“Here’s how I know,” I continued. “There is a clock on the wall behind my right shoulder. I can hear it ticking. You’ve glanced over my right shoulder exactly six times during this interview, which tells me you have somewhere to go. It’s past five thirty at night, and Gloria died four days ago. You’ve likely put in long hours since her murder. If you’re looking at the clock, you’re likely expecting your first evening off since her death. And you’re doing something you’re very much looking forward to.”
He opened his mouth to speak, but I interrupted him and went on. “You aren’t going out with friends for a pint, or going home alone. You’re going to see someone important, someone who matters. That means a woman.” I nodded toward his left hand. “You don’t wear a wedding ring, so you haven’t married her, at least not yet. But she isn’t a casual girlfriend, either, judging by your anticipation. That leaves a fiancée.” I looked into his eyes again. “Does that answer your question?”
His expression had gone very hard and his jaw was flexing. “Very well,” he said tightly. “You may go.”
I pushed my chair back and stood, but as I turned to leave he spoke to me again.
“Miss Winter. Did Gloria have contact with her family that you know of?”
I turned back to him. The tightness in his jaw was gone, but his expression gave nothing away.
“No,” I replied.
“How many brothers did she have?”
“Four. Three died in the war.”
“And her parents?”
He must have known this already. “Her mother is dead and her father is in a home. He’s lost his faculties.”
“What were her brothers’ names?”
“Harry, Colin, and Tommy. George is still alive.”
“And what is the name of my fiancée?”
“Jillian.”
We both stopped. The air in the room seemed to turn itself inside out, become something unbreathable.
“Very interesting,” Inspector Merriken said.
Anger flushed through me and I stood frozen, staring at him.
“Misdirection,” he said softly. “A useful trick. If you can use it, then so can I.”
“Am I right?”
“You know you are.” He shook his head. His voice carried a hint of admiration, but no wonder or shock, and again I was curious about exactly how he had come across the paranormal before. I suspected it was an interesting story. “You almost had me, you know. That was a clever move, making me angry.”
I hesitated. “The glass of water,” I admitted. “It came to me when you handed it to me.”
His fingertip had barely touched mine, and yet it had come so clear, like a rush of water. No pain, just a flow of information, my powers working just as they always had. And they had been right.
He seemed to accept my explanation. “Did you get anything else?”
“She has dark hair,” I said. “And she drives you crazy, and the last time you kissed her she tasted like apples. As for the rest of what you’re thinking about, I’ll only say it’s a good thing you’re going to marry her.” I watched his expression and shrugged. “It was in your mind—sorry. I can’t always help what I pick up.”
“I’ll be damned,” he said softly. “That’s a very good trick. But for God’s sake, please don’t repeat any of that.”
“I never do,” I said, and turned and left to meet Davies.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
By the time I arrived at Marlatt’s Café, out of breath and my hat askew, I was thirteen minutes late. It wasn’t much, but I didn’t trust Davies to wait.
The café was a little closet-size spot in the warren of streets and alleys of Soho, run by a tiny man with nut brown skin whom everyone assumed was Marlatt. The place specialized in coffee that was painfully strong, served in an atmosphere in which you practically rubbed knees with the person at the table next to you, and there was a blue-tinged fug of cigarette smoke that never dissipated day or night. Gloria had loved the coffee here, but she’d said the place was like a great-grandmother’s closet, and smelled worse.
I pushed open the frosted door, nearly bumping into the back of an old man who sat smoking at one of the tables, and squinted into the gloom. At the counter in the back corner stood Marlatt. He was wiping it down with an oily rag and did not look up at my entrance.
I looked around frantically. The old man I’d almost collided with was the only patron in the place. Davies was nowhere to be seen. My stomach sank. She had left—if she had ever kept her word and come here at all.
Marlatt was looking at me now, his dark eyes incurious. He was Turkish, we thought, something over fifty, his black hair combed back and slicked down on his head. He picked up a teacup and slowly polished it with his rag.
“Excuse me,” I said as politely as I could, considering how hard my heart was thumping in my chest. I stepped to the back counter. “Was Miss Davies just here?”
Marlatt frowned at me and shrugged, uncaring.
“Please,” I said. “I’m looking for her urgently. She was supposed to meet me. Was she here?”
“Sure,” Marlatt told me, though grudgingly. “Just a minute ago.”
“What happened?” I tried not to sound shrill. “Where did she go? Did she go home?”
“How do I know? I didn’t follow her.”
“Did she say anything? Please, it’s important.”
Marlatt shrugged again. “She didn’t say. I assume because she was following the fellow.”
I went cold.
“Fellow?”
“The fellow who came in here. Talked to her a few minutes only. Then they left.”
“Who was he? What did he look like?”
“How do I know?” Marlatt said again, annoyed now. Behind me, the door opened and someone else entered. “He looked like all the other fellows.”
“But have you seen him before? Was he—?”
“I didn’t know him,” Marlatt said, shooing me with his hands. “Now go away.”
“If you’re asking, I didn’t know him, either.”
I turned and saw the old man I’d almost bumped into, still sitting at a table by the door. He wore a rumpled suit and held a cigarette between two tobacco-stained fingers. He regarded me from under gray-white eyebrows of astonishing length.