"Alex? An affair with Dawn? That's impossible!" Arrowood reached out for the nearest support, a block of lichen-stained granite.

"Why?" Gemma asked.

"Because- because Alex wouldn't- She couldn't- I won't even consider such a thing! Nor will I discuss it with you any further." His face was pinched with shock; the knuckles of the hand grasping the stone were white with strain. He turned away from them. "For God's sake… go."

"We will be speaking to you again, Mr. Arrowood," Gemma said, but he made no acknowledgment. Glancing back as they walked away, she saw Arrowood still standing over his wife's coffin, his head bowed, his shoulders sagging.

"Is he telling the truth?" Kincaid asked Gemma when they were once again ensconced in the warmth of the car. True to his prediction, the rain had begun again as they left the graveside.

"Which time?" Gemma's cheeks were pink from cold, her skin glowed, and damp tendrils of copper hair had escaped from her plait to curl round the edges of her face. It seemed to Kincaid in that moment that she was achingly beautiful, and he was about to tell her so when she added, "I'd swear he didn't know about his wife and Alex Dunn- Of course, that's assuming that what we've been told is true."

Disciplining himself into a professional state of mind, Kincaid wrenched his gaze away from her. "He didn't like the idea that his sons might be involved, either. If the thought had occurred to him before now, he's a bloody terrific actor."

Gemma frowned, tapping her fingertips on the steering wheel as the car bumped along towards the cemetery exit. "A good actor, yes. But somehow I think there's a vein of real grief for his wife in there somewhere."

"The human mind is a complex thing. It is possible that he could have killed her and yet still truly grieve for her."

He saw Gemma shudder as she said, "That's a hell I'd rather not contemplate. What about Alex Dunn, then? Everyone we've talked to says how much he loved her, but that doesn't mean he couldn't have murdered her. We've no idea what might have happened between them… Maybe Dawn told him she was pregnant but that she wouldn't- or couldn't- leave Karl, and Alex lost it… And if he wasn't involved in Dawn's death, why the hell has he disappeared from the face of the earth? His friends at the café and the woman in the arcade said he was terribly distraught-"

"You've requested a search warrant for his flat?"

"Melody had it in hand as we were leaving for the funeral."

"Then you'd better have her meet us there."

"Still no sign of Dunn's car," Melody had told Gemma when she'd rung the station.

As well as requesting all police forces to be on the lookout for Dunn's Volkswagen, Gemma had checked the previous address on his lease: a small flat in Kensington now occupied by someone who had never heard of him. His birth records had yielded as little. Alexander Dunn had been born in 1971 in a London hospital, to a mother listed as Julia Anne Dunn. No father was given, and the address of record, in the nether regions of Notting Hill, would have been a squalid bedsit in the early seventies. No one in the area remembered Julia Dunn, or her child.

Had he gone to university? she wondered. Would anyone know? Who had been close to Alex Dunn, except Fern and Dawn Arrowood?

She turned into the narrow mews, mentally congratulating herself as she pulled into a rare parking space. Alex Dunn's Volkswagen had not reappeared, nor was there any answer when she and Kincaid rapped on the flat's door.

There was a twitch, however, at the next-door flat's front window. "Ah, an interested neighbor," Kincaid murmured, and without consultation they retraced their steps and knocked next door. The window box was bare and the pavement round the door littered with windblown rubbish, but the door opened immediately.

The flat's occupant was a tall, rabbity man with stooped shoulders and thinning hair. He wore a meticulously darned cardigan the color of mud, liberally flecked with dandruff. "Can I help you?" he asked with an air of eager expectation.

Kincaid showed his warrant card. "We were wondering if we could have a word with you about your neighbor-"

"My tenant, actually. So what's young Dunn done?" He giggled at his own humor. "Oh, forgive me, I'm Donald Canfield. Do come in."

The murky flat smelled sourly of cabbage and unwashed flesh. Although Canfield seated them on a sofa facing a large television, Gemma could see an armchair carefully positioned by the front window, and her hopes rose.

"We wondered if you might know where we could find Mr. Dunn," Kincaid said, after refusing Canfield's offer of refreshments, much to Gemma's relief.

"It's about that woman, isn't it? The blonde, the one that got her throat slit. I saw her picture in the newspapers."

"Dawn Arrowood. Had you seen her with Mr. Dunn?"

"Oh, yes. She came here to his flat for months, almost always in the daytime. I did wonder if she was married. I heard them, too, if you know what I mean," he added, with a sly glance at Gemma. "Walls in these old houses aren't what they should be. And she was very… enthusiastic." He giggled again.

Repelled, Gemma scowled and looked away.

Kincaid had no such scruples. "Did you ever hear them arguing, as well?"

"No, no, I can't say as I did. Although that's not true of the other one."

"What other one?" asked Gemma.

"The little girl with the streaked hair. Oh, they had some terrific rows, she and Alex, when Alex first started seeing the blond woman. But she hasn't been around for months, until the other day."

"The other day?"

"Saturday. The day after the murder. The girl came here with Alex. Then they got straight into his car and drove away. Funny thing was, she was driving."

"Did you see them come back?"

Canfield pursed his lips in disappointment. "I left just after that, I'm afraid. A visit to my sister in Warwickshire. I just returned last night. I didn't know, you see, that it was the blond woman who had been murdered. I'd have stayed here, otherwise, even if it did get up my sister's nose."

"What about the evening before, Mr. Canfield?" asked Kincaid. "Were you here then?"

"Yes, yes, I was."

"Did the blond woman visit Alex that afternoon or evening?"

Again came the little moue of disappointment. "Not that I saw. But I'm a busy man, of course, and I might have missed her."

"Of course," Kincaid agreed. "What about Alex? Did you see him coming or going that evening?"

"I know he came home around five: I looked out when I heard his car. Then he left again just as the news came on the telly, but walking this time."

"What were you watching?"

"Channel One. I always prefer Channel One."

That would have been half past six, then, if the man was to be relied upon, thought Gemma. And if Dawn had died a few minutes earlier, it seemed unlikely that Alex Dunn could have killed her.

"Do you know anything about Alex, Mr. Canfield?" she asked. "Who his friends are, or if he has family?"

"No. He tends to keep himself to himself," Canfield said stiffly, and Gemma read the history of rejection in his expression.

"Is he a good tenant, then?" she pressed, daring him to find something good to say about Alex Dunn. "Neat? Timely with his rent?"

"Well, yes." Canfield admitted it reluctantly. "Although I don't know as I want a tenant in my property that's been involved in a murder…"

"We don't know that he is involved in Mrs. Arrowood's death, Mr. Canfield," she said, knowing perfectly well that the man wouldn't miss the excitement for the world. A flash of black and orange outside the front window heralded the arrival of a panda car and Melody Talbot.