Gemma had not figured out why a ten-year-old required a full-time nanny, but she didn’t interrupt.
“But I didn’t want to poach on Nita’s territory—she can be a bit touchy—so I asked her first and she said it was fine. After that Reagan began coming for an hour or two a couple of mornings a week, when Jess was at school. Watching her with Oliver, I started thinking that she might be a real find for the catalog. She wasn’t turn-your-head pretty, you know? But there was something about her—a . . . a sort of . . . freshness.”
When MacKenzie paused, Gemma refilled her glass once more, then topped up her own. The moisture on the bottle felt cool under her fingers, and a breeze lifted the hair on the back of her neck. She shivered, suddenly chilled, but MacKenzie, intent on her thoughts, didn’t see it.
“She has—had—the most marvelous skin. It seemed to glow. And there was always a sort of sparkle to her . . .” MacKenzie faltered, shaking her head. “We were supposed to do a shoot this afternoon, after you picked up Charlotte. That’s how I found out what had”—her voice failed and she swallowed again—“had happened. I kept trying to call her this morning. When I didn’t hear back from her I called Nita, and she—she said . . .”
“You said Reagan was found under a tree. Tell me exactly what happened.” Gemma heard a dog bark, and distant voices. There were people now in the dappled shade at the far end of the garden.
“I only know what Nita told me. One of Nita’s neighbors was out walking in the garden just after sunup,” said MacKenzie. “She found her—Reagan—and called the police. Nita didn’t know anything had happened. She had a yoga class. When she got home, she checked on Jess, but he and Reagan were both gone. She thought Reagan had taken him somewhere, maybe to K and P for breakfast. Then she saw all the commotion in the garden, but before she could ask what had happened, the police came to her door. The neighbor had recognized Reagan, but Nita had to identify her bod—” MacKenzie stopped and drained her glass, but shook her head when Gemma offered her the bit left in the bottle.
“That must have been awful,” Gemma said. “Was Reagan”—she’d started to say assaulted but tried for something a little gentler—“hurt?”
“Not that Nita could see. She was wearing the dress she’d gone out in last night.”
Gemma frowned. “The garden is gated, right?”
“Yes. There’s only the one entrance other than through the residences.”
“Nita didn’t see her come home last night?”
“No. She said she took a sleeping pill. She does sometimes, when she has to get up early.”
“What about Jess? Did he see her when she came in last night?”
“Nita said he went to bed early.”
“Hmm.” If Jess’s mum had been asleep and Reagan had been out, Gemma thought it highly unlikely that an unsupervised ten-year-old had gone willingly to sleep. She thought over her conversation with the boy earlier in the day. He hadn’t seemed as if he had anything other than dancing on his mind, and she hadn’t sensed any guile in his manner. But if his mum had been looking frantically for him since she’d learned of Reagan’s death, where had he been before he came to the ballet studio? “What about this morning?” she asked. “Where was Jess?”
“I don’t know,” answered MacKenzie. “He refused to say.”
In the end, Kincaid told Gemma part of the truth.
That was what the lawyers always advised their clients—tell the truth as far as possible.
He’d worried over what to do all through his outing to the park with the children, and then through dinner, glancing surreptitiously at the anonymous text when no one was looking. He’d caught Gemma watching him as he pushed his food around on his plate, but she hadn’t said anything in front of the children.
At seven o’clock sharp he carried his plate to the sink and told the children to go play in the sitting room.
“You only want to get rid of us when you want to have a conversation,” said Kit. “But it means I don’t have to do the washing up. I’ll be in my room.” A moment later his footsteps clattered on the stairs.
“What—” Gemma began, when they had the kitchen to themselves, but he interrupted her.
“I’m sorry, love, but I’ve got to go out for a bit.”
“Now?” She frowned. “Is it work?”
“I’m not sure.” That, at least, was honest. “I got a text this afternoon from an unfamiliar number.” He took his phone from his pocket and showed her the text.
Gemma had risen and begun clearing the table, but she stopped, crockery in her arms, and studied the phone. “The Duke? You’re not seriously thinking of going?”
“Well, I thought I would just see—”
“You have no idea who this is from?” She looked up at him, the frown deepening. “And where the hell is Roger Street?”
He had, in fact, replied, “Who is this?” to the text, but hadn’t been surprised when he didn’t get an answer. “It’s in Holborn. Not far from the station.”
“Someone from work, then?”
“It’s possible,” he said cautiously. He wasn’t going to mention going to the Yard, or the fact that the text had come in just as soon as he’d left Denis Childs’s office. Had someone seen him there?
“Have you been to this pub?” asked Gemma, putting the plates in the sink with a clunk and picking up a dishcloth.
“Never heard of it until today. Most of us go to the pubs round Lamb’s Conduit Street. The Lamb, or the Rugby.”
“It has to be someone who has your number.”
Trust Gemma to be logical. “True. Probably someone from work playing a prank, but I won’t know unless I go.” He thought he sounded believably casual, but Gemma gave him a thoughtful look over her shoulder. She’d been drinking wine with MacKenzie Williams when he came in, and now she looked flushed and slightly pink with sunburn.
“If I didn’t know you better,” she said with a half smile, “I’d think you were looking for an excuse to spend Saturday night drinking pints with the blokes.”
Just then Toby shouted from the sitting room, “Begone, thy evil scum!” There was a squeal, and Charlotte began to wail.
Gemma rolled her eyes. “Can’t say that I’d blame you.” Handing him the dishcloth, she left the room and came back a moment later with Charlotte, tear-streaked and sniffling, on her hip. “I’ve sent Toby to his room. That’s your cue, I think. Go while the going’s good. But take the tube, not the car. And I expect to hear all about it when you get home.”
Permission granted, Kincaid thought, and he didn’t know whether he should feel relieved or worried.
He’d had to wait for the train from Holland Park to Holborn. The delay had made him pushed to reach the pub by eight o’clock, and when he turned into Theobald’s Road, the darkening sky to the east made it seem even later.