back. She’s dead. Her body was found near here a few hours ago.”
There was an instant’s silence that seemed to stretch, vibrating like a high-tension wire. Kath stared at them, one hand pressed to her mouth. Jason sank to the edge of the desk, his eyes wide.
“You’re sure?” whispered Kath. “You’re sure it’s her?”
“There’s no question,” Kincaid said. “I’m sorry.”
“Oh, shit. The daft little cow.” Jason had tears in eyes now. “Look, it’s all my fault.”
The others all stared at him in surprise.
“She’s a repeater. Mouse.” When Kincaid and Maura looked at him blankly, Jason made an effort to explain. “She can’t stay away from her husband. He’s not a bad bloke, really – has a steady job as an electrician. They only row when she goes back on the drugs, and then he tries to shake some sense into her. After that, she comes in here for a few weeks, then they make it up, and she goes back to him. Until the next time.”
Kath was shaking her head. “But, Jason-”
“I suspected it. I suspected she was seeing him again. But I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to get her in trouble. And now – he must have-” His mouth twisted with distress.
“Jason.” Kath went to him, touched his arm. “It’s not your fault. You couldn’t have prevented this.”
“We will be interviewing Beverly’s husband,” Kincaid put in, “but I think you might be jumping to conclusions a bit here.” He had their attention now, and there was something interesting in the tableau they presented, Kath’s hand hovering protectively over Jason’s shoulder. “Earlier this morning we identified the body in the warehouse fire as Laura Novak. That makes two women with a connection to this shelter that have died in the last four days. That’s too much of a coincidence for my taste.”
Kath gasped as if she’d taken a body blow. “Oh, my God. Laura. But Laura… Laura hardly knew Bev. Why would – Oh, God,” she said again. “I can’t believe Laura’s dead. I thought she must have gone away somewhere, with her little girl.”
Kincaid noticed that the offering of comfort was one-sided. Jason made no move towards Kath but sat absently loosening the collar of his designer shirt, his face blank with shock.
“We’ll need to get Beverly’s husband’s name and address, as well as any other contact information,” Kincaid began, but Kath interrupted him.
“But then, if Laura’s dead… Where’s Harriet?”
“We don’t know,” Kincaid answered, but he was suddenly distracted. The tab on one of the files Kath had transferred from the chair to the corner of the desk had caught his eye.
The skies opened up just as Gemma reached her car, dumping a brief deluge as if providing fitting punctuation to her conversation with Kincaid. She sat, thinking, while the rain pounded roof and windscreen.
She’d been unfair. She knew she’d been unfair; she knew that with this new death, and Harriet still missing, he needed all his focus on the case, but she hadn’t been able to stop herself.
Bloody hell, she was useless. She’d failed the missing six-year-old. She’d failed Harriet Novak. She’d failed Kit today in the hearing. Had she even, a mean little voice whispered in her mind, failed her own unborn child? Everyone said nothing could have prevented her miscarriage, but deep in her heart she’d never quite believed it.
No! She pounded her palms on the steering wheel until they smarted. She’d been down that road before – she certainly wasn’t going that way again. There was too much at stake.
Then she realized the rain was letting up, the shower moving away as quickly as it had come. A few straggling drops splattered against the windscreen as a watery sunlight emerged. When Gemma rolled down the car window, the air smelled so clean and full of promise that she felt ashamed of herself for even such a brief descent into self-pity. She’d always prided herself on her determination; it was time she demonstrated some evidence of it. She wasn’t going to give up, not on Kit, not on Harriet, and it was Harriet who needed her help most urgently.
Frowning, she tried to recall everything that she had learned about Elaine Holland since her first phone call from Winnie. Then she put the car into gear and drove to Ufford Street.
To her astonishment, as she pulled up to the curb in front of Fanny’s house, she saw Winnie wheeling Fanny’s chair down the ramp. They both waved to her as she got out of the car.
“What’s happened?” she asked, hurrying to them. “Is everything all right?”
“We decided it was high time Fanny got out for a bit,” explained Winnie. “We’re going for a drink at the Hope and Anchor.”
“Will you join us?” Fanny smiled, and Gemma realized she did look better. Her eyes were clear, and her face seemed less pinched, as if a constant pain had eased.
“Nothing would suit me better.” Realizing that she’d been dreading entering the close confines of the house, Gemma thought it no wonder Fanny seemed relieved.
They walked companionably down the street, Winnie pushing Fanny’s chair, and when they reached the pub the staff made much fuss over settling them at a table. It was a slow time of the afternoon and the place was empty except for a few solitary patrons with newspapers and a man tinkling idly, softly, at the keys of the upright piano. He segued from bits of Gershwin to Cole Porter to random snatches that Gemma didn’t recognize, and the sound made her feel unaccountably sad.
When they’d got their drinks – Pimm’s for Winnie and Fanny, a half pint of cider for Gemma, who wanted to keep a clear head – she told them everything that had happened since she’d seen them the previous day.
“Fanny, I don’t want to distress you,” she went on, “but I want to talk about Elaine. I’ve just realized how many different stories she told about her background, and I thought if we could put them all together, we might find something in common.”
“I don’t mind, really.” Absently, Fanny rotated her glass in the center of the beer mat. She wore a pearl- buttoned cardigan fastened to the throat, and her cheeks looked faintly pink from the warmth or the excitement of the outing. “I feel – I don’t know. Once I knew she wasn’t coming back… It’s as if I was carrying a weight, but I never realized it until it was lifted.” Her face fell. “But Elaine – wherever she is – I don’t like to think of Elaine with a child.”
Nor did Gemma. “Elaine told Tony Novak that she was married to a commercial traveler, and that she worked at an estate agent’s here in the Borough.
“She told her coworkers at Guy’s that she grew up in Gloucestershire and only came to London when her parents died, but the girl I spoke with swore that Elaine’s accent was native to the Borough.”
“And she told me that her parents had emigrated from Canada,” said Fanny, “that her mother committed suicide when she was a child, and that she took care of her ill father until he died.”
Gemma realized suddenly that the music had stopped and the piano player was gone. She had never seen his face. For a moment she wondered if she had imagined him, as Elaine had imagined entire lives. Aloud, she mused, “We know the first story was a complete fabrication. Could one of the others have been the truth?”
“What I wonder,” said Winnie slowly, “is whether she told Tony Novak her parents were dead?”
“You think that’s the common thread, her parents’ deaths?”
“There’s something else.” Winnie fingered the silver cross she wore beneath her collar. “Fanny, before Roberta left, did Elaine ever stay when Roberta brought you communion on Sundays? Because I remember that when I first came, I never saw her, but after a few weeks she began to hover in the doorway, and then after another week or two she would come into the room, a bit like a stray animal gaining confidence. I assumed it was the church she disliked, but what if it was the priest? What if she was afraid of the priest?”
Gemma frowned. “I’m not following you.”
“Maybe Elaine was afraid of Roberta.”
“Elaine was never home when Roberta came during the week,” said Fanny. “And now that I think of it, the few times Roberta dropped by unannounced on a weekend, Elaine went straight up to her room without meeting her. And then on Sundays, of course, she was always out of the house.”
“That settles it, then.” Winnie’s pleasant face glowed with missionary zeal. “We’ll ring Roberta straightaway.”
Winnie had drawn her mobile from her belt and flipped it open when Gemma felt hers vibrate. Gemma pulled her phone from its clip, murmuring, “Sorry, sorry,” and feeling absurdly like a dueling gunslinger in an old western.
