Chapter One

His office seemed to shrink as he paced. The walls drew in, their angles distorted by the elongated shadows cast from the swivel lamp on his desk. The Yard always felt a bit eerie at night, as if the very emptiness of the rooms had a presence. He stopped at the bookcases and ran his finger along the spines of the well-thumbed books on the top shelf. Archeology, art . . . canals . . . crime reference . . . Many of them were gifts from his mother, sent in her continual quest to remedy what she considered his lack of a proper education, and although he'd tried to group them alphabetically by subject, there were a few inevitable strays. Kincaid shook his head--would that he could order his life even half as well as he did his books.

He glanced at his watch for the tenth time in as many minutes, then crossed to his desk and sat down very deliberately. The call that had brought him in had been urgent--a high-ranking police officer found murdered--and if Gemma didn't arrive soon he'd have to go on to the crime scene without her. She'd not been in to work since he had last seen her on Friday evening. And although she had called in and requested leave from the Chief Superintendent, she had not answered Kincaid's increasingly frantic calls. Tonight Kincaid had asked the duty sergeant to contact her, and she'd responded.

Unable to contain his restlessness, he rose again and had reached to pull his jacket from the coatstand when he heard the soft click of the latch. He turned and saw Gemma standing with her back to the door, watching him, and a foolish grin spread across his face. "Gemma!"

"Hullo, guv."

"I've tried and tried to ring you. I thought something must have happened--"

She was already shaking her head. "I went to my sister's for a few days. I needed some time--"

"We have to talk." He moved a step nearer and stopped, examining her. She looked exhausted, her pale face almost transparent against the copper of her hair, and the skin beneath her eyes held faint purple shadows. "Gemma--"

"There's nothing to say." She slumped, resting her shoulders against the door as if she needed its support. "It was all a dreadful mistake. You can see that, can't you?"

He stared at her, astonishment freezing his tongue. "A mistake?" he managed finally, then wiped a hand across his suddenly dry lips. "Gemma, I don't understand."

"It never happened." She took a step toward him, entreating, then stopped as if afraid of his physical proximity.

"It did happen. You can't change that, and I don't want to." He went to her then and put his hands on her shoulders, trying to draw her to him. "Gemma, please, listen to me." For an instant he thought she might tilt her head into the hollow of his shoulder, relax against him. Then he felt her shoulders tense under his fingers and she pulled away.

"Look at us. Look at where we bloody are," she said, thumping a fist against the door at her back. "We can't do this. I've compromised myself enough already." She took a ragged breath and added, spacing the words out as if to emphasize their weight. "I can't afford it. I've my career to think of . . . and Toby."

The phone rang, its short double brrr echoing loudly in the small room. He stepped back toward his desk and fumbled for the receiver, bringing it to his ear. "Kincaid," he said shortly, then listened for a moment. "Right, thanks." Replacing the handset in the cradle, he looked at Gemma. "Car's waiting." Sentences formed and dissolved in his mind, each sounding more futile than the last. This was not the time or the place to discuss it, and he would only embarrass them both by going on about it now.

Finally, he turned away and slipped into his jacket, using the moment to swallow his disappointment and compose his features in as neutral an expression as he could manage. Facing her again, he said, "Ready, Sergeant?"

Big Ben struck ten o'clock as the car sped south across the Westminster bridge, and in the back seat beside Gemma, Kincaid watched the lights shimmer in the Thames. They sat in silence as the car zig-zagged on through south London, inching its way toward Surrey. Even their driver, a usually chatty PC called Williams, seemed to have caught their mood, remaining hunched in taciturn concentration over the wheel.

Clapham had vanished behind them when Gemma spoke. "You'd better fill me in on this one, guv."

Kincaid saw the flash of William's eyes as he cast a surprised glance at them in the rearview mirror. Gemma should have been briefed, of course, and he roused himself to answer as ordinarily as possible. Gossip in the ranks would do neither of them any good. "Little village near Guildford. What's it called, Williams?"

"Holmbury St. Mary, Sir."

"Right. Commander Alastair Gilbert, Metropolitan Police, found in his kitchen with his head bashed in."

He heard Gemma draw a sharp breath, then she said with the first spark of interest he'd heard all evening, "Commander Gilbert? Jesus. Any leads?"

"Not that I've been told, but it's early days yet," Kincaid said, turning to study her.

She shook her head. "There will be an unholy stink over this one, then. And aren't we the lucky coppers, having it land in our laps?" When Kincaid snorted in wry agreement, she glanced at him and added, "You must have known him."

Shrugging, he said, "Slightly," but he was unwilling to elaborate in front of Williams.

Gemma settled back into her seat. After a moment she said, "The local lads will have been there before us. Hope they haven't messed about with the body."

Kincaid smiled in the dark. Gemma's possessiveness over bodies always amused him, but tonight it also brought him a sense of relief. It meant she had engaged herself in the case, and it allowed him to hope that their working relationship, at least, was not beyond salvage. "They've promised to leave it until we've had a chance to see things in situ."

Gemma nodded in satisfaction. "Good. Do we know who found him?"

"Wife and daughter."

"Ugh." She wrinkled her nose. "Not at all nice."

"At least they'll have a WPC to do the hand-holding," Kincaid said, making a half-hearted attempt to tease her. "Lets you off the hook." Gemma often complained that female officers were good for more than breaking bad news to victims' families and offering comforting shoulders, but when the task fell to her she did it exceptionally well.

"I should hope so," she answered and looked away toward her window, but not before he thought he saw her lips curve in a smile.

A half-hour later they left the A road at Abinger Hammer, and after a few miles of twisting and turning down a narrow lane, they entered the sleepy village of Holmbury St. Mary. Williams pulled onto the verge and consulted a scribbled sheet of directions under the maplight. "When the road curves left we stay straight on, just to the right of the pub," he muttered as he put the car into gear again.

"There," said Kincaid, wiping condensation from his window with the sleeve of his coat. "This must be it."

Turning to look out her window, Gemma said, "Look. I've never seen that particular sign before," and he heard the pleasure in her voice.

Kincaid leaned across her just in time to catch a glimpse of a swinging pub sign showing two lovers silhouetted against a smiling moon. Then he felt Gemma's breath against his cheek, and caught the faint scent of peaches that always seemed to hover about her. He sat back quickly and turned his attention ahead.

The lane narrowed past the pub and the blue flashing of the panda cars' lights lit it with an eerie radiance. Williams brought their car to a halt several yards back from the last car and almost against the right-hand hedge, making allowance, Kincaid guessed, for the passing of the coroner's van. They slid from the car, stretching their cramped legs and huddling closer into their coats as the November chill struck them. A low mist hung in the still air, and plumes of condensation formed before their faces as they breathed.

Before they reached the house, a constable materialized before them, Cheshire Cat-like, the white checks on his hatband creating a snaggled-toothed smile. Kincaid identified them, then peered through the gate from which the constable had come, trying to make out features in the dark bulk of the house.

"Chief Inspector Deveney is waiting for you in the kitchen, sir," said the constable, and the gate moved silently as he opened it and led them through. "There's a path just here that goes round the back. The scene-of-crime lads will have some lamps rigged up shortly."

When his eyes adjusted to the dimness within the precincts of the garden wall, Kincaid could see that the house was stolidly mock-Tudor. A faint light shone through the leaded panes in the front door, and the lawn that separated them from the house looked as smooth and dense as black velvet. It seemed that Alastair Gilbert had lived very well.

The flagged path indicated by the constable took them along the right side of the house, then curved around to meet light spilling out from an open door. Beyond it Kincaid thought he could see the outline of a conservatory.

A silhouette appeared against the light and a man came down the steps toward them. "Superintendent?" He extended his hand and grasped Kincaid's firmly. "I'm Nick Deveney." An inch or so shy of Kincaid's height and near his age, Deveney flashed them a friendly smile. "You're just in time to have a word with the pathologist." He stepped aside, allowing Kincaid, Gemma, and the still-silent Williams to enter the house before him.

Kincaid passed through a mud room, registering a few pairs of neatly-aligned wellies on the floor and macintoshes hanging from hooks. Then he stepped through into the kitchen proper and halted, the others piling up at his back.

The kitchen had been white. White ceramic floors, white ceramic walls, set off by cabinets of a pale wood. A detached part of his mind recognized the cabinets as something he had seen when planning the refitting of his own kitchen--they were free-standing, made by a small English firm, and quite expensive. The other part of his mind focused on the body of Alastair Gilbert, sprawled face-down near a door on the far side of the room.

In life, Gilbert had been a small, neat man known for the perfection of his tailoring, the precision of his haircuts, the gloss upon his shoes. There was nothing neat about him now. The metallic smell of blood seemed to lodge at the back of Kincaid's nose. Blood matted Gilbert's dark hair. Blood had splattered, and smeared, and run in scarlet rivulets across the pristine white floor.

A small sound, almost a whimper, came from behind Kincaid. Turning, he was just in time to see a pasty-faced Williams push his way out the door, followed by the faint sound of retching. Kincaid raised an eyebrow at Gemma, who nodded and slipped out after Williams.

A woman in surgical scrubs knelt beside the body, her profile obscured by a shoulder-length fall of straight, black hair. She hadn't looked up or paused in her work when they had entered the room, but now she sat back on her knees and regarded Kincaid. He came nearer and squatted, just out of the blood's path.

"Kate Ling," she said, holding up her gloved hands. "You won't mind if I don't shake."

Kincaid thought he detected a trace of humor in her oval face. "Not at all."

Gemma returned and dropped down beside him. "He'll be all right," she said softly. "I've sent him along to the duty constable for a cuppa."

"Can't tell you much," Dr. Ling said as she began stripping off her gloves. "Blood's not congealing, as you can see." She gestured at the body with the deflated latex fingers of an empty glove. "Possibly taking some sort of anti-coagulant. From the body temperature I'd say he's been dead four or five hours, give or take an hour or two." Her eyelid drooped in a ghost of a wink. "But look at this," she added, using a slender index finger as a pointer. "I think the weapon has left several crescent-shaped depressions, but I'll know more when I get him cleaned up."

Looking closely, Kincaid thought he detected fragments of skull in the blood-matted hair, but no crescent-shapes. "I'll take your word for it, Doctor."

"All right with you if I have him moved now? The sooner I get him on the table, the better for you, I imagine."

Kincaid nodded his permission and stood up.

"The scene-of-crime lads would like to move the live bodies out as well," said Deveney, "so they can get on with things."

"Right." Kincaid turned to him. "Can you fill me in on what you've got so far? Then I'd like to see the family."

"Claire Gilbert and her daughter came home around half-past seven. They'd been away several hours, doing some shopping in Guildford. Mrs. Gilbert parked the car in the garage as usual, but as they came across the back garden toward the house they saw that the back door stood open. When they entered the kitchen they found the Commander." Deveney nodded toward the body. "Once she'd ascertained there wasn't a pulse, Mrs. Gilbert called us."

"In a nutshell," said Kincaid, and Deveney smiled. "So what's the theory? The wife do it?"

"There's nothing to suggest they had a fight--nothing broken, no marks on her. Besides . . . well, wait till you meet her." Deveney paused, then continued a bit apologetically, "There have been a few thefts reported in the area recently. Petty things. I had Mrs. Gilbert check her things. She says she can't find a few items of jewelry."

"No suspects in the thefts?"

Deveney shook his head.

"All right, then. Where are the Gilberts?"

"I've a constable with them in the sitting room. I'll take you through."

Pausing in the doorway for a final glimpse of the body, Kincaid thought of Alastair Gilbert as he had seen him last--lecturing from a podium, extolling the virtues of order, discipline and logical thinking in police work--and he felt an unexpected stirring of pity.