding more astonished than horrified. “They were salt of the earth, Farmer Brown and Wife.”
“We have to investigate all the possibilities, Mr. Dutton, and it’s important that we get in touch with them. Do you know where they went, or how to contact them?”
Piers Dutton raised his brows in undisguised amusement. “Really, Chief Inspector, I’ve no idea. It wasn’t the sort of association one would keep up. And I should think it highly unlikely that they could help you if you do find them. Surely some local kids were responsible, taking advantage of an abandoned building to dispose of an unwanted infant.”
“The body was mortared in. A bit much forethought for a teenager, no matter how desperate, I’d say.” Babcock found it interesting that Dutton also seemed unaware that the child wasn’t a newborn.
“Have you not spoken to Mrs. Newcombe?”
“Juliet? No. Although Tom Foster did say that it was she who found this body.” He shook his head with a kind of sorrowful maj-esty. “A bad business, all round. I’m sorry I—” He stopped, his gaze moving past Babcock’s shoulder.
At the same moment, Babcock sensed a presence behind him, although he’d heard no sound. He rose, turning towards the doorway, as Dutton said, “Leo. My son, Chief Inspector Babcock.”
Babcock saw a young man—no, a boy, he amended after a moment’s assessment, but tall for his age— watching them from the hallway. His eyes gleamed with curiosity, although his face was carefully schooled in an expression of bored disinterest. He was handsome, the angles of his face plainly visible, as his father’s once must have been before the indulgences of middle age blurred and softened his features. Babcock wondered how long he’d been listening.
“Sir.” Leo acknowledged him with a nod, but didn’t come into the room. He turned his attention to his father. “Dad. I’m going out.”
“Where?” asked Dutton, but the question seemed perfunctory.
“Barbridge. To meet some of my mates.”
“All right, then. Don’t be late.”
“Yeah,” answered Leo, and with another nod at Babcock, disappeared as silently as he’d appeared.
Barbridge was a few minutes’ walk, but there was nothing in the hamlet other than the pub, and even had the pub been open, Leo Dutton was too young to be admitted to the premises unaccompanied by an adult. What did his father imagine the boy and his friends were doing?
“Probably wants to show his friends his new mobile,” Dutton said, apparently unperturbed by the image of roaming underage boys, cadging beers from those old enough to buy alcohol, and smoking illicit cigarettes, or worse, in the bus shelter.
Perhaps he’d been a policeman too long, Babcock thought, and at any rate it was none of his business. Leo Dutton was too young to have been responsible for an abandoned baby, unless he’d been fathering children in primary school. Babcock was more interested in Juliet Newcombe. “Mr. Dutton, about Mrs. Newcombe. You were saying—?”
“Oh, yes. Sorry. It’s just that it must have been a dreadful experience for Juliet, finding that child. I feel a bit responsible, having recommended her for the job.”
“Tom Foster seemed to have had some doubt as to Mrs. Newcombe’s being capable of doing the work. I’d have thought you’d want your new neighbors to be satisfied with their contractor.”
Dutton’s heavy face creased in annoyance. “Foster obviously misinterpreted something I said. I’d never have given Juliet’s name to the Bonners if I hadn’t thought her qualified. There’s no questioning her skills . . .”
“But?” asked Babcock, quick to pounce on Dutton’s hesitation.
Clasping his hands behind his back, Dutton shifted his stance and looked away. “It’s nothing, really.”
Babcock didn’t respond, letting the silence settle over the room until the sizzle and pop from the hearth sounded as loud as the roar of a brushfire.
Dutton broke the tension, as Babcock had guessed he would.
Clearing his throat, he said, “It was a difficult time for everyone concerned, Juliet’s leaving. Of course, I wish her success with her venture, for her own sake as well as my partner’s. I’d never say anything to jeopardize that. It’s just—” His pained expression grew more intense and he cleared his throat again, but this time he held Babcock’s gaze, his blue eyes crinkled with earnest sincerity. Then he sighed and went on. “It’s just that, emotionally, Juliet can go off the deep end a bit. I’m afraid she’s not always entirely reliable.”
Lally had pulled a stool into a corner of her grandparents’ kitchen, where she perched, isolated as an island in a sea of conversational crosscurrents. For a moment, she wondered what it would be like to be deaf, to watch the movement of mouths and register only mean-ingless visual static. But even the deaf could read expressions, and that, sometimes, was bad enough.
God, she hated the way they looked at each other, her uncle Duncan and his Gemma. He sat at the far end of the kitchen table, with her grandfather and Kit, while Gemma had just turned from the fridge. Across the hubbub of the room, he inclined an eyebrow, and she gave the slightest of nods, one corner of her mouth lifting in an infinitesimal smile. The communication was more intimate than any touch, and made Lally as ashamed to have witnessed it as if she’d seen them naked. Somehow the fact that she liked Gemma, had felt a connection with her, made it worse.
She couldn’t imagine that her parents had ever looked at each other that way, and that realization made her gut clench with a sick feeling she couldn’t quite name.
Duncan had been helping her granddad and Kit finish Toby’s Harry Potter puzzle while Toby played on the floor with Sam, zooming Star Wars figures around with annoying little- boy sound effects.
Now, apparently having received confi rmation from Gemma, Duncan stood and scooped Toby up under his
