Erika moved through the day as if held to the earth by the slenderest of tethers.

She rose at her usual time, even though she'd been given a temporary bereavement leave from her job in the administrative offices at Whiteleys department store. Finding she was ravenous, she'd made tea, with two pieces of toast and two soft-boiled eggs, an unheard-of indulgence with rationing still in effect, but she felt reckless with hunger. If she had nothing to eat the rest of the week she couldn't bring herself to care.

Carrying her plate and cup out into the garden, she sat on the stone wall in the one spot penetrated by the morning sun. In spite of her hunger, she ate slowly, savoring every taste and texture as if it were for the first time-the buttery richness of the egg yolk, the crunchiness of the toast, the earthy astringency of the tea.

And she, who had lived in her own mind for so long, found that she wanted to share every thought, every impression, every instant of experience with Gavin. He would understand. He would know what she meant, what she felt, almost before she knew herself, and the perfection of it made her eyes fill with the tears she had not cried for her husband.

David. She knew that somewhere within her she carried a kernel of grief for the man she had lived with for almost fifteen years, and that most of all she would mourn what might have existed between them, and for the long, barren waste of their marriage.

But now she felt distanced, as if a stranger had lived that life, or as if it were a distant memory, something seen from the wrong end of a telescope. David had been lost to her long ago, and she knew now that grief had been woven into the very fabric of her life.

As she did the washing-up and went about her daily routine, she wondered if a time would come when she would feel guilt for having taken another man so precipitously into her bed. But she couldn't imagine that her union with Gavin Hoxley could ever seem an act of disloyalty, and she didn't want to think of consequences, or of the obstacles that stood between them.

Not now. Not yet. Nothing could take this moment, this hour, this day, from her. She had been waiting for it her whole life.

Gemma had survived Giant Snakes and Ladders, had put Toby to bed, had had a bath herself, had said good night to Kit, who was reading in his room, and Kincaid still had not rung. She tried calling him, but his phone went straight to voice mail, and she didn't leave a message. Something must have happened, and he would let her know when he could.

Nor had she had any success reaching Erika, although she kept trying until she felt it was too late to call. She told herself she was being paranoid, that Erika had every right to go out of an evening, or to leave the phone unanswered if it suited her. But no amount of rationalizing quieted the little tickle of worry.

Had Erika's story in the Guardian had some bearing on David Rosenthal's death? But Melody had told her that it was an opinion piece, something about the shifting role of women in the postwar workplace, which sounded so like Erika that it made Gemma smile. She couldn't imagine it had been more than coincidence. But, she couldn't stop reminding herself, the two other people who'd had a connection with Erika's brooch were dead.

In pajamas and dressing gown, Gemma went downstairs and idled restlessly at the piano, trying to pick out a tune that teased at her memory, but her fingers seemed disconnected from her brain. Giving up after a few discordant notes, she wandered into the kitchen and contemplated the wine still in the fridge, but it had lost its appeal.

Instead, she filled a mug with milk and popped it in the microwave, then took the steaming drink to the table. She wanted to think more clearly, not less.

Geordie and Tess had stayed upstairs with Kit, but Sid, who seemed to be her shadow today, had followed her. He jumped up on the table and wrapped his tail round his paws, regarding her with unblinking green eyes, and for once Gemma didn't shoo him off. Instead, she scratched him under the chin until his eyes narrowed to slits and he began to purr. "You know everything, don't you, boy?" she said softly, and at the sound of her voice, the cat blinked and curled his tail a bit tighter, as if containing his contentment.

As Gemma began to relax, her mind drifted randomly through the things that were worrying her. Her mum…her dad…Kristin Cahill…the poor man she hadn't met, Harry Pevensey…Erika…and Gavin Hoxley. She kept coming back to Gavin Hoxley. It was odd, but a day spent reading Hoxley's notes had made her feel she knew him, and she had liked him. It seemed to her that he had cared about David Rosenthal in a personal way, as she often cared about her own cases. And he had been too good a detective to have just dropped an unsolved case, so what had happened?

She could ask Erika, of course. Erika would have known Hoxley-it was obvious from his notes that he had interviewed her. But then, Erika had never told her that David Rosenthal had been murdered. Why?

Gemma circled round to Gavin Hoxley again, and she realized she had made a decision. She would ask Erika about her husband's death, but first she would go back to Lucan Place and find out why Hoxley had dropped David Rosenthal's case.

As the day slid into evening, Erika found herself staring more and more often at the telephone, as if she could will it to ring, or holding her breath as she listened for the sound of footsteps in the paved yard outside her door.

Gavin hadn't said he would ring, after all, or that he would come back to her as soon as he was able, but that he would do so had seemed as natural to her as breathing.

She did chores already done once. She made herself eat a little something, a habit from the war, when one never knew when one might get another meal, but her appetite of the morning had gone. She switched on lamps, brushed her dark hair until it crackled, and smoothed her hands down the skirt of her best dress.

By nightfall, doubt had come creeping in. Had she been a complete fool? Had she only imagined that what had happened between them was special? She was, after all, inexperienced in these things, and probably more naive than she had realized.

Had she fallen for the oldest chestnut in the world, that of the married man who claimed to be unhappy with his wife? She had been wrong, so wrong, about David. Had she been wrong about Gavin as well?

But as the hours passed, and she played over and over the things they had said, and done, and shared, she knew in her heart that it had been real, and that knowledge chilled her to the bone.