To dwell in darkness a n.., p.21
To Dwell in Darkness: A Novel, page 21
part #16 of Duncan Kincaid and Gemma James Series
When they entered the room, Xena gave them a little chirp of greeting. She stood up, stretching, and when Kincaid knelt by the box, she butted her head against his hand and he rubbed her behind the ears.
The kittens were sleeping. Their bellies had rounded, and now they looked more like little sausages than rats.
“They’re starting to move around in the box,” said Kit, kneeling beside Kincaid. “They’re so funny. They’re blind, and they bumble into each other. Bryony says their eyes should open in a few days.”
“Bryony came today?”
“This afternoon, while Toby and Charlotte were out with MacKenzie. She taught me how to tell the sex,” Kit added proudly. “She says it’s easier now than it will be when they’re older.” He touched the calico. “This one’s female, of course—I’ve been reading up on cat genetics—and so is the tabby. The black one and the black-and-white one are male.”
“I’m impressed.” Kincaid could tell that the mother cat was improving as well. She looked less thin, her coat was shiny, her eyes bright. “Amazing what a few days of food can do. She is very tame,” he said to Kit. “Have you had any luck with your posters?”
It was the wrong thing to say. Kit sat back, scowling. “No. And if someone is missing her, shouldn’t they have called by now? I want to take the posters down.”
“We can’t keep the mum and all the kittens,” Kincaid said gently.
“MacKenzie says they’ll take one. Oliver loves them. Gemma said she’d talk to Hazel. And I’m going to talk to Erika. We’re supposed to have lunch with her on Sunday. I think it would be good for her to have a cat.”
“Possibly. But that leaves a kitten unaccounted for.”
“Surely we could keep Xena and one of the kittens?” Kit didn’t quite manage to keep the pleading note from his voice.
Kincaid stroked the black kitten, which was beginning to stir and root around towards its mother. “I suppose it would depend on how they get along with Sid.” He felt completely at sea with all of this, but he was quite taken with the cats himself. “Which kitten would you want to keep?” he asked.
Leaning over the box again, Kit frowned and gave each kitten a little stroke in turn. “I don’t know. I like the calico. I think it’s cool that only females can be calico. And I like the black-and-white one. He looks like James Bond in a tuxedo.”
Kincaid heard Gemma calling them. “Well, I think we have lots of time to decide. And you can ask Bryony tomorrow, but I should think it would be okay to take the posters down.”
“Really?” Kit bounced up with almost as much enthusiasm as Toby.
Kincaid stood and put a restraining hand on his shoulder. “But let’s not say anything until you’ve spoken to Bryony again, okay?”
“Deal,” said Kit.
“You spoil him dreadfully, you know,” Gemma said to Kincaid as they finished the washing-up together a few hours later.
“Who, Kit?” Kincaid looked his most innocent.
They had eaten their pizza, played a quick game of Snakes and Ladders—with much cheating on Toby’s part—for Charlotte’s benefit, then settled in for a game of Beatles Monopoly. Charlotte was allowed to play with the extra tokens, and after a bit had settled sleepily in Gemma’s lap. When Charlotte was dozing and Toby had begun to get cranky, they’d put the younger children to bed and released Kit to reunite with his phone and his iPod.
As he left the room, he’d tossed back at them, “You know I can’t tell my mates why I can’t go out on Friday nights. They’d think I was a total wa—”
Gemma gave him the watch your language evil eye.
“They’d think I was totally wet,” Kit amended. Then he’d grinned at them and a moment later they heard him running up the stairs.
“Yes, Kit,” Gemma said now. “I don’t know what you told him in the study, but the rest of the night he looked like the cat that got into the cream. And I suppose it was something to do with the cats.”
“He only wants to keep the mum and one kitten.”
“That’s what he says now. And imagine the arguments with Toby and Charlotte over which one.”
“Well then, they’ll have to learn to negotiate, won’t they? And don’t tell me you’re not tempted to keep at least one of the little blighters. You said the other night that you fancied the black-and-white one.”
Gemma sank into one of the kitchen chairs and he thought that she looked tired . . . and . . . something more.
“I suppose we should give them what they want—within reason—when we can,” she said slowly.
Kincaid glanced at her, then took a rather expensive bottle of Sancerre he’d been saving for the weekend from the fridge, pulled the cork, and poured them both a glass. He handed one to Gemma, who smiled her thanks, and sat down across from her.
“What’s up, love?” he asked quietly. “I don’t think it’s kittens.”
“No.” Gemma told him about her interview with Dillon Underwood. “And now I keep thinking,” she added, “what if Mercy’s mum had gone with her to pick out that computer she wanted so badly? Or what if her mum hadn’t been so harsh with her over the lost phone? Which Melody and I suspect Dillon may have pinched as a way to manipulate her.”
“Gemma.” He took her hand across the table. “Mercy’s mother didn’t do anything wrong. Neither did Mercy. You know that.”
But he felt the same chill. There was no guarantee that Friday-night games or any of the other ways they cared for and loved their children would keep them safe from monsters like Dillon Underwood. They knew that better than anyone else.
“You need to take the weekend off,” he said, pouring her a little more wine. Her expression had softened, her cheeks had gained a bit of color, but he didn’t miss the guilty look that flashed across her face. “You’re not going in? You said you were pretty well stuck until the DNA results come back.”
“No. No, I’m not going in. But . . .” Gemma glanced at him and took another sip of her wine. “I did bring her case report home. I keep thinking there’s something I’ve missed. And don’t come the copper with me,” she added before he could speak. “Because you are going in.”
Kincaid grimaced. “Honestly, I don’t know whether I’m coming or going with this case. The more I find out, the less I know.”
Frowning, Gemma said, “Melody told me she’d gone to see Doug last night in a rush. Have you pulled them into this?”
“Doug, yes,” he admitted. “But I think you could say that Melody pulled herself in, under the circumstances.”
“What are they doing that your team can’t do?”
“Ah. There’s the rub. It seems Tam was right. We’ve got an ID on the victim. He was young. Just twenty.” He went on to tell her all the things he hadn’t had a chance to share with her—that he and Doug had suspected the initial supposed victim, Ryan Marsh, might be an undercover police officer, and that Doug had subsequently proved that Ryan Marsh had at least once been a cop. That Melody, looking for photos of the protest group, had identified Ryan Marsh as the man who had helped her on the scene. That Ryan Marsh was now missing, and that a girl in the group had disappeared suddenly at the New Year.
And about Ariel Ellis, who had come to him to report her boyfriend missing, after they’d had a row about her miscarriage.
He hesitated a bit over this, hating to remind Gemma of the baby they’d lost, but he knew she’d be furious with him if he didn’t tell her.
“Do you think it was suicide?”
Kincaid shrugged. “Paul Cole has been described as moody and attention seeking, but no one thinks he was suicidal. And apparently he kept a regular journal, which has not turned up in his belongings.”
“And you haven’t told your team what you’ve found out about Ryan Marsh? Why?”
“If he was still undercover, who was he working for?” Kincaid leaned forward, elbows on the scrubbed pine table, wineglass between his hands. “Why did he infiltrate this group unless they were a serious threat? Why has no one in the force claimed him? Why did he disappear?”
“You think he thought the grenade was meant for him?”
“Melody said he reacted to the incident the way any trained copper would, but that when he saw the body, he was distraught. It was personal. I think he was more than shocked. I think he was frightened, and I’m not letting anyone else know that I know who he is or that he’s still alive until I know why.”
Gemma sipped and thought. “You’re assuming that Ryan Marsh agreed to let Paul Cole set off the smoke bomb, and that someone switched the smoke bomb with a grenade without Marsh’s knowledge. Who could have done that?”
“Matthew Quinn seems the obvious choice. I’ve found out that Quinn’s father is a big player in the area redevelopment scheme, and that he’s been supporting Matthew. Maybe Matthew was planning more serious stuff, and Marsh threatened to tell his father. Or the police. Or Matthew found out Marsh was an undercover cop.”
“But,” said Gemma, “would Matthew Quinn have made himself such an obvious suspect?”
Kincaid topped up both their glasses. “It doesn’t seem very likely, does it? He may be a bit compulsive, but I don’t think he’s stupid.”
“Unless he thought he could convince people that Marsh was suicidal,” Gemma suggested.
“Several people in the group said that Ryan hadn’t been the same since the girl—Wren—disappeared,” Kincaid said, trying to recollect the statements exactly. “But I don’t think Matthew was one of them.”
“And no one has said what happened to the girl?”
“No. Just that she walked out and didn’t come back.”
“Well,” said Gemma, raising her glass to him. “There’s your missing piece, love. Find out what happened to the girl. And why it mattered to Ryan Marsh.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Each arm [of Barlow’s arches at St. Pancras] is composed of sturdy parallel members made up of riveted iron plates, conjoined by fifteen main braces and a lattice of fifty cross-braces . . . There are twenty-five arches in all, set in intervals of 29 feet 4 inches, double the spacing of the basement columns—the . . . beer-barrels controlling influence again—to form an enclosure 689 feet (210 meters) long. Much of the visual power of this huge interior comes from the way in which these soaring arches allow the eye to calibrate the space immediately.
—Simon Bradley,
St. Pancras Station, 2007
“Do you mind if I take the Astra today?” Gemma asked Kincaid as he was eating a piece of toast and gulping down a cup of tea on Saturday morning. “I’ve promised to take the kids to Leyton to see Mum and Dad this afternoon, and the kids want to take the dogs. I can’t jam them all in the Escort.”
Kincaid nodded, mouth full of toast and marmalade.
“You can take the Escort,” Gemma added kindly.
“I’m not taking a purple car to work,” Kincaid said, swallowing. “I’d be the laughingstock of Holborn.” When Gemma looked affronted, he laughed and kissed her. “Just teasing, love. But it is a bit hard to fit my long legs in your little orchid. I’ll just take the tube. I can use the walk either end.”
The sky was the color of pearl this morning, rather than gunmetal, and—at least so far—the wind had not come up. A walk would give him an opportunity to enjoy the break in the weather.
He’d dressed with some thought that morning. Not wanting to wear a suit into work on Saturday, he settled on a crisp pale blue shirt, a sports coat, and jeans. Hopefully he would be presentable for the Booking Office Bar.
Now he pulled on his overcoat, added an umbrella, kissed Gemma, and shouted goodbye to the kids, who were all upstairs.
It was a straight shot up Lansdowne Road to the tube station. As he walked, he noticed that the tips of the tree branches were swelling with buds, and that a few daffodils were lifting brave heads in the gardens he passed. The weather would break, and spring would arrive with a bang. In the meantime, however, he buttoned the top of his coat and wished he’d thought to grab a scarf.
Before he reached Holland Park tube station, he rang Doug from his mobile.
“Are you at home?” he asked when Doug answered.
“No, I’m out rowing.” Doug’s voice dripped sarcasm. “Of course I’m home. It’s Saturday, and I’m doing Internet searches for you.”
“Any luck on Ryan Marlowe-slash-Marsh?”
“Not as of yet.”
“Bugger.” Kincaid thought a moment, then said, “Can you add something else? I want to know what happened to the girl who disappeared, the one they called Wren. I think that might be her in the photo next to Ryan Marsh. Nothing anyone has told me about her makes it seem likely that she just walked out of the group of her own accord.”
“Maybe Ryan Marsh killed her and Paul Cole found out. That would give Marsh a motive for agreeing to the switch and giving Cole a grenade instead of a smoke bomb.”
“I might buy that except for two things,” Kincaid said. “The first is Melody’s evidence that Marsh was shocked to the core when he saw Cole’s body. The second is statements from some of the other group members that Ryan Marsh changed after Wren’s disappearance.”
“Maybe Paul Cole killed her and Marsh found out?” suggested Doug. “That would have given him a very good motive for killing Paul Cole. But,” he went on before Kincaid could argue, “again, that discounts Melody’s observation, and even under duress I don’t think she would mistake what she saw. And why would Paul Cole have killed this missing girl, unless he was some kind of a nutter?”
Kincaid was coming up to Holland Park. “Can you check the records for the death of a young female, perhaps around twenty, probably unidentified, right around the New Year? No one’s given me the exact date she disappeared, so I’d check New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day. I can ask, but I don’t want to interview Matthew Quinn or his disciples again until I’ve spoken to Quinn’s father.”
“Not asking much, are you?”
“I have every confidence in you,” Kincaid said, grinning, and rang off.
Kincaid’s new boss, Detective Chief Superintendent Faith, was not so pleased with him.
Both Jasmine Sidana and Simon Gikas had come in. As soon as Kincaid entered the CID suite, Gikas jerked his head towards the building’s upper floors. “Boss wants to see you.”
“Anything new to tell him?”
Gikas shook his head. “Sod all, Guv. Still trying to find some trace of this Ryan Marsh, but he seems to have vanished.”
“Where’s Sweeney?”
“Still complaining about a pulled tendon, sir,” answered Sidana.
“Right.” Kincaid went out again and took the lift up to Faith’s office.
The chief super’s receptionist was out. When Faith saw Kincaid, he got up and ushered him into his office himself.
“Tell me you’ve made some progress on this,” Faith said without preamble when Kincaid had taken a chair. “We’ve had to release the victim’s name to the press as a potential identification now that his family has been informed. Do you think the stupid boy meant to burn himself up?” He shook his head. “I’ve got university-age sons. I can’t imagine what his parents must be going through.”
“No, sir.” Kincaid shifted uncomfortably in the chair. It was too short for him, so that his legs stuck out awkwardly, and he wondered if Faith had chosen it on purpose. But unlike Chief Superintendent Denis Childs, Faith seemed a straightforward man, although perhaps one without an eye for decor or ergonomic furniture. “Nothing we’ve learned so far leads us to believe that Paul Cole was suicidal,” he said, “or that he saw himself as a martyr for any sort of cause.
“The member of the group who was meant to be setting off the smoke bomb, Ryan Marsh, seems to have disappeared, but we’ve found no background on him, and no reason to think he would have deliberately killed Cole.”
“What about this leader? Quinn? Any reason he might have had for killing either Marsh or Cole?”
“That looks a bit more promising. We’ve learned that Matthew Quinn’s father is the primary investor in King’s Cross Development, the company that not only owns the building in which Quinn and his group have been living, but whose corporation is involved in just the sort of project that Quinn was so vocally protesting. Quinn’s father was also supporting him. It could be that Marsh found that out and threatened to tell Quinn’s father what Matthew was up to.”
“You think Quinn’s father didn’t know?” Faith asked, raising an eyebrow.
“I have an interview with him after lunch, so I’ll go from there.”
Faith leaned back in his chair and sighed. “It would certainly be easier all round if it turned out the boy was a suicide.”
The hair rose on the back of Kincaid’s neck. He’d heard, “It would certainly be easier . . .” before. He hadn’t liked the suggestion then, and he liked it even less now.
He’d taken Thomas Faith for a straight-ahead copper, but he no longer trusted his own judgment. He could only hope that Faith had meant it in the most literal sense, and not as a veiled instruction.
“Well,” said Faith, “tread delicately with Mr. Quinn, but do what you must. Have you checked in with SO15?”
“Not since they signed off, no.”
“See that you do. There is a possibility worse than murder here.”
Kincaid waited for Faith to go on.
“What if Matthew Quinn really bought what he thought was a smoke bomb? And this Ryan Marsh gave what he thought was a smoke bomb to Paul Cole. All in good faith.”
“So you’re suggesting the man Quinn bought the smoke bomb from sold him a white phosphorus grenade”—Kincaid took a moment to process it—“with intent to harm?”
“I am,” said Faith. “And who knows what else this bloke has or intends to do. In that case, we have a very big problem. I want you to find out who sold Matthew Quinn that grenade. When you do, I want you to liaise with SO15.”
“Sir,” Kincaid said.
“You’ll let me know what you learn from Quinn senior.”
“Yes, sir.” Kincaid stood, taking that as a dismissal. He was already running the possibilities through his mind. “I’ll get on it.”
The kittens were sleeping. Their bellies had rounded, and now they looked more like little sausages than rats.
“They’re starting to move around in the box,” said Kit, kneeling beside Kincaid. “They’re so funny. They’re blind, and they bumble into each other. Bryony says their eyes should open in a few days.”
“Bryony came today?”
“This afternoon, while Toby and Charlotte were out with MacKenzie. She taught me how to tell the sex,” Kit added proudly. “She says it’s easier now than it will be when they’re older.” He touched the calico. “This one’s female, of course—I’ve been reading up on cat genetics—and so is the tabby. The black one and the black-and-white one are male.”
“I’m impressed.” Kincaid could tell that the mother cat was improving as well. She looked less thin, her coat was shiny, her eyes bright. “Amazing what a few days of food can do. She is very tame,” he said to Kit. “Have you had any luck with your posters?”
It was the wrong thing to say. Kit sat back, scowling. “No. And if someone is missing her, shouldn’t they have called by now? I want to take the posters down.”
“We can’t keep the mum and all the kittens,” Kincaid said gently.
“MacKenzie says they’ll take one. Oliver loves them. Gemma said she’d talk to Hazel. And I’m going to talk to Erika. We’re supposed to have lunch with her on Sunday. I think it would be good for her to have a cat.”
“Possibly. But that leaves a kitten unaccounted for.”
“Surely we could keep Xena and one of the kittens?” Kit didn’t quite manage to keep the pleading note from his voice.
Kincaid stroked the black kitten, which was beginning to stir and root around towards its mother. “I suppose it would depend on how they get along with Sid.” He felt completely at sea with all of this, but he was quite taken with the cats himself. “Which kitten would you want to keep?” he asked.
Leaning over the box again, Kit frowned and gave each kitten a little stroke in turn. “I don’t know. I like the calico. I think it’s cool that only females can be calico. And I like the black-and-white one. He looks like James Bond in a tuxedo.”
Kincaid heard Gemma calling them. “Well, I think we have lots of time to decide. And you can ask Bryony tomorrow, but I should think it would be okay to take the posters down.”
“Really?” Kit bounced up with almost as much enthusiasm as Toby.
Kincaid stood and put a restraining hand on his shoulder. “But let’s not say anything until you’ve spoken to Bryony again, okay?”
“Deal,” said Kit.
“You spoil him dreadfully, you know,” Gemma said to Kincaid as they finished the washing-up together a few hours later.
“Who, Kit?” Kincaid looked his most innocent.
They had eaten their pizza, played a quick game of Snakes and Ladders—with much cheating on Toby’s part—for Charlotte’s benefit, then settled in for a game of Beatles Monopoly. Charlotte was allowed to play with the extra tokens, and after a bit had settled sleepily in Gemma’s lap. When Charlotte was dozing and Toby had begun to get cranky, they’d put the younger children to bed and released Kit to reunite with his phone and his iPod.
As he left the room, he’d tossed back at them, “You know I can’t tell my mates why I can’t go out on Friday nights. They’d think I was a total wa—”
Gemma gave him the watch your language evil eye.
“They’d think I was totally wet,” Kit amended. Then he’d grinned at them and a moment later they heard him running up the stairs.
“Yes, Kit,” Gemma said now. “I don’t know what you told him in the study, but the rest of the night he looked like the cat that got into the cream. And I suppose it was something to do with the cats.”
“He only wants to keep the mum and one kitten.”
“That’s what he says now. And imagine the arguments with Toby and Charlotte over which one.”
“Well then, they’ll have to learn to negotiate, won’t they? And don’t tell me you’re not tempted to keep at least one of the little blighters. You said the other night that you fancied the black-and-white one.”
Gemma sank into one of the kitchen chairs and he thought that she looked tired . . . and . . . something more.
“I suppose we should give them what they want—within reason—when we can,” she said slowly.
Kincaid glanced at her, then took a rather expensive bottle of Sancerre he’d been saving for the weekend from the fridge, pulled the cork, and poured them both a glass. He handed one to Gemma, who smiled her thanks, and sat down across from her.
“What’s up, love?” he asked quietly. “I don’t think it’s kittens.”
“No.” Gemma told him about her interview with Dillon Underwood. “And now I keep thinking,” she added, “what if Mercy’s mum had gone with her to pick out that computer she wanted so badly? Or what if her mum hadn’t been so harsh with her over the lost phone? Which Melody and I suspect Dillon may have pinched as a way to manipulate her.”
“Gemma.” He took her hand across the table. “Mercy’s mother didn’t do anything wrong. Neither did Mercy. You know that.”
But he felt the same chill. There was no guarantee that Friday-night games or any of the other ways they cared for and loved their children would keep them safe from monsters like Dillon Underwood. They knew that better than anyone else.
“You need to take the weekend off,” he said, pouring her a little more wine. Her expression had softened, her cheeks had gained a bit of color, but he didn’t miss the guilty look that flashed across her face. “You’re not going in? You said you were pretty well stuck until the DNA results come back.”
“No. No, I’m not going in. But . . .” Gemma glanced at him and took another sip of her wine. “I did bring her case report home. I keep thinking there’s something I’ve missed. And don’t come the copper with me,” she added before he could speak. “Because you are going in.”
Kincaid grimaced. “Honestly, I don’t know whether I’m coming or going with this case. The more I find out, the less I know.”
Frowning, Gemma said, “Melody told me she’d gone to see Doug last night in a rush. Have you pulled them into this?”
“Doug, yes,” he admitted. “But I think you could say that Melody pulled herself in, under the circumstances.”
“What are they doing that your team can’t do?”
“Ah. There’s the rub. It seems Tam was right. We’ve got an ID on the victim. He was young. Just twenty.” He went on to tell her all the things he hadn’t had a chance to share with her—that he and Doug had suspected the initial supposed victim, Ryan Marsh, might be an undercover police officer, and that Doug had subsequently proved that Ryan Marsh had at least once been a cop. That Melody, looking for photos of the protest group, had identified Ryan Marsh as the man who had helped her on the scene. That Ryan Marsh was now missing, and that a girl in the group had disappeared suddenly at the New Year.
And about Ariel Ellis, who had come to him to report her boyfriend missing, after they’d had a row about her miscarriage.
He hesitated a bit over this, hating to remind Gemma of the baby they’d lost, but he knew she’d be furious with him if he didn’t tell her.
“Do you think it was suicide?”
Kincaid shrugged. “Paul Cole has been described as moody and attention seeking, but no one thinks he was suicidal. And apparently he kept a regular journal, which has not turned up in his belongings.”
“And you haven’t told your team what you’ve found out about Ryan Marsh? Why?”
“If he was still undercover, who was he working for?” Kincaid leaned forward, elbows on the scrubbed pine table, wineglass between his hands. “Why did he infiltrate this group unless they were a serious threat? Why has no one in the force claimed him? Why did he disappear?”
“You think he thought the grenade was meant for him?”
“Melody said he reacted to the incident the way any trained copper would, but that when he saw the body, he was distraught. It was personal. I think he was more than shocked. I think he was frightened, and I’m not letting anyone else know that I know who he is or that he’s still alive until I know why.”
Gemma sipped and thought. “You’re assuming that Ryan Marsh agreed to let Paul Cole set off the smoke bomb, and that someone switched the smoke bomb with a grenade without Marsh’s knowledge. Who could have done that?”
“Matthew Quinn seems the obvious choice. I’ve found out that Quinn’s father is a big player in the area redevelopment scheme, and that he’s been supporting Matthew. Maybe Matthew was planning more serious stuff, and Marsh threatened to tell his father. Or the police. Or Matthew found out Marsh was an undercover cop.”
“But,” said Gemma, “would Matthew Quinn have made himself such an obvious suspect?”
Kincaid topped up both their glasses. “It doesn’t seem very likely, does it? He may be a bit compulsive, but I don’t think he’s stupid.”
“Unless he thought he could convince people that Marsh was suicidal,” Gemma suggested.
“Several people in the group said that Ryan hadn’t been the same since the girl—Wren—disappeared,” Kincaid said, trying to recollect the statements exactly. “But I don’t think Matthew was one of them.”
“And no one has said what happened to the girl?”
“No. Just that she walked out and didn’t come back.”
“Well,” said Gemma, raising her glass to him. “There’s your missing piece, love. Find out what happened to the girl. And why it mattered to Ryan Marsh.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Each arm [of Barlow’s arches at St. Pancras] is composed of sturdy parallel members made up of riveted iron plates, conjoined by fifteen main braces and a lattice of fifty cross-braces . . . There are twenty-five arches in all, set in intervals of 29 feet 4 inches, double the spacing of the basement columns—the . . . beer-barrels controlling influence again—to form an enclosure 689 feet (210 meters) long. Much of the visual power of this huge interior comes from the way in which these soaring arches allow the eye to calibrate the space immediately.
—Simon Bradley,
St. Pancras Station, 2007
“Do you mind if I take the Astra today?” Gemma asked Kincaid as he was eating a piece of toast and gulping down a cup of tea on Saturday morning. “I’ve promised to take the kids to Leyton to see Mum and Dad this afternoon, and the kids want to take the dogs. I can’t jam them all in the Escort.”
Kincaid nodded, mouth full of toast and marmalade.
“You can take the Escort,” Gemma added kindly.
“I’m not taking a purple car to work,” Kincaid said, swallowing. “I’d be the laughingstock of Holborn.” When Gemma looked affronted, he laughed and kissed her. “Just teasing, love. But it is a bit hard to fit my long legs in your little orchid. I’ll just take the tube. I can use the walk either end.”
The sky was the color of pearl this morning, rather than gunmetal, and—at least so far—the wind had not come up. A walk would give him an opportunity to enjoy the break in the weather.
He’d dressed with some thought that morning. Not wanting to wear a suit into work on Saturday, he settled on a crisp pale blue shirt, a sports coat, and jeans. Hopefully he would be presentable for the Booking Office Bar.
Now he pulled on his overcoat, added an umbrella, kissed Gemma, and shouted goodbye to the kids, who were all upstairs.
It was a straight shot up Lansdowne Road to the tube station. As he walked, he noticed that the tips of the tree branches were swelling with buds, and that a few daffodils were lifting brave heads in the gardens he passed. The weather would break, and spring would arrive with a bang. In the meantime, however, he buttoned the top of his coat and wished he’d thought to grab a scarf.
Before he reached Holland Park tube station, he rang Doug from his mobile.
“Are you at home?” he asked when Doug answered.
“No, I’m out rowing.” Doug’s voice dripped sarcasm. “Of course I’m home. It’s Saturday, and I’m doing Internet searches for you.”
“Any luck on Ryan Marlowe-slash-Marsh?”
“Not as of yet.”
“Bugger.” Kincaid thought a moment, then said, “Can you add something else? I want to know what happened to the girl who disappeared, the one they called Wren. I think that might be her in the photo next to Ryan Marsh. Nothing anyone has told me about her makes it seem likely that she just walked out of the group of her own accord.”
“Maybe Ryan Marsh killed her and Paul Cole found out. That would give Marsh a motive for agreeing to the switch and giving Cole a grenade instead of a smoke bomb.”
“I might buy that except for two things,” Kincaid said. “The first is Melody’s evidence that Marsh was shocked to the core when he saw Cole’s body. The second is statements from some of the other group members that Ryan Marsh changed after Wren’s disappearance.”
“Maybe Paul Cole killed her and Marsh found out?” suggested Doug. “That would have given him a very good motive for killing Paul Cole. But,” he went on before Kincaid could argue, “again, that discounts Melody’s observation, and even under duress I don’t think she would mistake what she saw. And why would Paul Cole have killed this missing girl, unless he was some kind of a nutter?”
Kincaid was coming up to Holland Park. “Can you check the records for the death of a young female, perhaps around twenty, probably unidentified, right around the New Year? No one’s given me the exact date she disappeared, so I’d check New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day. I can ask, but I don’t want to interview Matthew Quinn or his disciples again until I’ve spoken to Quinn’s father.”
“Not asking much, are you?”
“I have every confidence in you,” Kincaid said, grinning, and rang off.
Kincaid’s new boss, Detective Chief Superintendent Faith, was not so pleased with him.
Both Jasmine Sidana and Simon Gikas had come in. As soon as Kincaid entered the CID suite, Gikas jerked his head towards the building’s upper floors. “Boss wants to see you.”
“Anything new to tell him?”
Gikas shook his head. “Sod all, Guv. Still trying to find some trace of this Ryan Marsh, but he seems to have vanished.”
“Where’s Sweeney?”
“Still complaining about a pulled tendon, sir,” answered Sidana.
“Right.” Kincaid went out again and took the lift up to Faith’s office.
The chief super’s receptionist was out. When Faith saw Kincaid, he got up and ushered him into his office himself.
“Tell me you’ve made some progress on this,” Faith said without preamble when Kincaid had taken a chair. “We’ve had to release the victim’s name to the press as a potential identification now that his family has been informed. Do you think the stupid boy meant to burn himself up?” He shook his head. “I’ve got university-age sons. I can’t imagine what his parents must be going through.”
“No, sir.” Kincaid shifted uncomfortably in the chair. It was too short for him, so that his legs stuck out awkwardly, and he wondered if Faith had chosen it on purpose. But unlike Chief Superintendent Denis Childs, Faith seemed a straightforward man, although perhaps one without an eye for decor or ergonomic furniture. “Nothing we’ve learned so far leads us to believe that Paul Cole was suicidal,” he said, “or that he saw himself as a martyr for any sort of cause.
“The member of the group who was meant to be setting off the smoke bomb, Ryan Marsh, seems to have disappeared, but we’ve found no background on him, and no reason to think he would have deliberately killed Cole.”
“What about this leader? Quinn? Any reason he might have had for killing either Marsh or Cole?”
“That looks a bit more promising. We’ve learned that Matthew Quinn’s father is the primary investor in King’s Cross Development, the company that not only owns the building in which Quinn and his group have been living, but whose corporation is involved in just the sort of project that Quinn was so vocally protesting. Quinn’s father was also supporting him. It could be that Marsh found that out and threatened to tell Quinn’s father what Matthew was up to.”
“You think Quinn’s father didn’t know?” Faith asked, raising an eyebrow.
“I have an interview with him after lunch, so I’ll go from there.”
Faith leaned back in his chair and sighed. “It would certainly be easier all round if it turned out the boy was a suicide.”
The hair rose on the back of Kincaid’s neck. He’d heard, “It would certainly be easier . . .” before. He hadn’t liked the suggestion then, and he liked it even less now.
He’d taken Thomas Faith for a straight-ahead copper, but he no longer trusted his own judgment. He could only hope that Faith had meant it in the most literal sense, and not as a veiled instruction.
“Well,” said Faith, “tread delicately with Mr. Quinn, but do what you must. Have you checked in with SO15?”
“Not since they signed off, no.”
“See that you do. There is a possibility worse than murder here.”
Kincaid waited for Faith to go on.
“What if Matthew Quinn really bought what he thought was a smoke bomb? And this Ryan Marsh gave what he thought was a smoke bomb to Paul Cole. All in good faith.”
“So you’re suggesting the man Quinn bought the smoke bomb from sold him a white phosphorus grenade”—Kincaid took a moment to process it—“with intent to harm?”
“I am,” said Faith. “And who knows what else this bloke has or intends to do. In that case, we have a very big problem. I want you to find out who sold Matthew Quinn that grenade. When you do, I want you to liaise with SO15.”
“Sir,” Kincaid said.
“You’ll let me know what you learn from Quinn senior.”
“Yes, sir.” Kincaid stood, taking that as a dismissal. He was already running the possibilities through his mind. “I’ll get on it.”
