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?
The pills brought her some ease, dulling her fears to a faint, nagging discomfort. When she'd used up her mother's supply, Karl had got her more.
It seemed that everyone they knew was taking LSD, but after the first few times, Angel had made excuses to pass it by. The sharp, jangly feeling and disjointed images the drug produced frightened her- in fact, the last time she'd tried it, she'd spent the evening curled up in a fetal ball on the floor, terrified that the moving walls were going to crush her. Karl had laughed at her, but not even his disdain could convince her to go through that experience again. She would stay with the warmth and drifting ease of the morphine, and confine her nightmares to sleep.
Then, just before Christmas, her tablets ran out. When she told Karl, he shrugged and said his source had vanished.
She had no rest in the days that followed. Karl watched her growing misery with an interest that seemed calculated, rather than sympathetic. By Christmas Eve she was tossing in their bed, restless and sweating.
Karl came and sat beside her, smoothing the damp hair from her forehead. "I can help you if you want," he said gently, holding up a small bag of white powder.
She knew what it was. He kept a small supply for friends and clients, although he never touched the stuff himself. "No," she whispered, "I shouldn't." She heard the longing in her voice, and knew he had heard it, too.
"It will be all right," he murmured. "It will help you sleep, that's all."
"But I- It's-"
"Let me take care of you, Angel. Haven't I always taken care of you?"
She felt him sponge her arm with something cold, then a prick. The relief came instantly, coursing through her body in a tingling wave. The room shifted, blurred, Karl's face softening like candle wax. The bed moved as he lay down and wrapped her in his arms.
"It will be all right," he whispered, his lips warm against her ear. "Everything will be all right. I promise."
***
During the daylight hours, Alex sat in the dimness, the heavy drapes pulled across the garden doors, the only light from the display cabinet that held his Clarice Cliff pottery. He'd unplugged the phone, and when he heard Fern knocking, he held his breath as if his very stillness would will her to go away. Eventually, she did.
He went back to the mental discipline he had set himself, absently running his fingers over the handle of the paper knife he'd stolen from Fern's stall.
It had taken him several days to realize he had no photo of Dawn. She had never wanted him to take one, had even refused to give him a copy of the bland studio shot she'd had made as a gift to her parents. She insisted he didn't need a reminder of her, that it would lessen the impact when he saw her- but he thought now that her reluctance had been merely another manifestation of her growing fear of Karl.
So he sat in the dark and tried obsessively, memory by memory, image by image, to put her together again in his mind. If he could paint the perfect picture of her, then he might, by some enormous act of will and concentration, imprint it forever in his brain.
He tried desperately to remember every time they had been together, what they had said or felt or done. But he found himself thinking instead of other girls, charting the arcs of those relationships as if they might provide him a map of the one that mattered most.
What he found was that he had never felt a true emotional bond with anyone but Dawn. And the fact that the connection had been half lies on her part, half fantasy on his, left him a husk- having finally learned to value something that didn't exist.
Karl Arrowood had not only taken Dawn from him, he had taken his perception of himself and his way of relating to the world. No longer would he see himself as independent, self-sufficient, in control of his life.
When it grew dark, he slipped the paper knife in his pocket and silently let himself out of the flat, ducking low until he had passed Mr. Canfield's window. It took him a moment to realize snow was falling lightly, touching his face with icy fingers.
Reaching Portobello, he turned to the north, then right onto Chepstow Villas. The scent of food cooking drifted from a nearby flat, reminding him that he hadn't eaten for some time- a day, or was it two? But he pushed the thought aside and went on, set on his course.
From Kensington Park Gardens, he fixed on the spire of St. John's Church like a lodestone. A jogger brushed past, startling him- a tall, slender, hooded figure. Alex felt a shock of familiarity, but when he turned, the man had vanished.
By the time he reached the churchyard, the snow was coming down heavily, obscuring his view of the pale house across the street. But the car was in the drive, and he knew if he waited long enough, Karl was bound to come out.
Then he would know what to do.
***
Karl tightened the knot in his tie and shot his cuffs without taking his gaze from his face in the mirror. He had accepted the invitation to Christmas Eve dinner at the last moment, reluctantly, only because he'd realized he could not bear to stay in the house alone.
Why did it not show? he wondered as he examined his reflection. How could one go on looking so ordinary, muscle, bone and flesh forming an impervious shell over the devastation within? Nothing had prepared him for this- not even Angel.
It had been years since he'd thought of her, the loss put away along with the family and childhood he no longer acknowledged. Would she have laughed to see him now? Nothing he had thought of value mattered any longer, and too late he had realized the worth of those things held too lightly.
Death had taken Dawn's physical presence from him- Her betrayal had stolen his memories of her. And it was not only her he had lost, but his dream of continuance, of sharing himself with kindred blood and spirit, of leaving a legacy for the future. She had taken his hopes for Alex from him as well.
He switched out the lights and went slowly down the stairs, out into the cold air that pierced his lungs like grief.
***
"Look. It's snowing." Kincaid had come in from letting Geordie out into the garden one last time. They had sent the boys to bed, with much protest on Kit's part, and Tess had scrambled up with them.
Gemma came to stand beside him and he slipped an arm
round her waist. A white veil of swirling flakes now obscured the garden. "I can't believe it," she murmured, her head against his shoulder. "I don't ever remember it snowing on Christmas Eve. It's like the poem you read earlier."
"Lovely, isn't it?" Kincaid had read "A Child's Christmas in Wales" aloud to them all after dinner, and he still felt the pleasure of the words on his tongue.
"Do you know it all by heart?"
"Only bits and pieces, now. I had it memorized when I was younger." His family had read not only Dylan Thomas every Christmas Eve, but the American poet Clement Moore's "The Night Before Christmas," from his father's treasured volume, illustrated by Arthur Rackam. For A Christmas Carol, they had each taken several parts, so that it became more like a play. Then they had read the nativity story from Luke; the familiar wording still gave him chills. And they had sung carols, accompanied by his dad on piano.
All in all, an ideal picture, if selective memory removed his and Juliet's incessant squabbling over who was to read what; the pinching during the carols; the year he foolishly attempted a solo of "Silent Night" just as his voice had begun to change.
As they grew older, of course, he and his sister had begun to beg off, planning engagements with their friends on Christmas Eve, until by their late teens all that remained of the family traditions had been attendance at midnight mass.
Not until recently had he realized how much the ritual and the structure of those childhood Christmases had mattered to him. He wanted to create something similar for their children, but he suspected that Gemma had been more enchanted by his attempt than the boys. Feeling her shiver against him, he said softly, "Let's go back to the fire. This is a night to be in, not out. I'm glad we decided not to go to church."
"I wanted to be here, in our home," said Gemma, curling up in the corner of the sofa. Geordie jumped up beside her and rested his head on her knee with a contented groan, making them both laugh.
Geordie had made it abundantly clear that he was Gemma's dog. He was friendly and affectionate with everyone else- he'd even made inroads with Sid- but Gemma he followed from room to room, watching her with alert adoration.
"Does that mean that you're happy?"
"Utterly contented. Well, almost…" He saw the flash of her smile in the firelight. "I was looking at the nursery, after I put Toby to bed, and thinking about cots."
"Cots?"
"Toby never had a proper cot, just a bassinet, then one of those portable cots you use for traveling. I want a real nursery for this baby, with all the trimmings."
"A boy nursery or a girl nursery?"
"Don't be sly. I'm not going to admit a preference."
"There's nothing wrong with having a wish, you know. It won't jinx you. Or make you love the baby any less if it turns out to be the opposite."
"It makes me feel disloyal, somehow. But if you really want to know, I'd like a girl. I dream of little girls. I stop and look at little girls' clothes in the shops."
"I suspected as much."
"What about you, then?"
"A girl, of course, if only to balance out the household a bit. Shall we talk about names?"
Gemma's hand went to her belly in the protective gesture that tugged at his heart. "No… It's too soon. I-"
The phone rang, shattering their peace like glass breaking.
"Damn." A glance at his watch told him it was almost eleven, and his heart sank. There was never a good reason for the phone to ring this time of night.
It was worse than he feared. He came back into the firelit room, knowing Gemma's face would be tense with waiting, hating to be the one to tell her.
"It's Karl Arrowood. He's been murdered."
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
A lot of laws came in the mid-sixties the police got very wise. The authorities started to try and tidy up the streets. But like everything else, the war was over and they had to take cognizance of the environment. They had to clean up the act, bring it back to its imperial grandeur. We already knew what it was all about.
– Charlie Phillips and Mike Phillips,
from Notting Hill in the Sixties
Murdered? Where?"
"In his drive."
"Oh, God." Gemma stood, and Geordie jumped down from the sofa, his cocker spaniel brow furrowed at her tone. "Surely not the same way?"
"It looks like it," Kincaid told her. "They're waiting for us."
"I'll change. You wake Kit and tell him what's happening. Will he be all right on his own with Toby?"
"I don't know that we've much choice, have we?"
***
Kit sat up in bed, his fair hair sticking up like sprouts. "Of course I'll be okay," he said, indignant. "But do you really have to go, on Christmas?"
"Yes. I'm sorry. But Father Christmas has been and left your stockings on the hearth. They were too heavy for him to lug all the way up the stairs."
Kit rolled his eyes at the fiction, and Kincaid winked. "If we're not back when Toby wakes up, you can take him downstairs. In the meantime, we'll both have our mobiles if you need anything." He tousled Kit's hair. Much to his surprise, the boy reached out and pressed his hand for a moment before letting it go.
Kincaid, deeply moved, was tempted to say, "I love you," but resisted the impulse. He didn't dare jeopardize the delicate emotional balance they had achieved.
Instead, he took Kit's hand and pulled him out of bed. "Come and look, son, before you go back to sleep. It's going to be a white Christmas."
***
The crime scene looked much as it had ten days earlier, except for the white frosting of snow. Gemma stamped against the cold as Gerry Franks came up to them.
"Bloody snow," Franks groused. "Ruins the bloody crime scene. It's hopeless." He was obviously no happier at being dragged out on Christmas Eve than they were, and he gave them a scathing look that included them in his displeasure.
The corpse itself had been protected with a makeshift shelter, but a fine sifting of powder lay beneath the covered area. Emergency lighting had been set up round the perimeter of the scene. "Any idea how long he's been here?" Gemma asked.
"My guess, from the state of the ground and the look of the blood, is two to three hours. Pathologist's on her way."
"Who found him?"
"The next-door neighbor, Mrs. Du Ray. She wants to talk to you- won't give her statement to anyone else." This bit of information seemed to sour Franks's disposition even further.
"All right," said Gemma. "But first we need a look at the body."
Once suited up, she and Kincaid made their way round the parked Mercedes. Gemma's sense of déjà vu intensified. There was only one car in the drive. Had Karl Arrowood already disposed of his murdered wife's?
The body lay a few feet in front of the car, half on its side. There were smudges in the snow near his hands and feet, as if he'd attempted to crawl towards the house. Kneeling, Gemma could see that the blood from his wounds had congealed into dark and syrupy clots, and she couldn't help but remember that Arrowood had been terrified at the sight of blood.
He had not been wearing an overcoat, in spite of the cold, but the dark jacket of his suit had been torn away at the front. His tie had been slashed loose; his once-white shirt was missing its top buttons where it had apparently been ripped open from the collar.
"He fought," she said to Kincaid, who knelt beside her.
"Multiple wounds in the throat, rather than a single clean cut," Kincaid agreed. He reached out with a gloved finger and moved aside the fabric of the shirt. "It's hard to tell with so much blood, but it looks as though there might have been an attempt at mutilating the chest."
"Why slash a man's chest? And if that was the killer's intent, why didn't he finish the job?"
"Perhaps he was interrupted," Kincaid mused. "Or perhaps he was afraid that the struggle had attracted attention. I can tell you one thing, though- if whoever did this managed to get home without notice, he had to have some way to dispose of his bloody clothes and clean himself up b
efore he was seen by anyone. So he either lives alone-"
"Or has an unusual amount of privacy. As in Gavin Farley's workshop and shower. I think we should get a car on the way to Willesden even before we see Mrs. Du Ray."
***
"I blew it," Gemma raged to Kincaid as they stripped off their coveralls. "I should have prevented this." She had not liked Karl Arrowood, but to see such strength and force extinguished had shaken her badly.
"How? What could you have done differently?"
"If I knew that, I would have done it, wouldn't I? At least we can rule out Arrowood as the murderer-"
"Can we? What if someone learned he'd committed the first two murders and decided to take retribution into their own hands?"
"I suppose that's possible. But Karl Arrowood was a powerful man, quite a different proposition for the killer than two unsuspecting women-"
"Accounting for the lack of finesse. Dr. Ling may be able to tell us if the murders were committed by the same person. But if that's the case, it's quite a departure from the usual serial killer pattern."
Fully dressed again, they followed the walk to Mrs. Du Ray's porch, their footprints leaving dark gashes in the fresh snow. "Bloody hell, your sergeant's right about the crime scene," Kincaid muttered as he rang the bell. "Might as well wash everything down with a fire hose."
Mrs. Du Ray greeted Gemma with a whispered, "Oh, my dear." Her skin appeared paper-thin, the lines round mouth and eyes much more pronounced than a week earlier.
"I'm so sorry you had to deal with this, Mrs. Du Ray," she said. "It must have been a terrible shock."
"Yes." Mrs. Du Ray gave a small negative shake of her head, as if further words escaped her.
When they were seated in the warm kitchen, Gemma said, "Why don't you start from the beginning."
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