She hadn't stayed long at the hospital. Her mum had been obviously exhausted, and Gemma felt she was doing more harm than good by keeping her from resting.
And she felt guilty for having let her temper get the better of her with her dad, and even worse for having inflicted an emotional outburst on her mother. That was the last thing her mum had needed.
"In here" came Kit's answer from the kitchen. The house was warm from the day's heat and smelled tantalizingly of baking dough and spices. Pizza.
Giving Geordie's ears a last fondle, she followed her nose. Kit stood at the fridge, examining the contents as if he were looking for buried treasure.
"Where is everyone?" Gemma asked.
"I thought we had more milk," Kit said, then shut the fridge door and turned to her. "Wes had to go. Toby's watching a cartoon in the study. I said he could, if he finished his lessons. Duncan rang and said he'd been held up-he tried to ring you but your phone was off."
"Oh, damn." Gemma realized she'd switched her phone off at the hospital and had forgotten to switch it on again. "Did he say why?"
"Just that he'd ring you later. Do you want some pizza?" Kit asked. "It's Pizza Express from the freezer."
"Oh, Kit." This seemed to be Gemma's day for feeling contrite. She had left the children to fend for themselves, and had been so caught up in her own worries that she hadn't even thought to check in. "I am sorry. We expect you to do too much, and you never complain." Impulsively, she went to him and slipped an arm round his shoulders in a hug.
He ducked his head in a way that reminded her of Toby, but smiled. "It's okay," he assured her. "Really. I don't mind."
She let go before he reached complete embarrassment overload, but couldn't resist ruffling his hair.
"Get off," he said, bouncing away from her with a grin. "Toby and I were going to take the dogs for a walk before it got dark. Do you want to come?"
Gemma hesitated, then shook her head. "Um, no, but thanks. I'll think I'll stay here and have a bit of your pizza."
While Kit got the dogs' leads, she fetched Toby from the study, switching off some American cop show on the telly while giving him a hug and as much of a cuddle as he'd allow.
"I was watching that." Her son pulled away from her with a scowl, a sure sign of a five-year-old's temper tantrum brewing.
"You're a bit stroppy today, sport," she said, using Duncan's nickname for him.
"I'm not stroppy," Toby protested. "Whatever it is."
Gemma pretended to think hard. "Obstreperous."
"You're silly, Mummy," said Toby, not mollified. "I'm not that, either." He punched at her with his fist, but she caught him by both wrists.
"Enough of that." And enough of things he shouldn't be watching on the telly, she added to herself. She'd have to speak to Kit about it, as Toby was obviously changing the channel when Kit left the room, but she hated to nag Kit when he made such an effort. It was a case once more of giving Kit more responsibility than he should have to bear, not to mention her falling down on her parenting.
Swinging Toby round, she tickled him until he squealed, then marched him from the room. "You go with Kit to walk the dogs, and when you get back we'll have a special treat. A game."
"Can we play Giant Snakes and Ladders?"
Gemma cursed herself. That was Toby's latest favorite, and required more energy than a marathon, especially when you added barking dogs and a cat interested in anything spread out on the floor. "Of course," she said, hoping that dinner would revive her a bit.
But when the boys and dogs had gone out in a flurry of motion, she decided she wasn't hungry after all, and instead poured herself a glass of white wine from the fridge, popped a CD in the kitchen player, sank into a chair and kicked off her shoes.
Closing her eyes, she tried to shut out the replay of her row with her dad and her worry over her mum. She wiggled her toes and held the wine in her mouth before she swallowed, tasting all the flavors.
After a moment, the music began to do its work. She'd put on Barb Jungr, one of her favorite singers, but it wasn't Jungr's smoky voice that caught her attention now, but the sweet, spare notes of the piano accompaniment.
God, how long had it been since she'd played the piano? She'd canceled lesson after lesson, and without that discipline, had practiced less and less. How had she let something she loved so much slip away from her?
But with the job, and Duncan, and the boys, and the dogs-as if to remind her of his presence, Sid chose that moment to pad into the kitchen and jump up on the table-and the cat, Gemma amended, she seemed to have little time for herself.
And yet, even with more in her life than she could manage well, she still felt the sting of loss, and cataloging the practical difficulties they'd have faced in caring for another child made not a whit of difference.
Pure selfishness, she told herself firmly. And she had been selfish enough lately.
With that reminder, she exchanged her glass for her mobile and rang Erika's number. It was past time she checked on Erika rather than sending Kit as an emissary, and she had questions she needed to ask.
But Erika's number rang on unanswered. Gemma drank a bit more wine, then dialed again, but there was still no reply, not even the answer phone. Although Gemma knew Erika was careless in remembering to switch the machine on, she felt frustrated by her inability to leave a message, and a little uneasy.
She was wondering how she might convince her very independent friend that she should get a mobile phone when her own phone rang. She jumped, sloshing her wine, and answered a little breathlessly.
It was not Erika, however, but Melody Talbot.
"Boss," said Melody, "before you ask, yes, I'm still at the office, but I really am going home.
"But there was something a bit odd. I was looking through those newspapers you asked me to collect for you. Did you know that Erika Rosenthal had a piece in the Guardian the day David Rosenthal was killed?"
***
Erika moved through the day as if held to the earth by the slenderest of tethers.
She rose at her usual time, even though she'd been given a temporary bereavement leave from her job in the administrative offices at Whiteleys department store. Finding she was ravenous, she'd made tea, with two pieces of toast and two soft-boiled eggs, an unheard-of indulgence with rationing still in effect, but she felt reckless with hunger. If she had nothing to eat the rest of the week she couldn't bring herself to care.
Carrying her plate and cup out into the garden, she sat on the stone wall in the one spot penetrated by the morning sun. In spite of her hunger, she ate slowly, savoring every taste and texture as if it were for the first time-the buttery richness of the egg yolk, the crunchiness of the toast, the earthy astringency of the tea.
And she, who had lived in her own mind for so long, found that she wanted to share every thought, every impression, every instant of experience with Gavin. He would understand. He would know what she meant, what she felt, almost before she knew herself, and the perfection of it made her eyes fill with the tears she had not cried for her husband.
David. She knew that somewhere within her she carried a kernel of grief for the man she had lived with for almost fifteen years, and that most of all she would mourn what might have existed between them, and for the long, barren waste of their marriage.
But now she felt distanced, as if a stranger had lived that life, or as if it were a distant memory, something seen from the wrong end of a telescope. David had been lost to her long ago, and she knew now that grief had been woven into the very fabric of her life.
As she did the washing-up and went about her daily routine, she wondered if a time would come when she would feel guilt for having taken another man so precipitously into her bed. But she couldn't imagine that her union with Gavin Hoxley could ever seem an act of disloyalty, and she didn't want to think of consequences, or of the obstacles that stood between them.
Not now. Not yet. Nothing could take this moment, this hour, this d
ay, from her. She had been waiting for it her whole life.
***
Gemma had survived Giant Snakes and Ladders, had put Toby to bed, had had a bath herself, had said good night to Kit, who was reading in his room, and Kincaid still had not rung. She tried calling him, but his phone went straight to voice mail, and she didn't leave a message. Something must have happened, and he would let her know when he could.
Nor had she had any success reaching Erika, although she kept trying until she felt it was too late to call. She told herself she was being paranoid, that Erika had every right to go out of an evening, or to leave the phone unanswered if it suited her. But no amount of rationalizing quieted the little tickle of worry.
Had Erika's story in the Guardian had some bearing on David Rosenthal's death? But Melody had told her that it was an opinion piece, something about the shifting role of women in the postwar workplace, which sounded so like Erika that it made Gemma smile. She couldn't imagine it had been more than coincidence. But, she couldn't stop reminding herself, the two other people who'd had a connection with Erika's brooch were dead.
In pajamas and dressing gown, Gemma went downstairs and idled restlessly at the piano, trying to pick out a tune that teased at her memory, but her fingers seemed disconnected from her brain. Giving up after a few discordant notes, she wandered into the kitchen and contemplated the wine still in the fridge, but it had lost its appeal.
Instead, she filled a mug with milk and popped it in the microwave, then took the steaming drink to the table. She wanted to think more clearly, not less.
Geordie and Tess had stayed upstairs with Kit, but Sid, who seemed to be her shadow today, had followed her. He jumped up on the table and wrapped his tail round his paws, regarding her with unblinking green eyes, and for once Gemma didn't shoo him off. Instead, she scratched him under the chin until his eyes narrowed to slits and he began to purr. "You know everything, don't you, boy?" she said softly, and at the sound of her voice, the cat blinked and curled his tail a bit tighter, as if containing his contentment.
As Gemma began to relax, her mind drifted randomly through the things that were worrying her. Her mum…her dad…Kristin Cahill…the poor man she hadn't met, Harry Pevensey…Erika…and Gavin Hoxley. She kept coming back to Gavin Hoxley. It was odd, but a day spent reading Hoxley's notes had made her feel she knew him, and she had liked him. It seemed to her that he had cared about David Rosenthal in a personal way, as she often cared about her own cases. And he had been too good a detective to have just dropped an unsolved case, so what had happened?
She could ask Erika, of course. Erika would have known Hoxley-it was obvious from his notes that he had interviewed her. But then, Erika had never told her that David Rosenthal had been murdered. Why?
Gemma circled round to Gavin Hoxley again, and she realized she had made a decision. She would ask Erika about her husband's death, but first she would go back to Lucan Place and find out why Hoxley had dropped David Rosenthal's case.
***
As the day slid into evening, Erika found herself staring more and more often at the telephone, as if she could will it to ring, or holding her breath as she listened for the sound of footsteps in the paved yard outside her door.
Gavin hadn't said he would ring, after all, or that he would come back to her as soon as he was able, but that he would do so had seemed as natural to her as breathing.
She did chores already done once. She made herself eat a little something, a habit from the war, when one never knew when one might get another meal, but her appetite of the morning had gone. She switched on lamps, brushed her dark hair until it crackled, and smoothed her hands down the skirt of her best dress.
By nightfall, doubt had come creeping in. Had she been a complete fool? Had she only imagined that what had happened between them was special? She was, after all, inexperienced in these things, and probably more naive than she had realized.
Had she fallen for the oldest chestnut in the world, that of the married man who claimed to be unhappy with his wife? She had been wrong, so wrong, about David. Had she been wrong about Gavin as well?
But as the hours passed, and she played over and over the things they had said, and done, and shared, she knew in her heart that it had been real, and that knowledge chilled her to the bone.
CHAPTER 18
Certainly, hostility towards Jews contributed to the lassitude with which Foreign Office officials generally responded to proposals for humanitarian aid to Jews… After the war, and notwithstanding the revelation of the full horrors of Nazi crimes against them, Jews were still perceived as undesirable immigrants.
– Louise London, Whitehall and the Jews, 1933-1948
Gemma had just drifted off to sleep when Kincaid climbed into bed beside her. When he spooned his body against hers, she could feel the chill even through the fabric of her pajamas. "Where have you been?" she said groggily. "And why are you so cold?"
"The weather's changed. And I just had Cullen drop me at Holland Park Road, as it was late."
"You saved him five minutes' drive so you could freeze walking down the hill? Are you daft?" But she pushed back the covers and shrugged out of her pajama top and bottoms, tossing them onto the floor, then slid back into bed and fitted her body to his, skin to skin.
"Oh, that's better." He wrapped his arms round her, adding, "Shove over, you two," to Geordie and Sid, who were occupying too much real estate on the foot of the bed.
"Now, spill," she commanded, snuggling a little more firmly.
While their body temperatures equalized, he told her about his interview with Amir Khan, and then with Giles Oliver. "We had to take him in to print him and get an official statement, but I'd promised I'd get him back tonight so that he could look after the dog. Otherwise, I'd have had to bring Mo home with me."
"God forbid. We'd have had Armageddon. And you are a complete pushover for that big beast," she added sternly, but she couldn't stop a smile. "So, do you think he did it?"
Kincaid sighed, and his breath tickled her ear. "Oliver? I can just imagine he might have hit Kristin, out of spite, if he'd had the means to hand. But I think it highly unlikely he had the bollocks to steal a car and plan to run her down, and I really can't come up with a plausible reason why he would kill Harry Pevensey.
"And I think they must have been killed by the same person."
"And Khan?"
"Again, he had motive to kill Kristin, and a stronger one than Giles, if she'd discovered what he was doing and threatened to give him away. But why would he have thought Kristin would tell Harry Pevensey?"
"Still, he does have an SUV. Do you think Giles could have mistaken a Volvo for a Land Rover? I mean, even I know the difference."
"You have the advantage of Giles Oliver in more ways than one, love," he said, with a breath of laughter that stirred her hair again. He ran a hand over the curve of her hip and cupped her breast as he added thoughtfully, "But we should know more tomorrow, when we get a report on Khan's car. And we'll see if there's any trace evidence, or Giles Oliver's prints, on the car that was stolen."
"Was that an SUV?"
"Yes, but a Toyota. And the CCTV does indicate that the car was a Land Rover-although the film only shows it accelerating into the intersection. It doesn't prove that was the car that hit her."
"That's splitting hairs," said Gemma drowsily. "So either Giles was there as a witness, or he stole a different car, a Land Rover that hasn't been reported missing. And in that case, why would he say he saw a Land Rover?" She tilted her head so that his lips found the hollow of her neck. "I'm turned in circles now."
"So you are." He laughed and trailed his fingers down her belly. "Now, tell me about Erika."
But by that time, Gemma had lost all interest in conversation.
***
Gemma woke to find that Kincaid had been right. The day was gunmetal gray, with a sharp little wind that snaked round corners and bit. She dressed in trousers and pullover and the long buff-color
ed suede jacket that she'd thought put away for the season. When Kincaid had left for the Yard and the children were off to school, and she had checked in with the hospital, she walked up past her own police station and took the tube to South Kensington.
The journey to Lucan Place had come to feel familiar, and the duty sergeant greeted her with a smile of recognition. She asked to see Inspector Boatman, and within a few minutes was shown into Kerry Boatman's office.
"Gemma," said Boatman, sitting back in her chair and pulling off glasses that had already left a mark on the bridge of her nose. "Did you find what you were looking for yesterday?"
"Yes and no." Gemma explained that part of David Rosenthal's case file seemed to be missing. "The detective in charge of the case was very thorough. I can't imagine that he'd have given up on the investigation so quickly."
Boatman frowned and rubbed at her nose. "I don't know where else you might look. If part of the file got put in with something else, it would be like looking for the proverbial pin in a haystack. Makes me shudder just to think of it."
"What about the detective's personnel file?" Gemma asked. "His name was Gavin Hoxley."
"Never heard of him. Long before my time, I'm afraid. But I can certainly have someone pull the record, if you like." She glanced at her watch. "I have a meeting in the super's office, but you're welcome to make yourself at home, and I'll have the file brought in to you."
Gemma thanked her, appreciating the courtesy.
She didn't have to wait long before a uniformed constable brought her a dog-eared folder. Gemma blew at the film of dust on its surface, then opened it carefully.
The pages inside had been typed on cheap paper with a manual typewriter, and the print was smudged and smeared from handling. She took in the vital statistics. Gavin Hoxley had been a Londoner, she saw, born in this very borough, and he had seen service in the war before joining the Metropolitan Police, where he had risen quickly in the ranks.
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