Kissed a Sad Goodbye (26 page)

“Oh, that reminds me.” Janice dug among the papers on the desktop until she found a scribbled memo. “You had a message passed on from the Yard. Someone called Ian McClellan is trying to reach you. Says he’s in London and would like to meet with you tonight.”

“Ian McClellan?”

“Here’s the number he left. Is it a lead?”

“A lead?” Kincaid realized he must have sounded idiotic, and shook his head to clear it. He didn’t meet Gemma’s eyes. “No, it’s … personal,” he managed to say, tucking the memo in his pocket.

What the bloody hell was Ian McClellan doing back here now, and what the bloody hell did he want?

A
T THE FLAT
, K
INCAID CHANGED INTO
jeans and tee shirt, then tried ringing Kit in Cambridge. After putting him on hold for a moment, Laura Miller came back on the line and said rather apologetically that Kit didn’t want to come to the phone just then. Kincaid heard the concern in her voice, but merely thanked her and said he’d try again later.

Looking through the open balcony door as he rang off, he saw Sid perched on the railing, watching the birds in the Major’s garden with quivering interest. He went out and stroked the cat, finding a brief comfort in the fact that,
unlike Kit, Sid always forgave him, no matter how badly he’d neglected him.

In the end, Kincaid chose familiar territory for his meeting with Ian McClellan: the Freemason’s Arms, just across Willow Road from the Heath. The summer sun had begun its long evening slant through the treetops, and Hampstead Heath was filled with Londoners escaping flats stuffy with the day’s heat. People strolled babies in pushchairs, played games of Frisbee and impromptu football, sailed boats on the Pond—and every glimpse of a boy with a dog reminded Kincaid of Kit.

When he reached the pub, he chose a table in the garden. He’d allowed time to get something to eat, but when the waitress brought his basket of chicken, he found he wasn’t hungry. Nursing his pint, he picked desultorily at the chips and thought about Ian McClellan.

Vic’s second husband, a political science fellow at Trinity College, had run off to the south of France the previous year with one of his graduate students. When Vic was murdered, McClellan had come back to England only briefly, and had refused to take Kit back to France with him. Although he admitted he’d long suspected Kit was really Kincaid’s child, McClellan was still the boy’s legal guardian, and he’d grudgingly acquiesced to Kincaid’s temporary arrangements for Kit. Nothing had been heard from him since. Until now.

Glancing up, Kincaid saw McClellan walking across the grass towards him, pint in hand. He looked tan, but thinner than Kincaid remembered; on closer inspection his neatly trimmed brown hair and beard had acquired a liberal peppering of gray. This was the first time Kincaid had seen him divested of his corduroy, leather-elbowed jacket, but even in a short-sleeved cotton shirt he had about him an unmistakable professorial air.

Kincaid stood up to greet him, determined to get this meeting off to a better start than their previous encounters.

There was a moment of awkwardness, then McClellan
shook Kincaid’s hand firmly and sat down in the white garden chair. Having settled back and lifted his pint in mute salute, Ian broke the guarded silence. “I expect you’re wondering why I asked to see you.”

Kincaid nodded and sipped at his pint. “It was a surprise.”

“Yes, well … Among other things, I believe I owe you an apology,” Ian said slowly. “I’ve had time to think things through these last few months, and I can see now that my behavior was a bit … irrational. And irresponsible. The whole thing with Jennifer … and then Vic, and meeting you that way …” Sun glinted from Ian’s gold-framed glasses as he looked away for a moment. “Things didn’t work out with Jennifer when I went back to France. To be quite honest, I went right off the rails.” Shrugging, he added, “Not quite what she bargained for, a middle-aged man in the midst of a breakdown. She came back to England to finish her degree.”

“Is that why you came back? To be near her?” Kincaid asked.

Ian shook his head. “No. I’m not that foolish, although you might be surprised to hear it. But my sabbatical was up at the end of the summer, and the book had come to a dead halt, so there didn’t seem much point in staying.…”

Kincaid waited in silence.

“How is he? Kit. Is he … coping? What about school?”

Kincaid thought of those first weeks, when Laura had found Kit clutching Tess every morning, crying, terrified to leave the dog long enough to go to school—certain something would happen to her while he was away.

“He’s managed to finish out the term, at least. The school has tried to make things as normal as possible for him, under the circumstances.

“But that’s what’s on the surface—underneath, I don’t know. He has nightmares. He’s had difficulty eating, but that’s a bit better lately.” Kincaid paused, then added,
“And he won’t talk about his mother. Not even to Hazel Cavendish, who could probably squeeze confidences out of a rock.”

“Is there any word on the trial?”

“The Crown Prosecution Service is still gathering evidence. There’s no date as yet.”

“And no resolution for Kit,” Ian murmured. “Is her killer—”

“On remand, enjoying Her Majesty’s hospitality. That’s something, at least.” Kincaid swatted at a late flying wasp that had landed on his glass. Dusk had settled on the garden with a cloak of cool air. The waitress came by, lighting the citronella candle on their table and bestowing a match-bright smile on them in the process. She wore a halter top and shorts no longer than her bar apron, and Kincaid noticed that Ian gave her an automatic smile. McClellan might have come to his senses over the latest affair, but old habits obviously died hard.

“There’s something else,” Kincaid said. “We’re
neither
of us Kit’s favorite people just now.”

“Neither of us? I know he has reason enough to be angry with me, but why you?”

Having plunged in, Kincaid had no option but to continue. “I told him I was sure I was his father. Last night, as a matter of fact.”

“You
told him?” McClellan repeated, drawing his brows together. “You cautioned me not to speak to him about it. You said to give him time—”

“I thought I had. And we were facing making a change in his living arrangements—he can’t stay with the Millers indefinitely.”

Ian pushed his glasses up on his nose, a signal of agitation Kincaid remembered from their previous meetings. “How did he take it?”

Kincaid shoved his cold food to one side. “He doesn’t want to believe it. He feels betrayed. And now you’ve come back. Why are you here?”

“Eugenia’s been sending me threatening letters. I thought you should know.”

“Threatening what? To spread more misery about in the world?” After Vic’s death, Kincaid’s dealings with his former mother-in-law had been acrimonious in the extreme, and promised no improvement. Kit had run away rather than stay in her care, and Eugenia was not likely to forgive Kincaid his part in making other arrangements for the grandson she considered as property.

“She’s been a bit vague.” Ian’s smile held little humor. “First it was suing for grandparents’ right to visitation. Lately, she’s been leaning towards accusing me of legal abandonment and suing for custody herself.”

“Dear God,” Kincaid breathed, horrified at the thought.

“I don’t think she has a leg to stand on as far as custody goes, but she might have a case for visitation. I’ve had a word with my solicitor.”

The few chips Kincaid had eaten might have been lead in his stomach. “Kit ran away the last time he was forced to stay with her—that can’t be allowed to happen again.” Swallowing, he continued, “But there’s no point talking about Eugenia without knowing what exactly you mean to do about Kit.”

Ian studied his glass as he spoke. “The Grantchester house hasn’t sold. I thought I’d take it off the market for the time being, until I get myself sorted out.”

“You mean to live there?”

“For the time being. And I want Kit with me. I’ve a good deal of making up to do.”

Kincaid pondered this in silence, then said, “You know I’ve no legal say in any arrangements you make for Kit. But if you abandon him again, I swear I’ll do whatever it takes to ensure you never have another chance.”

Ian met his eyes without flinching. “I want what’s best for Kit, and I think it’s this.”

“What will you tell him about me?” Kincaid asked, his resentment rising.

“That it doesn’t matter who his biological father is—he’s still my son.”

“And where does that leave me, now that you’ve suddenly become the ideal parent?” Kincaid couldn’t keep the bitterness from his voice. He’d spent months trying to repair some of the damage McClellan had done, and now the bastard thought he could come back like the prodigal son.

“Look, Duncan.” Ian leaned forward, his elbows on the table, and Kincaid realized it was the first time he had used his Christian name. “I’m not trying to shut you out of Kit’s life. He needs both of us—”

“How would you know what he needs?” Kincaid’s control was dangerously close to breaking.

“I can’t make amends without starting somewhere, can I? And it doesn’t sound to me as if you’ve any call for making threats or accusations—you’ve made a proper cock-up of things yourself,” Ian added hotly.

They stared at each other, then Kincaid sat back. He took a deep breath. Getting at cross-purposes with McClellan would benefit no one. “All right. I’ll admit that. But I was here, and I want it understood that I’m not bowing out of Kit’s life now.”

Ian gave him a crooked smile. “I’d say the question just now is whether he wants much to do with either of us. I’m going up to Cambridge tomorrow. I’ll open the house, then fetch Kit from the Millers.”

“Give him some time to get used to the idea,” Kincaid countered. “A few days at least. He’s found some security where he is … and he may find going back to the cottage difficult.… You know he won’t leave the dog?”

“I’ll give him a few days, then,” Ian agreed, then grimaced. “And I suppose I can get used to the dog. Anything is possible.”

Watching him, Kincaid felt a tingle of suspicion. It wouldn’t do to take this latest declaration of intent entirely at face value. In his experience with Ian, anything was indeed possible.

•        •        •

W
ILLIAM
H
AMMOND WOKE SUDDENLY, HIS HEART
hammering painfully in his chest. For a moment he wondered where he was, then the shapes in the dim room reasserted their familiarity. He lay in the high, old tester bed where he had slept with Isabel, his outstretched hand brushing against the hangings. She had loved the maize-colored satin, but the fabric was faded now, and stained.

The dressing table, there … the nightstand, there … and the pale oblongs on the right were the windows, admitting a faint light from Hyde Vale at the top of the lane. The curtains moved in the breeze and William pulled the duvet up to his chin, shivering.

In his dream it had been ripe summer, green and golden. He and Lewis stood knee-deep in the stream that ran through the bottom of the old pasture, picking watercress for Cook. They were laughing, their nut-brown faces turned up to the sun, but his feet and calves were cold as ice in the clear, running water.…

He had spent so many years forgetting, and yet it might have been yesterday, so real had the experience seemed for those few moments. Now the images began to dissolve, slipping away with the elusiveness of dreams, and William squeezed his eyes tight shut against the slow, leaking tears.

Gemma was awakened from a disjointed, early morning dream by Toby’s voice. Opening her eyes, she made out his small form standing beside her bed, silhouetted by the dim light from the garden windows.

“Mummy, I had a bad dream.”

“Did you, darling?” She sat up, pushing her hair from her face. The pale blue plush carousel horse her son clutched to his chest had lost most of its felt saddle, and its white mane and tail were worn away to stubble, but its black glass eyes were still bright and Toby loved it with fierce loyalty. “Did Horsey have a bad dream, too?” she asked, feeling the soft skin of her son’s neck for signs of fever. “Was it monsters again?”

Toby nodded vigorously, and she made a vow to stop reading him
Where the Wild Things Are
at bedtime. “Climb in with Mummy, then, lovey, and go back to sleep.” As she tucked him in between her body and the wall, she held her cheek to his for a moment and savored the sweet scent of him. He might look more like a little boy every day, but
when he was warm and damp with sleep, he still smelled like a baby.

She lay quietly, listening as his breathing slowed with sleep. But she felt increasingly restless, aware of a nagging sense of disquiet, and after half an hour she slipped out of bed and went to the window. Opening the blinds, she stood for a while, watching the pale light creep across the garden and listening to the birds greet the day with revolting cheerfulness. Her head ached dully, a symptom she assessed as a mild hangover.

Last night, while waiting for Kincaid to ring after his meeting with Ian McClellan, she’d had a glass more than the two glasses of wine she normally considered her limit. But Duncan had not called, and at last she’d given up and crawled into bed, already regretting her overindulgence.

Surely Kincaid wasn’t still cross with her over the business with Gordon Finch, she thought as she moved from the window to her tiny cupboard of a kitchen, where she filled the kettle. It was unlike him to hold a grudge, either personal or professional, but since Vic’s death his moods and his temper had been unpredictable.

The kettle whistled as she finished grinding the handful of coffee beans she’d taken from the fridge, and as she poured the hot water into the cafetière, she thought about Annabelle Hammond. What secret had she possessed that had compelled others to accept life on her terms? It had been more than beauty, that much was becoming clear, and for an instant Gemma wished she could have known her—could have judged for herself whether she was saint or sinner.