"Thanks, Gerry," Gemma replied smoothly. "Have you a coverall handy? Make that two." She glanced back at Kincaid, adding, "This is Superintendent Kincaid, from the Yard."
As they slipped into the coveralls Franks produced from the boot of one of the cars, Gemma asked, "What have you got so far, Gerry?"
"Husband arrived home, expecting his wife to be ready for a dinner engagement. Her car was in the drive, but the house was dark. He went in and called out for her, had a look round, then came back out into the drive and found the body. Tried to rouse her, then called nine-nine-nine."
"Did the paramedics touch her?"
"No, but the husband did. He's a right mess."
"What's his name?"
"Karl Arrowood. Quite a bit older than his wife, I'd say, and well off. Owns a poncey antiques shop on Kensington Park Road."
The well-off part was obvious, Kincaid thought, glancing up at the house. The lower windows were now ablaze with light, illuminating the pale yellow stucco exterior and the white classical columns flanking the porch. In the drive, two dark Mercedes sedans sat side by side.
"Where is Mr. Arrowood now?" asked Gemma.
"One of the constables took him inside for a hot cup of tea, although I'd wager a stiff drink is more his style."
"Right. He'll keep for a bit. I'm going to have a look at the body before the pathologist gets here. What about lights?"
"Coming with the SOC team."
"Then we'll have to make do. What was her name, by the way? The wife."
"Dawn. Pretty name." Franks shrugged. "Not much use to her now."
Gemma turned to Kincaid. "Want to put your oar in?"
"I wouldn't miss it."
They pulled elasticized covers on over their shoes and made their way carefully along the edge of the drive nearest the house, assuming that to be the least likely area for the perpetrator to have traversed. As they passed the cars, they saw that a wrought-iron gate barred the end of the drive, meeting the hedge that ran down the drive's far side.
"There's no place to hide except in the hedge itself," Gemma murmured.
The body lay in front of the outside car, a dark heap that resolved itself as they drew closer into a slender woman in a leather coat. The thick, ferrous smell of blood was heavy in the damp air.
Kincaid felt the bile rise in the back of his throat as he squatted, using his pocket torch to illuminate Dawn Arrowood's motionless form. As Gemma bent over, examining the corpse without touching it, he saw the sheen of perspiration on her forehead and upper lip. "You okay?" he asked softly, keeping the jab of fear from his voice with an effort. Gemma had almost suffered a miscarriage six weeks previously, the result of her harrowing rescue of a young mother and infant on the slopes of Glastonbury Tor. Although now under doctor's orders to take it easy, she had not been willing to take leave from work, and he found himself hovering over her like a broody hen.
"Shouldn't have had the curry for lunch." Gemma attempted a smile. "But I'll be damned if I'm going to sick it up in front of Gerry Franks."
"Not to mention it plays hell with the crime scene," he rejoined, feeling a surge of relief that it was merely nausea that was troubling her.
He turned his attention back to the victim. Young- perhaps in her early thirties- blond hair pulled back in a ponytail that was now in partial disarray, a delicate, high-cheekboned face that he suspected had been strikingly beautiful in life; all marred now by the savage gash beneath her chin. The torchlight picked up the white gleam of cartilage in the wound.
The woman's blouse had been sliced open and pulled back, and beneath the splash of blood from her throat, Kincaid thought he could make out another wound in her chest, but the poor light made it impossible to be sure. "There was no hesitation here. This bloke meant business."
"You're assuming it was a man?"
"Not likely to be a woman's crime, is it? Either physically or emotionally. We'll see what the pathologist says."
"Did I hear someone take my name in vain?" called a voice from across the drive.
"Kate!" Kincaid said warmly as another white-suited figure came towards them. They had worked with Dr. Kate Ling on several previous cases, and he thought highly of her skill- not to mention her looks.
"Superintendent. Good to see you. Sounds like you've got yourself a real media circus in the making here."
"Not my case, actually," he told her, cursing himself for putting Gemma in such an awkward position. "Inspector James is Senior Investigating Officer. I'm just tagging along."
"Oh, Inspector is it now," Ling said, smiling. "Congratulations, Gemma. Let's see what you've got here."
Kincaid and Gemma stepped back as Ling knelt beside the body.
"Her blood's pooled beneath her body, so she hasn't been moved," the pathologist said, as much to herself as to them. "No obvious signs of sexual interference. No hesitation marks on the throat. No readily apparent defense wounds." She looked up at Gemma. "No weapon?"
"Not that I've heard."
"Well, I'll be able to tell you a bit more about what was used here when I get her on the table, but the wound's very clean and deep." She probed the chest with gloved fingers. "There seems to be a puncture wound here as well."
"What about time of death?" asked Gemma.
"I'd say very recent. She's still warm to the touch."
"Bloody hell," Gemma whispered. "I walked right by this house not more than an hour ago. Do you suppose…"
"Did you see anything?" Kincaid asked.
Gemma shook her head. "No. But then I wasn't looking, and now I wonder what I might have missed." She turned to Kate Ling. "When can you perform the postmortem?"
"Tomorrow morning, first thing," Ling said with a sigh. "So much for getting my nails done." She stood as voices heralded the arrival of the technicians who would photograph the body and the crime scene, and gather every scrap of physical evidence from the area. "Right, I'll get out of the way and let them do their job. When they get ready to bag the body, have them deliver it to the morgue at St. Charles Hospital. It's nearby, and convenient for me." Ling gave Kincaid a jaunty wave and disappeared the way she had come.
"And I'll get out of your way," Kincaid said as he saw Gemma glance at him and hesitate.
"Will you check on Toby, and let Hazel know what's happened? I've no idea when I'll get home."
"I'll stay with Toby myself. Don't worry." He touched her arm lightly, then made his way back to the street. But rather than getting in his car, he stood, watching from a distance as Gemma directed her team. As she climbed the front steps and entered the house, he would have given anything to be beside her.
"Bloody sodding hell!" Doug Cullen fumed, stomping into his flat and dropping his briefcase in the hall. He'd been reading his case files on the bus, as was his usual habit on his nightly commute home from the Yard, when he'd come across a scrawled note from Kincaid criticizing the conclusions he'd drawn after interviewing a suspect's associate.
I think there's more here than meets the eye, Doug. This one warrants another interview. Be patient this time, see if you can get under his skin.
"Like Sergeant James," Cullen mimicked Kincaid's unspoken parenthetical comment. The inestimable Sergeant Gemma James, who had apparently never made a mistake in her entire career at the Yard, and who had, as Kincaid so often reminded him, a special talent for interviewing people.
Cullen went into the kitchen and stared morosely into his barren fridge. He had meant to get off the bus a stop early and buy a six-pack at the off-license, but it had completely slipped his mind. Filling a glass with water from the tap, he gazed out the window at the traffic moving on the damp, greasy tarmac of Euston Road.
Of course he'd heard the scuttlebutt round the office about Kincaid's relationship with his former partner, and he was tempted to put Kincaid's veneration of her down to personal bias. But even if Sergeant James had been the most exemplary detective, did that mean he had always to be measured by her standard?