Where Memories Lie

as well as the spark that had set him apart.

At any other time, Erika would have scolded herself for the unkind thought, but on this day she did not care. She watched the grieving widow, supported on either side by an older couple who must be her parents, throw a clod of earth on the coffin, and Erika felt not even a stirring of pity.

For Linda Hoxley would recover, would marry again, would perhaps even have more children.

For a moment, as Erika watched Gavin's children follow their mother's example, she felt a wild flare of hope-perhaps she was carrying Gavin's child. But the thought faded as quickly as it had come. She had been too damaged by the things that had happened to her. The doctors had told her so in her first weeks in England, and although she had never been given a chance to test their diagnosis, she'd not doubted the truth of it.

And tomorrow she had her own husband to bury. The police had released David's body, and she had made arrangements for a service and a burial plot in the Jewish cemetery in Willesden. But tomorrow she would feel no less out of place than she did here, watching a Christian funeral for a man she had loved for a day.

Her father had not been an observant Jew. He had felt that being perceived as 'too Jewish' would damage his prospects-and yet his degree of Jewishness had mattered not one jot in the end.

And David-David had felt that his God had betrayed him, had betrayed them all-what rational god, after all, would allow six million Jews to die? And David had been a rational man.

Erika watched as the service drew to a close and the mourners straggled away. She saw the large, ginger-haired Francis Tyrell glance at her, picking her out among the headstones where she stood, but after a moment's hesitation, he turned and followed his fellow officers.

And when they were all gone, the sextons went about the business of returning the earth they had removed. Erika lowered herself to the grass and began to pull the spring weeds from the grave of a child whose name had been half rubbed from the headstone by weather and time.

The sun beat down on her head. Her vision blurred, and her fingernails grew caked with crumbly dark soil. Dust to dust. Ashes to ashes. She knew the Anglican litany; she had buried enough friends during the war.

After a while, she looked up and saw that even the sextons had finished. Slowly, she stood, brushing her green-stained hands against her skirt, and walked across the rough grass.

There was no headstone, of course, only the raised mound of the grave, which would settle with time as the grass and nettles grew over it. Erika knelt, but could not bring herself to touch. It would bring her no closer.

What would she do now? David was gone, and the past with him. Whatever he had done, or tried to do, she knew it was not within her power to achieve justice for him, if Gavin had failed.

And Gavin was gone. There her mind stopped. She could not contemplate the why, or how, or what might have been. She could think only of how she would go on, who she might become. What had she left within the husk of her heart?

Reason, she told herself. Logic. The intelligence to look after herself, to make a mark in the world. And those things would have to be enough.

***

Gemma was waiting when Kincaid and Cullen came out of Dominic Scott's house. 'Kate's not finished, then?' she asked.

'Not quite,' Kincaid told her. He looked tired, she thought, as if the last half hour spent with Dominic Scott's body had drained him. 'His mother said he had a problem with prescription drugs. Well, it was a bit more than that. It looks like we guessed right. He was a raging junkie, and had been for a good while. And he was self- harming, at the least.'

'Cutting?' When Kincaid nodded, she said, 'Do you think his mother knew?'

He sighed. 'I don't know. I can't gauge her. And parents have an enormous capacity for self-deception.'

'Why does it matter whether she knew or not?' asked Cullen. 'It puts him squarely in the frame, and so does his suicide. He needed money to pay off his suppliers. He nicked the diamond brooch, then got his girlfriend to put it up for sale through Pevensey. Then, when you came round saying Erika had claimed it, he got the wind up. Didn't want his name connected, so killed the girlfriend, then Pevensey, then topped himself because he felt guilty.'

'First off,' Gemma said sharply, 'she wasn't the girlfriend. Her name was Kristin. And it doesn't tell us where he got the brooch, where he got the car, or what Harry Pevensey had to do with it. Or why Dom would think he couldn't bluff it out-we still have no more than circumstantial evidence that he was even connected.'

'Maybe he just didn't want his mum to find out,' Cullen shot back.

Kincaid shook his head. 'No. There's something we're missing. We-'

'David Rosenthal's murder,' said Gemma, and they both stared at her. 'I've been thinking. Erika's husband was killed a stone's throw from here. In Cheyne Gardens.' She pointed east, towards the Albert Bridge. 'His murder was never solved.'

'A long stone, that,' Cullen said skeptically, but Gemma cut him off.

'No, listen. The detective who was investigating the case died-accidental drowning, possibly suicide, according to the report-and David Rosenthal's murder was never officially closed.'

'But that was more than fifty years ago,' put in Kincaid. 'How can that have any bearing on this?'

'I don't-' Gemma's phone rang. She gave Kincaid an apologetic glance as she pulled it from her bag. When she saw that it was Melody, she answered. 'Melody, can I ring you back? There's been-'

'Boss,' Melody interrupted, 'you know that issue of the Guardian? I thought I'd have another look. And I found something odd.'

Gemma listened, and when Melody had finished, said, 'Can you send it to me? Right. Thanks. I'll ring you back.'

She disconnected and looked at Kincaid and Cullen. 'I think I just might be able to tell you.'

CHAPTER 20

We all underestimate the power of human beings to endure.

– William L. Shirer, Berlin Diary: The Journal of a Foreign Correspondent, 1934-1941

The photo on Gemma's phone was black and white, obviously reproduced from old newsprint, but it was still possible to see that the man in the picture bore a strong resemblance to Ellen Miller-Scott.

'It's Joss Miller,' Gemma told Kincaid and Cullen as she passed the phone across. 'Accepting some sort of award for his philanthropic contributions to an art museum.'

'Ellen Miller-Scott's father?' said Cullen. 'But I don't see what an old photo-'

'Wait.' Gemma grabbed her phone back and tapped the screen. 'It's not just an old photo. This picture ran in the Guardian on the day David Rosenthal died. Don't you see? If David Rosenthal was looking through the newspaper for Erika's article, he could have seen this.'

'So he saw-or might have seen,' Cullen emphasized, 'this photo. What difference-'

'David Rosenthal never came to Chelsea. According to the detective who investigated his murder, Rosenthal had a very fixed routine. He taught at a Jewish school in North Hampstead. He lived in Notting Hill. And any free time he had, he spent in the Reading Room at the British Museum, working on a book about which he was very