“How could he?” Kincaid heard Eugenia wail. “After all we’ve done. We’ve suffered enough as it is—”
“I think it’s Kit who’s suffered quite enough,” Kincaid snapped. “You should be glad he took the money. It makes it less likely he meant to harm himself.”
“Eugenia, for God’s sake, be quiet!” shouted Potts. Into the stunned silence that followed, he said, hesitantly, “You don’t think…”
Regretting his outburst, Kincaid said, “I didn’t mean to frighten you. I’m sure he’s all right. But he’s shocked and grieving, and we have to consider that his behavior may not be predictable just now.”
“What should we do?” asked Potts, making an obvious effort at control.
Kincaid thought. The local force were not going to show much enthusiasm in looking for a boy missing only two hours, but he’d give them a ring and ask them to at least check hospital admissions. In the meantime, he’d better think of something useful for Bob Potts to do—anything at all being better than waiting. “Do you have a recent photograph of Kit?” he asked.
“He gave us a framed copy of his school photo for Christmas,” said Potts, sounding puzzled. “But what—”
“Take it to the bus and train stations. Kit had enough money for a fare. Ask the ticket vendors and anyone else who looks like they’ve been hanging about for a bit. A boy with a dog should be easy to remember. I’ll give the local police a ring and ask them to keep an eye out, but at this stage we’re better off looking ourselves.”
“You mean, you’ll help?” Potts sounded surprised and grateful, making Kincaid wonder what he’d expected.
“Of course I’ll help.” And God forgive him if he failed Kit the same way he’d failed Vic. He should have seen this coming.
Under a flat gray sky the road to Cambridge stretched in a now-familiar ribbon across the plains. Kincaid stayed in the fast lane, and
the speedometer needle quivered as he pushed the Midget to its limit.
As he drove, he tried to ignore the images that flashed unbidden into his mind—Kit injured, Kit as tattered and lost as the homeless runaways he saw begging outside the Hampstead tube station. He wondered if the gut-wrenching panic he fought was part of what it meant to be a parent, and with that thought he realized he’d come to accept the idea that Kit was his son.
But beyond that realization he could not go—not yet, not until Kit was safely found. Now he needed to concentrate on the present, making sure he’d covered every contingency. He’d left Bob Potts sounding a bit stronger, then he’d gulped a cup of tea while pulling on jeans and sweatshirt and making phone calls.
The Reading police responded as expected, but agreed to make a few inquiries. Laura Miller said she’d not heard from Kit, but would ring round and let him know immediately if Kit had contacted any other friends, and Gemma promised to wait at the flat until he called.
Rubbing his hand across the stubble on his chin as he neared the Grantchester junction, he thought out his options. He knew from experience that the first few hours in the search for a missing child were critical. If his instincts proved him wrong, he’d have to call out the big guns and order a full-scale search, working outwards from the Pottses’ Reading neighborhood.
Kincaid left the motorway and soon reached the outskirts of Grantchester. The streets seemed eerily empty, with only the curls of smoke rising from the occasional chimney giving evidence that the village hadn’t succumbed to some Brigadoon-like enchantment. He slowed almost to a crawl as doubt assailed him. Why had he wasted precious time on such a half-baked idea? Kit couldn’t have made it here, had probably never intended to come here. He was probably in London by now, being approached by one of the pimps always on the lookout for runaways to recruit as rent boys.
But even so, he stopped the Midget in the street, not on the gravel drive where the noise would warn anyone inside. Climbing out of the car, he closed the door softly and stood surveying the house. It seemed to him that it had already acquired a deserted look,
although it had been empty only a few days, and the pink stucco looked garish against the dull sky.
He began a careful circuit of the house, checking the doors and windows in the front, then letting himself into the back garden through the gate. The French doors onto the patio were locked, as he’d left them, but when he reached the kitchen window he noticed a slight gap in the bottom seal. His pulse quickening, he squeezed in among the shrubs and pushed up on the casement. It slid up easily, and after a moment’s consideration, Kincaid levered himself through the gap as quietly as possible.
Dusting himself off as he looked round the kitchen, he saw no evidence of occupancy. Had he left the window unfastened, after all? Although at the time he’d thought he was fully capable, he found now that his memory of the night of Vic’s death was patchy at best.
He checked the sitting room, finding it as he’d left it, then Vic’s office, which now showed the same evidence of police thoroughness as had her office at the English Faculty.
Quietly mounting the stairs, he methodically eliminated first the spare bedroom, then Vic’s room. He stood in the hall, aware of the beating of his heart, aware he was postponing the obvious choice till last, so afraid was he of failure. Taking a steadying breath, he eased open the door to Kit’s room.
After the dimness of the corridor, he was blinded by the light from the uncurtained window. He stood for a moment, blinking, and as his eyes adjusted, he saw the bed was empty, the duvet unwrinkled. His heart sank. He’d been wrong, and the time spent coming here could not be recovered.
Then just as he turned away, he heard a sound—a rustle, and a very faint thumping. He stopped, listening, and as it came again he was able to pinpoint it. Slowly, he crossed the room and edged round the end of Kit’s bed, until he could see into the space between the bed and the wall. A small, shaggy dog lay on a crumpled quilt, head on its paws as it looked alertly at him, while its tail gently thumped the floor.
And beneath the quilt lay Kit, eyes closed, one arm thrown over his head as if he’d been dreaming. He was still wearing his anorak,
and his chest rose and fell in a deep and regular rhythm as he breathed through his open mouth.
The wave of giddiness that swept through Kincaid made his knees suddenly weak. He sat down on the bed and reached out to pat the dog, which thumped its tail a bit harder. “Some watchdog you are,” he said with a laugh that sounded suspiciously shaky, and at the sound of his voice Kit stirred and opened his eyes. Kincaid saw the beginning of a smile as Kit recognized him, then alarm as he realized he’d been discovered.
Kit pushed himself up, trying to escape the entangling folds of the quilt and the dog’s weight on his legs. “I’m not going back,” he said as he managed to free himself.
“Hullo, Kit.” Kincaid smiled at him. “What on earth are you doing down there?”
Squatting now, Kit leaned back against the wall and regarded him with a puzzled expression. After a moment, he said, “Hiding. I thought if they came for me, they might not think to look behind the bed. I told Tess to be quiet.”
“She’s a very well-behaved dog. It was only her tail wagging that gave you away. Why did you call her Tess?”
Kit reached out to stroke the dog. “Because I found her behind the Tesco.”
“Oh, of course,” said Kincaid. “Silly of me not to twig. Have either of you had anything to eat?”
“Beef burgers. The second lorry driver bought us both beef burgers. But that was a long time ago.”
“I take it you hitchhiked your way here, then?” asked Kincaid. Thank God Kit had come through his journey unharmed, but this was not the time to lecture him on the danger of riding with strangers.
“Four lorries,” said Kit with a touch of pride. “We walked from the motorway, though. I was afraid someone I knew might stop if I tried to thumb it.”
“I’ll bet you’re hungry again,” Kincaid said easily. “There’s a cafe not far from here on the motorway. What do you say I buy you a real lorry driver’s fry up? We’ll get something for Tess, too.”
Kit tensed and gathered the dog to him. “I told you, I’m not
going back to Reading. If you try to make me, I’ll just run away again.”
Watching the stubborn set of Kit’s mouth, Kincaid wondered if
he
looked like that when he dug his heels in over something.
Like father, like son
. And if that were the case, the best way to win the boy’s cooperation was to treat him as honestly as he would like to be treated himself. After a moment’s thought, he said, “I understand how you feel, Kit, but you’ve got to be reasonable about this. You know you can’t stay here on your own—”
“My dad will come back. I know he will, and then I can stay—”
“That may be true, but in the meantime, you can’t stay here for more than a few hours before someone else comes looking for you—either the police or your grandparents. And you know your grandfather’s frantic. You don’t want him worrying about you.”
“She
won’t care what’s happened to me. All
she
cares about is her bloody carpets.”
Kincaid sighed. “Does that make your grandfather’s feelings any less important?”
Kit stared at him, then his mouth relaxed and he gave a little shrug. “I suppose not. But I can’t go back. They won’t let me keep Tess.”
“I promise you we’ll try to work something out. And I promise I won’t do anything without discussing it with you first. But we have to start somewhere, and it seems to me that breakfast is a pretty good beginning. What do you say?”
For a long moment, Kit didn’t respond, then he gave an infinitesimal nod and said, “What happened to your eye?”
Once seated in the clean anonymity of the Little Chef, Kincaid and Kit ordered eggs, bacon, sausage, mushrooms, tomatoes, and fried bread, to be washed down with a pot of tea. They’d left Tess in the car with the small blanket Kit had found for her, and she settled down to wait with the resignation of a dog accustomed to it.
At the cottage Kit had washed his hands and brushed his hair, then gathered his things up without further complaint. When he was ready, he’d produced a spare key from the drawer in the kitchen.
“Did I not latch the window?” Kincaid had asked, still a bit concerned over his lapse.
“The lock doesn’t quite catch,” said Kit. “You wouldn’t have noticed. But I always get in that way when I forget my key. It makes Mum fur—” He’d stopped, stricken, and Kincaid had hustled him out of the cottage with an arm round his shoulders.
This time Kincaid kept the key, and they had driven to the Little Chef in silence.
Their tea arrived, hot and strong, and as they stirred their cups, Kincaid glanced at his watch and pulled his phone from his jacket pocket. “I’m going to ring Gemma and ask her to let your granddad know you’re all right. No, wait,” he added as Kit started to protest, “that’s all for now. We’re going to take this one step at a time. Fair enough?”
Kit gave him a nod, and Kincaid wished he were really as confident as he was attempting to sound. What he hadn’t told Kit was that he didn’t
know
what to do next. The only thing of which he felt sure was that returning Kit to his grandparents right now might mean losing him for good.
Dialing Gemma’s number, he filled her in briefly, then said, “Ring Kit’s grandfather and tell him he’s all right, that he’s safe with me. Nothing more. Then give Laura Miller a ring, too, would you, love?”
“What are you going to do?” asked Gemma. “You have no legal right to keep him with you without their permission.”
“I know,” he answered guardedly. “But I don’t see any alternative at the moment.”
There was a pause, then Gemma said, “Bring him here, then, until we figure something out. At least there’s a garden for the dog.”
“Will Hazel and Tim mind?”
“I’ll just go have a word. See you in an hour or two,” she added and rang off.
Kincaid eyed Kit, who had been listening intently in spite of the arrival of his breakfast. “We’re going to visit Gemma for a bit,” he said as he picked up his fork and tucked into his eggs. “Okay with you?”
Instead of answering Kit frowned and said, “I didn’t know you knew the Millers.”
“They were worried about you. Gemma and I were worried about you. And I imagine all the friends that Laura Miller rang were worried about you, too.”
Kit looked a bit sheepish. “I didn’t think of that. Honestly. I only thought—”
“I know. Sometimes we lose our perspective.” Kincaid waved his fork at Kit and grinned. “Eat up. All those hours without food probably stunted your growth.”
“You sound just like my mum,” Kit said, concentrating on cutting his sausage. He ate in silence for a few minutes, then looked up at Kincaid. “It wasn’t any good, you know. Going home, I mean. It didn’t bring her back.”
Gemma stood at Hazel and Tim’s kitchen sink, washing up the remains of Sunday lunch. Kit had eaten two huge helpings of Hazel’s spaghetti, in spite of his late breakfast.
His initial reserve had quickly melted, the thawing process helped along by the immediate and limpetlike adoration of Toby and Holly. Hazel and Tim had welcomed him kindly but without fuss, and after lunch Hazel had tactfully suggested that he might bathe Tess in the big claw-footed tub upstairs. Now he and Kincaid were giving the dog a blow-dry in front of the sitting room fire, helped—or more likely hindered, Gemma thought with a smile—by the small children, and Hazel and Tim had taken the opportunity to go for a walk.
Gemma had been glad of a few moments alone. The sight of Duncan and Kit together had made her feel quite unexpectedly queer. It seemed that her knowledge of their possible relationship had altered her perceptions, for she now found the resemblance between them so unmistakable that she was amazed she hadn’t seen it instantly. That, she might have expected, but she had not been prepared for the aching tenderness she felt for them both. And the tenderness was mixed with unease, for she was not only worried about Kit, but concerned about how their involvement with Kit would affect all their lives.
The door opened and Kincaid came in, brushing dog hair from his pullover. “I’m sure I smell like wet dog,” he said, grinning. “But
Tess is definitely improved. The next thing will be to get Kit into
the tub.”