Deborah Crombie - Duncan Kincaid & Gemma James 11 - Water Like A Stone

knew concretely what she had guessed from looking at the map—that whoever had

attacked Annie Lebow had come either from Barbridge or from the lane that led down to the dairy barn. Of course, it was possible that someone could have walked the towpath from as far away as Nantwich to the south, or from above Barbridge to the north, but in last night’s heavy fog, she thought it very unlikely—as unlikely as the idea that the killer had blundered his or her way across the fields and through wood, fence, and hedgerow to the path.

That, however, was as far as supposition could take her, but she realized she was not willing to stop there. Once back at her car, she’d run down Kincaid and Ronnie Babcock, and see what they had turned up. It was time she did what she did best, putting the pieces together.

But even as she started towards the towpath, she hesitated. Turning, she gazed once more at the redbrick barn. There was still no sign of Sergeant Rasansky, and it looked as though the deconstruction crew was winding down. There was no one who knew her history to call her curiosity morbid—why shouldn’t she see the last resting place of the mystery child for herself?

That was one of the things he hated about women. The way they said one thing and meant another. Or the look, the one they gave you that was worse than words, but kept you from striking back, because there was nothing concrete you could name.

It made him think of his mother, when he had continued to wet the bed long past the age when it might be excused.

She’d waited until he left his room, then slipped in, bundling up the fouled sheets and putting on new ones. He watched her sometimes, from round the corner in the hall.

Later, when she would pass by him, she’d give him a look that said she knew what he’d done, and without a word spoken, she had entrapped him in a conspiracy of shame.

Furious, he eventually began to deliberately soil the bed, his way of taking back his power, over her, over his own body. But somehow his mother had seemed to know. She simply stopped changing the linen, and a night spent on sodden, stinking sheets made that game not worth playing.

And still she had smiled and said nothing.

Time had worn her down. She’d tired of the game, and he of her, and he had let her go.

But not this time, not this one. This one, with her sideways glances and treacherous tongue—oh, he knew the signs, the signals, all too well. But she would not slip away from him like quicksilver through his fingers. He would make sure of that.

By the time Kincaid and Babcock returned to Crewe Station, the incident room was humming with a gratifying level of activity. Both Larkin and Rasansky were back and occupied at separate desks, but one look at Rasansky’s sour face told Kincaid he didn’t have anything positive to report.

“No joy with the deconstruction, I take it?” Babcock asked, as if he, too, was guessing what the answer would be.

“Bloody waste of time,” grumbled Rasansky. “Not to mention the fact that I think I’ve developed double pneumonia.” His nose had taken on a Rudolf- like hue, but Constable Larkin, for one, displayed no sympathy.

“I can’t think why you’re sorry you didn’t turn up another body,”

Larkin said tartly, eyeing them over the stack of papers she’d loaded onto her desk. “Or were you hoping for mass infant graves?”

“Any luck tracing the infant we did find?” Babcock asked, warding off argument.

“We’ve started tracing birth records for the county, going back fifteen years,” said Larkin, “as I doubt the blanket and clothing are

older than that. No hits so far, but it will take some time just to pro-cess the county records. And that’s not taking into account the fact that the birth might have been unregistered.”

“What about midwives?”

Larkin nodded at a uniformed constable ensconced at a desk in the corner, phone glued to his ear. “We’re checking with locally registered midwives, although they’re usually pretty good about getting the birth records filed. Still, slipups can happen.” She shrugged, adding, “We’ll canvass the local doctors, too, just in case someone made a home delivery off the books.”

“And we still haven’t found the Smiths?” Babcock asked, scowl-ing, but Larkin didn’t look intimidated.

“Sorry, boss. I’ve got someone checking every few hours to see if the couple who supposedly kept up with the Smiths have come back from holiday. We’ve left word with their neighbors, a note on their door, and a message on their answer phone.”

Kincaid, who had propped himself on a desk and faded unobtrusively into the background, spoke up. “Have you contacted the Yard to see if they have a record of any similar cases?”

“Yesterday.” Rasansky’s irritated look said he didn’t appreciate being told how to do his job, however politely. “When I sent out a description of the infant and its clothing to all agencies.”

Pacing, Babcock said, “We’re bloody handicapped without more information from the Home Office. Surely the forensic anthropologist can at least give us an idea how long that baby was buried. Ring them again, will you, Sheila? And while you have them on the line, ask if they can do a facial reconstruction.”

“Don’t all babies that age look pretty much alike, boss?” Larkin asked, raising a carefully shaped eyebrow.

“Just do it. What about the DNA sample Dr. Elsworthy entered into the system?”

Larkin shook her head. “Too soon to have checked it against the

database.” She gave him a measuring glance. “Looks like that leaves us with the media, boss. Who gets to chat up Lois Lane from the Chronicle?”

Watching the glance that passed between them, and Larkin’s slight nod in Rasansky’s direction, Kincaid guessed there was unspoken context to her query. From what he’d seen of the sergeant, he suspected that Rasansky would make the most of the importance of the case—and of his part in it—and that that served Larkin and Babcock very well.

“Right then, Kevin,” Babcock said to Rasansky. “Give little miss reporter the child’s approximate age and clothing description, and have her ask if anyone knows of a child who mysteriously disappeared in the last few years. We’ll have someone man a designated contact number when the story runs. But for God’s sake, tell her to keep the buried- in- the-wall part out of it for now.”

Larkin straightened her files with a thump. “Can we get on to the good stuff now, boss? I know we have to trace the child, but that little girl’s been dead a long time, and we had a murder on our doorstep this morning. What did you find out from the husband?”

“A dodgy setup, if you ask me. He lives in her house—a Victorian lodge that would make a fitting residence for the chief constable—

and apparently lives at least partly off her money. He’s certainly not going to lose fi nancially by her death, as he’s her heir, and he hasn’t an alibi for last night. He says she rang him, wanting to talk, and they made a date to meet for dinner tonight.”

“Prime suspect, then?” asked Larkin. “I pulled every bit of paper that looked even remotely relevant off the boat.”

“Motive, possibly,” answered Kincaid, “and it will be interesting to see what you turn up. But I don’t know about the feasibility. I’m not sure he could have got to the boat in last night’s fog, or even to the Cut—much less found the boat even if he knew exactly where to look.”

“What about the door- to-door in Barbridge?” asked Babcock.

“Any luck there?”

“More like boat- to- boat.” Larkin grinned. “I did find one old biddy, a Mrs. Millsap, who said she overheard the victim having a row with a man on a boat moored by the pub, on Christmas Day. He was still there, and I spoke to him. His name’s Gabriel Wain, and he says Ms. Lebow scraped his boat and they had a bit of argy- bargy over it.

He showed me the damage. But then he said she’d offered to pay for any repairs, and apologized, and that was that. I’ve made a note of it, but it didn’t seem the sort of thing that would lead to sneaking up on someone days later and bashing them over the head.”

Kincaid frowned. “He said Annie scraped his boat?”