think her life will be difficult enough without having the legitimacy of her child brought into question?” Childs went on. “Not to mention the damage done to the child. Let it go, Duncan. Spend some time with your family, and when you come back, this will all seem much less complicated.”
Meaning, Kincaid thought, that
He stood so that he met Childs’s eyes directly. “Sir.”
“Good man.” Childs brushed his lapel. “I must dash. Diane’s kept Sunday lunch waiting.” He started towards the door, then turned back, casually. “Oh, by the way, I heard this morning that the DCI heading one of the murder teams in Lambeth had a massive coronary yesterday. Poor chap. It’s touch and go at the moment, I think. But someone will have to fill his post for the time being, and Gemma’s name has been put forward as acting DCI. Would she be interested, do you think?”
Temporary promotion? Heading a murder team?
It smacked of a bribe, Kincaid thought. And yet Gemma was both capable and deserving. He couldn’t take the opportunity away from her, and certainly he could never tell her he thought the offer was a convenient sweetener designed to keep him quiet.
“Sir,” he said. “That would be entirely up to her.”
Doug Cullen stood in the middle of the sitting room of his new house in Putney, disconsolately surveying the boxes he and Melody had ferried over from the old flat the day before. He hadn’t thought he had much in the way of possessions, but the things seemed to have found a way of multiplying, and now he had no idea what to do with them.
He’d scheduled a half day off work tomorrow to oversee the removal van bringing the rest of his bits and bobs. Not that that was likely to win him any points with his new guv’nor, but his lease on the old flat was up as of today and he’d had no choice.
Perhaps having the bigger pieces of furniture would help, he thought, although really, there wasn’t much point in doing more than making a place to eat and sleep until he’d tackled the painting and decorating.
He sat down on one of the sturdier boxes, his chin in his hand, wondering if he’d made a dreadful mistake with the whole house idea, when there was a rap on the door.
Guiltily, he jumped up, as if he’d been caught slacking, then chided himself as he went to the door. He wasn’t expecting anyone, and besides, it was his house and he could sit on a bloody box if he liked.
But when he opened the door, he felt a flush of surprise and pleasure. It was Melody, carrier bag in hand.
“You’ll have to fix the bell, you know,” she said. “It doesn’t work.”
“Do come in, why don’t you?” he snapped back, instantly irritated. “I’ll add it to the list.”
Unperturbed, Melody followed him into the sitting room and surveyed his lack of progress. “Feeling a bit overwhelmed, I take it? I thought maybe you could use some help.”
“Sorry,” said Doug, abashed. “You’re right. I can’t quite figure out where to start.”
“This should help.” Melody opened the carrier bag and pulled out a bottle of champagne. It was, Doug saw, already chilled. And expensive. “And I thought you might not have glasses here yet,” she added as she removed two champagne flutes carefully wrapped in a tea towel.
“I thought we could toast to new beginnings,” she said, a little more tentatively. “New house, new boss.”
“Brilliant. Thanks.” Doug wasn’t sure how he felt about either of those things at the moment, but at least, thanks to his former girlfriend, he knew how to open a bottle of champagne properly. Taking bottle and glasses into the kitchen, he peeled back the foil, then used the tea towel to cover the cork as he eased it out.
There was a soft pop of escaping gas as the cork came free, then he tilted the pale gold liquid deftly into the glasses.
“You’ve missed your calling,” teased Melody as she accepted hers.
“Headwaiter? That’s a thought,” he said as he lifted his own glass. “Probably better pay and easier hours.”
“Cheers.” Melody clinked the lip of her glass against his. “And I hear you were a bit of a hero yesterday, so we should drink to that, too.”
“Me?”
“With the arrest and everything. I wish I’d been there,” Melody added on a wistful note.
“No, you don’t,” said Doug, more harshly than he intended. He couldn’t tell her how ashamed he felt, remembering how he’d stood there, frozen as a dummy, while Ross Abbott waved his gun at them. He should have been the one to tackle Abbott, and instead he’d let his guv’nor risk his life.
It didn’t bear thinking about.
“Sorry,” he said, again. “Cheers.” He tipped back half his glass, then sputtered as the bubbles went up his nose.
“Easy with that stuff.” Melody smiled, but he detected a hint of concern beneath it. “I’ll tell you what. The boxes can wait. Let’s have a look at the garden. Then I believe you owe me an uninterrupted lunch, Sergeant Cullen, with an Eton Mess for afters. We can make sock monkeys together.”
“Sock monkeys?” He looked at her as if she’d gone completely round the twist. Was this some sort of weird proposition?
“At the Jolly Gardeners,” Melody explained. “I saw the notice when we were there before. You can make sock puppets while you’re having Sunday lunch. They even provide the socks.” She finished her glass, her cheeks going slightly pink. “Where’s your sense of adventure, Dougie?”
Where was it, indeed? Doug thought his life had suddenly taken an unexpectedly surreal turn. But, then, what did he have to lose?
“Okay,” he said. “The boxes can wait. Sock monkeys. Why ever not?”
Freddie had mopped the mud and blood off the cottage floor. Yesterday’s storms had blown through and left the day washed sparkling clean, so he’d opened the windows to air the place out and turned on the central heating to take away the chilly damp that seemed to have settled into the bones of the cottage since Becca’s death.
He swept and tidied, and when he found the photo lying facedown on the carpet, he looked at it for a long moment, then put it away in a drawer. He didn’t want to think about Ross Abbott again, at least not until the trial.
He’d taken his revenge last night. It had been swift and sweet, and he felt no remorse.
He’d rung every one of the crew of their year’s Blue Boat and told them what Ross had done in the Boat Race. That would be enough. While Ross’s career might survive a murder trial, the power of the rowing grapevine would send his reputation up in flames.
A token, against Becca’s life, but fitting that Ross Abbott should lose the thing that mattered to him most.
Freddie, however, wasn’t at all sure what mattered to him anymore. It came to him, as he looked round the cottage, that he loved this place, and felt at home here in a way he never had in the Malthouse flat. Once the legal criteria had been met, he could sell the flat and move back into the cottage. Maybe he could make a Guy Fawkes bonfire of the Malthouse furnishings, he thought wryly.
Would he mind sharing this house with Becca’s ghost? he wondered. As he stood quietly, he realized he’d come to see that in spite of their flaws and their mistakes, they had loved each other. And in some odd, bittersweet way, it helped salve his grief. He would be all right here.
But although Becca’s generosity would leave him once more financially stable, he found he’d lost all interest in developing property or in moving in the circles where nothing one had was ever quite good enough.
What, then? Convincing people to invest money in one scheme or another was all he’d ever done. He had no real or useful skills.
Through the open window, he heard the sound of tires on tarmac. When he looked out, a battered Land Rover was stopping on the verge by the cottage.
It was Kieran’s car—he recognized it from yesterday—and tied on the roof rack was the canvas-covered but
