And Justice There Is None (42 page)

“Gemma!” he called out. There was no point in stealth—Mitchell would have heard the car, and the door.

“Here! Back here!” came an answering voice, high with panic. Not Gemma—but it struck a faint chord of recognition. Bryony.

He ran for the back.

The scene that met his eyes seemed drawn from hell. Gemma lay on the floor, cradled tenderly in Marc Mitchell’s arms. A few feet away, Bryony, bound hand and foot, tried to push herself upright. The harsh light gleamed from the blade of an abandoned knife near Mitchell’s side.

For an instant, Kincaid thought Mitchell held Gemma by force, then the hot-iron stench of blood reached his nostrils.
She’s hurt, dear God. How badly?
Her face was paper-white; her eyelids fluttered as she tried to focus on his face. “Duncan,” she whispered. “I can’t …”

He’s stabbed her
, he thought.
The bastard’s stabbed her
. Then, where her coat had fallen open, he saw the bright stain of fresh blood soaking through her trousers. With a cold and terrifying certainty, he knew what was happening. Gemma was hemorrhaging.

L
ATER
, G
EMMA WOULD REMEMBER THE EVENTS OF THAT NIGHT
only in snatches. Kincaid’s voice, jerking her back into consciousness. Opening her eyes, feeling Marc’s muscles tense beneath her … A flash of light from the blade of the knife as Kincaid scooped it up from the floor … His voice again, steady and confident. “Ease her down, Marc. Good man. Gently, gently …” Then the warmth of Marc’s body slipping away from her. Cold … She was so cold.… The dimness began to steal over her again, but she forced her eyes open once more.

Marc stood in the doorway, Cullen on one side, a uniformed officer on the other. Resisting them, he turned back to look at her, and the yearning despair she saw on his face would stay etched in her memory forever.

•   •   •

A
FTER THAT CAME A DARKNESS FILLED WITH PAIN AND JOSTLING
, punctuated with a loud wailing her fogged brain only gradually identified as sirens. Then words jumped out at her from a blur of bright lights and gurneys … Placental abruption … Fetal distress … Internal bleeding … Cesarean …

“No, please,” she had tried to protest. “It’s too soon.” But her body would not respond, and she knew now that her plea would not have mattered.

After the delivery, they held their tiny son in their arms as his respiration failed.

A priest came and said kind and comforting words. None of them penetrated Gemma’s anguish. Then they took her child away.

A
FTER THE FIRST TWO DAYS OF
G
EMMAS STAY IN HOSPITAL
, K
INCAID
sent Toby to Hazel’s, hoping that the familiar environment and Holly’s company would ease the child’s distress. Toby missed his mother terribly, and neither Kincaid nor Kit seemed to be able to comfort him.

The house seemed echoingly empty without her presence, a constant reminder to Kincaid that he had almost lost her. And now, although she seemed to be recovering well enough physically, she had refused to talk about the baby at all.

Hazel, when consulted, had told him, “You can’t rush her. You’re going to have to let her do this in her own way, in her own time. There’s more than grief over the baby’s death here—she’s blaming herself for what happened, and no one else can absolve her of that burden.”

He knew Hazel was right, yet he also knew that he must be ready to support Gemma in any way he could—and that he must put aside his own grief for the moment. Later, he would think about his son, so perfect, so still … and of what might have been.

But now he must concentrate on Toby, and Kit, and on providing the foundation that would hold their family together.

Wanting to spend as much time with Gemma and the children as possible, he rearranged his schedule, going into the Yard only to finish up the most essential paperwork on the Arrowood case. So it was that he was at home with Kit on an afternoon later in the week when Wesley Howard came to see them.

“I hope you don’t mind me coming round,” Wesley said hesitantly. “I wanted to ask about Gemma … and to say how sorry I was.”

Kincaid invited him into the kitchen, where Kit made them all coffee. “It’s just that I feel responsible,” Wesley continued, gazing morosely into his cup. “If I hadn’t told Marc what I’d learned, none of this would have happened.”

“It’s not your fault, Wes,” said Kit. “I should have told someone I’d seen Marc hanging about—”

“Stop right there, Kit,” interrupted Kincaid. “We’d have thought nothing of it if you had. The doctors say it’s likely Gemma would have lost the baby anyway. And as for what happened in the soup kitchen—that’s no one’s fault but Marc Mitchell’s.”

But how true was that, Kincaid wondered?

How much blame lay with the parents who had let themselves become involved in something illegal and dangerous, how much with the grandmother who had poisoned an already damaged child, and how much with Karl Arrowood, whose ruthless ambition and disregard for others had begun the tragic chain of events?

According to the police psychologist, Mitchell’s already unstable personality had begun to disintegrate on his grandmother’s death. Then, his mission accomplished with Karl Arrowood’s murder, he had been desperate for some purpose in his life, as well as some sense of justification for the things he’d done. It seemed likely that he’d have sought out Gemma as a confidant, had she not gone to him.

“What I don’t understand,” said Wesley, “is how Marc could have done such terrible things. I saw him help people all the time and he seemed to genuinely care for them. I can’t believe that his charity was simply a sham, a blind for tracking down his victims.”

“No. Perhaps he saw the homeless as fellow lost souls. I don’t know.” Had the grief that twisted Marc’s psyche left some small portion
undamaged? And if so, was it that kernel of wholeness that had led him to reach out to Gemma? Kincaid found the irony too painful to contemplate.

“There is at least one good thing that’s come of all this,” he said aloud. “Wes, I’ve spoken to your cousin Eliza in Bedford. She’s asked me to give you her phone number. It would mean a good deal to her to get to know her family.”

F
LOWERS FILLED EVERY SPARE INCH OF SPACE IN
G
EMMA’S HOSPITAL
room, and when she returned to it after her enforced walks in the corridor, the hothouse scent seemed overpowering.

She had a stream of visitors as well, including Hazel and Kate Ling, Doug Cullen, and an unexpected and gruff Gerry Franks. She managed to nod when they extended their condolences, and then to carry on ordinary conversations as if the content mattered to her.

But when her parents came, she found she could not talk to them at all, and simply turned her face away while her mother sat beside her and patted her hand.

B
RYONY HESITATED OUTSIDE THE DOOR OF THE HOSPITAL ROOM, NOT AT
all sure she could bring herself to go in. She thought of Gemma as she’d seen her last, and felt a wave of terror so intense she clutched at the wall for support. Breathing deeply, she let the familiar, faintly antiseptic hospital odors soothe her.

She realized her fear was mixed with shame—shame for not having done more to help her friend, shame that she had been so blindly deceived by Marc—and shame that within those emotions lay a small knot of resentment. Why had it been Gemma Marc confessed to, and not her?

Furious with herself for even entertaining such a thought, Bryony squared her shoulders and entered the room.

“Bryony!” Gemma looked pale and oddly defenseless, with her coppery hair spread out against the pillow like a fan, but her smile was warm and welcoming.

“I’m so glad you’re all right,” Bryony told her. She pulled up a chair beside the bed. “And I’m sorry about—”

“Thanks. And what about you?” Gemma asked quickly, forestalling any further conversation about the baby. “Are you okay?”

“I quit the surgery. Somehow I couldn’t see going in to work with Gavin every day, wondering what he was up to …”

“I can’t say that I blame you. But what will you do?”

“At first I thought I’d pack it in, leave London altogether. I even looked at job adverts up north. But then Alex and Fern and Wesley came to see me. They said I should keep on with what I’d started, that they’d help me find funding for the clinic. And I realized …” She rubbed at the healing dog bite on her finger. “…  I realized that I didn’t want to leave my home, my neighborhood, my friends. I won’t let
him
take those things away from me!”

“How are you … about Marc, I mean?” Gemma asked, her hand clenching on the coverlet. “Will you go to see him?”

Bryony stood and went to the window, looking out over the grimy spires of the hospital rooftops. “I—” She swallowed convulsively, tried again. “No. I don’t think I could bear that.” Turning back to Gemma, she asked, “Do you think he started the soup kitchen just because Karl got that award for helping the homeless? A sort of sick one-upmanship?”

Gemma frowned, then answered slowly, “No … I think he had an honest desire to help. And a genuine connection with those in need, however convoluted its inception—”

“And what about me? Was I ever anything more than a convenience to him? A means of access to … things he needed?” Bryony heard the bitterness flood her voice, and despised herself for it.

“I’m sure he cared for you,” Gemma answered, just a little too quickly.

Bryony smiled and came back to the bedside. “It doesn’t matter. But I’ll never be quite certain, will I?”

•   •   •

O
NE DAY, AS
G
EMMA’S HOSPITAL STAY DREW TO AN END
, A
LEX
D
UNN
came to see her. He carried a gift bag, which he handed to her.

“I’ve brought you a little something.”

Reaching into the nested tissue, Gemma felt a cold, hard object, which she gently lifted out. It was the Clarice Cliff teapot she had so admired in his flat.

“Alex! You can’t—I can’t accept this. It’s worth a fortune, and besides …”

“I want you to have it. It suits you. I’ve decided I don’t need a daily reminder of what might have been—or of what I imagined might have been, to put it more accurately.”

Gemma glanced again at the vibrant red-roofed houses dancing across the pot. “But Alex—I hardly—”

“You can begin your own collection. And there’s another reason I want you to have it. It’s a reminder, from me to you, that we have choices in how we deal with things … and that we’re capable of more than we think.” He smiled at her and changed the subject, forestalling any more argument on her part. “Fern says hello, by the way.”

“How is she? Did she—Have you—”

“We’re working on being friends. For the moment, that’s enough.”

She took the baby and fled north. It was only a name on the railway schedule, and a half-remembered comment by one of the father’s friends, that made her decide to stop in York. “A good place for antiques,” she had heard, “full of tourists with money to spend.” But what mattered most to her was that it was far away from Karl
.

With the money Ronnie had saved for his own business, she rented a tiny shop near the city wall and stocked it with whatever antiques and bits of jewelry she could find at a decent price. She went back to using her maiden name, and her father’s things took pride of place in the display case
.

The shop had living quarters upstairs, a blessing, as she had no money left for a flat. The single room was small and shabby, but sufficient for her and the baby
.

She tried not to think of Ronnie, or of the life she had left behind. Still, there were days when grief and loneliness threatened to overwhelm her, when she thought she couldn’t possibly go on. Then she would cuddle Eliza to her breast, stroking the baby’s soft cheek, twining her finger in the dark, curling hair
.

It was enough. It would have to be enough. They would be all right
.

A
WEEK AFTER
G
EMMA CAME HOME FROM THE HOSPITAL, SHE WENT
back to work at Notting Hill Station. At first, everyone was a bit too kind, a little oversolicitous. Although she appreciated her colleagues’ concern, it made her feel awkward, and she was much relieved when after a day or two things seemed to return to normal.

She could not say the same for life at home, where it was required that one do more than show up and go through the motions—because going through the motions seemed all she was able to do. Although she was there in body, nothing seemed really to touch her.

Kit grew silent, and Toby fretful, waking often in the night with bad dreams. And although she knew that Kincaid was grieving over the baby as well, she found herself paralyzed, unable to reach out to him.

He came to her one day as she stood on the threshold of the second bedroom, looking in.

“We should move Kit into this room,” she told him. “There’s no need now for him to share with Toby.”

“Gemma.” Kincaid put his hands on her shoulders. “Let’s leave it for now. It’s too soon to be making any changes.”

She let him pull her to him, and although she relaxed against him, there was a small hard core within her that would not soften, would not dissolve, even under his touch.

One afternoon, as the month drew to an end, she left work early to pay a call that had been weighing on her.

Erika Rosenthal was at home, and her glance took in Gemma’s now slender figure. “Something has happened,” she said when she’d led Gemma into the sitting room. “I read in the papers about the man arrested for the murders, but I didn’t know about your child …”