Shifting the squirming kitten to his other shoulder, Kit glanced at his watch. “It’s just that I’ve a history exam to study for, and I promised some mates from school I’d meet them at Starbucks this afternoon.” He disentangled sharp little claws from his shirt and Jack gave a meow of protest. “Oh,” Kit added as he turned back towards the house, “you do remember that Toby has ballet in half an hour, and Charlotte is supposed to go to MacKenzie’s?”
Gemma glanced down at her dirty hands, her jeans and sweaty T-shirt, and said, “Bugger.”
Kincaid looked from the interior glass window of his office in Holborn Police Station into the CID room, momentarily empty in the lunchtime lull. Staff had been in and out during the morning, but his team were all off for the weekend, pending any new cases, and for a Saturday the Borough of Camden seemed relatively calm.
He’d edited his report on the Camden shooting a half dozen times, changing a word here and a word there, only too well aware he was wasting time. The prints of the crime scene photos lay at the bottom of the file folder, untouched. What kind of a cop was he, unable to look at a gunshot wound?
His mobile lay on the too-tidy surface of his desk. Reaching out, he touched it, then adjusted its alignment with the blotter by a millimeter before drawing his hand back. He knew he should call Gemma, but the longer he put it off the harder it got. What would he say?
Maybe he would just pick up flowers on the way home. Clichéd, yes, but perhaps a bouquet and a “sorry” would suffice.
And the kids? He grimaced. He couldn’t bear the thought of Charlotte’s disappointment. Disgusted with himself, he stood and slipped his mobile into his pocket. It was time he behaved like a proper father. And a proper husband. Maybe he could still keep his promise to the kids.
He’d grabbed his jacket from the clothes hook and closed his office door behind him when Detective Chief Superintendent Thomas Faith came striding into the CID room. Tall and thin, with fair hair going gray and a clipped mustache, his governor wore even his Saturday civvies like a uniform.
“Duncan,” said Faith, “glad I caught you. The desk sergeant said you were here.”
“Just going, sir.” Kincaid wished he’d made his escape a moment sooner.
But Faith didn’t look like a man with an urgent mission. “Good work on the case,” he said. “The DAC will be pleased.”
The deputy assistant commissioner, Crime, had been taking all the murder investigation teams to task on their clear-up rates recently. Kincaid understood the politics and the numbers crunching, but he also knew that too much emphasis on targets encouraged sloppy policing. And now, with the things that had happened—
Faith interrupted his thoughts. “Tell your team a job well done. And I’ll be sure to mention it to your former governor when I see him.”
“Sir?” Kincaid looked at him, puzzled. His former boss, Detective Chief Superintendent Denis Childs, had taken personal leave from Scotland Yard in February, after requesting Kincaid’s transfer to the Borough of Camden’s murder investigation team at Holborn Police Station in central London. And not only had Childs offered Kincaid no explanation for his decision, he hadn’t answered any of Kincaid’s subsequent attempts to communicate.
“Oh, I assumed you knew.” Faith looked as surprised as Kincaid felt. “Chief Superintendent Childs is back on the job.”
Gemma had managed to change into a cream-colored summer blouse, but had to make do with dusting off the knees of her jeans and splashing her flushed face with cold water.
If she’d had her wits about her, she’d have walked both children to their destinations, but now, pressed for time, she bundled them into her little Ford Escort. The car had been sitting in the sun and the seat was hot enough to sear the backs of her thighs.
Their friend MacKenzie Williams lived just up the road, in a house with a deep blue door, tucked away behind a high garden wall. Roses bloomed all round it, and it looked more like a fairy-tale cottage than the typical Victorian Notting Hill villa. As Gemma pulled up, MacKenzie and Oliver came to the gate to meet them.
“Stay in the car,” Gemma warned Toby as she unbuckled Charlotte from her child seat.
“But I want to see Bouncer,” protested Toby. Bouncer was the gray tabby kitten they had given to the Williamses, one of the four Kit and Toby had rescued from the shed in their communal garden back in March.
“Toby, do you want to dance or not?” Gemma asked as Charlotte climbed from her seat and jumped to the pavement with a resounding smack.
“Ye-es,” Toby said after a moment’s silence, subsiding into his seat.
Charlotte tugged on Gemma’s hand. “Mummy, can I go?”
“Of course, lovey. You mind MacKenzie, now.” Gemma gave her daughter a kiss, then a farewell pat on the bottom as Charlotte ran to join Oliver at the gate.
MacKenzie ruffled Charlotte’s cloud of caramel-colored hair. Then, nodding towards the car, she said softly, “Is that a changeling you have there? Where is the Boy of a Thousand Arguments?”
Gemma grinned and rolled her eyes. “There are miracles, apparently. Thanks to you.”
It was MacKenzie who was responsible for Toby’s newfound interest in ballet. Her son, Oliver, was Charlotte’s best friend at school. MacKenzie had taken Charlotte and Toby to visit Oliver’s tots’ ballet class. Charlotte had been unimpressed, although she’d fancied a tutu. Toby, however, had been absolutely smitten. A trip to the Royal Ballet with MacKenzie had cemented his determination to do what he’d seen on the stage. But when Gemma had begun to explore lessons, she’d been horrified both by the lack of nearby classes for boys and by the cost of the general classes that were available.
“Take him to the Tabernacle,” MacKenzie had suggested when Gemma discussed it with her.
“The Tabernacle has ballet?” Gemma asked, surprised. The round redbrick building on Powis Square had a long history in Notting Hill, first as a church, then as a counterculture mecca, and now as a community center and the headquarters of the Notting Hill Carnival. It had a garden, a full service café, an art gallery—and, apparently, dance classes.
“There’s a ballet school during the week,” MacKenzie had told her. “And Portobello Dance on Saturdays. Portobello Dance is first-rate training, there are lots of boys in the classes, and it’s very reasonable.”
MacKenzie had, as usual, been right. There were two other boys in his class, and the instructor was male, a celebrated professional dancer and choreographer.
Now, as Gemma hunted for a place to park on Powis Square, Toby began to fidget. “I don’t want to be late. Mr. Charles will say something.”
Toby, who had never minded being scolded, took any correction from the gentle-voiced teacher seriously.
“All right,” said Gemma, pulling up in front of the center’s wrought-iron gates. “You go on in. Don’t forget your bag.” She watched until Toby had disappeared into the building, then went to find a spot for the car.