Let us be moral. Let us contemplate existence.
CHARLES DICKENS
Martin Chuzzlewit
THEY MET IN the judge’s chambers. It was a comfortable room, anchored by a long, polished, mahogany table. The Honorable Sophie O’Donnell, an attractive woman in her fifties with smartly styled, blond-streaked hair, sat at the head.
On one side were Kit’s maternal grandparents, Eugenia and Bob Potts, and their solicitor, a rabbity-faced man named Cavanaugh; on the other, Gemma, Kit, and Miles Kelly, their solicitor. It was shaping up to be the battle of the Irish, thought Gemma, but she couldn’t summon a smile. The large clock on the wall behind the judge read straight up two o’clock, and Kincaid hadn’t arrived.
Neither party had spoken to the other. Eugenia was in full war paint, her fair hair freshly lacquered, but it seemed to Gemma that her clothes hung too loosely and there was a feverish look to her eyes. Bob merely looked diffident and distressed, the classic henpecked husband, and Gemma wondered if he might someday snap and bite the hand that had led him such a merry dance.
Miles Kelly glanced at Gemma, raising very black eyebrows over very blue eyes, and she gave a tiny, worried shrug. Beside her, Kit sat silent and strained. She’d bought him new gray flannels and a navy blazer for the occasion, and he looked painfully grown up.
The judge glanced at her watch and cleared her throat. “I think, Mr. Kelly, that we should begin, but we seem to be missing your client.”
“I know Superintendent Kincaid is on his way, Your Honor,” replied Kelly with his most charming smile. “Perhaps he’s been detained in traffic. If you could give us just a few more moments-”
Gemma jumped as the mobile phone clipped to her waist began to vibrate. A quick glance at the caller ID told her it was Kincaid. After looking at the judge, who nodded permission, she excused herself and moved a few steps away from the table, turning her back to the room before she answered.
She listened briefly, spoke in monosyllables, and rang off. Then she stood for a moment, trying to get her dismay under control before she faced the others.
When she turned round, Kit said, his voice tight, “He’s not coming, is he?”
“Something’s happened, Kit,” she answered quietly, then spoke to the judge. “Your Honor, Superintendent Kincaid has been unavoidably detained on urgent police business. He apologizes to the court and asks if we can reschedule this meeting at a later time.”
“Do sit down, Ms. James,” said the judge, sounding very displeased.
As she slipped into her chair, her face blazing with embarrassment, Gemma caught the flash of triumph in Eugenia Potts’s eyes.
“This is very irregular,” Judge O’Donnell went on, frowning. “Under ordinary circumstances I would not be inclined to grant such a request, but considering the nature of Mr. Kincaid’s job, I will think about it.” Before Gemma could breathe a sigh of relief, she continued: “However, I must say this gives me serious doubts about Mr. Kincaid’s suitability as a guardian for Christopher.”
Seeing the protest forming on Kit’s face, she raised a hand to silence him. “I’ve had a brief discussion with Christopher before we began this meeting, and I’m aware of his feelings on the matter. I’ve also looked over Christopher’s father’s rather unusual petition requesting that you, Ms. James, and Mr. Kincaid be allowed to provide care for Christopher until he comes of age.
“I’m always most reluctant to disrupt what seems to be a stable home situation, particularly when a child has suffered a loss.” She fixed Gemma with a sharp eye. “But the demands of a police officer’s job are both heavy and unpredictable, as Mr. Kincaid has demonstrated today, and as both of you are officers of senior rank, I’m not sure you can provide the sort of environment Christopher needs. And as neither of you has any blood tie to the boy, and we don’t know what Christopher’s mother would have wished for him, I’m inclined to give consideration to his grandparents’ petition for custody.”
Gemma felt Kit’s physical recoil. She touched his arm in reassurance and leaned forward. “Ma’am, may I speak?” When Judge O’Donnell nodded, she said, “You’re right. The job is demanding and unpredictable. But there are two of us, and one of us has always managed to be there-”
“That’s all very well for the time being. But you’ll forgive me, Ms. James, if I say I’ve seen no evidence of a long-term commitment on the part of you and Mr. Kincaid.”
A black pit seemed to open before Gemma. How could she answer that? “I-”
“There’s also the matter of Christopher’s education. His grandparents have assured the court that they have the means to send him to public school-”
“I don’t want to go to public school,” broke in Kit, tears of fury starting up in his eyes. “I like it where I am-”
“Your Honor.” Eugenia spoke for the first time. “It’s just this sort of disrespectful behavior that concerns us. Christopher is obviously living in a household where this is considered acceptable. Nor is he being encouraged to show the interest in his future fitting for a boy his age-”
“You don’t know anything,” Kit shouted at his grandmother. “I’m going to Cambridge. Lots of kids from comprehensives get into Cambridge-”
Judge O’Donnell rapped her knuckles sharply on the table once. “That’s enough, son. I’ll not tolerate displays of temper in my chambers, nor reward them.” When Kit subsided, his hands clenched in his lap, she turned to Eugenia. “Mrs. Potts, it does worry me that Christopher seems to feel a great deal of hostility towards you.”
Eugenia seemed to pale beneath her makeup, but she smiled. “He has some childish grievance over a dog. I’m sure, in time, that it can be overcome.”
Clapping a hand on Kit’s shoulder, as if fearing the boy might not be able to restrain himself, Miles Kelly said hurriedly, “Ma’am, may I remind you that Kit’s father, Ian McClellan, feels that Mr. and Mrs. Potts have never given Kit the proper emotional support in his grief over his mother’s death.”
“You may remind me all you like, Mr. Kelly, but I don’t have to give it credence. It doesn’t seem to me that Mr. McClellan has demonstrated much in the way of emotional support himself, by taking a job in Canada and leaving his son behind in England.”
Eugenia whispered urgently in Cavanaugh’s ear, and when she’d pulled away, he addressed the judge. “Is Your Honor aware that at the time of the late Mrs. McClellan’s death, she and Mr. McClellan were separated? That Mr. McClellan was, in fact, living in the south of France with a young woman? We feel this demonstrates a long-standing lack of responsible behavior concerning his son-”
“That’s enough, Mr. Cavanaugh,” said the judge with a glance at Kit. “We will adjourn this hearing until further notice.” She sighed and stood. “I may very well find that neither party is a fit guardian, without evidence to the contrary.”
She had seemed pathetic in life; death had not given her dignity.
Kincaid looked down at Beverly Brown’s twisted body. It lay at the far end of a vacant expanse of cracked and weed-infested concrete. Her head was pillowed on a drift of windblown rubbish, her small, sneaker-clad feet pushed against the bottom of a rusted metal barrel.
When Maura Bell had said Crossbones Graveyard, he’d thought of a churchyard, with a bit of grass and headstones; not this wasteland, its fence adorned with fluttering ribbons and a few faded wreaths.
“What is this place?” he asked Maura, who stood beside him. She’d been called out immediately when the body had been reported and had identified the victim herself.
The police surgeon had certified death, and they were now waiting for the arrival of the pathologist, the photographer, and the forensics team. The wheels of justice ground slowly, as always, and he tried to control his impatience. The time made no difference now – he’d known by two o’clock that there was no possible way he could get to Kit’s hearing. But he couldn’t think about that now – his personal concerns would have to wait until he had put this case behind him.
“It was a medieval cemetery, an unconsecrated burial ground for prostitutes and others who couldn’t afford proper burial,” Maura answered. “When London Transport began work here on the Jubilee Line extension a few years ago, they started digging up bodies. Work was stopped, and the place has been in limbo since. London Transport want to use the property for part of their travel hub; the local residents want a park, with some sort of fitting commemoration for those buried here. Meanwhile, the heroin addicts have a field day.”
“I suspected she might be a junkie, when we met her,” he said, remembering the girl’s edgy pallor.
“She could have met someone here, looking for a buy.”
“Maybe. But dealers don’t usually strangle their clients.” The bruising was clearly visible on the girl’s exposed throat.
“A rape gone wrong?” suggested Maura.
“Not unless he dressed her again.” He shook his head. “I don’t believe this was a random killing, and neither do you. We’re a few hundred yards from the warehouse where Laura Novak was killed, not to mention the fact that it was Beverly Brown who reported the fire.”
“Could she have seen something else that night?” Maura mused. “But if so, why didn’t she report it?”
“Maybe she didn’t realize what she’d seen. Maybe she was protecting someone.”
“Or maybe she was frightened,” Maura said slowly.
“With good reason.” He thought of the two little girls, now motherless, like Harriet Novak. Whoever this bastard was, he had to be stopped.
And what of Harriet? Gemma was right, time was running out. He tried to put aside the fear that Harriet was already dead, that they would find her body tossed away like a bit of rubbish, as Beverly Brown had been.
“If this was the same killer,” said Maura, “why no attempt to hide the victim’s identity this time? Or to hide the body? She wasn’t even covered.”
Kincaid glanced round the barren lot. “Lack of means? Lack of opportunity?” He grimaced as a gust of wind blew grit in his eyes and a fat raindrop splashed against his cheek. The rain had been teasing since midmorning, advancing and retreating like a shy schoolgirl, but now the sky to the west looked thunderous. “Let’s get that tarp up,” he called out to the uniformed officers. “The Home Office pathologist won’t be happy if her trace evidence gets washed away.”
When a car pulled through the cordon of patrol cars and Kate Ling got out, he found he wasn’t surprised.
“Duncan,” she said as she reached them. “If you really want to see me every few days, you could just buy me a drink.”
“Hullo, Kate. You remember Inspector Bell, from the other day?”
Already pulling on her gloves, Kate nodded at Maura. “I hear you got an ID on the warehouse corpse.”
“News travels fast in exalted circles,” Kincaid told her. “That’s about all we’ve got, so far, and now…” He gestured at the body before them. “This young woman was a resident at the women’s shelter across the street from the warehouse.”
Kate squatted, graceful even in such an awkward position, and gently tilted the girl’s head back with her gloved fingers. “There are obvious signs of manual strangulation, as I’m sure you’re aware.” She pulled back the eyelids, then stretched her hand across the throat, matching her own hand to the bruises. Her finger and thumb fell short on either side by half an inch. “Not a particularly large hand, either, but he – or she – seems to have been strong enough to subdue her single-handedly.”
“Right-handed?”
“Looks that way.”
“Could she have been sedated?” asked Maura.
“Did she shoot up, you mean?” Kate pushed up the right sleeve of the girl’s sweater, then repeated the process with the left. “There are some tracks, but nothing that looks terribly recent. Unless she injected somewhere else.”
“Can you tell if she fought her attacker?”
The pathologist lifted the hands in turn, examining the fingertips.
Beverly’s nails were bitten to the quick, and one cuticle bore a smear of dried blood. “Hers?” Kincaid asked, bending down to look more closely.
“I think so, but…” Kate isolated the middle finger on the right hand. “Even as short as her nails are, we may have some trace evidence here.” She looked up. “You know I can’t tell you much more until I get her on the table. I can’t even be absolutely certain that strangulation was the cause of death.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Time of death? Come on, live dangerously, Doc.”
“You never give up, do you?” asked Kate, flashing him a grin. Then she turned back to the body, checking the exposed skin of the arms for lividity, testing the limbs and neck for rigor. “I’ll have to get a temp, but off the cuff I’d say at least twelve hours. But if you quote me, I’ll deny it.” She stood up and reached for her instruments. “Oh, and livor mortis seems to be very well defined. I don’t think she was moved from this spot.”
“Well,” said Kincaid. “At least this time we have an idea where to start.”
Gemma had driven Kit back to school, insisting that he finish his afternoon classes. He hadn’t objected. He hadn’t spoken at all during the drive from the court to Notting Hill, and his silence worried Gemma more than any angry tirade.
When she stopped the car, she said, “It’ll be all right, Kit. We’ll work things out.”
He’d given her a look that told her he knew it was an empty promise, and when she tried to hug him, he pulled away. As she watched him walk into the school gates, she felt a rush of helplessness, followed by a fury that left her trembling.
Not trusting herself to talk to Kincaid over the phone, Gemma had rung Doug Cullen for directions to the crime scene. She’d left her schedule free for the afternoon, as she hadn’t known how long the court proceeding would take, and she decided that anything pending could wait a bit longer. She was going to Southwark.
Now she ducked under the tape strung round the edge of the rubble-strewn vacant ground, then stood for a moment, picking out Kincaid’s figure among the group huddled round a tarp at the far side of the lot. Their faces were briefly illuminated by the photographer’s flash and she recognized Kate Ling and Maura Bell.
Kincaid looked up then, and when he saw her, he came quickly to meet her.
His smile of greeting faded as he saw her face. “Gemma. Is everything okay? How did it go?”
“It was a disaster. It was bloody well dreadful, if you want to know.” All her pent-up anger and worry spilled out in a flood of bitter words. “It couldn’t have been worse if we were axe murderers. Eugenia seemed plausible, while we looked like irresponsible parents – not that the judge could see that we had any qualifications to be Kit’s parents. Without proof that you’re Kit’s natural father-”
“I’ll talk to her – I can explain-”
“And the worst thing about it was that at least part of what she said was true. Ian is irresponsible. And we’re not always there for Kit. You weren’t there for him today.”
Kincaid looked devastated, and Gemma knew that if she’d meant to wound him, she’d succeeded.
“I know I let him down,” he said in appeal. “I’ll make it up to him somehow. Surely the judge will see reason.” He gestured towards the group gathered round the body. “I couldn’t leave today. I had no choice.”
“You did have a choice. You chose the job,” she spat back at him. But even as she said it, she saw the mortuary attendants lift Beverly Brown’s small form onto a body bag, and she wondered whether she would have done the same.
When Kincaid and Maura Bell rang the bell at the shelter, the door buzzed open immediately. The stairs seemed steeper than the last time he’d climbed them, the stairwell more dank and airless. His legs felt leaden and his shirt, still damp from the sudden soaking they’d received at the graveyard, clung to his skin as tenaciously as Gemma’s words haunted his conscience. As he followed Maura upwards, he was grateful to her for pretending she hadn’t witnessed their very public row.
They found Kath Warren waiting for them in the first-floor corridor, an anxious expression on her face.
“We’ve just now rung the police,” she said. “I didn’t expect to see you so soon.”
“Why? What’s happened?” Kincaid asked as they followed her back into the office. Kath moved a stack of files from a chair so that they could sit, but neither accepted the offer.
Jason Nesbitt was on the phone, but he quickly rang off and stood up to shake their hands. “It’s Mouse,” he said. “Beverly Brown. She seems to have gone walkabout on us. The girls woke up this morning and came looking for their mummy, so she must have gone out sometime in the night.”
“I thought you had a sign-out system?” Kincaid said with a quick glance at Maura. He wanted to hear what Kath and Jason had to say before he revealed anything.
Kath looked uncomfortable. “We do, but Bev didn’t sign out, and Shawna, the girl on the desk last night, didn’t see her leave.” She sighed. “Shawna’s not always as dependable as she might be. We may have to do away with the telly in the staff room.”
“Why have you waited until now to report her missing? Weren’t you worried about her?” Maura sounded more puzzled than accusing, and Kincaid thought it a giant leap in finesse.
“It’s not the first time this has happened,” Kath said reluctantly. “The last time she managed to sneak back in before she was missed, and we only learned what had happened when the children talked about waking up in the night and missing her. The residents aren’t given the security code, you see – they have to be buzzed in – but sometimes they piggyback on one another. We thought she’d turn up this morning, trying to bluff her way out of it, but…” She looked at the clock.
“What happens if the residents go absent without leave like that?” Kincaid asked.
“We try to give the women every chance, if we can see they’re making an effort, but Bev’s pushed it too far this time. It sets a bad example for the others. I’m afraid she’ll have to go.”
Kincaid caught Maura’s quick glance, and this time he nodded.
“That’s one decision you’ll be spared,” Maura said, watching their faces intently. “Beverly won’t be coming back. She’s dead. Her body was found near here a few hours ago.”
There was an instant’s silence that seemed to stretch, vibrating like a high-tension wire. Kath stared at them, one hand pressed to her mouth. Jason sank to the edge of the desk, his eyes wide.
“You’re sure?” whispered Kath. “You’re sure it’s her?”
“There’s no question,” Kincaid said. “I’m sorry.”
“Oh, shit. The daft little cow.” Jason had tears in eyes now. “Look, it’s all my fault.”
The others all stared at him in surprise.
“She’s a repeater. Mouse.” When Kincaid and Maura looked at him blankly, Jason made an effort to explain. “She can’t stay away from her husband. He’s not a bad bloke, really – has a steady job as an electrician. They only row when she goes back on the drugs, and then he tries to shake some sense into her. After that, she comes in here for a few weeks, then they make it up, and she goes back to him. Until the next time.”
Kath was shaking her head. “But, Jason-”
“I suspected it. I suspected she was seeing him again. But I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to get her in trouble. And now – he must have-” His mouth twisted with distress.
“Jason.” Kath went to him, touched his arm. “It’s not your fault. You couldn’t have prevented this.”
“We will be interviewing Beverly’s husband,” Kincaid put in, “but I think you might be jumping to conclusions a bit here.” He had their attention now, and there was something interesting in the tableau they presented, Kath’s hand hovering protectively over Jason’s shoulder. “Earlier this morning we identified the body in the warehouse fire as Laura Novak. That makes two women with a connection to this shelter that have died in the last four days. That’s too much of a coincidence for my taste.”
Kath gasped as if she’d taken a body blow. “Oh, my God. Laura. But Laura… Laura hardly knew Bev. Why would – Oh, God,” she said again. “I can’t believe Laura’s dead. I thought she must have gone away somewhere, with her little girl.”
Kincaid noticed that the offering of comfort was one-sided. Jason made no move towards Kath but sat absently loosening the collar of his designer shirt, his face blank with shock.
“We’ll need to get Beverly’s husband’s name and address, as well as any other contact information,” Kincaid began, but Kath interrupted him.
“But then, if Laura’s dead… Where’s Harriet?”
“We don’t know,” Kincaid answered, but he was suddenly distracted. The tab on one of the files Kath had transferred from the chair to the corner of the desk had caught his eye. Clover Howes, it read. It was an odd name. Where had he heard it before?
The skies opened up just as Gemma reached her car, dumping a brief deluge as if providing fitting punctuation to her conversation with Kincaid. She sat, thinking, while the rain pounded roof and windscreen.
She’d been unfair. She knew she’d been unfair; she knew that with this new death, and Harriet still missing, he needed all his focus on the case, but she hadn’t been able to stop herself.
Bloody hell, she was useless. She’d failed the missing six-year-old. She’d failed Harriet Novak. She’d failed Kit today in the hearing. Had she even, a mean little voice whispered in her mind, failed her own unborn child? Everyone said nothing could have prevented her miscarriage, but deep in her heart she’d never quite believed it.
No! She pounded her palms on the steering wheel until they smarted. She’d been down that road before – she certainly wasn’t going that way again. There was too much at stake.
Then she realized the rain was letting up, the shower moving away as quickly as it had come. A few straggling drops splattered against the windscreen as a watery sunlight emerged. When Gemma rolled down the car window, the air smelled so clean and full of promise that she felt ashamed of herself for even such a brief descent into self-pity. She’d always prided herself on her determination; it was time she demonstrated some evidence of it. She wasn’t going to give up, not on Kit, not on Harriet, and it was Harriet who needed her help most urgently.
Frowning, she tried to recall everything that she had learned about Elaine Holland since her first phone call from Winnie. Then she put the car into gear and drove to Ufford Street.
To her astonishment, as she pulled up to the curb in front of Fanny’s house, she saw Winnie wheeling Fanny’s chair down the ramp. They both waved to her as she got out of the car.
“What’s happened?” she asked, hurrying to them. “Is everything all right?”
“We decided it was high time Fanny got out for a bit,” explained Winnie. “We’re going for a drink at the Hope and Anchor.”
“Will you join us?” Fanny smiled, and Gemma realized she did look better. Her eyes were clear, and her face seemed less pinched, as if a constant pain had eased.
“Nothing would suit me better.” Realizing that she’d been dreading entering the close confines of the house, Gemma thought it no wonder Fanny seemed relieved.
They walked companionably down the street, Winnie pushing Fanny’s chair, and when they reached the pub the staff made much fuss over settling them at a table. It was a slow time of the afternoon and the place was empty except for a few solitary patrons with newspapers and a man tinkling idly, softly, at the keys of the upright piano. He segued from bits of Gershwin to Cole Porter to random snatches that Gemma didn’t recognize, and the sound made her feel unaccountably sad.
When they’d got their drinks – Pimm’s for Winnie and Fanny, a half pint of cider for Gemma, who wanted to keep a clear head – she told them everything that had happened since she’d seen them the previous day.
“Fanny, I don’t want to distress you,” she went on, “but I want to talk about Elaine. I’ve just realized how many different stories she told about her background, and I thought if we could put them all together, we might find something in common.”
“I don’t mind, really.” Absently, Fanny rotated her glass in the center of the beer mat. She wore a pearl-buttoned cardigan fastened to the throat, and her cheeks looked faintly pink from the warmth or the excitement of the outing. “I feel – I don’t know. Once I knew she wasn’t coming back… It’s as if I was carrying a weight, but I never realized it until it was lifted.” Her face fell. “But Elaine – wherever she is – I don’t like to think of Elaine with a child.”
Nor did Gemma. “Elaine told Tony Novak that she was married to a commercial traveler, and that she worked at an estate agent’s here in the Borough.
“She told her coworkers at Guy’s that she grew up in Gloucestershire and only came to London when her parents died, but the girl I spoke with swore that Elaine’s accent was native to the Borough.”
“And she told me that her parents had emigrated from Canada,” said Fanny, “that her mother committed suicide when she was a child, and that she took care of her ill father until he died.”
Gemma realized suddenly that the music had stopped and the piano player was gone. She had never seen his face. For a moment she wondered if she had imagined him, as Elaine had imagined entire lives. Aloud, she mused, “We know the first story was a complete fabrication. Could one of the others have been the truth?”
“What I wonder,” said Winnie slowly, “is whether she told Tony Novak her parents were dead?”
“You think that’s the common thread, her parents’ deaths?”
“There’s something else.” Winnie fingered the silver cross she wore beneath her collar. “Fanny, before Roberta left, did Elaine ever stay when Roberta brought you communion on Sundays? Because I remember that when I first came, I never saw her, but after a few weeks she began to hover in the doorway, and then after another week or two she would come into the room, a bit like a stray animal gaining confidence. I assumed it was the church she disliked, but what if it was the priest? What if she was afraid of the priest?”
Gemma frowned. “I’m not following you.”
“Maybe Elaine was afraid of Roberta.”
“Elaine was never home when Roberta came during the week,” said Fanny. “And now that I think of it, the few times Roberta dropped by unannounced on a weekend, Elaine went straight up to her room without meeting her. And then on Sundays, of course, she was always out of the house.”
“That settles it, then.” Winnie’s pleasant face glowed with missionary zeal. “We’ll ring Roberta straightaway.”
Winnie had drawn her mobile from her belt and flipped it open when Gemma felt hers vibrate. Gemma pulled her phone from its clip, murmuring, “Sorry, sorry,” and feeling absurdly like a dueling gunslinger in an old western.
It was Kincaid. She found her throat suddenly tight and had to swallow before she answered. “Hey,” she said lightly. “I’m sorry about-”
“Gemma, hang on a second.” She caught the muffled slur of his voice as he spoke to someone else, then he came back on the line. He hadn’t heard her, she realized. He hadn’t heard her at all.
“Gemma, listen,” he said without preamble. “I need your help. Do you still have the list of names you and Doug found in Laura Novak’s house?”