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-colored 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.