“I was with Lally and her friend Leo. She—Annie—asked us to come aboard, but I said no. I didn’t want to take anyone else on the boat. I thought—” Kit stopped, flushing, and scrubbed at his cheeks with the back of his hand.
Her own throat tightening, Gemma said, “You liked her, and that felt special. You didn’t want to share it with anyone else.”
Kit shot her a grateful look and nodded.
“I can understand that,” Gemma continued, frowning. “But why do you think it would have changed anything if you’d stayed?
Did you see something, or someone, while you were there?” The car had warmed, and she reached out and switched off the ignition.
In the sudden silence, Kit said haltingly, “No. But if he—whoever did that to her—if he’d seen me, he’d have known she wasn’t alone, and he might not—”
“No, Kit, you can’t think that.” Gemma was horrified. What if this woman’s killer had expected to find her alone, and discovered Kit there as well?
She swallowed, and made an effort to reassure him. “First of all, even if you had gone aboard, you wouldn’t have stayed more than a few minutes. And that was in the middle of the afternoon, wasn’t it, when you went after Lally?”
Kit nodded, and Gemma continued, “From what you’ve told us, I’d say it was very unlikely your friend was killed during the day.” The violence of the crime made it more probable that it had been committed under cover of darkness, although there was no guarantee. She suddenly wished desperately that she could see the crime scene and
hear what the pathologist had to say. Had the murder been random, combined with a sexual assault or a burglary gone wrong? Or had this woman been targeted?
None of these were speculations she could share with Kit, nor did she feel she could interrogate him about the state of his friend’s body. She would just have to wait for Kincaid’s report. There was one thing, however, that she could pursue.
“Kit, you said that
Did you see something that made you think Annie’s attacker was a man?”
“No, but . . .” His cheeks grew a little paler. “I suppose I just didn’t think a woman could have done . . . that.”
Gemma wished she still had his innocence, that she hadn’t seen firsthand the damage that women could do. And yet, statistically, he was right—an assault was more likely to have been committed by a male.
From her side mirror, Gemma saw that the pub had apparently stirred to life. A woman came out, bearing a large thermos and a stack of polystyrene cups, and headed towards the nearest uniformed officer.
Raising her hand, Gemma placed the backs of her fingers gently against Kit’s cheek, and found his skin still cold to the touch. “Look, the publican’s bringing out hot drinks,” she said. She recognized the woman who had been serving at the bar the previous afternoon.
“Shall I fetch you something?”
“No. I had some coffee earlier.” Kit grimaced. “One of the neighbors made a cup for me. It wasn’t at all like we make at home.” Kit liked to cook breakfast on the weekends, and they had bought an espresso machine primarily so that Kit and Toby could have steamed milk as a special treat, Kit’s mixed with a bit of coffee. Homesickness shot through Gemma like a physical pain, and she could only imagine how Kit must be feeling.
“I think I’ll have some myself, then. Back in a tick,” she added as she took the excuse to slide out of the car, not wanting him to see her face.
She introduced herself to the uniformed officer, showing him her police ID, and to the manageress of the pub. She was sipping what turned out to be scalding-hot and quite respectably good coffee when she saw movement on the bridge. It was the pathologist, trudg-ing back towards her car with her bag, her face set in an abstracted scowl.
“The good Dr. E. looks even less happy than usual,” the constable muttered.
“Dr. E.?” asked Gemma. “She’s the Home Office pathologist?”
“Dr. Elsworthy.” He raised his cup and drained it without a wince before handing it back to the pub’s manageress. Gemma thought his mouth must be lined with asbestos. “Ta,” he said. “I’d better get back to my post. Don’t want the doc to set her dog on me.”
“So I did see a dog,” Gemma murmured to his retreating back.
The manageress gave her an odd look, but asked, “Is it true that someone’s been killed?” It was clear her agenda didn’t include the discussion of dogs, imaginary or otherwise. “Do you know who it is?”
“The police won’t release that information until family have been notified, ma’am,” Gemma answered, avoiding the second question, at least. There was no hope of stonewalling on the first—the human grapevine worked too well.
“I don’t know what this will do to my lunch business,” the woman said with a sigh. “The roadblock will keep the clientele away.”
“I’m sure your customers will find a way to get here. Curiosity will overcome a little minor inconvenience, believe me,” Gemma reassured her. “This will be gossip central, once the news gets round, and you might be prepared for some journalists, too.
“That’s true.” The woman brightened, then frowned again. “I wonder if I’ve
tracted nod at Gemma, she turned back to the pub, leaving Gemma with her still-scalding cup of coffee.
“Thanks,” Gemma called after her, belatedly. Turning back to the car, she saw that Kit had leaned back against the headrest, his eyes closed, his lips parted in the relaxation of unexpected sleep. He looked as young and defenseless as Toby, and her chest tightened with a fierce, possessive love. She would have done anything to protect him from this—Kit, the last person who needed another blow, another loss, in his short life.
She stood irresolute, not wanting to wake him by getting back into the car, sipping her coffee and gazing at the boats along the canal bank. Lined up nose to tail, they reminded her of a drawing of circus animals leading one another in a parade in one of Toby’s books.
She had seen narrowboats on the Grand Union Canal near the supermarket where she shopped at home, but had never been aboard one. Those had charmed her with their rooftop flowerpots and haphazardly strung laundry, their slightly shabby air of rakishness.
Most of the boats below, however, were buttoned up against the cold like sensible matrons, and looked rather forlornly abandoned.
But a spiral of smoke issued from the chimney of one of the more colorful crafts, and as she watched, a man came out of the cabin and looked round, briefly, before going back inside.
The sound of a car door slamming made Gemma turn, thinking that Kit had awakened, but to her surprise she saw the doctor climbing from her car once more. This time she held not her bag, but some sort of bulky equipment that on closer inspection Gemma thought was an oxygen tank.
The doctor crossed the bridge again, but rather than turning right, she went to the left, back towards the boats clustered across from the pub. She stopped beside the brightly colored narrowboat Gemma had noticed before and seemed about to call out, but before she could speak, the cabin door opened.
This time, Gemma caught a glimpse of a curly-headed child, then the doctor climbed awkwardly aboard and went inside. Since when, Gemma wondered, did pathologists make house calls?
A touch on her shoulder made her jump, but even as she drew breath to gasp, Kincaid said, “Sorry, love. I didn’t mean to give you a fright. You were miles away.”
Turning, she examined his face. His voice had been even, uninflected, but she detected a familiar undercurrent of tension. “Was it bad?” she asked, nodding in the direction of the crime scene.
“Mmmm.” He made a noise of assent in his throat. “No sign of sexual interference, though, thank God. At least Kit was spared that. And not much blood, other than beneath the head. But . . .”
He stopped, jamming his hands in his coat hard enough to tear holes in his pockets, not meeting her eyes. “But I can’t imagine, when he saw her lying there, that he didn’t think of his mum. How is he?”
Gemma looked back towards the car. Kit’s head had tilted to one side as he’d fallen into a deeper sleep, and Tess had moved to the driver’s seat. “He’s exhausted,” she said. “As much from trying to hold himself together as
