Deborah Crombie - And Justice There Is None

"You've been very cooperative, Miss Poole," said Kincaid, "and we appreciate that, as well as your previous help."

"Obviously," Bryony spat back. "Do give Gemma my best, won't you?" Her sarcasm was scathing. "I'm sure you can see yourselves out."

"How would you like to go to Wimbledon this afternoon, Doug?" Kincaid asked as they reached the car.

"But it's bound to be a wild-goose chase, isn't it? If she was really with her family in Wimbledon, she couldn't very well have just popped out for a quick murder," Cullen protested.

"We still have to follow through on it, but rather you than me. And I have other things on my agenda."

One of which was his commitment to take Kit to meet his grandparents for tea- an outing neither of them was anticipating with any enthusiasm; the other was to try to salvage things with Gemma over the matter of Bryony Poole.

When she pulled up to the curb outside Alex Dunn's mews flat, Gemma saw that the boot of his Volkswagen stood open. Before she could ring the bell he came out, carrying a duffel bag.

"Inspector James!"

"Hello, Alex. Do you have a minute?" She looked from the bag in his hand to the car. "Are you going somewhere?"

"Just down to see my aunt in Sussex for a day or two. Is that a problem?"

"No. Not as long as we can get in touch with you if we should need to. You won't leave the country, will you?" she asked with a half-smile.

"You can have my passport, if you like."

She shook her head. "That's not necessary. But a phone number would be helpful."

"Would you like to come in? Have a coffee or something?" Beneath his unfailing politeness, she sensed impatience.

"No, that's all right, thanks." She held out the small, brown paper package she'd brought with her. "This is Fern's knife. I thought you might want to return it to her yourself."

"Oh, right." Taking the package from her, he looked around vaguely before stuffing it in the pocket of his bag.

"Is there some particular reason you're going to visit your aunt? She's not ill, is she?"

"Jane? No, of course not. It's just that it's where I grew up. My aunt Jane raised me." He seemed to focus on her a little more clearly. "Um, I take it the knife got a clean bill of health?"

"Yes."

"Right. I'll just give you that address." He wrote it for her on the back of one of his business cards.

As she said good-bye and returned to the office, she realized something odd: Alex Dunn seemed suddenly to have lost all interest in his lover's murder.

It was almost noon before Gemma managed to get away from the station again for the little outing she'd planned. First, she bought the best bottle of sherry the corner store possessed and had it wrapped in a decorative gift bag.

She knew from previous visits that her friend Erika Rosenthal liked sherry. Gemma had discovered quite by chance, while investigating a burglary a few months previously, that the elderly victim was Dr. Rosenthal, a noted historian. Erika was also a German Jew who had come to Notting Hill shortly after the war, and as far as Gemma knew had been there ever since. She lived in a pale gray brick town house in Arundel Gardens, not terribly far from Otto's Café.

"Gemma James! How lovely."

"I've brought you a little gift," said Gemma, smiling at the sight of her friend's beaming, wizened-apple face.

"Sherry! Even more lovely. Come in by the sitting room fire and we'll pour a glass."

"Just the tiniest bit for me, please." The room was just as she remembered it, filled with books and paintings, fresh flowers, and, of course, the piano.

Handing her a half-inch of amber liquid in a crystal glass, Dr. Rosenthal examined her with bright, shoe-button eyes. "You're pregnant, aren't you, my dear? I thought as much the last time I saw you, but it was too soon to be sure."

"I suppose I am beginning to show! The baby's due in May." One of Dr. Rosenthal's specialties was the history of Celtic goddess cults, and Gemma couldn't help wondering if the woman had absorbed more than facts in her study.

"It's more that certain glow, actually," Dr. Rosenthal said. "And then there's the sherry. I won't mind if you don't drink it, although in my experience a sip or two of sherry never did anyone any harm."

"It certainly hasn't done you any damage," observed Gemma, laughing. "I do have some other news, if you haven't worked it out just by looking at me."

"I confess I am utterly baffled."

"I've moved house. It's just a few blocks from here. Or I should say, we've moved house- my son and I, my… friend, and his son, along with two dogs and a cat."

"You're taking on the settled life, I see. That's quite a challenge, with your job, and another child on the way. Congratulations. But I find it hard to believe that with all that, you've found time to make a purely social call," Dr. Rosenthal added with a twinkle. "Go on, ask away. I don't mind. In fact, it's rather gratifying to be considered useful."

"There is something I thought you might be able to help me with. A family called Arrowood came to this area, just after the war. They were German immigrants-"

"But they weren't named Arrowood at all. It was Pheilholz. Their only son Anglicized the name, and I think it broke his parents' hearts to see their heritage tossed away."

"You knew them?"

"Oh, we weren't close friends, but I met them often enough in those days, at the German cafés and the social clubs. They were a nice couple, hardworking, very firm in their values. They owned a small grocery in Portobello Road."

"And the son, Karl? Did you know him?"

"This is your case, the murder of Karl Arrowood? I thought of you when I saw it in the news."

"I've been investigating Karl's death, as well as his wife's," Gemma admitted. "But we seem to be making very little progress."

"So you thought you would go back and start at the beginning. Very wise. Karl was a beautiful child, and I think he was much loved by his parents, but that's not always a guarantee that the child will grow up as the parents wish. He jeered at their stodginess, their lack of ambition. It was fine things Karl wanted, and he seemed willing to go to any lengths to get them. The boy was involved in scrape after scrape, each a little more serious than the last, until his father told him he was no longer welcome in their house. I don't believe they were ever reconciled."

"There were rumors of Karl's involvement in the drug trade when he was quite young, but nothing was ever proved."

"Ah…" Dr. Rosenthal sighed. "Here I have to admit my memory fails me. There was something about drugs, and prison, but it wasn't Karl who went to prison… and there was a girl in it somewhere… There always is, isn't there?" Lifting her shoulders in a shrug, she continued, "He disappeared from the neighborhood altogether for a time, and it was a good many years- not until after his parents were both gone, as a matter of fact- before he came back."

"But he did come back in the end, didn't he?" pressed Gemma. "He could have opened that shop anywhere in London… say, Kensington, or Mayfair… Do you suppose it was pride, wanting to show anyone who remembered him as a child what a success he'd become? Or was there something else that drew him back to Notting Hill?"

If one had to choose somewhere to sit and wait for an hour, thought Kincaid, Brown's Hotel was not a bad place to be on a Friday afternoon.

At the stroke of three, he had delivered an unsmiling and abnormally brushed and polished Kit for his meeting with his grandparents. Robert Potts, Kincaid's former father-in-law, had greeted Kincaid with his usual strained courtesy; his wife had merely nodded an acknowledgment of his presence, not disguising her loathing. They had not invited Kincaid to join them for tea- not that he had expected them to do so.