Thomas scanned the paper, then pushed his intercom. "Hareem, bring in the files for Jasmine Dent, would you please." Clicking off, he spoke to Kincaid. "I don't like it, but I'll give you what I can."

Hareem came in with the file, giving Kincaid another curious glance from under her lashes before shutting the door.

Thomas shuffled through the papers, nodding as he found the familiar drafts, then looked up at Kincaid with an expression of surprise. "She's named you executor, Mr. Kincaid. I thought your name seemed familiar."

"Me?" Kincaid said more loudly than he intended. "But why-" He stopped himself. There had been no one else she had trusted as competent and impartial. "Didn't she have to inform me?"

"No. But you can refuse, if you want."

Kincaid shook his head. "No. I'll carry out her wishes, though it does complicate things a bit."

Antony Thomas smiled. "Good. Let me give it to you as simply as I can, then."

"Jasmine made a new will in the autumn. She arranged to pay off the mortgage on her brother's business. Except for a couple of small bequests, the remainder of her estate goes to Miss Margaret Bellamy."

"Is there quite a bit?" Kincaid asked, a little surprised.

"Well, Jasmine had a knack for these things. It includes stocks and shares and the equity in the Carlingford Road flat. She and her brother both received a tidy nest egg when their aunt died. Jasmine invested it well, and she made a good income from her work. I don't believe she spent much on herself-in fact, except for the disbursements to her brother, I don't think she spent much at all."

Kincaid sat up a little straighter in his chair. "You mean financing Theo's shop wasn't the first time she'd lent him money?"

Thomas shook his head emphatically. "Oh, no. Not by any means. In fact, after I had helped her settle her aunt's affairs, she retained me to salvage some of his investment in a psychedelic nightclub. In Chelsea, I think it was."

"Theo? A psychedelic club?" Kincaid said, astonished.

"Nineteen sixty-seven or sixty-eight, that would have been. I had very little success, I'm afraid, and if I remember correctly, that was the last of a string of bad investments with his aunt's money." Thomas snapped his fingers. "All gone, and in a very short time, too. After that, Jasmine funded him in various schemes-he went to art school and she supported him for a while, but his painting wasn't terribly successful."

Kincaid found the idea of Theo painting less ludicrous than Theo running a trendy disco. "Have you ever met Theo?"

"A few times, when he came in with Jasmine to sign papers, but I haven't seen him in several years."

"Did Jasmine give you any idea how the shop was doing?"

Thomas shook his head, the corners of his mouth turning down. "I only saw her the one time after her illness was diagnosed, and she didn't stay longer than necessary. I found her very… reticent."

Not wanting to discuss her illness with an old friend, Kincaid wondered, or not wanting to explain the change in her will? "Did you not find it odd, Mr. Thomas, Jasmine not making better provision for Theo?"

"Well, yes, as a matter of fact. She did say something rather cryptic, now that I think about it. Something about it 'being a bit late to cut the strings, but necessary all the same'. And then there was the life insur-"

"Jasmine carried life insurance?" Kincaid leaned forward, hands on the edge of the chair seat.

Shrinking back a bit, Thomas said, "Yes, she-"

"Theo the beneficiary?"

Thomas nodded. "But it wasn't all that much, Mr. Kincaid, only twenty thousand pounds."

Kincaid deliberately relaxed again, leaning back in the chair and resting his chin on his joined fingertips. "Mr. Thomas," he said carefully, "does that policy carry a suicide exclusion clause?"

Frowning, Thomas turned the pages in the folder. "Here it is." He read for a few minutes, then looked up at Kincaid. "Yes. A two-year exclusion clause. And the policy was issued two years ago last month."

They looked at each other in silence until Thomas spoke, distress in his voice. "Surely Jasmine can't have planned… she wouldn't have known she was ill…"

"Perhaps she felt something wasn't quite as it should be." The first nagging symptoms, Kincaid thought, and the fear of seeing a doctor. "Did Theo know about the policy?" And, Kincaid wondered, did he know it carried an exclusion clause?

Chapter Nine

As a child, Gemma had been intrigued by the idea of St. John's Wood. Pop stars lived there, and television celebrities. The name itself had fairy-tale connotations, and made her think of dark, arching trees and hidden cottages.

The reality, as she discovered when she was a bit older, was quite a disappointment. Ordinary upper-middle-class homes in ordinary streets, rapidly encroached upon by complexes of luxury, high-rise flats. She found the address Kincaid had coaxed from Margaret Bellamy on the phone, and a not-too-distant parking space for her car.

The house, built of white stone with pseudo-Greek columns fronting it, looked expensive and not terribly well-kept. Close-up the whitewash revealed scaly, diseased patches and weeds flourished in the cracked walk. Gemma rang the bell and held her cardigan closed against the wind as she waited. The hollow echo of the bell died away and Gemma had raised her hand to ring again when she heard the staccato click of heels on a hard floor. The door flew open, revealing a thin woman with a helmet of bottle-blond hair. She wore a white denim jumpsuit, the front of which displayed a starburst pattern in gold braids.

"What is it?" The woman's foot, clad in a gold sandal with spike heels, began a furious tapping against the tile.

Gemma, thrusting away speculation as to how anyone could walk in stilts like that without permanent spinal damage, brought her eyes back to the woman's face and smiled as she flipped open her warrant card. "Police. I'd like to ask you a few questions." Kincaid had said that Roger Leveson-Gower lived with his mum. While the woman was opening her mouth to retort, Gemma continued. "Are you Mrs. Leveson-Gower?"

"Of course I am. Whatever it is you-"

"If I could just come in for a few minutes." Gemma had already inserted her navy pump into the hall, her body following smoothly. "I'm sure this won't take much of your time." She shut the door with a decisive click, thinking that if she ever decided to give up police work she'd have a hell of an edge selling vacuum cleaners.

Mrs. Leveson-Gower opened her mouth to protest, then shrugged. "All right, if you must. But make it quick-I've an appointment." She glanced pointedly at her watch as she led Gemma through an open door on the right.

White, white, and more white-the room's mirrored walls reflected white, linen-covered furniture and white, plush carpet, a snow queen's lair, thought Gemma, suitable for a not-so-enchanted wood. Mrs. Leveson-Gower sank down on one of the white sofas, crossed her knees and propped a foot on the edge of a glass and chrome coffee table. She did not invite Gemma to sit.

Gemma perched on the edge of the opposite sofa and took notebook and pen from her handbag, refusing to be rushed by the woman's obvious impatience. "Mrs. Leveson-Gower," Gemma said, pronouncing it "Loos-n-gor" as Kincaid had coached her. "They'll sneer at you if you get it wrong," he'd said, "and you can't afford to let Roger have the upper hand." "Does your son Roger live here with you?"

The scarlet toenails on Mrs. Leveson-Gower's sandaled foot began a rhythmic jiggling, but her tone remained belligerent. "Roger? Why on earth do you want to know?"

"Just a routine inquiry, Mrs.-"

"Inquiry into what, for heaven's sake?" The errant foot stilled suddenly.