To Dwell in Darkness (35 page)

Kit had just taken the dogs out for their last walk before going down to Erika's when the doorbell rang. It was too early for MacKenzie to be dropping off Charlotte and Toby, and he wasn't expecting Gemma back anytime soon. She'd taken the tube to Brixton, and had told him to tell Erika not to wait lunch.

Hushing the dogs, he went to the door and opened it. He stared in surprise. It was the pretty girl who had come into the café in Lamb's Conduit Street yesterday, the one who said she was on her way to see his dad at the station and had spotted him going in.

“Hi,” she said, ducking her head a little shyly. “I don't know if you remember me—”

“Of course I remember you,” Kit said, then mentally kicked himself for sounding too eager. “You're . . . Ariel, right?”

She nodded. “I don't mean to barge in or anything. Is your dad in?”

“No, he's gone to—he's out. I'm not sure where. Something to do with work.”

“Oh, right. Well, I won't bother you, then. It's just that he'd told me I could come by and see the kittens. I talked to my dad, and he said maybe we could take one. But I can come another time . . . It was nice to see you.” She smiled, brushing her white-blond hair away from her face, and started to turn away. Her cheeks were pink from the cold.

“Wait,” Kit said. “You want to see the kittens? I can show you.”

“Really?” Ariel smiled again. “That would be lovely.”

He took her padded coat and woolly hat and put them on the bench in the entry hall. The dogs sniffed round her ankles, but she didn't reach down to pet them.

“Nice house,” she said, looking around curiously. “I think you can tell a lot about people by their houses, don't you?”

“I never really thought about it,” Kit answered, now wondering rather uncomfortably what their house said about them. There were dog toys on the hall floor, and Toby had left a half-built Lego fortress on the dining room table. The top of Gemma's baby grand piano sported a layer of dust.

“The kittens are this way,” he said, remembering as he led her down the hall that he and Gemma had left half-drunk cups of coffee on the kitchen table, and the morning's toast plates were still in the sink. “You go first,” he instructed her when they reached the study door. “We have to be careful not to let the dogs in.”

Ariel slipped in first and Kit closed the door behind them. The room was dim, lit only by the shaded lamp on the desk and the gray light filtering in from the window.

She went straight to the box beneath the desk and knelt beside it. “Oh, aren't they sweet!” she said, peering in. Kit knelt beside her, suddenly aware of her closeness. He could smell her shampoo, and a hint of spicy perfume. He knew she was at university, but she didn't seem that much older than him.

The kittens were sleeping in a tangle of colors, but Xena blinked at them and began to purr. “Hello, girl,” said Kit, and scratched her under her chin.

“How old are they?” asked Ariel. “They're so tiny.”

“We're not sure. I only found them on Wednesday. We think maybe a week.”

“Oh.” Ariel looked up him. “My friend died on Wednesday.”

Kit had no idea what to say. He'd been close to death, and nothing anyone had said had made it better. “I—I'm sorry.”

Ariel reached out to stroke the bundle of kittens with a finger. “I just thought, maybe it was like an omen or something. That maybe one of them was meant for me.”

“The black one's spoken for. And the little tabby.”

“Oh, I like the black-and-white one, anyway.”

As she said it, Kit realized that he didn't want anyone to have the black-and-white kitten.

“Can I hold him?” asked Ariel, reaching down to the kittens, which were starting to stir.

“Here. Let me.” His hand touched Ariel's as he separated the little black-and-white male from the bunch. He felt hot and awkward next to this delicate girl, and uncomfortable in a way he couldn't explain. “See, his eyes are just starting to open,” he said as he cradled the kitten. “They're blue. Can you tell?”

“Like mine,” she said. “Please, can I hold him?” She took the kitten from him and tucked it under her chin.

“I think we're keeping that one,” said Kit, with unexpected urgency. “I'm sure we are.”

“Oh, too bad. He'd be perfect for me.” Ariel gave a little pout and the kitten mewed, as if she'd squeezed him.

“Here. Let's put him back.” Kit reached for the kitten, and for just an instant, he wondered what he would do if the girl refused to hand him back.

Ariel laughed. “I can do it,” she said. She lifted the kitten by the scruff of his neck and placed him, none too gently, on top of the others. “Maybe you'll change your mind.”

Kit stood. “I'm sorry, but I have to go now. I'm late for lunch with a friend.” Just moving away from her was an unexpected relief, but he suddenly wanted her away from the kittens and out of the room.

“Oh, all right. I can tell when I'm not wanted,” said Ariel, but she gave the kittens one last pat and stood as well.

“It's not that. It's just that I'm expected. And my mum will be home any minute.” Kit didn't know why he'd said that, except that he wished it were true.

“And your dad?” Ariel asked as he held open the study door for her.

“Yeah, him, too.” He walked her to the door, waited while she put on her coat, then stepped out onto the porch with her.

“Well, thanks,” she said. “Maybe I'll come back someday.”

“Okay.” Kit managed a smile.

She pulled on the woolly cap that hid her hair and walked away, turning after a few yards to give him a jaunty little wave.

Kit didn't wave back, and he stood and watched until she had turned the corner and disappeared from sight.

I remember it as a rat-infested dump. Water dripped down walls. Wires hung from ceilings. Pigeons colonised turrets and rafters. Gormenghast could not do justice to the profile of that destitute old lady, slumped at the far end of Euston Road. Poor St. Pancras hotel embodied the contempt of modernism for anything old, stylish, romantic and, above all, Victorian. The place should be left to rot, an example to any who might find beauty in antiquity or economy in restoration.

—Simon Jenkins,
The Guardian
, Thursday, July 7, 2011, “Sir George Gilbert Scott, the Unsung Hero of British Architecture”

“Could Ariel have told someone else about the switch?” Kincaid asked Ryan Marsh. “Someone who wanted to kill Paul?”

“Someone who just happened to have a WP grenade handy?” Ryan shook his head dismissively. “A WP grenade disguised as a smoke bomb? And why would anyone want to kill Paul, the poor bugger?”

“Was there anyone who saw the smoke bomb and could have copied it?” Doug grimaced and shifted position as he spoke, and Kincaid guessed that even with the support of the camp stool, his ankle was hurting. It was getting colder as well, and the sky to the west had turned the color of slate.

“Anyone in the group,” said Ryan. “Matthew was showing it around. But I'm not buying it.” He stood, as if he needed to move in order to think. He no longer seemed focused on the rifle he held, but Kincaid had no intention of trying to take it away from him. “What Matthew gave me must have already been a copy, and I just didn't see it.”

“Are you saying Matthew meant to kill you?” Kincaid asked. “Because you knew about his father?”

Ryan stared at him. “What— How did you—”

“Matthew's father is Lindsay Quinn, the developer. He owns that building and was paying Matthew to stay in the flat. If we found that out, I have no doubt you did, too. Unless you knew that from the beginning. That's a secret Matthew might have been willing to protect. Unless, of course, Matthew was swimming deeper in the anarchist pool than anyone knew.”

“I don't know what you're talking about.” Ryan's expression had turned hard. “And I don't believe Matthew is anything more than a spoiled rich kid. Someone else meant to kill me, and that puts Paul Cole's death entirely on my hands.”

A gust of wind rippled through the trees and swirled an eddy of ash from the fire pit into their faces. The sky was growing darker by the minute. “Look,” Kincaid said, “I don't know what kind of trouble you're in, but you can't stay here forever. You're afraid to go back to your wife and your kids, and even if you could go back to Matthew's group, they've disbanded. So what
are
you going to do?”

The tension seemed to drain from Ryan. His shoulders drooped. “I don't know. Maybe I've made this all up. Except that Paul is dead, and I don't dare go home. Or go in.” He didn't explain what he meant by that.

“Come back with us,” Kincaid said. Before Ryan could protest, he went on. “We'll get you sorted, find you a safe place to stay. And we will find out who killed Paul Cole. And why. You can take my word for it.”

The wind came through again, stronger this time, rustling the tarps and splattering fat, cold raindrops against their faces. “You can stay at my place in Putney,” offered Doug. “But right now, it's bloody freezing, and I'm going to have a swamped boat before long.”

“Thanks,” said Ryan, with a nod of acknowledgment to Doug for the offer, but he kept his gaze fixed on Kincaid. “But if I was the target, and not Paul, you may not want to know.” There was a warning in the words.

“I don't have much choice,” Kincaid told him. “And as I see it, neither do you.”

They waited, and Kincaid tried not to wonder what he would do if Marsh refused.

Finally Marsh nodded once and said with a quirk of a smile, “I suppose that means I'll be leaving the gun.”

If Kit had told his parents that he didn't want his schoolmates to know about their family game and pizza nights, he hadn't been quite honest. Some of them, in fact, did know, and had even asked to be invited. But he'd said no, it was family only, not because he was embarrassed but because he didn't want to share that special time with outsiders.

He did not, however, tell his mates that his best friend in the world was a woman old enough to be his great-grandmother. He had been comfortable with Erika Rosenthal from the moment he had met her. Maybe it was because she, like his mother, was an academic. Maybe it was because she had always talked to him as if he were an adult. Maybe it was because she always seemed to know what would interest him and encouraged him in it.

Or maybe it was because she somehow always seemed to know what he was thinking without him having to tell her.

They ate her roasted chicken and potatoes and his perfectly cooked broccoli at the small table in the kitchen of her flat in Arundel Gardens. The gas fire was lit in the chocolate box of a sitting room, so the flat was toasty warm, even with rain spitting against the kitchen windows. Erika wore a rose-colored cardigan that set off her dark eyes and snowy white hair, and she had been watching him with a slight frown since they'd begun their lunch.

When he placed his cutlery carefully on his plate and sat back, her frown deepened.

“What?” she said, with the trace of German accent she'd never managed to eradicate. “Have you suddenly stopped growing? I seem to remember you telling me you could eat two entire chickens all by yourself.”

“Too many Yorkshire puddings,” Kit said, which was at least half true. He'd made them himself. Having discovered how easy they were, he'd been practicing, and these had come out just the way he liked them—crispy on the outside but still slightly spongy in the center.

“There is no such beast as too many Yorkshire puddings,” Erika said with a twinkle. “In fact, I thought we could have the leftovers with tea, with good German butter and some of my homemade plum jam.”

“I'll make the tea.” Kit started to stand and clear their plates.

“No. Sit.” When Erika used her lecturer's voice, Kit sat. “Why have you not told me anything about these kittens,” she asked, “when I have heard nothing but kittens all week? And I thought you had chosen one for me, to keep me company in my old age—not that I'm old quite yet, mind you.”

“I thought you might like the little calico,” Kit said. “She's going to have the prettiest face.”

“Am I not going to be invited to see these wondrous kittens, then?”

“Of course you are,” Kit protested, although he thought she was teasing him a bit. “Only, I thought you'd like to come when Gemma and my dad are there. So you can help me convince them that we should keep the mum
and
one of the kittens ourselves. I don't—I don't want anyone else—I mean anyone besides you and Hazel and MacKenzie—to have one.”

Erika must have seen something in his face, because all trace of lightness vanished from hers. “Kit, something is worrying you. Tell me what's happened.”

“I— It's probably stupid,” he began, haltingly. Erika just waited, as he knew she would until she had got it out of him. “There was this girl who came into the café yesterday, when we stopped to see Dad at work on our way to Leyton. She has something to do with Dad's case—I'm not sure what—but she said she was bringing him something to the station and she saw him come into the café. She was . . . nice. Dad bought her a hot chocolate. Toby and Charlotte told her all about the kittens.”

“Go on,” said Erika when he paused.

“The thing is, after Gemma left this morning, she—this girl—came to our house. She said Dad told her she could see the kittens. But it was—she was—I don't know. It didn't feel right.” Kit shifted in his chair. His legs were getting too long to fit under Erika's little table. “And—this is probably really stupid—but just for a minute, I thought she might . . . hurt . . . them. The kittens. And I didn't know what I would do if she did,” he finished in a rush.