And Justice There Is None (14 page)

“I congratulate you on your math, Superintendent.”

“And has either of them followed in their father’s footsteps?”

“If by that you mean the antiques trade, no. They both work in the City. Richard’s in insurance. Sean’s in banking.”

“Could you give me their addresses? Just routine,” he added, seeing her instant wariness. No point in getting the wind up her any more than necessary at this point.

When she had complied, with obvious reluctance, he thanked her and they said good-bye.

“If one of the sons did it, they’d have to have known, or at least suspected, that Karl hadn’t made any provision for them,” Gemma observed when they were back in the car. “And what about Marianne Hoffman?”

“Maybe he left money to her, too,” Kincaid suggested, and Gemma gave him a quelling look. “Okay, that’s a bit far-fetched, I admit. But I think it’s certainly worthwhile having a word with Arrowood’s sons.”

By the winter of 1961, Angel could hardly remember a time when she hadn’t been friends with Betty and Ronnie. Although Ronnie, she had to admit, had seemed different since he’d turned sixteen and left school. For one thing, he’d started referring to her and Betty as “little girls”; for another, he’d stopped listening to American pop music with them and started talking a lot of high-sounding nonsense about jazz and the black man’s influence on the development of music. This in particular hurt Angel’s feelings, making her feel as if she’d been deliberately excluded
.

But Ronnie was smart, there was no doubt about that. He’d been taken on as an assistant at a local photographer’s, and he roamed the streets of Notting Hill with the camera he’d bought with his wages. He intended to make something of himself, he told the girls, and he swore he’d never do manual labor like his dad
.

“I wouldn’t exactly call upholstering furniture ‘manual labor,’ ” Betty had snapped back. “It’s a skilled trade. You make him sound like a navvy.”

But Ronnie had no patience with her or with his parents, and saved every shilling he made towards the day when he could move into his own flat. The girls shrugged and learned to amuse themselves without him, although Angel missed his teasing and his bright smile more than she had imagined possible
.

That autumn, she had finally badgered her father into buying a television, and the novelty helped a bit to fill the gap left by Ronnie’s absence. They were one of the few families in the neighborhood to own such a thing, and it held pride of place in the sitting room. The girls huddled in front of the grainy black-and-white screen, watching the latest pop idols on
Oh Boy!
as Angel imagined herself older, glamorous, moving in the same exalted circles as the stars on the telly
.

A moan from her mother’s bedroom brought her swiftly back to earth. Her mother suffered more and more often from what she called “one of her headaches.” She would vomit from the pain, and only darkness and quiet seemed to bring her any relief. Her father fussed about as helplessly as a child on her mum’s bad days, and Angel coped with the household tasks as best she could
.

Whenever possible, she escaped to Betty’s. Although Betty’s family had to share a bathroom on the landing with two other families, the flat was always filled with the scents of good things cooking and the cheerful sound of Betty’s mother’s singing. It was Betty’s mum who taught Angel to prepare West Indian dishes, and to buy yams and aubergines and the strange, slimy okra pods from the stalls in the market. “Who goin’ to teach you to cook if your own mother don’t, girl,” she’d said, shaking her head in disapproval
.

But it had never occurred to Angel that there might be anything terribly wrong with her mother until the leaden February day she came home from school and found the doctor in the sitting room, his black bag by his side
.

“What is it?” she asked her father, her heart thumping with sudden fear
.

“Your mum’s had quite a bad headache today.” Her dad looked exhausted, and for the first time she saw the deep lines scoring his cheeks. “Even worse than usual. The doctor’s given her something for the pain.”

“But why—What’s wrong with her?”

“We don’t know,” answered the doctor, a portly, bald man whose patient voice belied his stern expression. “I think we shall have to take some pictures, Xrays, of your mother’s brain. Then we shall see.”

“Will she have to have an operation?”

“That’s one possibility, but it’s too early to say.”

“I’m sure she’ll be fine,” her father told her, sounding as if he were trying to reassure himself as much as her. But Angel somehow knew, in a moment of gut-squeezing terror, that her life was about to change forever
.

A
NTHONY
T
ROLLOPE WAS BURIED HERE
. A
ND
W
ILLIAM
Thackeray,” Kincaid told Gemma as she bumped the car through the gates of Kensal Green Cemetery. It was just before eleven o’clock on Tuesday morning, and they had been told that Dawn Arrowood’s remains were to be interred in a graveside service.

“My God.” Gemma stopped at the first junction of roads and tracks that traversed the place. “It’s immense. I’d no idea.” Kensal Green lay at the northern edge of Notting Hill, tucked against the slow curve of the Grand Union Canal on one side and the Harrow Road on the other. A sign at the gate had informed them that this was a wildlife refuge, which meant that the grass was not mown nor the graves tended unless specifically directed by the owners of a plot. Desolate and shaggy under the gray December sky, the place had an air of comfortable decay. The bouquets of plastic flowers placed on the occasional grave looked pathetic and inadequate against the rank wildness of nature.

“It was a business. By the 1830s Londoners had run out of places to bury their dead. The churchyards were all full. So they formed a corporation to find land and build cemeteries. This was the first one, and very successful it was. It was quite the rage to be buried here.” Seeing Gemma’s dubious glance, Kincaid added, “Honestly. I’m not joking.”

“And how do you know so much about it?”

“I’ve been here before,” he replied, but didn’t elaborate.

“Do you know how to find Dawn’s gravesite, then?”

“Um, I’d go to the right, and look out for cars.”

“That’s very helpful,” she said sarcastically, but did as he suggested. She followed the road for some way before she saw a dozen cars pulled up on the verge, empty. Away in the distance she glimpsed a knot of people in dark clothes, but the track leading in that direction was barred to motor traffic.

“Looks like we walk from here.” Stopping the car, Gemma looked down at her shoes and grimaced. She’d been expecting something far more civilized. “Let’s just hope it doesn’t rain.”

“I wouldn’t tempt it,” Kincaid warned, laughing, as he took her umbrella from the door pocket.

They walked along the track in silence. New headstones were interspersed among the older graves and monuments, but the newer markers were of shiny black marble and lacked the grace of their older counterparts.

“Now the Victorians,” Kincaid remarked softly beside her, “they knew how to celebrate death.”

Never had Gemma seen so many angels: angels weeping, angels on guard, angels reaching heavenwards. The quiet of the place began to seep into her and she found herself taking a long, deep breath. Nor was the landscape as desolate as she had first thought. The gnarled trees and thickets were alive with birds of every kind, and squirrels ran busily in the long grass. To the right she began to glimpse a building through the trees, a large structure with white, classical columns.

“The Anglican chapel,” Kincaid told her. “Although
chapel
seems a rather meager term for such a grandiose affair. I don’t think it’s in use.”

They approached the cluster of mourners, out of courtesy stopping a few feet away. An ornate coffin rested beside a dark hole in the earth, and at its head a black-robed cleric intoned the burial service. Karl Arrowood stood beside him in a black suit and overcoat, his head bowed, his gold hair glittering with drops of moisture. Dawn’s parents stood opposite, as if trying to avoid contact with the widower.
Gemma also recognized a softly weeping Natalie Caine, propped up by a stocky, cheerful-faced young man that Gemma assumed must be her husband; the remaining mourners appeared to be friends of Dawn’s parents. “No unusual suspects lurking about,” Kincaid murmured. “Worse luck.”

The priest finished, closing his book. Karl Arrowood stepped forward and laid a single white rose on the coffin. Dawn’s mother burst into anguished sobbing and her husband turned her away. Several people stepped up to Karl and shook his hand. With obvious reluctance, Natalie did the same, then gave Gemma a nod of recognition as she and her husband started back towards the cars.

Gemma and Kincaid waited until everyone had paid their respects. Arrowood stood as they approached, his hands in the pockets of his overcoat.

“Mr. Arrowood,” said Gemma, “this is Superintendent Kincaid, from Scotland Yard.”

“Do I take it this means the Yard has been called in? Perhaps you’ll make some progress now in solving my wife’s death.”

“I’m investigating a different murder, Mr. Arrowood,” Kincaid answered. “It took place two months ago, in Camden Passage. A woman named Marianne Hoffman was killed in the same manner as your wife. Did you know her?”

“No,” said Arrowood, but he had paled. “Who was she?”

“Mrs. Hoffman sold antique jewelry from her shop in Camden Passage. She lived above the premises. Do you know of any connection your wife might have had with this woman?”

“You say this woman sold jewelry? I bought all Dawn’s jewelry for her. She’d have had no reason to frequent a shop like that.”

“When we spoke on Saturday, Mr. Arrowood,” Gemma said, “and I told you your wife was pregnant when she died, you didn’t happen to mention that you’d had a vasectomy prior to your marriage.” She saw a small tick at the corner of his mouth, swiftly controlled.

“And why should I have thought such a personal matter was any of your business?”

“Because if you’d learned of the pregnancy, you would naturally
have assumed that your wife had a lover. In my book, that makes an extremely strong motive for murder.”

“If you are suggesting that
I
killed Dawn, Inspector, you had better be very careful. I loved my wife, although you seem to find that difficult to believe, and I had no reason to think her unfaithful. These procedures are known to fail, and
that
is what I naturally assumed.”

“And you’d no idea before Mrs. Arrowood’s death that she was pregnant?” Gemma asked.

“No. I’ve told you before. I knew she hadn’t been feeling well, but that possibility didn’t occur to me at the time, for obvious reasons. But now that I know, I will
not
entertain the idea that the child was not mine.”

His face was set so implacably that Gemma wondered whom he most wanted to convince—them or himself? “Speaking of children, Mr. Arrowood, have you seen your sons lately?”

“My sons? What have my children got to do with this?”

“You told me the other day that you’d made it clear to them not to expect anything from you.”

“I was fed up with them begging money for this and that. I never told them specifically—Surely you’re not accusing them—”

“Money can be a powerful motivator. If they thought that Dawn’s death would assure them of an inheritance—”

“No! That’s absurd. I know my sons. They like things to come easily because their mother has spoiled them all their lives, but neither is capable of murder.” Arrowood was visibly shaken.

“Nevertheless, our near and dear ones can sometimes surprise us,” Kincaid commented.

Narrowing his eyes, Karl Arrowood retorted, “If you mean to intimidate me by badgering my family, Superintendent, it won’t work. I’ll be in touch with my solicitor as soon as I get back to my office.”

“Both your sons are of age, Mr. Arrowood. We don’t need your permission to question them. But this is simply a matter of following routine lines of inquiry, and the more cooperative everyone is, the sooner we can move on.”

“Are you saying I should encourage my sons to talk to you?”

“Assuming they have nothing to hide, it would make the process easier for everyone.”

Arrowood’s smile was bitter. “You’re assuming I have some influence over my children, Mr. Kincaid. Unfortunately, that’s not the case.”

“I thought they might be here today,” Gemma put in mildly.

“They aren’t here because I didn’t invite them!” Arrowood snapped at her. “Why should I have given them the opportunity to disrespect Dawn in death as they did in life?”

“Perhaps they regret their behavior—”

“With their mother’s constant poison in their ears? Highly unlikely.”

“I’m assuming Dawn had nothing to do with the breakup of your marriage.” Thirteen years ago, Dawn would have still been at school. “In which case, why did your ex-wife dislike her so much?”

“Because Sylvia is a spiteful bitch,” he countered with grim amusement. “Does that answer your question, Inspector?”

Although Gemma felt inclined to agree with his assessment, she didn’t say so. “What about your colleagues, Mr. Arrowood? Surely they might have come to support you today?”

“I didn’t notify anyone at the shop. I meant this occasion to be private—or as private as possible,” he amended with a glance at Dawn’s parents and their friends, talking with the priest some distance away.

Gemma was suddenly furious with his callous disregard of the Smiths’ feelings. “It’s the least you could do for them!” she snapped. “You’re not the only one who has suffered a loss.”