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been devouring science fiction at the time, and as they’d sat scrunched together in the dark in what had seemed utter isolation, he’d imagined they were the last two people on earth. Fortunately, the neighbor had come home and heard their shouts, so they’d got off with no more than a bollocking and a missed meal, but he’d never forgotten the exhilarating terror of those long hours.
    Beside him, Juliet took off one glove and held her bare hand in front of the vent, then grimaced and pulled it on again. “It’s bloody freezing,” she said. “Do you think the police will be long?”
    Remembering how she had always refused comfort, he didn’t give her a reassuring answer. “Quite likely. They’ll be short-staffed tonight, and the bad weather won’t help.” After notifying the local police, he’d rung Gemma and his parents to explain the situation, but when he’d offered his phone to Juliet and asked if she needed to call Caspar, she’d said no.
    Kincaid had never been particularly fond of his brother-in-law—he found the man’s supercilious attitude exasperating—but he was distressed to hear the evident unhappiness in his sister’s voice. He knew better than to pry, however—unless he did it very tactfully.
    “How’s your new business going?” he asked.
    From the look on Juliet’s face, it had been the wrong question. “This was my first big commission. We were already behind schedule because of the weather, and now with this—” She gave a despairing little shrug. “What makes it worse is that the client is a friend of Piers—” A few more strands fluttered loose from her ponytail as she fell silent, shaking her head. “Oh, God, listen to me. I’m a selfish cow to even think about my problems, when that poor child—What do you think happened to it, Duncan? And the pink suit—was it a little girl?”
    “We can’t know that yet,” he answered gently. “But try not to think about it. Whatever happened was a long time ago—”
    “Not that long,” she broke in, surprising him. “That blanket—the children had one in the same fabric when they were small. It must have been Lally’s, I think, because it was pink, but we used it for Sam as well.”
    “Do you remember where it came from?” he asked, unable to damp down the quickening of his pulse as his investigative instincts kicked in. This was not his case, he reminded himself—it had nothing to do with him.
    “The supermarket, maybe. Or one of the chain baby shops. It was nothing special.”
    He pictured the child only a few yards distant, its flesh wasting away from its small bones, and wondered at the care with which ithad been wrapped in the cheap blanket. But he had seen parents batter their children to death, then cover them tenderly, so he knew it meant nothing. Nor did he want to think about those things, not here, not now.
    “How do you do it?” Jules said softly, as if she’d read his mind. “How do you deal with things like this every day, and still put your children to bed at night without panicking? They’re so fragile, so vulnerable. You think it’s the most frightening when they’re babies, but then they get old enough to be out of your sight, out of your care, and you know that anything can happen…”
    He thought immediately of Kit, and of his own failure to anticipate trouble in that quarter. And his niece, he remembered, was almost the same age. “Jules, are you having trouble with Lally?” he asked.
    “No. No, of course not.” Juliet pulled off her glove again, but this time, after testing the vent, she stripped off the other glove, too, and rubbed her hands together in the airstream. After a moment, she said, “It’s just that…a month ago, a boy from Lally’s school was found in the canal, drowned. He was fourteen. They said there was alcohol involved.” She looked up at him, her hands still. “He was a good kid, Duncan. A good kid, a good student, never in any kind of trouble. If it can happen