"Another house-to-house inquiry, then?" Doug asked as they drove back to the station an hour later. They had waited for the forensics team to arrive, then cautioned Farley to keep himself available for further questioning.

"For a sighting of the Astra? Yes. And it won't be popular on Christmas Eve, I can tell you."

"Arrowood made the nine-nine-nine call at six twenty-two. Would Farley have had time to kill Dawn, then get home and into the shower by half past?"

"That's making two assumptions," said Gemma. "The first is that Farley's wife is telling the truth about the time. For all we know he's primed her and she's lying through her teeth."

"And the second?"

"The second is that Dawn had just died when Karl found her. She might have died five, ten, even fifteen minutes earlier. Her body was in a sheltered spot, which could have delayed cooling, and the pathologist certainly won't swear to an exact time on the stand."

"One thing you can say about Farley," Cullen mused. "He would certainly know how to wield a scalpel."

Gemma frowned. "I've just remembered. Bryony told me the surgery was burglarized recently. She said some supplies and instruments were missing. I wonder…"

"A scalpel?"

"It's possible," Gemma said. "I'll ask Bryony. And I'll have forensic pick up some of the surgery's scalpels for comparison, just in case we do turn up a murder weapon. It is the season of miracles, after all."

Cullen was silent, concentrating on his driving. Then he said, "How do you manage to keep your patience? Sometimes I think it will drive me bonkers, the waiting."

"Me? Patient?" Gemma gave a snort of derision. "Kincaid would fall over himself laughing if he heard that. He's the one never gets his feathers ruffled, while he's always on at me about staying calm. But…" Her smile faded. "It gets easier as you go along, somehow. There's a place you get to, if you can put your mind in neutral, where sometimes things click into place." She gave a little shrug. "I know that sounds like rubbish… And of course you have to have the right bits of information floating round in your head for it to happen…"

"Trust the process, rather than forcing it? Is that what you're saying?"

"Yeah, I suppose so." She gave him a conspiratorial smile. "But in the meantime, I'm going Christmas shopping."

How had she ended up in the last-minute Christmas crush, just like any man? Gemma wondered, but she suspected that indecision had fueled her procrastination as much as busyness. She shoved and elbowed her way to the nearest department store, riding the escalator up to the toy department with a torrent of shoppers.

She saw the perfect gift for Toby immediately. It was a fireman's kit, complete with a little bunker coat and hat, and a set of bright red, two-way radios with a base station. Toby would love it, she knew, but then she'd never expected any difficulty finding something that catered to a four-year-old's interests.

Kit, however, was a different matter. Teetering on the edge of adolescence, too old for most toys, but not yet ready to graduate to the teenage realm of music, clothes, and cash. She wandered through the aisles, chewing on a fingernail as she deliberated, rejecting one item after another. At last something caught her eye- a boxed set of science questions. It contained hundreds of cards (hours of fun for home or car, the label promised her) and it was just the sort of thing Kit would find irresistible.

But was that enough, she wondered as she rode back down to the ground floor with her purchases. Then a thought occurred to her and she stopped at the bottom of the escalator, blocking the traffic behind her until someone gave her a not-so-gentle nudge. In one of the boxes Kit had brought from Grantchester, she'd glimpsed an unframed photo of his mother. The lens had caught Vic laughing into the camera, full of life and energy.

Would she be barging too forcefully into Kit's emotional territory if she took the photo and framed it for him? And was he ready for such an ever-present reminder of his loss?

Well, she'd never know unless she made the attempt. She would do it, she decided, and went straightaway to the stationery department before she could change her mind. Choosing a lovely silver frame in what she hoped was the correct size, she watched in satisfaction as the clerk wrapped it in tissue.

That left Duncan, she thought as she reached the street once more, and his gift was the most difficult of all. It must be something special, something that would symbolize this new stage of their life together- but what? She walked along the street, looking in shop window after shop window. A few items prompted her to go inside, but in the end everything seemed too ordinarily personal, too practical, or revoltingly sappy.

She'd almost given up when she saw it, in the window of a housewares and pottery boutique. A hand-painted ceramic plaque, with a border of dark green leaves in which nestled berries the same brilliant scarlet as their front door, and in its center, in bold black on a white ground, their house number. It was perfect.

When she came out of the shop minutes later, humming the Christmas song that had been playing over the loudspeaker, the 59 bus was just pulling in to the bus stop. The gods were definitely smiling.

On reaching Notting Hill again, she felt so full of seasonal cheer that she made another spur-of-the-moment decision. Getting off the bus, she went into the elegant bakery just round the corner from Elgin Crescent.

They had just the thing, Christmas cakes with thick and creamy icing and interiors dark and rich with spices. They were the sort of cakes one had when the edge had worn off Christmas dinner, to be consumed with cups of strong tea while listening to the Queen's speech.

When the bakery had boxed the cakes for her, she balanced her parcels carefully and set out for Marc Mitchell's soup kitchen on Portobello Road.

To her relief, the light was still on and the door unlocked. "Marc?" she called out.

"Back here!"

She followed the sound of his voice to the kitchen at the rear of the eating area.

"Sorry, I couldn't leave this," he apologized. He was stirring a large pot of something that smelled delicious on an industrial-size gas range. "Cranberry relish, for tomorrow's dinner."

"What's in it?" asked Gemma, sniffing. She set her parcels down in a clear spot on the table.

"Cranberries, obviously." He wiped the steam from his brow. "And honey, vinegar, cracked pepper, mustard seeds, and diced chili peppers. I always hated the jellied stuff from a tin, so this is my rebellion." Nodding at a dozen freshly washed glass jars drying on a cloth, he added, "I mean to put some up for gifts as well."

"I've brought a couple of cakes." Gemma indicated the box. "They're teacakes, really, but I thought-"

"That's the one thing I was missing. You're brilliant." Giving the pot a last stir, he turned off the flame. "There. When the cranberries pop, it's finished. Now we wait for it to cool a bit." Lifting the lid on the cake box, he whistled. "They're too gorgeous to eat. I've got some tinned puddings donated by one of the supermarkets, but they're nothing compared with this."

A little embarrassed, Gemma changed the subject. "What else have you got on your menu? Bryony said you'd been planning for weeks."

"Two turkeys. Brussels sprouts, of course. Potatoes. Oh, and a case of nonalcoholic champagne, donated as well. Can't serve the real stuff, even if I could afford it. And look-" he showed her a box containing several dozen cylinders wrapped in brightly colored foil. "I've made crackers. They won't pop, but they've got paper hats in and some sweets."