And Justice There Is None

by Deborah Crombie

  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.

  Her father had managed to provide a few cold meats and tea for the mourners, but no one stayed long. When the last guest had left, Angel looked round the neglected flat, at her father, gaunt and hollow-eyed, collapsed in his chair, and wondered how she would bear it.

  She did the washing up, mechanically, and when her father fell into a doze in front of the television, she slipped out the door.

  All the Thomases were home, even Ronnie, which was unusual these days, and they, too, were gathered round the television. As Mrs. Thomas patted the sofa beside her, Betty made an awkward attempt at normality. "There's a new group from Liverpool on tonight. They're supposed to be super."

  But Angel had more important things on her mind. "Mrs. T, could I talk to you?"

  "Of course, child."

  "I mean, in the kitchen?"

  "I suspect you could use a proper cup of tea, after this afternoon," said Mrs. Thomas, rising and leading Angel to the scrubbed, square table. To the others, she called back, "Now, you tell us when those boys come on."

  When she'd made Angel a steaming cup of milky tea, she sat and picked up the sewing that was her constant companion. "Now, what's worrying you, child?"

  Angel swallowed hard. "Mrs. T, now that my mother's gone, could I come and live with you?"

  Mrs. Thomas stared at her. "What you be thinkin', girl? That's the craziest thing I ever heard!"

  "I could share with Betty; she wouldn't mind. And I don't eat mu-"

  "That's got nothing to do with it, Angel. We feed you mos' the time as it is, and that's never been a burden. But you have to think about your poor father. Who would look after him in his time of need? And what would people say, a nice white girl boarding with a black family?" She shook her head in dismay. "You have to think on your place in life, girl, and that's something that's jus' not done."

  "But-"

  "You know I love you like my own child, and so does Clive. You were the first person who ever showed us a kindness when we came here, and we've never forgot that. But that doesn't mean you don't have to do what's right, and you know it, too."

  Angel could only nod, desperately trying to keep the tears at bay. Of course, Mrs. Thomas was right; she had known it in her heart, but the rejection bit deep, and with it, her last small flicker of hope winked out.

  ***

  Jane Dunn put down the phone and stood staring at the glass ornament she still held in her hand. She'd bought a Christmas tree that morning from a local nursery, one of her customers, choosing the largest fir available. Now it rose bravely towards the kiln roof, hung with a multitude of tiny white lights, and decorated with the hand-blown glass ornaments she'd bought Alex on a trip to the Black Forest when he was ten. Did she hope the tree would cheer him? Or her?

  What it had done was bring back a rush of memories of his childhood; Alex as a solemn yet charming little boy, possessing the gravity of those children who are brought up in the company of adults. Jane had had no experience with mothering, after all, had not known how to treat him except as a friend and companion.

  Her sister, Julia, had appeared without warning one day at her door, holding the small, towheaded boy by the hand. Julia had left years before, after a blazing row with their father over her irresponsible behavior. She'd slammed out of the house, taking nothing with her, vowing never to come back.

  Their parents had died of grief. Jane knew this as well as she knew herself, even though the coroner's certificates had read heart failure and stroke. The loss of their volatile, favored, younger daughter had been more than the Dunns could bear.

  They had left Jane the house, the land, and a little money. She had set out to find a way to support herself- and she had vowed she would never love anyone, or anything, as much as her parents had loved Julia.

  Jane hung the ornament on the tree, watching it swing until it fell still. Was this how she had failed Alex? For she had come to feel, in the last three days, that she had failed him, that she had not given him the core of emotional strength he needed.

  Or was this his mother's legacy, the fatal crack in the porcelain not seen until now? Years ago, Julia, hollow-eyed and emaciated, had pushed her frightened child away from her, promising Jane she'd come back for him in a few days. For months afterwards, Alex had stood every day at the end of the drive, watching, waiting, but his mother never returned.

  Jane had spent much time and money at first trying to trace her sister, but gradually it had seemed less urgent. She and Alex settled into their life together, and by the time he started school she had given up the search altogether. When Alex questioned her as he grew older, she'd told him his mother was dead.

  With a last look at the Christmas tree, she left the sitting room and went out into the drive. The early December dusk would settle in soon, and Alex had not returned. Every day he left the house after breakfast, walking as if he could escape his grief, returning only as it grew dark. In the evenings he ate whatever she'd prepared for supper without seeming to notice what it was, and then he began to drink.

  As Alex had enjoyed his wine but had never been more than a moderate drinker, this worried Jane greatly, but she didn't know how stop him. Unable to sleep, she began checking on him in the middle of the night. Once, near dawn, she'd found him poring over his boyhood collections, as if he found some solace in touching the birds' eggs, the nests, the bent and tarnished spoons; and once, asleep, his body wrapped around a pottery teapot as if he were cradling a child.

  During the day, her every attempt at conversation or confidence had been met with the same blank stare, as if she spoke a language Alex could no longer comprehend. But now she knew she must try to reach him.

  Fern had rung from London, saying that the police were looking urgently for him, and that they had even threatened her with arrest if she didn't reveal his whereabouts.

  Whatever Alex had seen, or done, or knew, she must convince him to go back to London and face up to it. If she let him go on in this way, she would be compounding her own failure. Nor could
she go on watching him disintegrate before her eyes. It came to her, with the cold breeze that eddied off the marsh, that time and familiarity had betrayed her, concealing the fact that she had long ago broken her own vow.

  ***

  Gemma rang down to the incident room and summoned Gerry Franks. When he appeared, his sneer more apparent than usual, she settled back in her chair and laced her fingers together.

  "I've just had a word with the guv'nor, Gerry," she began conversationally. "He tells me you're unhappy with my handling of the Arrowood case. I'd like to know why you didn't come to me first if there was something you thought needed to be addressed."

  "Figured you had more important things to do than listen to your sergeant," he said. Watching the swift calculation cross his face, she knew that diplomacy was not going to be enough. "What do I have to offer compared to Scotland Yard?"

  "You're a good, experienced officer and I depend on you more than I've let you know," she replied. "I'm sorry if I've made you feel you were left out of the loop. We've no hope of solving a case this difficult without working as a team, communicating and cooperating, and I intend to do a better job of both. What about you?"

  "What about Arrowood, then? We've danced round him like butterflies on a bloody daisy."

  "Karl Arrowood is a powerful man, and we'd be mad to antagonize him more than absolutely necessary. Not to mention the fact that we have half a dozen other strong leads that need following up, including finding Alex Dunn, and we cannot leave out the possible connection with Marianne Hoffman's murder. If you don't feel you can work within those parameters, I can ask to have you transferred off the case." Pausing to let the threat sink in, she added pleasantly, "But I'd like you to stay, Sergeant. You're an asset to this investigation, and I'd be hard put to replace you."

  She saw him struggling between his anger with her and the salve to his vanity. When he cleared his throat and sat up a bit straighter, she knew vanity had won. "This Hoffman woman. Might help if I had a look at the file."

  "I'll send a copy down to you. In the meantime, I'd like you to go through the house-to-house reports once more. Someone has got to have seen something that we've missed."

  When he left, he stopped at the door and gave her a brusque nod. It seemed a token of grudging respect, and she thought it might be a while before he realized he'd been assigned to paperwork Siberia.

  Reaching for the phone to ring Melody Talbot, Gemma realized her hands were trembling. It was then that the pain struck. A radiating web, it encircled her abdomen, squeezing, making her gasp for breath. How long it lasted she didn't know, but at last it receded, leaving her shaken and sweating.

  She waited, deliberately slowing her breathing, alert to the slightest sensation, but the cramping didn't come back. She moved, gingerly at first, then ran her hands over the gentle swell of her abdomen. Had she felt a flutter, a faint tickle of movement? Surely it was too soon, she thought, but the sensation reassured her.

  She was all right, the baby was all right, everything was going to be all right.

  ***

  Melody came into her office balancing two Starbucks cups. "Decaf latte," she announced. "Just the way you like it."

  "You must be able to read minds." Gemma wrapped her hands round the cup gratefully.

  Sitting with her own coffee, Melody studied her. "You okay, Gemma? You seem a bit pale."

  "I'm fine. Really. Melody, do you know Otto Popov, the man who runs the little café on Elgin Crescent?"

  "A nice bloke. Russian, but that you must have gathered. First generation, as I think his parents came over after the war, when he was a child."

  "Any idea why he would want to see Karl Arrowood blamed for his wife's death?"

  "None… but…"

  "But what? Out with it, Melody. I need to know."

  "Um, I don't know why it would have anything to do with Arrowood, but I have heard vague rumors about Otto… Something to do with the Russian Mafia. I wouldn't give any credence to that sort of talk. In my opinion, it's just prejudice combined with idle gossip."

  "Know anyone who'd know more?"

  "As in 'off the record'?" Melody thought for a moment. "Yeah. Maybe. I'll see what I can do. And in the meantime, you've got media vultures waiting in the anteroom for their afternoon bulletin."

  "We are still pursuing multiple leads," Gemma told the gathered reporters, sensing their disappointment in the lack of new developments. She plowed on, looking directly into the eye of the Channel 4 video camera and ignoring Tom MacCrimmon's probing gaze. "If anyone in the neighborhood of St. John's Church last Friday evening saw anything out of the ordinary, please ring this number." Her hope of a response was dwindling; it had been two days and not one legit call had been received.

  Excusing herself, she pushed through the group and out the front entrance, but MacCrimmon was right behind her.

  "Buy you a drink, Inspector?" he asked, looking as innocent as a puppy.

  "You think I'd have a drink with you after that headline the other day?"

  "Just doing my job. Surely you're not cross with me for that? Come on"- he gestured towards the pub across the street- "you look like you could use a break."

  "Thanks very much," she replied acidly, although it was hard to stay angry in the face of his good-natured cheek. Still, she wasn't about to be seen in the pub with a tabloid journalist. "Look, Tom, I don't have anything more for you than I've said. But I promise I'll let you know when I do, if you keep a civil pen in your head in the meantime."

  "That's a hard thing to ask of me, Inspector," he said with a grin. "But I'll do my best."

  "I'm sure you will," Gemma muttered, leaving him on the steps. She hurried on to the car park and locked herself in her car, starting the engine with a sigh of relief. Her interview with the super and her meeting with Gerry Franks had affected her more than she cared to admit; she was glad of the refuge.

  Her phone rang and she answered swiftly, seeing that it was Kincaid. "I'm so glad it's you. You won't believe what happened to me this afternoon-"

  Static cut them off. When she could hear him again, he was saying, "-reason for ringing. Doug Cullen and his girlfriend have invited us for dinner on Saturday night-"

  "Saturday? We're moving on Saturday!"

  "All the better. Kit can watch Toby, and we won't have to cook. A nice gesture on Cullen's part, I thought. I'll tell him about seven, all right? See you tonight, love."

  The phone went dead, but Gemma sat for a long moment with it pressed to her ear, thinking thoughts of murder.

  ***

  He walked around the edge of the little town of Rye, perched on its sandstone cliff, as he had for the past three days. Here three rivers met, and at one time the sea had lapped at the town's base, but the courses of the rivers had changed and the sea had retreated, now a silver thread on the southern horizon.

  Between the town and the sea lay the marsh, sheep-dotted, thick with seabirds. Alex knew every footpath through its reaches; it was the territory of his solitary childhood and of his dreams. If he stumbled occasionally as some memory of Dawn pierced the connection between muscles and brain, his body seemed to right itself and plod on of its own accord.

  But to his surprise, it was Karl's face he saw vividly now. In spite of his reputation as a sharp businessman, Karl Arrowood had always seemed to treat him fairly- had, in fact, gone out of his way to share his knowledge of antiques and to refer business to him. Alex realized that he'd never seriously allowed himself to contemplate his betrayal of a friend, or Karl's reaction if he'd learned the truth- nor had he paid attention to Dawn's increasing uneasiness about her husband. How could he have been so stupid? So blind?

  In the distance he could see the cloverleaf towers of Henry VIII's Camber Castle, floating like a mirage, and beyond that rose the low green hill that hid the ancient Cinque Port of Winchelsea in its folds.

  When he reached Winchelsea Beach he stood, looking out over the gray, rolling water, unaware of the cold until his h
ands and feet lost all sensation.

  Then he turned back the way he had come, reaching Rye as dusk settled over its cobbled streets and red tile roofs. Feeling invisible in the dying light, he climbed up into the town. From the lookout on Watchbell Street he could see lights wink on along the quay and the Channel, and somehow his very isolation gave him strength.

  At last the cold and dark drove him down again, and he made his way home, drifting through the footpaths as insubstantially as a ghost. Smoke curled from Jane's chimney, and as he stepped into the house he smelled something savory baking in the oven, but when he called out there was no answer. Jane must be in the greenhouse, tending the potted cyclamens and azaleas she had carefully nurtured for the Christmas market.

  Another scent drew him forward, into the sitting room, something green and sharp and fresh. Alex stood rooted, gazing at the tree that filled the room, the glass star at its tip sparkling against the dark vault of the kiln. His life seemed to telescope before him, compounding his loss. There was Dawn, his childhood, and something beyond memory that even now he could not bear to look at directly.

  Alex fell to his knees before the tree, overcome by great, wrenching sobs that tore at his throat and pierced his chest.

  Suddenly Jane was there, smelling of cold and earth. "Oh, Alex," she whispered. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." She tried to put an arm round him but he pulled away.

  "No. I'm sorry." His mind felt suddenly clear again, as if the static that had fogged it for days had vanished. "I've got to go back. There are things-"

  "Fern rang this afternoon. She said the police are looking for you, they've even put out an alert for your car-"

  "The police? What do they want with me?"

  "I'm sure they hope you know something about the murder. The sooner you talk with them, the sooner you'll be able to clear things up."

  It hadn't occurred to him that the police might think him a witness- or a suspect. Well, he would go back to London first thing the next morning, and he would talk to them. But his purpose had become clear, and he'd no intention of letting the police or anyone else interfere with his agenda.