And Justice There Is None

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Now we have a connection between the victims," Kincaid said.

"Karl Arrowood," agreed Gemma. "I don't think there can be any doubt. But that still doesn't tell us why three murders were committed, or by whom."

"If Karl were still alive, we could assume he was after any woman who'd ever crossed him, and put a guard on his ex-wife."

"And what about Ronnie Thomas?" asked Gemma, ignoring the quip. She looked down at the album she held in her hands, pressed on her by Wesley as they left the flat. Ronnie's nephew had carefully mounted and preserved all his photographs. "Did Marianne think that Karl had him killed? Was that why she was so afraid?"

Kincaid watched as a motorcyclist roared by them, his face rendered blank and anonymous by his helmet. "You know how hard those sort of cases are to solve. They would naturally assume it was manslaughter rather than homicide, given no other evidence. Gemma, are you all right?"

The cramp had caught her by surprise, but she kept her voice even as she replied, "Fine. I just need to get off my feet for a few minutes. And I've got to get back to the station, anyway. I've a meeting with the super, though I've no idea what I should tell him at this point."

"Let me go back to the Yard and see what I can find out about the couple who went to prison. We've got a name, we can assume that the offense was drug-related, and we have an approximate date- sixty-nine or thereabouts. I'll put Cullen on it. His research skills almost make up for his lack of bedside manner."

"Ring me?" she asked, suddenly loath to see him go.

"Of course." He kissed her briefly, a touch of warm lips against her cold cheek, then they went their separate ways.

When Wesley's sisters came in with their children, he made an excuse to leave the flat. While his mum seemed to find the bedlam comforting, he felt an urgent need to sort out his thoughts.

He walked quickly down to Portobello Road, then his feet turned him automatically to the left, towards Elgin Crescent and the café.

They were all there: Alex, looking subdued, with new hollows under his cheekbones; Fern, hair sparkling with glitter, green eyes inscrutable; Marc, who sat back, observing, as he usually did; Bryony, animated for Marc's benefit; and even Otto, who appeared to have joined them over the remains of their sandwiches and a pot of coffee.

"Wesley!" called out Otto. "You see, you cannot stay away, even when you have the day off. Is this a good thing?"

"Sit down, Wes," urged Bryony. "You look as if you've seen a ghost."

They were all gazing at him expectantly.

"It's the oddest thing," he said reluctantly, then proceeded to tell them about his aunt and uncle, and how he had learned of their unexpected connection with Karl Arrowood.

Kit and Toby had just come back from taking the dogs for a walk down the street. The sun had come out, briefly, and Kit had taken advantage of the warmest part of the day. Once the sun passed its zenith, the afternoon would cool quickly.

The boys had developed a routine for their days together, and Kit had just begun to realize how much he would miss it when his school term started the following week.

After Duncan and Gemma left for work, he made Toby eggs for breakfast, then they took the dogs for a run in the big garden. Before lunch they played indoor games, then after their cheese-and-pickle sandwiches (Toby's without the pickle) they had quiet time. Toby, of course, insisted that he was too old for naps, but Kit had found that if they read books together, Toby would usually drift off to sleep for an hour or so and be much better tempered for the remainder of the afternoon.

Now, he would make them something for tea, and they could watch Blue Peter on the telly.

There was still a drift of snow under the eave of the house, and Kit paused to pick up a leaf that had lodged in its surface. It was golden, and completely encased in a clear coating of ice, a momentary jewel. As he turned to show his find to Toby, Tess barked suddenly. Startled, Kit dropped the leaf and looked up. A man walking along the pavement had stopped and stood watching them. Geordie gave a few halfhearted woofs, but his tail was wagging, and Kit recognized Marc, the man who'd brought Geordie to them.

"Hullo, Kit," Marc called out. "Hullo, Toby. Is your mum at home, by any chance?"

"No, she's still at work."

"Oh, well, tell her I said hello," he said, with an odd sort of smile. "Happy New Year to you, then," he added, and walked on.

Kit stared after him. There was something in the line of Marc's body, the length of his stride, that triggered a memory. He had seen the man a few days ago, just up the street, but had only glimpsed him from the back.

Oh, well, he thought, shrugging, perhaps Marc lived in the neighborhood, and liked to take walks. People did take walks without dogs, although Kit now found that hard to imagine.

His own charges were tugging at their leads, claiming his attention, and Toby had managed to find a muddy patch beneath the tree. Pulling in the dogs, Kit gathered up Toby and shepherded his brood into the house, the walking man already forgotten.

Oh, God, it was all such a muddle, Gemma thought, running her hands through her already disheveled hair. The files and reports on all three murder cases lay strewn across her desk as if a whirlwind had picked them up and dropped them again, a jumble of utterly useless facts. She stood abruptly, feeling that if she didn't get some air, her head would burst with frustration. Patting her jacket pocket to make sure she had her phone, she slammed out of her office. "I'm going out for a bit," she called out to Melody as she passed the staff room, but she didn't stop to explain.

She walked without thinking for the first few minutes, concentrating on nothing but the regular jab of the frigid air filling her lungs and the crisp step of her booted feet on the pavement.

Then, as she relaxed, bits of the reports began to shift and jostle in her mind like pieces in a child's puzzle square. She sorted them as if it were an exercise, running through each possible suspect, each discarded avenue of investigation. It was only when she reached Alex Dunn that something began to niggle at her. Her steps slowed.

Alex was Bryony's friend, Kincaid had said. He could have taken the scalpel from the surgery… On the pretext of a visit, perhaps, Gemma added to herself, as could any of Bryony's friends. But the scalpel had disappeared at night, in an obvious theft…

A fragment of that morning's conversation with Bryony floated back to her, only half heard in her worry over Geordie. Bryony had panicked because she'd misplaced her keys, fearing she might have compromised the surgery's security. All had been well in this morning's case… but what if it had happened before? Gavin had accused Bryony of absentmindedly leaving the surgery unlocked, but what if someone Bryony knew- and trusted- had taken her keys without her knowledge? Only a few minutes would have been needed to make a copy of the key to the surgery door, then the keys would have been returned, no one the wiser.

But which of them had it been? Alex and Otto had alibis for the time of Dawn's death, as did Otto for Karl's, and Alex's involvement in Karl's death seemed unlikely. Fern they had never considered seriously, simply because she did not possess the physical size and strength to wield the knife.

That left Marc.

Gemma's blood ran cold. If anyone had access to Bryony's keys, as well as knowledge of the surgery, it was Marc. He was fit and strong; she had seen him lift their Christmas tree as if it were a twig.

And he lived alone. As far as Gemma knew, his movements on the nights of Dawn's and Karl's murders had never been checked. But why would Marc commit such crimes?

No, it just wasn't possible! The whole idea was a fabrication of her overstressed imagination-

And yet… Looking up, she realized she had come to the intersection of Kensington Park and Elgin Crescent. She was near enough. It couldn't hurt to have a friendly word with Marc, ask in a roundabout way what he'd been doing on those nights, just to set her mind at rest.

She glanced in Otto's window as she passed the café, seeing Wesley wiping down a table, his head bobbing to unheard music. Then she turned into Portobello Road and started down the hill.

Shortly after Kincaid's return to Scotland Yard, Cullen appeared in his office.

"I found the case- or cases, I should say, as they were tried separately," he reported. "Neil and Nina Byatt. Both were convicted of selling heroin, which had apparently been smuggled into the country in art objects that were shipped to Karl Arrowood, their employer."

"And Arrowood was never charged?"

"According to the report, the investigating officers found no proof of his involvement."

Kincaid frowned. "I smell a deal, Sergeant, and a nasty one. No wonder Marianne Hoffman felt responsible for what happened to her two friends, but I doubt she had much influence over Karl. Were you able to locate the Byatts' son?"

"I rang a friend at Somerset House, who was able to turn up the record for me. Neil Wayne Byatt and Nina Judith Mitchell Byatt had a son in 1961. They named him Evan Marcus Byatt."

"I wonder what happened to the boy when his parents died?"

"He was legally adopted by his maternal grandparents."

"Good God, you're amazing, Cullen."

"It's all in knowing what to access."

"Mitchell?" Kincaid mused. "I wonder if he took his grandparents' name… He'd be near forty now, wouldn't he? And hasn't Gemma mentioned someone named Mitchell?"

He reached for the phone, unable to quell a sudden uneasiness.

Although the lights were out in the dining area of the soup kitchen, Gemma heard a murmur of voices from the back. "Anyone at home?" she called out.

"In here," Marc answered, and as she reached the kitchen she saw that it was Bryony with him. He stood at the long, stainless steel worktable, preparing the ingredients for what looked like a chicken soup or stew. Bryony sat on a stool nearby, tearing herbs into a bowl.

"Bryony! I thought I might find you here," Gemma improvised, seeing how she might proceed.

"Is it Geordie? He's not worse, is he?" Bryony slid from her stool, but Gemma hurriedly waved her back.

"No, no, he's fine. I just wanted to ask you something. Hullo, Marc," she added, and he nodded at her without breaking the rhythm of his work, dismembering chicken carcasses with swift precision. Turning back to Bryony, Gemma said, "It's about your keys. Do you remember misplacing them, even briefly, before the theft in the surgery?"

"No…" Bryony frowned, her hand poised over the bowl, and Gemma caught the strong scents of thyme and rosemary. "It's odd, though, now you mention it. When I was searching for my keys this morning, I discovered my spare set was missing from my kitchen drawer. I can't imagine what could have happened to them."

Who had had access to Bryony's kitchen, other than Marc? Gemma felt her pulse quicken- perhaps her suspicions had not been so far-fetched, after all. "Have you any idea how long the keys have been missing?" she asked Bryony.

"Absolutely none. I haven't used them in ages, and it's not the sort of thing you think to check on a regular basis, is it?"

"No," Gemma agreed, glancing at Marc, who still seemed to be concentrating on his chopping. "Is that a New Year's Day feast you're preparing?" she asked, with studied casualness. "For your clients?"

He looked up at her and she thought she saw a flicker of wariness in his eyes- or had it been amusement? "It is. Not that many of them have much to celebrate, other than having endured another twelve months. Unlike some, who don't know the meaning of lack." There was a bite to his voice she hadn't heard before.

"What about you, though? Surely you must take some time for yourself? I know you fed the homeless on Christmas Day- did you at least treat yourself on Christmas Eve?"

Bryony looked from Gemma to Marc with a puzzled frown- perhaps she had wondered how Marc had spent Christmas Eve, as well. The blue light from the fluorescent fixtures bleached the red from her auburn hair and gave a faint gray cast to her skin.

"And I was beginning to feel a bit neglected," said Marc. "I thought I was the only one you hadn't questioned about Christmas Eve, and about the night Dawn Arrowood was killed. I was here, alone, on both occasions."

Bryony gave a startled laugh. "I'm sure that's not what Gemma meant."

Using the flat of his knife, Marc scraped the chicken pieces and chopped vegetables from the steel table into an enormous pot. "Isn't it?" he asked lightly.

"But Gemma, you can't seriously be suggesting that Marc had something to do with the Arrowoods' deaths? That's-"

Gemma held up her hand to silence Bryony's protest. The last piece of the puzzle had fallen into place. How had she not seen it before? "Marc. You said your grandmother raised you. How did you lose your parents?"

He met her eyes. "Oh, I think you know. So does Bryony, in fact, because Wesley just told everyone the whole story half an hour ago. Bryony, bring me your herbs," he added, with a nod towards the pot.

Before Gemma could call out an instinctive warning, Bryony had slipped from her stool and gone to him. Marc's arm snaked round her; with the other he held the knife to her long, slender throat. The bowl of herbs slid from Bryony's grasp and shattered on the floor.

"Marc. Don't-" Gemma jerked as her phone began to ring. She reached automatically towards her pocket, then froze when Marc shook his head.

"I wouldn't do that, Gemma." His grip tightened on Bryony until she whimpered. "You wouldn't want me to cut her, would you? Switch the phone off."

Gemma took the phone from her pocket. The insistent ringing stopped as she turned it off, and she let it fall back into her pocket. Praying that he wouldn't take the phone from her, she tried to keep her voice calm. "I'll do whatever you say, Marc. Just don't hurt her." Visions of Dawn and Karl Arrowoods' mutilated bodies swam before her eyes, and she heard the pulse pound in her ears. He was insane, she had been unforgivably stupid, and now he held Bryony's life in his hands.

Otto's café was empty except for an older woman drinking a cup of tea, her greyhound stretched out beside her chair.

"Anyone here?" Kincaid called, and Otto emerged from the kitchen.

"What can I do for you gentlemen? It's Superintendent Kincaid, is it not?"

"Otto, is there anyone called Mitchell that comes in here? You know, one of the regular group?"

"You must be thinking of Marc Mitchell. They were all in earlier this afternoon, Marc, Bryony, Alex and Fern. Wesley was telling everyone the latest developments."

"Marc, the chap who runs the soup kitchen? Jesus." Kincaid had met the man when he'd come to their house, but if he'd been told his last name, it hadn't registered. "Where is his place?"

"Just down Portobello Road, before you get to the flyover. Next to the old Portobello School entrance."

"It's the perfect situation," Cullen said, excitement tightening his voice. "He lives alone, has facilities for washing things, and a kitchen where a trace of blood wouldn't be amiss. And if Wesley told him we'd learned about his parents, he'd know it was only a matter of time until we made the connection-"

"Whose parents?" asked Otto, bewildered. "What are you talking about?"

But Kincaid had taken out his phone and was dialing Gemma again. This time the call went directly to voice mail. "Why in bloody hell would she have switched her phone off?" he muttered as he hung up. He dialed again, this time Notting Hill Station. When he had Melody Talbot on the line, he asked without preamble, "Where's Gemma? Is she there?"

"No." Melody sounded surprised, and a little worried. "She went out about an hour ago. She didn't say where she was going. Have you any idea where she is?"

Kincaid told himself Gemma could have gone anywhere- to run an errand, check on the children, to buy herself a coffee- but none of his logical suppositions lessened the dread that gripped him.

"I'm not mad, you know," Marc said as if he'd read her thoughts.

"Then let us go. The Yard is on the way," she bluffed. "You know they've traced your history. I only came along first because I thought we were friends. Talk to me, Marc. Let me help you."

"We'll talk," Marc agreed pleasantly. "But first let's make Bryony a bit more comfortable. Come over here." He gestured towards a ball of brown kitchen twine on the table. "Tie her up, hands behind her back." In a mockery of a lover's embrace, he turned Bryony towards him so that Gemma could reach her hands.

With a wary eye on the knife, Gemma did as he asked. Gemma could feel Bryony trembling.

"Now her feet," Marc commanded, and when Gemma had finished he pushed Bryony up against the wall next to the cooker. Released from his grip, Bryony slid limply down into a sitting position, knees drawn up to her chin, eyes dark with terror.

Marc stood between them, still holding the knife firmly. "You make one wrong move," he told Gemma, "and I can reach her in an instant."

"Why are you doing this?" Gemma asked softly. "I know you don't want to hurt Bryony, or me."

"Then you can listen to the truth. Someone needs to know what Karl Arrowood did. He took my parents away from me- he murdered them. And she let him do it. That's not right, is it?"

"She? Who do you mean, Marc?"

"Angel, of course. Or Marianne, if you prefer. She said that was our secret, her name, because I was special to her. She said she loved me- and I loved her, until my grandmother told me what she'd done."

"Angel couldn't have prevented Karl doing what he did. She was just as much his victim as your parents, and she suffered, too-"

"Not enough. All the time I was growing up, my grandmother told me that God would punish them, Angel and Karl. I waited and waited, but nothing happened. My grandmother died without seeing retribution."

"But surely she didn't mean for you-"

"You know what the irony of it was?" His lips curled in a smile that didn't reach his eyes. "Two days after I buried her, I saw Karl on the telly. Getting an award for his humanitarian efforts. He and some political bigwig friends had raised money to benefit the homeless. 'The less fortunate,' he called them." He shook his head. "Do you know that it took my grandmother fifteen years to pay off my parents' legal fees? There were months we lived on porridge, months when she couldn't pay the electricity. Do you think Karl would have considered us less fortunate?"

"But Angel- Marianne- Why-"

"I had to sell my grandmother's bits and pieces to pay off the last of the debts, so I took her jewelry to the little shop in Camden Passage, near our flat. When I saw her, I knew God had spoken to me directly."

"You recognized Angel?"

"I thought she seemed familiar at first. Then she bent over, and I saw her locket." He touched his chest, and Gemma saw he wore a silver chain that vanished beneath his shirt. "She always wore a heart-shaped silver locket. She put my picture in it. It was still there." There was a note of wonder in his voice. "But then, I didn't know that until after I'd killed her."

He is utterly mad. Gemma put a hand on the worktop to steady herself, trying frantically to think of something within reach she could use for a weapon. If she could only distract him long enough to switch on her phone and dial 999, the open connection would lead the police to her. But how could she do so without him hurting Bryony, or her?

"Are you telling me God chose you as his means of retribution?" She willed him to keep talking. "Did you kill Marianne to punish her?"

"And Karl. He must have cared about her, once. But I had no way of making sure that he knew, and understood, what had happened. So then I thought of his wife. I saw her on the telly with him- so young, so blond, and I knew he must love her, if he were capable of loving anyone."

"But Dawn Arrowood had never hurt anyone! How could you take such an innocent life?"

"I was sorry about that." Marc spoke with chilling sincerity. "She was so beautiful- a little like my mother. But then my mother died gasping for breath, her lungs filled with fluid. Dawn was a lamb, a necessary sacrifice. I'm sure she would have understood."

"That's why you pierced the victims' lungs- because of your mother?" A horrid fascination gripped Gemma.

"And their throats-"

"My father hanged himself."

"And Karl? You had to make Karl suffer first."

Marc smiled at her, as if pleased with a bright pupil. "I sensed you were perceptive."

"Did he know who you were, when you killed him?"

"I told him. He had to know. Then he fought me, but it didn't matter in the end."

Bryony moaned, as if the flat assurance of Marc's words had pushed her past the bounds of endurance.

As Marc's eyes flicked towards Bryony, Gemma lunged at him. If she had any conscious thought, it was that she might knock him down, giving her a chance to use the phone before he could recover.

But in a flash of movement, his hands grabbed her, swinging her round. Her hip hit the steel table, hard, and the impact loosened his grip. As she fell to the floor she felt a tearing pain.

Had the knife caught her? Pushing herself up, she grabbed for Marc's ankles, but the pain bit again, fierce and insistent. She cried out, and Bryony scooted towards her along the floor.

"Gemma! What is it? Are you okay?"

"Get back," Marc hissed at Bryony.

Bryony stopped, her face very white. "Gemma, you're bleeding."

Gemma felt a wet, spreading warmth. When she touched the floor beneath her, her hand came away red and sticky.

"Marc," she whispered. He had knelt beside her, looking suddenly as bewildered as a child. "Something's wrong. You have to get someone- an ambulance-"

"I didn't mean- I never wanted to hurt you, Gemma," he whispered. "Let me help you. I can make it better." He lifted her shoulders, cradling her in his arms, and gently began to rock her.

The tires screeched as Cullen pulled into the curb, and Kincaid leapt out before the car had stopped rolling. Kincaid had ordered Melody to dispatch officers to the address on Portobello Road, but he and Cullen arrived first. The lights were out in the front of the soup kitchen, but the door swung open to his touch.

"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.