Deborah Crombie - And Justice There Is None

She glanced at the clock and was surprised to find that half an hour had passed. "An hour. It's my birthday," she added, inexplicably, feeling a fool.

"Is it? Then I suppose I'll just have to wait." Leaning against the produce case, he crossed his arms, looking about the shop with evident disdain. "What are you doing working in this lousy place, anyway?"

"It's all I could get." She was ashamed, seeing it through his eyes. "And it pays my rent."

"You haven't told me your name."

For a moment she hesitated, then she lifted her chin. "Angel."

"Just Angel?"

Excitement surged through her. He knew nothing of her, her parents, her background; she could reinvent herself as she chose. "That's right. Just Angel."

Two weeks later, she lay beneath him in her narrow bed, the rumpled sheets pushed back, the window open as wide as it would go. "Tell me what you want, Angel," he urged, his breath catching in his throat. "I can give it to you. I can give you anything- fame, fortune, glory." He had pursued her as if nothing else mattered in the world, waiting at her flat every day after work, taking her out for meals and to the cinema, buying her trinkets… and staying every night in her room. The wonder of it took her breath away. What could he possibly see in her, when he could have anyone?

His skin, glistening with perspiration, slid effortlessly against hers as he moved inside her. A sultry breeze lifted the curtains; the light from the street lamp silvered his corn-yellow hair.

She was lost, and she knew that he knew it, but she didn't care. "I want you to love me." Digging her fingertips into his shoulders, she whispered against his cheek, tasting the salt like blood. "I want you to love me, just me. More than anyone, or anything, ever."

Kit McClellan loaded the last of his boxes into his dad's- make that his stepdad's- Volvo. He had learned, since his mum had died the previous April, that the man he had always known as his father was actually not his dad at all, and that his real dad had not known of his existence until his mum's death. It was all quite confusing, but he had gradually got used to it, and now everything was going to change again.

His stepfather, Ian, was taking a teaching post in Canada, and Kit was going to live with his real father, Duncan, Duncan's girlfriend, Gemma, and her son, Toby, in a house in a part of London Kit had never even seen. It was what he had wanted, to be a real family, and Gemma was going to have a baby in the spring, a new brother or sister for him.

It was also terrifying, and it meant leaving the pink cottage in the little village of Grantchester where he had spent his whole life, and where he had last seen his mum.

That morning he'd said good-bye to his friend Nathan Winter, who had been his mother's friend as well, and who had fostered Kit's love of biology. Much to Kit's embarrassment, Nathan had given him a crushing hug, and it had been all Kit could do to keep from blubbing like a baby. "You know you can come visit any time the pavement gets too much for you," Nathan had teased, and Kit thought with a pang of the long, slow days spent by the river that flowed past his back garden.

"Are you ready, Kit?" called Ian.

Swallowing hard, Kit took one last look at the cottage, its "For Sale" sign already posted in the front garden. "All set."

He opened the car door and summoned Tess with a whistle. "Ready for a ride, girl?" he asked the little terrier who had been his constant companion since he'd found her hiding in a box behind a supermarket, just days after his mum's death.

Tess bounded into the car, licking his face excitedly as he climbed in beside her.

They made the drive in silence, Kit watching out the window with avid interest as they reached London and drove west along Hyde Park. He could bring Tess to the park, Duncan had said, whenever he liked, so they must be getting close to the house.

He had a fleeting impression of ugly, square buildings round the Notting Hill Gate tube stop. They swung to the right, entering streets lined with sedate rows of terraced houses. Next, a church, its brick dark with age; then they were running down a hill and drawing to a stop before a solid-looking brown brick house with a red door and white trim.

"You'll come to Canada on your summer break," Ian reminded him. "I'll make all the arrangements."

Kit nodded absently, for Duncan had come out the front door, and Toby stood at the garden gate, calling excitedly to him. His new life had begun.

Hazel had helped her pack with such cheerful competence that Gemma decided she must have imagined that her friend was distressed over her leaving. But Gemma herself found it hard to say good-bye to the tiny flat: It was the first home she had been able to call entirely her own. And then there was Hazel's piano- when would she ever be able to play again? Making an excuse for a last trip into the big house, she dashed into the sitting room and stood for a moment gazing at the instrument, then touched the keys briefly in farewell.

"Don't worry if you've forgotten something," Hazel assured her as Gemma squeezed into the car with the collected bundles. "Holly and I will come over tomorrow and help you get settled."

"I'll need it, I'm sure," Gemma called out as she waved and drove off. Duncan had taken Toby with him in the van he'd fixed to transport the things from his flat- and Sid the cat. They would meet her at the new house.

After a week's relentless drizzle, Saturday had dawned clear and unseasonably warm, a perfect day for moving, and as Gemma neared Notting Hill she found herself singing along with the old Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young tune "Our House" on the radio. She laughed aloud with sudden, unanticipated joy.

They were all waiting for her- Duncan, Toby, and Kit, with Tess bounding round and barking madly.

"I take it she likes the house." Gemma gave Kit a welcoming hug.

Toby tugged at her, his cheeks flushed with excitement. "Mummy, Mummy, have you seen the garden? Have you seen my room? Sid's shut in the loo." The poor cat must be utterly traumatized, thought Gemma, but before she could check on him, Toby grabbed her hand and yanked her towards the stairs. "Come see my room, Mummy. Kit's going to share with me!"

"Okay, okay," she said, laughing. "We need a plan. First we tour the house, then we start on the boxes. I'll take the kitchen, you boys can start on your bedrooms, and Duncan can take the sitting room."

"Yes, ma'am. I take it we save our bedroom for last?" Kincaid grinned and winked at her over the boys' heads.

By mid-afternoon Gemma had made a list of essentials they would need to buy, including new linens for the boys' beds and a set of dishes for the kitchen. Her few mismatched bits and Duncan's bachelor plates were not going to do for a real kitchen, and she had seen exactly the thing in a catalogue: a blue-and-yellow French farmhouse design, perfect for the blue-and-yellow kitchen.

She was humming happily as she confronted the oil-fired cooker, thinking she would make them all a pot of tea, when her cell phone rang.

It was Melody Talbot, calling from Notting Hill Police Station. "Sorry to interrupt your moving day, boss, but we've had a call that might add up to something. A Miss Granger, who lives near the Arrowoods, was out jogging the night Dawn was killed. She's been out of town on business and just now saw the media appeal."

"Go on," Gemma encouraged as she filled her chipped teakettle. Not expecting much, she only half listened, mentally adding "new kettle" to her shopping list.

"Well, it seems Miss Granger passed another jogger that night, going the opposite way on Ladbroke Grove. That would mean he was going north, away from St. John's Gardens. His hood was up, which she thought was a bit odd because it had stopped drizzling, and when she looked back she saw that he was leaving a trail of dark footprints. She shrugged it off at the time, thinking he must have run through a puddle or something, but now…"