To Dwell in Darkness (37 page)

“She said you sent her to see the kittens.”

“I never talked to her about the kittens. It was the children who did that.” He was still baffled. “Could Toby have told her where we lived? He was rattling on about the cats.” They had made both Toby and Charlotte memorize their address, in case they were ever lost.

“No.” Gemma shook her head. “He was never alone with her. I'm sure of it.”

“Then— How could she— No one at the station would have told her—”

The knowledge hit Kincaid like a blow. “She followed me,” he said. “She must have followed me. I took the tube home from the station yesterday. Walking from Holland Park, I thought I felt someone—but I told myself not to be daft—”

“Why?” asked Doug. “Why would she follow you?”

“Kit said she wanted to know where you were,” Gemma said.

“He didn't tell her?” Kincaid's heart was pounding with a sudden sickening apprehension.

“He didn't know.”

“Bloody hell,” Kincaid said. “She followed me! Did she know Kit was home alone?”

Gemma frowned as she thought. “She could have seen me leave. I walked to the tube. But there's no way she could have known you were gone unless she'd been standing in the street since before dawn. I wonder what she'd have said if you
had
been here.”

“Maybe that someone at the station gave her your address,” suggested Doug. “Or with Gemma gone, she could have said one of the little ones told her.”

“She lied about her miscarriage, too,” Kincaid said slowly. “I found out yesterday. Cam—one of the other girls,” he explained for the benefit of everyone except Ryan, “Cam told me yesterday that she saw Ariel leaving an abortion clinic, and when she checked, the clinic confirmed that Ariel had the procedure. I didn't think it was relevant at the time. But if she lied about that, what else did she lie about?” He turned to Ryan. “You said she knew you'd given Paul the smoke bomb. She told me—and everyone else—that she didn't. Tell me exactly what happened that morning.”

Ryan stared at him, openmouthed. He seemed to make an effort to pull himself together, then said, “Okay. Paul was arguing with Matthew. At the flat. Ariel told Paul to just shut up, that Matthew was never going to change his mind. Then she walked out. I left not long after, but Paul followed me to King's Cross.” Ryan shook his head. “He just looked so damned defeated. He said Matthew would never give him a chance to prove he was serious about the cause, but that maybe I would. I remember I thought that what he really wanted was to prove himself to Ariel. And I thought”—Ryan hesitated—“I thought maybe it would get her off my back. She'd been coming on to me since—no”—he frowned—“not just since Wren died, but
before
Wren died. She always seemed so fragile—I didn't think I could just tell her to bugger off, so I said Paul was her boyfriend and I didn't want to trespass. Besides, I couldn't afford to alienate anyone in the group. So I thought if Paul was the hero of the day . . .”

“So you gave Paul Cole the smoke bomb, there in front of King's Cross?” Kincaid asked.

“Matthew had given it to me before I left the flat. I don't know where he was keeping it. Somewhere in his things, the stuff that no one else was ever allowed to touch. I had it in my backpack. I gave it to Paul and he put it in his backpack. We went over what he was to do, where he should stand. I said I'd be there but would stay well back, so no one in the group would realize I wasn't in position.”

Gemma had gone on making tea while they talked. Now she handed Ryan a cup, which he accepted with a grateful nod. After a sip, Ryan went on, frowning with the recollection. “Then she rang him. It must have been Ariel, because Paul said, ‘Yes, I've got it.' Then he listened and said, ‘Right. Fifteen minutes,' before he rang off. When I asked him what was up, he gave me a thumbs-up and said, ‘Her house. Her dad's not home.' ”

“She told me they went to Paul's room at the university,” said Kincaid, “and that they had a terrible argument about her miscarriage. So she lied about that, too.”

“But—even if you're right, it was a smoke bomb,” protested Ryan. “I know what I gave Paul was a smoke bomb. So that doesn't explain anything.”

Kincaid began to pace. “Think about it. Was Ariel there when Matthew bought it?”

Ryan nodded. “Yeah. I'm sure she was.”

“This bloke, the one who sold Matthew the smoke bomb at the protest, did he sell other things?”

Shrugging, Ryan said, “He's been around demonstrations since he served in Afghanistan. He knows weapons. If he wouldn't sell a WP grenade, he probably knows who would.”

“So what if Ariel went back? What if she convinced him to sell her a grenade? Or got the name of someone else? God knows what story she would have come up with, but she'd have been believed.”

“But,” said Ryan, “how would she have made the swi—”

Doug broke in, excitement in his voice. “She had him come to her house. Say they had sex. He dozed off. She switched the smoke bomb in his backpack with a grenade.”

“But Paul would have looked at the damned thing before he pulled the pin,” protested Ryan. “Paul was a bit of a wanker, but he wasn't stupid.”

“Look.” Kincaid stopped his pacing and pulled out a chair, pulling it round so that he was facing Ryan. “She's an art student. I've been in her house. She uses stencils and paints. How hard would it have been to paint over the WP label, then stencil ‘smoke' on the canister? You really think Paul would have noticed the difference?”

“No, but . . .” Ryan's blue eyes were dark with shock. “That would mean she
planned
it. Planned it all. Manipulated everyone. Matthew. Paul. Me. Why?” His tea sloshed out of his cup as his hands jerked. “And what if I hadn't agreed? Or Paul hadn't come to her house that morning? Did she intend to kill me if I hadn't agreed to let Paul do it?”

“I think Paul was the target,” Kincaid said slowly, “and that if you hadn't agreed to the switch, then Ariel would either have found another opportunity to use the grenade or come up with something else. I believe she's capable of both careful planning and of seizing the moment. As to why . . . You said she was flirting with you even before Wren died—”

“You know about Wren?” broke in Ryan. “About what happened to her?”

Kincaid nodded. “Cam and Matthew told me. Why didn't you come forward? Identify her?”

“I couldn't.” Ryan grasped his cup even tighter, his knuckles white. “At first Ariel said she thought Wren had jumped. I couldn't believe it. I was . . . numb. And then she said she thought she'd heard another car, and maybe someone running away. After that, I was afraid. I was afraid she'd been killed because of me. As a message to me.”

“But—”

“I couldn't tell anyone. My family's been threatened.”

“Your family?” said Gemma, sounding horrified.

“Don't ask me.” Ryan looked up at her. “I can't tell you.” It was a plea, as well as a warning. Then he said, “But this—if any of this is true, you're saying that both Wren and Paul were killed because Ariel wanted
me
? But that's—that's just—I can't—”

“I wouldn't take it too personally,” broke in Doug. He'd propped his ankle up on a spare chair and covered it with the bag of frozen peas, but the peas were now melting. “There's something you don't know. Ariel's father told Duncan that her mother had died when she was a teenager. I looked up the accident report, just out of curiosity. It didn't really mean anything until now. Ariel was fourteen. She and her mum were on their way to see an aunt near Stratford. It was at night, a country lane. The car went off the road and rolled. Ariel was wearing her seat belt. She suffered a broken collarbone. Her mother was not. She was ejected from the car and killed. The thing is”—Doug paused, adjusting his dripping ice pack—“Stephen Ellis, Ariel's father, said his wife was a fanatic about wearing her seat belt. He even threatened to sue the car's manufacturer. But tests done on the car showed that the seat belt latch was functioning normally. They concluded that Mrs. Ellis just hadn't quite pushed the tongue all the way into the latch.

“According to her statement at the time, Ariel said she thought her mother swerved because she saw a rabbit in the road. But what if—what if she unlatched her mum's seat belt and grabbed the wheel?”

“That's worse than crazy.” Ryan was looking at them all as if they were bonkers.

“Is it?” asked Kincaid. “Maybe she didn't get on with her mother. Now she has all the attention from a father who dotes on her, gives her anything she wants. If she did what Doug's suggesting she did, she's not averse to risk. And what about Wren?”

“What about Wren?” said Ryan, frowning.

“You said yourself you couldn't believe Wren jumped. But what if she didn't? What if there was no other car? No people running away? And Ariel didn't need to go back to her car for paint?”

“You're saying Ariel
pushed
her?”

“Why should we believe anything she said?”

“But—Jesus Christ.” Ryan pushed his chair back and stood up. “But she was hysterical. I felt sorry for her! How could she—”

“There are people who will do anything to get what they want.” Gemma had been leaning against the work top, cradling her mug, listening to them. Now she added, with certainty, “And because they can. Dillon Underwood is one. And although her motives may be different, I think Ariel Ellis is another. What we think is reasonable or logical doesn't apply.”

“You'll never prove it,” said Ryan. “And I can't testify that she knew Paul had the smoke bomb.”

“Maybe we can't prove she killed her mother. Or Wren,” Kincaid told him. “But she gave me what she said was a suicide note from Paul. I think it was a page from Paul's journal. Maybe she took it at the same time she switched the smoke bomb with the grenade. And I'll bet you anything that if that's the case, she's kept it.”

“That proves nothing,” argued Ryan.

“It does if she had good reason to want that journal,” Kincaid said. “And a reason to want Paul dead that had nothing to do with you.

“We know that Paul had found out she lied about the miscarriage—Cam told him. What if he'd begun to suspect she lied about Wren's death?”

“Then why go along with her? Why sleep with her, if that's what he did?” Ryan asked. “If he knew, he went to her like a lamb to the slaughter.”

Kincaid shrugged. “I'd guess that he didn't want to believe it. And when she gave him any encouragement, he told himself he'd been imagining things. She's very good at what she does, is our Ariel. And why do you suppose,” he went on, meeting Ryan's gaze, “that Ariel has been so frantic to find out what I knew? What if she was looking for you? Because you knew that
she
knew Paul had the grenade. I'd guess she hadn't planned on Paul telling you that. Or even if she had, perhaps she thought she could convince you that Paul had always intended to commit suicide. But then you disappeared, and she started to panic.”

Ryan stared at him for so long it seemed to Kincaid that everyone in the room had stopped breathing.

Then Ryan said, with an air almost of wonder, “I was the next target. I was the bloody next target.”

Another sculpture, at platform level, pays tribute to Sir John Betjeman (1906–84). Poet Laureate from 1972 to 1984, Betjeman was . . . a great popular poet. More than anyone else he made people aware of the beauty of Victorian architecture through his colloquial eloquence. . . . It is largely due to him that we owe the survival and subsequent revitalization of St. Pancras.

—Alastair Lansley, Stuart Durant, Alan Dyke, Bernard Gambrill, Roderick Shelton,
The Transformation of St. Pancras Station
, 2008

Kincaid had rung a friendly judge who he knew would issue a warrant on a Sunday. He'd then called Jasmine Sidana and Simon Gikas, and asked them, without any explanation, to meet him at Holborn and to have a tech team on standby—preferably the two SOCOs who had worked St. Pancras, because he wanted them to have an investment in the search.

Melody, having promised to meet Andy at Tam's, had left, but not before giving Ryan's hand a quick squeeze and saying, “I'll be seeing you, right?”

“Right.” Ryan had grinned, his teeth showing white in the beard. “Like a bad penny.”

That left Kincaid to run Doug and Ryan to Putney on his way to Holborn, but first he had one more thing to do.

He went up the stairs and knocked on Kit's partially open door. His son was sprawled on the bed, laptop and open textbook beside him, both dogs curled up by his feet.

“Hey,” Kincaid said.

“Hey,” Kit answered back a little warily, sitting up.

Kincaid pulled out Kit's desk chair and swung it round to face the bed. “May I?” he asked before he sat.

Nodding, Kit said, “Look, Dad, I'm sorry I—I should never have let her—”

Kincaid was already shaking his head. “You did exactly the right thing. You trusted your instincts, and you acted on what you felt. Don't ever forget that. I'm proud of you.”

“Really?” Some of the worried look left Kit's face. “But—that girl, Ariel—did she do something bad?”

“I'm not sure yet. She might have. But that's my job, not yours.” Kincaid stood. “But promise me one thing.”

“Okay.” Kit sounded wary again, and Kincaid knew he wondered what he was agreeing to.

“Let's have a house rule from now on. No one who is not already a good friend is allowed in when Gemma or I aren't home.”

“Oh. Okay,” Kit said, obviously relieved, and Kincaid hoped it would at least be a while before his son fell for another pretty girl's sob story. He wished his own instincts had been as good as Kit's.