cutting their respective vanilla and chocolate cupcakes.
Gemma’s parents had stayed, and even seemed to enjoy themselves, although they’d picked at Betty’s lovely Caribbean food. But by the cake stage, Gemma could tell her mum was beginning to tire, and they had left soon after.
Most of the other guests had followed as it began to get dark, including Hazel, Tim, and Holly. Gemma had walked Hazel to the door and hugged her.
“Thank you for everything. I’m glad you’ve come back. Although you are surely the most devious person I know-after Duncan.”
“Thank you, I think.” Hazel laughed. “Maybe I should think about becoming a wedding planner. Or a spy.”
Now Gemma sat in the kitchen, rubbing her aching feet. Duncan and Betty were doing the washing-up, while Wesley, Melody, and Doug, the stragglers, clustered round polishing off a huge pot of tea Wesley had made. The children were playing in the garden with the dogs, and Gemma felt utterly, blissfully content. For the hundredth time, she held up her left hand and admired her ring.
It was Art Deco, a platinum band set with small diamonds. Henri and Erika had helped Duncan pick it out from a jeweler in the antique arcade on the King’s Road.
“You can change it if you want,” Duncan said, teasing her from the sink.
“No way.” She wrapped her right hand protectively around her left. “You’re not getting this off me for anything.” He’d bought a plain white-gold band for himself, assuring her that it was all he needed.
When the doorbell rang, Gemma stretched and said, “I’ll get it. Someone must have forgotten something.”
But Wesley jumped up, flashing Duncan a conspiratorial grin. “No, I’ll go. You rest your battered feet.”
There were voices from the hall, then Wesley came back into the kitchen, his arm draped casually round a young woman’s shoulders. A familiar tall, auburn-haired woman in surgical scrubs.
Gemma stood, laughing. “Bryony! What are you doing here?” Bryony Poole was their friend as well as their veterinarian. It looked as though Wesley had seen her more recently than Gemma, as there had been something definitely possessive in the way he’d guided her into the room.
“Congratulations.” Bryony hugged Gemma and Duncan, then gestured at her blue scrubs. “I’m so sorry to turn up like this. I had afternoon clinic and couldn’t reschedule. Wesley told me about the wedding the first of the week, but Gavin’s on holiday in Spain, so there was nobody to take over.” Gavin was Bryony’s not particularly well-liked boss. “Have I missed all the fun?”
“No, nor all the champagne.” Gemma poured her a glass from the bottle still standing in a tub of ice.
Bryony raised it to them before she drank. “To the happy couple.”
“Holidays in Spain must be the thing for vets,” Gemma said, sitting down and pouring herself another cup of tea. She told Bryony a bit about their investigation into John Truman’s possible connection with Naz Malik’s murder, leaving out Truman’s name. “Would it be easy for a vet to set aside enough ketamine to stop a man breathing?” The vision of Naz Malik’s body in the park brought the case back with a sickening jolt.
“Well, as little as a gram can be fatal. You can dissolve it-that’s one of the reasons it’s a good date-rape drug-but you might taste that much in a drink.” Bryony swirled her champagne.
“There was Valium in his system, too.”
“There you go, then. First you use the Valium as a relaxant, then you administer the ketamine as a dissociative. Same thing an anesthetist does before you have surgery.”
“An anesthetist?” Kincaid turned from the sink.
“Yeah, sure,” said Bryony, looking a little surprised. “Ketamine is best known as a veterinary drug, but anesthetists use it, too. It’s just much easier for street dealers to steal the stuff from a vet clinic than a hospital.”
Kincaid stood, hands dripping. “Anesthetist. Shit.”
Betty turned, perhaps surprised by his language, but when Gemma saw his face, she held up a hand in a command for silence. She knew that expression all too well.
Wordlessly, Betty handed him a tea towel.
But Kincaid merely crumpled it, as if he had no clue as to what it was for, then tossed it away and wiped his hands on the trousers of his good suit. “Of bloody course. Why didn’t I see it?”
“See what?” Gemma felt the world rock to a stop.
He looked at her, focusing on her face. “There’s an anesthetist on the bloody list. Alexander. Doug and I met him at Ritchie’s club. He came up and introduced himself. He was one of Sandra’s patrons. And Ritchie said something about his sponsorship of a women’s health clinic.”
“Rivington Street,” Gemma whispered. “Oh, my God. The clinic in Rivington Street.” In her mind, the pieces began to fall together with dreadful clarity. “Alia talked about how involved Sandra had been with the work there, and then she said something about Mr. Miles not actually seeing the patients, because they were only comfortable with women doctors, but I didn’t make the connection.”
“Miles Alexander,” said Cullen. “That was his name.”
Gemma felt the blood drain from her face. “He works at the London. Mr. Alexander, the consultant. It must be the same man. He was the anesthetist on my mum’s procedure. Dear God.”
“We saw him the day of the postmortem.” Kincaid started pacing and the others shifted a bit to give him room. “In the corridor by the mortuary, as we went to Dr. Kaleem’s office. I knew he looked familiar. He must have been checking on Kaleem’s results. Do you suppose there was something Kaleem missed?”
“Or maybe he was checking to see if there was anything
“Maybe,” Kincaid said. “Or maybe it was just plain bloody arrogance. Him deigning to play a little game with us.”
“Wait.” Melody had been listening intently, but now she shook her head. “You’re making huge assumptions here.”
“No, it all fits,” Gemma said with a certainty that made her feel cold. “He knew Sandra, and probably quite well through their connection with the clinic. He bought her work. He had access to the drugs used to kill Naz, and the knowledge to use them. Lucas Ritchie’s club would have provided a connection to Truman, and possibly others like him, if they shared an interest in little girls.
“The question is, what made Sandra connect the Bangladeshi girl’s story with this doctor she knew, and probably trusted?”
Betty stepped forward, twisting Kincaid’s discarded tea towel in her hands. “I’m not followin’ all these things about girls and clubs. But do I understand that what you are sayin’ is that our little Charlotte’s mother is dead?”
“Yes.” Gemma rubbed the sudden ache in her cheekbones and blinked back the prickle of tears. “I think I’ve always known that Sandra Gilles was dead. The question was always why, and how, and who.”
“And the daddy,” said Betty, “Mr. Naz? You think this same man killed him?”
“Charlotte told me that her dad had gone to look for her mum, but I didn’t listen to her, not properly. Maybe Naz learned something that day. Maybe he went to talk to Alexander. Maybe he was fishing for information and didn’t want to refuse when Alexander offered him a drink.”
“That would explain where Naz was in those missing hours between the time he left the house and the time he died in Haggerston Park,” said Kincaid. “If he went to see Alexander, Alexander could have drugged him and kept him in the house until it was almost dark-”
“And he could get him to the park,” finished Gemma. She turned to Bryony. “How long would the fatal dose of ketamine have taken to act?”
“Not long. And it was probably injected, as it would have been difficult to get liquid down someone already incapacitated. It might have been a puncture mark under the tongue that your pathologist missed. Did your killer intend the death to look like a suicide?”
“If so, he should have moved his head into a more natural position, after he watched him suffocate.” The thought of what Alexander had done made Gemma feel ill. “Maybe he thought someone was coming and cleared off a bit too soon.”
Cullen had his phone out and was tapping the keys. Looking up, he said, “Miles Alexander lives in Hoxton. I’ve
