Deborah Crombie - In A Dark House

THE WEATHER HAD changed at last, bringing a light frost in the night, followed by a bright, crisp day. As Gemma drove through northeast London, she saw that the city had suddenly taken on an autumn tint, and above the faint flush of color in the trees the sky looked impossibly blue.

She followed the familiar road that led to Leyton, but on this day her destination was not her parents’ bakery but Abney Park Cemetery in nearby Stoke Newington. She’d promised Kincaid she’d meet him at Bryan Simms’s funeral, but she’d been delayed at work by a meeting with her guv’nor. Knowing she’d missed the church service, she’d headed directly to the cemetery instead.

Abney Park, like Kensal Green in Notting Hill, was one of the great Victorian cemeteries, built when churchyards could no longer hold the multitude of dead. As she drove through the gates into the rambling grounds, she stopped and glanced at the map she’d downloaded from the Internet, comparing it with the directions to Bryan Simms’s grave site.

But as she scanned the page, James Braidwood’s name jumped out at her. The great Victorian fireman was buried here, she saw, in a monument on the main drive. Putting the car into gear, she drove on, gazing at the marble tomb as she bumped past it.

What, she wondered, would happen to the poor remains of Jimmy Braidwood, who had had no family to claim him?

She soon saw that her map was superfluous, as parked cars filled the roads like arterial blood pumping out from a heart. She followed the main track until she saw the crowds, then found a spot for her little Ford and walked back, leaving the road for a rough, grassy track. Her long russet coat provided a welcome protection against the chill breeze.

As she crested a rise, she looked down upon a sea of mourners, almost all in navy-blue uniforms. The fire service had turned out to honor its own.

She stood at the back of the crowd for a few minutes, listening as an occasional snatch of the burial service drifted to her on the wind. Then she moved to one side and edged her way through the packed bodies until she could see the mourning party.

The pallbearers, all firefighters, sat to one side, ramrod straight in their dress uniforms. On the other side of the grave sat Bryan Simms’s family, recognizable by their dark skin. Her throat tightened and she blinked until the feeling eased. The tears made her feel a hypocrite – she had never met the young man. And yet she knew that he had been brave, that he had been loved by friends and family, and that he had died needlessly. Surely that was reason enough to grieve for anyone.

A glimpse of the minister in his vestments made her think of Winnie, and of their conversation the previous day as they’d parted outside Guy’s Hospital.

“Gemma, I wanted to tell you straightaway,” Winnie had said. “I’m going back to Glastonbury. It’s sooner than expected, but Roberta’s doctor says she’s well enough to come back to London, especially with the cooler weather coming… and I think everything that’s happened has made her feel her parish needs her.”

“But you’ve done so much-”

“No, no.” Winnie shook her head, cutting off Gemma’s protest. “I’ve done no more than Roberta would have done, had she been here.” She touched Gemma’s arm gently. “I’ll miss you especially. We’ve become so close these last days. But I miss my parish, and I miss Jack. It’s time for me to go home.” She smiled and hugged Gemma hard. “We won’t lose touch, though. We’re family, after all.”

Gemma had returned the hug, then let Winnie go, but the sharp pinch of separation was still with her. It seemed to her that the past year had been made up of losses. First her baby. Then Hazel, gone so far away, and now Winnie. Was that what you learned as you grew older, that life was made up of a series of losses?

And now Kit… She couldn’t bear the thought of losing Kit, and the disastrous court hearing on Monday had made the possibility seem very real.

It wasn’t Kincaid’s fault – she knew that. It was the bloody job, and she’d have been forced to do the same in his position. And yet… unreasonable as it was, she still felt he had let them down, and she knew he sensed her disappointment.

This added to the constraint that had begun to build between them over the question of trying for another baby. She knew the tiny separation could grow into a chasm if they weren’t careful, but she somehow couldn’t bring herself to bridge the gap. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to talk to him, but that she didn’t understand her own hesitation well enough to explain it to anyone else.

The minister’s voice rose, bringing her back to the scene before her, and he lifted his hand in final benediction. The pipes keened, and as the uniformed pallbearers stood to make their last salute, Gemma saw that one was female. This must be Rose Kearny, whom Gemma had not met, but she knew that Kincaid had been particularly drawn to her. Tall, fair, and coltish, even with her blond hair restrained in a knot – something about the young woman struck a chord in Gemma’s memory.

The mourners shifted and began to drift away. Gemma caught sight of Kincaid at last, standing a few yards back from the pallbearers. As she began to make her way down the slope, she saw Rose Kearny come up to him and, after a brief conversation, slip her arms around him. Kincaid returned the hug, a little awkwardly, then they stepped apart.

Another firefighter approached, the dark-haired fire investigator with the sniffer dog, whom Gemma had seen briefly the day of the first fire. After a moment, he and Rose walked away side by side.

Kincaid turned and saw her. “Gemma! I thought you hadn’t made it.”

“That was Rose, wasn’t it?” she said as she reached him.

“Oh.” He flushed as he realized she’d seen the embrace. “That wasn’t what-”

“No, no, I know that. It’s just-” She studied him. “You don’t see it, do you?”

“See what?” He frowned, puzzled, and she thought of the strange ways that grief could disguise itself in the labyrinth of the human heart. Kit’s mother had had that same fair grace, that same look of innocence burnished by intelligence.

“It’s Vic,” she said, touching his cheek. “She reminds you of Vic.”

Kincaid left the cemetery with every intention of driving straight back to the Yard. Instead, he found himself winding west through the early-afternoon traffic and then on the M4, heading towards Reading.

He rang Cullen. “Listen,” he said when Cullen picked up. “I – I’ve got some personal business. Cover for me for a couple of hours, will you?”

Cullen hesitated, as if about to ask a question, then said, a touch too heartily, “Right. Let me know when you’re on your way in.”

It occurred to Kincaid to be thankful he’d signed out a motor pool Rover rather than driving the Midget to the funeral – his mother-in-law had always hated that car.

How could he not have seen that Rose reminded him of his ex-wife? It was more than a fleeting physical resemblance. He thought of Vic as she had been at twenty-two or twenty-three – she’d had that same air of quiet gravity, of taking life just a little too seriously.

The realization jabbed him like a pike, opening a wound he thought he’d plastered over, and then, to his astonishment, he’d found himself thinking of Eugenia.

What must it be like to lose a child, to have every reminder of that child bring fresh pain, and yet to know that the loss of that pain was a death in itself?