For the first time since she was nine years old, Winnie raised her hand and slapped her brother across the face as hard as she could.
“Inspector James …”
Gemma said the words aloud as she drove, trying out the sound on her tongue. Heady things, titles. They tempted you to think you were a different person, when in reality the changes were more like the layers of accretion on a pearl. A little more irritation gained you a little more luster, another layer of knowledge, of experience.
Or perhaps she’d wanted the title to make her into a different person—one whose sense of accomplishment wasn’t tempered by her sense of loss. She’d been so busy worrying about how Kincaid would deal with her decision that she’d failed to take her own response to their separation into account. And in spite of her excitement, and the intensity of her focus on her training, she’d felt a constant ache that seemed only to grow more profound with time. She’d come to think of it as the equivalent of the phantom-limb syndrome—she found herself carrying on imaginary conversations with him throughout the day. It was as if their thought processes had become permanently intertwined. Even when they’d been apart in the course of a job, investigating different avenues on a case, she’d been constantly filing away mental references to share with him.
Kincaid had reacted the way she’d expected, his initial dismay turning quickly to angry bewilderment. “Doesn’t our partnership mean anything to you?” he had asked, and her justifications had sounded weak in her own ears. He’d pulled himself together, of course, had even tried to be understanding and supportive—but he had withdrawn from her. During her last weeks of training in Hampshire, she’d rung him a few times and their conversations had consisted of pleasantly distant chat. Returning to London yesterday, she’d found her new duty assignment awaiting her, and she knew she must tell him about it in person.
He’d been away from the Yard on a case, so she’d gone home, fed Toby his supper, then tucked him up at Hazel’s and headed for Kincaid’s Hampstead flat. She should have rung—he might still be out, he might have other plans, he might not want to see her—and perhaps it was fear of the last that had prompted her to go unannounced.
The traffic was light as she drove through Camden Town, the September evening warm enough to allow her to drive her new car with the windows down. The Ford Escort, whose color went by the romantic and improbable name of Wild Orchid, had been a much-needed gift to herself on her promotion. The increase in her salary had made it feasible, but more than that she had needed some sort of visible symbol of her achievement. And Kincaid had not seen the car yet, which gave her an excuse for showing up on his doorstep.
When she reached Hampstead the glitterati were out in force, strolling and positioning themselves to see and be seen in the sidewalk cafés, cell phones permanently attached to their ears.
Turning into Carlingford Road, she saw Kincaid’s old MG Midget parked in front of his building, covered with its tarp, but that didn’t necessarily mean he was at home. The Major’s ground-floor flat was quiet, as was the stairwell of the building, nor was there any sound of telly or stereo from Kincaid’s flat when she reached the top floor. Her hopes sank, but she knocked, and after a moment he opened the door.
“Gemma! I didn’t know you were back.”
She absorbed the details as if it had been months rather than weeks since she’d seen him: unruly chestnut hair, jeans and a cornflower-blue T-shirt that brought out the indigo in his eyes, bare feet, and the smile that always made her catch her breath.
“Late yesterday,” she answered as she followed him into the flat. “I’m not interrupting anything, am I?”
“Not unless you count drinking a beer and sitting on the balcony.” Going to the fridge, he retrieved a lager and held it out towards her, his eyebrow raised questioningly.
Nodding, she accepted the cold bottle and looked round the flat with pleasure. He had managed that rare thing: comfortable masculinity. The small but functional kitchen was separated from the sitting room by a lamplit island that served as the flat’s depository for keys, the day’s mail, and the usual household odds and ends, but the clutter was well organized.
In the sitting room, the furniture was upholstered in rich reds, blues, and greens—stained-glass colors, he called them—the walls held his collection of vintage London Transport art, and every spare nook and cranny was filled with books. But the true focus of the room was the view, first of the balcony with its colorful pots of flowers (contributed by the Major) and, beyond that, the panorama of London rooftops limned by the evening light.
“Join me outside?” he asked, and as she stepped out through the French doors she laughed aloud.
“You’ve made Sid a platform!” Sid, the black cat Kincaid had inherited from his late friend Jasmine Dent, turned and gave her an unblinking emerald stare from a cat-sized perch attached to the balcony railing.
“I got fed up having heart failure every time he jumped up on the railing,” Kincaid explained, running his hand along the cat’s back. “He’s already used up a couple of his nine lives—and I’d hate to think what the Major would do to me if Sid plummeted three floors into one of his prize rosebushes.” He settled in one of the lawn chairs, stretching out his long legs and resting his feet on the railing. “I can’t take credit for the platform, though. It was Kit’s idea.”
Gemma sat beside him, very much aware of his physical nearness. “How is Kit?”
Kincaid frowned. “Ian’s thinking of taking a job in Canada. Kit wants to stay with me if Ian goes, but I haven’t been able to get a commitment out of Ian either way. The last thing Kit needs is to be uprooted. And I want him here.”
“But how would you manage?” she asked, thinking of the conflict with the job—and of the changes it would mean in her relationship with him.
“How much more difficult could it be than the weekends he spends here now?”
A good bit, she thought, but aloud she said merely, “What if Ian won’t agree?” She had never trusted McClellan’s sudden desire to make things up to Kit.
“We’ll deal with that if it happens. It’s not even positive about the job yet.”
Gemma sat forward and peered down into the garden. The roses were lush with late summer’s passion, but the rectangle of lawn was as primly tidy as ever. “Where is Kit tonight? I thought he’d be with you for the weekend.”
“In Grantchester, getting Tess ready for an obedience trial tomorrow. I’ll go up in the morning.”
Gemma felt suddenly excluded, as if they’d done a perfectly good job of carving out a life without her. And yet she knew that was unreasonable—wasn’t she the one who had chosen to go away? “I thought I’d see you at the Yard today,” she said, striving for firmer ground. “Tough case?”
“Wrapped up today, barring the paperwork, and that I’ve turned over to my sergeant.” He gave her a wicked grin. “Serves him right for being such a bloody eager beaver.”
“Wasn’t I?”
“Not like this. He’s a public-school boy—Eton, no less—and full of do-gooder’s enthusiasm for the job. Hasn’t learned he can’t change the world yet.”
“What’s his name?” she asked casually. Surely it was ridiculous to be jealous of this young man who had taken her place.
“Doug Cullen. He’s not a bad chap, really, and I think he’ll make a decent copper once he’s seasoned a bit. At any rate he’s intelligent, and that’s an enormous improvement over the last two they assigned me.” He took a sip of his beer and studied her. “You’ll be bossing sweet young things about yourself, any day now. How does it feel?”