"Lovely," Gemma muttered under her breath as Kincaid rang the bell for the top flat. A release buzzer sounded for the main door-there was apparently no intercom system. Kincaid opened the door for Gemma with a flourish. "Oh, you're going to make me go in first?" she said, teasing. "Very gallant of you." But as they entered the communal hall, she wrinkled her nose in real distaste. The ambience was on a par with the yard in front, but there was less fresh air to dilute it.
They climbed, Kincaid leading the way, passing scarred doors and treading on ever more threadbare carpet. A small, smudgy window on the landing let in much-needed light and air.
They reached the top floor, but before Kincaid could raise a hand to the door, a great woofing roar shook the corridor. Gemma started visibly and even Kincaid took a step back. "What the hell does he have in there, a bloody lion?"
"Get back, Mo, you great oaf!" came a shout from inside the flat, but the voice lacked a reassuring element of command.
Then the door swung open and a young man faced them, panting, hanging on to the collar of the largest dog Kincaid had ever seen. "Don't worry," the young man said. "He won't do anything worse than drool on you."
From the size of the dog's drooping jowls, Kincaid didn't doubt the drooling, and as the beast's tail was whipping back and forth in a frantically friendly wag, he decided to take the owner's word for the rest. "Mr. Oliver? We're from the police. We'd like to talk to you about Kristin-"
"Mo, sit." Giles Oliver dragged the dog into a sitting position away from the door, giving them room to step inside, although Kincaid noticed Gemma stayed a pace behind him. "You want to talk to me about Kris-Kristin?" Oliver's voice broke on the name. The dog stopped straining towards the visitors and leaned against his master's leg, looking up at him with a furrowed canine brow.
"If you don't mind. I'm Duncan Kincaid and this is Gemma James." The young man's face, Kincaid saw, was almost as puffy with weeping as Wanda Cahill's, and he suspected that, for the moment, sympathy would be more persuasive than rank.
Oliver gestured towards a small sofa. "Here, sit down. I'll just give it a brush-"
"We'll be fine," Kincaid said, preferring the risk of dog hair on trousers to the possibility of being bowled over if Oliver let go of the dog.
"He's a mastiff, isn't he?" asked Gemma, apparently unfazed by the dog's size. "He's lovely." While Kincaid gingerly took a seat, she dropped into a crouch and added, "Can I stroke him?"
Giles Oliver's rather weak-chinned face lit in a smile. "You don't mind? Most people would rather not. Just let me bring him to you so he won't knock you down."
Kincaid imagined Gemma saying a prayer for her newest Per Una skirt and layered cardigan, but she weathered the onslaught heroically, even to the slurp across her cheek with the longest pink tongue Kincaid had ever seen. Then she gave the dog a last scratch behind his floppy ears and joined Kincaid on the sofa, arranging her skirt demurely over her knees and obviously making an effort not to brush at the wet streaks.
Her exercise in canine bonding had given Kincaid a chance to examine the flat. Although small-the back of the sofa served as a divider between the living and sleeping areas-it didn't share the dilapidated state of the rest of the building. The place was clean and freshly painted-although there was a definite odor of dog-and the few pieces of furniture were of good quality, as was the rich-hued oriental carpet. But the studio's outstanding feature was a solid wall of shelving filled with vinyl LPs. To one side stood a double turntable and mixing station. It was apparent that Giles Oliver had at least one passion other than his dog, and he wondered where Kristin Cahill had figured in the equation.
"I know you," Giles said to Gemma as he settled into a squat, using an arm over the dog's shoulders as a prop. "You came into the salesroom, to talk to Kris. That's why she got a bollocking from Mr. Khan," he added, his tone becoming less friendly.
"I didn't mean to get her into trouble," answered Gemma. "Was he very cross?"
"More than usual. Although he's always harder on Kris than on anyone else. Was." His chin wobbled, giving him a fleeting resemblance to his dog. "Was harder on her."
"Have you any idea why?"
"No. I asked her, as a matter of fact, and she said she'd no idea. I wondered, though, if he, you know…fancied her. And if she'd turned him down…"
"Does Mr. Khan have a reputation for chatting up the female assistants?" asked Kincaid, interested.
"Well, no. But Kristin-I mean how could he not want…" His arm went a bit tighter round the dog, who groaned and slid down into a fawn-and-black mound on the carpet. The poor kid really had been besotted with Kristin Cahill, Kincaid thought with a flash of sympathy, and would not have had a snowball's chance in hell. But that made him all the more viable as a suspect.
Oliver righted himself, left the dog, and perched on the edge of a chair with smooth, curving, burnished wooden arms. Furniture design was not Kincaid's forte, but he guessed the chair was expensive, and original. "He'll be all right now," Oliver said, with a look at the dog. "Once he's out, he's out." As if in answer, Mo began to snore, and his owner looked at Gemma and frowned. "I don't understand. What were you doing at the salesroom yesterday, and why do you want to talk to me about Kristin?"
"Giles," said Gemma, "are you sure it was after I was there that Mr. Khan was upset with her?"
His face darkened. "Well, before…all this…I thought it might have been because of the roses. They came just after you left."
"Mrs. March said someone sent her roses. It wasn't you?"
"Are you kidding?" His laugh was bitter. "I just barely manage to pay the rent on this dump. There's no way I could afford flowers like that."
Priorities, Kincaid thought-Oliver apparently managed fine furniture and collector's vinyl on his pittance quite well.
"Do you know who did send the flowers?" asked Gemma.
Giles shook his head, tight lipped. "No."
Kincaid picked up the questioning, changing tack. "Did Kristin talk to you about the brooch?"
"What brooch?" Giles looked from Kincaid to Gemma.
"The Jakob Goldshtein diamond brooch," Gemma answered.
"Oh, that. She helped Mr. Khan catalog it. That's her job." Giles merely looked puzzled.
"She didn't tell you she was getting a bringing-in fee?"
"Kristin? Where would Kristin come across something like that?"
"We thought you might be able to tell us. That Kristin might have talked to you about it." Gemma leaned forward, inviting him to confide in her.
He colored, an ugly flush that brought out splotches on his neck. "No. She never said anything."
"What about when you called her last night?" asked Kincaid, taking the opportunity to play bad cop. At the sharpness in his voice, the dog raised his head and gave a low rumble, and Kincaid suddenly remembered reading that mastiffs were very protective of their owners.
But Giles Oliver seemed unaware of his dog's distress. "What?" he said, staring at them, but the blotches deepened in color.
"We talked to her mum," said Gemma. "What was it that you wanted Kristin to do?"
"I-I just wanted-I thought she might want someone to talk to about Khan giving her such a hard time."
"You asked her out?"
"No, not out, exactly. I thought she might want to come over. Listen to some records. You know, chill a bit. But-" He looked round the flat, as if seeing it through their eyes. "I should have known, shouldn't I?"