It amused her that he had lost almost all trace of his native Burgundian accent, just as it amused her to remember that he had once been her student, and that she had contemplated an affair with him. In the end, she'd rejected his advances, afraid the difference in their ages would make her a fool; now she thought herself foolish to have forsaken pleasure for the sake of dignity.

The memory of another lost opportunity flashed through her mind, but this one was too painful to contemplate even now. Pushing the recollection aside, she squeezed Henri's hand and urged, "Come in, come in." She felt inordinately pleased to see him.

"We'll light the fire, even though it's considered a sin so late in the year, and I'll pour us a sherry."

"You know I can't abide the stuff," Henri said as he followed her into the sitting room, brushing carefully at his trousers as he sat in the chair nearest hers, then wiping the plastic carrier bag he held with a handkerchief fished from his jacket.

"A whisky, then. You know I keep a bottle just for you."

Hesitating, he said, "No, really, Erika, I won't impose on your hospitality." He cleared his throat. "This is not actually a social call."

Alarmed, she said, "What is it, Henri? Are you ill?"

"Oh, no, it's nothing like that. Only the arthritis playing up in this infernal damp. It's just-" He stopped, running his hand over the carrier bag, and she noticed that it was embossed with the label of Harrowby's, the auction house. "It's just that I ran across something very odd today, and I may be interfering where I've no business, but I thought you should see it."

"Henri, whatever are you talking about?"

He pulled a thin soft-cover book from the bag, and it, too, carried the Harrowby's label. Looking more closely, she saw that it was a catalog of items in an upcoming sale of Art Deco jewelry, and her breath seemed to stop in her throat.

Opening it, Henri thumbed quickly to a page near the end and handed the book to her. "There. I recognized it from the name, of course, and from your description."

Erika's hands trembled as she picked up her reading glasses from on top of the attempted novel. As she put them on, the picture jumped sharply into focus. There was no need for her to read the description. The room seemed to recede, and with an effort she fought back the tide of memory.

She looked up at Henri, uncomprehending. "But this is not possible. I never thought to see this again."

Henri reached out and set the catalog aside, and it was only when he gathered her hands between his that she realized hers were icy cold. "I don't see how this can be a mistake, Erika." Very gently, he added, "Perhaps the time has come for the past to give back."

The party had reached the pudding and coffee stage, and Gemma had, at last, begun to relax. She'd been glad to see Chief Superintendent Childs again-Denis, she reminded herself-and his wife, Diane, had proved charming, as talkative as he was self-contained. Her own boss, Mark Lamb, was an old police college friend of Duncan 's, and Gemma had met his wife, Christine, often at departmental functions.

Everyone exclaimed over the house, the roasted salmon and fennel had proved a great success, and the only thing marring Gemma's warm glow of accomplishment was the fact that Doug Cullen and Melody Talbot didn't seem to have hit it off particularly well.

She had just stood to refill coffee cups when the kitchen phone rang. From the other end of the table, Kincaid met her eyes and lifted a brow in question.

Shaking her head, she mouthed, "I'll get it." It was the home line, not her mobile, so it was not likely to be work. Her heart gave an anxious little jerk, as it always did when the boys were out, even though she knew they were with Wesley Howard, who often looked after them and was very responsible.

Excusing herself, she made her way to the kitchen, coffeepot in hand, and snatched the phone from its cradle on the worktop.

"Gemma?" The voice was female, and so tremulous that at first Gemma didn't recognize it. "Gemma, it's Erika. I'm so sorry to disturb you, and on a Saturday evening. I can hear that you have guests. I can ring back tomorrow if-"

"No, no, Erika, it's all right," Gemma assured her, although surprised. She had met Erika when she was first posted to Notting Hill, and although they'd developed a friendship that Gemma valued, she'd never known Erika to call except to issue an invitation to tea or lunch, or to reply to an invitation from Gemma. Dr. Erika Rosenthal was a retired academic, a German Jew who had immigrated at the beginning of the war and made a noted career as a historian, and although Gemma had felt flattered by the older woman's interest and support, Erika had always guarded her independence fiercely.

"Is there something wrong?" Gemma asked now, putting down the coffeepot and listening intently.

"I don't quite know," answered Erika, some of the usual crispness returning to her voice, although her accent was still more pronounced than usual. "But something very strange has happened, and I think-I'm very much afraid I need your help."

May 1952, Chelsea

He knew the peculiarities of the latch so well that even with his coordination slightly impaired, he could ease the key round and swing the door open without a whisper of sound. Not that his delicate entry did him any good, because there was no way he could prevent the click as the lock snicked closed behind him.

"Gavin? Is that you?" called Linda from the kitchen. His wife had ears like a bat.

Of course it bloody was, he thought, unless it was a burglar with a key, but he merely sighed and said, "Sorry I'm late. Had some things to wind up."

"You and the rest of the station." Linda came into the hall, wiping her hands on her pink-flowered pinny, her nose wrinkling in the way that meant she could pick up the scent of beer or tobacco from twenty feet. Bloodhound, maybe, not bat, he mused, and his mouth must have twitched involuntarily because she said, "What's so funny? You've been down the pub with your mates, and your dinner's burned again."

He caught the sickly sweet smell of charred shepherd's pie, and felt his stomach give an uneasy flip-flop. "I ate something at the station-" he began, and saw her lips compress into the thin line that meant she was going to tell him he'd wasted his ration of mince.

"I know," he interrupted, "the children could have had it." He noticed, then, that the flat was quiet except for the faint mutter of the wireless that Linda kept in the kitchen for company. The children must be out. His instant's relief was followed by a flush of shame.

In the course of his job, he visited homes where children clustered round their parents, hugging their legs and clamoring for attention, but he couldn't remember his ever behaving that way, and the older they got, the less he seemed to have to say to them, or they to him.

Stuart was twelve, conceived in the first flush of his courtship with Linda, when the threat of war lent an urgency to lovemaking that had long since vanished. Susan was a product of a brief leave from the front two years later, procreation fueled this time by a desperate need to leave something of himself behind if he did not come back.

But he had survived, and if the truth be told, he found his children a disappointment. The son he had imagined as his companion, the boy he would teach to play football and take for long afternoons of idling along the Thames, was thin and serious, his nose always in a book, and didn't seem to know the difference between rugger and cricket.