Germanic forests. The childhood that had allowed such imaginings now seemed impossibly distant, and the loss of his son’s opportunity for such innocence struck him as forcibly as a blow.
Ronnie Babcock took his eyes from the road to glance at Kincaid. “I know what you’re thinking.”
“Sorry?” Kincaid responded.
Babcock said, “You’re remembering the Ford Anglia I had at school.”
Relieved, Kincaid said lightly, “Of course. But I never had the dubious pleasure of riding in it.” He recalled the car well, though, a Saloon special with Venetian-gold paintwork, held together with considerable assistance from baling wire. Ronnie had worked several after-school jobs to save the money for it, and the car had been his pride and joy.
“A good thing, too,” Babcock agreed. “I had a passenger or two fall out through the floorboards. I was thinking of building a roof ejector when the old girl finally clapped out on me.”
“You’ve done well for yourself, Ronnie.” Kincaid’s gesture took in the BMW, but he meant more than that.
Babcock gave a sardonic smile. “I suppose I have. Just look at me now—overworked, with an overly mortgaged unheated house, and no one but an elderly aunt for company. Just what any working-class lad should strive for.”
“You’re not married, then?”
“Divorced. Just this last year.” Babcock’s grimace was worth a thousand words. “What about you? Why haven’t you and the lovely Gemma tied the knot?”
Taken aback, Kincaid glanced at his friend, but Babcock’s eyes were on the road.
“It’s complicated,” he said slowly. “In the beginning, we were working together, so I suppose we got in the habit of being secretive.
You know how it is. It would have been all right for me if it had come out, just a bit of nudge, nudge, wink, wink from the worst tossers in the locker room, that sort of thing. But for Gemma, it would have meant a permanent shadow on her career. There would always have been whispers that she’d slept her way into promotions, no matter how capable she proved herself.” Even now, the unfairness of it made his blood pressure rise, and he shook his head in disgust before going on. “So when she made inspector and transferred to another posting, we more or less kept on as we were. But then . . .”
Kincaid hesitated.
“Then we found out that Gemma was pregnant. We moved in together, but I—I think neither of us wanted to feel that—”
“Marriage was a necessity of circumstance?” Babcock finished for him when he halted again. “That would have been a blow to your pride.”
Kincaid nodded, feeling his face flush at the accuracy of the hit.
“Just so. It seems unutterably selfish now.”
Frowning, Babcock said, “But it’s been some time, hasn’t it? I met your younger boy, when I came to the house.”
“Oh, no,” Kincaid hastened to explain. “Toby is Gemma’s son, from her first marriage. We—Gemma lost our baby, halfway to term.
That was a year ago.”
“Oh, Jesus.” Babcock looked at him, his battered face creased in sympathy. “That’s a bloody shame.”
Not trusting himself to accept the commiseration, Kincaid went on, “Since then, we’ve just sort of muddled along, the four of us living as a family. Not unhappily,” he amended, afraid his words had implied that. “It’s just that—I don’t know if she’d have chosen differently, you see, if it hadn’t been for the child.” Kincaid realized it was the first time he’d admitted his fear, even to himself, and he felt suddenly as exposed as if he’d laid bare his chest to the knife.
“You could ask her,” Babcock suggested, as if it were the most reasonable response imaginable.
“Christ, no.” Kincaid shook his head. “I’d be forcing her into a corner then, and if she told me what I wanted to hear, I’d never be sure if she was being honest or just kind.” He thought of her refusal to discuss trying for another child, and felt cold.
He searched for a change of subject, glad that Babcock was momentarily distracted as he downshifted and left the A for a B road signposted no man’s heath. “That sounds a desolate place,” Kincaid offered, a little too quickly.
“A bit Shakespearean,” Babcock agreed. “But there’s a nice pub there, as it happens. That’s why I came this way, I suppose. Old habits.” With that ambiguous and uninviting comment, he fell silent, leaving Kincaid to gaze at the scenery and wonder about his friend’s reticence.
They were nearing the Welsh border, and he could see that it had
snowed more heavily here. Snow still lingered on the eaves of the isolated farmhouses, and as they passed through the pretty redbrick hill town of Malpas, the anti- icing grit crunched under the BMW’s tires.
A few miles farther north, the tree- lined lane dipped and curved into the hamlet of Tilston. Although they slowed to a crawl, reading the address plaques on the cottages and suburban bungalows lining the road, they still missed Roger Constantine’s house the first time past. The steep entrance to its drive faced away from them, so that they only saw the address when they had turned around at the postage stamp of a village green and come back from the opposite direction.
In a village of cottages and suburban bungalows, the Victorian lodge stood on a high bank above the road, screened from below by the large trees and shrubs of a mature garden.
“Blimey,” Babcock said eloquently as they bumped up the narrow gravel drive and pulled to a stop on the forecourt. “Nice digs for a journalist, wouldn’t you say?”
Kincaid had to agree. The house’s brick facade was a mellow rose rather than the harsh burnt red used often in Cheshire and North Wales, and the gleaming white trim looked freshly painted.
“Maybe he’s sold a few exclusives to the
“My ex-wife would have killed for this,” Babcock muttered as they climbed from the car and crossed the raked gravel of the drive.
Kincaid merely nodded. He felt the weight of the coming interview descend on him—he had never learned to bear bad tidings easily. He took a preparatory breath, but before they reached the porch, the front door opened and a large German shepherd charged out at them. Kincaid’s life flashed before his eyes in the instant it took him to see that the dog was firmly attached to a lead held by a slight man with trimmed white hair and beard.
“Can I help you?” the man asked, reining the dog in with an admonishing “Jazz, easy.”
The dog subsided into a sit at the man’s left knee, but whined in protest.
“Are you Roger Constantine?” Babcock asked warily, having backed off a pace.
“Yes. What can I do for you?” Constantine was frowning now, and it occurred to Kincaid for the first time that in their casual clothes neither he nor Babcock radiated official import. The man probably thought they were selling double glazing.
Babcock took out his warrant card and displayed it as carefully as if Constantine were holding a loaded gun instead of the now-panting dog. “I’m Chief Inspector Babcock, Cheshire constabulary, and this is Superintendent Kincaid. Sorry to barge in on you unannounced—”
“Look, if this is about the gang story, I’ve already told your colleagues I can’t divulge—”
“No, this is a personal matter, Mr. Constantine. If we could speak to you inside.” Babcock made a statement of the question, and the first flash of uneasiness crossed Constantine’s face. Kincaid saw now that the white hair and beard had given a misleading impression of the man’s age; Constantine’s face was unlined, and the eyes behind the gold-rimmed spectacles were sharp and a very pale blue.
“All right,” Constantine agreed reluctantly, and in an aside to the dog added, “You’ll have to wait for your walk, Jazzy.” He turned to the door, motioning to them as he opened it. When he noticed Babcock still hesitating, he said, “Oh. Don’t mind the dog. He’s quite friendly, really.”
Kincaid went first, holding out a hand, palm down, for the dog to sniff. While the dog investigated the scents on his clothes, his tail now wagging, Kincaid took in the interior of the house with equal interest. An archway opened the central hall onto a sitting room to the left. Deep gold walls and white trim set off the gilded frames of pictures and mirrors and a beautiful black-and-white tile floor. Small touches—a potted fern on a stand, a few items of well- made caned
