And Justice There Is None (37 page)

I
F ONE HAD TO CHOOSE SOMEWHERE TO SIT AND WAIT FOR AN HOUR
, thought Kincaid, Brown’s Hotel was not a bad place to be on a Friday afternoon.

At the stroke of three, he had delivered an unsmiling and abnormally brushed and polished Kit for his meeting with his grandparents. Robert Potts, Kincaid’s former father-in-law, had greeted Kincaid with his usual strained courtesy; his wife had merely nodded
an acknowledgment of his presence, not disguising her loathing. They had not invited Kincaid to join them for tea—not that he had expected them to do so.

It must present Eugenia quite a challenge, deciding whom she hated more, him or Ian McClellan, but Kincaid did not find the thought amusing. This monthly meeting with Kit had been Ian’s method of forestalling her suing for the legal right to have her grandson for regular visitations, but Kincaid had no confidence that the arrangement would satisfy her indefinitely. One would think the court would take into account the fact that the woman was obviously mentally unbalanced, and that Kit despised her, but it wasn’t a chance Kincaid was willing to take.

He found a comfortable chair and immersed himself in the book he’d brought with him, determined not to borrow trouble unnecessarily. Still, the minutes crawled, until at last Kit appeared from the lounge. In his navy school blazer and tie, with his hair neatly combed, Kit looked unexpectedly grown-up. But as he drew near, Kincaid saw that the boy’s lip was trembling and his eyes were red with unspilled tears.

Kincaid jumped up. “Kit! What’s wrong?”

Kit shook his head mutely.

“Where are your grandparents?”

“They left. She didn’t want to see you. She—” He shook his head again, unable to go on.

Kincaid put an arm round his shoulders. “Let’s go, shall we?” He helped Kit into the anorak he had held for him, then shepherded him out into the frosty air. What on earth had Eugenia done to upset his usually stoic son so badly? “Why don’t we walk down to Piccadilly,” he suggested. “We could get the bus from there, rather than the tube.”

After a few minutes, when Kit seemed calmer, Kincaid said, “Now. Tell me what this is all about.”

“She—she said I couldn’t live with you, that you had no right to keep me. She said that she was going to get a lawyer, and that the court would have to grant her custody since I had no responsible parent.”

“She’s threatened lawyers before. I wouldn’t pay it too much attention,” Kincaid said soothingly. But the boy’s jaw was still tightly clenched, and he wouldn’t meet Kincaid’s eyes. “That’s not all, is it? What else did she say?”

“She said that if I’d been a proper son, I’d have taken better care of my mother, and she wouldn’t have died.”

A sudden rush of fury left Kincaid shaking. He took a breath to calm himself. “Kit. That is absolute nonsense. Do you hear me? I know how well you looked after your mum, because she told me. And I know that you could
not
have saved her, no matter what you did. Are we clear on that?”

Kit nodded, but Kincaid was unconvinced. What he did know was that he had to put a stop to Eugenia Potts’s poison, and that meant he had to keep her from seeing Kit, full stop. But Eugenia was correct in one thing—he had no legal rights over Kit. There was only one way to remedy the situation—he would have to prove his paternity.

“I
WANT YOU TO TELL ME ABOUT MY MOTHER
.” A
LEX
D
UNN SAT IN
Jane’s sitting room, in front of the unlit Christmas tree. He’d had to stop once on the way down, so buffeted by memories he’d been unable to drive. Then he’d found the cottage empty, and had waited impatiently for Jane to return.

“Your mother?” Jane repeated blankly.

“Is she really dead?”

“I expect so. Why, Alex?”

“When I was little, you said she couldn’t take care of me because she was ill. That wasn’t true, was it? She was a drug addict.”

“Alex—What—How do you—”

“Why do you always lie to me? All my life I’ve carried around this rosy, consumptive image of my sainted mother handing me over to you with her blessing, and it was all a lie. She didn’t give a damn what happened to me.”

“Alex, that’s not true. She did care. That’s why she brought you
to me. And for God’s sake, you can’t tell a five-year-old that his mother’s an addict!”

“You could have told me later, when I was older.”

“When you were what? Twelve? Sixteen? Twenty? How would I have decided when to shatter your life? And besides,” she added more calmly, “stories have a way of generating their own reality. After a while, I almost came to believe it myself. Who’s told you this, Alex?”

“No one. I dreamed it. And then I started to remember.”

Jane’s face went ashen. “Oh, God. I’m sorry, Alex. You used to have nightmares when you were little. I thought they’d stopped years ago.”

“Did she really bring me here, to the cottage? Or was that a lie, too?”

“She did. It was the last time I saw her. I tried to find her for years after that, but she’d vanished without a trace.”

“Then what about my father? Was he just another junkie, a one-night stand?”

“I honestly don’t know, Alex. But there was a man … She came down here with him once, when she was pregnant with you. It was after Mum and Dad had died. She hadn’t even known.” Jane shook her head, as if remembering her own amazement. “But I think she was clean then, at least for a while. She looked good, and she seemed happy.”

“Who was he? What was his name?”

“I don’t know. He waited for her in the car. I never met him. All I can tell you is that his car was expensive, and I thought that perhaps he would take care of her.”

Alex felt unable to contain the sudden and inexplicable dread that had lodged in his gut. “This man—What did he look like?”

A
LEX DROVE DOWN THE LANE UNTIL IT CAME TO AN END
. A
FTER
that, he left the car and walked, finding his way blindly through the marsh. But the smell of salt drove him on, until at last he sank down into a tangled clump of grass, looking out over the dark expanse of the sea.

It couldn’t be true, could it, what he had imagined? He must be raving, delirious; it was an absurd fantasy. There had to have been hundreds—thousands—of young men that age in London at that time who were blond and handsome, and who had the means to wear nice clothes and drive an expensive car.

It didn’t mean the money had come from the sale of the drug that had destroyed his mother—nor did it mean that the particular young man Jane had described had been Karl Arrowood.

But what difference
did
it make, if it were true? Alex wondered. It was an accident of genetics, that was all. It was nothing to do with him, or who he had become.

He could find out the truth, perhaps, simply by showing Jane a photograph of Karl Arrowood. But did he really want to know?

All his certainties had been torn from him, beginning with Dawn’s death, and he had begun to see that if he were to survive, he must put himself back together, piece by piece. He must decide what mattered, and what did not. Was his mother important, if it came to that? Wasn’t it his life with Jane that was real, those years of her care and concern that had shaped him?

He loved this place, that he knew. He loved Jane. He loved Fern, he realized, who had been such a staunch friend.

And he loved the porcelain that had spoken to him since he was a child. He thought of the blue-and-white delft bowl, now tucked into the display cabinet in his flat, and of the lives through which it had passed. All suffering faded, given time, as did all joys, but they left their imprint upon such objects, providing comfort for those who came after.

It gradually occurred to Alex that he was cold, and terribly hungry. The wind blowing off the bay tugged at his clothes, finding every tiny gap, reminding him that his flesh was subject to its whims.

It was then he realized that such things mattered desperately to him; that he wanted food and warmth and companionship. That, surely, was a good thing; a beginning. He would deal with the nightmares and the memories of Dawn and his mother as he must, but in the meantime, life would go on. He would go on.

He brushed himself off and went home to Jane.

Angel had just sent Evan home on the afternoon that Neil and Nina Byatt were arrested by Scotland Yard. It seemed that the Yard had got wind of the fact that the Russian icons Neil was selling at auction had been carefully packed with top-grade heroin. Some of the icons had gone to private buyers as well—all in all, the price of Russian art objects had skyrocketed
.

After the first shock, Angel felt a rush of relief that it hadn’t been
Karl—and then she began to wonder
why
it hadn’t been Karl. Neil and Nina worked for him; the artifacts came into the country through his connections. Why didn’t Karl seem worried that the police might spring on him next?

After a few days, she managed to get in to see Nina during the prison’s visiting hour. As Angel came in, Evan and his grandmother were leaving. The woman smelled of stale sweat and must, and very faintly, of illness—a combination of odors that Angel would forever after associate with righteousness. “God will see you in hell for this,” the woman hissed at her. Evan reached out towards her, his small face pinched with misery, but his grandmother snatched him away
.

Shaken, Angel sat down at the visitor’s table, but Nina looked no happier to see her than had her mother. Nor did she look well. Her face was pale and drawn, her long, lustrous hair dank and flat, as if the life had drained from it
.

“You have a lot of nerve, coming here,” spat Nina. “More than I gave you credit for.”

“But I wanted to see you. You’re my friend—”

“Friend? As long as you have anything to do with Karl Arrowood, you have no friends.”

“But surely we could do something to help—I could take care of Evan—”

“Don’t you touch my son! You just don’t see it, do you, Angel? You really don’t know what’s happened?”

“Nina! What are you talking about?”

“Your bloody Karl shopped us, that’s what. The police must have found out about the business. They couldn’t quite pin it on him because he never actually touched the stuff—He just planned everything. But they were making his life a misery, interfering with his transactions. So he made them a deal.”

“A deal?” whispered Angel
.

“Yeah. Neil and me, red-handed. So now they leave Karl alone, and my son will be grown before I can be with him again.”

“I don’t—He wouldn’t—” Angel protested, but faintly. Things were adding up too fast. That’s why Karl hadn’t been worried: He’d known already that he had no cause for concern
.

“There’s got to be something I can do, Nina. I want to help you.”

Nina glared at her with contempt. “It’s too late for that. And it’s too late for you, too, Angel.”

She went straight to the shop, finding Karl alone for once. “You’ve got to help the Byatts,” she told him. “I know what you did to them, and you’ve got to do something to make it right.”

He looked amused. “And what exactly do you suggest?”

“Tell the police the stuff isn’t theirs—”

“You’re not suggesting I lay claim to several kilos of uncut heroin myself, are you? And why do you think the police would believe me, Angel? They have hard evidence in their hands connecting the Byatts to the drug sale—They’re not going to give that up for some pie-in-the-sky story.”

“Nina says you set them up.”

“Well, she would, wouldn’t she? She and Neil refuse to take responsibility for their own carelessness.”

She stared at him, furious, unconvinced. “What if I tell the police what you’ve done?”

“Assuming they were stupid enough to arrest me on hearsay, it still wouldn’t help the Byatts.” His finger touched her under the chin. “But if they did arrest me, then where would you be? Have you thought about that, Angel?”

In that instant she knew that all her protest had been a sham—she could do nothing for her friends. She hated Karl, but she hated herself even more
.

“What about their little boy?” she demanded. “What will happen to Evan?”

Karl shook his head, as if disappointed in her lack of understanding. “I really don’t think that’s any of my concern, do you?”

B
RYONY ROLLED OVER AND SQUINTED AT THE RED GLOW OF THE CLOCK
once more, then turned on her back with a sigh. Monday morning,
and New Year’s Eve to boot. But there was no point getting up until the central heating switched itself on at six, and she had a half-hour to go.

Beside her, Duchess lay on her back as well, her paws twitching as she ran in some tantalizing doggy dream.

What had she come to, Bryony wondered, a woman approaching thirty whose only bed companion was a large and hairy dog?

That thought, however, led her to Marc, and that was a subject too distressing for the predawn hours. Much better to think about her brief career as a murder suspect, she told herself with an attempt at humor. Superintendent Kincaid’s smarmy, schoolboy sergeant had made her sound like a harpy as well as a killer—and what was even worse, she had felt inexplicably guilty. Now, even though her family had, of course, confirmed her story, she had to live with the memory of her furious, stammering humiliation as the policeman questioned her.

She knew Gavin had burned those sodding photos in the toilet, the bastard. Nor, she found, did she have any trouble believing that Gavin had been blackmailing—or attempting to blackmail—Dawn. But she could not bring herself to imagine that Gavin had killed Dawn—She couldn’t go on getting up and going in to work with him, if she did.