And Justice There Is None (16 page)

“No. That’s a bit odd, too. She’s usually in here every day for a coffee.”

“Nor Alex?” Gemma knew that constables inquiring after Alex would have asked here, but she wanted to hear for herself what Wesley had to say.

Wesley shook his head, his mobile face portraying worry. “You’d think the man had vanished into a bloody great hole. No one’s heard a thing from him. Do you think—He wouldn’t—He was that upset …”

“I’d be more concerned if he hadn’t left his flat with Fern—we’ve a witness who saw them. It’s Fern I’d like to talk to now. Do you know where I could find her?”

“She lives in Portobello Court. I don’t remember the flat number, but I can tell you where it is.” He gave Gemma detailed directions. “Don’t mistake me,” Wesley added, “Miz Arrowood’s murder was a terrible thing, only I didn’t know her. But if anything’s happened to Alex or Fern … They’re like family.”

“Do you have family of your own?”

“My mother.” Wesley’s face split in a brilliant smile. “She lives down Westbourne Park.” Sobering, he added, “My dad’s been gone a few years now. Heart attack.”

“You stay with your mum?”

“Can’t afford nothing else, you know what it’s like,” answered Wesley with no hint of complaint. “But even if I could, I’d not want to leave my mum on her own. She’s a good woman, my mother.”

Gemma said good-bye and walked thoughtfully back up Portobello Road. Would her children have such care for her when they were grown?

P
ORTOBELLO
C
OURT WAS THE FIRST MODERN BLOCK OF FLATS BUILT BY
the Council after the war, containing such sought-after amenities as
indoor plumbing and separate kitchens, and she knew that many flats had been occupied by the same families since the fifties.

Following Wesley’s directions, she climbed the stairs to the first floor and knocked on what she hoped was the right door. A door across the corridor opened and an elderly lady peered out at her, shaking her head.

“You looking for that girl? Rings in her nose, and Lord knows where else. Don’t know what the world’s coming to.”

“Do you know where she is?”

“Been holed up in the flat for days, far as I know. Don’t know how she expects to make a living if she doesn’t get out and scour the countryside. That’s what it takes to turn a profit, you know. My husband was in the trade, had a stall next to her daddy.”

With some assurance that Fern was at home, Gemma turned and knocked again, more loudly, and this time she was rewarded by the sound of shuffling and the click of a latch.

The young woman who gazed out at her did indeed have a ring through her nose, and another through her eyebrow, but her small, pale face was devoid of makeup, and the multihued strands of her hair looked flattened and neglected.

“Miss Adams? I’d like to talk to you about Alex Dunn.”

“What about him?” The sight of Gemma’s warrant card had not prompted the woman to open the door wider.

“Do you happen to know where he is?”

“Why should I?”

The door of the flat opposite creaked open an inch.

“Do you think I might come in?” Gemma gave a pointed glance at the obvious eavesdropper.

“Yeah, I suppose. Old cow,” Fern added under her breath, but she stepped back, allowing Gemma into the flat. Boxes and tag-ends of furniture cluttered the space. Gemma could see no rhyme or reason for the arrangement of items—a set of mahogany side chairs faced a wall, a matching settee had its back cozily against the television, side tables stood adrift among lamps and pictures. A glimpse out the glass balcony doors revealed an equally unprepossessing view; large men’s
underclothing hung out on a makeshift clothesline, and there were a few drooping potted plants.

Gemma gestured at the boxes. “Are you moving?”

“No. My dad travels—the auction circuit. He brings things home, and so do I. This is about as sorted as we get.” Fern cleared a chair of several old tasseled lampshades, which Gemma took as an invitation to sit.

“Have you been traveling this week?”

“Yeah.” Fern rubbed at a spot on the back of her hand, a liar’s gesture. When Gemma didn’t speak, she added, “Estate sales, country markets, you know the sort of thing.”

“What about Alex? Is he traveling as well?”

Fern shrugged with great casualness. “Dunno. Haven’t seen him.”

“But you have seen him since Dawn Arrowood died. The two of you left the arcade together.”

The girl’s startled glance met Gemma’s, then she looked deliberately away. “I took him home for a cuppa. He was a bit wobbly and all. Why do you want to know about Alex, anyway?”

“I understand he and Dawn were quite close. She might have told him something that would help us find her killer.”

“You mean, like, if someone had been bothering her?”

“Exactly. Or maybe he noticed someone hanging round her. Or, say if her husband had threatened her, she might have told Alex.” When Fern nodded without comment, Gemma added, “Would Alex have told you?”

“Not likely. Dawn Arrowood wasn’t exactly a topic of discussion between us.”

“Not even on Saturday morning? You must have talked about her murder.”

“He wouldn’t believe it at first, when Otto told him. But then he went to her house. It was crawling with coppers and one of the neighbors told him her throat had been cut. After that he was, like, a zombie or something.”

“And after you brought him back here for a cup of tea?”

Fern shrugged again. “I suppose he went home.”

“You let your good friend go home alone in a terrible state of shock?”

“I offered to stay with him, but he didn’t want me.”

Gemma studied her for a moment. “All right, Fern, that’s enough of the games. Alex’s landlord saw the two of you leave in Alex’s car that morning, with you driving. Where did you go?”

“Don’t know what you’re on about,” Fern retorted, but Gemma had glimpsed the flash of fear in her eyes.

“Yes, you do. Do you also know that you could face charges for interfering with a police investigation?”

“I don’t know where he is!”

“I don’t believe that. You left together in Alex’s car on Saturday morning, and neither Alex nor his car has been seen since. We’ve put out a bulletin on his car registration; we
will
find it, but the sooner we talk to Alex the better for him.”

“But he hasn’t done anything—”

“Why would he disappear like this, unless he had something to do with Dawn’s death?”

“Because he’s in danger!” Fern scowled at Gemma, but her lip was trembling.

“Alex? Why should Alex be in danger?”

“Otto knows Karl Arrowood, and he says that if Karl killed his wife, Alex could be next.”

“If Alex has some evidence that Dawn was murdered by her husband, he needs to give it to the police as soon as possible. Tell me where he is.”

“No. I can’t tell you because I don’t know. I took him for a drive, then I took him back to the flat.” Fern’s hands were balled into fists now, and in spite of her frustration with the girl, Gemma found something about her defiance endearing.

With a sigh, she said, “I hope Alex appreciates your loyalty.”

Something flickered in Fern’s face—an instant of doubt? Hesitation? Then it was gone and her lips were clamped in a stubborn line. “I’m telling you, I don’t know where he is.”

“All right, Fern.” Gemma stood, tucked her notebook in her bag,
and handed Fern her card. “But I’ll be back. And in the meantime, you think about whether you really want Alex to go to jail for evading the police and impeding a murder inquiry.”

A
S SOON AS SHE REACHED THE STATION
, G
EMMA ORGANIZED A TWENTY-FOUR-HOUR
watch on Fern Adams’s flat and requested access to Fern’s phone records. She had absolutely no doubt that Fern knew where Alex Dunn was, and that the young woman would contact him.

When her own phone rang with a summons to Superintendent Lamb’s office, she thought nothing of it; her super regularly called her in to discuss cases in progress.

But to her astonishment, Lamb cleared his throat and said, “Gemma, Sergeant Franks has been to see me. I thought you should know that the sergeant has expressed some concern over your progress on this case. He feels that not enough pressure has been put on Karl Arrowood, as the obvious suspect in the murder of his wife—”

“Sir. You know that we don’t have one single bit of concrete evidence. I can’t confront Karl Arrowood with nothing but dicey forensics and supposition, and I certainly can’t make a case to the C
PS
—”

“I realize that, Gemma. I’m not questioning your judgment. In fact, it seems that as well as being wealthy, Arrowood has quite a reputation for supporting charitable causes like helping the homeless. The Commissioner has had calls from a friend of Mr. Arrowood’s in the Home Office, and from two prominent MP’s, expressing concern for Arrowood, and he has in turn been breathing down my neck. We’re certainly not going to make any rash charges at this point, although our clearance rate is under scrutiny—” He stopped and waved his hand in a dismissive gesture. “But you know all that, and that’s not why I called you in here. My immediate concern is your communication with Sergeant Franks—”

“But sir, you must know that Franks resents all the female officers. He’s done his best to undermine my authority since I started here.”

“I also know that Gerry Franks is an experienced and able officer,
and you’re not doing yourself any favors by allowing personal—or gender-related—differences to sabotage your working relationship. He could be a valuable resource to you, and I don’t have to tell you that we need this department to run as efficiently as possible. See what you can do to remedy the problem, eh?” It was clearly a dismissal.

“Right.” Gemma stood. “Thank you, sir. If that’s all—”

When Lamb nodded, she left the office, her cheeks flaming with embarrassment. She had gone out of her way to defer to Gerry Franks, trying to allow him to retain some of his dignity, and this was the thanks she got. Of course she’d been aware of his thinly concealed insubordination, but this was absolutely the last straw. She would have to find a way to deal with him. And then her own doubts flooded over her.

Had
she done everything possible?
Had
she let her concern with her pregnancy and her future cloud her judgment? And if that were the case, how could she repair the damage?

She watched her mother fade away, day by day, month by month. The doctor’s X rays had revealed a tumor in the front part of her brain, growing down into her nasal passage; surgical removal was deemed impossible. There were medications, of course, that might slow the tumor’s growth, but as they made her mother violently ill and did not appear to affect the tumor, they were quickly stopped
.

And yet, her father refused to give up hope. “Maybe today there will be some improvement,” he would say every morning, long after Angel knew that the only possible improvement to her mother’s condition was death
.

She did the necessary sickroom nursing without complaint, but she loathed it. She hated the dark bed, the heavy brown-and-rose wallpaper, the smell of sickness, her mother’s silent acquiescence. Most of all, she hated her mother. How could her mother abandon her, and with so little fuss? Did her mother not love her at all? Didn’t parting from one’s only child deserve a bit of drama, at least some railing at God?

But her mother only smiled her gentle smile, drifting in and out of her morphine-induced dreams, and when she began to fret from the pain, the doctor would increase her dosage
.

As the tumor pressed its way forward, her face began to sag as if it were a plastic mask left too long before the fire; one eye socket slid down and canted sideways, her nose twisted, her forehead bulged. The pain intensified then; a simple touch would make her cry out, so that Angel could hardly bear to bathe her
.

And then came the day when there was no flicker of recognition in the damaged eye, and the sole response to Angel’s entreaties a soft, continuous moaning
.

Angel fled next door, into Mrs. Thomas’s comforting arms. Sobbing, she demanded, “Is she still in there somewhere? Or has her soul gone to God already and her body’s just waiting?”

“I don’t know, child,” answered Mrs. Thomas, wiping her own tears with the tip of her apron. “Seems to me she’s somewhere in between, still connected to her poor body but reaching out for the next place.”

“But can she hear me?”

“I suspect she can, but she don’t have the strength to answer. So you keep talking to her, child, tell her you love her, that she’s goin’ to be all right.”

Angel went back, resolute, but try as she might, she could not bring herself to say those words to the unfamiliar thing her mother had become. She sat in silence, and gradually the fear came on her that God had frozen her tongue as well as her heart. When her father came home at last, she’d huddled in the same position for so long that he had to lift her and carry her from the room like a baby
.

After that, the end came soon, and on a bitter January day, Angel walked in procession to Kensal Green. It was the coldest winter in memory; snow lay grimy in the gutters, and Angel’s wrists and knees were blue beneath the sleeves and hem of the coat she had outgrown. There had been no one to notice, no one to help her shop for a new one
.

The Thomases were there, dressed in their best but standing a little apart, and some of her father’s friends from the antique stalls and the café. The service was of necessity brief, and it was too cold for weeping. Her father had made a temporary marker, in lieu of the granite stone
that would take several months to carve
. Miriam Wolowski,
it read
. Went to Sleep January 9, 1963
. Many of the other headstones said the same, Angel noticed, and she felt a hot anger that people couldn’t speak the truth. “Asleep” implied that a person would wake up, would come back to you: That was something her mother would never do
.