"Dom Scott's story checks out to a point. The barmaid said Kristin met him there. They argued. She had a drink and then left. The barmaid, Eva, thinks he stayed until pub closing, but wouldn't swear to it. She-Eva-also said she'd seen Dom with Kristin before, but she'd also seen him with what she described as some 'dodgy' characters. If she knows more, she wasn't sharing."

"Eva?" Kincaid grinned at him, raising an eyebrow. "Fancied you, did she?"

"I'll give you a note excusing your tardiness," Gemma told Kit. "And if you think you can eat a bit more breakfast, we'll go to Otto's. I'll just go get changed."

Toby had jumped up and down, making the dogs bark, but Kit had stopped her as she turned away. "Gemma, this isn't about Gran, is it?"

"No," she assured him. "I just want to spend some time with you. But I will tell you about my visit with her last night."

They took the car, so that Gemma could drop Kit and then Toby off at school afterwards, but Kit wished they might have walked. After yesterday's heat, the day had cooled to crispness again, the sun was shining in a clear blue sky, and the brightly colored houses in Lansdowne Road looked freshly washed.

When they reached the café in Elgin Crescent, Otto greeted Gemma with a hug and kisses on both cheeks. "Gemma! I thought you were too busy for your old friends."

"Busier than I should be," she agreed. "But I'm taking a bit of time off this morning, and letting the boys play truant." The café was still half full, and Otto, tea towel tucked into his apron, bald head gleaming with perspiration, seemed to be managing on his own.

"Where's Wesley?" Kit asked as they took a table by the window.

"At one of his university classes. He will be in after lunch. And you, Kit, we are honored to see you two days in a row, and yesterday with your lady friend. Now, what can I get for you?"

Gemma gave Kit a curious look, but waited until they had ordered bacon and eggs before she said, "You were here yesterday, Kit?"

He felt himself color, felt stupid because of it, and blushed harder. "It wasn't a girl. I was with Erika. She wanted to go for a walk. So we stopped and had coffee, and a cake that Otto had made. Erika said it reminded her of things she used to eat in Germany."

"Was she all right about-" Gemma glanced at Toby, who was half out of his chair, picking at something on the underside of the table. "With what happened yesterday," she amended, capturing Toby's wrists in one hand. "Stop that, lovey."

"But somebody's left chewing gum, Mummy," he protested.

"Yes, and that was very naughty. They should know better, and you should know better than to touch it." She scooped him off the chair and gave him a pat on the behind. "Now be a good boy and ask Otto if you can wash your hands."

When she looked at Kit again, he frowned. "I don't know," he said. "We-She told me-I didn't know what to say."

"What did Erika tell you, Kit?" Gemma asked, with that look that meant you had her full attention and she wouldn't let it go.

Kit straightened his cutlery. "I'd asked her about her father. About why her father didn't get out of Germany-I know I probably shouldn't have."

He waited for censure, but Gemma frowned and said, "Why didn't her father get out?"

"He-" Kit fought a sudden and ridiculous urge to blink back tears. "He waited, because he didn't want to draw attention to Erika and her husband getting away. But by then it was too late." He swallowed, glad to have got through that bit without a quaver.

"Oh, no." Gemma looked stricken. "No wonder the brooch her father made means so much to her."

"But that's not the worst thing." Kit was determined now to tell her all of it before Toby came back. "Her husband was killed. Murdered."

"What?"

He glanced at Gemma, then back at the alignment of his knife. Erika had told him while they were sitting here, having coffee, and she had said it in a matter-of-fact way that he envied. Would he ever be able to tell someone his mum had been murdered without choking up and making a fool of himself? He was careful at school, often pretending that Gemma and Duncan were both his parents, and that they had always lived together. No one thought much these days about a mum having a different name.

Hearing Toby talking to Otto in the kitchen, Kit said quietly, "Someone stabbed Erika's husband-his name was David-in a park near the Albert Bridge. No one was ever charged, and Erika said"-Kit made an effort to remember her words exactly-"she said she didn't know if she could bear another unresolved death." He had understood, because he couldn't imagine how he would feel if he didn't know who had killed his mum.

"When?" asked Gemma. "Did she say when this happened?"

Kit shrugged. "A long time ago. After the war. But I don't see what that can possibly have to do with the girl who was killed yesterday."

Having tried Harry Pevensey's phone again from the office with no luck, Kincaid and Cullen had taken a car and driven to the address Khan had given Cullen.

The first sign of trouble was the police roadblock across the bottom end of Hanway Street.

"Bugger. Wonder what's going on," Kincaid said, but he had a bad feeling. Finding the police in attendance when one arrived to interview a possible suspect in a crime was usually not a good omen.

Parking on Oxford Street itself was completely impossible, although he had known Cullen to risk the lives and limbs of pedestrians by pulling the car up on the pavement. "Let's try the other end, off Tottenham Court," he added hurriedly.

From behind the wheel, Cullen gave him a look that said he didn't appreciate backseat drivers, but said merely, "Right, guv."

When Cullen rounded the corner into Tottenham Court Road and pulled into the other end of Hanway Street, Kincaid saw immediately that the junction of Hanway Street and Hanway Place was blocked as well, and on the other side of the barricade he saw the ominous blue flashing of police lights.

Pulling up on the double yellows in front of the flamenco club on the corner, Cullen said, "Unfortunate coincidence?"

"Don't believe in them."

Kincaid got out of the car and, ducking round the barricade, forestalled the uniformed constable's advance with a flash of his warrant card.

"Oh, sorry, sir." The constable, who didn't look long out of the academy, relaxed and looked a bit sheepish. "Should have realized," he said, nodding at the car and the POLICE notice Cullen had propped in the windscreen.

"What's happened here?" asked Kincaid, uninterested in apologies. Cullen had followed and stood silently beside him.

"You've not been called in?"

"No, but I suspect I will be," Kincaid said through gritted teeth. He could see an accident investigation team working farther along Hanway Place.

"Bloke got himself run down in the middle of the night," said the constable. "Bit hard to step out in front of a car along here," he added, with a puzzled shake of his head. "But could be he had a bit much to drink. Nasty business, though. Car didn't just knock him down, but ran right over him. Neighbor came along and found him, sicked up all over himself, so I heard."

"Loquacious bastard," Cullen muttered under his breath.

"The victim. Do you have an ID?" asked Kincaid, wishing a plague on all newly hatched constables.

The young man frowned, his spotty forehead wrinkling with effort. "Something poncey sounding. Pevensey," he said after great deliberation, putting the accent on the middle syllable. "Harry Pevensey."