To Dwell in Darkness (39 page)
Read To Dwell in Darkness Online
Authors: Deborah Crombie
“What are we toasting?” asked Wesley, raising his glass.
“Oh, lots of things,” said Gemma, taking her seat again and picking up her own glass. “Spring, at last. Friends.”
Only Duncan knew what else she was celebrating, and he raised his glass to her across the table.
On Friday, she and Melody had got the lab report on Dillon Underwood's kitchen gloves. They had been covered in Mercy Johnson's DNA, from both her skin and her saliva. Underwood would go to trial, and with any luck, they would get a conviction.
“Here, here,” Duncan said quietly, and drank to her.
Wesley followed with “Cheers,” and they all sipped. Gemma managed not to laugh as Kit made a face.
“What about my ballet?” asked Toby, gulping his apple juice. “I'm going to take lessons,” he told the company. “We should toast that.”
“
Sláinte,
” said Kit. “I learned that from Hazel. To pirate ballet.”
“Why is it toast?” asked Charlotte, and they all laughed.
Bryony raised her glass again. “I'm drinking to healthy kittens, and a great job by the foster parents.”
All the kittens had their eyes open now, and were tumbling over one another, trying to climb out of their box, and developing personalities as distinctive as their coloring.
Although Toby was still lobbying for keeping all four kittens, they were, in fact, keeping two. When Gemma and Kit had taken Erika in to see them before lunch, she had admired the little calico female.
But then she'd asked if she could hold Xena, and the tabby had settled in her lap as if she belonged there, gazing up at Erika with her luminous golden eyes.
“This one,” said Erika, “the little mother,” tracing the white blaze on Xena's face. “Are you set on keeping her?”
Gemma glanced at Kit before she spoke. “We want her to have a good home. People are usually more willing to take kittens.”
“I'm not quite certain I can keep up with a kitten.” Erika stroked Xena's silky back. “But this one, we understand each other. She knows what it is to be abandoned, and to have found friends and safety again. I think we would do well together. And the two little ones”âshe nodded at the black-and-white boy and the calico girlâ“they will be playmates.”
“Poor Sid,” said Gemma, laughing, “outnumbered once again.” And so it was settled, and Gemma thought Kit was happy with the decision.
Now Kit turned to Bryony. “When can Hazel and MacKenzie take their kittens?”
“Most people give kittens away at six weeks, but in my opinion that's too young. I think eight weeks is much better for both mother and babies. And believe me,” Bryony said with emphasis, “by that time you'll be glad to see two gone.”
Gemma rolled her eyes. “You're telling me I have rampaging kittens to look forward to?”
“A little like curtain-climbing Mongol hordes,” answered Bryony, grinning.
They had reached the tea and cake stageâthe cake a beautiful pear torte Wesley had brought from Otto's caféâwhen someone's phone buzzed.
“It's mine,” said Duncan, checking it. “It's work. Sorry. I'll just take it outside.”
The text had been from Simon Gikas, asking Kincaid to ring him back.
Kincaid let the dogs out the French doors into the garden. He stood for a moment, admiring the view and the day. The grass was a brilliant green, and it seemed as if the tulips had sprung up overnight and the fruit trees had burst into bloom. The trees had not yet come into leaf, and against their still-bare branches, the sky was a brilliant, crystalline blue.
He could hear the laughter and voices from the dining room through the closed doors. For a moment, he was tempted to put off returning Simon's call, but he knew his crime scene manager wouldn't have rung unless it was important.
Kincaid punched Return on his phone, and when Simon answered, said, “What's up?”
“Hated to bother you on a Sunday, Guv. But I'd come in to check something and saw that the forensics had come back on the grenade fragments. I thought you'd want to know.”
“Don't keep me in suspense, then.” Kincaid could hear the satisfaction in Gikas's voice.
“Ariel Ellis's DNA was on the grenade. More, they think, than if she had just handled it casually, which will probably be her barrister's argument. It's not foolproof, but added to the other things it might be enough.”
Paul Cole's journal had been filled with his doubts about Ariel. He knew the embankment where Wren had been killed, and had never been comfortable with Ariel's account of Wren's death. When he'd learned that Ariel had lied about her miscarriage, he'd borrowed his mother's car and had a look at the scene of Wren's accident for himself. He'd found it hard to believe that Ariel had intended to tag a spot where the fast trains came through on their way into London, or that Wren had accidentally fallen.
Had the scrawled page in his notebook been meant as a threat to Ariel? Had his need for attention and power, and his desire for her, overcome his suspicions? If so, he had underestimated her, to his ultimate cost.
Kincaid had been in touch with Nick Callery, letting him know that although they might need to worry about a protester selling military-grade weapons, it looked as if Paul Cole's death had not been connected with any terrorist objectives. The search for the man who had sold Matthew the smoke bomb, and might have sold Ariel the grenade, had been turned over to SO15.
“Thanks, Simon,” said Kincaid now. “Good work all round. I'll see you tomorrow.”
As soon as Kincaid hung up, he rang Doug and relayed the news. “Can you tell Ryan?” he asked. “He'll want to know it looks like we may be able to make a good case without him.”
“He's gone to Hackney,” said Doug. “This morning. He and his wife have been talking, making some sort of a plan, I think. But he said he needed some things from his old flat.”
“Do you have the address?” Kincaid asked.
“He gave it to me. He had me check on it earlier in the week, just to see if everything looked okay.”
“Text it to me, then. I want to tell him the news myself.”
He waited until the guests had left and he'd helped Gemma with the washing up before asking if she minded if he went out for a bit. When she'd raised a questioning eyebrow, he'd said, “I'll tell you later.”
“Don't be too late, then. The kids want help with their homework.”
He'd kissed her cheek and slipped out of the house. He drove the Astraâback on the road thanks to a new batteryâto Hackney.
The sun was setting and the evening drawing in as he found the estate. The buildings were comfortably ordinary, two story, brick and shingle, with tidy front gardens. He guessed the estate was probably still, at least in part, owned by the council.
He saw the reflection of the flashing lights before he turned into the section that housed the address Doug had given him.
His heart came into his throat when he rounded the corner and saw what lay before him. A half-dozen blue-and-yellow-liveried panda cars, lights flashing. An ambulance. A crime scene van.
He found a place to pull the Astra over. When he got out, he realized he was shaking. Walking up to the temporary cordon, he showed his warrant card to the officer. “What's going on?” he asked, making an effort to keep his voice steady.
“Suicide,” said the uniformed constable, sounding bored. “Some bloke with a gun. Hence all the bells and whistles.”
Light spilled from the doorway of the flat that was marked with the number Doug had given him. “Mind if I have a look?” Kincaid asked, struggling to keep his voice level.
The constable shrugged. “Not exactly your patch, but whatever turns you on.”
“Thanks.” Kincaid walked on, trying to still the voice in his head that said
it must be the wrong flat, the wrong man
. He waved his warrant card at the constable on the door and walked in.
“You the detective?” asked the overall-suited crime scene tech, bending over the form on the floor.
“Not on this case, no. Just passing. Stopped to see if I could help.”
“Not much you can do for this bloke,” the tech said, and moved aside.
There was no doubt that it was Ryan. And there was no doubt that he was dead.
He lay on his back on the carpet. There was a neat hole in his forehead. Below it, his face was now clean shaven. His blue eyes were open. They were just beginning to turn milky, and the bloodstain behind Ryan's head looked fresh.
A small-caliber semiautomatic handgun lay next to his shoulder, beside his curving, open fingers.
“Had a bit to drink, I think we'll find,” the tech said, gesturing at the bottle of Bell's and the empty glass on the coffee table.
All Kincaid could do was nod.
Later, he would remember every detail of the flat. The things that were there, and the things that were missing.
Now, he knew only that he had to get out. “I'll leave you to it, then,” he said to the tech.
He walked out and back to his car, trying not to weave or stumble, raising a friendly hand to the perimeter constable as he passed him. He hoped neither officer had really looked at the name on his warrant card.
Once in the Astra, he managed to get the key in the ignition and start the car. Pulling away, he drove as carefully as a drunk, taking turn after turn until he had lost himself in a maze of unfamiliar streets, far away from the flashing lights.
He stopped then, turned off the engine, and put his head on the steering wheel he still gripped with both hands.
What the hell had happened? What the hell was he going to tell Doug? What the hell was he going to tell Melody? And, oh, dear God, what was he going to tell Christie Marlowe?
Worst of all, had anyone connected him with Ryan Marsh?
Deborah Crombie
is a native Texan who has lived in both England and Scotland. She lives in McKinney, Texas, sharing a house that is more than one hundred years old with her husband, two cats, and two German shepherds.
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 |
Cover design by Richard L. Aquan
Cover photograph © by Christie Goodwin/
Arcangel Images
Author photograph by Steve Ullathorne
Map drawn by Laura Hartman Maestro
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This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
TO DWELL IN DARKNESS
. Copyright © 2014 by Deborah Crombie. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
FIRST
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ISBN 978-0-06-227160-0
EPub Edition SEPTEMBER 2014 ISBN: 9780062271624
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