'Then, when I told Kristin that you had made a claim on the brooch, she told Dom, and he panicked.'
'Even if he didn't know how it had come into his family,' agreed Erika, 'he couldn't afford to be associated with it.'
'The barmaid at the club where Dom met Kristin said they argued that night,' she went on. 'If he told her she had to take the brooch out of the sale, that he had to have it back, and she told him she couldn't-or wouldn't-then he must have been desperate. But I still don't see where he got a car in time to get back to Chelsea and wait for her to get home.'
'And the other man, this Harry-'
'Pevensey. A washed-up actor. Dom used him to cover his connection with the transaction. He was protecting himself from the first-'
'And then you think this young man, who could kill so ruthlessly, took his own life out of guilt?' Erika shook her head. 'That I find difficult to believe. The suicide is an act of a different type of character entirely.'
'Perhaps not guilt, but desperation-if he meant to run you down last night, and failed-' Gemma shuddered, not only at the thought of how close Erika had been to peril, but because by sending Kit to check on Erika she might have put him in danger, too.
Erika set her cup in its saucer with a clink. 'I think you're wrong, Gemma. If he failed last night, why not try again? And how would he have known that my recognition of the brooch would damn
Gemma stared at her, trying to fit all that they had learned into a cohesive whole. 'Unless Joss Miller kept David's manuscript,' she said slowly, 'and in it David revealed everything-'
'You think this young man would have put the brooch up for auction knowing its history-knowing how his grandfather had come by it?' Erika raised her delicate eyebrows in disbelief.
Gemma thought of Dominic Scott as they had first met him, white and sweating, collapsing at the news of Kristin Cahill's death.
They knew now that he had been a junkie, strung out and ill-was it conceivable that he had taken an object that he knew tainted his family, then planned and carried out two murders, and attempted a third?
Dom Scott, who had been so bullied by his mother that he had hated to go into her sitting room, with its reminders of his grandfather's success?
Dom Scott, whose grieving mother had compared him to his grandfather, even as his body hung cooling upstairs, and found fault?
'Oh, no,' Gemma breathed. 'We got it wrong. We got it all wrong.'
'Bingo.' Cullen came into Kincaid's office looking jubilant. 'I've got the bastard. I found a Land Rover still registered under Joss Miller's name. And, in the property tax rolls, I found a lockup garage in Chelsea Square, also in Joss Miller's name. That's where Dom Scott will have kept the car. I've put in a request for a warrant to search the garage. We need to get any trace evidence from that Land Rover before his mum twigs and cleans it. You know she won't want her son to go down as a murderer.'
Kincaid pushed back the reports he'd been poring over and sat back in his chair, frowning. 'Another car. And a lockup. Of course.' He shook his head. 'But even assuming we found trace evidence on the car, we still couldn't put him in the driver's seat at the scene of the accident.' He straightened the papers, thinking. 'Not that proving him guilty would do anything other than tidy up our case results. We can't prosecute a dead man.'
'No,' said Cullen. 'But it won't be prosecution that will worry Dom Scott's mother. Just the rumor of her family's involvement would be enough to send her into a tizzy. You know she-'
'Reputation.' Kincaid sat up so quickly the chair rocked. 'Nothing matters more to Ellen Miller-Scott than reputation. What if Gemma was right? What if Erika Rosenthal's husband had some proof that Joss Miller was involved in war crimes?'
'David Rosenthal has been dead for years,' Cullen argued. 'Whatever he knew obviously died with him.'
'But what if it didn't?' Kincaid glanced at his watch. It was long past time for Gemma to have checked in. The formless anxiety that had plagued him ever since they found Dom Scott's body suddenly coalesced into a hard knot of worry, and he reached for his phone.
'Where are you?' Kincaid said sharply in Gemma's ear. 'You've been ages-'
'I'm still at Erika's. I'm sorry, my signal's iffy-'
'We found the Land Rover, still registered to Joss Miller. And a lockup garage in Chelsea Square, about a seven-minute walk from the house. But I don't think Dom-'
'I know.' Gemma stepped out into the garden, where her mobile reception was better. 'It was Ellen.'
She told him all she'd learned from Erika, then added, 'What if Dom came across the brooch and chanced selling it, because he was desperate and had nowhere else to turn? He probably had no idea of its history or of its true value until he showed it to Kristin.'
'But Ellen would have known,' Kincaid continued. 'Either because she'd seen David Rosenthal's manuscript or-'
'Or because her father told her.' Gemma's voice was flat with disgust. Could Joss Miller possibly have bragged to his daughter about rape and murder?
'Deathbed confession, maybe,' Kincaid said more charitably, but then he hadn't heard Erika describe what Joss Miller had done. 'But if Ellen learned the history of the brooch, no matter how or when she came by the knowledge, she would have known that if the piece were publicly connected with her family, it could prove disastrous.
'She would have been livid when she found it missing.' Gemma imagined Ellen going to her father's desk or safe-surely the Millers had a safe-perhaps to get a piece of her own to wear, and realizing the brooch was missing. 'Oh, God, she'd have ripped poor Dom to shreds. And she would have told him he had to get it back, at all costs.'
'So then Dom sent Kristin flowers,' Kincaid continued, 'and got her to agree to meet him that night at the Gate. But Kristin told him she couldn't take the brooch out of the sale-'
Gemma thought of the girl she had met. 'My guess is that she was fed up with him. And she wanted the money from the commission. That four percent of the sale price would have meant something to her, if not to Dom. And she would have told him that we'd been there, saying someone had claimed the brooch, that it had been stolen during the war. That would've put the wind up Dom completely. But then…how did Ellen-' Gemma hesitated, still not quite sure she could put it together.
'I think,' said Kincaid, 'I think that Dom rang his mother, after Kristin left him at the Gate that night. We'll have to ask Eva, the barmaid, if she remembers him using his mobile. And Ellen…' Kincaid paused, and Gemma knew he was running his free hand through his hair until it stood on end, the way he did when he was working something out.
'Maybe at first she just meant to talk some sense into Kristin,' she said. 'Ellen's Mercedes was in for repairs, so she might have had the Land Rover out for a small errand, then parked near the house rather than in the lockup-'
Kincaid picked it up. 'But the car had no plates-from the records I'd guess it's an old mud car from their country place-and that might have occurred to her while she was sitting in front of Kristin's building, waiting for Kristin to come home. And Dom's news about Erika coming forward would have raised the stakes enormously. It meant not possible ruin, but certain ruin. She must have realized that if Erika came forward, it wasn't just reputation, but the possibility that the Millers and their business assets could have faced a lawsuit. There are enough precedents. There have been both individuals and corporations sued for profiting from atrocities committed against Jews during the war.'
'And then she saw Kristin walking down from the bus stop, alone.' Gemma watched the leaves of Erika's fig tree move in the breeze. 'And she knew Kristin would have to cross the road-'
