Deborah Crombie - And Justice There Is None

It was Ronnie who answered her tentative knock. "Angel? What you doing here?"

As he gazed at her in surprise, she took in the changes in him, visible in the lines of his face and the way he held himself. Boyish brashness had matured into a quiet assurance.

"Are you all right?" he asked, his shock turning quickly to concern. "You're trembling-"

"I- I need- I can't-" Words failed her. How could she tell him what she had become?

But he had seen it often enough to know the signs. Gently, he took her hand and pushed up the sleeve of her sweater. "Oh, Jesus Christ." He looked up at her, dark eyes meeting hers. "I should never have let you go, Angel. Did he do this to you?" When she didn't answer, he said, "Never mind that now. I'm going to help you, don't you worry. You just trust me. Everything is going to be all right."

Gemma found Sergeant Franks waiting in her office when she returned from Alex's flat, his blunt face reflecting an odd combination of triumph and hesitation.

"What is it, Sergeant?" she asked, motioning him to a seat.

"Those phone records you were wanting, guv- I've got them. And you were right, Farley did make a number of calls to Dawn Arrowood, and the calls grew more frequent over the last few weeks before her death." Franks shifted in his chair, straightening his back as if it hurt him. "With that in hand, and you being out of the station this morning, I took the liberty of having Mr. Farley brought in, along with his shadow."

"Mr. Kelly?"

Franks nodded. "I told Mr. Farley we had records of his calls to Mrs. Arrowood, and I'm sorry to say his answer to that was as obstructive as ever. So… I practiced a bit of a deception on the man."

Gemma raised a noncommittal eyebrow, and after a moment, Franks went on. "I told him that Mrs. Arrowood had been no fool, and that she had recorded all their conversations, including the one the day before she died, in which he demanded that she say her cat was ill and that she bring it to the surgery."

"But if she didn't really record the calls, how did you know-"

"A good guess, guv. He did ring her that day, I had proof of that. The cat being ill the very next morning seemed a bit too convenient, if you know what I mean."

"So did he deny it?"

"No, funny enough. I suggested that he'd told her to bring money to the surgery, then when she didn't, he arranged to meet her again that evening. That knocked him for a loop. Mr. Kelly couldn't shut him up after that."

"You must have guessed right about the call. I can't imagine anything else putting the fear of God into him."

Franks allowed himself a small smile. "He said two thousand pounds was nothing to her, pin money, and he needed it to pay some debts. But she came to the surgery empty-handed, stalling him. Then when he got angry with her, she told him to go to hell, she'd tell her husband herself and he could do whatever he liked with his photos."

"Did he admit he met her again?"

"No. He says he went for a drink after work, trying to work out what to do, but he decided he'd no choice but to hope she was bluffing. When he heard she'd been killed, he thought she really had told Karl, and that Karl had killed her."

"But she didn't tell him, and he didn't kill her. So we're right back where we started."

"Afraid so, guv." Franks actually sounded as if he was sorry to disappoint her. "There is one other thing, though. You remember the name you asked me to run through our database?"

"Ronald Thomas?"

"That's the one. Well, it rang a bell somehow, and the more I thought about it, the more I thought I remembered the case. When I found the record, I was sure." Here Franks hesitated, looking uncomfortable.

"What is it, Gerry?"

He cleared his throat. "I was new on the beat then. It was the winter of seventy-one, a miserable wet night, visibility like the inside of a waterfall. There was a hit-and-run, at the bottom of Kensington Park Road."

"Oh, no," Gemma breathed with dawning comprehension. "Ronald Thomas?"

Franks nodded. "Torn up bad, he was. My first fatality accident. There were no witnesses, and we never found the responsible party."

"But you were sure it was an accident?"

"We had no reason to think otherwise. I was given charge of the death notification, and of interviewing the next of kin. But the widow-"

"That would have been Marianne Thomas?"

"I remember I was surprised at first," Franks said, coloring slightly, "to find she was white, I mean. In those days it wasn't so common. But she was so distraught I couldn't get a word of sense out of her, had to talk to the sister instead. She- Marianne Thomas- kept saying it was her fault, that she should never have come back, that she should have known he'd find her."

"He?"

"That's what I asked her. But then she stopped crying and went silent as death. After that she just rocked her baby and shook her head, over and over."

"And you didn't follow up?"

"Nothing to follow up," Franks said defensively. "She wasn't the one hurt, after all, and we had nothing else to go on, without her giving us a name, or some reason why someone would have wanted to hurt her husband."

"You said you talked to the sister- you mean Ron Thomas's sister? Do you remember her name?"

"I've printed you a copy of the file." Franks gestured to the manila folder on her desk. "It was Betty Howard, and the address was in Westbourne Park Road, here in Notting Hill."

Gemma met Kincaid in front of the rather shabby terrace in Westbourne Park Road, just a few yards from the veterinary surgery on All Saint's Road. She had told him about Ronald Thomas's death, and about finding Karl's will.

"So if Dawn told Alex about the will, he had the perfect motive for killing Karl," Kincaid mused. "And for killing Dawn, for that matter, because she knew that he knew. Perhaps the paper knife was a blind," he added, warming to his theme, "and he intended all along to use a scalpel. Alex is Bryony's friend- he could easily have taken a scalpel from the surgery-"

"But we know he can't have murdered Dawn," Gemma protested. "Because of Otto's and Mr. Canfield's evidence. And I'd swear he didn't know about the will. Not to mention the fact that Alex has no connection with Marianne Hoffman." She looked up at the terraced house before them, its once ornate plasterwork now worn and chipped at the edges. "It's flat C we want."

In contrast to the building's deteriorating plaster and stained stucco, the green paint on the front door was fresh, and as they entered the foyer they were met by the aroma of exotic spices. It became clear as they climbed that the scents emanated from the top floor, and Gemma's mouth watered involuntarily.

The occupant of flat C was middle-aged and pleasantly stocky, with abundant graying hair tied up in a bright Caribbean scarf.

"Mrs. Howard?" asked Kincaid. When she nodded in the affirmative, he introduced himself and Gemma, explaining that they wanted to talk to her about her brother.

"Ronnie? After all this time?" She shook her head in consternation, but guided them into her sitting room, gesturing at them to sit as she sank into a large armchair. "You'll have to excuse me if I don't leave my kitchen for long. I'm cooking a stew- two of my daughters are here visiting."

As they sat down, footsteps came from the rear of the flat. "That should be my son," said Mrs. Howard. "He can look after-"

Wesley came into the room and stopped dead, staring in astonishment at Gemma.

"Wesley," said his mother, "these people are from the police. Can you see to the lunch while I talk to them? Your sisters will be back from the shops soon."

"Mama, this is the lady I told you about, the one-"