“I’ve been trying to reach him all afternoon.” Kincaid had rung Hammond’s again from his mobile when they’d left Lewis Finch, but the receptionist said Mr. Mortimer hadn’t returned to the office; nor had there been any answer at Mortimer’s home number. “We know he came into the office this morning, so I doubt he’s scarpered. But he’s first on the list for tomorrow, and I’ve left messages for him to ring us.”
“Oh, that reminds me.” Janice dug among the papers on the desktop until she found a scribbled memo. “You had a message passed on from the Yard. Someone called Ian McClellan is trying to reach you. Says he’s in London and would like to meet with you tonight.”
“Ian McClellan?”
“Here’s the number he left. Is it a lead?”
“A lead?” Kincaid realized he must have sounded idiotic, and shook his head to clear it. He didn’t meet Gemma’s eyes. “No, it’s … personal,” he managed to say, tucking the memo in his pocket.
What the bloody hell was Ian McClellan doing back here now, and what the bloody hell did he want?
AT THE FLAT, KINCAID CHANGED INTO jeans and tee shirt, then tried ringing Kit in Cambridge. After putting him on hold for a moment, Laura Miller came back on the line and said rather apologetically that Kit didn’t want to come to the phone just then. Kincaid heard the concern in her voice, but merely thanked her and said he’d try again later.
Looking through the open balcony door as he rang off, he saw Sid perched on the railing, watching the birds in the Major’s garden with quivering interest. He went out and stroked the cat, finding a brief comfort in the fact that, unlike Kit, Sid always forgave him, no matter how badly he’d neglected him.
In the end, Kincaid chose familiar territory for his meeting with Ian McClellan: the Freemason’s Arms, just across Willow Road from the Heath. The summer sun had begun its long evening slant through the treetops, and Hampstead Heath was filled with Londoners escaping flats stuffy with the day’s heat. People strolled babies in pushchairs, played games of Frisbee and impromptu football, sailed boats on the Pond—and every glimpse of a boy with a dog reminded Kincaid of Kit.
When he reached the pub, he chose a table in the garden. He’d allowed time to get something to eat, but when the waitress brought his basket of chicken, he found he wasn’t hungry. Nursing his pint, he picked desultorily at the chips and thought about Ian McClellan.
Vic’s second husband, a political science fellow at Trinity College, had run off to the south of France the previous year with one of his graduate students. When Vic was murdered, McClellan had come back to England only briefly, and had refused to take Kit back to France with him. Although he admitted he’d long suspected Kit was really Kincaid’s child, McClellan was still the boy’s legal guardian, and he’d grudgingly acquiesced to Kincaid’s temporary arrangements for Kit. Nothing had been heard from him since. Until now.
Glancing up, Kincaid saw McClellan walking across the grass towards him, pint in hand. He looked tan, but thinner than Kincaid remembered; on closer inspection his neatly trimmed brown hair and beard had acquired a liberal peppering of gray. This was the first time Kincaid had seen him divested of his corduroy, leather-elbowed jacket, but even in a short-sleeved cotton shirt he had about him an unmistakable professorial air.
Kincaid stood up to greet him, determined to get this meeting off to a better start than their previous encounters.
There was a moment of awkwardness, then McClellan shook Kincaid’s hand firmly and sat down in the white garden chair. Having settled back and lifted his pint in mute salute, Ian broke the guarded silence. “I expect you’re wondering why I asked to see you.”
Kincaid nodded and sipped at his pint. “It was a surprise.”
“Yes, well … Among other things, I believe I owe you an apology,” Ian said slowly. “I’ve had time to think things through these last few months, and I can see now that my behavior was a bit … irrational. And irresponsible. The whole thing with Jennifer … and then Vic, and meeting you that way …” Sun glinted from Ian’s gold-framed glasses as he looked away for a moment. “Things didn’t work out with Jennifer when I went back to France. To be quite honest, I went right off the rails.” Shrugging, he added, “Not quite what she bargained for, a middle-aged man in the midst of a breakdown. She came back to England to finish her degree.”
“Is that why you came back? To be near her?” Kincaid asked.
Ian shook his head. “No. I’m not that foolish, although you might be surprised to hear it. But my sabbatical was up at the end of the summer, and the book had come to a dead halt, so there didn’t seem much point in staying.…”
Kincaid waited in silence.
“How is he? Kit. Is he … coping? What about school?”
Kincaid thought of those first weeks, when Laura had found Kit clutching Tess every morning, crying, terrified to leave the dog long enough to go to school—certain something would happen to her while he was away.
