Taking a breath and giving her a slightly shaky smile, MacKenzie led her a few doors back. The sun glinted off the parked cars, making Gemma narrow her eyes against the glare.
MacKenzie stopped, nodding towards a house midway down the terrace. “This one.”
Unlike its more colorful pastel neighbors on either side, the house was a pale gray with a glossy black door. And unlike some of its neighbors, the house was not divided into flats. Steps led down to a barred basement area, and up to the front door. The curtains were open in the ground-floor bay window, and Gemma realized she could see straight through the rooms and into the garden at the back.
“Notting Hill vanity,” whispered MacKenzie, following her gaze. “If you have a garden house or flat, you want people to know it.”
“It must be like living in a goldfish bowl,” Gemma said, although she guessed that most families spent their time in the usual basement kitchen/sitting areas rather than in the more formal first-floor rooms.
They climbed the steps, the sun hot on their backs, and MacKenzie rang the single bell.
The woman who opened the door wore expensive exercise clothes, yoga bottoms and a fitted T-shirt, the sort of thing that Gemma couldn’t afford and wouldn’t have time to wear if she could. She was thin, with an angular face that was striking rather than pretty, and wore her light brown hair in a feathered collar-length cut. “MacKenzie,” she said, drawing them into the entrance hall and skimming MacKenzie’s cheek with an air kiss. “Thank you for coming. Reagan’s mum is here,” she added more softly as she closed the front door. “I’m feeling a bit desperate.” Gemma saw that under the flawless makeup her eyes were red-rimmed and puffy.
“Nita, this is my friend Gemma James,” MacKenzie told her. “I thought she might be able to help. Gemma, Nita Cusick.”
Nita took Gemma’s hand in a firm, dry clasp. “That’s good of you,” she said to Gemma. “Any help is appreciated. Did you know Reagan?”
“No, I’m afraid I didn’t.” Gemma was about to add that she’d met Nita’s son the previous day, but Nita was already opening the door into the sitting room.
Entering behind her, Gemma’s first impression was that she had stepped straight into a bower. The room’s sofas and armchairs were covered in a pale lemony yellow floral, a pattern that was repeated on the walls but in more neutral tones. Scattered vases held bunches of white hydrangeas. Light poured in from the large windows overlooking the rear garden.
But any exclamation of pleasure Gemma might have made was stopped by the sight of the woman sitting in the corner of one of the long sofas. In Nita Cusick’s elegant sitting room she seemed as out of place as a dandelion in a hothouse. She was, Gemma guessed, not much older than Nita, but her clothes were ordinary and there were threads of gray in her dark hair. If she had worn any makeup it was long gone, and her face was swollen and blotched from weeping.
“Gwen,” said Nita, “this is my friend MacKenzie Williams. And her friend Gemma—”
“I’m Gemma James,” broke in Gemma, having seen the blank look on Nita’s face. “I’m very sorry for your loss, Mrs. Keating.”
Gwen Keating nodded at Gemma, but all her attention was on MacKenzie. “Mrs. Williams,” she said. “Reagan talked and talked about you. She thought you and Mr. Williams hung the moon.” Her voice was soft, her accent lightly Welsh.
“Oh, we thought she was wonderful, too.” MacKenzie, her eyes brimming with tears, sat down beside her on the sofa and took her hand. “I’m so sorry. I still can’t really believe it.”
“Did you know my daughter?” Gwen Keating asked, looking up at Gemma. When Gemma shook her head, Gwen pulled a crumpled catalog from her handbag. “Here. Look. She said Mr. Williams loved the way she photographed.”
Sitting down on her other side, Gemma took the catalog. It had been folded open to a photo of a dark-haired young woman sitting on a brick wall. She wore jeans and an Ollie signature floral print shirt, and looked into the camera with an engaging half smile. Gemma recognized the picture—she had the same catalog at home somewhere in her kitchen. “Oh, I’ve seen her. She’s lovely,” she murmured, gazing at the photo, and realizing only as she spoke that she’d used the present tense. The girl radiated vitality—it seemed impossible that she was dead.
Gently, she pressed the catalog back into Gwen Keating’s hands. Nodding, Gwen hugged the catalog to her chest with one hand and raised the other to her chapped lips.
Gemma looked round, hoping for tissues and a glass of water for the grieving woman, but the adjacent coffee table held nothing but a low bowl of white roses, their scent strong in the warm room. Nita Cusick hadn’t joined them, but stood near the door, looking as if she might bolt at any moment.
“Nita,” she said, “I wonder if Gwen might like a cup of tea? I’d be glad to make it.”
“Oh. Of course.” Nita looked so surprised that Gemma wondered if people in her social set didn’t drink tea. “Right. I’ll just pop down and put it together.”
“Let me help,” Gemma offered, standing.
For a moment she thought Nita might refuse, but then Nita nodded and said, “Thanks.”
Gemma gave MacKenzie an encouraging smile as she followed Nita back into the central hall, where an elegant staircase led up and a slightly narrower one on the left led down.
“The kitchen’s this way,” Nita tossed over her shoulder as she started down.
Reaching the bottom, Gemma stepped down onto a stone-flagged floor and looked round with interest. Like the sitting room upstairs, the room stretched from the front of the house to the back. And like the wallpaper upstairs, the room was done in soft neutral tones, but here there was no pattern. The street windows were covered in tailored shades, but the large back windows were exposed. They framed the view so that the outside scene might almost have been a painted mural, and the reflected greenish light gave an underwater cast to the room.
The kitchen fittings were obviously bespoke and, Gemma suspected, very, very expensive.
“It’s Wilkinson and Barley. The kitchen furniture,” said Nita, who had turned and seen Gemma running a finger along the edge of the marble-topped center island.
“Oh, yes, I know it,” responded Gemma. She had indeed seen the Notting Hill showroom, but that didn’t mean she had ever been inside it.
“They’re my clients.”
Gemma must have looked slightly at sea, because Nita went on, “My firm’s clients. I do public relations and marketing for them.”
“It’s beautiful. Really lovely,” said Gemma, making an effort to redeem herself. And it was, but the room didn’t look as if anyone ever cooked in it, and in her opinion it cried out for at least a spot of color.