opportunity.
Leaving Melody at the station, she drove the short distance to Portobello Road, finding a spot to put the car south of the point where the fruit-and-veg stalls lining the bottom half of the road made parking impossible. Walking on from there, she reached the double entrance to the old Portobello School. The soup kitchen was just to one side, in a nondescript building.
Gemma opened the door and peered in a bit gingerly. She'd been in the Sally Army facility up the road, of course, when she was on the beat, but she'd no idea what sort of place this was. What she saw reassured her. In the front of a clean, spare room, an assortment of people sat eating at long wooden tables. Towards the rear, Bryony and her friend Marc served a few stragglers from a buffet line. Bryony waved. 'I'm on my lunch break,' she explained as Gemma came up. 'I tell Marc I come to help out, but it's really his food I'm after.'
'Right,' agreed Marc. 'And I'll be moving on to the Savoy any day. Would you like something, Gemma?'
Gemma saw that it was not soup, but a thick vegetable-and-bean stew. It smelled delicious and she suddenly remembered that she had once again neglected breakfast. 'Yes, please.'
'Let me introduce you to Geordie, first,' said Bryony. 'So that you can be getting acquainted.' She motioned Gemma round the buffet table. The cocker spaniel lay near Bryony, his head on his paws, watching her intently. But when Gemma knelt down beside him, he stood, his stump of a tail wagging.
'That's what I love about cockers,' Bryony told Gemma. 'Their entire bodies wriggle. No dissembling.'
'Hullo, boy,' Gemma said softly, holding out her hand. Geordie snuffled her fingers, gave them a lick, his tail wagging harder, then looked up at her expectantly, as if to say, 'What's next?'
Laughing, Gemma stroked his head and rubbed his silky ears. The dog promptly curled up with his head against her knee and gazed up at her devotedly.
'I'd say you've made a conquest.' Bryony's pleasure was evident.
'He is lovely,' Gemma admitted. 'But I couldn't take him until the weekend,' she heard herself adding. 'We'll be moving on Saturday. And that's if his owner agrees, of course.' Surely she had completely lost her mind, she thought, but she found she didn't care.
'I'll vouch for you,' said Bryony. 'If you come back to the clinic with me after lunch, we'll fill out the adoption paperwork. I'll ring you on Sunday and we can make arrangements.'
Geordie followed Gemma as they settled at a table near the buffet with their bowls of stew, settling himself near her feet with a sigh. 'I've never had a dog before,' Gemma confessed. 'I mean, not personally. My older son- stepson- has a terrier, but he hasn't lived with us until now. I mean my son, not the dog- Oh, it's too complicated to explain!'
'The dog is much simpler,' Bryony answered, laughing. 'Feed him, walk him, give him regular baths and lots of attention. That's all there is to it.'
'Essentials,' said Marc, looking round at the people finishing their meals, several with dogs at their feet. 'Food and care. That's what keeps a good many of these folks on the street- they simply can't cope with anything more complicated than that.'
'No cell phones and computerized banking?'
'Right. Overload. Their circuits just can't handle it.'
A black woman stood and carried her dishes to the washing-up stack. She wore green wellies and what must have once been an expensive business suit beneath a worn man's overcoat.
'Take Evelyn, for example,' said Marc. 'She was in insurance. An executive of some sort. One day she just quit.'
'Thank you, Mr. Marc,' Evelyn called out as she collected her bundles from the pile by the door. 'Lord bless you.'
'See you tomorrow,' Marc answered.
As Gemma ate her stew, Marc pointed out some of the other regulars to her. Some had simply lost jobs and not been able to meet their commitments, some had fallen victim to drugs, others were mentally ill.
'You know them all?' Gemma asked, pushing her empty bowl away.
'Most. Some- especially those with families- have a good chance of getting off the streets. Others, like Evelyn, have found a niche and have no intention of leaving it.'
'But that's dreadful.'
'It is and it isn't.' Marc shrugged. 'Again, it's down to basics, and their perspective is quite a bit different than yours. It depends on whether they can manage to sleep warm and dry, and get enough to eat. I try to take care of their minor medical needs, the things they absolutely won't go to hospital for. And Bryony- did she tell you what she's doing?'
Bryony colored. 'It's just an idea I had, a free weekly clinic to treat the animals. Minor things, of course, as Marc said; that's all you can do.' Glancing at Marc, she added with a grimace, 'I'm going to have to be really careful about accounting for my supplies after that incident at the surgery a couple of weeks ago. Gavin was on at me again about it this morning.'
'What happened?' asked Gemma.
'When I got to the surgery that morning, the door was unlocked. There were some things missing- not drugs, just small items: instruments, bandages. Some flea-control preparations, which bring a good price. Gavin said I must have left the surgery unlocked when I closed up the day before, although I know I didn't. He's taking the loss out of my paycheck.'
Gemma raised an eyebrow. 'Seems a bit unfair. Bryony, I know you said you were in and out with clients when Dawn came in last Friday, but did you see her when she left? I just had the impression, when I was talking to Gavin yesterday, that perhaps something had gone on between them.'
Bryony looked uncomfortable. 'It's not good politics to tell tales on one's boss.'
'So there was something.'
'I don't know what; I didn't actually hear anything except raised voices through the cubicle wall. But when Dawn left she looked furious. When I said good-bye, she didn't even notice.'
'But you must have a theory as to what caused the row. Was there something going on between them?'
'Only in Gav's dreams! He always flirted with her and she took it good-naturedly enough, you know, without encouraging him. My guess is he went too far. Either that or she was less tolerant that day and told him she'd had enough.'
Dawn had certainly had good reason to be less tolerant that day, thought Gemma, facing a doctor's appointment she must have dreaded, not to mention the sick cat-
'Sid!' she exclaimed. 'I completely forgot about Sid!' Realizing how daft she must sound, she amended, 'Sid's our cat. Will Geordie be all right with him?'
'I'm sure he'll be fine,' reassured Bryony. 'So far, I haven't seen anyone or anything that Geordie
'The kids will be thrilled, I'm sure, but I don't know what Duncan will say,' Gemma confessed to Melody.
'Tell him the dog's a Christmas present. Then he can't complain without looking like Scrooge.'
'You're devious,' Gemma said, laughing. 'Remind me to come to you for advice more often.' She nodded at the sheaf of papers in Melody's hand. 'Have you got something else for me?'
'The blood work's come back, boss.'
'Anything helpful?'
'Inconclusive. More on the negative side than the positive, if you ask me. It looks like Arrowood picked up his wife, just like he said, but that doesn't prove incontrovertibly that he didn't hold her from behind first, until she bled out.'
'Difficult to do without getting some blood spatter on his clothes. And if he'd dumped some sort of protective covering anywhere in the neighborhood, we'd have found it by now.' Gemma tried to keep the discouragement from her voice- this was no more than she'd expected. Six days and virtually no progress.
'So what do we do now?'
'We keep working on the drug angle with Arrowood. Which means we talk to Alex Dunn again.'
