was that? Was your friend really that naive, Dr. Cavendish? That’s not the only scenario. If Sandra Gilles was having an affair with this man, maybe she wanted more. Maybe she threatened to expose him and he shut her up-”
“No! It wasn’t like that-at least not from what Naz told me. Look, according to Naz, Lucas Ritchie is single and well off, with no shortage of available women in his life. Who would Sandra have threatened to expose him to? She would have been the one with something to lose.”
“So maybe Ritchie wanted her to leave Malik. Maybe she refused and they fought.”
“No. Naz didn’t believe she was having an affair, and I don’t believe it, either. She wasn’t-she wasn’t that kind of person.”
“And what kind of person is that?” Hazel said, her voice shrill with fury. She’d been standing at the edge of the patio, listening, half forgotten by the others. “Did she come with some sort of guarantee? A
Tim looked horrified as he realized the import of what he’d said, but he defended himself. “Hazel, will you just not take everything so bloody personally? All I meant was that Sandra Gilles had no use for Lucas Ritchie’s lifestyle. She told Naz it was all gloss and window dressing, hype, and she valued real things, like her husband and her child and her work.” He faced his wife, not backing down. “You were not so different, once.”
By the time Gemma got away from Islington, she couldn’t face another visit to hospital. A phone call had reassured her that her mother was resting comfortably. She drove across London, feeling barely able to breathe in the car. The late-afternoon heat was stifling, and she was still tense from the atmosphere at the Cavendishes’.
Weller had left after telling Tim he’d want to speak to him again. “I’m not about to skip the country,” Tim had muttered, earning another dirty look from Hazel.
Hazel had followed close on Weller’s heels, refusing to speak to either Tim or Gemma. “I don’t understand,” Tim said to Gemma as they watched her drive away. “Everything she’s done has been her choice. Why is she so angry with me?”
“I’m sorry, Tim.” Gemma gave him a quick hug, not wanting to confess that Hazel’s behavior had shocked her as well. Tim had suffered the loss of a friend, and now he had to face the task of telling Alia, Naz Malik’s nanny, that Naz was dead. Gemma couldn’t imagine the Hazel she had known failing to express sympathy or being unable to put aside her own concerns in a crisis.
When she reached Notting Hill, the square brown brick house with its cherry red door seemed comfortingly, reassuringly familiar. She found the boys watching a video in the sitting room, the dogs sprawled lazily by the garden door.
She hugged Toby until he yelped, squirming, and Kit ducked away from her, grinning. “No squishing for me, ta very much.”
“Why aren’t you outside?” asked Gemma.
“Too hot. Dad said we had to watch something Toby liked, so it’s
“So I see.” The dogs were panting gently. “Where is your dad?”
“Doug called him into the office, something about reports that had to be finished by Monday morning. He said for you to ring him.”
Gemma hoped that meant she was forgiven for her bad temper of the night before, and she realized she’d been mentally criticizing Hazel when she’d been guilty of behaving unreasonably herself.
“Would you two like to pay Erika a visit?” she said on impulse. “We could walk.”
“Too hot,” said Kit.
“We could get an ice cream afterwards.”
Toby dragged his attention from the screen. “Yay, Mummy! What kind?”
“Yeah, okay, so I’m susceptible to bribery,” agreed Kit.
“Let me give Erika a ring, then get cleaned up a bit.”
It wasn’t until they were walking down Ladbroke Road a few minutes later, Gemma having taken a quick shower and changed, that she confessed to an ulterior motive.
“I want to see Erika, too,” she said, “but while you’re visiting I need to stop by Betty Howard’s for a few minutes.”
“You’re going to see Wesley’s mum without us?” Kit stared at her suspiciously. “Why can’t we go? Betty always wants to see us.”
“Of course she does, but this time it’s a bit complicated.” She explained that Betty was taking care of a little girl named Charlotte who needed a place to stay for a while, and that Charlotte wasn’t ready to meet anyone else new quite yet.
She knew she would have to tell them about Charlotte’s parents, but she wasn’t eager to broach the subject with Kit. Kit merely said, however, “You won’t be gone long, will you?”
Gemma had become friends with Erika Rosenthal in the course of investigating a case when she had first been posted back to Notting Hill. In the past few months they had become even closer, when the unexpected appearance of an antique brooch at auction had opened a window into the older woman’s troubled past.
A retired academic with no children of her own, Erika had taken a special interest in Toby and Kit, and the boys considered her family-a courtesy grandmother. They saw Erika, in fact, much more often than they saw Gemma’s or Duncan’s parents. Toby’s dad, Rob, had walked out on Gemma when Toby was an infant, and Rob’s parents had cut off all contact, thereby helping their son avoid paying maintenance for Toby. Good riddance, as far as Gemma was concerned.
And as for Kit, his maternal grandparents had proved even more difficult. After a failed attempt to gain custody, they were allowed only supervised visits with Kit, and so had stopped making any effort to see their grandson. Kit’s relationship with his grandmother had been unpleasant at best, abusive at worst, and if he missed his grandfather, he never said. He had quickly become attached to Duncan’s parents, and was fond of Gemma’s, but his relationship with Erika was special. They were in many ways kindred spirits, despite the differences in age and background.
When they reached the house in Arundel Gardens and rang the bell, Erika answered immediately, beaming at them and brushing back the snow white hair escaping from its usual twist. She wore a flowered pinny and had a smudge of something on her cheek. “Ah, kitchen help,” she said. “What good timing.”
“Are you making something for us?” Toby asked as they followed her into the hall.
“No. I’m having a guest for dinner, and the entree must be something very French. It’s too hot to use the cooker, so I’m making a seafood salad, and I thought Kit could help me with the calamari.”
“What’s calamari?” said Toby.
Kit wiggled his fingers at him. “Squid.”
“Ooh, yuck,” Toby pronounced, but the smell of garlic, lemon, and fresh herbs coming from the kitchen made Gemma’s mouth water.
“I can do squid,” Kit added with relish. “You disembowel them.”
Laughing, Erika said, “Well, before you start your operation, I have a little treat for you both, just some things I picked up at the market yesterday.” From a shelf, she fished an antique double-decker bus for Toby, and for Kit, a book, its cover stained and musty. Looking over Kit’s shoulder as he opened it, Gemma saw that it was filled with beautifully detailed, colored zoological drawings. Kit exclaimed in delight and leaned down to kiss Erika’s cheek.
“It’s brilliant,” he said. “Where did you find it?”
“One of the stalls on Portobello Road itself. Lucky this one didn’t fall into the hands of the print dealers,” Erika added, touching a finger to the book. Many old, and sometimes rare, editions containing botanical or zoological drawings were bought in job lots by the print dealers, who cut them from the books and matted them to sell individually.
“These are lovely, Erika,” said Gemma, “but you’re spoiling the boys.” For a moment she regretted leaving them, even for the few minutes it would take her to visit Charlotte at Betty Howard’s-she had little enough time with Kit and Toby as it was. But she couldn’t get little Charlotte Malik’s face out of her mind, and she had made
