No Mark Upon Her

in full protective gear, had just come from the house, and Kincaid had glimpsed his red-haired assistant going back in.
    “Can we go in if we suit up?” Kincaid asked.
    “No, sorry. It’s still too hot, and the structure’s not safe. The pathologist and the SOCOs will have to wait as well. ”
    Frustrated, Kincaid glanced at the open front door. “Give us a description, then.”
    “Not pretty, this one,” said Morris, shaking his head, and Kincaid wondered if there were such a thing as a pretty fire scene. “But the victims were on the ground floor, and as the fire moved upwards, the bodies are still fairly intact.
    “The wife—we’ll assume it was Mrs. Craig, for the time being—was in the kitchen. It looks as though she was shot in the back of the head.”
    Edie , Kincaid thought. Not just Mrs. Craig. Not just the wife . Edie .
    “The deputy assistant commissioner was in what looked to be his study.”
    “You’re certain it was him?”
    “I’d met him a few times,” Morris said with a grimace. “What remained of the face was recognizable. The study was the fire’s point of origin. There was a petrol can near the body. He still had the gun gripped in his hand, but the weapon was pretty badly damaged. Some sort of small-caliber handgun, but big enough to do the job. I’m sure the SOCOs will be able to tell you the make.”
    “Can you tell what happened?” Kincaid asked, although his mind was playing it out, whether he liked it or not.
    “It looks like he shot his wife, then doused a good bit of the ground floor with petrol, backing into his study as he poured. Then he tossed something—a lighter or a match—into the petrol trail. After that, my guess is he’d have waited until he was sure he had a good burn. Then he shot himself in the side of the head.”
    They all stared at the house as if mesmerized, and Kincaid wondered how anyone could possibly do what Angus Craig had done.
    A horn beeped. Turning, Kincaid saw a little lime-green Ford pull through the gate. Imogen Bell got out and walked over to them, looking considerably tidier and more rested than she had the previous morning. Apparently she hadn’t felt it necessary to spend last night surveilling Freddie Atterton’s flat from her car.
    “Sir,” she said to Kincaid, including Cullen and Owen Morris in a nod of greeting. “DI Singla sent me to coordinate with you. He wanted me to tell you that the SOCOs and the Home Office pathologist are on their way. And we’ve got extra officers coming to cordon off the property. It won’t be long before the press show up in force.” She glanced at the house, shaking her head. “It’s really true? Assistant Commissioner Craig?”
    “The pathologist will have to make the formal ID, but it looks that way. Did you know him?” he asked, with a lurch of concern.
    “I’d seen him round Henley. He spoke to me once or twice. He seemed like a nice man.”
    Kincaid closed his eyes in a little prayer of thanks that Imogen Bell hadn’t got to know Angus Craig better.
    “Oh, sir,” said Bell. “There was a man at the gate just now, wanting to speak to someone in charge. A neighbor. He says he has Mrs. Craig’s dog, and he wants to know what he should do with him.”
    “N o matter what Angus Craig’s done now,” said Gemma, “we still don’t know why he would have killed Becca Meredith when he did. And I can’t believe it’s coincidence that Becca talked to another of Craig’s possible victims on the day she began behaving oddly. Especially if this woman really was an old friend.” She chewed her lip as she thought. “We need to talk to her.”
    “Now?” Melody glanced round at the other guests. It looked as though the party was beginning to wind down. “What about the kids?”
    “I’ll ask Betty or Hazel if they can look after the little ones for a bit,” said Gemma. The bubble of domestic perfection had popped even sooner than she’d thought. But although she hated deserting the children and her guests, she couldn’t leave such a loose end dangling. “We don’t know yet exactly what happened at the Craigs’,” she added slowly. “If we’ve missed something, something important, Duncan and Doug need to know as soon as possible.”
    “She lives in Barnes, this Chris Abbott. I remember that from the file. I can check the address.”
    “Do it, then. There’s something not right here.” Suddenly uneasy about Duncan and Doug in Henley, Gemma felt too edgy to stand