"It all sounds lovely. I suppose you've got lots of help."

"Bryony's coming. Between us we can manage, although it might get a bit wild. She's a tremendous help."

Seeing a chance to play the matchmaker, Gemma observed, "She thinks you're pretty terrific, too."

Marc gave her a look she couldn't interpret and went back to his relish, giving the pot a desultory stir. "I know she does. It's just that it's a bit… awkward."

"Awkward?" Gemma echoed.

Marc gestured round the room. "You see this place? I used the last of my grandmother's savings to start this. So I have no money- I mean none. If I have a cup of coffee at Otto's, it's squeezed out of the kitchen funds. I can't even take Bryony to the cinema, for heaven's sake, much less out to dinner at a nice restaurant."

"But-"

"I have nothing to offer her, and my chance of someday getting a job that would earn a fraction of what she makes is slim to nonexistent. Bryony deserves better than-"

"Marc, she doesn't care. She admires you for what you do-"

"I sleep on a cot in the upstairs room. How fast do you think admiration would turn to resentment if she had to share those circumstances?"

"But why should she? She has her own job, her own career, a flat. You could…" Gemma hesitated, certain she was getting in over her head.

"Stay in her flat? Let her buy groceries? Let her pay for her own Christmas gift?" He shook his head adamantly. "That's not right."

"Isn't that a little old-fashioned?"

"I suppose it is. I've spent most of my adult life looking after my grandmother- she was bedridden the last few years and had to have twenty-four-hour care- so I missed out on a good bit of the sexual revolution. But it's more than that… You see, I can't do what I do and live any other way. It's partly focus-"

"You can't afford to be distracted by a relationship? Sort of like a monk?"

He gave a snort of laughter. "Well, I suppose you could say that, although my grandmother would turn in her grave. She was nonconformist to the core. But the main thing is, I can't spend my days with these people who have nothing, and live at a different level. Mortgages, furniture, cars, clothing- all these things we take so much for granted mean nothing to them. And if I go there, if I live on that plane, I can't connect with them." He lifted his hands, palms up.

"I see," said Gemma, and she did. She could think of no argument to convince him his position was unreasonable, nor, she found, did she really want to. As Bryony had said, he had a unique ability to reach out to the homeless people he served. Who was she to question the source of that gift, or its importance?

Bryony locked the surgery door and closed the blinds, then washed down the two examining rooms. She'd run later than expected, of course, because of emergencies. A holiday always seemed to bring on a rush of last-minute calls, and any holiday involving candy more so, due to people's apparent inability to restrict their pets' access to it.

Not to mention the fact that Gavin had rung during the busiest stint, incoherent with fury, shouting something about the police turning his house and his car upside down because Dawn Arrowood had told some friend he'd had a row with her the morning she died.

At least Gemma had protected her, thought Bryony, but surely the police didn't actually think Gavin had anything to do with Dawn's murder?

As if I would argue with a client, Gavin had raged heatedly in her ear. Bryony had soothed him as best she could before rushing back to her patients.

Had she done the right thing in telling Gemma about what she'd heard? And what about the thefts at the surgery? Gavin hadn't mentioned that, and if Gemma had questioned him about the incident, he would certainly guess that Bryony had told her.

She put up the mop bucket with a thump of irritation. This was not the day for worrying about things it was too late to change. She still had her bit of holiday shopping to do, but first she had to update her charts. Determined to concentrate, she sat down at Gavin's desk to work.

When her pen ran dry halfway through her task, she absently opened the desk drawer and rummaged for a new one. As her fingers closed round a pen, she looked down, catching a glimpse of what looked like the edge of a photograph in the very back compartment. Aware that she was snooping, Bryony started to close the drawer. Then curiosity overcame her scruples and she pulled the drawer out to its fullest extent, freeing the photograph.

She gazed at the glossy square in her hand and her stomach plummeted. The camera had captured Dawn Arrowood in an achingly unguarded moment, her expression rapt, her head tilted towards Alex as he spoke in her ear.

Setting the photo on the desktop, Bryony jerked hard at the drawer and scrabbled at the back. Her fingers closed on more slick squares: Alex with his arm thrown protectively round Dawn's shoulders as she stepped in the door of his flat… Alex and Dawn in his stall at the market, his fingers brushing her cheek…

There were other images, and while none of them were actually sexually compromising, they left no doubt as to the relationship between the couple, and they had all obviously been snapped without their knowledge. Had Gavin taken these? She thought suddenly of the camera she'd seen recently in the backseat of his car, and felt another lurch of nausea.

Why would Gavin have followed Alex and Dawn, spying on them? And why had he kept these photos? If Dawn's husband had seen them… She thought of the raised voices she'd heard in the examining room that day, and could not escape the obvious conclusion. Gavin had been blackmailing Dawn.

Fern knocked at Bryony's door three times, with no answer but the chorus of Duchess's barking. Now, convinced of Bryony's absence, she paced up and down the west side of Powis Square, determined to keep the building in sight until Bryony returned.

She'd thought of trying the surgery, but surely Bryony wouldn't be working so late on the afternoon of Christmas Eve, and even if she were, she'd have to walk home this way.

Fern stopped at the bottom of the square, gazing across the street at the welcoming gates of the Tabernacle. The redbrick Victorian building housed the community center, and offered everything from dance and aerobics classes to coffeehouse to concert venue. And it provided a safe haven for many teens. Certainly it had done so for Fern.

But there was no help there now, and Fern turned away. She walked up to the top of the square again, keeping her eyes focused on Bryony's lavender door. Just exactly how Bryony could help her, she hadn't worked out- she knew only that she must talk to someone or go mad with worry.

After her row with Alex on Saturday night, and her discovery of the missing paper knife, she'd tried repeatedly to reach him. But he'd refused to answer door or telephone, although his car was still parked in the mews. She'd even gone so far as to appeal to Alex's odious landlord to let her into the flat with his key, but the man had refused, hinting that he might reconsider if she made it worth his while.

On Sunday, still doubting her own judgment over the paper knife, Fern had tracked down the owner of the antiques arcade and borrowed his key, claiming she'd accidentally left behind something she must have for a sale.

But ransacking her stall had not turned up the missing paper knife, leaving her two possibilities- that some passing customer had lifted it while her attention was distracted, or that Alex had stolen it. While she would have preferred the shoplifting hypothesis, her eye was sharp and her reflexes fast- she'd foiled every attempt at theft since she'd been in the trade.