Forcing herself to unclench her hands, Melody tried to speak more calmly. “I told you I hadn’t been in to work this weekend, and no one’s rung me. Do you know what churchyard, or where he was taken to hospital? Was he—was he”—she swallowed hard— “shot?”
“I don’t know.” Ivan put the champagne he’d been holding back into the ice bucket and came over to her, placing a large, cold hand on her shoulder. “It just came across the news desk. I told them not to run it without more information. Do you want me to see what else I can find out?”
“Oh. No, Dad, but thanks.” The last thing she wanted was for Ivan to stick his newspaperman’s nose into police business—or for Ivan to do anything that might make their connection public. “I was just . . .” She swallowed again, then managed, “Curious.”
Her mother looked unconvinced. “You really do look quite peaky, Melody. You should take more care of yourself. I always said this police job was a bad idea. And after what happened to you—”
“Mummy,” Melody broke in. “Excuse me for a minute, okay? I have to make a phone call.” Before her mother could protest, Melody walked outside. There was a swatch of perfect green lawn beside the rectangular lily pond, but she kept going until she reached the bottom of the property. Her parents had built an outdoor fireplace into the stone wall at the very back, with two chairs and a small table. It was their favorite place to enjoy a drink on chilly evenings. Today, however, the sun beat down with full force, reflecting searing sunlight from the stone underfoot. Melody felt exposed, as if the rays might reveal her very bones.
She pulled her mobile from her pocket. But then she hesitated, her finger poised over the keypad. Her first instinct had been to call Doug. Childs had been his boss, too, as well as Duncan’s.
But . . . no. She had left her peace offering for Doug, and she couldn’t bear to be rejected again. Nor was it her place to tell him. That should fall to Duncan.
Moving her finger, she touched the most familiar number on her phone screen. Gemma.
Kincaid hadn’t believed it when Gemma told him. It had taken a call to Tom Faith, who’d informed him that what Melody had said was unfortunately true. Denis Childs had apparently been set upon in the churchyard of St. James Clerkenwell sometime the previous evening, and was now in the Royal London Hospital’s traumatic brain injury ward with a severe head injury. Faith didn’t know more than that, and was planning to go to hospital himself.
“I’ll meet you there,” Kincaid said, and it was not until he’d rung off that he realized he’d just told Gemma he would stay with the children while she went out with MacKenzie.
“Go,” Gemma told him. “I’ll work something out.”
As he drove across north London, he replayed last night’s meeting over and over. Why had Denis been so cagey about the pub, choosing a place where neither of them would be recognized? Had he been afraid he was being followed? And if that were true and someone had trailed him to the Duke, had they seen Kincaid, too?
He frowned as he passed St. Pancras Station. As if he needed a reminder of Ryan Marsh. It had been Marsh who had helped Melody Talbot aid the victims of an exploding white phosphorous grenade in the station concourse. It had been Marsh who’d thought he might have been the intended target, Marsh who’d feared that he was being watched or followed by someone within the force itself. But Marsh was dead. And Denis Childs was lying in hospital after voicing the same sort of conspiracy hints.
If Denis was being followed, was Kincaid putting himself at risk by being seen to have a further connection?
Swearing, Kincaid slammed on the brakes to avoid running a red light. The hot exhaust fumes rolling in the open windows of the old Astra were making him feel woozy and he shook his head to clear it. He was being bloody paranoid. Bonkers.
Surely Denis had been attacked by a random mugger. And of course he should visit him. The man had been his boss and his colleague for years.
Glancing in the rearview mirror, he glimpsed Charlotte’s car seat in the back and felt a sudden shiver of cold in spite of the heat of the day. What if, just if, he wasn’t crazy? He had his family to think of.
He had to know more. He had to talk to Denis if he could. There was too much at stake for him to just stick his head in the sand and hope he was imagining things.
MacKenzie’s husband, Bill, once again came to the child-minding rescue. But Charlotte, already disappointed by Kincaid’s abrupt and unexpected departure, clung to Gemma’s legs and cried when Gemma took her into the Williamses’ house. It had taken some coaxing on Gemma’s part before she agreed to go outside and swing in the garden with Toby and Oliver.
“I’m so sorry,” Gemma said to MacKenzie as they got in the car. “Bill’s a saint to put up with a sniffling three-year-old.”
“That never happens at our house,” MacKenzie answered with a grin, then sobered. “And he needed a break. He’s been working nonstop trying to book another model and reschedule the catalog shoot.” She made a rueful face. “That seems awfully callous, doesn’t it, to be inconvenienced by Reagan’s death? But it’s not just the models—there are loads of people to reschedule, and we had to find a new venue. The one we had booked yesterday was only available for the day. Bill’s been pulling his hair out.”
“Fortunately, life goes on,” Gemma said. “You can’t feel guilty about it.” She drove back past her own house and turned right into Clarendon Road.
“You would know, I suppose,” MacKenzie said slowly. “I’d never given it that much thought—that you have to deal with families of victims. I don’t know how you do it.”
Gemma glanced at her friend before she spoke. “I won’t say it gets easier. But, often, people want to talk. So you give them the opportunity. It helps them.”
“I have no idea what to say to Reagan’s mother. I’ve never met her, and it’s been hard enough talking to Nita.”
“The words will come. And the important thing is that you’ve made the effort.” Slowing, Gemma turned into Blenheim Crescent. “We should have walked,” she said, eyeing the parked cars lining both sides of the street. But, miraculously, she spied a gap and in a few moments had squeezed the Escort into it.
This was familiar territory, just north of Kitchen and Pantry on the corner at Elgin Crescent, and their friend Otto’s café on Elgin Crescent, too, nearer Portobello Road. A 52 bus barreled past on Kensington Park Road, but Blenheim Crescent itself was quiet, as if the residents were napping after their Sunday dinners.
“It’s back this way,” MacKenzie said when they got out, gesturing towards the north side of the street. She touched Gemma’s arm, halting her. “I keep thinking . . . what if it was Oliver . . .”
“You mustn’t.” Giving her a quick hug, Gemma didn’t add that there was nothing she dreaded more than talking to parents who had lost a child. “Now, which house?” she asked, determinedly cheerful.