drift of Babcock’s conversation.
“Right. Okay. Thanks, Doc,” Babcock was saying. “Let me know if anything else comes in. Yeah. Sorry about the balls-up.”
Kincaid raised an interrogatory eyebrow as Babcock rang off.
“Balls-up?”
“It seems the good doctor didn’t appreciate us ringing up the forensic anthropologist directly. Not that he was willing to tell us anything. There are channels,” he added with mock severity as he nodded a greeting to Gemma.
“So did your pathologist come up with the goods?” Kincaid asked.
“With as many variable parameters as you’d expect from two experts hedging each other.” Babcock ran his hands through his thick fair hair, making it stand on end, then leaned back in his creaking chair, hands behind his head. “The bone doctor estimates, from the amount of decomposition and given the circumstances, et cetera, et cetera, that the remains had been in place at least five years. He confirms that the child was female, age less than one year. No obvious cause of death. But before you conclude that we’re not much further ahead”—he waggled an admonitory finger at Kincaid, as if he had protested—“the Home Office lab boffins have had some luck with the clothing. The blanket was manufactured for several years in the midnineties, and sold through a number of local outlets.”
“My sister said the blanket looked like one she’d used with her own kids, but she couldn’t remember if it was Sam or Lally’s,” Kincaid said. “But if it was available in the midnineties, it was most likely Sam’s. Of course,” he continued, “there’s nothing to say that the blanket was acquired for this mystery infant during the period it was initially sold, but that at least gives us an outside limit on the time of death.”
“More than five years, less than ten, if you put the blanket and bones together,” Babcock agreed, but he didn’t sound greatly encouraged. The creases at the corners of his blue eyes deepened as he frowned. “Dr. Elsworthy also informed me that she’s already conducted the postmortem on Annie Lebow. I can’t think why she didn’t let me know she’d scheduled it so quickly. I should have been there.”
“Any unexpected results?” Kincaid asked.
“Apparently not. Death due to blunt-force trauma.” Babcock couldn’t quite control a grimace.
Eyeing his friend with concern, Kincaid said, “Perhaps the doctor was sparing your feelings, Ronnie, by not asking you to attend the p.m. As you knew the victim.”
Babcock tilted his chair back into its upright position. “I never thought I’d see the day when Dr. E. worried about treading on anyone’s sensibilities. In fact, she seemed definitely off-kilter at the crime scene this morning. Maybe she’s ill.”
“It’s not her that’s ill. At least I don’t think so,” Gemma amended, as both men stared at her in surprise. “I saw her this morning, while I was waiting with Kit. When she came back from the scene, she sat in her car for a bit, with this big dog, as if she were deliberating something. Then she got out again and walked down to one of the boats
moored across from the pub. She was carrying an oxygen tank.”
Gemma could see now, from the puzzled expressions on their faces, that she was going to have to admit to her afternoon’s snooping. “I walked the towpath this afternoon, from Barbridge to the dairy barn, just to get a picture in my mind of how the places fit together. When I got back to Barbridge, I met this little girl who was fi shing beside the same boat the doctor visited this morning. The girl said her mother was dying, so it must have been the mother the doctor was going to see—though I must say I never knew of a pathologist making house calls.”
“You’re quite certain it was Dr. Elsworthy?”
Gemma bristled under Babcock’s skeptical regard. “Yes. I asked the constable on duty who she was, when I saw her go to the boat.
She’s not someone you’d easily mistake.”
“And the boat? You’re sure it was the same boat?”
Before Gemma could reply, Kincaid said with some asperity, “Of course she’s certain, Ronnie,” then he turned to Gemma, frowning.
“You said you wanted to see how the two places fit together. But we don’t know of any connection between Annie Lebow’s murder and the remains found in the barn.”
Unwilling to air any far-flung theories in front of Ronnie Babcock, Gemma merely shrugged. “It just seemed odd, that’s all. I only wanted—”
“Boss.” Sheila Larkin got up from her desk, picked her way through the obstacle course of cables until she reached them, and waved a handful of loose papers at Babcock. “Boss,” she repeated, making sure she had his full attention, “I’ve been looking through some of the things I found on Annie Lebow’s boat. It seems she had considerable investments with Newcombe and Dutton, here in Nantwich.” She glanced at Kincaid. “Is that any connection with your sister, Mrs. Newcombe?”
“My sister’s husband’s firm,” Kincaid confirmed easily, but Gemma detected a faint note of surprise in his voice. “But you said s
Annie worked here in Nantwich, before she left Social Services, didn’t you, Ronnie? So I suppose it’s not unlikely she’d have dealt with Newcombe and Dutton.”
“Newcombe and Dutton have any number of well- heeled clients in this area, and it seems that Annie Lebow certainly fit into that category,” said Babcock, steepling his fingers together. “The question is whether the disposition of those investments on her death gives her husband a motive for killing her.”
Gemma heard the last words only vaguely, drowned out by the rush of blood in her ears. As Babcock took the papers from Larkin and began to fl ip through them, she grasped Kincaid’s arm. “We’d better leave the chief inspector to it,” she said, forcing a smile that made her face ache. “Your mother’s expecting us to pick up the children.”
“But I thought she and dad were taking them home from the shop,” Kincaid said, sounding baffl ed.
“Change of plans,” Gemma answered, still smiling. When Babcock turned away for a moment to speak to another officer, she dug her fingers into the flesh above Kincaid’s elbow until he winced. When he glanced at her in surprise, she mouthed, “We need to talk. Now.”
After hasty and slightly awkward good- byes, Gemma hurried Kincaid to the Escort, which was parked on the double yellows near the police station and was remarkably ticket free.
The car’s interior still retained a little welcome heat, but Gemma shivered as they buckled themselves in. Kincaid turned to her, looking concerned. “What’s going on, Gem? Are the kids—”
“They’re fine—”
“Then what is it? What have you been up to? Why were you checking out the crime scenes this afternoon?”
Gemma shook her head. “It’s nothing to do with that. Look, is there someplace we can stop and talk?” she asked, knowing she
couldn’t explain and drive at the same time. The early winter dusk was coming on fast, the mist was thickening, and she’d felt a slight glaze beneath her feet as they walked across the pavement.
“But you said we needed to pick up the boys—”
“It was just an excuse.”
He stared at her, his mouth open to form another question, then suddenly nodded and settled back in his seat. “Okay. We can stop at the Crown in Nantwich. It’s halfway to the house, and we ought to be able to have a quiet word in the bar.”
As they walked across the darkening square towards the old inn, Gemma thought of Christmas Eve, when she’d imagined she’d seen Lally and a boy who might have been Kit slip furtively into the shadows of the Crown’s coach entrance. But she’d been mistaken, she reminded herself, as the children had been waiting for them in church.
She dismissed the memory with a shrug as Kincaid led her into the hotel’s lounge bar.
The warmth generated by the crush of bodies and the blazing fi re struck them like a wave, and Gemma was already shedding her coat as they squeezed round a small table in a corner. The fi relight sparkled like gems from the leaded glass of the front windows, a cheerful coun-terpoint to the hum of conversation, but Gemma watched anxiously as Duncan fetched their drinks from the bar. Now that she’d had time to think, she wondered just exactly
