“Didn’t believe what?” Kincaid asked, frowning.
“I saw someone. I came in the kitchen … looked out the window. Before I saw—” His glance skittered away from Kincaid’s.
Kincaid knew what he couldn’t say. “What did you see before that? When you looked out the window?”
“A shape. A dark shape. By the gate at the bottom of the garden. Then I didn’t think of it again.”
Kincaid’s pulse quickened. “Man shape or woman shape?”
“I don’t
know.”
For the first time, Kit sounded close to tears. “It was too quick, just a flash. But I saw it. I know I did. Why won’t they listen to me?”
“I believe you,” Kincaid said with growing conviction.
Kit met his eyes. “You do?”
The door opened and Byrne looked in, motioning for Kincaid to join him.
“I’ll be right back,” Kincaid said to Kit, and went out into the corridor.
“There’s nothing more we can do here tonight,” said Byrne. “Would you be willing to wait for the grandparents?”
No, Kincaid thought, dealing with Vic’s parents was not an obligation he’d take on willingly, but he couldn’t see leaving Kit, either. “All right,” he said. “I’ll wait. Alec, you didn’t tell me Kit said he saw someone in the garden.”
Byrne shrugged. “He was incoherent, poor kid. Imagining things.”
“He’s not incoherent now. And he’s a reliable kid, Alec. You had better get the crime scene lads out there at first light.” Seeing Byrne start to bristle, he added, “Just in case. It always pays to cover your arse, Alec, just in case. And bloody hope it doesn’t rain between now and then.”
After a moment, Byrne said grudgingly, “All right. And I’ve rung the pathologist, but he says he can’t get to the PM till tomorrow afternoon. Do you want to attend?”
Kincaid shook his head, said harshly, “No.”
Not that, not yet It didn’t bear thinking of.
“Sorry,” said Byrne. “Tactless of me. Listen, Duncan, I really am sorry about all of this.” He shrugged his thin shoulders. “I’ll ring you after the PM.”
Kincaid, finding the words lodged in his throat, nodded his assent.
“We still haven’t a clue as to how to contact the husband. Do you think you could get something out of the boy? Or her parents? We’ll try his college in the morning.” Byrne grimaced. “Bloody nuisance.”
They made arrangements about the keys and the closing of the house, then Byrne took himself off with poorly concealed relief. Kincaid watched him drive away, followed by the other officers, then went slowly back into the house.
In the kitchen, Kit sat as if he hadn’t moved at all since Kincaid had left him. Without speaking, Kincaid made a quick search of the
provisions. He found bread in the bin and cheese in the fridge, and within a few minutes had put together a cheese sandwich with butter and pickle. He’d touched as little as possible, making do with a small paring knife from the drawer and a paper towel from the roll under the cabinet. They had already contaminated the scene, but he saw no point in making it worse.
He set the sandwich before Kit and sat down opposite. “I know you think you can’t possibly eat,” he said. “But it’s important that you do. Give it a try.”
For a moment, Kit looked as if he might protest, then he raised the sandwich to his mouth and took a listless bite. He chewed mechanically at first, then he seemed to realize he was hungry and wolfed down the rest. “I hate pickle,” he said when he’d finished the last crumb.
“Sorry.” Kincaid smiled. “I’ll do better next time.”
“Are you staying?” asked Kit, a spark of hope in his eyes.
Shaking his head, Kincaid said, “Only until your grandparents come for you.”
“I won’t go,” Kit said vehemently. “I hate them. I want to stay here.”
Kincaid closed his eyes and wished desperately for Gemma. She would know what to do. She would say, “Come on, love, let’s get your things together,” in her soft, matter-of-fact way. She might even put her arm round Kit, or tousle his hair, but those were things Kincaid did not dare attempt.
He blinked and said, “You can’t stay here, Kit. And as far as I know, your grandparents are your legal guardians until we can contact your father. Have you any idea how to reach him?”
Kit shook his head impatiently. “No, I already told them. He didn’t write to us. Mummy didn’t even have an address for him.”
“We’ll find him,” Kincaid said with more certainty than he felt. “He must have left instructions with his college. But in the meantime, you’ll have to go to Reading with your grandparents, and I doubt you want your grandmother packing for you.” He gave Kit a conspiratorial smile, and after a moment Kit smiled grudgingly back.
“All right. But I’m not staying more than a day. There’s nothing to do, and they won’t even let me watch telly.”
Kincaid didn’t comment. He remembered the sterile household
all too well, and suspected there would be little solace for a grieving child. He led Kit to the bottom of the stairs, and when Kit hesitated, Kincaid said, “I’ll come up in a bit, shall I? See how you’re doing.”
He watched Kit disappear up the staircase, all long legs and big feet from that angle. Then he turned and wandered down the hall into Vic’s office. Almost, he thought to see her turn from her keyboard and smile, and he knew he still hadn’t taken in the undeniable fact of her death. But he could go on pretending, and he could use his eyes to observe and his mind to record, just as he would on any case.
The room looked odd to him, and he studied it for a moment without touching anything. On Sunday, her desk had been covered with books and papers, but it had had the look of organized clutter, with everything in its proper place. Had she moved the books? One lay facedown on the floor, its pages crumpled. Vic had been almost obsessively neat—surely she would not have left a book like that?
Unless, said the small, detached voice in his mind, she had begun to feel ill, and knocked the book from its place as she got up to go to the kitchen, perhaps for a glass of water.
A logical explanation, possibly, but he couldn’t yet allow himself to think of Vic ill, in pain, frightened, alone. So he ignored the voice, and went on with his examination of her desk. A thick stack of manuscript pages lay beside the computer. He closed his eyes and thought of how it had looked on Sunday—the edges of the pages had been neatly aligned, and now they lay askew. They were also out of sequence, he discovered when he rifled through them. He thought of how much Vic had cared for her book, and he felt the hairs rise on the back of his neck.
He felt suddenly unwilling to leave the manuscript here, untended, and he straightened up, looking for some way to carry it. There, on the floor, an empty leather book satchel—it was, he imagined, what Vic used to carry papers back and forth to work. It would do.
Carefully, he put the pages into the satchel, then, seized by an urge he didn’t understand, he started on the milk crate file beside the desk. It held the original materials for the biography, letters in a strong hand he didn’t recognize—Lydia’s, of course—notes in Vic’s handwriting, photos, even a few postcards. He put them all into the
bag, and anything else that seemed relevant that he could glean from her desktop, and then he carried it all outside and locked it in the boot of the Rover.
In her office once more, he had a brief look at the computer, but Vic had apparently saved her work on the hard disk rather than a floppy, and he knew he hadn’t time to access the files properly. He’d left Kit alone too long as it was, so he would just have to hope that Vic had been as obsessive about printing hard copy as she had been about everything else.
He was climbing the stairs when he realized he had not seen the notes he’d given Vic, or the copies of the poems she’d found.
Kit sat on the edge of his bed, an open grip at his feet. When Kincaid came in, he looked up and said dully, “I don’t know what to take.”
The room might have been Kincaid’s own at that age, cluttered with books, and sports equipment, and barely outgrown toys. One shelf held a collection of bird’s nests, another of rocks.
Glancing in the bag, Kincaid saw one jersey and a pair of jeans. “Um, pajamas?” he suggested. “Toothbrush? A dressing gown?”
Kit shrugged. “I suppose. They’re all in the bathroom.”
He’d need things to wear to the funeral, Kincaid realized, but he also needed a few days before he even had to think of it. “I’ll tell you what,” he said. “Why don’t you go and get them, and I’ll throw somethings in the bag for you?”
“All right,” Kit agreed, and when he’d gone, Kincaid went quickly to the closet. A school blazer, a tie, some dark trousers, a white shirt. They would have to do. He found some black lace-up shoes and those went in first, in the bottom of the bag. Then the other things, neatly folded, and on top of them the jeans and jersey. Next he added socks and underpants from the bureau drawers, then a Cambridge sweatshirt. Sitting back on his heels to survey the room for last-minute necessities, he spied a worn teddy bear on the shelf above Kit’s bed, and that he tucked in last.
Kit came in with a bundle of night things, and when Kincaid took them to fold he discovered the purple tunic Vic had worn on Sunday among the folds of the dressing gown. It smelled of her perfume and, very faintly, of her skin.
Their eyes met as they knelt either side of the bag, and after a moment Kincaid folded the tunic and packed it without a word.
Kit’s room was on the front of the house, and as they zipped his bag they heard the sound of car tires on gravel, then the slam of a car door.
“Just in time, eh?” said Kincaid, attempting a casual tone.
“No.” Kit sat back on his heels, almost quivering with distress.
The boy looked like a frightened rabbit ready to bolt, and Kincaid knew he mustn’t let him lose control now. “Come on, mate,” he said, standing and lifting the bag. “I’m right behind you. We’ll do this together.”
“No, wait, I forgot Nathan’s books. I can’t go without Nathan’s books.” Kit swept a pile of books from his bedside table and they stuffed them in the already bulging bag, then Kincaid guided him down the stairs with a hand on his shoulder.
Kincaid had not seen Vic’s parents since the Christmas before she left him, and he doubted whether time or circumstance would have altered their mutual dislike. He and Kit met them at the door, and he, at least, had the advantage of foreknowledge.
Eugenia Potts’s face, already red and puffy with weeping, went slack with shock at the sight of him. An expression of mild surprise furrowed Bob Potts’s bland face, and Kincaid wondered if, even now, the man felt anything at all.
“Hullo, Bob. Mrs. Potts.” He had never been able to bring himself to call her Eugenia, and
Mum
had been unthinkable.
“You!” she breathed. “What are you doing here?”
Her tone was accusing, but he answered as mildly as he could. “They rang me, I’m afraid. Look, you’d better come in.”
“You! What right have
you
to invite us into our daughter’s house?” Pushing past him as he stepped back, she continued, her voice rising, “You don’t belong here, and I’ll thank you to get—” She saw Kit then, for he’d been using Kincaid’s body as a shield. Changing gears in mid-tirade, she shrieked, “Christopher, oh, my poor darling,” while grabbing him to her and pressing his blond head against the bosom of her tweedy coat.
Kincaid saw Kit stiffen, then struggle to extricate himself. A touch on his arm reminded him that he had, as usual, forgotten Bob Potts.
“Duncan, thank you for coming,” Potts said with quiet courtesy. “But there’s no need now for you to stay Is there anything … I mean, should we …”
Feeling that perhaps he’d misjudged the man, Kincaid said softly, “No, there’s nothing you can do. Not until tomorrow, at least, and I’m sure someone will be ringing you. The police are very anxious to contact Kit’s father, however. Have you any idea—”
“That man,” hissed Eugenia, for having finished throttling Kit, she’d caught the tail end of their conversation. “I blame him for this. If he hadn’t abandoned her, none of this would have happened. My baby would be alive—”
Kit’s face lost all color, then he turned and ran from the room.
Kincaid rounded on Mrs. Potts with a shout of anger. “Enough! Keep your useless speculations to yourself, you silly woman, where they won’t do any more damage.” He left her standing open-mouthed, and ran after Kit.
He found him in the sitting room, crouched on the floor over the wreckage of the Monopoly game. “I kicked it,” Kit said, looking up at Kincaid. Tears streamed down his face. “I shouldn’t have, but I was so angry. And now I can’t… I can’t put it back…”
Kneeling beside him, Kincaid said, “I’ll help you,” and began sorting the paper money into its slots. “Kit, don’t pay any attention to what your grandmother said. She’s just upset. You did absolutely the right things this afternoon, and no one could have done better.”
“Why does she have to be so beastly?” Kit said, hiccuping. “Why did she have to be so beastly to you?”
Kincaid sighed. He felt suddenly too exhausted to think, much, less talk, but he made an effort. “She doesn’t mean to be cruel, Kit. She just doesn’t think. Some people are like loose cannons—they go off all the time at the nearest target, and it makes them feel better. And I’m afraid the more your grandmother hurts inside, the worse she’s going to be, so try to be patient with her.”
“You weren’t,” said Kit. “I heard you shouting.”
“No, I wasn’t, was I?” Kincaid admitted, grinning at him. “So don’t take me as an example.” He’d been half listening to the murmur of voices from the hall, hers rising in protest, her husband’s coaxing, and now he heard the front door close softly. “They’ve
gone to the car, I think,” he said, fitting the board into the top of the box and closing the lid. “Come on. I’ll walk you out.”
When they reached the porch, Potts climbed out of the car and came over to them. “So sorry about all that,” he said. Light from the porch lamp glinted from his spectacles, so that Kincaid couldn’t see his eyes. “A sedative, and bed, I think, is what she needs.”
And what about Kit? thought Kincaid, but he didn’t speak.
“Eugenia thinks … that is, we feel that the house should be secured, and that we should keep the key…” Potts said, twisting his hands together. “That is, if you don’t mind …”