“Nonsense. It’s nice to have someone to bake for. I won’t do it for myself.”
Sitting down on the red-brocaded settee as Erika insisted on pouring her tea, Gemma looked round the room with her usual pleasure. Having grown up in a household ruled by the telly and by what her mother referred to as “practical” furnishings, she loved the rich and cluttered collection of books and paintings and the antique German furniture Erika had accumulated to replace the things lost by her family during the war. The room always held a large bouquet of flowers, and then, of course, there was the piano. Until Duncan’s unexpected gift of a piano of her own the previous Christmas, Erika’s baby grand had been the object of Gemma’s envy.
Now, she looked at it with a pang of regret for her missed lesson as she accepted a still-steaming cup of tea from Erika. “Did you get your cabinet organized?” she asked Kit when she’d placed a few sandwiches on her plate.
“Um, not entirely,” said Kit, with a glance at his brother. “Toby was helping,” he added, putting it tactfully.
“I can imagine. Sorry to leave you in the lurch.” She stopped herself from adding
Kit’s shrug spoke volumes. As she looked at the two boys sitting side by side, she thought how it never failed to amaze her that they were not, in fact, related by blood. Both had straight blond hair and blue eyes, but while Kit looked like both his late mother and Duncan, Toby was surely a changeling. He resembled neither her nor her deadbeat ex-husband, Rob.
Watching them, she realized that Toby, usually an unadventurous eater, was wolfing down smoked salmon and cucumber sandwiches as if he ate them every day, while Kit was merely picking. She’d hoped that the morning’s expedition would have taken his mind off his worries over Monday’s hearing, but it had obviously not done the trick.
Seeming to sense that Kit was troubled, Erika made an effort to draw him out as they finished their tea, asking him about his interests and collections. “And what field do you want to study eventually?” she added. “Botany? Zoology?”
“Um…” Kit looked a bit taken aback by being put on the spot but said gamely, “My friend Nathan’s a botanist, and that’s really cool… but I like animals, too. I’d like to study animal behavior like Konrad Lorenz or Gerald Durrell. And… then there’s anthropology, and paleontology, and geology… I don’t know how I’ll choose.”
“You will have to narrow it down a bit for practical purposes,” Erika agreed, “but a diversity of interests is a good thing. It contributes to analytical thinking. And I believe that the problems the world faces today can only be solved by those who can synthesize ideas and think outside the traditions of their disciplines.”
Setting down her cup, Erika stood and went to one of the bookcases lining the wall. She ran a finger down the spines, then pulled out a book and handed it to Kit. “You might enjoy this. Stephen Jay Gould was a Harvard professor of geology and zoology, with a lifelong interest in paleontology. He was a brilliant and original thinker whose interests were as varied as yours.”
“Thanks.” Kit examined the book, his face alight with interest. “I’ll take good care of it.”
Toby, meanwhile, bored with books and biology, had slipped from his chair and begun to sidle round the room, his hands clasped carefully behind his back in the “don’t touch” position he’d been taught.
Suddenly, he paused, his body tensing like a retriever on point, and forgot himself so far as to reach out with a finger. “Mummy, look! There’re little men, and horses!”
“It’s a chess set, silly,” Kit told him. He joined his brother, the book clasped under his arm.
Gemma had noticed the set before, but as she didn’t play, she hadn’t paid it much attention. The intricately carved pieces sat on a small table against the far wall, with a chair drawn up on either side.
“It was my husband’s,” said Erika. “One of the few things he managed to smuggle out of Germany.”
“Don’t touch it, either of you,” warned Gemma, alarmed, visions of irreparable damage dancing in her head.
“No, it’s quite all right,” Erika assured her. “Do you play, Kit?”
“A little. My da – Ian – showed me a few moves.”
“Why don’t you teach your brother, then? Go on,” she added as Gemma started to protest again. “I promise it’s indestructible.” As the boys began arguing over who would take the black and the white pieces, Erika sank back in her chair as if suddenly exhausted.
Gemma stood and began gathering the tea things. “We’ve tired you out. Let me do the washing up; then we’ll let you rest.”
“I have more than enough time for that,” Erika said with an unexpected touch of wistfulness. “And I like having the boys here. Back in my teaching days the house was always full of students.” She roused herself. “But I will let you help with the washing up, if you promise to let me keep you company.” Together, they cleared the dishes and carried them into the kitchen.
When Gemma had filled the basin with soapy water and persuaded Erika to sit at the kitchen table, Erika said, “I see you’ve been in the papers again. I’ve been following your case. Is there any more news about the missing child?”
Gemma shook her head. “No. And every day that passes makes it less likely she’ll be found.”
“Oh, I
Gemma could only nod. To all appearances, the six-year-old had simply walked out of her front door while her mother had been busy in the kitchen, then vanished in broad daylight. The ordinariness of it terrified Gemma more than anything else.
“You cannot protect your children from everything,” Erika said softly, as if she’d read Gemma’s mind. “You can only do what seems sensible, and trust in fate.”
Gemma spun round, her soapy hands dripping on the kitchen floor. “How can you, of all people, trust in fate?” Erika, a German Jew, had lost every single member of her family during the war.
“Because the only other option is to live in constant fear, which to me seems hardly worth doing. And I prefer to put my energies into nurturing minds like your son’s. Has he heard from his father – or should I say ‘stepfather’? I’m never sure what to call him.”
“I can think of several things to call Ian,” said Gemma, with a grimace of irritation. “But Kit hasn’t heard from him lately, no. Pressures of the new term at his university, and pressures of the new wife, apparently.” She turned back to her task. “But he has sent an affidavit for the family court judge, saying that as Kit’s legal guardian, he believes it best for Kit to live with us rather than be uprooted to Canada, and he feels that for Kit to have any contact with his grandmother would be damaging to his emotional well-being.”
“And yet the grandmother still insists on pursuing custody?”
“Yes. Our first court hearing is Monday.”
Erika considered this in silence for a few moments, then said, “Even my tolerance has limits. Someone needs to shake some sense into that woman.”
Dusk was painting shadows in the corners of the garden as Rose got up from the computer, shoving her chair under the desk in a gesture of frustration. The conservatory off the kitchen, with its built-in computer nook, had been one of her father’s last projects. Ordinarily, it was her favorite room in the house and she loved working or reading there, daydreaming as she gazed out into the garden.
That afternoon, however, she’d looked from the clock to the phone to the computer and back again, growing increasingly edgy and unsettled. She’d had a run and a shower, and tried to nap, but her sleep had been disturbed by half-remembered nightmares. Giving up on rest, she’d made coffee and pulled up the fire brigade database once again, hoping to see something she’d overlooked earlier, while she waited for Station Officer Farrell to call.
But the phone had not rung, and as the hours passed she felt more and more foolish for having attempted to contact him. Why had she thought she’d discovered something the investigating team wouldn’t turn up on its own? And what good would it do even if she had? There was nothing anyone could prove, or that would help the investigators predict the location of another fire. Her guv’nor had been right; she should have kept her nose out of it.
The fading daylight told her she should be hungry. Padding barefoot into the kitchen, she peered into the fridge but found nothing appealing. Her mum had gone out for a meal with friends, and Rose couldn’t be bothered cooking just for herself.
