Deep Waters (12 page)

The news conference was over. History. On the whole, Neville didn’t think it had gone too badly.

The briefing room had been stuffed to its capacity; at the last minute they’d had to rig up a closed-circuit feed to an auxiliary room for the overflow. Neville himself might not have known—or cared—about Jodee and Chazz forty-eight hours ago, but he realised that he was clearly in the minority. Jodee, Chazz and Muffin were big news.

He’d read his statement, along the lines of what DCS Evans had suggested. He’d kept it vague, using the word ‘inconclusive’
more than once, leaving them—the police, the coroner, the CPS—room to manoeuvre as necessary in the future.

Of course the press hadn’t allowed him to leave it at that. He’d been bombarded with questions—some of a frivolous nature, and some fairly tough ones. He’d handled them relatively well, all things considered.

Until that bloody woman Lilith Noone had stood up. Smiling, all sweetness and light. ‘Exactly what,’ she’d asked, ‘do you mean by “inconclusive”?’

He’d taken a deep breath, tried to ignore his personal
antipathy
for the woman. ‘I mean that we don’t yet have enough information to draw any conclusions.’

‘And why is that? You say that the post-mortem was “
inconclusive
”. That must mean that there was something there to indicate that it wasn’t a straightforward cot death. Could you comment on that, Detective Inspector? Is this death being treated as suspicious?’

‘Cot deaths are seldom—if ever—straightforward, Miss Noone,’ he’d snapped. ‘Ask any doctor. If we knew what caused them to happen, there wouldn’t be so many of them.’

Under the circumstances, it had been a good answer, and it had seemed to satisfy her. At least he hoped so. She’d sat down without further comment.

But Neville just couldn’t help the nagging feeling that he’d not heard the last from Lilith Noone when it came to this case. She had a nasty way of getting her teeth into something and not letting go. Just like some bloody terrier.

Well, there wasn’t anything he could do about it now.

And he wasn’t going back to the Bettses’ house. Not today. That would only inflame media speculation about the police’s continued interest in Muffin Betts’ death.

There was nothing for it. He couldn’t avoid thinking about Triona any longer. It was, after all, their bloody one-week anniversary.

He was going to look for her. Unfortunately, from his
starting
point in Paddington, his flat in Shepherd’s Bush was the
opposite direction from hers in the City, but the traffic wasn’t too bad, late on a Saturday afternoon. And he had the whole long evening ahead of him. He would head into the City first, and if she wasn’t there he’d go back to Shepherd’s Bush. That way, if his searching was in vain, and barring any further inspiration as to her whereabouts, he’d be home at the end. Close to all of his known and approved watering holes—all of those places where he could drown his sorrows, into the night, without having to get behind the wheel afterwards.

It wasn’t that Neville was a natural pessimist, but he had a feeling that finding Triona was going to take more than a few hours. She obviously didn’t want to be found.

Callie had known, before she ever met Joe di Stefano, about his infidelities. Marco had confided in her in the heat of his anger, immediately after confronting an unrepentant Joe. She’d dreaded meeting him, expecting a leering monster.

But Joe had been charming to her from the start, and not in a creepy, smarmy way. He’d been natural, funny, unforced. Joe had accepted her as Marco’s significant other, and thus as part of the family—
la famiglia
Lombardi—in the same auxiliary capacity as himself.

It wasn’t that she fancied him—not at all. Callie just couldn’t help liking Joe, in spite of all that she knew about him. She enjoyed his company; he made her laugh.

So as Joe came down the stairs, though she could feel Marco tensing beside her, she smiled.

‘Well, what a nice surprise,’ Joe said. ‘Marco and Callie.’

‘We brought Chiara’s birthday present,’ Marco said stiffly.

‘So I see.’

Chiara was dancing round and waving the CD in the air. ‘Karma!’ she squealed. ‘I can’t wait to listen to it!’

‘Well, there’s no time for that now,’ her father reminded her.

‘I know. I know.’

‘Just time to get everything ready.’ Joe smiled at Callie. ‘Did Chiara tell you about our little Saturday evening ritual?’

‘She said that you always watch “Junior Idol” together.’

‘Oh, that’s just part of the ritual. Then there’s the food that goes with it. Food is a big element of ritual, don’t you find? Especially in this family.’

Callie understood what he was saying. After all, she was part of an institution that had ritual at its heart: the ritual of the Mass, with bread and wine its central symbols. ‘Bread and wine,’ she said. ‘Body and blood.’

‘Exactly.’ Joe nodded his approval.

‘For us it’s Pringles,’ Chiara explained.

Marco looked horrified. ‘Pringles?’

‘Mum doesn’t like me to have them. She says they’re rubbish.’

‘So they’re our little secret, eh,
Principessa
?’ Joe winked at his daughter. ‘And the secret is part of the ritual, as well.’

Forbidden fruit, thought Callie. Chiara was learning the lesson young that forbidden fruit was often the sweetest. Was that really something a father should be teaching his daughter? She glanced at Marco, who was raising his eyebrows at this latest confirmation of Joe’s character.

Chiara, perhaps belatedly sensing Marco’s disapproval, appealed to her uncle. ‘You won’t tell Mum, will you?’

‘Your secret’s safe with me.’ His voice was deliberately light, but Callie could tell that he was more bothered than he cared to let on.

‘Good.’ Chiara turned and headed towards the kitchen, adding over her shoulder, ‘We have hot chocolate as well. Mum doesn’t mind about that.’

‘I think I’ll pass on the hot chocolate and Pringles,’ Marco said.

Chiara stopped. ‘But you’ll stay for “Junior Idol”?’

He looked at Callie for confirmation; she nodded. At that moment she would have just as soon have left, to enjoy the evening alone with Marco. But if this was what he wanted…

‘We’ll stay,’ Marco conceded. ‘For at least part of it.’

Before the events of the past few days, Frances Cherry had never thought there would be any circumstances under which she would feel sorry for Neville Stewart, but she’d definitely changed her mind. He was a man to be pitied.

First of all, there was the distressing case he was involved in. A dead baby was the very worst thing to deal with; she knew that well from her work at the hospital. Frances had seen a great many deaths, many of them unexpected: death by accident, death by sudden illness. Somehow, despite the shock of loss, the survivors coped. The death of a baby, though, was different. No one expected it. And the poignancy of a tiny, vulnerable body, so much
potential
cut short…It affected people—and not just the parents—in profound ways which they sometimes never got over.

And then there were his marital problems.

Triona, she’d discovered, didn’t want to talk about it. She seemed grateful to Frances and Graham for the refuge they’d provided, but Frances’ efforts to get her to air her feelings had been rebuffed. She was keeping it all locked in, shut down.

She had joined them to watch the evening news, sitting
without
comment through the coverage of the latest natural disaster and the current political crisis in the Middle East. Then, after a few preliminary words of explanation from the newsreader, Neville Stewart had appeared on the screen, reading out a
statement
about Muffin Angel Betts’ death.

Triona had simply got up and walked out of the room.

After the news, Frances and Graham moved to the kitchen to prepare dinner. Through their long marriage they had always shared kitchen duties; Graham enjoyed cooking more than Frances did, though his schedule as the vicar of a busy parish meant that she was more often than not the one who produced the meals. Saturday evenings were usually more relaxed for Graham—the sermon sorted, no meetings to attend—and he liked to do his spaghetti bolognese, with some help from Frances.

First she went to the corner of the kitchen to stroke Bella, who was sulking in her bed, missing Callie. ‘Poor girl,’ said Frances. ‘You must be feeling abandoned.’ She washed her hands and started on the salad while Graham chopped an onion.

‘She’s not the only one who’s been abandoned,’ said Graham. ‘What about Neville Stewart?’

‘Yes. I know.’

‘Not that I like the man. After what he did to you.’ Graham wielded the knife with particular ferocity, rattling the wooden cutting board.

‘He was just doing his job,’ she reminded him. ‘He didn’t take pleasure in it.’

Graham scooped the onion into the frying pan and stirred it into the mince. ‘I suppose so. And he does love Triona. I’m sure of it.’

‘I believe that he does.’ Frances thought back to the wedding, just a week ago: how they had looked at each other—Neville and Triona—with such transparent happiness on their faces. ‘She must know that. And she must realise how she’s making him suffer.’

‘Can’t you talk to her, Fran?’ Graham whacked a clove of garlic with the heel of his hand.

‘I’ve tried. And tried. She just looks at me with that blank face and says that she doesn’t want to discuss it.’

He discarded the papery skin of the garlic and minced the clove. ‘She can’t hide from him forever. Running away from your problems doesn’t solve anything.’

‘You know that. And I know that.’ Frances smiled at her husband fondly. Their own marriage had not been without its problems—mostly in the early days, when he’d been priested but that option was not yet open to her, and her resentment had been unfairly directed at him as well as at the Church—but the things that had divided them over the years, the little wrangles over child-rearing and domestic responsibilities, seemed trivial in comparison to what Triona now faced. ‘I think she has to decide now whether she wants to be married to him or not.’

‘I think you’re right, Fran.’ Graham tossed the garlic into the frying pan and gave the mixture another stir. ‘If she does want to be married to him, she has to accept that this is part of it—his job, I mean. And the fact that it will always have to come first.’

Frances made a face. ‘I learned that a long time ago, as a vicar’s wife.’

‘Well, there’s something in that,’ he admitted. ‘But how much more so for a policeman?’

‘And if she can’t accept it?’

‘Well.’ Graham put the wooden spoon down and gave her his full attention. ‘I don’t think, in all my years of ministry, I’ve ever counselled anyone to walk away from their marriage, from a commitment they’ve made in the sight of God, or even just in the sight of man. I’ve always told people that they had to work at it, and that it would be worth it in the end.’

‘I feel a “but” coming on,’ Frances guessed.

‘But…’ He smiled ruefully. ‘In this case, Fran, I really do wonder whether they’d thought through what they were getting into before they did it. There was the baby on the way, and it was all so sudden. One minute she was complaining to you about what a bastard he was, and the next minute they were getting married.’