"Rob insisted on buying the house when interest was high, an investment for our future." Her smile was bitter. "A bloody great millstone around my neck is more like it, and a tatty one at that. Rob was full of ideas for all these do-it-yourself projects-of course they never got-" Stopping, she rubbed her face with both hands. "Oh god, just listen to me. And I said I wouldn't take it out on you. I'm sorry." She smiled, this time ruefully. "I've seen enough people pour out their life stories to you without any encouragement. I should be more wary."

"What are you going to do, Gemma?"

"I don't know. My mum's offered to help out with Toby-"

"That's great. That would-"

She was already shaking her head. "I don't want to be obligated to them. I've managed on my own since I left school and I don't intend-"

"So who suffers for your stubbornness? Toby? Don't you think refusing help in a really rough spot is a kind of false pride?"

"It's not just that. It's… They don't really approve of what I do." A cloud covered the sun and Gemma hugged her arms against her chest. The wind had risen, driving tiny ripples along the surface of the water. "I'm afraid they'll pass that along to Toby, not deliberately, but that he'll pick it up in insidious little ways. Good mums don't work nights and weekends. Good mums stay married. Good mums don't do men's jobs."

Kincaid put his hand on her elbow and turned her toward the car. "Let's go back." Through the soft flesh of her arm he felt firm, delicate bone, and a faint shiver as the wind whipped into their faces. He dropped his hand. "Give yourself credit, Gemma. He's your son, and your influence is stronger than that." He smiled a little wickedly at her doubtful expression. "And you might give them a little credit as well-after all, they raised you and you didn't turn out too badly."

Chapter Seventeen

Kincaid woke before dawn on Friday morning. He'd not drawn his curtains the night before, and he lay in bed watching the faint gray light steal into the eastern sky. The days of the past week ran through his mind, each one toppling the next like falling dominoes, and he felt no nearer to solving the riddle of Jasmine's death than he'd been a week ago. Frustration finally drove him to throw off the covers, but shower, toast, and coffee didn't take the edge off his nagging sense of failure.

It would be easy enough to nominate Roger Leveson-Gower as the most likely candidate, but he had not one smidgen of hard evidence. And no matter how well Roger might fit the emotional profile of a murderer, it didn't feel right The idea of Jasmine complacently letting someone she didn't know and wouldn't have been at all likely to trust give her a fatal dose of morphine was a logical stumbling block Kincaid couldn't get over.

He dawdled over shaving and dressing, but when he reached the street the milk float was just making its silent rounds and no sounds of slamming doors and starting cars marred Carlingford Road's early morning repose. The sky was clear, the air still, and on impulse he pulled the tarp from the Midget. He loved driving through London late at night or early in the morning, when the traffic was at its ebb. It gave him a sense of being at peace with the city, of being a part of it rather than at war with it.

A stack of slick, flimsy fax paper filled his in-tray. Kincaid took possession of his own chair, having arrived well before Gemma, and began to read.

Major Harley Keith had indeed been posted to India just after the War, in 1945, sporting a new commission and a new bride. He'd been stationed in Calcutta during the outbreak of 1946, and had lost both wife and baby daughter in the rioting. From what Kincaid could deduce from the unfamiliar military jargon, Keith's promotion had been minimal after that time, a once promising career stalled in mediocrity. Posted back to Britain in 1948, the Major seemed to have spent the remainder of his career pushing paper for senior officers.

Kincaid sighed and reached for the next sheet in the pile. A brief report from Dorset Constabulary informed him that one Timothy Franklin had been institutionalized twenty-five years previously in the Farrington Center for Mental Health, or as it had previously been known, the Farrington Asylum. Committal papers had been signed by Althea Franklin, the patient's mother. Franklin's condition had been listed upon admittance as schizophrenic, and he had never been released. Althea Franklin had died in Bladen Valley in 1977.

A handwritten note added by the officer compiling the report informed Kincaid that the Farrington Center was two miles north of Dorchester and a bit hard to find.

Gemma came in as he was finishing the report and his second cup of coffee. Disappointment flashed across her face before she smiled and said, "You're bright-eyed and bushy-tailed this morning, Sir."

"Beat you to it, didn't I?" A silly game of one-upmanship, but he enjoyed it, and he contrived to lose more often than he won because he knew Gemma liked the sense of power conferred by a few minutes alone in his office.

"Anything interesting?" she asked as she sat down across from him.

He handed her the reports and waited silently while she read. Her brow creased as she read Major Keith's, and when she finished she looked up, shaking her head. "It looks as though he never recovered from the deaths of his wife and daughter. It's frightening, isn't it, that someone who seems as ordinary and commonplace as the Major could have suffered such a tragedy?"

Kincaid understood what she meant-in some way it made one's own life seem less immune. If it could happen to someone as unremarkable as the Major it could happen to me. "I'll have to ask him about it." Without quite intending it, he found himself confiding his discomfort to Gemma. "It's awkward-I can't leave it alone, yet I have to go on being neighbors with him after I've pried into the most painful part of his life. And it's more difficult because he seems such an intensely private person." He thought for a moment. "Jasmine gave the same impression. You wouldn't have dreamed of asking her anything about her life she hadn't volunteered. She and the Major must have formed an odd sort of bond."

"Will you see him today?"

Kincaid hesitated, then made another spur-of-the-moment decision even though he knew it was partly fueled by reluctance to confront the Major. "I'm going to Dorset."

"Again?" Gemma's tone was distinctly critical. "I think you're wasting your time. There's enough here in London to concentrate on without chasing wild hares in some little godforsaken west-country village. What about Roger?"

He grinned. "I'm glad to see you're back in fine argumentative fettle. Since you're so keen on the lovely Roger, you can handle things yourself. See if you can find anyone other than his mum and Jimmy Dawson who'll vouch for his whereabouts on Thursday evening. We'll see if Roger's managed to inspire any loyalty other than Meg's."

The motorway took him as far as the New Forest. Although according to his map the motorway designation ended where the forest began, a divided highway still cut a straight swath across the irregular patch of mottled green on the page. He crossed the theoretical line demarcating the forest on the map, and any anticipation he might have had of primeval trunks and leafy, green tunnels was quickly put to rest. A wide expanse of moorland stretched away on either side of the road, broken only by gorse and distant shaggy shapes he thought might be New Forest wild ponies. He decided he'd just as soon they stayed in the distance- he'd hate to suffer a further disappointment by discovering that they were only small, hairy cows.