Her shoulders jerked, an involuntary spasm. “No. Yes. I don’t know. He’s never, you know, hit me or anything. But . . . he’s changed lately. Those things he said on Christmas Eve . . .” He saw the color creep up her cheeks at the memory. “And then yesterday, things just seemed to get blown all out of proportion. I don’t see how I can go home and pretend nothing’s happened.”
“Has he tried to ring you?”
“I don’t know. Not at Mum and Dad’s, anyway, and I turned my mobile off. I took Lally’s away as well—I didn’t want him ringing her. She’s furious with me. You’d think I’d amputated an arm.”
Kincaid wasn’t to be distracted. “You don’t think Caspar’s worried about you?”
This time Juliet looked at him, just long enough to roll her eyes.
“He must know where I am, otherwise Mum and Dad would have called out the cavalry. And besides, where else would I go? It’s not like I lead the jet-setter’s lifestyle and can run off and borrow a friend’s villa in Cap-Ferrat for a few days while I have a think.”
Sarcasm had always been his sister’s weapon; that, at least, hadn’t changed. “Well, you’ll have to talk to him at some point. If you like, I can go round with you. To the house, or the office.”
“No!” Juliet’s voice soared in panic. “I can’t speak to him. Not yet.
Not until I’ve worked out what to do. The children— The house—
How can I possibly—”
“Jules,” he interrupted gently, “you can’t imagine the current state of affairs is good for the children.”
“No, but . . . I just can’t see any options.” The car had warmed and she had stopped clutching her coat, but now her fingers picked restlessly at a loose button.
“You ask Caspar to move out. Then you get a lawyer and fi le for divorce.”
Juliet sucked in a breath, as if she’d been punched in the solar plexus.
“That
“Oh, God, no.” She gave a bitter whoop and wiped at her eyes.
“Caspar in counseling? He’d die first.”
“Then—”
“You think everything’s so bloody simple, don’t you?” Turning to him for the first time, she said, “So tell me how I’m going to support my kids.”
“Your business—”
“I just barely manage to pay my crew and keep my head above water. Maybe when this job is finished, there’ll be a bit left over, but we were already behind schedule, and now—”
“It’s called maintenance, Jules.” Kincaid’s patience was failing.
“Caspar will have to contribute to his children’s upkeep. That’s only to be expect—”
“You don’t understand. You don’t know him. He’ll find some way to get out of it. Just because you do the right thing, you assume other fathers will do the same.” Then she suddenly slumped in her seat and touched his arm. “I’m sorry,” she said softly. “That’s not fair. And I’ve never said, about Kit, that I was glad for you, or that I was proud of what you’ve done for him. I was so busy resenting you for being perfect that I never realized how much I took for granted.”
Kincaid gave his sister a startled glance. What had he ever done that she should think him perfect? Was that why she always seemed angry with him?
“I was so naive that I thought all men were like you and Daddy,”
she went on. “Sometimes I think growing up in a so-called normal family wasn’t adequate preparation for life. But you—your experiences can’t have been that different from mine. How do you do what you do? Take things like mummified babies in your stride?”
“It’s not like that,” he responded, stung. “It’s not a matter of taking things in stride. It’s just that you learn to . . . separate . . . what you see. It’s a problem to be solved, and I like knowing that there’s something I can do.” He wouldn’t tell her how often the lines bled, how often the horror crept in on everyday life, especially since he had found Gemma and the boys.
“Power, then. Is that what it is? You like thinking you’re an instrument of justice?” She was challenging him again, her earlier moment of contrition seemingly forgotten.
“No.” In his early days on the job, he might have been forced to admit that there was some truth in her accusation. Now, however, there were too many days when the beastliness and sheer pettiness he encountered threatened to overwhelm him, when he had to force himself to look for the embers of humanity that sparked among the dregs.
Juliet must have heard the weariness in his voice, because after a quick glance she averted her face again. As he negotiated a roundabout, he sifted through the things his sister had told him, wondering how he could begin to respond. And then, with a spike in his pulse, he realized what she’d avoided so adroitly by turning the conversation to their own family.
“Jules,” he said sharply, “those things Caspar said the other night—
is there any truth to them? Is that why you won’t stand up to him?”
It was not that Ronnie Babcock was unaccustomed to frustration. A good part of policing involved frustration—cases were seldom solved in the day or two allowed in the crime dramas on the telly—but at least there were usually some small avenues of progress.
There would be family, acquaintances, neighbors to interview.
Scene-of-crime would have turned up one or two things of possible interest, or the forensic pathologist could tell them the assailant had been right-handed, or the victim had been double the legal limit when he’d been knocked down by a car.
But so far this case had produced nothing but a series of roadblocks. Dr. Elsworthy had sent the child’s remains off to the Home Office forensic anthropologist, but Babcock knew it would be another day or two before he could expect a report.
Although scene-of-crime had extended their search from the building to the surrounding lane and pasture, they had turned up nothing more of interest—not that the bits they’d found in the barn itself qualified as interesting, although they had found a stash of vodka bottles beneath some stacked boards in a corner.
Nor had the neighbors who might have an address for the elusive Smiths, the barn’s previous owners, returned from their holiday. The manufacturer of the baby’s blanket was still closed, and Babcock’s old mate Jim Craddock, who had handled the Smiths’ sale of the property to the Fosters, was on holiday in Tenerife.
Rasansky’s canvass of the local shops that might have sold the child’s blanket had proved fruitless as well. In what he knew was an unfair fit of pique, Babcock had sent Rasansky back to reinterview the Fosters, although he suspected Rasansky would probably not find it a punishment—he and the Fosters would probably get on like a house afire.
“Penny for them, boss,” said Sheila Larkin, perching on the corner of the desk he’d commandeered in the incident room. She’d made a concession to the cold today, he saw, and wore tights and boots under her scrap of a skirt. “You look like you got out of the wrong side of the bed,” she added, eyeing him critically.
“Boiler’s still out,” he admitted. He’d spent another night on the sofa in front of his sitting-room fi re, sleeping fitfully while huddled under every duvet in the house, and had again missed his morning coffee.
“We could do with one of those Caribbean holidays,” she said sympathetically, and he noticed that her eyes were a sea green deep enough to swim in. Process of association, he told himself as he blinked and looked away, combined with sleep and caffeine deprivation.
There was only one other officer left in the incident room, collating reports. The case wasn’t a high enough priority, and there hadn’t been enough information coming in, to justify tying up more manpower. The main phone line rang and Larkin slipped off the desk to answer. She listened briefly, said, “Right, thanks,” and rang off.
“Your star witness has arrived,” she told him. “Shall I bring her down?”
“No, I think we’ll use my office rather than the dungeon. Much more likely to inspire confidence, I should think.”
“Does she need inspiring, your Mrs. Newcombe?” Larkin asked as they made their way up to reception. “All we need is her formal statement describing the discovery of the body, and the names of the lads in her crew.”
Babcock thought of Juliet Newcombe’s frightened face yesterday evening, and of the rather obvious effort Piers Dutton had made to cast doubt on her credibility. “I think it might be a bit more complicated than that,” he
