And Justice There Is None (15 page)

Arrowood gave her a surprised look, then said slowly, “No, I suppose you’re right.”

“What do you have against your wife’s parents?” Gemma asked. “I understand you’ve only met them briefly.”

His eyes had gone cold again. “The fact that they are utterly and tiresomely middle-class.”

“And you blame them for that?” she retorted. “As if it were a matter of choice?”

“Isn’t it?” he asked. “Dawn chose to overcome her upbringing. So did I, for that matter,” he added quietly, gazing at the nearby headstones as if seeking something familiar. Then he looked back at Gemma with a crooked smile. “If you’ll excuse me, I had better pay my respects to my in-laws.”

“There is one more thing, Mr. Arrowood,” interjected Kincaid. “Do you know an Alex Dunn?”

“Of course I know Alex. I trade with him frequently. What has he to do with anything?”

“According to several sources, your wife was having an affair with him.”

If Gemma had wished to see Karl Arrowood lose his infuriatingly tight control, she was now amply rewarded.

“Alex? An affair with Dawn? That’s impossible!” Arrowood reached out for the nearest support, a block of lichen-stained granite.

“Why?” Gemma asked.

“Because—because Alex wouldn’t—She couldn’t—I won’t even consider such a thing! Nor will I discuss it with you any further.” His face was pinched with shock; the knuckles of the hand grasping the stone were white with strain. He turned away from them. “For God’s sake … go.”

“We will be speaking to you again, Mr. Arrowood,” Gemma said, but he made no acknowledgment. Glancing back as they walked away, she saw Arrowood still standing over his wife’s coffin, his head bowed, his shoulders sagging.

“I
S HE TELLING THE TRUTH
? K
INCAID ASKED
G
EMMA WHEN THEY
were once again ensconced in the warmth of the car. True to his prediction, the rain had begun again as they left the graveside.

“Which time?” Gemma’s cheeks were pink from cold, her skin glowed, and damp tendrils of copper hair had escaped from her plait to curl round the edges of her face. It seemed to Kincaid in that moment that she was achingly beautiful, and he was about to tell her so when she added, “I’d swear he didn’t know about his wife and
Alex Dunn—Of course, that’s assuming that what we’ve been told is true.”

Disciplining himself into a professional state of mind, Kincaid wrenched his gaze away from her. “He didn’t like the idea that his sons might be involved, either. If the thought had occurred to him before now, he’s a bloody terrific actor.”

Gemma frowned, tapping her fingertips on the steering wheel as the car bumped along towards the cemetery exit. “A good actor, yes. But somehow I think there’s a vein of real grief for his wife in there somewhere.”

“The human mind is a complex thing. It
is
possible that he could have killed her and yet still truly grieve for her.”

He saw Gemma shudder as she said, “That’s a hell I’d rather not contemplate. What about Alex Dunn, then? Everyone we’ve talked to says how much he loved her, but that doesn’t mean he couldn’t have murdered her. We’ve no idea what might have happened between them.… Maybe Dawn told him she was pregnant but that she wouldn’t—or couldn’t—leave Karl, and Alex lost it.… And if he wasn’t involved in Dawn’s death, why the hell has he disappeared from the face of the earth? His friends at the café and the woman in the arcade said he was terribly distraught—”

“You’ve requested a search warrant for his flat?”

“Melody had it in hand as we were leaving for the funeral.”

“Then you’d better have her meet us there.”

“S
TILL NO SIGN OF
D
UNN’S CAR
,” M
ELODY HAD TOLD
G
EMMA WHEN
she’d rung the station.

As well as requesting all police forces to be on the lookout for Dunn’s Volkswagen, Gemma had checked the previous address on his lease: a small flat in Kensington now occupied by someone who had never heard of him. His birth records had yielded as little. Alexander Dunn had been born in 1971 in a London hospital, to a mother listed as Julia Anne Dunn. No father was given, and the address of record, in the nether regions of Notting Hill, would have been a squalid
bedsit in the early seventies. No one in the area remembered Julia Dunn, or her child.

Had he gone to university? she wondered. Would anyone know? Who had been close to Alex Dunn, except Fern and Dawn Arrowood?

She turned into the narrow mews, mentally congratulating herself as she pulled into a rare parking space. Alex Dunn’s Volkswagen had not reappeared, nor was there any answer when she and Kincaid rapped on the flat’s door.

There was a twitch, however, at the next-door flat’s front window. “Ah, an interested neighbor,” Kincaid murmured, and without consultation they retraced their steps and knocked next door. The window box was bare and the pavement round the door littered with windblown rubbish, but the door opened immediately.

The flat’s occupant was a tall, rabbity man with stooped shoulders and thinning hair. He wore a meticulously darned cardigan the color of mud, liberally flecked with dandruff. “Can I help you?” he asked with an air of eager expectation.

Kincaid showed his warrant card. “We were wondering if we could have a word with you about your neighbor—”

“My tenant, actually. So what’s young Dunn done?” He giggled at his own humor. “Oh, forgive me, I’m Donald Canfield. Do come in.”

The murky flat smelled sourly of cabbage and unwashed flesh. Although Canfield seated them on a sofa facing a large television, Gemma could see an armchair carefully positioned by the front window, and her hopes rose.

“We wondered if you might know where we could find Mr. Dunn,” Kincaid said, after refusing Canfield’s offer of refreshments, much to Gemma’s relief.

“It’s about that woman, isn’t it? The blonde, the one that got her throat slit. I saw her picture in the newspapers.”

“Dawn Arrowood. Had you seen her with Mr. Dunn?”

“Oh, yes. She came here to his flat for months, almost always in the daytime. I did wonder if she was married. I heard them, too, if you know what I mean,” he added, with a sly glance at Gemma. “Walls in these old houses aren’t what they should be. And she was very … enthusiastic.” He giggled again.

Repelled, Gemma scowled and looked away.

Kincaid had no such scruples. “Did you ever hear them arguing, as well?”

“No, no, I can’t say as I did. Although that’s not true of the other one.”

“What other one?” asked Gemma.

“The little girl with the streaked hair. Oh, they had some terrific rows, she and Alex, when Alex first started seeing the blond woman. But she hasn’t been around for months, until the other day.”

“The other day?”

“Saturday. The day after the murder. The girl came here with Alex. Then they got straight into his car and drove away. Funny thing was,
she
was driving.”

“Did you see them come back?”

Canfield pursed his lips in disappointment. “I left just after that, I’m afraid. A visit to my sister in Warwickshire. I just returned last night. I didn’t know, you see, that it was the blond woman who had been murdered. I’d have stayed here, otherwise, even if it did get up my sister’s nose.”

“What about the evening before, Mr. Canfield?” asked Kincaid. “Were you here then?”

“Yes, yes, I was.”

“Did the blond woman visit Alex that afternoon or evening?”

Again came the little moue of disappointment. “Not that I saw. But I’m a busy man, of course, and I might have missed her.”

“Of course,” Kincaid agreed. “What about Alex? Did you see him coming or going that evening?”

“I know he came home around five: I looked out when I heard his car. Then he left again just as the news came on the telly, but walking this time.”

“What were you watching?”

“Channel One. I always prefer Channel One.”

That would have been half past six, then, if the man was to be relied upon, thought Gemma. And if Dawn had died a few minutes earlier, it seemed unlikely that Alex Dunn could have killed her.

“Do you know anything about Alex, Mr. Canfield?” she asked. “Who his friends are, or if he has family?”

“No. He tends to keep himself to himself,” Canfield said stiffly, and Gemma read the history of rejection in his expression.

“Is he a good tenant, then?” she pressed, daring him to find something good to say about Alex Dunn. “Neat? Timely with his rent?”

“Well, yes.” Canfield admitted it reluctantly. “Although I don’t know as I want a tenant in my property that’s been involved in a murder …”

“We don’t know that he is involved in Mrs. Arrowood’s death, Mr. Canfield,” she said, knowing perfectly well that the man wouldn’t miss the excitement for the world. A flash of black and orange outside the front window heralded the arrival of a panda car and Melody Talbot.

Kincaid stood and thanked Mr. Canfield, shaking his hand, but Gemma pretended not to see the limp digits proffered in her direction.

“N
ASTY LITTLE PERVERT,” SHE MUTTERED, KNOWING
C
ANFIELD WAS
watching them avidly from the window. It made the hairs rise on the back of her neck. “Maybe he developed an obsession with Dawn, watching her coming and going next door and knowing what they were up to—”

“He could have followed her easily enough and learned where she lived,” Kincaid agreed. “Then lain in wait for her that evening—”

“Right,” replied Gemma, rolling her eyes. “Canfield doesn’t look fit enough to have attacked a kitten. And if he was out murdering Dawn, how would he have known what time Alex left his flat? Still, I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to run a check on him.”

Melody, having been obliged to turn the panda car round and seek a parking space outside the mews, reappeared at the top of the road. “I’ve got the warrant,” she called out as she neared them. “And a locksmith coming.”

“I’d assume Mr. Canfield has a key,” Kincaid told her. “But let
me give it a try.” He carried a small set of professional lock picks, and Gemma knew he enjoyed an opportunity to practice his skills.

“I don’t think it’s very likely we’ll find him here,” he said quietly as he bent over the lock. “As Canfield saw him leave in his car, and the car hasn’t been returned. Besides, there’s no smell.”

Gemma grimaced at his reassurance. “Might have topped himself somewhere else, though,” she offered.

“Then what happened to the girl who was driving? The one with the interesting hair?”

“Fern Adams.”

Kincaid glanced up at her, one ear still tuned to the sound of the tumblers he was manipulating.

“His ex-girlfriend. The one his friends at the café said was determined to help. And a witness saw Alex leave the arcade with her.”

“Then where are they now?” asked Melody. “Do you have an address for her?”

“No. I know she lives nearby, but Dunn’s car hasn’t been spotted anywhere in the district.”

“Got it!” Kincaid exclaimed as the door swung open.

He entered cautiously, calling out and turning on light switches with his handkerchief. There was no reply, and it was soon apparent that the flat was unoccupied.

The bedroom was at the front, sharing a wall with Mr. Canfield’s sitting room, Gemma realized with distaste. A pair of trousers lay across the unmade bed as if they had been carelessly tossed; the dressing table held a hairbrush, a bowl of pocket change, and two lovely blue-and-white vases; the two bedside tables held stacks of antiques magazines and Christie’s catalogues. In the wardrobe, Gemma found two suitcases and a duffle bag along with neatly folded and hung clothes. There was no indication that Dunn had packed for a trip. Nor could any room have looked less like the scene of an illicit love affair.

A dark, glossy green tile surrounded the tub, men’s toiletries were ranged round the sink, and the bath gave off the faint but unmistakably masculine scent of soap and aftershave. There was no sign of regular occupation by a woman.

“He uses an expensive electric razor,” Kincaid commented. “You’d think that if he’d meant to go away, he’d have taken it.”

Everything in the sitting area had been painted a warm cream, including the cabinets in the kitchen at one end. Gemma wondered if Alex had been trying to wipe out any trace left by his landlord, as she couldn’t imagine the decoration being the product of Donald Canfield’s imagination, but the most practical reason for the vanilla hue of the walls and carpet was obvious: It displayed Alex’s collection at its best.

Lovely examples of blue-and-white porcelain were scattered about the room on small tables, shelves, and desk, and one wall held a glass display cabinet filled with colorful Art Deco pieces that made her gasp in delight.

French doors led out to a small enclosed garden. A flagstone patio held pots of now withered geraniums and a white iron table with two chairs. Gemma imagined Alex and Dawn sitting there on a warm evening, engrossed in one another, and felt a twinge of sadness.

“Another dead end,” Melody said with a sigh of discouragement.

“Not entirely,” countered Gemma. “It at least lets us rule out the possibility that Dunn came back here and killed himself in despair over Dawn’s death.”

“Dunn didn’t disappear until Saturday morning,” Kincaid pointed out. “If he killed Dawn on Friday night, then returned to the flat, he certainly hasn’t left any obvious evidence.”

“We’ll get forensic in, just in case. But in the meantime,” Gemma added, “I’m going to find Fern Adams.”

G
EMMA COMBINED AN INFORMATION-SEEKING STOP AT
O
TTO’S
C
AFÉ
with a belated lunch, served to her by the cheerful Wesley. Kincaid had returned to the Yard to begin background checks on Karl Arrowood’s sons.

Otto, Wesley told her as he served her a bowl of steaming lentil soup, was out for the day. He didn’t elaborate. Was he regretting his forthrightness when they had spoken before? Gemma wondered.

“Perhaps you can help me,” she said when she’d finished her soup and he’d come to take away her dish. “Have you seen Fern Adams since she left here on Saturday?”