"I thought you'd got lost," said Gemma.

"Traffic," Melody answered. It occurred to Gemma that Melody had used the same excuse for being late that morning-and that it was very unlike her to be late for anything.

Gemma explained about the fiber matches, then turned back to Shara. "Any print matches? Or DNA from that blood spot at the Belvedere?"

"Not yet. Rashid's got the postmortem scheduled for tomorrow afternoon, and he's hoping for the preliminary tox results by then."

"So we have what looks like the same perpetrator," Gemma said slowly, "and still the only link between the victims seems to be that they were both barristers and that they were last seen in their local pubs."

"That's not all." Melody's voice was flat. She sat, hugging her arms across her chest. "I interviewed Andy Monahan, the guitarist Arnott shouted at on Friday night at the White Stag. He knew Shaun Francis, from when he was growing up in Crystal Palace. But he hadn't seen him since they were kids."

Gemma stared at her. "And you found this out when?"

"Just now. I stopped to talk to him on my way back from Kennington."

"On the way back?" Gemma shook her head, frowning. "Melody, there's something I'm not seeing here. You're telling me that Monahan had a row with Arnott on Friday night, and he just happens to have known Shaun Francis?" She wasn't liking this at all. "That puts him square in the frame."

"It doesn't," Melody protested. "We know from the CCTV footage that his manager picked him up right after the band finished on Friday night, and we have his manager's testimony, which you yourself said was reliable, that he drove him back to Central London. He can't have been involved in Arnott's death. And if Rashid is right about the time of Francis's death, he can't have had anything to do with that, either."

"Why not? You're telling me he has an unbreakable alibi?"

Melody met her gaze. "Yes. Me."

"Shara, go home," said Gemma.

Raising her eyebrows, Shara glanced at Melody, but said, "Right, guv. Glad to. Whatever you say. I'll just finish up these reports in the morning." She collected her things, and with a last little shake of her head at Melody, left the CID room.

Gemma turned to Melody. "I think you'd better explain."

"I went to see Andy-to interview him-early yesterday evening. I'd tried to track down the other blokes in the band with no luck, and then it occurred to me that Caleb Hart hadn't looked at Arnott's photo when I went to the recording studio, so I thought I'd ask Andy what he thought about Hart."

"And you're just now telling me this?"

"I-um-got a bit sidetracked, with everything that's happened today."

Gemma tried to remember when she'd seen Melody look so uncomfortable. Although on the job Melody tried very hard to downplay her upbringing and her education-had, in fact, deliberately chosen a career where those things would be a disadvantage-her background gave her a natural confidence that Gemma sometimes envied. Now she was waffling like a nervous witness. "Back to last night," said Gemma. "So you went to see Andy. When?"

"It must have been about six. Well before Shaun Francis was seen at the Prince of Wales. Andy was getting ready for a gig at the Twelve Bar in Denmark Street-that's a guitar club-and so I-I went with him. And we didn't get back to Andy's flat until late."

"What if Rashid was off on the time of death? How late?"

Melody turned a rather becoming shade of pink and tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear. "Boss, it wouldn't matter how far off Rashid was on the time."

Gemma stared at her, remembering Melody's fl.u.s.tered late arrival that morning, and the penny dropped. "You're telling me you spent the night with him?"

"It's not illegal." Melody crossed her arms over her chest. "And he wasn't a suspect."

"He was a peripheral witness, and now maybe something more. Melody, if you've compromised the case-"

"The fact that Arnott spoke to Andy and that Andy knew Shaun Francis years ago is no stranger a coincidence than you and Duncan knowing Andy and his manager," Melody said hotly. Then she sighed and rubbed her cheeks. "But I've told him he'll have to speak to you, and now he feels I've betrayed his confidence."

It would have been patronizing for Gemma to have told Melody she'd done the right thing. Instead, she considered what Melody had said. "I don't really know Andy, not to speak to. It was Duncan and Doug who met him on a case. I've just seen him coming and going from Tam and Michael's flat. But you haven't told me how he knew about Shaun Francis's murder."

"I told him. He'd asked me to come by the flat. He wanted to show me a video that Caleb Hart had made of Andy's sessions with Poppy over the weekend."

"A video?"

"Caleb put it up on YouTube last night. It's gone bonkers. You wouldn't believe the hits in a day."

"Oh," Gemma murmured as the light dawned. "Tam's vested interest."

"What are you talking about?"

Now it was Gemma's turn to admit that she'd bent the rules-although not, apparently, nearly as far as Melody. "Duncan and Doug talked to Tam today. And then Duncan went to see Caleb Hart. Unofficially. On Tam's behalf. Tam was worried about the business with Arnott causing Andy problems, and now I see why, if there's something big in the works. But when I told Duncan he could talk to Hart, I didn't know that it was going to get a good deal more complicated."

"Duncan and Doug? b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l." Melody took a moment to digest this. "What was Doug doing out with that ankle?" she asked, then shook her head, as if, it being Doug, the question had answered itself. "Never mind. What did Duncan find out from Hart?"

"Hart said he didn't know Arnott, and that he left the pub to go to an AA meeting. I'm not sure I believe either, which means I'm going to have to get the same information through official channels, without mentioning that Duncan spoke to him. And no," she said, seeing Melody's eager expression, "you can't interview him. I made a mistake as it is, letting Duncan talk to him.

"And," she went on before Melody could interrupt, "I don't want you talking to Andy Monahan about any of this until I've had a chance to speak to him."

Melody's shoulders slumped. "Not a problem. I don't think he wants to talk to me."

As closely as they worked together, Melody had never been one for sharing details of her personal life or her feelings. Nor had Gemma. Growing up with a sister who had used any confidence as ammunition against her, Gemma had had few close female friends until she'd met Hazel Cavendish. Now she realized she didn't want to say the wrong thing or damage her friendship with Melody over a professional matter. "You really like him, don't you?"

Not quite managing to pull off a nonchalant shrug, Melody answered, "I do, yeah. Not that I make a habit of s.h.a.gging blokes I don't like. But he's-this is different. And I think-I think I've been a complete idiot."

Remembering a certain detective sergeant who had very unwisely fallen into bed with her boss, Gemma smothered a smile. "You wouldn't be the first," she said. She only hoped that Melody wouldn't rue the consequences.

Andy hid from his mum the Stratocaster and the small practice amp Nadine had given him. He knew the idea of Nadine giving him a gift would make his mother angry, and the fact that the gift was a guitar would make it even worse. His mum never came into his room, and he did all the housekeeping, so he tucked the guitar and amp under his bed and took them out only when she was at work.

But in those precious hours, the red guitar consumed him. It fit into his hands and into the curve of his body like a living thing. He learned by trial and error, adjusting the pickups, sliding over the frets and bending the strings, making sounds he'd never imagined were possible. The old Hfner gathered dust in the corner.

Now he went out only to walk his mum to and from work, and to make necessary trips to the shops. He stopped going to the library, and he stopped waiting for Nadine to come home midafternoon, because the few times he did, he kept looking for shadowy figures at the top of the street.

But he would go out on the front steps in the evenings, when the heat inside the house had built to its peak, and his fingers were too sore to go on playing. Sometimes he would find her there, but something seemed to have changed between them, and he didn't understand what or why. She seemed distracted and sad in a way that made him feel helpless.

One evening, when he had offered to make them both cups of tea, she said, "You've been practicing a lot. I can hear you through the walls."

"Oh, sorry. I've tried to keep the volume down. I didn't mean to-"

"No, no, it's all right. I don't mind. It's just that I can tell you're getting better. That's good."

He flushed at the praise. They sat together with an ease he hadn't felt for some time, drinking their tea, watching the light fade from lavender to violet over the rooftops. The distant city, seen through the gap at the bottom of the road, began to glitter. To Andy, it seemed as far away as the moon, and as unattainable.

"You can have it, you know," said Nadine. He looked at her, startled, wondering if she had read his mind. "London. The world. Whatever you want. You're smart and you're talented. You are not defined by your circ.u.mstances. Or by Crystal Palace." Wrapping her arms round her bare legs, she rested her chin on her knees. She was wearing old cutoff jeans shorts and a man's shirt. Her hair looked uncombed, and he realized he hadn't seen her wearing makeup lately.

"But my mum-she couldn't manage-" He couldn't imagine that there would ever come a day when his mother could do without him, and he couldn't imagine an existence that was different from anything he'd known.

"You do the best you can for as long as you must. But things will change. I promise."

There was something in the way she said the words that frightened him, and he felt suddenly that he didn't want anything to change, ever. He wanted to go on playing his guitar in his room, making his mum breakfast, having tea on the steps with Nadine. And he didn't want her to sound like someone he didn't know.

"Nadine-" He hesitated. He never called her by her name, and he'd never asked her anything personal, but he couldn't bear not speaking. "Nadine, are you all right?"

More than anything, he wanted to touch her, to offer some gesture of comfort for whatever was troubling her, but he somehow knew that was a boundary he could not cross.

In the fading light, he saw her quick half smile as she glanced at him. "I'm fine. It's just the heat, it makes me cross. I wish it would break." She gave an irritable shrug and brushed a hovering midge from her bare legs. "Don't pay me any mind." With a sigh, she handed him her empty cup and stood. "Thanks for the tea, Andy. Good night."

Before he could respond, she went into her flat and the door closed behind her with a click. He felt dismissed.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

The final a.s.sault came on Crystal Palace on November 30th, 1936, when fire engulfed the building and within hours it was destroyed. Buckland and his daughter who had been out for an evening walk notice[d] smoke coming from the building and when they arrived, they found two of the night watchmen, trying to put out the small blaze. The fire department was called but despite the use of 89 fire trucks and 400 firemen the Crystal Palace burned to the ground.

-Betty Carew, www.helium.com "Melody did what?" Kincaid said, one eyebrow shooting up.

It was late, but the children were at last in bed; Gemma had eaten the antipasti Kincaid had brought her from Carluccio's, and was now curled up next to him on the sitting room sofa, drinking a cup of cocoa. Geordie was snuggled against her other side, and Sid the cat was stretched out on the hearth, absorbing as much heat as possible from the gas fire flickering in the grate. The skin on his stomach glowed pink in the spots where it showed through his black coat.

"You heard me perfectly well."

"I just didn't believe it," he said, and she heard the smile in his voice. "I always imagined Melody with a proper prep school type. An investment banker, or maybe a doctor or a lawyer."

"Then you don't know her very well. If Melody didn't have a streak of the rebel, she'd never have defied her father and gone into the job."

"Still, isn't that a bit of a cliche, s.h.a.gging the lead guitarist?"

Gemma smacked his arm with her free hand. "It's not funny. G.o.d knows the super isn't going to think it's funny if she finds out."

"If? You haven't told her?"

"I'm waiting for Rashid's official estimate on time of death before I add Melody's statement to the case file. I'm hoping that he'll place it before midnight and I can just say she interviewed Monahan at a club during that time frame. And when I spoke to Superintendent Krueger, her biggest concern was keeping any details of Shaun Francis's death from the media for as long as possible. The reporters were gathering by the time I got back to Cleaver Square this afternoon. They'll have Amanda Francis's address in no time."

What Krueger had actually said was, "Get me a result before this thing leaks or we'll have a media circus, and you do not want to be the star," implying that this was Gemma's first really high-profile case on the team, and she had better not screw it up.

"No pressure, then," Kincaid said lightly, and she knew he understood. "I won't say anything to Doug, but I suspect he'll find out one way or another," he added, the humor gone.

"They're just friends," Gemma protested. "It's not as if they're going out or anything."

"Not in any conventional sense, perhaps. But just hearing the way Melody talked about Andy Monahan got Doug's knickers in a twist. That's why he was so keen to go with me to talk to Tam."

"Oh, dear. Well, Melody will have to sort that one out. If Andy Monahan is involved in this case, she's got bigger problems than Doug's wounded feelings, and so do I."

"Andy couldn't have more reliable alibis than Tam and Melody."

"No. But he's off-limits to Melody for the time being. I'm sending her to Shaun's chambers first thing in the morning to see what she can turn up there. And I'm going to talk to Andy Monahan myself."

"Are you seduction proof?" He pulled her closer and put his lips against her neck.

"I have to admit, the video is pretty amazing . . . " she teased.

Kincaid had shown it to her earlier, with Kit looking over their shoulders. "That's brilliant," Kit had said. "You mean you know them?" he'd added, obviously impressed with Andy and Poppy. "Can I download the song?"

Now Kincaid nibbled her ear. "You mean the music is amazing. Just the music."

"Stop it. That tickles." Gemma wasn't ready to be distracted. "And I'm going to follow up on Caleb Hart." That thought took her back to her overriding worry. "About today-was Charlotte really all right with Doug?" Charlotte had told her all about her Na-pol-e-on, p.r.o.nouncing all the syllables carefully. And she'd been very impressed with Doug's boot cast, explaining to Gemma that Doug had had an accident and that one should be careful on ladders. "And Sat.u.r.day, when she went for a walk with Michael and the dogs, she was all right then, too?"

"She seemed to be fine."

Gemma pulled away and turned so that she could see his face. "Do you think she's getting better?"

He shrugged. "I think it helps that she knows them."

"Yes, but until now, she's only been willing to stay with Betty or Alia, so surely she's improving at least a little. And if we don't work out something about school for her soon-"

"Shhh." He touched her lips with his finger. "There's no point worrying about that tonight." Taking her hand, he pulled her to her feet, dislodging the disgruntled c.o.c.ker spaniel from the sofa and making Sid stretch and yawn in his place by the fire. "Come on. I think it's far past time for bed."

It was only much later that she realized he'd done a very good job of changing the subject.

The next morning, Gemma drove straight to Andy Monahan's flat rather than going into the station. She doubted if musicians were early risers, but she was determined to catch him at home, even if she had to get him out of bed.

After inching her Escort up onto the curb in the narrow confines of Hanway Place, she got out and looked up at the grim facades of the buildings. The slice of sky she could see overhead was leaden gray, and the air blowing through from Oxford Street smelled of car exhaust and rancid cooking grease from the fast-food restaurants and takeaways. Beneath those scents she thought she caught the faint metallic tang of sleet.

She found the flat and was just touching the bell when the street door opened and Andy barreled out, almost knocking her down with the rectangular guitar case in his hand.

"Oh, sor-" he said, then stopped short, staring at her. "I know you. I've seen you at Louise's. You're little Charlotte's foster mum."

"It's a bit more complicated than that. I'm also Melody Talbot's boss. Detective Inspector Gemma James."

Andy looked dumbfounded. "You're a cop? But I thought it was Duncan who was-I mean-"

"We both are."

"Melody said she had to speak to her guv'nor, but I never imagined . . . "

"It is a bit weird, isn't it? Six degrees of separation and all that. Look, could we go somewhere and talk?" Thinking of Melody, she felt suddenly uncomfortable insisting that they go back into his flat, as if she were trespa.s.sing on her partner's privacy. "There's a Starbucks just at the corner. I'll buy you a coffee."