On the few occasions when Angel saw these icons before they went to auction, she found them terribly moving. The sad faces of the saints and the jewellike colors reminded her of the paintings she'd seen in the Polish café as a child. Of course, she knew now that those paintings had been cheap reproductions, but at the time they'd invoked wonder. Wonder had been possible then, the world still a place where the good were rewarded and the wicked punished for their transgressions.

Karl had proved that homily false, if he had done nothing else.

With Angel now thoroughly dependent on heroin, Karl saw no reason to keep the rest of his business dealings from her. The little stash he kept in the house was only the tip of the iceberg. Nor did he buy it just for the occasional use of his friends- he bought it to sell, in large quantities, and at an enormous profit. That money in turn fueled the antiques business, giving him the inventory to make a success of it. Money begat money, and if a few poor souls fell by the wayside because of it, Karl considered it no business of his.

As for Angel, if she failed to please him, or stood up to him over something, he simply withheld her supply until she complied with his wishes. The longest she managed to hold out was two days, but in the end her will was no match against her craving for the drug.

After that she managed her habit fiercely, refusing to increase her dose, but she'd finally learned the bitter lesson that she couldn't walk away- not from the drug, not from him. And she'd seen what happened to those without help or support, gaunt specters begging in doorways, or selling themselves on the street. Once, she walked in on two prostitutes shooting up in the public toilet in Hyde Park. She ran out and was promptly sick in the shrubbery, weak with horror over what lay in wait for her.

There were days, however, more bearable than others, particularly those that involved minding Nina and Neil's six-year-old son, Evan. On one such lovely day in May, she and Evan had the house to themselves. They had returned from a lunchtime picnic in the park, and now were lazing over a puzzle, listening to the new Donovan album she'd bought.

She'd taught Evan to sing along with an infectiously happy verse about a girl called "Marianne," and when the verse ended the usually solemn little boy laughed aloud with glee.

"That's your name," he crowed, fingering her silver locket.

"And it's our secret. No one can call me that but you, because you're special." No one had called her by that name since her father died, and she found the evocation of that little girl oddly comforting. She snapped open the locket, holding it out for Evan's inspection. "Look, I've put your picture here, so I can keep it close to me."

"Where did you get the locket?" Evan touched the shiny heart.

"It was my father's."

"Marianne," Evan whispered, cuddling closer. "That's a pretty name. But I think I like Angel better."

As the afternoon grew warmer, Evan fell asleep in her lap, his long eyelashes casting shadows on his cheeks. Angel gazed out the open window at the fresh green of the treetops and the spire of the church in the square. The album liner notes lay open beside her. In a personal appeal, Donovan admonished his listeners to give up drugs, as if it were something that one could do as easily as deciding to cut one's hair, or stop eating meat. If only it were that simple.

What lay before her? Karl would never willingly give her a child, of that she was sure. She stroked Evan's hair from his forehead, feeling the reassuringly solid weight of his relaxed body against her own. Would she ever have a chance to love a child of her own?

Kincaid called Doug Cullen into his office at the Yard first thing on Thursday morning, three days after Karl Arrowood's murder. "See what you can find out about a Bryony Poole," Kincaid asked. "She's a veterinarian, and Gavin Farley's assistant."

As Cullen raised his eyebrows his spectacles rode down his nose, giving him the look of a surprised owl. "A woman? You think that's a serious possibility?"

"She's as tall as a man, and strong," answered Kincaid. "We can't afford to overlook it. But there is a slight problem with this… um, inquiry. Bryony and Gemma have a connection- Gemma adopted a dog through her- so I think it will be better if we handle this one on our own."

"That's awkward," Cullen said with obvious sympathy.

"Yes." Kincaid thought of the cold back Gemma had presented to him in bed the previous night. How wise had it been to encourage her to live in her own patch? It was always risky, because one couldn't help forming friendships and alliances as Gemma had done, but he hadn't expected a situation this difficult, or this soon. This case was nightmare enough without adding personal complications.

"There's something else I want you to look into while you're digging." He slid a copy of Eliza Goddard's birth certificate across his desk. "Ronald Thomas, Marianne Hoffman's first husband. If there's something in Hoffman's past that has a bearing on this case, maybe he can tell us what it is."

Kincaid did not mention Eliza Goddard's request that he find her father- Scotland Yard was not, after all, in the business of private investigations.

At Notting Hill Station, Gemma waded through her own accumulated paperwork with less than her usual alertness. She'd tossed and turned throughout the night, worrying about Bryony Poole.

Knowing that Kincaid was justified in making inquiries and dealing with the consequences were two different things, she'd discovered. She couldn't say anything to Bryony beforehand- that would be highly unprofessional. And yet if Kincaid went to Bryony on his own, as Gemma was certain he would, it must surely seem to Bryony as if Gemma had betrayed their friendship.

A knock on her door provided a welcome interruption to her thoughts. Gerry Franks came in with a sheaf of papers. "The lab boffins must have given up their Christmas dinners to get this done, guv."

Gemma indicated a chair. "Let's hear it, then."

"The paper knife was clean as a whistle. It could have been scrubbed, of course, but the blade edge showed no signs of nicks from a scuffle, and it's doubtful whether Dunn would have had a chance to get it sharpened.

"And the paper knife is a no-show, anyway," Franks continued, "because the scalpel we lifted from the rubbish bin did show traces of Karl Arrowood's blood in the groove between the blade and the handle."

Gemma's hopes rose. "What about prints?"

"No prints. No fibers. No other blood." Franks looked more pained than usual. "The scalpel is of the same type Farley uses, but that doesn't get us far. Every medical supply carries them."

"What about the surgery itself?"

"Nothing there, either. Nor in Farley's workshop shower. And the bits of ash found in the surgery toilet were too far gone to be identified as photographs."

"Any response from the media release?" Gemma had placed her hopes on the request for information from anyone passing in the vicinity of the rubbish bin where the scalpel had been found, as the last appeal had brought them the report of the dark-suited jogger. But that, she reminded herself, had turned out to be just a tantalizing glimpse of a lead that had never materialized.

"Not unless you count one sighting of a space-suited alien and another of Santa Claus," Franks replied with deadpan delivery.

Not sure if he meant to be funny, Gemma said merely, "Figures. Thanks, Gerry. We'll just have to come up with something else."