“To hell with the noise,” Melody said aloud, then sneezed from the dust. And she liked the morning sun. Cranking open the casements, she let fresh air stream into the flat, and went out to shop.
Two hours later, she came back loaded with carrier bags. She’d bought bright cushions for the sofa from a stall under the Westway, and two original photo prints of Portobello Road that she thought were perfect for the window wall.
Then, olives and fresh bread, some cheese, fresh fish, vegetables, and a riotous armful of tulips.
She busied herself, putting away groceries, hammering and hanging, finding a vase for the flowers, and lastly, setting her small dining table with the china and crystal her mother had given her. Why, she wondered, had she never done this before? Even when Andy had stayed with her, they’d eaten pizza or fish and chips at the coffee table.
As a reward for her labors, she made herself a cup of tea and sat down to work on the garden-center list she was making for tomorrow morning’s shopping expedition with Doug. Although last weekend’s unseasonably hot weather hadn’t returned, it was clear and fine, and promised to continue so through the morrow. It would be perfect gardening weather.
When the flat bell buzzed, she started, nearly spilling her tea. She wasn’t expecting anyone and her heart thumped with the old panic. But when she went to the intercom, the fuzzy voice she heard was Duncan’s. Buzzing him up, she looked around a little wildly. He’d never been to her flat. No one, except Andy and her parents, had been to her flat, not even Doug.
When Kincaid pressed the flat bell a moment later, she unlatched the door and invited him in.
He stood just inside the sitting room, looking round with interest. “Nice place,” he said. “It suits you. And a great view.” He wore jeans and a cotton shirt, and looked a bit rumpled. Following her gaze, he picked a dried leaf from his hair. “Kids,” he said in explanation. “Charlotte and I went to the park. Look, Melody, I’m sorry to intrude like this. But I have a few minutes before I have to pick Toby up from dance, and I’d been wanting a chance to talk.”
“No, it’s fine. Please, sit down,” she blurted out, embarrassed at her lack of manners.
He took the single armchair, but sat on the edge, looking tall, and for Duncan, unusually awkward.
“Can I get you something?” Melody asked. “Tea? Some lemonade?”
“No, really, I won’t keep you but a minute. I just wanted to say thank you. For speaking to your father.”
Melody knew that Deputy Assistant Commissioner Trent was being questioned on multiple counts, although it looked as though the prosecution might focus at least their initial charges on the crime with the most likelihood of direct physical evidence—the murder of Detective Constable Sheila Hawkins in 1994.
Tissue had been collected from under Hawkins’s fingernails, but investigators had not tested Evelyn Trent for a match at that time. Trent’s DNA had now been sampled, and considering the things Trent had said to Denis in the hospital room, a positive result was likely.
“You gave us insurance,” Kincaid said. “It will be months, perhaps years, before we know who else was under her influence, what strings she might have pulled. Without the paper’s involvement . . . I hate to think what might have happened, to all of us.”
Melody nodded, unsure what to say. She could imagine all too well, but she still wasn’t ready to talk about it.
“How’s Andy?” Kincaid asked, gesturing at the dining table. “Somehow I thought he was still on tour.”
“Oh. He is. In Norway at the moment, I think.”
Andy had rung her, finally, on Thursday night. He’d had his phone stolen in Hanover, he said, and with the tour schedule, it had been a bitch to get a new one. And, he’d said, sounding nervous, the tour had been extended for at least a few more weeks, maybe more.
“It’s all right,” Melody had told him. And it was. She’d realized she needed time. Time to work things out for herself, to see who she might be when she wasn’t worrying about anyone else’s expectations—or rebelling against them.
Now, seeing Kincaid’s confused glance at the dining table, she laughed. “I do have a dinner date, if that’s what you’re wondering. Hazel Cavendish said we should get together, so I invited her.”
“Oh, good,” he said, and she could tell he was relieved that he hadn’t stumbled into a secret affair. “Give her our love. We should get together with her soon, ourselves.” He stood. “Well, I won’t keep you.”
But when she walked him to the door, he hesitated, then said, “Melody, I’m not sure if this is the right thing to do. But when I went to Ryan’s island, I found this.” Reaching into his jeans pocket, he pulled out a neatly folded square of blue cloth. “I thought,” he added as he handed it to her, “that you might like to have it.”
Melody took it. Even before she unfolded the cloth, she knew what it was. She smoothed Ryan’s blue bandanna with her fingers.
“Yes,” she whispered. “I would. And thank you.”
Kate Ling had done a wrong thing for a right reason, Gemma thought as she drove back through Kensington. Would she make peace with herself, eventually? Gemma wondered. She hoped so.
But thinking about Kate brought her no closer to knowing whether she, too, had done a wrong thing for a right reason.
MacKenzie Williams had rung her as she was leaving the hospital. MacKenzie had been devastated by the outcome of the investigation into Reagan Keating’s death. She’d felt responsible for getting Gemma involved, and betrayed and disgusted by the fact that the woman she’d considered a friend could have done such a terrible thing. And, like Gemma, she was worried about Jess.
“Let me keep the kids tonight,” MacKenzie offered. “To make up. You and Duncan go out somewhere nice. You need a break, just the two of you.”
Gemma had to agree. She and Duncan had talked, but they’d either been interrupted by domestic crises, or were too exhausted to do more than brush the surface. She understood now why he’d kept things from her, understood why he’d turned to Doug and Melody for help rather than to her, but that understanding had not dissolved the barrier that had grown up between them. She could feel it, just like she could feel her resentment, a hard knot in her chest.
As she reached Notting Hill Gate, she glanced at the car clock. Toby’s ballet class was finished and Duncan would have picked him up. The children would be home. There were chores to be done, and then the shopping. And the small matter of deciding what she would wear to dinner.
But there was something more important she had to do first.