The Sound of Broken Glass (44 page)

Authors: Deborah Crombie

“What are youâhow did youâ”

“Your friend Sergeant Talbot gave me your address. I thought, since you never returned my calls, that maybe with the bum ankle you couldn't avoid me.”

“But Iâ You were the one whoâ” Doug stopped. The memory of her rejection still made him cringe. He'd thought their relationship was going somewhere until the night he tried to kiss her on the Millennium Bridge.

“You never gave me a chance to explain.”

“You didn't have toâ”

“Just shut up, will you, Doug?” She gave the exasperated sigh he remembered. “I'd been seeing someone before I went out with you. We'd split up. Before I met you that night, he'd rung, wanting to get back together. I'd thought it might work out, and so I didn't want toâ It was complicated.”

Doug frowned. “Did it work?” he asked, interested in spite of himself.

“For a week.” Maura made a disgusted face. “Lucky it lasted that long. I was an idiot, and all the while I was ringing you and you wouldnae talk to me. Look. I didnae come to grovel. I just thought maybe we could be .Â .Â .Â friends. If you're not going to let me in, at least take your stupid wee flowers. I'm bloody freezing.” Maura shivered.

It had started to snow again, great white flakes that drifted gently in the glow from the streetlamp.

Doug pushed his glasses up on his nose. He remembered now, not how hurt he'd been, but how much he had liked this prickly, funny woman, who was never less than honest.

“I seem to be making a habit of acquiring female friends,” he said. “I suppose I could do with one more.” Opening the door wide, he stepped back. “You didn't by any chance bring anything edible?”

Melody and Gemma waited at the hospital for Joe Peterson to come out of the operating theater. The afternoon had drawn into night, and when Melody, restless, went to look out the reception area doors, the snow was falling again.

The foyer door opened and Andy came to stand beside her. His hair fell over the square of white gauze on his forehead, making him look quite rakish.

“Is she gone, then?” asked Melody. He'd insisted on staying with Nadine until she was released.

“She wouldn't let me see her back to Covent Garden.” He shrugged. “It's very odd. How someone can seem so different and yet the same. She said she'll go back to Paris.”

“I know. She told me. There will be some legal things to work out first.”

“Will she be all right, do you think?”

“Yes.” Melody considered. “I think so.” It seemed to her that Nadine Drake had not only survived what life had thrown at her, but that she might at last have found her place in it, and some peace. “What about you?”

He shrugged. “I don't know. I lost the Strat. It was in the flat.”

“Oh, Andy.” She turned to him. “I'm so sorry.” She'd come to realize what the guitar meant to him. It had been his talisman, his connection to the past, his hedge against fate. “They might recover it.”

“Time for a new start, maybe,” he said, with a shrug. “But Poppy will be livid. She liked the sound.” He threw a glance at her. “I was thinking of quitting. The thing with Poppy.” Touching a finger to the cold glass, he gazed out at the snow. “I thought that if I let myself care about anything, I would somehow lose it, and I didn't want to take that chance with something I'd wanted so badly. But I think I might have been wrong.”

“You can't dream of quitting,” said Melody, horrified. “You're brilliant, the two of you. If you don't do this, you'll regret it the rest of your life.”

He turned to meet her eyes. “It would mean I'd be touring. There wouldn't be much time forâ”

Gemma, coming into the foyer, said, “Oh, there you two are. Peterson's out of surgery, and they think he'll be okay, barring infection. I'm just going to order a guard, although I don't think he's going to be jumping up and running about any time soon, thanks to you, Andy.” She sighed, rubbing at a bit of soot left at her hairline. “And his father's shown up, with lawyer, so I'm going to have to deal with them. I'll enjoy telling him that we will be the ones pressing charges, not him. Melody, you might as well leave me to it. I'll see you at the station in the morning.” Straightening her shoulders, she headed back for reception.

Melody didn't know what Andy had been going to say, and couldn't bring herself to ask. Instead, she ventured, “I don't suppose there's any chance of me getting my car.”

He laughed. “From Crystal Palace, in this weather? Nothing will move in or out of the triangle until it thaws. But we can get the train from Denmark Hill.”

“We?” she said, hesitantly.

“Well, as far as you want to go together. I meanâ” He colored. “You never told me where you live, you know.”

“Notting Hill.” Melody thought of going home to the quiet, empty flat. The flat she had never invited anyone to visit, not even Gemma or Doug, because she'd been afraid of their breaching her carefully built barriers.

And what, she thought, had that got her? Nights spent in front of the telly, drinking a few too many glasses of wine and eating ready meals. Suddenly the safety of her solitary existence seemed much less appealing.

She remembered the fantasy she'd had, the evening of the day she'd met Andy. Standing at the window of her flat, looking down into Portobello Road, she'd wondered what it would be like to walk, arm in arm with him, in the cold, brisk air, feeling the warmth of his body through her coat. Now, with a flutter of desire, she imagined much, much more.

She took a breath and said, “We could go to my place, if you like.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

There have been a number of proposals for the site over the years but all of them have fallen to the way side .Â .Â .Â But Crystal Palace will live on in the minds of those that loved it for a very long time to come.

âBetty Carew, www.helium.com

Kincaid woke early on a dark Monday morning in February, showered, then spent a good deal of time examining the contents of his wardrobe. At last he decided on a suit and tie rather than his usual trousers and sports jacket. He felt he should mark the occasion. It had been so long since he'd dressed for work that he had to brush the dust from the shoulders of his jacket.

“You'll look lovely, whatever you wear,” said Gemma, coming out of the bathroom and kissing him on the cheek.

“I don't think âlovely' is the operative word,” he countered, but grinned.

“Wear the blue, then. It brings out the color of your eyes. I can take Char this morning, if you like,” she added, continuing the quick, deft plaiting of her hair that always amazed him.

“No, I want to. But thanks.”

Gemma had been busy the past few weeks, tying up the details of the Peterson investigation for the Crown prosecutor. Although Joe Peterson and his lawyer were staunchly protesting his innocence, they'd found a fingerprint match in the room in the Belvedere Hotel, and Peterson's blood type and DNA had matched that of the blood spot found on the sheet beneath Vincent Arnott's body.

Kincaid was glad to see Gemma getting the credit she deserved for solving the caseâit erased a bit of the guilt he'd felt over what he'd suspected were the real reasons behind her appointment to the South London murder team.

And he'd achieved a major victoryâhe'd got her to agree to a dinner invitation from MacKenzie Williams for the coming weekend.

Their morning routine went on as usual. The house smelled of bacon and toast. Dishes clattered in the kitchen and the rooms rang with the racket of children and animals, all demanding one thing or another. When it was time, leaving Gemma to see the boys off, he buckled Charlotte into the Astra and drove her the short distance to her school.

He hadn't expected the lump in his throat as he walked her to the door and pushed the buzzer. “Bye, sweetheart.” He leaned down to kiss her. “See you tonight.” Charlotte had adjusted so well to her new school that she had now begun full days.

“Bye-bye, Papa.” She wrapped her small arms round his neck and pressed her face against his, and then she was gone, into the throng of children in their bright blazers.

He'd get used to it, he thought. He would get used to leaving her.

The traffic was light for a Monday, and he arrived at the Yard even earlier than he'd intended. The building seemed unusually quiet as well. There was no one in the corridor when he arrived on his floor, no one to welcome him on his first day back.

For a moment, he considered going up to see his guv'nor, Chief Superintendent Childs, before he went into his office, but he was suddenly and unexpectedly eager for the sight of the small room with its rickety coatrack and carefully organized shelves of books. He'd missed it.

Opening the door, for a moment he thought he'd wandered into the wrong office. He shook his head, baffled. There were his shelvesâhe'd built them himself when he'd first been promoted to superintendent. But they were empty. Cardboard boxes sat stacked against one wall.

And it
was
his desk, an old oak piece he'd bought at an estate sale to replace the standard police issue when he'd first started at the Yard. But it was bare as well, except for a plain white envelope with his name scrawled across the front.

He felt as if he were sleepwalking. Slowly, he picked up the envelope, lifted the unsealed flap, and eased out the single sheet of paper.

It was a letter of transfer. And his chief superintendent had signed it.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

DEBORAH CROMBIE
is a native Texan who has lived in both England and Scotland. She lives in McKinney, Texas, sharing a house that is more than one hundred years old with her husband, three cats, and two German shepherds.

www.deborahcrombie.com

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BOOKS BY DEBORAH CROMBIE

The Sound of Broken Glass

No Mark upon Her

Necessary as Blood

Where Memories Lie

Water Like a Stone

In a Dark House

Now May You Weep

And Justice There Is None

A Finer End

Kissed a Sad Goodbye

Dreaming of the Bones

Mourn Not Your Dead

Leave the Grave Green

All Shall Be Well

A Share in Death

CREDITS

Cover design by Richard L. Aquan
Cover photograph Â© by Benjamin Harte/Arcangel Images
Map drawn by Laura Hartman Maestro

COPYRIGHT

This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

THE SOUND OF BROKEN GLASS
. Copyright Â© 2013 by Deborah Crombie. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

FIRST EDITION

ISBN 978-0-06-199063-2 (hardcover)

ISBN 978-0-06-224846-6 (international edition)

EPub Edition Â© MARCH 2013 ISBN: 9780062201607

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