Never Coming Home (17 page)

Except
 
…

Abruptly Kaz’s knees gave way. She sat down on the bed. The eyes of the birds looked knowing now, mocking. Eyes. Something else was watching her from the pillow. Someone else.

‘Oh! Patchy.’ Kaz scooped the skinny horse against her chest, holding him tight, feeling the familiar lumps and bumps of the long-nosed head and knobbly, floppy legs. Jamie’s long-time companion and comforter.

Kaz tried to swallow and found she couldn’t. Her daughter’s face, solemn and resolute, swam before her eyes. A small hand, holding out the toy. ‘I’m not taking Patchy to ’merica because he might get losted. He says he’ll stay here, to look after you.’

‘Oh, my darling.’ Kaz rocked, gripping the piebald horse even tighter to her chest.

Sunshine and silence, but for the sound of her own ragged breathing. Then, from downstairs, the chime of the doorbell. With a convulsive indrawn breath, Kaz released her death grip on Patchy. The little head was tilted, looking up at her. The black-button eyes glittered.

The police wanted something that Jamie had handled. A hairbrush was a hairbrush, but Patchy had been
loved
. With a low-pitched groan, Kaz dropped the little horse into her capacious handbag, hefted it on her shoulder and headed for the door.

Trisha was standing on the step. Behind her, Suzanne was coming up the street. She waved as she crossed the road. ‘I’m glad I caught you. The gate to your yard was closed, so I was going to drop these off.’ She held up a file of papers. ‘We need to choose
 
…’ Her voice hitched. ‘For Phil, for the memorial service.’ She stopped as she took in her daughter’s expression. ‘Darling? What is it? What’s happened?’

‘The police rang, from Italy. They’ve found another property Jeff owned.’ Kaz hesitated, looking at her mother’s strained face, and knew she had to lie. ‘They
 
… they’re searching it.’ She saw Trisha’s eyes widen, then go blank as she understood. ‘They want
 
…’ Kaz’s hand convulsed on the strap of her handbag. ‘I gave them a sample, for DNA, before I left Italy.’ It had been remarkably quick and simple, just a cotton bud, brushed on the inside of her mouth. And not something she’d ever imagined having to do. ‘Now they want something of Jamie’s, for a full match. In case they find
 
… any evidence. They asked me to send it, but I can’t just wait here. I have to
go
.’ She heard her voice rising, and clamped down on pain and panic. ‘But you
 
… I didn’t think. The arrangements for the memorial service. I should be with you.’

Suzanne shook her head emphatically. Her face was pale, but composed. ‘There’s no need. I can cope, darling. We know what happened to Phil, and nothing will bring him back. You
must
go. Are you off now? To the airport? I can drive you. The car’s outside the yard.’

‘No!’ The word came out too loud. ‘Trish has offered,’ Kaz continued more quietly. If her mother accompanied her to the airport she couldn’t be sure she’d be able to keep silent. Mercifully Suzanne had turned to Trisha, giving her a quick hug. ‘Get her safely on the plane.’ She turned back to Kaz. ‘Go – but ring me when you land.’

It was raining in Dublin. Devlin shook water off his hair as he entered the hotel foyer. The rain clouds were following him around. Or his mood was generating them. He’d left Bobby in the dining room, eating his way through the breakfast buffet like food was going out of fashion. He’d been walking, pounding the streets. There wasn’t anything better to do, until his partner was ready to go to work, checking out venues.

Bobby was standing next to the reception desk. The girl behind it had just handed him a folded paper.

‘O’Hara wants to reschedule?’ Devlin stared at the hotel message sheet in disbelief. ‘What sort of fucking message is that?’

‘It’s code,’ Bobby explained. ‘It means O’Hara wants to reschedule.’

‘Wiseass! The guy gets us here all the way across the fucking Atlantic
 
–’

‘Dev!’ Bobby hustled his partner sideways, towards a corridor. It was empty. With a quick look both ways he opened the first door closest to the foyer and half-shoved Devlin, still protesting, into an empty conference room. He yanked his cell phone out of his pocket and held it out. ‘Call her.’

‘Call who?’ Devlin ignored the phone, mooching over to the window to scowl into the rain-washed street.

‘You know bloody well who.’ Bobby followed him to the window, still with the phone in his hand. ‘O’Hara has postponed the meeting. We have an extra day. London is what, an hour, two hours away? If you don’t call her, then I will.’

‘And tell her what?’

‘That I may be forced to shoot you and dump the body in the nearest bog?’ Bobby rolled his eyes. ‘Just do it, will you?’ He brandished the phone, dropping his hand when his partner didn’t take it. ‘Hell, Dev, we’ve put together all that stuff about what happened when her daughter disappeared. Don’t you think she deserves to know about it?’

Devlin leaned against the wall, hands stuffed into his pockets. ‘None of it will bring the kid back.’

‘Does that matter?’

‘Of course it matters.’

‘Maybe it doesn’t. Maybe she doesn’t expect that from you. Maybe what matters is that you’ve done this for her. Think about it. Then do us both a favour and call her.’ Bobby turned towards the door. ‘If she doesn’t hang up, then you’ll know.’

‘Know what?’

‘That you’re not fucking Superman, but the woman doesn’t care.’ Hand on the door, Bobby looked back. ‘You have to tell her, Devlin. If she doesn’t want to hear, that’s a whole different story. Then I still may have to shoot you.’ He made a gun with the fingers of his right hand, popped off a shot and left his friend staring at a closed door.

Devlin watched the door for a while. Nothing happened. No one came in. After a while he hitched his wallet and his cell from his pocket, extracted a business card, with fingers that shook very slightly, and began to dial.

Bobby lounged in a chair in the foyer of the hotel, long legs spread out in front of him, wary eyes on the corridor and the door to the empty conference room, wondering what sort of explosion he might have set in train. He’d backed a hunch, giving Devlin a shove in what he hoped was the right direction.
Hope
was the right word. If Devlin came out of the door looking for trouble then it was going to be touch and go on some of Bobby’s favourite body parts.

The door opened. Slowly. Devlin’s face looked curiously blank.
Oh shit.

‘She wasn’t there.’ He stood in front of Bobby’s chair. ‘I spoke to some guy, at her business. She’s on her way to the airport. The Italian police located a vineyard that Elmore owned, away from the farmhouse. They found a grave.’

Chapter Twenty-One

‘
Signora
Elmore is here. She is in the interview room downstairs.’ The messenger delivered the news and shut the door behind him, leaving the occupants of the room alone, to consider the information.

The police Inspector sighed. ‘She has wasted very little time in getting here. Ah, I was afraid she would do this, when I telephoned her in London. A woman, searching for her child
 
…’ He made a what-can-you-do gesture. ‘I cannot say I was not warned. Our colleagues in Florence cautioned me, when they knew I would have to contact her. They anticipated this.’

‘It would have been better if she had not come. You requested her to
send
the additional test material. She can achieve nothing here.’

The Inspector looked up at his junior officer, standing at the window, watching the street. He sighed again. The callousness of youth. One day he would understand.

‘You have no children.’

‘No.’ The younger man turned from the window, frowning. ‘She arrives here, unannounced, expecting information
 
–’

‘Not exactly unannounced.’

‘A telephone call, from Pisa airport?’ The junior officer indicated his disapproval, with an abrupt sweep of his hand. ‘You will see her?’

‘How can I not?’ The Inspector looked down at the brief forensic report on his desk. ‘But what am I to do with this?
Until the
 
… Ah!’ He lifted the phone as it began to ring. The call was brief. ‘The man from the forensic laboratory has arrived. Would you show him up? And then see that
Signora
Elmore
has everything she needs. Tell her I will be with her soon.’

He waited, impassive, fingering the report, until his visitor was brought in and seated. He offered coffee and it was declined.

The Inspector surveyed his visitor and sighed. When had experts become so young? This one might perhaps begin shaving in a month or two. He was very nervous, fidgeting in his seat. Or was that the congenital inability to sit still that seemed to afflict the young these days? The report he’d presented had been careful and thorough, as far as it went. The Inspector felt another sigh rising, and stifled it.

‘Your results.’ He tapped the folder. ‘I realise this is only your initial report, but it presents me with several difficulties.’ He steepled his hands. ‘I requested your presence, in the hope of resolving the most pressing of them. You will appreciate my dilemma. Downstairs, in another office, I have a young woman, waiting to be told if we have found the body of her daughter.’

The expert took off his glasses, polished them on the sleeve of his shirt and put them back on again. The Inspector knew a delaying tactic when he saw one. He waited for the younger man to gather his thoughts.

When he had, ‘That report contains only my preliminary findings. I make that clear. The body was
 
… not in a good state. I would wish to do more tests before presenting you with my final statement. As you are also aware, the remains had been moved.’

‘Buried at some other location, then reburied at the vineyard.’ The Inspector nodded.

‘Both those factors have complicated the situation. Also we cannot, at this point, determine the cause of death.’ The younger man ducked his head. ‘You already know that.’

The Inspector acknowledged, with a wave of his hand. ‘But the findings of the DNA tests?’ he persisted. ‘You compared the sample from the body with that provided earlier this month, in Florence, by
Signora
Elmore?’

The young man wriggled as if the chair was uncomfortable. ‘Yes, but that cannot be considered conclusive. I did not make a comparison with the father. There was a delay with the samples. I am
still
awaiting them,’ he declared, aggrieved. ‘But that does not matter. I will make further tests, with something from Mrs Elmore’s daughter. That is the approved course.
Then
I can make a commitment.’

‘But this report
 
–
 
’ The Inspector put his hands flat on the desk. ‘The DNA matches.’

The expert sat up straight. ‘I did not say that. I am not prepared to say that.’

‘Then what would you be prepared to say?’

The scientist looked down at his hands, swallowed. ‘There are more similarities between the DNA of
Signora
Elmore, and that of the child’s body, than would be expected in two random samples.’

‘There is a relationship between
Signora
Elmore and the child who was buried in the field.’

The scientist gave the Inspector a hunted look, before inclining his head. ‘My findings would support that. My
preliminary
findings,’ he emphasised. ‘
Signora
Elmore and the body share similar DNA.’

‘Just as they would if they were mother and daughter,’ the Inspector confirmed sadly. He stood, walking around the desk, to put his hand on the younger man’s shoulder. ‘Finish your tests as soon as you can,
per favore
.
Signora
Elmore will undoubtedly have brought the item you need. I will make sure it is at the desk downstairs, for you to take away with you.’ He moved towards the door.

‘What are you going to tell
Signora
Elmore?’

‘I can only tell her what you have told me.’

‘Do you have to tell her anything at all?’

The Inspector considered. ‘I believe I do. She seems an intelligent woman. She will understand your position.’

‘You know what she’s going to think! That we have found the body of her child.’

‘Of course. And I will explain that until you conduct your further tests, we cannot declare ourselves certain. But in the circumstances it is difficult to see what other conclusion can be drawn. What other possibility is there?’

Devlin leaned against the car he’d hired at the airport, watching the entrance to the police station. He’d been re-directed to the small hill town from police headquarters in Florence. An enquiry at the desk had confirmed that
Signora
Elmore had arrived. He hadn’t been invited to wait.

He studied the building, inspecting the line of windows overlooking the street. Kaz was in there somewhere, learning God-knew-what about a small, abandoned grave. Devlin felt his stomach give an unaccustomed lurch. How the hell did a woman take that kind of news? Everything about Kaz Elmore turned him inside out and he was still coming back for more, but how did you ever make something like that right? All he could do was stand and wait. He’d positioned himself here, where she couldn’t fail to see him when she came out. Giving her a choice. There was sweat running along his spine. If she walked straight past him
 
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