17

THEY MET IN the judge’s chambers. It was a comfortable room, anchored by a long, polished, mahogany table. The Honorable Sophie O’Donnell, an attractive woman in her fifties with smartly styled, blond-streaked hair, sat at the head.

On one side were Kit’s maternal grandparents, Eugenia and Bob Potts, and their solicitor, a rabbity-faced man named Cavanaugh; on the other, Gemma, Kit, and Miles Kelly, their solicitor. It was shaping up to be the battle of the Irish, thought Gemma, but she couldn’t summon a smile. The large clock on the wall behind the judge read straight up two o’clock, and Kincaid hadn’t arrived.

Neither party had spoken to the other. Eugenia was in full war paint, her fair hair freshly lacquered, but it seemed to Gemma that her clothes hung too loosely and there was a feverish look to her eyes. Bob merely looked diffident and distressed, the classic henpecked husband, and Gemma wondered if he might someday snap and bite the hand that had led him such a merry dance.

Miles Kelly glanced at Gemma, raising very black eyebrows over very blue eyes, and she gave a tiny, worried shrug. Beside her, Kit sat silent and strained. She’d bought him new gray flannels and a navy blazer for the occasion, and he looked painfully grown up.

The judge glanced at her watch and cleared her throat. “I think, Mr. Kelly, that we should begin, but we seem to be missing your client.”

“I know Superintendent Kincaid is on his way, Your Honor,” replied Kelly with his most charming smile. “Perhaps he’s been detained in traffic. If you could give us just a few more moments-”

Gemma jumped as the mobile phone clipped to her waist began to vibrate. A quick glance at the caller ID told her it was Kincaid. After looking at the judge, who nodded permission, she excused herself and moved a few steps away from the table, turning her back to the room before she answered.

She listened briefly, spoke in monosyllables, and rang off. Then she stood for a moment, trying to get her dismay under control before she faced the others.

When she turned round, Kit said, his voice tight, “He’s not coming, is he?”

“Something’s happened, Kit,” she answered quietly, then spoke to the judge. “Your Honor, Superintendent Kincaid has been unavoidably detained on urgent police business. He apologizes to the court and asks if we can reschedule this meeting at a later time.”

“Do sit down, Ms. James,” said the judge, sounding very displeased.

As she slipped into her chair, her face blazing with embarrassment, Gemma caught the flash of triumph in Eugenia Potts’s eyes.

“This is very irregular,” Judge O’Donnell went on, frowning. “Under ordinary circumstances I would not be inclined to grant such a request, but considering the nature of Mr. Kincaid’s job, I will think about it.” Before Gemma could breathe a sigh of relief, she continued: “However, I must say this gives me serious doubts about Mr. Kincaid’s suitability as a guardian for Christopher.”

Seeing the protest forming on Kit’s face, she raised a hand to silence him. “I’ve had a brief discussion with Christopher before we began this meeting, and I’m aware of his feelings on the matter. I’ve also looked over Christopher’s father’s rather unusual petition requesting that you, Ms. James, and Mr. Kincaid be allowed to provide care for Christopher until he comes of age.

“I’m always most reluctant to disrupt what seems to be a stable home situation, particularly when a child has suffered a loss.” She fixed Gemma with a sharp eye. “But the demands of a police officer’s job are both heavy and unpredictable, as Mr. Kincaid has demonstrated today, and as both of you are officers of senior rank, I’m not sure you can provide the sort of environment Christopher needs. And as neither of you has any blood tie to the boy, and we don’t know what Christopher’s mother would have wished for him, I’m inclined to give consideration to his grandparents’ petition for custody.”

Gemma felt Kit’s physical recoil. She touched his arm in reassurance and leaned forward. “Ma’am, may I speak?” When Judge O’Donnell nodded, she said, “You’re right. The job is demanding and unpredictable. But there are two of us, and one of us has always managed to be there-”

“That’s all very well for the time being. But you’ll forgive me, Ms. James, if I say I’ve seen no evidence of a long-term commitment on the part of you and Mr. Kincaid.”

A black pit seemed to open before Gemma. How could she answer that? “I-”

“There’s also the matter of Christopher’s education. His grandparents have assured the court that they have the means to send him to public school-”

“I don’t want to go to public school,” broke in Kit, tears of fury starting up in his eyes. “I like it where I am-”

“Your Honor.” Eugenia spoke for the first time. “It’s just this sort of disrespectful behavior that concerns us. Christopher is obviously living in a household where this is considered acceptable. Nor is he being encouraged to show the interest in his future fitting for a boy his age-”

“You don’t know anything,” Kit shouted at his grandmother. “I’m going to Cambridge. Lots of kids from comprehensives get into Cambridge-”

Judge O’Donnell rapped her knuckles sharply on the table once. “That’s enough, son. I’ll not tolerate displays of temper in my chambers, nor reward them.” When Kit subsided, his hands clenched in his lap, she turned to Eugenia. “Mrs. Potts, it does worry me that Christopher seems to feel a great deal of hostility towards you.”

Eugenia seemed to pale beneath her makeup, but she smiled. “He has some childish grievance over a dog. I’m sure, in time, that it can be overcome.”

Clapping a hand on Kit’s shoulder, as if fearing the boy might not be able to restrain himself, Miles Kelly said hurriedly, “Ma’am, may I remind you that Kit’s father, Ian McClellan, feels that Mr. and Mrs. Potts have never given Kit the proper emotional support in his grief over his mother’s death.”

“You may remind me all you like, Mr. Kelly, but I don’t have to give it credence. It doesn’t seem to me that Mr. McClellan has demonstrated much in the way of emotional support himself, by taking a job in Canada and leaving his son behind in England.”

Eugenia whispered urgently in Cavanaugh’s ear, and when she’d pulled away, he addressed the judge. “Is Your Honor aware that at the time of the late Mrs. McClellan’s death, she and Mr. McClellan were separated? That Mr. McClellan was, in fact, living in the south of France with a young woman? We feel this demonstrates a long-standing lack of responsible behavior concerning his son-”

“That’s enough, Mr. Cavanaugh,” said the judge with a glance at Kit. “We will adjourn this hearing until further notice.” She sighed and stood. “I may very well find that neither party is a fit guardian, without evidence to the contrary.”

She had seemed pathetic in life; death had not given her dignity.

Kincaid looked down at Beverly Brown’s twisted body. It lay at the far end of a vacant expanse of cracked and weed-infested concrete. Her head was pillowed on a drift of windblown rubbish, her small, sneaker-clad feet pushed against the bottom of a rusted metal barrel.

When Maura Bell had said Crossbones Graveyard, he’d thought of a churchyard, with a bit of grass and headstones; not this wasteland, its fence adorned with fluttering ribbons and a few faded wreaths.

“What is this place?” he asked Maura, who stood beside him. She’d been called out immediately when the body had been reported and had identified the victim herself.

The police surgeon had certified death, and they were now waiting for the arrival of the pathologist, the photographer, and the forensics team. The wheels of justice ground slowly, as always, and he tried to control his impatience. The time made no difference now – he’d known by two o’clock that there was no possible way he could get to Kit’s hearing. But he couldn’t think about that now – his personal concerns would have to wait until he had put this case behind him.