Standing, Franks clasped his hands in parade-rest fashion and looked determinedly at a point just past Gemma's head. "Um, I understand congratulations are in order, guv."

"Oh. Yes. Thanks. That's very kind of you, Sergeant."

Franks nodded with the relief of one whose duty has been performed. Gemma had told Melody her news first thing that morning, and it had required no great sacrifice on the constable's part when Gemma had asked her to do a bit of discreet gossiping. The dissemination technique had saved Gemma the awkward task of making an announcement to everyone she met.

By early afternoon, Gemma had pored over the fine details of the forensics reports until her eyes ached. Looking up, she saw that the sun, visible for the first time in days, was making a pallid attempt to illuminate the grime on her office window. Perhaps she would go out and fetch coffee for Melody for a change, give her head a chance to clear.

Ten minutes walking brought her to Pembridge Road, but instead of crossing over to the Starbucks, as she had meant to do, a sudden thought made her turn to the left, following Kensington Park Road. A few blocks down the hill, she stopped in front of Arrowood Antiques, gazing at the "Closed" sign hanging from the door. What would happen to the little empire of beautiful things Karl Arrowood had created?

With decision, she pulled out her phone and rang the station. "Is there still no word from Arrowood's solicitor on the terms of his will?" she asked Melody. The senior partner in the firm representing Arrowood was away for the holiday, and no one else in the office knew of a document with a date more recent than that of Karl's marriage to Dawn.

"No, boss. They say they've left word for the senior partner, but he hasn't rung back."

"Then have the house searched again. If Arrowood left a copy there, we might have missed it the first time round." And if he had, she wondered as she rang off, had his wife seen it? What had prompted Dawn to contact Sean Arrowood?

Thoughtfully, she continued down the hill to Elgin Crescent. Otto's Café appeared empty. There were, however, still lunch dishes on a few of the tables, and a lovely, garlicky smell emanated from the kitchen.

Before Gemma could call out, Otto appeared from the back, wiping his hands on his apron. "Inspector! This is an unexpected pleasure."

"Hullo, Otto," replied Gemma, inordinately pleased at her reception.

"Can I get you something? It was quiet today- the customers are either on holiday or still recovering from their Christmas dinners- and I have made a nice borscht."

"Thank you, no. I had something at the office. Is Wesley not here?" she asked, only then realizing how much she'd been looking forward to seeing the young man.

"No. He takes a few days at Christmas, as the business is slow, and he has family visiting."

"It's just that I wanted to thank him again for bringing our Christmas tree- and you, Otto, for contributing your van."

"It was successful, then? Wesley was very pleased with himself as Father Christmas."

"Otto, there is another reason I'm here. I wanted to talk to you about Karl Arrowood, if you don't mind." She'd had an officer check Otto's whereabouts at the time of Karl's murder: He had taken his daughters to their grandparents' for Christmas Eve festivites.

"I have heard the news," Otto replied somberly. He pulled out a chair for her and took another himself. "You know, I had thought for a long time that nothing would please me more than that man's death, but now I find it is not so. Whether this is a good thing or a bad one, I cannot tell. It also means I was wrong in accusing him of murdering his young wife, and for that I'm sorry."

"You knew Karl for a long time. Everyone talks about his successes, but no one ever mentions where he came from, or how he got started in his business. Did he grow up here in Notting Hill?"

"He never talked about these things himself, even when I worked with him. But I know a little from the neighborhood gossip, and from my mother and her circle of friends. It was their way of making themselves at home in a strange country, to learn everything they could about everyone," Otto added with a smile. "Karl's family was German. They came here as refugees right after the war, so that Karl was born here, in Notting Hill. I don't think he ever considered himself to be anything other than English."

"They were Jewish?"

"Yes. His father was a grocer, if my memory serves me. They would have had little, and Karl certainly had no exposure to fine things through his upbringing. But the antiques market was growing rapidly in those days, and I always assumed he had worked for a stallholder or a dealer as a boy." He gave a shrug of regret. "I'm sorry I can't tell you more."

It occurred to Gemma that she knew someone else in the neighborhood who had come to England as a German refugee just after the war. And it was, as Otto had said, a close-knit community. Was it stretching probability too much to think more information might be forthcoming from a different quarter?

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

It began as a dream. He was alone in the dark, cold and frightened, his stomach cramping with hunger. He lay in a bed that was damp and stank, and he desperately wanted his mother.

The dream moved on in interminable dreamtime… hours… days, he couldn't tell. Then suddenly his mother was there in the room with him, but she didn't answer when he called out to her. The room spun and he saw her clearly, sprawled on the floor beside the other bed, her red dress hiked up, one delicate sandaled foot hung in a fold of the counterpane.

Now he was out of his bed, creeping across the room on his hands and knees. He touched her. Her skin was cold; her breath came in labored snorts. She smelled of the stuff that came in bottles, and of the other… the sweet, sickly smell that made his throat close with dread. Tonight he would not be able to wake her.

It was only when he reached his bed again that he acknowledged the smell and the dampness were his fault. His mother would kill him when she woke, she had told him so, and he had no doubt that she meant it. Terror washed over him and he scrabbled at the wet bedclothes, willing himself desperately to disappear-

Alex woke sitting bolt upright in bed, gasping.

Where the hell had that dream come from? He couldn't remember having it before, but it was all horribly, intimately familiar to him in a way he didn't understand.

He'd had dreams occasionally where he had inhabited another person, another body, like an actor in a film. But he had been the little boy in the dream, or the little boy had been him.

Shivering now, he wrapped the duvet round his shoulders and stumbled into the kitchen. Taking a mug of hot, sweet tea into the sitting room, he sat on the floor, swathed in the comforter, watching wretchedly for the first intimation of dawn at his garden window.

Then the dream began again, and this time he knew he was awake. There was a man in the bedroom; he could smell the tobacco and the rank sweat. The man and his mother were together in her bed, making the sounds he couldn't bear to hear. He stuffed his fingers in his ears to shut out the noise, digging until he loosened the scabs from the last time.