And Justice There Is None Read Online Free PDF Page B

work.
    Part of that he put down to his rather sheltered upbringing in suburban St. Albans, the only son of a City lawyer, part to an addiction to American cop shows on the telly, where the tough guys always got their man by the end of the hour.
    But surely he could learn patience, just like anything else. And the fair, schoolboy looks that so plagued him gave him a ready advantage—people tended to trust him. If he could make himself sit and listen, even the most hardened criminals, he was learning, had a vulnerable spot for sympathy.
    And wasn’t that what his guv’nor was telling him, if he could get round his resentment of Gemma James? She was an ordinary mortal, after all, one who had probably muddled through her first few months as Kincaid’s sergeant in much the same way he had. Perhaps if he were to meet her, see her as a person, it would lay the ghost of her perfection to rest in his mind. And he had to admit to a good measure of plain old-fashioned curiosity.
    Wandering back into the sitting room, he tidied automatically, mulling over possibilities. It was not likely that a chance errand would send him to Notting Hill Police Station any time soon, nor could he foresee any upcoming social encounters … unless he were to manufacture an occasion. His girlfriend, Stella, was always on at him about his lack of enthusiasm for her dinner parties—but what if he were to suggest one?
    Not here, though. He looked round his flat with distaste. At Bloomsbury’s northern edge, the small flat in an ugly, concrete sixties building had been a good value for London but lacked any charm or comfort. To make matters worse, Stella, a buyer for a trendy home furnishings shop, had decorated it for him in neutrals and grays. She insisted that the color scheme and the boxy lines of the furniture harmonized with the building’s architectural style. After her efforts, he hadn’t the heart to tell her that he found it all extremely depressing.
    Stella’s flat, then, in Ebury Street, near the Yard. He would jolly her into it at dinner tonight, even if it meant the trade-off of committinghimself to one of her friends’ country-house weekends—and that was a fate he considered almost worse than death.
    T HE HOUSE SMELLED OF FLOWERS, THE SWEETNESS OF THE SCENT A painful contrast to the acrid smell of blood. A console table held an enormous arrangement of fresh blooms, and glimpses into the rooms on either side showed equally sumptuous bouquets. Walls the color of goldenrod accentuated the richness of the dark furniture, the elegance of the silk draperies falling to pools on the carpets, the discreet lighting on the paintings that hung on the walls.
    The touch of something soft against her ankle made Gemma gasp, but when she looked down she saw that it was only a gray cat, materializing as if by magic. She knelt to stroke it and the beast butted against her knees, purring gratefully. Was this Dawn Arrowood’s pet? Gemma wondered. Missing its mistress—or perhaps merely craving its supper.
    She heard voices from the back of the house, an intermittent murmur of conversation. Giving the cat a last pat, Gemma followed the sound down the corridor. The large kitchen was as elegant as the other rooms, lined with cream-colored cabinets and copper accessories. At a table in the breakfast area sat Constable Melody Talbot, and beside her a man in a white, blood-soaked shirt.
    Gemma paused, halted in part by the unexpected sight of so much blood in such surroundings, and in part by her surprise at Karl Arrowood’s appearance. “An older husband,” Gerry Franks had said, and she had mentally translated that into “feeble elderly gentleman.” But the man gazing at her across the kitchen was, she guessed, no older than his mid-fifties, lean and fit, with a strong, lightly suntanned face, and thick hair still as yellow as the walls of his house.
    “Mr. Arrowood,” she said, collecting herself, “I’m Detective Inspector James. I’d like to