Looking down, Winnie saw that the knuckles on the hand she’d wrapped around her cup were white. “What sort of hard time?”

“I at least had parents who cared for me. I mean, they were strict, but I mattered to them, more than anything else. Elaine… Elaine’s mother committed suicide when she was twelve, in their shower, so that Elaine would find her when she came home from school. What kind of mother would do that to her own child? And after that, her father cared nothing for her, but when he got sick she took care of him until he died.”

“She told you this?”

“In bits and pieces, most of it when she’d been particularly… cross. She was – she could be – she did care for me, in spite of how it sounds.”

“You’re very forgiving,” Winnie managed to say. “But you know that neither of the things she said about you were true.”

Fanny looked down at her body in the chair. “It’s getting harder and harder to imagine anything else.”

“That will change, I promise,” said Winnie, vowing that she would make sure of it.

At least Fanny had begun to speak of Elaine in the past tense, which Winnie could only see as a positive step. Whatever had happened to Elaine Holland, Winnie hoped that Fanny, having made such a confession, would not be willing to take her erring roommate back with open arms. And as much as it shamed her, Winnie found herself wishing, just for a moment, that Elaine Holland would never walk in Fanny’s door again.

Kincaid leaned against the doorjamb, watching Gemma in the bath. The tub, an old-fashioned roll-top, was one of the things Gemma loved most about their house, and tonight she’d made the most of her retreat. Candles flickered, the water foamed with something flowery, and a piano nocturne drifted from the CD player. All were signs that she’d had a particularly stressful day.

“Is this the ritual bath?” he asked lightly.

“It’s much easier on the goat this way,” she said without turning, but he heard the smile in her voice. She’d pulled her hair up on top of her head, and sat with her arms wrapped round her knees, exposing the slender line of her neck and the curve of her back. In the candlelight, her skin looked pale as alabaster. “Are the kids in bed?” she asked.

“I’ve read to Toby, and Kit’s curled up with a book he says Erika gave him.” He’d helped Kit arrange the last of his birds’ eggs and bits of stone and bone in his display case, and had promised to try to figure out some way to light it. “The cabinet’s great, by the way. He seems pleased.”

“He’s had a good day, I think, between that and Erika. He’s quite impressed now with her being a famous historian, with oodles of published papers.”

“Oodles? Is that in the dictionary?” Grinning, he crossed to the dressing table stool and sat down so that he could see her face.

“Do I care?” She flashed a smile at him, then said, “Duncan, do you suppose we’ll be an embarrassment to him one day?”

“What? You think he’ll be apologizing for ‘my parents the plods,’ as he’s accepting his Cambridge degree? Let’s hope he has the opportunity,” he added, sobering as he thought of Eugenia’s custody suit.

“Duncan, this case… you won’t let anything keep you from making the hearing on Monday…”

“Of course not. I’ve discussed it with Doug. He’ll cover for me if necessary.” He took off his watch and began rolling up his shirtsleeves. “Shall I do your back?”

“Please.”

He took her nylon bath scrubby and lathered it with soap. “If I get the DNA results from Konnie tomorrow, we’ll at least be able to narrow things down from there. Maybe then we’ll be able to make some real progress.”

Cullen had taken the samples they’d collected from Chloe Yarwood’s flat back to the station, and had sent them off to the lab immediately, flagged for Konrad Mueller’s immediate attention.

Kincaid had updated Gemma on Michael Yarwood’s identification of the girl in the CCTV image as his daughter, and she’d shared the results of her interview at Guy’s Hospital with him. While interested in what she’d learned, he’d decided there was no point in trying to trace Elaine’s phantom boyfriend until they had the results of the DNA tests, and that copying her photo for the team could wait until the next morning. He had, however, set Cullen the immediate task of trying to find Nigel Trevelyan, the man who had been with Chloe Yarwood on the night of the fire.

Kneeling by the tub, he began soaping Gemma’s neck, working his way down to her shoulders with a circular motion. When he had lather the consistency of shaving cream, he dropped the nylon ball in the tub and began massaging her shoulders and back with his hands.

“Um… can I hire you on a permanent basis?” Gemma asked, leaning into the pressure.

“Depends on the benefits. I’m open to offers.” Her skin slipped like satin under his fingers. He began to think about the possibilities of the bath rug, and whether or not the boys were well and truly down for the night.

“Gemma-”

She turned suddenly, splashing him. “I’ve just remembered. You never told me what happened before you came to Fanny’s house, when you were at the shelter.”

Sighing, he sat back on his heels. He knew her well enough to realize she wouldn’t be sidetracked until her curiosity had been satisfied. He told her about Tony Novak accusing the shelter of helping his wife and daughter disappear. Earlier in the evening he’d heard from Maura Bell, who’d said they’d had no luck finding either Novak or his wife. There was no one at the Park Street address Kath Warren had given him for Laura Novak, and although they’d found an address on Borough High Street for a Dr. Antony Novak, there was no answer there, either.

“There’s a missing child?” said Gemma, a note of alarm in her voice.

“We don’t know that for sure,” he answered reasonably. “It’s more than likely that the wife has taken off with the daughter, if they’re really even missing at all.”

“If that were the case, wouldn’t she have asked for Kath Warren’s help?” Gemma sloshed water on her shoulders, rinsing off the suds.

“Maybe Kath wasn’t telling me the truth.”

“Why would she lie, if there’s nothing illegal about helping someone relocate?”

“All right, then,” Kincaid said, a little aggravated over the mood obviously lost for the moment. “Maybe Laura Novak didn’t trust Kath Warren not to tell Tony? Or Tony not to find out on his own? After all, Tony has had access to the shelter, and possibly to the shelter’s records.”

“How old is the little girl?”

Kincaid searched his memory for details. “I think Kath said she was ten.”

“How long have they been missing?”

“I don’t know. He buggered off before I had a chance to ask him.”

Gemma leaned back into the curve of the tub, her expression thoughtful. “What were you talking about when Novak ran off?”

He frowned. “Kath was saying she hadn’t seen the wife and daughter, and then she introduced me-”

“By rank?”

“Yes. And then you called, and when I turned round from answering the phone, he was gone. Maybe he thought I was going to nick him for assaulting Kath.”

“Or maybe he’d done something he didn’t want to tell the police.”

“If he’d hurt his wife or his daughter, why would he have been accusing Kath of abducting them?” Kincaid argued.

“At this point, you don’t know what sort of a nutter this guy is,” Gemma countered. “You’ve got to talk to him again. And make every effort to find his wife and daughter. What if-”

“Gemma-” He stopped himself telling her he knew perfectly well how to run an investigation, because he was beginning to have a niggling doubt as to whether he’d given Tony Novak’s missing wife enough weight. “Look, I’ll look into it myself in the morning, starting with Laura Novak’s house. If she’s not there, I’ll canvas the neighbors-”