Then, guiltily, she remembered that she had no corner on misery.
They had lost a child this time last year, a baby born just a few weeks too early to be viable. Her face flushed with shame as she thought of her failure to call, or even to write. She had meant to, but somehow she could never manage to find the words to bridge the gap that stretched between her and the older brother she had once adored.
And now they would be here, tonight. They were all coming to her house for a festive Christmas Eve dinner before midnight mass at St. Mary’s, and she would have to play “happy families.”
Caspar would be civil, she was sure, the perfect host, and no one would guess that her husband had just that afternoon accused her of sleeping with his partner, Piers Dutton.
Rage swept through her again and she swung the pick hard into the crumbling mortar. She had to go home, she had to face them all, but first she would finish this one task, an accomplishment that was hers alone and untainted by lies. She would breathe with the rhythm of the blows and think of simple things, making a doorway from the front room of the barn into what had once been a feed store. The old
barn’s history stretched away from her like a ribbon; the generations of farmers who had found shelter here on frosty mornings had huddled inside on evenings like this.
One of them had mortared over what she guessed had been a manger, leaving a smooth, graying swath that broke the uniformity of the redbrick walls. It had been a good job, neat and careful, and in a way she hated to destroy it. But the barn’s new own ers wanted a doorway from what would be their kitchen/living area into the back of the house, and a doorway they would have.
As the hole in the mortar widened enough to give her purchase, she hooked the tip of the pick into the mortar and pulled. A piece came loose, but still hung, attached by what looked to be a bit of cloth. Odd, thought Juliet, peering at it more closely. The barn had grown dim with the approaching dusk. She extricated the tip of the pick, then switched on her work lamp and trained it on the wall. She touched the stuff with her fingers. Fabric, yes—something pink, perhaps?
She inserted the pick again and pulled, gently, until she dislodged another piece of the mortar. Now she could see more of the material, recognizing the small pattern as leaping sheep, a dirty white against stained pink. It looked like a blanket her children had had as babies. How very odd. The fabric seemed to be nestled in a cavity that had been only lightly covered with the mortar. Shifting her position so that her body wasn’t blocking the light; she tugged at the material, freeing a little more. It seemed to be wrapped round something, another layer of cloth . . . pinkish cloth with a row of rusted snaps.
It’s a doll, she thought, still puzzled—a black baby doll in a pink romper suit. Why would someone put a doll inside the wall of a barn?
Then, she realized that those were tufts of hair on the tiny head, that the face was not brown plastic but leathery skin, that sockets gaped where there should have been eyes, and that the tiny hands curled under the chin were curves of bone.
Chapter Two
Hugh Kincaid climbed up on the ladder once more, adjusting the strand of fairy lights he’d strung over the farmhouse porch. Above the rooftop, the sky had turned the ominous color of old pewter, and his nose had begun to run from the biting cold. He didn’t dare free a hand to wipe it, however; his position was precarious enough and becoming more so by the minute as the light faded.
His wife stood below him, hugging her jacket closed against the wind. “Hugh,” she called up to him, “come down from there before you break your bloody neck. They’ll be here any moment. Do you want your son to find you sprawled on your backside in the garden?”
“Coming, darling.” Giving the strand one last twitch, he made his way carefully down to stand beside her. She hooked her arm through his, and together they stepped back to admire the sparkle of lights against the dark red brickwork. The house was unadorned, foursquare in the style of the Cheshire Plain, but comfortable—if a little worn around the edges, as Hugh liked to think of himself.
“It looks a bit pathetic,” he said, eyeing the lights critically. “One lonely strand. I should have done more.”
“Don’t be silly.” Rosemary pinched him through the thick cloth
of his coat. “You’re behaving like a broody old hen, Hugh, and you’re not getting up on the roof.” Her tone was affectionate but firm, and he sighed.
“You’re right, of course. It’s just that . . .” For an articulate man, he found himself unaccountably at a loss for words, and unexpectedly nervous about meeting his grandson. It wasn’t as if he didn’t have grandchildren, Juliet’s Lally and little Sam, who were even now waiting inside for the expected arrival. But there was something—and God forbid he should ever admit this to anyone, even Rosemary—there was something about his son’s son that felt special to him, and he wanted everything to be perfect.
It shocked him that he, who had always thought himself such a progressive, emancipated man, should harbor such a sentiment, but there it was, and he found himself wondering if the boy would ever consider changing his name so that the Kincaid line would go on.
Hugh snorted aloud at his own vanity, and Rosemary gave him a questioning look. “I’m a silly old fool,” he said, shaking his head.
“Of course you are, but it will be all right,” she answered, and he knew she had sensed what he’d left unspoken, as she always did.
He took his handkerchief from his coat pocket and blew his nose.
Rosemary was right, he decided. The fairy lights did look cheery, and from the sitting-room window the Christmas tree twinkled as well. “What did you do with the children?” he asked, wondering why they hadn’t come out with their grandmother.
“Sent them to watch a video. They were driving me mad, and there was nothing left for them to help with in the kitchen.” She pushed up her sleeve to glance at her watch. “It’s odd we haven’t heard from Juliet by this time,” she added.
He sniffed, catching the tang of impending snow beneath the scent of wood smoke emanating from the kitchen stove. Through the bare trees he saw lights begin to blink on in the neighboring farmhouse and knew full dark was fast approaching. “Snow’s coming. If they’re not here soon—”
“You think your police-superintendent son can’t find his way home in a snowstorm?” Rosemary interrupted, laughing. Before he could protest, she tensed and said, “Shhh.”
At first, he heard only his own breathing. Then he caught it, the faint whisper of tires on tarmac. A pinprick of light came from the direction of the road, then another, as the beams of the oncoming car were sliced by the intervening trees. It made Hugh think of Morse code, a distant SOS.
The car progressed so slowly that Hugh thought they must be mistaken, that it was only an elderly neighbor creeping home from shop or pub, but then it slowed still more and turned into the farmhouse drive, bumping along the track until it rolled to a stop before them.
The front passenger door swung open and his son emerged, smiling, though his face looked more sharply etched than when Hugh had seen him last. As Duncan hugged his mother and pumped his father’s hand, saying, “Sorry we’re so late. Traffic was a bit of a bugger,” a small blond boy erupted from the back, followed by an equally bouncy blue roan cocker spaniel.
Hugh’s heart gave an instant’s leap before he realized the boy couldn’t be Kit, he was much too young. Then the other rear door opened and a boy climbed out, clutching a small, shaggy brown terrier to his chest like a shield.