Childs raised a brow. 'Have you acquired telepathy, then?'
'No, sir,' Kincaid said. 'Although there are days when it might prove helpful.'
He proceeded to explain how Gemma had met Kristin Cahill, had thought something seemed a little dodgy, and how Kristin had subsequently died.
'I take it Gemma wants you on the case?'
'Yes. But I have to admit I'm curious, too. Gemma's instincts are seldom wrong, and if this has to do with the auction house, we could be looking at something big.'
'And what about Gemma? I can't see her being content to take a backseat, and I don't imagine Mark Lamb would be too happy to have her haring off after a Homicide division inquiry.'
'As it happens, Gemma's taking a bit of personal time at the moment. Her mum's ill.'
'Sorry to hear that,' said Childs, but there was an unmistakable glint of humor in his eyes. 'Ring Lucan Place, then, and get the record transfer started. And keep me informed.'
Doug Cullen was less than pleased to be assigned a case on some whim of Gemma James's. Although he'd worked with Kincaid long enough now to have got over the first rash of professional jealousy, and he'd come to know Gemma well enough to like her personally, he didn't fancy being dictated to by his guv'nor's former sergeant, much less his girlfriend.
He was skeptical about the investigation's validity, as well. That was a notoriously bad stretch of road-there had been a fatality there just recently, when some idiot in a fast car had blown through World's End at three in the morning and wrapped himself round a light pole. Odds were that this girl had stepped out in front of someone equally careless-wrong place, wrong time.
But as the material began to come through from Chelsea, his certainty wavered. It had been fairly early, for one thing, not long after pub closing time, and before the staggeringly pissed emptied out of the nightclubs. And although a lack of braking wouldn't have convinced him, the preliminary accident investigation reports showed clear signs that the car had accelerated away from the curb west of Edith Grove and into the intersection.
And then there was the photo of the girl herself, a copy of a recent snapshot contributed by her parents. Kristin Cahill had been undeniably pretty, but it was more than that. There was a slightly wistful appeal in her eyes, and in the little half smile she had thrown at the camera. Finding himself wishing that he had met her, Doug began to see why Gemma might have got her knickers in a twist over the girl's death.
Still, when he and Kincaid arrived at Harrowby's an hour later to begin questioning the staff, he wasn't best pleased to find Gemma James waiting on the pavement.
'I thought I might be able to help,' said Gemma, taking in Cullen's glare and the slight twitch of Kincaid's lips.
'And I thought you were going to hospital,' Kincaid replied.
Gemma tamped down a twinge of guilt. 'Cyn rang. She said they've taken Mum down for more tests, so there was nothing I could do until later. And since I'd met some of the staff here…' Seeing Cullen's blank look, she realized Kincaid hadn't told him about her mother. 'My mum's in St. Barts,' she explained to Cullen. 'Having some tests.'
'Oh, sorry.'
Unwilling to say more, Gemma nodded her thanks and let Kincaid lead the way towards the salesroom door.
Kincaid was, after all, the senior investigating officer, and while she might tag along, she had better not charge into things like Boadicea come to conquer. What she'd have done if another team had shown up, she didn't like to think.
'I'm glad you took the case,' she murmured to him.
'You were persuasive.' He paused, studying her. 'And as long as you're here, it might not be a bad idea for you to introduce us. Up the ante a bit if they think that something they said to you, or that Kristin said to you, brought you back.'
Harrowby's seemed eerily quiet, the auctioneer's podium empty, the large television dark, the rows of chairs that had held yesterday's bidders unfilled. And gone was the composed Mrs. March who had greeted them at reception the previous day. Although neatly dressed in what appeared to be a cashmere twinset, her nose was red, her makeup smudged, and she held a ragged wad of tissues in her hand.
For a moment she looked blankly at Gemma, then recognition dawned. 'You didn't say you were with the police. Yesterday.' Mrs. March gave a slow, baffled shake of her head. 'She's dead. Kristin's dead.'
'It
'Kristin didn't come in for work this morning. That's very unlike her. She's a good girl.' The look she gave them was beseeching. 'You do have favorites, you know. And Kristin, for all her cheekiness…She wanted to please. And she was…kind to me.'
Suddenly Gemma saw, beneath the starchily prim exterior, a lonely woman who had taken any crumbs Kristin had, however unwittingly, thrown in her wake, and turned them into gems.
'So you were worried about her this morning,' she prompted as Mrs. March's eyes filled and she pressed the ball of tissue to her nose.
Mrs. March sniffed and lowered her hand, tears temporarily staved off. 'I rang her at home. Just to see if she was all right. She seemed a bit…unsettled…yesterday. I wasn't sure if it was your visit or the flowers, or if it was because Mr. Khan…' Glancing round, Mrs. March lowered her voice. 'Well, he was a bit rough on her, to tell you the truth.'
Gemma sensed a quickening of attention from Kincaid and Cullen, but she didn't want either of them to interrupt her rapport with Mrs. March. 'Was this before or after our visit, Kristin's little…um, disagreement with Mr. Khan?'
'After.' For the first time, Mrs. March seemed to take in the two men with Gemma, both wearing suits and carrying themselves with the indefinable but unmistakable bearing that marked them as police officers. 'I-I don't want to speak out of turn. You're all police, aren't you?'
Kincaid stepped in. 'Mrs. March, we only want to help. I'm Detective Superintendent Kincaid, and this is Detective Sergeant Cullen. Can you tell us what happened when you rang Kristin's home this morning?'
It was a good deflection, Gemma thought. They would save Mr. Khan for later.
'A police officer answered the phone. She said she was a family liaison officer, and that there had been an accident.' The tears began to flow, this time unchecked. 'She said that Kristin was dead. That she had been hit by a car as she was crossing the road last night. I still can't believe it.'
'And after the call?' asked Gemma. 'You told the rest of the staff? It seems very quiet round here today.' She gestured towards the empty auction area. 'Is it on account of Kristin?'
'No. There's no sale on today. Everyone is working on the displays and cataloging things that are upcoming. Although some of the girls were very upset.' Mrs. March blew her nose, with signs of returning to her usual briskness. 'And then there was Giles, of course. He was completely shattered. Even Mr. Khan insisted that he should go home.'
'Giles?'
'Another one of our sales assistants. He and Kristin were…special friends.'
Gemma vaguely remembered a pudgy-faced young man watching them as Kristin had led her back to the office. 'Were they going out?'
'No…At least I don't think so. But Giles was…fond of her. Very cut up.' Mrs. March glanced up, and her
