be getting close to the house.
He had a fleeting impression of ugly, square buildings round the Notting Hill Gate tube stop. They swung to the right, entering streets lined with sedate rows of terraced houses. Next, a church, its brick dark with age; then they were running down a hill and drawing to a stop before a solid-looking brown brick house with a red door and white trim.
'You'll come to Canada on your summer break,' Ian reminded him. 'I'll make all the arrangements.'
Kit nodded absently, for Duncan had come out the front door, and Toby stood at the garden gate, calling excitedly to him. His new life had begun.
Hazel had helped her pack with such cheerful competence that Gemma decided she must have imagined that her friend was distressed over her leaving. But Gemma herself found it hard to say good-bye to the tiny flat: It was the first home she had been able to call entirely her own. And then there was Hazel's piano- when would she ever be able to play again? Making an excuse for a last trip into the big house, she dashed into the sitting room and stood for a moment gazing at the instrument, then touched the keys briefly in farewell.
'Don't worry if you've forgotten something,' Hazel assured her as Gemma squeezed into the car with the collected bundles. 'Holly and I will come over tomorrow and help you get settled.'
'I'll need it, I'm sure,' Gemma called out as she waved and drove off. Duncan had taken Toby with him in the van he'd fixed to transport the things from his flat- and Sid the cat. They would meet her at the new house.
After a week's relentless drizzle, Saturday had dawned clear and unseasonably warm, a perfect day for moving, and as Gemma neared Notting Hill she found herself singing along with the old Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young tune 'Our House' on the radio. She laughed aloud with sudden, unanticipated joy.
They were all waiting for her- Duncan, Toby, and Kit, with Tess bounding round and barking madly.
'I take it she likes the house.' Gemma gave Kit a welcoming hug.
Toby tugged at her, his cheeks flushed with excitement. 'Mummy, Mummy, have you seen the garden? Have you seen my room? Sid's shut in the loo.' The poor cat must be utterly traumatized, thought Gemma, but before she could check on him, Toby grabbed her hand and yanked her towards the stairs. 'Come see my room, Mummy. Kit's going to share with me!'
'Okay, okay,' she said, laughing. 'We need a plan. First we tour the house, then we start on the boxes. I'll take the kitchen, you boys can start on your bedrooms, and Duncan can take the sitting room.'
'Yes, ma'am. I take it we save our bedroom for last?' Kincaid grinned and winked at her over the boys' heads.
By mid-afternoon Gemma had made a list of essentials they would need to buy, including new linens for the boys' beds and a set of dishes for the kitchen. Her few mismatched bits and Duncan's bachelor plates were not going to do for a real kitchen, and she had seen exactly the thing in a catalogue: a blue-and-yellow French farmhouse design, perfect for the blue-and-yellow kitchen.
She was humming happily as she confronted the oil-fired cooker, thinking she would make them all a pot of tea, when her cell phone rang.
It was Melody Talbot, calling from Notting Hill Police Station. 'Sorry to interrupt your moving day, boss, but we've had a call that might add up to something. A Miss Granger, who lives near the Arrowoods, was out jogging the night Dawn was killed. She's been out of town on business and just now saw the media appeal.'
'Go on,' Gemma encouraged as she filled her chipped teakettle. Not expecting much, she only half listened, mentally adding 'new kettle' to her shopping list.
'Well, it seems Miss Granger passed another jogger that night, going the opposite way on Ladbroke Grove. That would mean he was going north, away from St. John's Gardens. His hood was up, which she thought was a bit odd because it had stopped drizzling, and when she looked back she saw that he was leaving a trail of dark footprints. She shrugged it off at the time, thinking he must have run through a puddle or something, but now…'
'Jesus…' Gemma set the kettle down on the very edge of the stove, then grabbed it as it tipped. 'Blood? You're thinking it was blood?'
'His shoes would have been soaked, wouldn't they, if he stood behind Dawn?'
'And his hood was up to conceal his face. Could this Miss Granger describe his clothes?'
'Ordinary jogger's things; a dark nylon tracksuit.'
'Did you get a full statement?'
'I'm going to her flat myself, right now. Boss, does this rule out Karl?'
They'd assumed that if Karl had murdered his wife, he had parked in his own drive, killed Dawn, then rung the police. But what if he had parked his car elsewhere, changed into jogging clothes, run to the house where he waited for his wife and killed her, then run back to his car, disposing of his bloody outer garments and weapon before driving to the house and calling for help- and all in the few minutes' leeway the traffic between Tower Bridge and Notting Hill might have allowed him? Implausible, improbable, and bloody unlikely.
'I'd say so,' Gemma responded grimly, 'unless he's Superman.'
By evening Gemma was happy enough to have a soak in the roll-top tub- the highlight of their new bathroom- and ready enough to leave the boxes behind for a civilized dinner. They'd ordered pizza for the boys, a treat, apparently, of royal proportions, and assured Kit that he could reach them on their mobile phones.
'Have you met Cullen's girlfriend?' Gemma asked Kincaid as they drove towards Victoria. 'And what is she doing with a flat in Belgravia?'
'Her father owns the building, I think Doug said.'
'Oh, charming.'
Kincaid snorted. 'Your prejudices are showing. I'm sure she's perfectly nice. Doug says she works for a home furnishings shop.'
'Worse yet,' Gemma muttered.
But when they reached Ebury Street, she found she was actually a little nervous about meeting Doug Cullen. 'What's he like, really?' she asked, tucking her arm through Kincaid's as they climbed the stairs to the first-floor flat.
'A nice chap. Don't worry, you'll like him.'
And indeed she did, at first sight. Cullen exuded a sort of perpetual naIvete, his fresh-faced, public-school looks made only slightly more severe by the wire-rimmed spectacles he kept pushing up his nose.
In contrast to Cullen's comforting ordinariness, Stella Fairchild-Priestly wore a cropped pink angora top and black capri trousers that bared her rhinestone-studded navel- or at least Gemma assumed the sparkling gems were rhinestones. The girl's pale hair was expensively and trendily cut, her makeup salon perfect, her nails a frosted pink that matched her sweater. 'Hi, I'm Stella,' she said with a brilliant smile, and Gemma felt instantly frumpy, fat, and ancient.
Nothing could have been better designed to make Gemma feel even more uncomfortable than being forced to ask for mineral water while the others drank martinis. Stella had a drinks tray ready, and as the others discussed the merits of olives and shaken versus stirred, Gemma looked round the sitting room she instantly dubbed Fifties Chic.
The room had two sets of French doors giving on to a balcony that overlooked Ebury Street. Around evergreen topiaries Stella had wound strings of tiny Christmas lights, and these were reflected in mirrors on the flat's interior walls, adding sparkle to the long, low shapes of the furniture.
The table Stella had arranged at the room's far end gleamed with silver and starched white linen, and as Gemma moved closer she saw that there were even tiny silver place card holders. 'Bloody hell,' she whispered, wondering if she had wandered into a magazine set.
