"Yes, I know, I know," said Gemma with a sigh. "He's a very intelligent man who's used to a stimulating, high-powered job where he's in charge of everything. Signing Charlotte up for every play group in Notting Hill and taking on gourmet cooking is his way of coping with the situation. I didn't expect him to sit home and watch daytime telly. But, still, there's something . . . " She shook her head. "I don't know." When Hazel raised an eyebrow, Gemma added, "I will talk to him. Promise. But this case is worrying enough for the moment. In fact, I'm just as glad Holly isn't here. Maybe you could give me an opinion. Unofficially."

Nodding, Hazel said, "I'll do my best."

Gemma described the murder, then told her what they'd learned about Vincent Arnott. "I can't make sense of the contradictions. The man was apparently very solicitous of his wife. Obviously fastidious in the extreme." Gemma paused, frowning, and set her empty cup on the tray. "Oh, I suppose I can understand the picking-up-women thing . . . But the bondage seems an aberration for a man who controlled everything in his life with such precision."

"Actually, that's not uncommon. That was probably the only time he felt he didn't have to be in control. His wife's illness may have precipitated a long-harbored fantasy into active behavior."

Gemma watched the gas fire for a moment, contemplating that, then turned back to Hazel. "Okay. I can see that, too. But his chambers' clerk told me that Arnott didn't like women. How do you square that with his care of his wife?"

"You described her as 'childlike.' Is it possible that she was always something of an innocent, and that the dementia has only made it more apparent? It could be that they never had much of a s.e.xual relationship, even before her illness. Or possibly not at all."

"Tom-his clerk-did say that Arnott had been having affairs as long as he'd known him, and from what I gathered, they'd worked together nearly twenty years. So what you're suggesting," Gemma added slowly, "is that Arnott saw his wife as the virgin and other women as wh.o.r.es?"

"That's not uncommon, either," said Hazel. "It would be interesting to know what sort of relationship your Mr. Arnott had with his mother."

"Interesting, yes," agreed Gemma. "Helpful, maybe, if he were the murderer and not the victim. But as it is, I'm not sure it would get me any closer to figuring out who killed him. Or why."

Before picking up Charlotte and Toby, Kincaid had taken Kit on a shopping trip to Whole Foods Market and let him pick out ingredients for dinner. Now, banned from the kitchen while Kit prepared a surprise, Kincaid was helping Toby and Charlotte make a pillow fort in the sitting room when he heard the click of the front-door lock and Geordie's excited yip.

"Mummy's home!" Toby shouted, sending their carefully constructed edifice slithering to the floor. Charlotte began to cry.

Scooping her up, Kincaid kissed her and said, "Never mind. We'll build it again. You can show Mummy."

When Gemma came into the room, she looked more chipper than he'd expected after her long day. "What have we here?" she said. "Do I see the remains of a castle?"

"And the walls came tumbling down," Toby intoned. "But you can help fix it, Mummy."

She tousled his hair and gave Charlotte a hug. "Where's Kit? And what is that heavenly smell?"

"You'll have to ask Kit," said Kincaid. "It's his production and I am totally, completely in the dark."

"Okay, kitchen first," Gemma told Toby. "You and Charlotte start building again, and I'll come supervise in a bit."

Kincaid followed her into the kitchen, where they found Kit, pink cheeked from the heat of the Aga.

"I hear you're the chef du jour," Gemma told him, giving him a hug as well. "Whatever it is, you could bottle the smell and sell it."

"It's mac cheese," said Kit. He grinned at their startled looks. "Gourmet mac cheese. I made up the recipe myself."

"Wow." Gemma sank into a kitchen chair with a sigh of contentment. "Gordon Ramsay couldn't do better." Then she gave Kit a steely look. "Just promise me, if you decide to be a chef, that you won't swear like him."

"All chefs swear," said Kit, unconcerned. Turning back to the work top, he lifted a vase and set it carefully in the center of the table. "And these are for you."

"Tulips! And red. My favorite. Thank you, Kit." Then she added, laughing, "But that still doesn't mean you can swear. Or maybe only a little."

He smiled back, then glanced at the kitchen timer. "The mac cheese has got fifteen more minutes. Okay if I go check my e-mail?" When they nodded, he added, "No tasting, though." A moment later they heard him galloping up the stairs.

"I think his feet have grown a size since Christmas," Kincaid said. Then, studying Gemma, he asked, "Tea? I suspect you could use a bit of fortifying."

"I'm full up with tea. And biscuits, actually. I stopped to see Hazel on my way home."

"Wine, then?" Kincaid headed for the fridge rather than the kettle.

"I wouldn't say no."

He poured her a gla.s.s from the bottle they'd opened the night before. "Personal or professional, this visit to Hazel?"

"Bit of both." After an appreciative sip of the wine, she quietly filled him in on what they'd learned that day about Vincent Arnott, then set her gla.s.s down and rubbed at her cheekbones. "We're nearing the end of the crucial first forty-eight hours, and we still don't have any really viable leads. This could turn into a monster of a case when the media get hold of the details and we haven't made any progress."

"The Mad Strangler of Crystal Palace."

Gemma grimaced. "Or worse. s.e.x, Bondage, and Murder."

Sid, their black cat, jumped up on the kitchen table. Kincaid scooped him off and set him on the floor, where the cat rubbed round Gemma's ankles until she reached down to stroke him.

"I saw Melody today," Kincaid told her, trying to work out how to approach this delicately. He didn't want Gemma to feel he was interfering in her case, but he couldn't withhold what he knew, either. "She came by to check on Doug while I was there."

"Really? How's he doing?"

"I suspect by tomorrow he'll be pulling his hair out from boredom. Or hacking into the MoD. But the thing is, Melody was trying to track down the members of the band who were playing in the pub on Friday night, and she said she got their details from their manager."

"Well, that seems logical." Gemma looked puzzled.

"She didn't tell you the manager's name?"

"I don't think so. But I'm sure it's in her case notes."

"You'd remember if she'd told you," he said. "It's Tam. Our Tam. Louise's Tam."

Gemma just stared at him blankly for a moment. "As in Tam and Michael?" she said at last.

"The same."

"b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l." She lifted her winegla.s.s and this time took a gulp.

"It gets better." Kincaid sat down across from her. "The guitarist who got in a row with your victim in the pub on Friday night? It was Andy Monahan."

"Andy . . . " Gemma frowned; then her eyes widened in recognition. "Andy. Blondish. Bit cheeky. Always gives me a wave and a smile when I see him coming and going at Louise's. He's usually carrying his guitar case." She shook her head in disbelief. "What on earth was he doing arguing with Vincent Arnott? And that means it was Tam who gave him an alibi for the time of Arnott's murder."

"Bit awkward, isn't it? I wondered . . . " Kincaid hesitated, thinking of all the things he hadn't said, all the things he should have mentioned to Gemma-Louise's illness, the possibilities he was exploring for Charlotte . . . and his worries about the job. The b.l.o.o.d.y, b.l.o.o.d.y job.

He shrugged. He'd find the right time.

"What, love?" Gemma reached across the table to touch his hand. "Are you all right?"

He took her hand in his. "I'm fine. But . . . I wondered if you might like me to have a word with Tam. Just in case he knows anything he'd not have thought to mention to the police."

Melody had spent the afternoon shuttling between Earl's Court, Hackney, and Bethnal Green, with no success anywhere.

She had found Nick's mother at home at the family's flat on the respectable Fulham edge of Earl's Court. Nick, said his mum, was off at a coffeehouse, studying for an accountancy exam, but she wasn't sure where. Melody had left her card. She'd also tried Nick's mobile, leaving a message on his voice mail.

As she started for Hackney, she'd tried the mobile number Tam Moran had given her for George, the drummer, which again went to voice mail.

"Why do people bother having mobile phones if they never answer them," she muttered. Maybe by the time she arrived, George would have rung her back.

But when she reached the flat in the well-kept estate east of Haggerston Park, there was no one home at all. Nor was there any sign of the white Transit van she'd seen in the video footage.

She waited a bit, in case someone showed up, but the car quickly got cold without the engine running. Frowning, she dug in her bag for the card Tam Moran had given her. His home address was near Columbia Road, not far at all. She could stop by, she thought. Tam seemed like a settled chap who might be at home on a Sunday afternoon.

Kincaid had explained that Tam lived next door to Louise Phillips, who had been Charlotte's father's law partner and was now the executor of Charlotte's estate.

"And Andy Monahan?" she'd asked. "How do you know him?"

"He was a witness to a murder near his flat, in that case we worked last spring-the one that involved Erika. It wasn't until I saw him visiting Tam when I was at Louise's last summer that I knew they had a connection. I hope he's not involved in your murder."

Melody hadn't thought it very professional to add that she hoped not, too.

When she reached Columbia Road, she found Tam's flat easily enough and climbed the stairs to the first-floor balcony. But the only answer to her knock was the ferocious barking of the two German shepherd dogs she could see through the flat's front windows, and there was no sound or movement from the adjoining flat, which she a.s.sumed must be Louise's.

Discouraged, she went back to the car and sat for a moment, irresolute. Heavy clouds were ma.s.sing in the west of the already darkening sky. She'd wasted the entire afternoon, and now the day was almost gone.

As she reached in her bag for her phone, intending to check in with Gemma, she knocked Tam's card from the console and it fell facedown on the pa.s.senger seat. On the back, Andy Monahan had scribbled his address and phone number.

"Hanway Place," she read. She remembered him saying it was just off Oxford Street and Tottenham Court Road. And that was right on her way back to Notting Hill.

b.u.g.g.e.r the band, she thought. She'd talk to Andy himself, and she wasn't going to call first.

Hanway Place was a dark little alley of a street, tucked away behind the ma.s.sive Crossrail construction at the intersection of Oxford Street and Tottenham Court Road. Melody double-checked the address on the card, as the building looked more like a warehouse than housing. But when she'd parked and gone to the door, she found a row of bellpushes with adjacent name holders. Most of the building appeared to be empty, but beside a flat on the first floor the tag read "A. Monahan" in the same distinctive handwriting scrawled on the back of the business card.

She pushed the bell and when the intercom clicked on, said, "It's Melody Talbot. Can I have a word?"

"Come on up," answered a crackly voice, and the door latch clicked open.

Despite the building's unprepossessing exterior, the stairwell was clean and well lit. As she climbed, it suddenly occurred to Melody that the makeup she'd put on that morning was long gone, her hair was wind mussed, and that perhaps the long turquoise top she'd pulled on over jeans and boots that morning was not the most flattering of outfits. "Don't be stupid," she whispered to herself. Monahan was not going to be expecting her to pa.s.s a police officer's dress code, and why should she care, anyway?

When she reached the first-floor landing, one of the flat doors opened and Monahan looked out at her. "I thought it was you," he said. "Intercom's a bit wonky. But what would you expect, really," he added, with a gesture that took in the building. He was wearing the wool peacoat they'd seen in the CCTV footage.

"Just coming in or going out?" she asked as he stepped aside to let her enter the flat.

"Coming in. Another day in the studio. Here, let me take your coat, if you won't freeze before the central heating kicks in." As she shed her coat, he hung it on a row of pegs beside the door, then slipped out of his own.

It gave her a moment to look round the flat. He must have caught her glance because the look he gave her was amused. "What did you expect? A squat? I have to admit the building's a bit grim. Most of the tenants have fled due to the Crossrail upheaval, but at least the place hasn't gone under the wrecking ball yet."

"No, I- It's just that it's, um, interesting." She wondered what it was about this man that seemed to put her on the wrong foot.

"Interesting. You could say that." He grinned, then looked at her more seriously. "Is this about your case? I don't know that I can tell you any more than yesterday."

"I just wanted a chat, if you've got a few minutes."

"Right, then. Sit down, why don't you? I'll make some tea. I'm parched. Unless you'd like something else? There might be a beer in the fridge," he added a little dubiously, as if not sure what might be lurking in the refrigerator's depths.

"No, tea would be lovely."

"Tea is the police officer's lot, I should think. Back in a tic, then." There was none of the edginess he'd displayed yesterday in the studio, and if he was alarmed by having a police officer appear unannounced at his flat, he certainly wasn't showing it.

Melody watched him walk into the tiny galley kitchen and switch on the lights, but she didn't sit. Instead, she looked round the room with the curiosity she had clearly failed to disguise. There was a futon that seemed, if the folded duvet and the pillow neatly placed at one end were an indication, to double as a bed, and an armchair that looked as if it had come from the same era and perhaps the same charity shop. A coffee table held stacks of guitar magazines, a laptop, and an empty mug; a side table held a hideous ceramic lamp that again might kindly have been called "vintage."

That was the sum total of furniture. The rest of the room was stuffed with the things that obviously really mattered to Andy Monahan. She counted half a dozen amps in different shapes and sizes. There were foot pedals with switches and b.u.t.tons, and ma.s.ses of leads running from one thing to another like a colorful nest of snakes.

And guitars. Electric. Acoustic. Guitars on stands, guitars mounted on the wall. The far end of the room held shelves and shelves of carefully aligned CDs and vinyl alb.u.ms, and in the center, a sophisticated music center that included a turntable and what Melody a.s.sumed was a mixing board.

Through an open door, she glimpsed what she guessed was meant to be the flat's bedroom, but it was filled with workbenches and boxes of tools. An enormous ginger cat jumped down from one of the worktables and strolled towards her, meowing plaintively.

"That's Bert," Andy called from the kitchen. "Don't mind him. He's never met a stranger, and he never thinks he's had enough to eat. Milk and sugar?" he added.

"Just a bit of both, please."

When Andy came back into the sitting room carrying two mugs, Melody sat on the edge of the armchair, tentatively reaching down to scratch Bert's large head.

"Don't you like cats?" Andy asked, handing her one of the mugs, but not sitting down himself. Melody thought he looked tired, but he seemed wired, almost humming with an undercurrent of excitement.

"I don't dislike them. I've just never had one. My parents have always had Labradors in the country-" She stopped herself before she could say "country house." What was wrong with her? She never willingly admitted anything about her family, especially to strangers. "Why is he called Bert?" she asked, changing tack as the cat jumped up on the futon and made himself comfortable atop the pillow and duvet. His yellow eyes narrowed to slits, then closed.

"He's my muse." When she looked puzzled, Andy continued. "He's named after Bert Jansch. He was one of the best guitarists in the world." Setting his mug on a stack of magazines, he took one of the acoustic guitars from its stand and sat down on the futon. He ran his fingers lightly over the strings, adjusted the tuning, then began to play a rhythmic, melodic progression that made it almost impossible for Melody not to tap her feet. His face held the same intensity she'd seen yesterday in the studio, but after a moment he stopped and looked up at her. "You don't recognize it?"

"No." Melody felt as if she'd failed a test. "It's familiar, but-"

"It's called 'Angie.' Bert Jansch's anthem, if you like. Every guitarist worth his salt learns to play it."

"How old were you, then, when you learned it?"

"It was so long ago that I don't remember." Shrugging, he put the guitar back in its stand, but she sensed he felt less comfortable without the instrument as a shield. He lifted his mug, sniffed at the tea suspiciously, then took a sip. "Milk's all right, then. Haven't been to the shops in a while," he explained.

"Were you recording in Crystal Palace again today?" she asked.

"Yeah. We were actually in the studio today. Yesterday was just rehearsal s.p.a.ce. It was-" Shaking his head, he set his tea down again, then rose and crossed the room, picking up the guitar case she hadn't noticed by the front door. He took out the red electric guitar he'd been playing yesterday and brought it back to the futon, placing it in his lap and resting his hands on the curve of its body.

Again, Melody sensed a barely containable energy bubbling beneath the surface of his nonchalant demeanor. She leaned forward, elbows on her knees. "Look. I know I'm not very musical, but when I heard you yesterday, with the girl-"

"Poppy."

"Right. With Poppy. The two of you-it was something . . . special."

Andy Monahan looked up at her, his glance searching. "You thought so, too? I've played with a lot of people, but there's never been anything like that. I don't want to-I don't want to make too much of it. I've had my little sand castles washed away too many times."

"But if you've been playing with Poppy-"

"That's just the thing. I'd never even met her before yesterday. It was-sort of like a blind date, in musical terms. Our managers put us together."