To Dwell in Darkness (14 page)

“Was he Caucasian?” Kincaid asked.

“Again, not much left of the facial structure to go by. But I'd say it's likely, unless you have reason to think otherwise. The good news, however”—Rashid pointed again with a gloved finger—“is that because the force of the grenade traveled upwards, and our boy was wearing fairly heavy boots, there was enough tissue left on the bottoms of his feet for a good DNA sample.”

Glancing at the items on the evidence table that had looked like nothing more than burned bits of rubbish, Kincaid saw that some of the scraps might indeed be pieces of boot.

“Forensics should be able to tell you more about the boots,” Rashid said, following his gaze. “The other good news is that he was wearing a backpack. Because the blast was generated on the front of the body, the pack provided some protection to the skin on his back when the fire engulfed him. I was able to get a DNA sample there, and I'll go over what's left of the skin again.”

DNA might be helpful eventually, Kincaid thought—assuming they had something with which to match it. But the tests took time, so for the moment DNA samples did him no good at all.

“Could you tell what was in the pack?” he asked, thinking of Cam Chen's statement that Ryan Marsh had carried all his belongings with him whenever he left the flat.

“Not much. I've collected as many samples of nonorganic goo as I could manage. Forensics may be able to tell you more on that, too.”

“Nothing that might have been a sleeping bag? Or extra clothing?”

Rashid shook his head again. “Not likely, no.”

“Any grenade fragments?”

“Not that I could find. The SOCOs may have better luck.”

Kincaid stood, staring at the mess that had been a human being less than twenty-four hours ago. If this was Ryan Marsh, and he had taken his belongings from the flat, they had apparently not been in his pack when the grenade went off.

In which case, what the hell had happened to Ryan Marsh's things?

The Midland Railway had been running services into London since 1840 and expanded services had led to chronic congestion and delays. In 1846 when Parliament approved the proposal of another route into London, the Great Northern Line, Midland Railway paid £20,000 for the rights to operate the service. Minds could now be concentrated on building the new station.

—Bbc.co.uk/London/St. Pancras

When Gemma went to wake Charlotte, she found her warm and slightly flushed. Sitting down on the bed, she felt the child's forehead, then put her hand flat on Charlotte's chest beneath her white cotton nightdress, feeling for the telltale rattle of congestion.

Charlotte's breathing seemed unlabored, but when she opened her eyes she reached out to Gemma, her face puckered. “Mummy,” she whispered, “I had a bad dream. I dreamed something happened to the kitties.”

“The kitties are just fine.” Gemma smoothed Charlotte's tousled hair back from her forehead. Her hand looked pale against Charlotte's golden skin. “I've just checked on them.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

“I want to see them,” said Charlotte, but instead of bouncing out of bed, she snuggled against Gemma and closed her eyes drowsily again.

“Oh, dear,” Gemma murmured. Although the child's cough seemed better, she'd obviously overdone things yesterday with all the excitement over the cat and kittens. And she was obviously not going to school.

“Want to stay in your jammies awhile longer?” Gemma said now, kissing the top of Charlotte's curly hair. “I'll bring you some toast, and then you can see the kitties. Bryony is coming by to have a look at them, too.”

“What about school?” Charlotte asked.

“I think you can stay with Betty today, lovey.”

Charlotte's forehead creased. “Oliver will miss me.”

“I'm sure he will. But you need to get better so that you can see him tomorrow. Now, you just cuddle up for a bit while I get things organized.”

And organizing she would have to do, Gemma thought, not just for Charlotte, but for herself. She had rung her guv'nor, Detective Superintendent Krueger, last night to tell her what had happened to Melody and that she intended to check on her this morning. But first she had another visit to make.

Caleb Hart was sitting alone in the waiting area of the burns unit at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, head bowed. Gemma said, “Caleb? Mr. Hart?” a little tentatively, as the last time she'd seen Caleb Hart she'd been interviewing him as a murder suspect.

Unlike Tam, who tended to look as though he'd put on whatever tumbled out of his cupboard—not that anything would clash with his faded tartan wool cap—Caleb Hart looked the part of a musician's manager. Slender and fit, with neatly trimmed hair and goatee, he wore designer clothes and trendy eyeglasses. This morning, however, his clothes were rumpled and stained and his eyes red rimmed.

He looked up at her, his expression puzzled. “It's Inspector Ja— Gemma, isn't it? Tam talks about you and little Charlotte all the time.”

She perched on the edge of the chair next to him. “How is he this morning?”

“They have him pretty well sedated for the pain from the burn. But it's the poisoning from the chemical that they're really worried about,” Caleb answered, his voice hoarse.

“Have you been here all night?” she asked.

Nodding, Caleb said, “I promised Michael I'd stay while he went home to clean up.”

Caleb, Gemma remembered, for all his hip appearance, was an AA sponsor, and was accustomed to pitching in when help was needed. He sighed. “I've been fielding texts all morning from a producer who saw them last night and wants to put them in a demo session slot—at Abbey Road Studios, no less. But Andy won't agree to it under the circumstances, and I don't think Poppy will, either.”

Gemma had yet to meet Poppy, although she'd seen the duo's viral video so many times she felt she knew her. “Would you want them to do it?” she asked Caleb.

He gave a tired shrug. “I understand how they feel. But it's their career, and there's nothing Tam would want more than to see them have this sort of chance.”

“Can I see him, do you think?”

Caleb glanced at his watch. “It's about the time they'll let someone visit for a few minutes. How alert he is will depend on his pain medication.”

Gemma stood, and Caleb stood with her, holding out his hand. “It was good of you to come.”

She hesitated, then said, “I'm sorry. About what happened before. I was—”

“Doing your job,” Caleb finished for her.

Tam looked better than Gemma had expected. He was propped up a little in the hospital bed, and although there were some small burns and scrapes on his face, his color was good. The oddest thing was seeing him without his tartan cap. He looked, with his shorn and thinning hair, naked.

The charge nurse had given her ten minutes, so she sat beside the bed in the only available chair, trying not to think about the times she'd visited her mum in hospital. Her mum's leukemia had been in remission since the autumn, but Gemma worried about her constantly nonetheless.

After a moment, Tam's breathing changed and his eyes fluttered open. “Gemma?”

“Hello, Tam. I just came by to see how you were doing.” She patted the hand that lay outside the sheet that was draped lightly over his midriff.

“Not looking my best, am I, lass?” he whispered, then grimaced. “Hate being a bloody nuisance. And no one will tell me anything. Is Melody—”

“Melody's fine,” Gemma assured him.

“Was anyone else—” His face creased with distress.

She shook her head. “No. No one was killed except the man with the grenade.”

“Man?” Tam blinked at her.

“It wasn't a man?” Gemma asked, puzzled.

“No. 'Twas just a lad.”

Gemma stared, startled. “You saw him? Before the fire?”

Tam nodded. “I looked away from the stage. Just for an instant, I don't know why. A movement in the crowd, maybe. And I saw him, a boy wearing a backpack. I remember I thought he looked like one of the lads in the band about to play a prank.”

“Not frightened?”

“No. A bit nervous, maybe, but excited with it. And then—it was so bright—” Tam winced and lifted a hand to pick at the sheet over his stomach. “And I was burning. Who the bloody hell would have thought something could hurt so much?” He had paled, and there was a sheen of sweat on his brow.

Gemma patted his hand gently. “You rest, Tam. I'm going to get the nurse. When you're feeling a bit better, I'm sure Duncan will be in to see you, too.”

He closed his eyes and settled back into the pillow. She thought he'd drifted off again, but when she stood, he turned his head to look at her and said, “You'll do something for me, won't you, lass?”

“Of course, Tam. Anything.”

“You'll make certain Michael and Louise look after themselves.”

Caleb was asleep in his chair, head lolling to one side, when she came back through the waiting area. She didn't disturb him, but hurried to the hospital exit and out into the bustle of Fulham Road.

She intended to call Duncan and tell him what Tam had said about the victim, reliable or not. But before she could dial, her phone rang. It was Shara MacNichols, the detective constable on her team in South London who was working leads on Mercy Johnson's murder.

“Guv,” said Shara, “we need you. I've been talking to Mercy's friends again. One of the girls has admitted she has a photo on her phone of Mercy talking to Dillon Underwood. I'm bringing her in. You'd better get to the station as soon as you can.”

Kincaid left the Royal London Hospital with more questions than he'd had before. He considered Rashid's findings as he drove west on Whitechapel Road towards Holborn, but as he passed by Brick Lane his thoughts were drawn, as always when he visited this part of the East End, to Charlotte and to the events that had brought her to them. It was the sale of Charlotte's parents' Georgian house in Fournier Street that had allowed them to put her in a school where she felt comfortable.

And that led him to Tam. He hadn't had a chance to get an update on Tam's condition that morning. He'd made a mental note to check on him as soon as he reached the station, when his phone rang. When he saw that it was his borough commander, he put the phone on and answered.

“Sir.”

“Where are you?” asked Chief Superintendent Faith without preamble.

“Just leaving the postmortem at the Royal London, on the way to the station.”

“Anything definitive on our victim from the pathologist?”

Definitive
was the last word Kincaid would choose. “No, sir. And no ID.”

“Well, you'd better hope you can come up with something palatable for the media, because you have a press conference at noon.”

“Sir?” Kincaid frowned. “What about SO15?”

“The assistant commissioner Crime just rang. Orders handed down straight from the top. The deputy commissioner doesn't feel the case warrants SO15's involvement. He wants it treated as a suspicious death, so it's our bailiwick. Or yours, I should say. Although I don't think the AC Special Operations was terribly chuffed with the decision.” These two divisions of the Met, Crime and Special Operations, were infamous for territorial scuffles.

Kincaid wondered what Nick Callery had reported to his superiors.

“DCI Callery will be joining you in the press conference,” Faith continued, as if reading his mind. “It's important we reassure the public that we don't feel there is a likelihood of further incidents.”

While Kincaid was beginning to think it likely that the intent of the poor bugger on the postmortem table had been only to burn himself to a crisp, he felt far from comfortable assuring the public of anything. Especially when he couldn't ID the victim.

As Chief Superintendent Faith rang off, the traffic slowed to a creep at Aldgate, and then to a complete stop. Kincaid looked anxiously at the dashboard clock, drummed his fingers on the wheel, then decided to make good use of the holdup. He rang Doug Cullen.

“Can you talk?” he asked when Doug picked up.

“You're asking the man locked in the dungeon with the computer?” Doug was not one to take the drudgery of being assigned to data entry at Scotland Yard with good humor.

“Seriously.”

“Yeah.” Doug sounded suddenly alert. “There's no one else in the room just now. What's up? Is it Melody?”

“No. I mean, I haven't heard anything.” Kincaid nosed the car forward another inch. “Do you remember what we talked about last night?”

“You mean your mystery man?”

“Invisible would be more like it.” Kincaid told him about the search of the squat and Rashid's findings—or lack of findings—at the postmortem. “This bloke left nothing behind him and kept nothing on his person. No phone, no credit cards, no toothbrush. Who lives like that? What have we got here?” After a moment's hesitation, he voiced the fear that had begun to nag him. “A spook?”

There was silence on the other end of the line. Then Doug said quietly, even though he'd told Kincaid he was alone, “Or an undercover cop.”

That was a supposition Kincaid certainly didn't intend to make public, or to share with anyone else on the team for the time being.

What on earth would an undercover cop have been doing in a group like Matthew Quinn's?

As soon as he reached Holborn, he checked in with Simon Gikas, the case manager.

“Anything new from the SOCOs at the flat?”

“They're still matching possessions to the group. But no bombs or bomb-making paraphernalia, or grenades.”

“Drugs?”

“One of the blokes—Lee, I think—had a tiny bit of grass. Maybe a quarter ounce. Obviously personal use, and no evidence of dealing. Did you get an ID from the postmortem?” Gikas added.