"There is something I thought you might be able to help me with. A family called Arrowood came to this area, just after the war. They were German immigrants-"
"But they weren't named Arrowood at all. It was Pheilholz. Their only son Anglicized the name, and I think it broke his parents' hearts to see their heritage tossed away."
"You knew them?"
"Oh, we weren't close friends, but I met them often enough in those days, at the German cafés and the social clubs. They were a nice couple, hardworking, very firm in their values. They owned a small grocery in Portobello Road."
"And the son, Karl? Did you know him?"
"This is your case, the murder of Karl Arrowood? I thought of you when I saw it in the news."
"I've been investigating Karl's death, as well as his wife's," Gemma admitted. "But we seem to be making very little progress."
"So you thought you would go back and start at the beginning. Very wise. Karl was a beautiful child, and I think he was much loved by his parents, but that's not always a guarantee that the child will grow up as the parents wish. He jeered at their stodginess, their lack of ambition. It was fine things Karl wanted, and he seemed willing to go to any lengths to get them. The boy was involved in scrape after scrape, each a little more serious than the last, until his father told him he was no longer welcome in their house. I don't believe they were ever reconciled."
"There were rumors of Karl's involvement in the drug trade when he was quite young, but nothing was ever proved."
"Ah…" Dr. Rosenthal sighed. "Here I have to admit my memory fails me. There was something about drugs, and prison, but it wasn't Karl who went to prison… and there was a girl in it somewhere… There always is, isn't there?" Lifting her shoulders in a shrug, she continued, "He disappeared from the neighborhood altogether for a time, and it was a good many years- not until after his parents were both gone, as a matter of fact- before he came back."
"But he did come back in the end, didn't he?" pressed Gemma. "He could have opened that shop anywhere in London… say, Kensington, or Mayfair… Do you suppose it was pride, wanting to show anyone who remembered him as a child what a success he'd become? Or was there something else that drew him back to Notting Hill?"
If one had to choose somewhere to sit and wait for an hour, thought Kincaid, Brown's Hotel was not a bad place to be on a Friday afternoon.
At the stroke of three, he had delivered an unsmiling and abnormally brushed and polished Kit for his meeting with his grandparents. Robert Potts, Kincaid's former father-in-law, had greeted Kincaid with his usual strained courtesy; his wife had merely nodded an acknowledgment of his presence, not disguising her loathing. They had not invited Kincaid to join them for tea- not that he had expected them to do so.
It must present Eugenia quite a challenge, deciding whom she hated more, him or Ian McClellan, but Kincaid did not find the thought amusing. This monthly meeting with Kit had been Ian's method of forestalling her suing for the legal right to have her grandson for regular visitations, but Kincaid had no confidence that the arrangement would satisfy her indefinitely. One would think the court would take into account the fact that the woman was obviously mentally unbalanced, and that Kit despised her, but it wasn't a chance Kincaid was willing to take.
He found a comfortable chair and immersed himself in the book he'd brought with him, determined not to borrow trouble unnecessarily. Still, the minutes crawled, until at last Kit appeared from the lounge. In his navy school blazer and tie, with his hair neatly combed, Kit looked unexpectedly grown-up. But as he drew near, Kincaid saw that the boy's lip was trembling and his eyes were red with unspilled tears.
Kincaid jumped up. "Kit! What's wrong?"
Kit shook his head mutely.
"Where are your grandparents?"
"They left. She didn't want to see you. She-" He shook his head again, unable to go on.
Kincaid put an arm round his shoulders. "Let's go, shall we?" He helped Kit into the anorak he had held for him, then shepherded him out into the frosty air. What on earth had Eugenia done to upset his usually stoic son so badly? "Why don't we walk down to Piccadilly," he suggested. "We could get the bus from there, rather than the tube."
After a few minutes, when Kit seemed calmer, Kincaid said, "Now. Tell me what this is all about."
"She- she said I couldn't live with you, that you had no right to keep me. She said that she was going to get a lawyer, and that the court would have to grant her custody since I had no responsible parent."
"She's threatened lawyers before. I wouldn't pay it too much attention," Kincaid said soothingly. But the boy's jaw was still tightly clenched, and he wouldn't meet Kincaid's eyes. "That's not all, is it? What else did she say?"
"She said that if I'd been a proper son, I'd have taken better care of my mother, and she wouldn't have died."
A sudden rush of fury left Kincaid shaking. He took a breath to calm himself. "Kit. That is absolute nonsense. Do you hear me? I know how well you looked after your mum, because she told me. And I know that you could not have saved her, no matter what you did. Are we clear on that?"
Kit nodded, but Kincaid was unconvinced. What he did know was that he had to put a stop to Eugenia Potts's poison, and that meant he had to keep her from seeing Kit, full stop. But Eugenia was correct in one thing- he had no legal rights over Kit. There was only one way to remedy the situation- he would have to prove his paternity.
"I want you to tell me about my mother." Alex Dunn sat in Jane's sitting room, in front of the unlit Christmas tree. He'd had to stop once on the way down, so buffeted by memories he'd been unable to drive. Then he'd found the cottage empty, and had waited impatiently for Jane to return.
"Your mother?" Jane repeated blankly.
"Is she really dead?"
"I expect so. Why, Alex?"
"When I was little, you said she couldn't take care of me because she was ill. That wasn't true, was it? She was a drug addict."
"Alex- What- How do you-"
"Why do you always lie to me? All my life I've carried around this rosy, consumptive image of my sainted mother handing me over to you with her blessing, and it was all a lie. She didn't give a damn what happened to me."
"Alex, that's not true. She did care. That's why she brought you to me. And for God's sake, you can't tell a five-year-old that his mother's an addict!"
"You could have told me later, when I was older."
"When you were what? Twelve? Sixteen? Twenty? How would I have decided when to shatter your life? And besides," she added more calmly, "stories have a way of generating their own reality. After a while, I almost came to believe it myself. Who's told you this, Alex?"
"No one. I dreamed it. And then I started to remember."
Jane's face went ashen. "Oh, God. I'm sorry, Alex. You used to have nightmares when you were little. I thought they'd stopped years ago."
"Did she really bring me here, to the cottage? Or was that a lie, too?"
"She did. It was the last time I saw her. I tried to find her for years after that, but she'd vanished without a trace."