"Kristin didn't come in for work this morning. That's very unlike her. She's a good girl." The look she gave them was beseeching. "You do have favorites, you know. And Kristin, for all her cheekiness…She wanted to please. And she was…kind to me."
Suddenly Gemma saw, beneath the starchily prim exterior, a lonely woman who had taken any crumbs Kristin had, however unwittingly, thrown in her wake, and turned them into gems.
"So you were worried about her this morning," she prompted as Mrs. March's eyes filled and she pressed the ball of tissue to her nose.
Mrs. March sniffed and lowered her hand, tears temporarily staved off. "I rang her at home. Just to see if she was all right. She seemed a bit…unsettled…yesterday. I wasn't sure if it was your visit or the flowers, or if it was because Mr. Khan…" Glancing round, Mrs. March lowered her voice. "Well, he was a bit rough on her, to tell you the truth."
Gemma sensed a quickening of attention from Kincaid and Cullen, but she didn't want either of them to interrupt her rapport with Mrs. March. "Was this before or after our visit, Kristin's little…um, disagreement with Mr. Khan?"
"After." For the first time, Mrs. March seemed to take in the two men with Gemma, both wearing suits and carrying themselves with the indefinable but unmistakable bearing that marked them as police officers. "I-I don't want to speak out of turn. You're all police, aren't you?"
Kincaid stepped in. "Mrs. March, we only want to help. I'm Detective Superintendent Kincaid, and this is Detective Sergeant Cullen. Can you tell us what happened when you rang Kristin's home this morning?"
It was a good deflection, Gemma thought. They would save Mr. Khan for later.
"A police officer answered the phone. She said she was a family liaison officer, and that there had been an accident." The tears began to flow, this time unchecked. "She said that Kristin was dead. That she had been hit by a car as she was crossing the road last night. I still can't believe it."
"And after the call?" asked Gemma. "You told the rest of the staff? It seems very quiet round here today." She gestured towards the empty auction area. "Is it on account of Kristin?"
"No. There's no sale on today. Everyone is working on the displays and cataloging things that are upcoming. Although some of the girls were very upset." Mrs. March blew her nose, with signs of returning to her usual briskness. "And then there was Giles, of course. He was completely shattered. Even Mr. Khan insisted that he should go home."
"Giles?"
"Another one of our sales assistants. He and Kristin were…special friends."
Gemma vaguely remembered a pudgy-faced young man watching them as Kristin had led her back to the office. "Were they going out?"
"No…At least I don't think so. But Giles was…fond of her. Very cut up." Mrs. March glanced up, and her expression grew suddenly wary. "Oh, there's Mr. Khan now."
Turning, Gemma saw Amir Khan striding towards them from the corridor that led to his-and Kristin's-office.
"Mrs. March, you should have rung me," he said as he reached them, and Gemma knew they would get nothing more from the receptionist for the moment. "Inspector James." Khan's gaze flicked from Gemma to Kincaid and Cullen. "If you are here about the brooch, I'm afraid that what I said yesterday still stands."
"It's a bit more complicated than that, Mr. Khan. We're here about Kristin Cahill's death, and I should think that might have changed things considerably. Oh, and this is Superintendent Kincaid and Sergeant Cullen. From Scotland Yard."
Khan stared at her with what she could have sworn was genuine astonishment, and Gemma felt a moment's pleasure in seeing this slickly urbane man discomfited.
But he seemed to recover quickly enough, giving her a smile that showed a flash of even white teeth. "Certainly, Kristin's accident was unfortunate, but I don't see-"
"Unfortunate!" Mrs. March rose from her chair. "Mr. Khan, how can you possibly say such a thing?" She was trembling. "The poor girl is dead! I'd call that more than unfortunate!"
"Nonetheless, Mrs. March," Khan sounded more annoyed than placating. "That has nothing to-"
"Actually, we're not here about the Goldshtein brooch," Kincaid interrupted. "At least not directly. We're here because we have reason to believe that Kristin Cahill's death was no accident."
Amir Khan hustled them into his office before Mrs. March had a chance to do anything but sink back into her chair, looking stunned.
Cullen, who had been occupying himself by examining an intricate wooden model of a steamship that was apparently going on the block, followed, unease now added to his aggravation. He hadn't cared for feeling like a piece of furniture while Gemma led the questioning, although he had to admit she had probably got more from the receptionist than he would have if it had been his call. But by rights it should have been his guv'nor in the lead, not Gemma, who had no business here.
And now he was faced with Amir Khan, the sort of man who as a boy would have been his nemesis at school-Anglo-Indian, yes, but the product of money and breeding, with the perfect accent, the perfect clothes, an undoubtedly sharp and sarcastic tongue, and who had probably captained his cricket team. Doug hated him on sight.
"Now you've set the cat among the pigeons," said Khan as soon as he had them sequestered in his office. The space was cramped, and he didn't ask them to sit. A bouquet of long-stemmed pink roses sat on the far desk, some of its buds already drooping. "I don't know what sort of nonsense this is," Khan continued, "but Mrs. March will have it spread round the salesroom in five minutes." He glanced at his watch, which Doug suspected was a real Cartier and not a copy. "Or sooner. I don't appre-"
"Mr. Khan." This time Kincaid took the lead. "This is not nonsense. Someone ran Kristin Cahill down last night, brutally and deliberately. I don't care if it upsets your staff. And as we will be talking to each of them in turn, there's no way you could keep the news from them."
"But surely that's not possible." Khan glanced from Kincaid to Gemma, his certainty wavering. "Why would anyone want to hurt Kristin?"
"We were hoping you might tell us," Kincaid said. "It seems you gave her a bit of a bollocking yesterday, after Inspector James left."
"Bollocking?" Khan gave a grimace of distaste. "I'd hardly say that, even if I were to use such a word."
"Then what would you call it? A row?"
"Certainly not. I merely reminded Kristin that our first priority is our clients' confidentiality, and asked her to be discreet."
"You mean discreet about the Goldshtein brooch?" asked Gemma.
"Discreet as regards giving out information pertaining to any of our buyers or sellers, and that included the seller of the Goldshtein brooch."
"Kristin had been working for you a year, I think? Why would you suddenly feel a need to remind her of something she surely knew quite well?"
Khan leaned against his desk and picked at his perfectly starched shirt cuff, looking less than comfortable for the first time. "Of course, Kristin was well aware of our policy. But this was the first time she was to receive an introductory commission. And to my knowledge, this was the first time she'd ever had someone make a prior claim on an object taken in for auction."
"An introductory commission?" asked Gemma. "I remember you saying Kristin had brought the piece in. What does that mean, exactly?"