No Mark Upon Her

Melody Talbot’s confession that her father was the Ivan Talbot, owner of the London Chronicle . And although she’d told him that both Doug and Gemma knew, he couldn’t imagine that either of them had spread that information around.
    Having dropped his bombshell, Childs straightened the lapels of his overcoat, just as if he were wearing a City suit rather than a moth-eaten jumper. “And now,” he continued, “I suggest that you let these officers do their jobs, and go home. As will I.”
    “C lever bastard,” Doug said quietly when Childs had driven away. “Did you know he knew about Melody?”
    Kincaid shook his head. “No. And I wonder what else he knows that he’s not telling us.”
    “You’re not going to do what he said, are you?”
    “No.” He should, Kincaid knew. If he had any sense, he’d go back to his little girl’s birthday party and consider that all was well that ended well, at least as far as the Met was concerned.
    But it wasn’t Monday yet. He was not officially off the job for another thirty-six hours, and his case was not closed. “I’m going to have a word with the fire brigade investigator. Nice chap, wasn’t he?”
    Doug grinned and adjusted his glasses. “I thought you’d say that.”
    W hen Gemma had seen Kincaid hesitate after the phone call, she’d whispered to him, “Go. Just go.”
    “But what about Charlotte—the party—”
    “She’ll be fine. I’ll explain to the kids. Ring me when you know something.”
    He and Doug had made quick apologies and slipped out, fortunately before he’d seen Charlotte start to cry.
    Gemma had scooped her up and comforted her, then distracted her by asking for a drink from her little bottle.
    Charlotte gave her a pretend sip, then tucked the bottle against her chest and relaxed in Gemma’s arms with only an intermittent sniffle.
    Would she become accustomed to disappointment? Gemma wondered as she swayed a bit and patted Charlotte’s small back.
    Were the boys any the worse for always having one or both parents haring off after some case or other?
    Of the two, Toby coped best. He’d been too young to remember being abandoned by his father, and since then, he’d accrued layers of security in his life like a little pearl in an oyster—although no one, she thought with a smile, was likely to refer to Toby as a pearl.
    Kit, like Charlotte, had suffered loss, but also betrayal—by the man he’d thought was his father, and by his grandmother. And yet, he seemed to be mending, although there was no way to tell if he would ever be entirely whole.
    At the moment, however, he was teasing his brother by playing keep-away with Toby’s pirate sword. He looked like any other mischievous fourteen-year-old. And that was good.
    Charlotte, over her tantrum and tiring of being held, began to squirm. “I want down, Mummy,” she said.
    “What?” Gemma was so startled she loosed her hold and let Charlotte slide the last foot to the floor with a thump.
    “I wanna play with Holly,” said Charlotte, more firmly. And then she was gone, skipping across the room in her blue dress, unaware that she had uttered anything significant or momentous.
    Gemma stood, knuckles pressed to her suddenly trembling lips. It was nothing, she told herself. Charlotte heard Toby call her “Mummy” all the time, and even Kit used it teasingly. It was only natural that Charlotte should start to parrot what she heard. But still—
    “You okay, boss?” asked Melody, coming up beside her. “You look a bit . . . gobsmacked.”
    “Oh.” Gemma made an effort to collect herself. “I’m fine. Too much cake, I think.”
    Melody gave her a skeptical look, perhaps having seen Gemma take a bite, then put her plate aside to tend to someone else.
    But instead of challenging Gemma’s evasion, she shifted and said a little hesitantly, “Boss, I know Charlotte’s party has been disrupted enough already, but . . . that woman, the Vice copper that Doug said Becca Meredith saw on her last day at work. Chris Abbott.”
    “What about her?” asked Gemma. She felt an odd little twist in her stomach, as if her body had foreknowledge.
    “I’ve just realized why her name seemed familiar,” said Melody. “It was in the Sapphire files.”
    “S uperintendent Kincaid,” said Owen Morris, the fire brigade investigator. “And Sergeant Cullen. Sorry I can’t shake.” He raised his gloved hands in an explanatory shrug. “We seem to keep meeting this way.”
    Morris, still