CHAPTER 14

Gemma's first impulse, when she had dropped the boys at their respective schools, was to confront Erika about her husband's murder.

But then, Gemma considered a little more calmly, maybe Erika had not thought it relevant, and perhaps David Rosenthal's death had no connection at all with Kristin Cahill's.

But Gemma wouldn't know until she had the facts, and so decided she should start with the case itself, and talk to Erika when she knew enough to ask useful questions.

Kit had said that David Rosenthal had been murdered in a garden near the Albert Bridge. It would have been Chelsea's patch, then. So for the second time that week, Gemma found herself heading for Lucan Place, and an interview with Detective Inspector Kerry Boatman.

"Dominic Scott knew Harry Pevensey and Kristin Cahill. And it was Kristin who took the brooch in for sale," Cullen said as they got back into the car, sounding exultant. "And he had rows with both of them on the days they were murdered. That puts him square in the frame, alibi or no alibi, if you ask me."

Kincaid didn't like it when things seemed too pat, nor could he dismiss alibis so easily. And it didn't tell them where Harry had got the brooch, or why Amir Khan had had a row with Kristin, or why he had been so reluctant at first to cooperate with the police.

"Let's talk to Dom Scott again before we start jumping to conclusions. Does he have a job, do you think, or will we find him at home?"

"Melody said something about him being on the board of his grandfather's company," Cullen said a bit grudgingly.

"Having met him, I can't quite see him turning up for work on the dot every day in some City office. And Andy Monahan said he was sure Dom Scott was using drugs. That fits in with what the barmaid told you about his dodgy friends, but how does that fit in with Harry Pevensey, who liked his gin? And what on earth brought the two of them together?"

Kristin Cahill, and now Harry Pevensey, dead on his watch, two people perhaps not blameless, but certainly not deserving of ruthless and brutal murder. He would find out who had done this, but not by jumping the gun. When he got there, he would make sure it would stick.

Dominic Scott answered the door. This morning, however, he wore a slightly less ratty version of jeans and T-shirt than Andy Monahan, and looked infinitely more exhausted. He stared at them, recognition of Kincaid only slowly dawning in his eyes.

"You came about Kristin," he said. "Is there-have you-"

"No, we haven't any news about Kristin. We wanted to talk to you about something else. Can we come in?" Kincaid sensed Cullen's impatience, but he didn't want a repeat of yesterday's rather bizarre fainting spell, and he meant to take on Dom Scott at his own pace.

"Oh, right." Dom Scott held the door for them, then hesitated in the hall. "We can talk upstairs," he said, with a grimace at his mother's living room. "Not exactly my idea of comfort, the barrage of great art in the arctic space." He turned instead towards the stairs, and they followed, Kincaid looking round with interest.

In the stairwell, Ellen Scott-Miller had abandoned the snowy expanse and gone for a dark, cool green, against which small landscape oils glowed like little jewels.

They climbed all the way to the top floor, Dom Scott taking a surprisingly quick lead considering the lassitude with which he'd greeted them.

A door stood ajar on the top landing, and when Dom pushed it wide, Kincaid saw that it was not a room, but a flat with a small kitchen and separate bedroom and, he assumed, a bath.

There was no evidence of Dom's mother's hand in the decorating. The furniture seemed to be odds and ends collected from other parts of the house; the gray walls displayed framed posters featuring current bands and comedy acts, a few from the Edinburgh festival.

Clothes were strewn across sofa and floor, the coffee table was littered with glasses and mugs, and the room had a slightly unwashed aroma.

"Didn't seem much point in tidying," said Dom, with a shrug of apology, but he swept the sofa clean and tossed the bundle of clothing in the direction of the bedroom. He motioned them to the sofa and sat on the edge of a scuffed leather Morris chair, seemingly unaware of the crushed suit jacket beneath him. "So what did you want to talk about?" he asked, and Kincaid saw that his eyes were more focused than the previous day.

"Harry Pevensey."

"Harry?" Dom looked at them blankly, but his hands twitched. "What about him?"

"How do you know Harry, Dom?"

"He's just a bloke I met in a bar." Dom's fingers moved to his T-shirt, began to pick at the fabric. "What does Harry have to do with anything?"

"Why did you go to see Harry yesterday?" Kincaid asked, his voice still casual.

"What? But I-How could you-" Visibly rattled now, Dom clutched at his shirt with one hand and rubbed at his nose with the other.

"What do you know about a diamond brooch that Harry Pevensey put up for auction through your girlfriend, Kristin Cahill?"

"I don't-"

"Oh, come on, Dom." Kincaid leaned forward, holding Dom's gaze, and said quietly, "I don't believe you. Were you Harry Pevensey's connection with Kristin?"

Dom let go of his shirt and seemed to make an effort to pull himself together. "So what if I was? Look, I told you. I met Harry one night in a bar, the French House, in Soho, when I went with some friends. It's an actors' bar. Harry liked to hang out there. We talked, and sometimes I'd pop in when I was in the West End. It was…comfortable…you know. Not like most of the places I go. And no one knew me.

"Harry was always hard up. I'd buy him a drink, but he never asked anything of me." There was a plaintive sort of innocence in the words, as if Dom Scott didn't have many interactions with people who didn't want something from him.

"Until a couple of weeks ago," Dom went on, his voice going flat. "He rang me. He said he had this brooch. He said he'd found it in an estate sale, but he thought it might be really valuable. So I introduced him to Kristin. I thought that if it was true, it might be a good thing for her, too, to bring in something.

"But then the police came round asking questions about it, and Kristin got into trouble with her boss. So yesterday I went round to ask Harry to take it out of the sale. I told him that the bloody thing was jeopardizing Kristin's job, and that was never part of the agreement. But he said he wouldn't do it, and I couldn't change his mind, so I left.

"And then-then you came, and said Kristin was dead." He sagged into the chair, his eyes dull again.

Kincaid didn't mean to let him off so easily. "Dom," he said sharply. "Did Kristin tell you why Mr. Khan was angry about the brooch?"

He frowned, as if thinking were an effort. "She said there was some woman claiming it was stolen from her during the war. It was that part that pissed him off. Mr. Khan said they would take items of unknown provenance, but they didn't want the kind of investigation that would ensue from claims that might involve war looting. Like it was Kristin's fault."

"And that's why you had a row with Harry?"