rules out Kieran as well.”
“You were thinking Connolly might have made up the whole story about seeing the man on the riverbank, then torched his own boatshed for verisimilitude?”
“Watch it with the big, university words,” Kincaid told him with a trace of returning humor. “But, yes, I’d considered it, although I didn’t think it likely.”
But if they ruled out Freddie, and they ruled out Kieran, that brought them back to Angus Craig, and Kincaid back to square one. How the hell could they—
His phone buzzed with an incoming call. Gemma. “Hold on. Or let me just ring you back,” he said to Doug, and clicked over.
Gemma didn’t give him an opportunity to say more than
When she came to a breathless halt, his hands had gone cold and he felt queasy. “Is there any proof?” he asked.
“There might be a witness. The barmaid at the pub where the woman was drinking right before she was killed. We won’t be able to contact her until tomorrow.”
“Have you or Melody spoken to anyone else about this?”
“No, I didn’t—”
“Well, don’t.” He knew his voice was sharp, but he had to make his point. “Call whoever you talked to at the pub and tell them not to speak to
“I’m just about to pick up Charlotte from Betty’s.”
“Get Charlotte and go home,” he said, his voice grim. “Stay there. Don’t talk to anyone. Tell Melody not to talk to anyone. I don’t want this going any further until we know for certain if the barmaid can give us an ID.”
“You think he’s really dangerous, don’t you?” Gemma sounded subdued now, the rush of excitement gone.
“Yes. I do.” He thought of the venom, and the overweening arrogance, that had spewed from Angus Craig, and he wished he had never let Gemma anywhere near this case. “Just be careful, love. I’ll be home in an hour.”
He rang Doug as he drove back to London, filling him in on Gemma’s news and asking him to keep trying to reach Kelly Patterson.
When he reached Notting Hill at last, he was glad to see their house, with its cheery red front door and the lights shining in the windows. He tried not to think about the fact that they were, at least in some sense, indebted to Denis Childs for it.
Gemma greeted him as he walked in, brushing his lips with hers, then resting her cheek against his just an instant longer than usual. “Are you hungry?” she asked, stepping back. “It’s pizza again, I’m afraid. I stopped at Sugo’s on the way home.” With a little smile, she added, “We’re going to turn into pizzas if we’re not careful.”
“Toby would be thrilled with that. What would he choose, do you think? Pepperoni?” Kincaid hung up his overcoat, fished from the boot of the Astra. He bent to stroke Geordie and Sid, their rather large black cat. Sid had developed a doglike sense of prescience regarding Kincaid’s arrival, and always seemed to have settled down nonchalantly for a nap on the hall bench just five minutes beforehand.
“You’d be artichoke, then.”
“Shhh. Don’t tell the children,” Kincaid said, making an effort at normalcy. “Maybe I’ll have to get a bit more inventive on the dinner front when I’m home full-time. I am, after all, going to be a proper househusband.”
Gemma gave him a quick glance, a question in it, but merely said, “The children have been fed and the little ones bathed. Charlotte’s waiting for you to say good night. Artichoke and ham pizza warming in the oven for you, after.”
“Right. Thanks, love.” The house was warm, and as he glanced into the sitting room, he saw that Gemma had lit the gas fire. The room, however, was empty. “Boys upstairs, then?
“Supposed to be reading.” Gemma rolled her eyes. “Heaven knows what Toby’s really doing. Kit will be texting.”
“Lally?”
Gemma nodded. “I suspect we’re going to have to rethink the unlimited texting option.”
They’d given Kit a basic mobile phone for his birthday at the end of June, both for safety reasons and because they’d hoped it would help him fit in better at school. However, hours spent texting his cousin Lally every day had not been what they had in mind. And while Kincaid loved his niece, he knew she was both emotionally volatile and needy. He didn’t think that much contact with her was healthy for Kit.
“I’ll check on them.” He slipped off his suit jacket, hanging it on the coat rack next to his overcoat and the little ones’ macs, then climbed the stairs to Charlotte’s marigold-yellow bedroom on the first floor.
He peeped through the half-open door. The bedside lamp was switched on low, casting a pool of light on the small huddle beneath the bedclothes. As he came into the room, he saw that Charlotte was fast asleep. The covers were drawn up to her nose, but one small hand was free, stretched towards the bright blue hair bow on the bedside table.
He sat on the edge of the bed and smoothed her hair back from her forehead. She didn’t stir. Carefully he leaned down and kissed the corner of her eyebrow, conscious of the stubble on his jaw, then tucked her hand beneath the duvet.
He was glad he’d come home.
Tiptoeing out, he checked on both boys, pleased to find that Toby was doing nothing more destructive than building a railway track on their floor.
Kit was, at least ostensibly, reading, but as Kincaid came in, he saw the boy slip his phone under his pillow.
Gemma was right, Kincaid realized, but dealing with the combined issues of the phone use and Kit’s relationship with his cousin would have to wait a bit longer. He had other things to settle at the moment.
When he came back downstairs after speaking to the boys, Gemma had put out a plate for him with the pizza slices, and had poured him a glass of red wine. She’d opened the bottle of Bordeaux he’d been saving.
Tess, Kit’s terrier, had been upstairs, curled on the foot of Kit’s bed, but Geordie had stayed in the kitchen with Gemma. Now he settled on the floor, resting his head on Kincaid’s foot with a sigh. Sid kept watch on them from the far chair, his eyes on the pizza. The cat was an incorrigible food thief.
Gemma was drinking tea and had a stack of papers beside her cup. When he started to reach for them, she stopped his hand with hers. “Eat first.”
Obediently, he ate a slice of pizza, his favorite, and drank half a glass of the wine. But he had no appetite, and the wine he’d been anticipating as a special treat left an acrid taste in his mouth.
He thought of the fire burning invitingly in the sitting room. But here they were in the kitchen, which was where all their important conversations seemed to take place. Was it the same in other families? he wondered. He had an instant’s intense longing for his parents’ kitchen in Cheshire, where everything momentous in his family had been discussed. And where he and Juliet, as children, had inevitably felt safe.
But he felt no security tonight, even here. He pushed his plate away and reached for the papers, and this time Gemma didn’t stop him.
She watched him as he read, and when he looked up, her expression was somber. “It was him, wasn’t it?”
He nodded. “I think so.”
“He was escalating, wasn’t he? Taking on more powerful women, becoming more violent. He took a big risk with Becca Meredith, and he got away with it. That must have made him feel invincible.” She reached across the table and touched the papers. “Do you think this woman—Jenny Hart—do you think she told him she wouldn’t be blackmailed into silence?”
Picking up the pages again, he glanced at the crime-scene photos. The coffee table in Jenny Hart’s sitting room had been overturned. There was broken glass on the floor, as well as scattered magazines and newspapers. “Not just that,” he said. “She fought, hard.” He looked up at Gemma. “The other women—did they report injuries,
