No Mark Upon Her

food”—referring, Gemma knew, to the Caribbean stew Betty had made for their wedding party in August.
    Sighing, she let it go. Perhaps it was time she stopped trying to broaden her father’s horizons. She was happy enough that her parents were visiting comfortably with Erika, and that her mother looked brighter than she had the previous weekend in Glastonbury.
    Had it really been only a week, she thought, since they’d repeated their vows in Winnie’s church?
    Kincaid came through from the sitting room, where he’d been chatting with Tim Cavendish, and put a hand on her shoulder. “I’ve put the dogs in the study for a bit of quiet time.” With Toby and Holly running and shrieking, the dogs had gone into play overdrive, barking to join in the game. “I could see your dad’s blood pressure starting to rise,” he said more softly. Nodding at her parents, he added, “Seems to be going well.”
    “I only gave them the sandwiches with white bread. That’s the secret.”
    He smiled, and she realized this was the first time she’d seen his face relax since he’d come home from the Yard the night before.
    While they were doing the washing-up after dinner, he’d given her a terse account of his interview with Denis Childs. The simmering anger was coming off him in waves, like steam.
    “Well, you couldn’t really expect them to go in full force and drag him off to the nick, a deputy assistant commissioner,” she’d said, feeling her way. “I mean, what if we’re wrong? There would be hell to pay. It could cost Denis his job.”
    “And what if we’re right?” Kincaid had asked, dunking a plate into the soapy water with such force that Gemma had winced.
    “I think Craig will be retaining the best defense lawyer he can find,” she said. “He’ll claim the sex was consensual, of course, and that he has no idea what happened to Jenny Hart afterwards. But the skin and blood under her nails might cause him a bit of a problem. Not to mention the hair, fiber, and prints found in her flat.”
    “What if the lab evidence goes missing?”
    Frowning, she’d glanced at him, seen the strain in his face. “Now you’re being paranoid,” she said quietly.
    He’d shaken his head. “I don’t like it, Gemma. I have a really bad feeling about this.”
    Toby had come in then, asking about Charlotte’s birthday cake for the hundredth time, and they’d dropped the subject of Angus Craig.
    But for the remainder of the evening, Gemma had watched Kincaid check his phone every few minutes for missed calls, his scowl growing deeper as the hours passed and there was no word from Chief Superintendent Childs.
    Nor had there been a call that morning.
    Now he said, “We’re missing Doug and Melody.”
    “Melody rang. They’re coming together in her car. She ferried a load of things from Doug’s flat to the new house.”
    Kincaid glanced at her in surprise. “That’s an interesting détente.”
    “Don’t you dare tease him,” Gemma warned. “I’m glad to see them a bit less prickly with each other. But if you take the mickey, he’ll go all sensitive about it. You know what he’s like.” From the speculative gleam in Kincaid’s eye, Gemma suspected she was wasting her breath.
    But now that he was a little less taciturn, there was something she needed to say. “Alia rang as well, begging off. Family commitments.”
    Or at least that was what Alia had told her, but Gemma guessed that Alia’s father had dissuaded her from visiting on a strictly social occasion. Mr. Hakim was a very conservative Bangladeshi, and he didn’t approve of their rather odd blended family or of Charlotte’s mixed-race heritage. He and her dad would probably get on like a house on fire, Gemma thought ruefully.
    “But I need to ring her back about Monday,” she said, touching Kincaid’s arm to make sure she had his full attention. She looked up at him, trying to read his expression. “Duncan—I have to let Alia know if she needs to look after Charlotte.”
    He stood quietly for a moment, looking round the house as though taking stock. She followed his gaze. In the kitchen, Kit and Betty were conspiring over the punchbowl. In the dining room, Erika was still chatting with her mum while her dad looked on, his teacup resting on his knee. Beyond them, in the sitting room, Hazel and Tim, who seemed to have become more comfortable in their separation, were directing the little ones in some kind of indecipherable game, and Charlotte