“So you arranged my transfer for my own good?” Kincaid’s voice rose. “What about Gemma’s? Were you behind that, too?” Belatedly, he realized that people were staring at him again.
Childs gave him a look he couldn’t quite read. Then he leaned across the booth, so that his gaze met Kincaid’s directly. “Drink up, laddie,” he said softly. “Go home to your wife. Mind your children. Do your job, and keep your nose out of things.”
Childs sat back and finished the dregs of his tonic. Then he slid out of the booth with surprising grace for a big man. He stood for a moment, as if hesitating, then, with a last nod at Kincaid, made his way out of the bar.
What more could he have said? Denis Childs hunched his shoulders as he walked into the unpleasant east wind. It was late in the year for an east wind—what was the old saying? An east wind blows no good? That would certainly be true tonight, he thought, tugging the lapels of his jacket together with a fist against his chest. The jacket’s tails flapped behind him like crow’s wings. He hadn’t had the time or the inclination to have many things altered, and his clothes hung loose as a scarecrow’s.
He had long experience with parceling out the truth, but tonight had been more difficult than he’d expected. No—he should at least be honest with himself—the difficulty hadn’t been unexpected. But it had been more difficult, even, than he had anticipated.
Of all the officers he had worked with in his career, Duncan Kincaid was his favorite. And the one in whom he saw the most of himself, both the good and the bad. Kincaid, who couldn’t leave well alone. Kincaid, who with all his charm and polish, had to say things he shouldn’t. Kincaid, who had yet to learn to balance the narrow line between what was right and what was expedient.
As if he had, thought Childs, with a rueful grimace. The wind picked up another notch and, ducking his head, for a moment he missed the weight he had shed. He felt insubstantial, powerless. Perhaps he should have taken that medical retirement. Perhaps he should have let the decay in the Met spread unchecked—his attempts to stem it felt as feeble as a gnat swatting at a tiger. But the tiger stank, and the rot within it was spreading like the bloom on a corpse.
He reached the entrance to the churchyard of St. James Clerkenwell. The graves held no fear for him. He’d grown up a server, and the rituals of the church made him comfortable, even if he no longer believed them. The path through the churchyard was a regular shortcut on the walks he’d begun months before for exercise, and the site—originally the medieval nunnery of St. Mary—was certainly well-steeped in prayer. He smiled a little at the pun, but his thoughts circled back to Kincaid. Had he alleviated the man’s peril, or merely increased it?
It had been folly, he thought, if he were to be totally honest, his little confessional. He guessed he had merely dangled a tasty scrap of meat under a dog’s nose. He’d been weak, unable to resist the temptation to salvage his character before a man whose opinion he valued.
The gate banged behind him as he entered the churchyard proper, then clanged again as the wind grabbed it. It was calmer under the tall trees in the churchyard itself, but a few remaining dead leaves and scraps of paper rustled along the ground, caught in an eddy.
What could he do, then, to repair the damage?
He’d been practicing damage abatement for a long time. Perhaps it was time he bit the tiger in the arse. The thought made him laugh out loud, but the sound suddenly seemed strangled, even to his ears. He chided himself for a ninny and hurried on, his eyes now on the churchyard’s far gate.
The blow when it came was from behind, realized only in the moment of impact. Then the root-twisted earth rose up to meet him, and blackness descended.
Chapter Four
The Thames lay wide and flat above Putney Bridge, gleaming like molten glass in the early morning light.
It was a deceptive calm, however, which Doug Cullen knew very well. The tide was coming in, and the current running beneath the river’s smooth surface was strong enough to pull under the careless or the unwary. Or to snatch a single sculler unlucky enough to capsize, and he was rusty, to say the least.
He stroked a little to the left, aiming the feather of a boat upriver, towards Hammersmith, and squinted into the sun. He’d forgotten his sunglasses, essential gear for a rower. On his right, the boathouse flags were beginning to flutter and snap—the wind was rising. But for now, the advantage of the current allowed him to work the kinks out of shoulders and knees without too much strain. The ankle was another matter.
His doctor had warned him that he might not be ready to row, but after months of enforced inactivity, he’d been determined to give it a try. He’d bought the house in Lacy Road, just a few streets south of the river, because he wanted to take up rowing again, and he was damned if he was going to let the stupid broken ankle keep him from doing it. He’d joined a club and bought the sleek little single scull. It was only now he was beginning to admit that he was woefully out of shape and that the ankle might still not be up to snuff.
The end of the shingle slid by him, then Beverly Brook. Putney Bridge was receding, the red buses looking like toys as they trundled across it. The creak of the oarlocks and the faint splash of the blades as they dipped in the water took on a rhythm that seemed as natural as breathing. Doug’s confidence began to rise. He could bloody well do this. Damn the naysayers.
He was glad his friend Melody Talbot hadn’t come to help with the garden. She’d been promising to help him sort out his little patch of earth since he’d moved into the Lacy Road house in February. Melody, as clueless as he, had spent hours perusing gardening sites and drawing up a plan. Today was the day they had meant to dig the beds for the flower borders.
But when he’d rung her, she’d sounded sleepy and confused. “Oh, Doug, I’m so sorry,” she mumbled. “I forgot. Let me get dressed. I’ll come right over.”
“Don’t bother,” he’d snapped, offended. “I’m taking the boat out.” He’d disconnected before she could protest, then turned his mobile off so he wouldn’t be tempted to answer if she rang back.
Now he was regretting his temper. She hadn’t sounded well. There had been something not quite right about Melody lately, and he realized that it had been several weeks since he’d actually seen her. This wasn’t the first time she’d canceled an engagement, pleading work or tiredness.
Doug could have blamed her lapses on her recent relationship with the guitarist Andy Monahan, but Andy was touring in Europe. No, whatever was wrong with Melody, he didn’t think it was that.
But who was he to even hazard a guess? He, who’d prided himself on his tidy life—his progress in the job, his relationship with his boss, his decision to buy a house—had apparently got it all wrong. He’d been transferred out of a position he loved, second to Detective Superintendent Duncan Kincaid, then Kincaid had not only moved away from the Yard, but seemed to be shunning him.