necklaces and brooches so that they could attach their swastikas.' Erika's face had softened as she talked about her father, and there was no censure in her voice.
'He thought, of course, that it would pass, the new regime, as such things usually did. And so it was that he sent his spoiled only daughter to university, and there she fell in love with her tutor, and married.'
Erika stopped, her hands still now, and silence descended upon the room. There were no muffled voices from the houses on either side, no footsteps from the street, and Gemma hesitated on the precipice of speech, not sure whether she might extend the spell or break it. At last she said, very softly, 'This was your husband?' and as she spoke she realized how seldom she had heard Erika speak of her marriage.
'David, yes. He was fifteen years older than I, a philosopher, and a pacifist, quite well known in intellectual circles. There was even talk that he might be nominated for the Nobel Prize. But in 1938, Carl von Ossietzky died in police custody, and my father knew what David refused to see, that neither David nor his ideas would be tolerated.
'We had little money, but my father had funds and connections. He arranged for us to leave the country, quietly, anonymously, and David was forced to agree.'
The tension in the air grew palpable, and Gemma saw the movement of Erika's throat as she swallowed. She found herself holding her breath, this time not daring to interrupt.
'My father gave me a parting gift, the most beautiful of all the things he had created. It was to be my inheritance, and my bulwark against the future, if things did not go as we planned.'
Just as Gemma began to guess the import of the book she held, Erika reached for it. Slowly, deliberately, she smoothed the pages, then let it fall open of its own accord. As Erika gazed down, transfixed, Gemma got up and looked over her shoulder.
She gave a gasp of surprise and pleasure. The photo was full page, the background black, and against the velvety darkness the diamonds fell in a double cascade. The caption on the right-hand page read,
'Yes. My father's masterpiece.' Erika looked up and met her eyes. 'I last saw it in Germany, more than fifty years ago. I want you to help me find out how it came to be in an English auction.'
'So how did you get on with Melody?' Kincaid handed Doug Cullen a dripping saucepan, glancing over as his friend was applying a tea towel industriously.
He and Doug had seen off the rest of the well-fed and well-lubricated guests, and now, with Kit and Toby home and the dogs having given up any hope of scraps, they'd loaded the dishwasher and begun on the pots and pans.
Doug Cullen's blond schoolboy good looks and expressive face made him usually easy to read, but for once the glance he gave Kincaid was inscrutable. 'No joy, there, I think,' he said, reaching for another pan.
'She doesn't fancy you, or vice versa?' asked Kincaid, thinking that Gemma would be disappointed by the failure of her matchmaking scheme.
Shrugging, Cullen pushed his glasses up on his nose with the damp edge of the tea towel. 'It might just be my bruised ego, but I don't think PC Talbot fancies blokes much, full stop.'
Kincaid glanced at him in surprise. 'Seriously?'
'There's definitely a
'Might be armor. That's common enough.' Melody Talbot was attractive, dark haired, dark eyed, and cheerfully efficient, and Gemma had come to depend on her a good deal at work. If Melody was gay and had chosen not to make her sexual orientation public, then that was her business. It was tough enough for women officers as it was-his thought stopped suddenly short as he remembered Melody's solicitousness towards Gemma, all the little thoughtful gestures that Gemma often repeated to him at day's end.
'What about the prickly Maura Bell, then?' Kincaid asked.
They had worked a case in Southwark with the Scottish Inspector Bell, and although she and Cullen seemed as mismatched as chalk and cheese, there had been an attraction between them. Doug had even broken it off with his longtime girlfriend, Stella Fairchild-Priestly, but then gradually any mentions of Maura had disappeared.
This time Cullen's feelings were all too apparent, as he flushed to the roots of his fair hair. 'I couldn't say,' he answered tersely, and Kincaid knew he'd overstepped the mark. It occurred to him that he was as clueless about Cullen's personal life as Gemma apparently was about Melody Talbot's.
It was not something he was going to be given a chance to remedy that night, however, as Cullen quickly finished his drying and took himself off with a muttered excuse.
'You bloody sad wanker!' Cullen said aloud as he settled into a seat on the night bus that trundled its way down Bishop's Bridge Road, earning him a look from an old lady bundled in too many coats for the May night. He'd contemplated the tube, certainly a quicker alternative, but had found himself unable to cope with the thought of sharing a carriage with drunken Saturday-night revelers and snogging couples.
But the brisk walk and the wait at the bus stop hadn't made it any easier to put Maura Bell out of his mind, and his face burned with shame again as he remembered his reaction to Kincaid's question. Why couldn't he have just shrugged and offered some manly and macho platitude.
But no, he had to make an utter fool of himself in front of his boss.
The truth was that he'd taken Maura Bell out a number of times, for drinks, for dinner, to the cinema. He had thought she liked him, but a public school education combined with a deep and fundamental shyness had handicapped his nerve severely. When he finally got up the courage to make a serious advance, she'd drawn away from him as if stung.
He'd stammered out apologies; she'd made excuses and left him standing in the middle of the Millennium Bridge, so humiliated that for a moment he'd contemplated jumping in. But good sense had prevailed. Perhaps even that was sad-that he was incapable of making a grand romantic gesture.
He'd gone home to his gray flat in the Euston Road, and when Maura had rung him repeatedly over the next few days, he'd refused to take her calls. After a bit the calls stopped, and in the months since, he'd devoted himself to work with excessive zeal, becoming the best researcher in the department, and limited his social life to an occasional after-work drink with Kincaid, and a monthly visit home to his parents in Saint Albans, during which he told them exaggerated stories of his importance at work.
The bus slowed for Great Portland Street, and for an instant Cullen had a wild thought. He could still take the Circle Line. Then the Docklands Light Railway to the Isle of Dogs. He could stand outside Maura Bell's flat, waiting for a glimpse of her, just to see if she was still as he remembered.
Then he snorted in disgust.
After Cullen had left, Kincaid gave the worktops one last wipe, turned out all but the small lamp in the kitchen, then stood and listened. Wesley had brought the boys home wired on pizza and lemonade, but now the giggles had faded upstairs. Even the dogs had disappeared; Tess, thirteen-year-old Kit's little terrier, would be with him, while Geordie, Gemma's cocker spaniel, would be curled on the foot of their bed, accompanied like sticking plaster by their black cat, Sid, who had developed a perversely unfeline passion for the little dog.
The house seemed to exhale, settling into the profound silence of night inching towards morning, and Kincaid gave a worried glance at the clock above the cooker. It was half-past twelve-surely Gemma would be home soon.
