“Gabe had taken Joseph with him. Joseph was almost three by then, and he was so much better, we didn’t worry as much. He liked helping his papa with his work, and I was enjoying the bit of time to myself.
“I was singing. With the radio. A man Gabriel had worked for had given him a radio that ran on batteries, so it was a special treat to listen. It was a silly song. I don’t know what it was called, but it made me happy.” She hummed a few breathy bars, and Gemma recognized the tune—ABBA’s “Dancing Queen.”
“I know the one you mean,” she said, and Rowan nodded, as if they had made a connection.
“I was thinking of what I might paint that night, when the children were in bed.” Rowan stopped. Her face grew even paler, her breathing more labored.
Moving towards her, Gemma said, “Are you all right? Let me—”
But Rowan lifted her hand from her husband’s and waved her back.
“No. Please. Let me finish. I had the mince almost ready. The light was going, and I realized it was past time for Marie to wake. I wiped my hands on the tea towel and went in to her. I was still singing.”
Gabriel shook his head, a plea of denial, but he seemed to realize he was powerless to stop her. Bowing his head, he took her hand again and they all waited. Gemma could feel Kincaid’s breath, warm on the back of her neck as he stood behind her.
“I knew straightaway. In the verses I learned as a child, the poets always compared death to sleep, but you can’t possibly mistake it.
Even under her little pink blanket, she was too still. When I touched her, she was cold, and her skin was blue.”
No one spoke. The hypnotic hiss of the oxygen regulator fi lled the room, until it seemed to Gemma that it synchronized with her heartbeat. She realized her cheeks were damp, and scrubbed at them with the back of her hand.
She had held her own child in her arms, so tiny, so perfect, and knew one couldn’t mistake the absence of life. “I’m so sorry. That must have been terrible for you,” she said, and her words seemed to give Rowan a last burst of energy.
“I tried. Oh, I tried. I did everything we’d been taught with Joseph. I puffed my own breath into her lungs until I could feel the rise and fall of her chest under my hand, but it was no use. We were down near Hurleston, and there was no one moored nearby to call for help. By the time Gabriel came . . .”
“I found them,” said Gabriel hoarsely. “Rowan holding little Marie to her breast. It was too late. Too late,” he repeated, his face etched with pain. “And then I realized what would happen if anyone knew. We would lose Joseph, too, and Rowan might go to prison. I couldn’t let that happen.
“I knew I hadn’t much time. Rowan washed her, and dressed her in her best little suit.”
“No nappy. That’s why there was no nappy,” Kincaid said softly, as if he’d just remembered something that had bothered him, and Gabriel nodded.
“It was full dark by that time. I wrapped her in her blanket and carried her to the old dairy. We couldn’t risk Rowan coming, and besides, there was Joseph to look after.” Now that he’d begun, Gabriel seemed to feel the same relief as his wife, the long-dammed words flowing from him.
“I’d been working that week for old Mr. Smith. The dairy hadn’t been used as such for years, but he’d got in mind to sell the place, and much of the mortar work was crumbling. I’d not quite fi nished the repairs, so I’d left my tools. Everything was to hand. There was a manger, half hidden behind some old milking equipment and bits of cast-off furniture—I’d seen it when I’d checked for damage. I made—
I did the best I could for Marie—” He stopped, swallowing, his face nearly as ashen as his wife’s. “And then I closed her up, safe, where nothing could get at her, and I put everything back the way it was before.
“The next day I took my pay from Mr. Smith. I didn’t want any talk—nothing out of the ordinary. Then we left the Shroppie, went up north, mostly, where no one knew us. But somehow it got harder and harder to stay away. Maybe it was meant we should be here when she was found.”
“But I don’t understand,” said Gemma. “Your daughter, the girl you call Marie, who is she?”
“I can’t tell you who she is,” answered Gabriel. Then he must have seen something in Kincaid’s expression because he added, quickly, “I don’t mean I
and they’d only begun to be called ‘waterfront properties.’ ” There was a hint of derision in his voice.
“We were in Manchester—I’d found some day work in a factory there—but the ware houses near the mooring were squats, taken over by drug users, prostitutes, runaways sleeping rough. Rowan got to know some of the women; she helped them when she could. One day they told her they’d found this girl dead, apparently from an overdose, her toddler crouched beside her body.”
“The mother wasn’t much more than a child herself,” put in Rowan, a spark of pity in her eyes. “And the baby, she looked as if her mother had tried to care for her, in spite of everything. She was well fed, and as clean as could be expected. But she was that frightened, poor little mite, and no one would call for help—the squatters didn’t invite the police or the socials onto their patch for any reason—and no one would take her. So we did.” Rowan said it as if it had been the simplest thing in the world, and the memory made her smile. After a moment she went on. “She was about the age our Marie would have been, and now . . . She
All the protests ran through Gemma’s head. If the mother had been identified, there might have been a father to take the child, or grandparents, all with more right than Gabriel and Rowan Wain.
And yet . . . would anyone have loved her more?
Breaking into Gemma’s musing, Rowan asked quietly, “How did you know? About Marie?”
“It was her eyes. In Annie Constantine’s notes, she said Marie’s eyes were brown.”
Rowan sighed. “Dear God. I never thought. I never knew she wrote things like that about the children.”
Moving Gemma aside, Kincaid spoke to Gabriel, his voice hard.
“Did she see it, too? Annie Constantine, when you met her again on Christmas Day? She saw the children that day, and again when she
came back with Dr. Elsworthy. Was that why you argued, because she realized Marie wasn’t your daughter? And then, if she learned about the infant found in the barn, she would have put two and two together. You would have had to stop her, whatever it took.”
Gabriel loosed his hand from his wife’s and stood. The two men faced each other across the small confines of the cabin, and Gemma felt a sudden surge of claustrophobia, as if all the air had been sucked from the space.
But there was no defiance in Gabriel Wain’s stance, and when he spoke his voice rang with desperation. “No. I’d swear she didn’t know. And if she heard little Marie had been found, she never said.”
Resting his hand on his wife’s shoulder, he went on, his words a plea. “I’d not have hurt her, even so.”
The possibilities ran through Gemma’s mind. Annie might not have seen the girl for a changeling at first, but what if something had triggered a memory on Boxing Day morning, when she’d brought Dr. Elsworthy to see to Rowan? Had she come back, later in the day, to confront the couple?
No, not Rowan. Rowan would have told her the truth—she owed Annie Constantine that, and she had been ready to tell the truth.
But if Annie had spoken to Gabriel alone . . . How far had Gabriel Wain been willing to go to protect his family?
Yet they had no proof. And if they made an accusation against Gabriel, there could be no reprieve for this family, or for Rowan, who had so little time.
Gabriel regarded them in silence. He had put himself at their mercy; now he could only wait. But Rowan said, “What will you do?” and there was hope in her voice for her children, if not for herself.
“I—” Gemma hesitated, painfully aware of the risk in either action. But then she knew, with sudden clarity, that she wouldn’t sacrifice this family without proof of Gabriel’s guilt. And that meant they had to find out who had killed Annie Constantine.
The fire was guttering by the time Juliet reached Nantwich and found a place for her van outside the ring of fire engines and snaking hoses. Two fi refighters still stood, directing streams of water into the sodden remains of
