And Justice There Is None (29 page)

They had just the thing, Christmas cakes with thick and creamy icing and interiors dark and rich with spices. They were the sort of cakes one had when the edge had worn off Christmas dinner, to be consumed with cups of strong tea while listening to the Queen’s speech.

When the bakery had boxed the cakes for her, she balanced her parcels carefully and set out for Marc Mitchell’s soup kitchen on Portobello Road.

To her relief, the light was still on and the door unlocked. “Marc?” she called out.

“Back here!”

She followed the sound of his voice to the kitchen at the rear of the eating area.

“Sorry, I couldn’t leave this,” he apologized. He was stirring a large pot of something that smelled delicious on an industrial-size gas range. “Cranberry relish, for tomorrow’s dinner.”

“What’s in it?” asked Gemma, sniffing. She set her parcels down in a clear spot on the table.

“Cranberries, obviously.” He wiped the steam from his brow. “And honey, vinegar, cracked pepper, mustard seeds, and diced chili peppers. I always hated the jellied stuff from a tin, so this is my rebellion.” Nodding at a dozen freshly washed glass jars drying on a cloth, he added, “I mean to put some up for gifts as well.”

“I’ve brought a couple of cakes.” Gemma indicated the box. “They’re teacakes, really, but I thought—”

“That’s the one thing I was missing. You’re brilliant.” Giving the pot a last stir, he turned off the flame. “There. When the cranberries pop, it’s finished. Now we wait for it to cool a bit.” Lifting the lid on the cake box, he whistled. “They’re too gorgeous to eat. I’ve got some tinned puddings donated by one of the supermarkets, but they’re nothing compared with this.”

A little embarrassed, Gemma changed the subject. “What else have you got on your menu? Bryony said you’d been planning for weeks.”

“Two turkeys. Brussels sprouts, of course. Potatoes. Oh, and a
case of nonalcoholic champagne, donated as well. Can’t serve the real stuff, even if I could afford it. And look—” he showed her a box containing several dozen cylinders wrapped in brightly colored foil. “I’ve made crackers. They won’t pop, but they’ve got paper hats in and some sweets.”

“It all sounds lovely. I suppose you’ve got lots of help.”

“Bryony’s coming. Between us we can manage, although it might get a bit wild. She’s a tremendous help.”

Seeing a chance to play the matchmaker, Gemma observed, “She thinks you’re pretty terrific, too.”

Marc gave her a look she couldn’t interpret and went back to his relish, giving the pot a desultory stir. “I know she does. It’s just that it’s a bit … awkward.”

“Awkward?” Gemma echoed.

Marc gestured round the room. “You see this place? I used the last of my grandmother’s savings to start this. So I have no money—I mean
none
. If I have a cup of coffee at Otto’s, it’s squeezed out of the kitchen funds. I can’t even take Bryony to the cinema, for heaven’s sake, much less out to dinner at a nice restaurant.”

“But—”

“I have nothing to offer her, and my chance of someday getting a job that would earn a fraction of what she makes is slim to nonexistent. Bryony deserves better than—”

“Marc, she doesn’t care. She admires you for what you do—”

“I sleep on a cot in the upstairs room. How fast do you think admiration would turn to resentment if she had to share those circumstances?”

“But why should she? She has her own job, her own career, a flat. You could …” Gemma hesitated, certain she was getting in over her head.

“Stay in her flat? Let her buy groceries? Let her pay for her own Christmas gift?” He shook his head adamantly. “That’s not right.”

“Isn’t that a little old-fashioned?”

“I suppose it is. I’ve spent most of my adult life looking after my grandmother—she was bedridden the last few years and had to have twenty-four-hour care—so I missed out on a good bit of the sexual
revolution. But it’s more than that … You see, I can’t do what I do and live any other way. It’s partly focus—”

“You can’t afford to be distracted by a relationship? Sort of like a monk?”

He gave a snort of laughter. “Well, I suppose you could say that, although my grandmother would turn in her grave. She was nonconformist to the core. But the main thing is, I can’t spend my days with these people who have nothing, and live at a different level. Mortgages, furniture, cars, clothing—all these things we take so much for granted mean nothing to them. And if I go there, if I live on that plane, I can’t connect with them.” He lifted his hands, palms up.

“I see,” said Gemma, and she did. She could think of no argument to convince him his position was unreasonable, nor, she found, did she really want to. As Bryony had said, he had a unique ability to reach out to the homeless people he served. Who was she to question the source of that gift, or its importance?

B
RYONY LOCKED THE SURGERY DOOR AND CLOSED THE BLINDS, THEN
washed down the two examining rooms. She’d run later than expected, of course, because of emergencies. A holiday always seemed to bring on a rush of last-minute calls, and any holiday involving candy more so, due to people’s apparent inability to restrict their pets’ access to it.

Not to mention the fact that Gavin had rung during the busiest stint, incoherent with fury, shouting something about the police turning his house and his car upside down because Dawn Arrowood had told some friend he’d had a row with her the morning she died.

At least Gemma had protected her, thought Bryony, but surely the police didn’t actually think Gavin had anything to do with Dawn’s murder?

As if I would argue with a client
, Gavin had raged heatedly in her ear. Bryony had soothed him as best she could before rushing back to her patients.

Had she done the right thing in telling Gemma about what she’d
heard? And what about the thefts at the surgery? Gavin hadn’t mentioned that, and if Gemma had questioned him about the incident, he would certainly guess that Bryony had told her.

She put up the mop bucket with a thump of irritation. This was not the day for worrying about things it was too late to change. She still had her bit of holiday shopping to do, but first she had to update her charts. Determined to concentrate, she sat down at Gavin’s desk to work.

When her pen ran dry halfway through her task, she absently opened the desk drawer and rummaged for a new one. As her fingers closed round a pen, she looked down, catching a glimpse of what looked like the edge of a photograph in the very back compartment. Aware that she was snooping, Bryony started to close the drawer. Then curiosity overcame her scruples and she pulled the drawer out to its fullest extent, freeing the photograph.

She gazed at the glossy square in her hand and her stomach plummeted. The camera had captured Dawn Arrowood in an achingly unguarded moment, her expression rapt, her head tilted towards Alex as he spoke in her ear.

Setting the photo on the desktop, Bryony jerked hard at the drawer and scrabbled at the back. Her fingers closed on more slick squares:
Alex with his arm thrown protectively round Dawn’s shoulders as she stepped in the door of his flat … Alex and Dawn in his stall at the market, his fingers brushing her cheek …

There were other images, and while none of them were actually sexually compromising, they left no doubt as to the relationship between the couple, and they had all obviously been snapped without their knowledge. Had Gavin taken these? She thought suddenly of the camera she’d seen recently in the backseat of his car, and felt another lurch of nausea.

Why would Gavin have followed Alex and Dawn, spying on them? And why had he kept these photos? If Dawn’s husband had seen them … She thought of the raised voices she’d heard in the examining room that day, and could not escape the obvious conclusion. Gavin had been blackmailing Dawn.

•   •   •

F
ERN KNOCKED AT
B
RYONY’S DOOR THREE TIMES, WITH NO ANSWER
but the chorus of Duchess’s barking. Now, convinced of Bryony’s absence, she paced up and down the west side of Powis Square, determined to keep the building in sight until Bryony returned.

She’d thought of trying the surgery, but surely Bryony wouldn’t be working so late on the afternoon of Christmas Eve, and even if she were, she’d have to walk home this way.

Fern stopped at the bottom of the square, gazing across the street at the welcoming gates of the Tabernacle. The redbrick Victorian building housed the community center, and offered everything from dance and aerobics classes to coffeehouse to concert venue. And it provided a safe haven for many teens. Certainly it had done so for Fern.

But there was no help there now, and Fern turned away. She walked up to the top of the square again, keeping her eyes focused on Bryony’s lavender door. Just exactly how Bryony could help her, she hadn’t worked out—she knew only that she must talk to someone or go mad with worry.

After her row with Alex on Saturday night, and her discovery of the missing paper knife, she’d tried repeatedly to reach him. But he’d refused to answer door or telephone, although his car was still parked in the mews. She’d even gone so far as to appeal to Alex’s odious landlord to let her into the flat with his key, but the man had refused, hinting that he might reconsider if she made it worth his while.

On Sunday, still doubting her own judgment over the paper knife, Fern had tracked down the owner of the antiques arcade and borrowed his key, claiming she’d accidentally left behind something she must have for a sale.

But ransacking her stall had not turned up the missing paper knife, leaving her two possibilities—that some passing customer had lifted it while her attention was distracted, or that Alex had stolen it. While she would have preferred the shoplifting hypothesis, her eye was sharp and her reflexes fast—she’d foiled every attempt at theft since she’d been in the trade.

That left Alex, and the question that had kept her from sleep for two days. If he
had
stolen the knife, whom did he mean to hurt—himself? Or someone else?

Fern stamped her feet against the cold and her own frustration. Where the hell was Bryony? And if Bryony didn’t come home, who else could she talk to? Otto had taken his girls to their grandparents for Christmas Eve dinner, and Wesley had gone to his family as well. Her own dad was useless, poor sod couldn’t help himself, much less anyone else. She’d tried the soup kitchen on her way here, thinking to find Bryony there, or at least Marc, but the place had been dark and locked up tight as a drum.

That left the holier-than-thou policewoman who had come to her flat—what was her name? Inspector James? No, she’d make a fool of herself if she did that, and of Alex, and he would never speak to her again. There must be some other way.

The street lamps came on, casting their sickly yellow glow on the pavement. Fern shoved her hands deep into her pockets, suppressing a shiver. Something damp touched her forehead, then the tip of her nose, like a caress from icy, invisible fingers. It was snowing.

If Swinging London had begun to fade by the summer of 1966, the unexpected, gloriously hot weather brought it back into full flower once more. Hair grew longer, skirts shorter, and the heady haze of cannabis and incense seemed to drift into every nook and alleyway
.

But for Angel, the glamour of the London scene had begun to dim. More and more often lately, Karl’s “business meetings” took place without her. He’d opened a small shop in a Kensington byway, but her offer to come and help out had been instantly rejected. Instead, he’d hired a girl to work the register, a skinny brunette with hair that tickled her waist, and Angel suspected that his interest in the girl was more than professional
.

Furious with him, she’d flirted openly in front of Karl on one of their evenings out. Karl had responded, taking her home early, making love to her with a ferocity that had left her bruised and shaken
.

It was a few weeks later when she learned the boy she’d teased in the club had suffered a serious mishap that same evening. Set upon by muggers, he lay in hospital with fractured legs and jaw
.

Appalled at her own suspicions, she’d told herself not to be silly. Then two months later, it had happened again. A different club, a different young man who had chatted her up while Karl was huddled in a corner with some of his mates
.

This time, the young man had been beaten and left in an alleyway, and Angel heard the news the next day. Shaking with rage and shock, she’d confronted Karl
.

“Whatever gave you such an absurd idea?” He sounded amused, but his smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Do I look as though I’d been having a punch-up among the dustbins?” His handsome face was unmarked, his hands smooth and neatly manicured
.

She remembered the men she’d seen him talking to in the club, big and heavily muscled. “Maybe you got your mates to do it. Or hired someone.”

This time Karl laughed aloud. “Oh, really, Angel. You flatter yourself. How could you think such a thing?” He studied her, his gray eyes narrowing. “Still, you might do well to remember that I look after my possessions.”

“I’m not one of your antiques, and I don’t need looking after,” she’d told him defiantly, but it didn’t ease the clutch of fear in her heart
.

As the months crept by towards Christmas, she spent more and more time on her own, listening to the plaintive lyric of “Eleanor Rigby,” imagining herself growing old, alone. She had no family now, no friends that weren’t Karl’s friends. Sometimes she thought about leaving him, leaving London, finding a job as a shop clerk in some provincial town, but she had lived that life and was not yet desperate enough to go back to it. But there was more to her reluctance than that—bad things had happened to people because of her. What would Karl do if she made him really angry?