‘You’ll feel better once we get to the Manse and get the kettle on. I, for one, could murder a cup of tea.’ She turned to McKinley who was stowing the last of the gear into the Land Rover. ‘John, take this and see if you can make heads or tails of it.’ She handed him the map.
He studied it for a moment. ‘Magical Mystery Tour,’ he said with a grin, then folded the map again and slipped it into his pocket.
John McKinley drove the Land Rover, singing softly to himself — an old Bob Marley song. Kirby sat in the passenger seat, taking the harmony part in her lilting little-girl voice. She held the map out in front of her and paused her harmonizing occasionally to offer directions.
Raj took snapshots of the passing scenery. He framed a shot of some particularly ragged-looking sheep grazing at the side of the road, but didn’t take the picture. Instead he put the camera down, closed his eyes and sat back in his seat. He couldn’t shake off the sense of gloom that had enveloped him the moment he’d stepped off the boat. He saw his feelings reflected in the eyes of the sheep; a deep melancholy hinting at a darker, deeper despair. He was starting to wish he hadn’t come.
Carter had a notebook on his knees and was scribbling sentences in his convoluted spider scrawl, occasionally glancing out at the passing scenery. As he wrote he whistled Mozart tunelessly, the noise providing a jarring counterpoint to McKinley and Kirby’s singing.
Jane sat next to him in the backseat of the Land Rover. ‘Do you want to talk about it now?’ she said quietly.
Closing his book with a sigh, Carter stared out over the bleak landscape. Even with a watery sun spilling its light over the heather and gorse, the place still managed to look depressing. ‘Sian’s still alive,’ he said without looking at her.
She took a breath. ‘How do you know?’
‘I just do.’ His mouth had the stubborn landscape she remembered from the end of the affair.
‘I see,’ she said, though nothing was further from the truth. How did he know Sian was alive? Where was she?
‘I doubt that.’
‘I want to help you.’ She began to lose her patience with him. If he had material information that affected this investigation, it was his duty to tell her.
‘What makes you think I need your help…or anybody else’s for that matter?’
Reining in her growing annoyance she tried the sympathetic approach. ‘What happened last night, when I saw you out by the fountain?’
‘Leave it, Jane. I’m not ready to talk about it.’ Carter’s voice rose and Kirby looked over at Jane, who gave her a ‘leave it’ signal with her eyes.
‘Christ, you’re pigheaded,’ Jane said.
‘No, I’m not. And I’m not being contrary either, but I need to get a few things clear in my own mind first.’ At last his tone began to soften and something of the old Robert peered out.
‘Well, as soon as you have, come and tell me.’ She’d had enough of fencing with him.
‘You’ll be the first to know,’ he said. He didn’t patronize her with a smile, but his voice was friendly.
‘Make sure I am,’ she said, and sat back in her seat, gazing out through the window. He was impossible when he was like this. She’d encountered his stubbornness many times in the past. It didn’t get any easier to deal with. She didn’t speak to him again until they reached the Manse.
Jane lifted her suitcase onto the bed and started to unpack. Obviously the KDC had spared no expense on the refurbishment of the old house. The decor was modern; the fittings of the bathroom state of the art, but the bedroom had an impersonal, anonymous feel to it. It could have been a room in any of the countless hotels she had stayed at in the past. Smartly furnished and comfortable, luxurious even, but unsympathetic and out of keeping with the traditional ambience of the Manse. At least there were no bloodstains on the floor.
She took a framed photograph of Gemma and Amy from her suitcase, set it down on the bedside cabinet and stared at it for a moment, feeling tears pricking at her eyes. She wanted things to return to the way they were. She wanted her marriage back. Sitting down on the bed she picked up the photograph and traced the outline of the girls’ faces with her fingertips. How on earth was she going to break the news to them that Daddy had left and wouldn’t be coming back? Amy was too young to really comprehend the news, but Gemma would understand what she was being told. The father of another little girl in her class at school had been killed in a car crash just four months ago and Gemma had shown an almost macabre fascination for the details. She’d talked about it endlessly for three days; asking about Heaven, about funerals, about what it was like to die. ‘Will you die, Mummy? Will I die? What happens when you die?’ The questions went on forever. And Gemma took the answers she was offered and absorbed them, assimilated them with a pragmatism that only children can summon.
Her enquiring eight-year-old mind wouldn’t take the news of a marriage breakup at face value. There would be questions; difficult questions that would require even more difficult answers. It was going to be hell.
A tap at the door brought her back to the present. She replaced the photograph on the cabinet and went across to the door.
Kirby was standing in the hallway, two mugs of tea in her hand, a hesitant smile hovering on her lips. ‘Sustenance for the troops,’ she said.
‘Kirby, you’re a lifesaver.’
The girl set the mugs down on the cabinet, sat down on the bed and picked up the photograph. ‘Are these your kids?’
Jane nodded. ‘Gemma and Amy.’
Kirby smiled. ‘They’re so pretty. How old are they?’
‘Gemma’s eight, Amy’s five.’ God, where did the time go? It seemed like a few hours since she had given birth.
‘Gemma looks like you. Does Amy look like her father?’ Kirby held the photograph in both hands, as if she was holding the children themselves and didn’t want to hurt them.
‘No, not really, she takes after my grandmother, all red hair and freckles.’
‘She looks like a pickle.’
‘Oh, she is, believe me. She’s as fiery as Gemma is placid. She’s impetuous, whereas Gemma won’t even get out of bed in the morning without exploring all her options first. Chalk and cheese.’
Kirby set the photograph down again. ‘You’re very lucky.’ There was something in her tone that made Jane think she wasn’t just being polite.
‘You think so?’
‘I know so. I was pregnant once. Lost it. Still hurts.’ The last two words were said with characteristic lightness but Jane could tell the pain was still heavy.
‘I’m sorry. I had no idea.’
‘It was a long time ago. Before I started with the Department.’ She lifted her legs onto the bed and laid back. ‘I often wonder what she would have been like.’
‘You knew it was a girl?’ Jane was surprised.
‘Sacha. Had a name and everything.’
Jane sat down on the bed and took Kirby’s hand in hers. There were tears in the younger woman’s eyes. She rubbed her other hand across them impatiently.
‘Stupid! Bringing all this up now. I don’t know what’s got into me. Sorry.’
‘Don’t apologize.’
Kirby leant herself up onto her elbow. ‘Sorry,’ she said again. ‘So what’s the plan?’
Jane recognized the need to move away from personal issues and instantly became businesslike. ‘The usual, I think. Let Raj and you do your stuff; set all the cameras and wire the place to record anything out of the ordinary, then we’ll sit back for twenty-four hours and see if we pick up anything.’
‘So you think the house is the focus?’ Concentration on a task was often the best way to overcome emotional pain.
Jane stood and moved away from the bed. ‘Not necessarily, but it’s as good a place as any to start.’