"It's his wife, actually," Kincaid explained. "We thought your mother might be able to tell us something about her background."
"Angel?" whispered Mrs. Howard. When they looked at her in surprise, she said, "That's what we called her. It was me started it, when we were kids, and I've wondered since if I cursed her somehow. I never knew anyone whose life was less blessed."
Gemma glanced at Kincaid, who gave her a barely perceptible nod of encouragement. "Mrs. Howard, were you aware that your sister-in-law is dead?"
"Oh, no." Mrs. Howard clutched a hand to her breast. "Not Angel, too?"
"How did it happen?" asked Wesley. "Was she ill?"
"She was murdered, two months before Dawn Arrowood," Gemma replied gently. "And in the same way. Since Dawn's death, we've been trying to find a connection between the two victims."
Mrs. Howard stood abruptly. "You'll excuse me. I have to see to my stew." She disappeared into the kitchen, and after a moment they heard her sobbing.
Frowning, Wesley told them, "You have to understand. They were, like, best friends. Sisters, almost. She's said for years that one day Angel would come back."
"I'm sorry to be the one to tell her about her friend's death. I suppose if they had lost contact, there's no way your mother could have known."
"I'd better see to her."
As Wesley joined his mother, Gemma took the opportunity to look round the room, curious as to its use. On closer inspection, she saw that there were rolls of wire framing interspersed among the bolts of fabric.
"She'll be all right," Wesley said softly as he returned from the kitchen. "It's just the shock. She's making us some coffee." Apparently having noticed Gemma's interest in his mother's materials, he added, "My mother makes costumes for Carnival, did I tell you that? She started back in the seventies when Carnival was a steel band going round the streets with a few kiddies following behind. Now it's big business- she works on the costumes all year."
Mrs. Howard returned with a tray holding mugs of milky coffee, her eyes red but dry. "I just can't believe it," she said as she handed round their drinks. "I thought I would have felt it if something happened to her- especially something so terrible."
"Wesley said you were best friends," prompted Gemma.
"Next-door neighbors. We moved into this building in 1959, straight off the boat from Trinidad. It was mostly Polish around here then and we weren't welcomed, except by Angel. Her parents were furious with her, but after a while they got used to us, and so did everyone else. She made a difference- There were other black families, immigrants like us, who had bottles thrown at their doors, and worse. But Angel told off the crowd that very first day, and after that we never had any serious trouble.
"Then when school began that autumn, we were in the same class, and after that we were like twins…"
"Why did you say she was cursed?" asked Kincaid.
Mrs. Howard shook her head. "So much death, no one should have to bear, both her parents gone by the time she was seventeen. She nursed her mother through a terrible cancer, right to the end. After Mrs. Wolowski passed, I remember Angel asking my mother if she could live with us. But my mother said no, Angel had to look after her father.
"When her father died a year later, Mama tried to take her in, but Angel refused. She was so stubborn, and her pride had been hurt. And there was Ronnie, criticizing her one minute and paying her no attention the next. I can't say I blame her for turning down my mother's offer, but she had no one else, and not a penny to her name. She took a job in a grocer's and moved into a flea-bitten bedsit. Ronnie was so furious when he saw the place that he wouldn't speak to her for weeks.
"Oh, he was cruel to her in those days. It was only later I understood it was because he loved her and he didn't dare admit it to himself, much less anyone else. Angel was only seventeen, and Ron was twenty- a great gap at that age. And she was white."
Intrigued by the story, Gemma asked, "How did they end up married, then?"
"Ah, that was a good few years later, after Angel had left us… or I should say, we let her go. She met a man- a boy, really, but to us at that age he seemed terribly sophisticated. What was his name? Hans… Kurt? Something like that. We only met him the once, but Ronnie despised him-"
"Karl? Was it Karl?" said Wesley, beating Gemma to it.
"You know, I think it was. But she would never talk about him, even after. That's not the man you were telling me was killed, Wesley?"
"We don't know," Gemma told her. "Please go on, Mrs. Howard."
"Well, as I said, she disappeared with this Karl, and we thought we would never see her again. Then one day five or six years later, she turns up at our door. She was in a bad way, so sick. I'd never seen anybody that sick. She'd left him, and she had nothing, nowhere to go, no one to help her."
"What was wrong with her?"
Mrs. Howard looked away as if she was ashamed. "It was the drug. He got her started on it."
"Heroin?" Wesley sounded as if the idea of anyone his parents' age using heroin astonished him.
"She was so desperate. We took her in- or Ronnie did. I was married to my Colin by then, but we were living here with my parents while we saved up for a flat. But Ronnie had a little place of his own, so he took her there." Mrs. Howard sat quietly for a moment, her eyes wet with tears. "I had never seen my brother like that. He was so strong with her, but gentle, even when she fought him. The first few days were terrible. We thought she might die, but she begged us not to call anyone.
"Ronnie never lost patience with her. I think at first he helped her because he felt responsible for what had happened to her, but as she got better he realized how much he loved her. They were married within six months, and little Eliza was born the next year. I think that they were truly happy… but sometimes I would see Angel watching Ronnie and the baby with the strangest look, as if she was afraid someone might snatch them away."
"And then Ronnie was killed," Gemma said softly.
"It was December of that year, a miserable night with a cold, blowing rain. He'd worked a wedding, over in Notting Dale, and was on his way home." Mrs. Howard stopped, folding her hands in her lap.
"It was a hit-and-run," supplied Wesley, who Gemma was sure knew the story by heart. "He was wearing a dark overcoat, and the police said the driver must not have seen him. They never found the driver."
"No. And Angel left us," continued his mother, "and took that poor baby with her. She said- Oh, it's all mixed up in my mind now, it's been so long- but there was something about friends who had died in prison- their name was Byatt, I do remember that, oddly enough, because we'd had a friend at school called Byatt- and Angel feeling it was her fault, that she had let it happen when she might have prevented it. They'd had a son, and she felt responsible for him. Then she said that she was terrified for us, that no one was safe around her, and that we must never try to find her."
CHAPTER NINETEEN
In North Kensington in the nineteenth century, it was left to the Church and charities to help those who fell on hard times and needed more assistance than family or neighbors could provide. As the population grew, a number of religious and philanthropic bodies became established around Portobello Road. Their aim was to help those who were sick, old or suffering the effects of poverty.
– Whetlor and Bartlett,
from Portobello
Now we have a connection between the victims," Kincaid said.
"Karl Arrowood," agreed Gemma. "I don't think there can be any doubt. But that still doesn't tell us why three murders were committed, or by whom."
"If Karl were still alive, we could assume he was after any woman who'd ever crossed him, and put a guard on his ex-wife."
"And what about Ronnie Thomas?" asked Gemma, ignoring the quip. She looked down at the album she held in her hands, pressed on her by Wesley as they left the flat. Ronnie's nephew had carefully mounted and preserved all his photographs. "Did Marianne think that Karl had him killed? Was that why she was so afraid?"