She had, she saw, missed calls from MacKenzie Williams and from Chief Superintendent Marc Lamb, both wanting an update on the case. MacKenzie apologized profusely for having got her into the mess and then buggered off, as she put it, but they’d had a hell of a time rescheduling the catalog shoot.
Gemma didn’t return either call. She made the children omelets and salad, which they ate with oven chips that Kit had made from scratch. Kit had come into the kitchen with Captain Jack draped over his shoulders like a fur collar.
How had the kittens got so big, so fast? Gemma wondered. With his piratical swagger and lightning reflexes, the black-and-white kitten was living up to his name. “Watch out, he’ll scratch you,” she said.
“No, he won’t— Ow.” Laughing, Kit detached the kitten, put him down, and watched him shoot out of the kitchen, tail in the air.
“Where’s Dad?” he’d asked after a bit, cutting potatoes.
Gemma had had a text from Kincaid that said only, “Still at station. Home ASAP.” That left a lot of leeway, she thought. “Working,” she said to Kit.
“Poor Dad,” Kit said, surprising her. “Is he all right? Is he just worried about Granddad?”
The question caught Gemma completely unprepared. “I—I’m sure he’s fine, Kit. Just juggling too many things at once, I think.”
“I wish we could spend more time with them, Granddad and Nana Rosemary,” Kit said. Kit, who had lost so much, adored the grandparents discovered so late in his childhood.
“We will. We’ll plan a visit when school’s out, what do you say?” She realized as she spoke just how much she would like to do that. “Although you three will have to promise not to wear Hugh out.”
Kit went on slicing potatoes with precision. “He is all right, isn’t he?”
“He’s fine, sweetie. Lots of people have stents in. He just needs to rest up for a bit.”
It only occurred to her afterwards, when she was doing the washing up, that she wasn’t sure if Kit had been referring to his granddad, or to his dad.
When she’d given Charlotte her bath and tucked her into bed, then instructed Toby to hop in the tub and wash everything, she went back downstairs and poured herself a glass of wine. She desperately needed to talk to someone.
It was Duncan who had always been her sounding board, who might be able to help her decide what to do. He would tell her if she was daft for even thinking she knew what had happened. But he wasn’t there. Hadn’t been there for a good while, in fact.
So she sat alone at the kitchen table, sipping her wine, and marshaling her argument. Then she picked up her phone and rang Kerry Boatman.
Kincaid thought back to the day of the grenade in St. Pancras. By the time he and his team arrived from Holborn, Nick Callery was already on the scene, representing SO15. He’d told Kincaid he’d happened to be nearby when the call came in. He explained this to Doug and Melody, then said, “But what if he was already in the station? What if Callery knew there was going to be a demonstration, and that they meant to set off a smoke bomb?”
“You think SO15 was running Ryan? And Callery was Ryan’s handler?” Doug asked.
“I suppose it’s possible.” Kincaid lifted his half-pint absently and found it empty. “But, surely, Matthew Quinn’s little group can’t have been perceived as that much of a threat.”
Without a word, Doug scooped up all three of their glasses and dodged his way to the bar. The pub was filling up.
“How’s your dad?” Melody asked Kincaid. “I was sorry to hear he was ill. I didn’t have a chance to say, before.”
With dismay, Kincaid realized he’d gone another day without checking on his parents. “He’s doing fine, thanks,” he said, making a mental note to ring as soon as he had a bit of quiet. “Melody,” he went on, “could you possibly find out who had financial interests in the properties involved in Matthew Quinn’s antidevelopment protests? We know, obviously, that his father did, but Lindsay Quinn is not the only shareholder in King’s Cross Development. And I’d still like to know why your father was hinting about Denis’s ‘checkered past.’”
Doug returned with two carefully balanced half-pints and a glass of white wine for Melody. He took up where’d he left the conversation. “If Callery was Ryan’s handler, he must have been pissing himself when he thought Ryan had died in that blast.”
“Even if Ryan was working for the counterterror spooks,” put in Melody, “it doesn’t explain why he had photos of Callery, instead of the other way round.”
“No,” Kincaid agreed. He didn’t say that neither did it explain why Ryan had been so afraid that the grenade was meant for him that he’d gone into hiding. Or what any of the St. Pancras debacle had to do with Angus Craig. Or why Ryan was dead.
What was Ryan Marsh’s connection with Michael Stanton? And if Stanton had attacked Denis, had it been personal—an old grudge acted on, perhaps—or had someone told him to do it? And who the hell had knifed Stanton and thrown him in the Regent’s Canal?
He remembered suddenly the phone call that afternoon from Ronnie Babcock. “Frank Fletcher,” he said to Doug and Melody. “Does that ring any bells?” When they shook their heads, he relayed what Ronnie had told him about the former Met officer who’d mumbled about wild police conspiracies when he was in his cups.
“Another convenient suicide?” asked Doug.
Kincaid shrugged. “Ronnie said he was drinking a lot—out of control, from Ronnie’s description. Could have been an accident, I suppose, in that case. Or a genuine suicide if the chap thought he was losing it. I didn’t ask Ronnie to look further. Just in case someone reported him nosing around.”
Doug and Melody exchanged a look and he wondered if they thought he’d gone completely round the bend. “Well, I might as well have a look,” said Doug. “Seeing as how I’ve already been poking wasps’ nests.”
“Just do it carefully, then.” The light slanting in through the pub’s slatted shades was softening. Kincaid realized it was getting late. “Speaking of drinking—” he lifted his beer and finished it. “Thanks. My shout next time. I’ve got to dash.”
He left Ryan’s camera and the memory card with Doug, who said he’d go through the photos on his laptop and see if he could come up with anything more useful. It wasn’t until Kincaid walked out of the pub that he realized he’d done just what Ryan had done the day he’d left the camera with Medhi Atias. He told himself not to be stupid. He wasn’t walking into a demonstration that could very likely go wrong.