"Thanks." Gemma gave the other woman a grateful smile, sensing that they had connected for the first time on a personal level. But as she left the hospital, she also wondered just how much Kate Ling had guessed about her condition. Glancing down at her rapidly thickening waist, she knew she wouldn't be able to keep her secret much longer.
"I'm going after him." Fern pushed her coffee away and stood up.
"It might not be a good idea to try to talk to him now," Marc advised her gently. "Especially not in front of the Arrowoods' house-"
"I'm not going there. He'll go back to his stall, when he's sure it's true. I know him." She turned away from the pity in their faces, and for a moment she hated them for it. She did know him, better than anyone, and she could comfort him, no matter what they thought.
Rounding the corner into Portobello Road, she ducked her head against the rain and battled the flood of shoppers coming down the hill as if she were a salmon swimming upstream, turning into the arcade where she and Alex had their stalls.
The narrow aisles offered some relief from the crowd, but she knew it wouldn't be long before the shoppers were packed shoulder to shoulder there as well. Already the air was redolent with cigarette smoke, and the familiar odors of grease and coffee drifted up from the basement café.
She unlocked the stall's protective screen and raised it up, slipped inside, and settled herself behind the glass case that held the silver spoons, magnifying glasses, and trinkets that were her bread and butter.
Making a pretense of business, she took out her cloth and began to polish the fingerprints from a Georgian teapot she'd got for a good price from a dealer at Bermondsey yesterday. It could mean a nice profit, if the right buyer came along, but Fern found she'd lost her enthusiasm for the sale.
The stall beside hers seemed ominously empty without Alex. She knew his stock almost as well as she knew her own, and it came as a relief when a woman stopped and admired a delicate Coalport cup and saucer on display. Fern unlocked Alex's stall- they each had the other's spare key- and took the cup and saucer down for the woman, holding it up to the lamp Alex kept for demonstrating the translucence of bone china.
Enchanted, the woman paid the sticker price without haggling, a definite sign of a novice. Fern tucked the money into the cash apron Alex had left behind the front display case, then stood looking round the stall, remembering the first time Dawn Arrowood had come into the arcade.
There had been something about her that had immediately drawn Fern's attention. Everything from the designer jeans to the perfect blond hair spoke of money, but Dawn's was an elegantly understated look that Fern knew she could never achieve. And yet, in spite of the woman's sleek veneer, there had been an appealing freshness about her, and Fern had flashed her a friendly smile.
But the woman had looked past her. Curious, Fern had turned, following her gaze, to see the woman meet Alex's eyes. He had stared back, transfixed, and Fern's heart had been pierced with a sudden and sure knowledge.
Oh, she had fought it! First his embarrassed excuses, then his irritated rejections, until at last Fern had given him no choice but to tell her outright that it was over between them. Even then she'd never quite given up hope that she might somehow win him back… and more than once she had wished Dawn Arrowood dead.
But not like this- not murdered! And Otto had hinted this morning that her husband might have killed her because of Alex.
Fern looked up, realizing the arcade had gone abruptly quiet. Alex stood in the street door. Water dripped from his sopping hair onto his collar; his face was blank with shock, his eyes expressionless. One of the other vendors spoke to him softly and he shook his head, then stumbled forward. Fern slipped out of the stall and went to him. "Alex! Are you all right?"
He moved blindly forward as if unaware of her, stopping before his stall as if he had no clear idea what he was doing there.
"Alex, let me help you," Fern urged. "You're soaking-"
"I have to get something." Pushing her aside, he went into the stall, bumping against the porcelain-laden shelves as if they held Brighton souvenirs. He fell to his knees and rummaged behind the display case, emerging with a brightly colored teapot Fern hadn't seen before. Wrapping it in a cloth, he shoved it into a carrier bag, then stood. His eyes fell on Fern and for the first time he seemed to register her presence. "You'll watch the stall for me, won't you?"
"Alex, what are you doing? You're soaked. If you don't look after yourself you'll catch your death-"
"I have to go, to get away." He started to push past her but this time she stepped resolutely in front of him.
"Where, Alex? At least tell me where you're going."
"Don't know. I just have to get away from here, that's all."
"You're in no fit state to look after yourself, much less drive. Let me take you." An idea took shape in her mind. If Karl Arrowood had murdered his wife because he'd found out about Alex, might not Alex be next? But not if Karl couldn't find him. "Give me your keys," she ordered. When he handed them over without protest, she called to Doris, who traded antique toys from the stall across the aisle, "Watch the stalls for me, Doris, please. I'll make it up to you."
Taking his carrier bag and a handful of bills from her own stall, she quickly locked both screens, then shepherded him out into the street and up the hill to the mews where his Passat sat parked in front of his flat. Alex seemed to have given up all resistance; it was only when she'd bundled him into the passenger seat and buckled herself into the driver's that he mumbled, "Where are we going?"
"Somewhere safe," Fern assured him. "Somewhere no one will think to look for you."
The crowd of curious onlookers in front of the Arrowoods' house had grown since earlier that morning. Gemma saw familiar faces- the press was out in force, and the recognition was mutual. A whisper rippled through the gathering and half a dozen reporters surged to the front.
Putting up her umbrella against the persistent drizzle, she held up her free hand against the clamor of questions. "I'll speak to you at six this evening, in front of Notting Hill-"
"This house belongs to Karl Arrowood, the antiques dealer," interrupted Tom MacCrimmon from the Daily Star, one of the least reputable tabloids. A woolly-headed man with a red bulbous nose like a Christmas ball, Gemma had found MacCrimmon's aggressiveness to be tempered by a sense of humor. "Was it someone in the Arrowood family who was killed?"
"The victim's family has yet to be notified, Tom. Please let us do that before you speculate in print- or on camera," she added, seeing the telltale red eye of another reporter's video camera. "I promise I'll give you as much as I can this evening." She turned away and the constable on duty quickly lifted the tape, allowing her inside the sealed perimeter.
Once out of the crowd's hearing range, she spoke to the officer. "Where's Mr. Arrowood?"
"Waiting for you at the station, as per your request. Sergeant Franks took him in, and was none too gentle about it."
"What about the forensics team?"
"Just finishing up. Haven't found anything obvious, as far as I know."
"Right. Just keep an eye on the crowd, will you? I need to know if any one person hangs about too long."
Karl Arrowood had been ushered into Interview Room A, where Gemma suspected he'd worn a path in the floor with his pacing. Fully dressed in a dark suit and tie, clean-shaven, his thick corn-yellow hair neatly brushed, he showed no sign of the shock Gemma had seen last night.
"Inspector, I do not understand why I'm being treated like a common criminal, dragged to the police station and then left to cool my heels in this revolting room."