“We late-lamented, resting here,
Are mixed to human jam,
And each to each exclaims in fear,
‘I know not which I am!’ ”
—Thomas Hardy,
“The Levelled Churchyard,” 1882
Jasmine Sidana ground the gears on her Honda sedan as she pulled away from a traffic light on the Westway. When she reached Shepherd’s Bush, she turned south, then west again, towards Hounslow, where she lived in a large detached house with her parents and her grandmother.
“Go home, get some rest,” Superintendent Kincaid had said, then strolled out of the CID room as if he hadn’t a care in the world. She’d wondered, when he’d come in that morning, late and bleary-eyed, if he drank. Then, tonight, as she was leaving the station, she’d seen him walking up the street towards the pub. She knew they all sneered at her because she didn’t drink alcohol, but she at least did her job.
Another light. This time she tried to keep the grinding to her teeth. “Go home, get some rest.” What was he thinking? If she’d been in charge, they’d have worked all night. She’d have executed the search warrant as soon as it came through, no matter the time, no matter how tired they were.
“Condescending bastard,” she said aloud, the swearword feeling alien on her tongue. “Bastard,” she said again, with more force, then added, “Bloody bastard,” for good measure. It was strangely satisfying, but it didn’t temper her righteous indignation.
He’d taken all the important interviews for himself and thrown her the others like a bone.
And the way he’d manipulated the other woman. Jasmine could tell he was sneering at Cam Chen, with her suburban upbringing and striving professional parents.
What must he think of her, then, with her doctor parents, and the fact that at thirty-five she still lived at home? But good Punjabi girls did not get flats on their own, even if they could afford them. Good Punjabi girls finished their career training, then married someone suitable. But Jasmine had never found anyone that seemed worth taking the focus away from her job. Men only wanted to talk about themselves and their accomplishments, and Detective Superintendent Kincaid was obviously no different.
What had he done, she wondered, to get himself demoted from heading an elite Scotland Yard liaison unit to commanding a borough major incident team?
And if he cocked up this case, she’d make sure it was clear where the blame lay. By the time she reached Hounslow, she was humming.
He had disappeared.
What was one more average bloke in a dark hoodie, wearing a backpack, on a bitter London night?
Head down, hood pulled well up, careful not to hurry, he walked out of St. Pancras International before the police started cordoning off the evacuees.
And then he kept walking. Through Bloomsbury, Covent Garden, Soho, staying in the crowds whenever possible. No way he was getting on the bus or the tube—bloody cameras, bloody cameras everywhere.
He’d hesitated once, in Holborn, contemplating the flat he’d kept in Hackney under a different name. It was an ordinary flat in an ordinary estate, a bolt-hole he’d thought safe. But now he knew he couldn’t depend on it, couldn’t depend on anything.
What the hell had happened back there?
He shivered, from shock as much as cold. The images kept replaying in his brain and he couldn’t shut them off.
If they’d wanted to take him out, why choose that way? Unless they’d used fire deliberately, a twisted sort of revenge for the thing he hadn’t done. A wave of nausea swept over him. He staggered, and a passerby stepped away from him, probably thinking he was drunk. Jesus, the last thing he needed was to call attention to himself.
He had to get himself in hand, had to think.
So he couldn’t go to Hackney.
God knew he couldn’t go home. His eyes teared at the thought. When he wiped at them, his fist came away smudged with soot. Fumbling for his blue handkerchief, he spit on it and scrubbed his face. A dirty face was something people remembered.
He kept walking. Leicester Square. Piccadilly. The backstreets of Westminster. He lost sensation in his feet and hands. Finally, when he judged it late enough, he crossed the river at the Vauxhall Bridge. He kept a car in a lockup on the south side of the river. Its taxes were paid, it was insured and up-to-date on its MOT, all under another assumed name. He’d been very, very careful, and this one, he hoped, Uncle knew nothing about.
When he reached the lockup, he stood for five minutes, watching and listening, alert. There was the scurry of a rat, and the dank smell drifting up from the river, but nothing else. With a little breath of relief, he took the minitorch from his pocket and held it in his teeth while he unlocked the roll-up door.
No Aston Martin DB5 greeted him. The car was a ten-year-old Ford Mondeo, dark blue, nothing flashy about it but not a clapped-out banger, either. Ordinary. It was covered with a light coating of dust, and in this weather it would soon be sleet spattered, adding to the camouflage.
First he checked the emergency supplies in the boot. Tinned and dehydrated food. Water. Survival gear. A Walther 9-millimeter pistol and ammunition. And in a small zip bag, cash. Untraceable cash. It would have to do.
The Mondeo started first time—he’d put in the best battery he could buy. The petrol tank was full, the tires aired.
There were no more excuses for delay. But still, when he’d pulled the car out and relocked the storage door, he sat for a moment, letting the engine idle.
He had to have time to think, to figure out exactly what had happened and who was responsible. Only then would he have any hope of protecting himself and of protecting his family. And there was only one place he could go where he might be safe long enough to do it.
He put the car into gear and drove west.
Gemma woke, unsure if she’d been jarred by a dream or a sound. There was weight and warmth nestled against her side, and it took her an instant to realize that it was not Duncan, but Geordie. The cocker spaniel had taken advantage of Duncan’s absence to creep his way up from his accustomed place at the foot of the bed and snuggle beside her.
The lamp in the adjoining bathroom cast a dim glow, just enough to reveal the familiar outlines of the furniture. The digital clock on Duncan’s side of the bed read 1:15.
That brought her fully awake. She sat up, listening carefully. Had it been Duncan coming home she’d heard? Or Charlotte coughing?
Easing out of bed, she slipped into her dressing gown. Geordie snored, undisturbed, as Gemma left the room and tiptoed down to the first-floor landing. The children’s rooms were dark. Gemma could hear Charlotte’s slightly raspy breathing through her open door, but at least she wasn’t coughing, poor love.
Tess would be sleeping with the boys, and hopefully as soundly as Geordie. Barking dogs in the middle of the night would rouse everyone.
Gemma knew that some of the kids at Kit’s school were starting to tease him about sharing a room with his little brother. But Gemma had shared with her sister until she left home, and the middle-class assumption that every child was entitled to his or her own room irritated her. Fortunately, Kit didn’t seem to mind, as long as Toby adhered to Kit’s strict “Don’t Touch” protocols.
She supposed that on both hers and Duncan’s salaries they could afford a nice four-bedroom semidetached somewhere out in the suburbs, but she was not giving up this house for the sake of an extra bedroom. That was assuming she had the option.
The worry that had been nagging her for weeks flooded back. Duncan had heard nothing from Denis Childs, nor had there been any message from Denis’s sister, Liz, in Singapore, and they still hadn’t learned if Liz had been involved in an accident. They were less than halfway through the five-year lease they’d signed with Liz and her husband, but if something had happened to Liz . . .
Gemma couldn’t bear the thought of losing this house. She felt as though her heart was woven into it. The house was a tapestry of all that had changed in their lives since they’d come to live here. A baby lost. A child gained. A marriage she hadn’t intended and now couldn’t imagine life without. New jobs for her and Duncan, and a future that felt uncertain. Unexpected illnesses—her mum, then Louise, and now Tam seriously hurt. The house had become her fortress, her safety net.
Gemma shook her head and went quietly down the last flight of stairs. No use in borrowing trouble, as her mum would say, and they had enough to worry about now with Tam and Melody both in hospital.
The ground floor was silent as well. But in the light of the hall lamp, she saw Duncan’s overcoat thrown over the coat hook by the front door. So he was home, then. Why hadn’t he come to bed?
She peeked into the sitting room, in case he’d stretched out on the sofa to keep from waking her. But the sofa was unoccupied except for Sid, who blinked sleepy green eyes at her and curled into a tighter ball.
She tried the French doors and found them locked, although why Duncan would have gone out into the garden at this time of night, she couldn’t imagine.
Then, as she went to check the kitchen, she saw the crack of light at the bottom of the study door. She’d left on the green-shaded banker’s lamp on the desk, in case she needed to check on the rescued cat. Easing open the door, she stepped inside and closed it behind her.
Her husband lay on his side on the floor, still in his good gray suit and lace-up shoes, beside the box with the mother cat and kittens. The lamplight highlighted the stubble on his chin, and the rise and fall of his chest. He was sound asleep.
But the sound that filled the room was not his breathing, but the deep and regular purring of the cat.