A Bitter Feast(90)
“Oh, you know Melody,” Gemma said, perhaps too breezily. “She’s very good at compartmentalizing things. It’s only the past few months that she’s even had any of us round to her flat. I think that was a big step for her—she’s been so determined to separate work from her personal life.”
Addie was not to be deflected. “Is she serious about him?”
“I’d have thought so, yes. He’s a nice bloke, Andy. I hope she hasn’t—” Gemma realized her tongue was running away with her. She gave Addie an apologetic smile and reached for her handbag. A glance out the window told her that Toby was leaning too far over the water. “Well, anyway, we should probably be going before Toby falls in with the ducks.”
As they left the restaurant, Addie took a phone call while Gemma went to join the children. The wind had risen, lifting Charlotte’s hair into a dandelion puff, and the sky had gone milkily opaque. Gemma shivered.
Having shooed the little ones back from the river’s edge, Kit came over to stand beside her. “Weather’s changing,” Gemma said. “I’m glad we had a nice morning.” When Kit didn’t respond, she looked at him more closely. “What is it, love? If you’re worried about your dad, I’m su—”
“No. I mean, yes, of course, I hope he’s okay, but that’s not what— I was wondering what was going to happen to Bella.”
“The collie?”
Kit nodded. “Grace was texting me. I gave her my mobile number. I mean, she’s nice, but she keeps asking me all these weird questions.”
“What sort of weird questions?”
Scuffing his shoe against the verdant green of the riverside grass, Kit looked into the middle distance. “Like, what it’s like, living in London.”
“I don’t think that’s so weird.”
“Yeah, but she wanted to know if I knew Dad before my mom—before I came to live with him. And she kept trying to prove something with the dog. It was like she had to make Bella love her more than she loved the lady who died, Nell, and that’s just”—he shrugged his thin shoulders—“well, wrong. It’s not fair to Bella.”
Gemma considered this. “But that’s understandable, don’t you think? Grace is still a child after all.” An oddly self-centered child, Gemma had to admit.
“Yes, but—” Kit turned to her, serious and intent. “I like Viv,” he went on. “I think she’s really cool. And nice, you know, a nice person. But Grace keeps saying her mother is mean to her, like deliberately. That her mum hates her and doesn’t want her to be happy.”
“But all kids go throu—”
Kit was shaking his head. “This isn’t like griping ’cause you’re grounded or you’ve lost your mobile privileges. This is like she really believes this stuff and it’s just . . . weird. She seems to think her mum deliberately kept her from seeing her dad.”
Gemma slipped her arm round his shoulders in a quick hug. “I’ll have a word with Viv, okay? See if I can sort out what’s going on.” She gave him what she meant to be a reassuring smile. Kit might be overly sensitive, but she’d learned to trust his instincts. Something was not right between Viv Holland and her daughter.
Back in the surgery car park, Kincaid had just begun to explain to Booth about his conversation with Dr. Saunders when Melody rang. He listened, alarm growing, as Melody filled him in on what she’d learned from Joe about Roz Dunning. “Wait, wait, slow down,” he told her. “He’s sure this was three weeks ago? Why didn’t he tell us this before now?”
“I don’t believe anyone asked him, for starters,” Melody responded with a hint of sarcasm. “And . . . he, well, she was holding something over him, but I don’t think it has any bearing on this.”
Kincaid decided to pursue this point later. “Is Doug with you?” When she said he was, he said, “Can you keep an eye on Dunning until we get there? Assuming she’s at home. But don’t approach her, understood?”
“Yes, sir.”
He and Booth had stopped, by chance, beside Dr. Greene’s white Mercedes. Booth ran a hand over its bonnet rather covetously as he listened to Kincaid’s side of the conversation. “How long will it take us to get to Upper Slaughter?” Kincaid asked him.
“Not long.” With a wicked grin, Booth popped the door locks on his Volvo. “You can tell me what this is all about on the way.”
Kincaid should have known from Booth’s smile that he’d be gripping the Volvo’s door handle the entire way. He recognized nothing as the rolling blue-tinted hills sped by, punctuated only by the occasional glimpse of a few houses clustered in a hamlet, and a few sheep. “Where the hell are we?”
“Back roads,” Booth answered, gearing up again as the car zoomed out of a hollow, climbing steadily. Kincaid’s stomach lurched. “Almost there,” Booth added, with another grin.
A signpost for Upper Slaughter appeared and was gone in a blink. Then Booth slowed and made a sharp downhill left turn into what appeared to be a driveway, but was, Kincaid realized, a lane. Tucked into the side of the hill, the village had been invisible from the road. Slowing to a sedate ten miles per hour, Booth checked the sat nav for the address Melody had given Kincaid. “It should be just to the left here, near the church.”