Where Memories Lie (10 page)

Superintendent Mark Lamb had been both understanding and sympathetic. Not that Gemma had expected less—he was a personal friend as well as her boss, and a generous and diplomatic administrator. He’d told her to take what time she needed, but to let him know if she were going to be out of the station for more than a day. As she turned to go, he added, “Lovely party, by the way,” and she flushed at the unexpected compliment.

After that, confiding in Melody was easier, and Melody took the news in her usual matter-of-fact fashion. “I’m sure she’ll be fine, boss. Now, you go and have a nice visit, and I’ll—”

Whatever practical help Melody had meant to offer was cut off by the chirping of Gemma’s mobile. “Sorry,” said Gemma,
surprised to see Erika’s name come up on the caller ID.

As she answered, Erika’s voice came over the line. “Gemma? I couldn’t find a phone box.” She sounded breathy, near panic. “I tried, but it’s all mobiles these days, and I thought if I came home—But I should have rung right away—”

“Erika, what is it?” Gemma asked, dropping her bag on her desk and sinking back into her chair.

“Harrowby’s. The salesrooms. I went to see the brooch—I—” Erika took a ragged breath, then began more calmly. “I wanted to see it for myself. But everything was in an uproar. The girl—the one you said you thought might know something—Kristin. I remembered the name.”

Gemma felt cold. “Kristin Cahill.”

“That’s right. They said she was killed last night. An accident. A hit-and-run, near where she lived, in World’s End. Gemma, if this had anything to do with me, with the brooch—I should never have—”

“Erika, no. Listen, I’m sure it’s just coincidence, just an awful coincidence.” But Gemma was mouthing words automatically, fighting nausea as she remembered Kristin Cahill’s pale gamine face, and the young woman’s frightened look when her boss had come into the room.

“But, Gemma—”

“I’m sure it’s nothing,” said Gemma firmly. “But I’ll look into it. Straightaway. I promise.”

Coincidence. Gemma didn’t bloody believe in coincidence. Not like this—talking to a girl one day about something that seemed very slightly dodgy, having the same girl turn up dead the next.

She sat at her desk, tapping her phone on the blotter, straightening pencils and pens into neat regiments. Melody had gone to take a call, leaving Gemma to contemplate the ugly implications of Erika’s story, and the more she thought, the less she liked it.

But was it possible there was more than one Kristin at Harrowby’s? Erika hadn’t heard a last name. Before she talked to anyone at the salesroom, Gemma had better make absolutely sure of her facts. Erika had said the accident happened in World’s End, the westernmost edge of Chelsea, so the obvious place to start would be the Chelsea nick.

Harry Pevensey had never believed that the early bird got the worm. Late to bed and late to rise, that was an actor’s life, and it had always suited him. He had his routines, everything just so, drapes drawn to keep out the morning’s harsh intrusiveness, eye mask ditto, dressing gown to hand and kettle ready to boil, so that he could slip into the day as painlessly as his usual hangover would allow. And no less than eight hours’ sleep—otherwise he’d look like hell, and no amount of makeup would make amends.

So Harry was affronted on Tuesday morning when, just as he was opening one eye and then the other, testing the intensity of the light compared to the sharpness of the knife tip between his eyes and contemplating the operation of verticality, someone began a bloody pounding on his door.

“What the hell,” he muttered, sitting up with more force than necessary and wincing at the consequences. Whoever it was had bypassed the downstairs buzzer—had his wannabe rock-god neighbor, Andy Monahan, left the building’s main door off the latch again? Or—Harry froze with his feet halfway into his worn slippers.

There was the wine merchant’s bill he hadn’t paid, and the shirt-maker’s—couldn’t go to auditions looking like something the cat dragged in, after all. And if they got a bit impatient, they were likely to employ less-than-civilized means of collecting their filthy lucre.

For a moment he considered putting his head back under the covers, but if they broke his door down, there would be hell to pay, and he’d have lost any chance of presenting a dignified front.

He’d got back into his slippers and donned his dressing gown when the pounding grew even louder and someone shouted, “Harry! I know you’re in there. Open the fucking door!”

Recognizing the voice, Harry said, “Dom?” What was Dominic Scott doing here, and making such a racket? “Just shut up, would you?” he called out as he shuffled to the door, his head pounding like a jackhammer.

“Harry, let me—” Dom staggered in, fist raised, as Harry opened the door. He looked worse than Harry felt—unwashed hair, pasty faced, and his breath reeked of stale alcohol and cigarettes, which Harry despised.

Harry closed the door, then grimaced, backing off a step. “You smell like a pub ashtray. And what do you think you’re doing knocking me up at this hour? Not to mention giving the neighbors something to gossip about for weeks.”

“Since when have you ever minded giving anyone cause for gossip,” retorted Dom, sinking into Harry’s brocaded slipper chair, a bequest from his paternal grandmother.

“And you look like shit,” Harry continued, undeterred. It was a shame the boy let himself go, Harry thought, as he had looks Harry would have envied in his day. He considered booting Dom out of his favorite chair, but couldn’t decide where he’d rather have him sit. He settled for taking the other armchair himself, after he’d straightened the covers on the bed. “What do you want, Dom?”

Dom leaned forward, and Harry saw that his hands were shaking. “Have you got anything, Harry? Offer a mate a drink? I’m not feeling too well.”

“No. Bar’s closed,” said Harry, thinking longingly of the bottle of gin tucked away in his kitchen cupboard. The hair of the dog would ease his headache, but he wanted Dom Scott out of his flat as soon as possible, and he certainly wasn’t inclined to share his medicinal stash.

“Coffee, then? Or even tea?”

Harry glanced at his filled kettle, his favorite cup set out beside it, along with the tea caddy, and sighed. “All right. One cup. But then you’d better make it quick.” Not that he had anywhere to go, but the young man’s behavior was making him anxious. Dom Scott was used to demanding, not pleading, which made Harry suspect there was a serious spanner in the works.

He made the tea while Dom fidgeted in the chair like a fretful child, pulling at his shirt cuffs, tugging at his already disarrayed dark hair. Harry had seen the signs before, and they weren’t good, nor did they bode well for their joint scheme.

While the tea brewed, he excused himself to the loo, running a brush through his hair and examining his face—definitely the worse for wear—in the fly-specked mirror. Visions floated through his mind. Unsuccessful auditions. Bad parts in unheated village theaters. Mothers’ unions, God forbid. Bill collectors who wouldn’t, couldn’t, be put off.

No, he was not going to let go of the merry-go-round. Not now, boyo. He could deal with Dominic Scott, a spoiled little tosser who didn’t have half his mother’s bollocks.

Harry went back into the sitting room with a smile and a new and steely resolve. He poured Dom’s tea into a china cup that he hated to trust to the boy’s twitchy fingers, then poured his own and sat on the arm of a chair, ankles crossed, as if he hadn’t a care in the world.

“All right, Dom. What seems to be the problem?”

Dom gulped his tea until his cup was empty, then stared at him as if he’d suddenly lost the power of speech. Then he swallowed visibly and said, “Harry, we have to take the brooch out of the sale.”

“What? Take it
out
of the sale?” Harry had expected him to try cutting his percentage, but not this. “Are you mad?”

“No. Look, I’m telling you. It has to come out.”

“Why on earth would you want to do that? We’re talking about a more-than-six-figure profit, and you’re the one needed—”

Dom was shaking his head. “The police have been round. They talked to Kristin. They’re asking questions about the brooch. Some woman says it was stolen from her during the war.”

“Stolen?” Harry thought swiftly. “What did Kristin tell them?”

“Nothing. But she could lose her job. I asked her to take the brooch out, but she says she can’t. She says you’re the only one who can withdraw it.”

“I bought it at a car boot sale,” Harry said with an offhand shrug. “So why should it matter to me what some woman says?”

Dom twisted the teacup until it fell from his fingers and bounced on the threadbare Axminster carpet. “Harry, you don’t underst—”

“No.
You
don’t understand.” For the first time in his life, Harry Pevensey knew he had the advantage. “The brooch stays in the sale. And maybe, if you’re a really good boy, I’ll give
you
a percentage of the profit.”

Gemma had always liked the Lucan Place Police Station. Like Notting Hill, it was one of the few prewar buildings still functioning as an active station, and like Notting Hill, it had a warmth and grace most of the newer stations lacked.

It was also just a few streets from the South Kensington tube station, not far from Harrowby’s, another rather uncomfortable coincidence, it seemed to Gemma.

She identified herself at reception and asked to see the officer in charge of the hit-and-run accident investigation. While the duty officer gave her a curious look, she was told she could see Inspector Boatman, and was soon shown into an office not unlike her own.

The officer who stood to greet her was female, short, stocky, dark haired, and somewhere in her indeterminate thirties, Gemma guessed. She wore a serviceable suit and no makeup, but when she smiled and held out her hand to Gemma, any notion of her as unattractive vanished.

“You’re Inspector James?” she asked. “I’m Kerry Boatman. Have a seat.” Like Gemma’s, her desk was cluttered with paperwork, but the visitors’ chairs were clear and looked as though they had seen much use. Spaced among the files on Boatman’s desk, however, were a half-dozen photos, showing, from the sideways angle Gemma could see, various poses of a balding man, two toothy little girls, and a large tabby cat. Gemma, on the other hand, displayed nothing personal in her office, feeling it was inappropriate to cross those professional boundaries, but she suddenly felt a little ache of envy under her breastbone.

“I see you’re here about last night’s hit-and-run,” said Boatman, glancing down at a scribbled note by her phone. “That’s a bit odd, as it’s not on your patch.” There was no hint of hostility in her voice, just interest.

“The victim—It
was
Kristin Cahill? The girl who worked at Harrowby’s?” asked Gemma.

“Yes.” Boatman consulted her notes again. “Twenty-three years old, a junior sales assistant for the last year at Harrowby’s. She lived with her parents in a flat at World’s End.”

Since Erika’s phone call, Gemma had been sure of the victim’s identity, but she felt a stab of regret at the confirmation. “I met her yesterday,” she told Boatman. “I was making an inquiry, unofficially, for a friend.” She went on to explain about Erika and the brooch, and that she had felt Kristin was slightly uncomfortable with her questions. “Then this morning my friend went to Harrowby’s. She wanted to see the brooch for herself, and to talk to someone more senior. When she heard about Kristin, she rang me. And I just felt it was…odd.”

Kerry Boatman studied her for a moment. “It seems your instincts may have been right. I’ve just had the preliminary from the accident scene investigation. Nothing concrete, of course, but from the tire marks, it looks as though the car that hit Kristin Cahill accelerated, rather than braked. And that, before it accelerated, it was parked at the curb near Kristin’s building.”

“Someone was waiting for her?”

“It seems possible, yes.”

“Any witnesses?”

“No one saw anything. The pub had cleared out, the street was empty. But someone who lived opposite the scene said they heard the squeal of tires. A Mr. Madha. It was he who went out to investigate, and called 999.”

“Did she—was she—”

“The ambulance service transported her, but she was pronounced dead on admittance. Internal bleeding, a smashed pelvis, and severe head injuries.”

Gemma shut her eyes, as if she might shut out the vision of the graceful girl’s broken body. When she looked up again, she found the other officer watching her with evident compassion. “It’s difficult,” said Boatman, “when you’ve met someone, however briefly.”

“If I could be sure that it wasn’t something I said or did, some question I asked…”

“Well.” Boatman sighed. “That won’t be for us to determine. It’s out of our remit now. I’ll be turning it over to a Murder Investigation Team from the Yard.”

Gemma had her mobile in hand as she walked out the door of Lucan Place. She’d thanked Inspector Boatman and taken her leave as quickly as was polite. “If there’s anything you can tell the team, once an SIO is assigned,” Boatman had added. “We still can’t be sure at this point that it wasn’t drink-driving-related manslaughter, or that she wasn’t a random victim, if it
was
homicide. But if it should have some connection with your inquiry…”

Gemma had responded with no small irony that she would certainly be in touch.

MIT. The Metropolitan Police’s Murder Investigation Teams, sometimes called Major Investigation Teams. But no matter the nomenclature, this was Kincaid’s job, his territory—why not his team?

He answered on the first ring. “Hullo, love. What’s up? Are you at hosp—”

“No. No, I haven’t made it yet. Something’s come up. The girl I met yesterday at Harrowby’s, Kristin Cahill—she’s been killed in a hit-and-run. Manslaughter at the least, homicide at the worst. Chelsea is calling in the Yard. I want you to request the case.”

There was silence on the line. She could almost see him thinking, his brow creased in a slight frown. “Look,” she said. “I know it’s slightly irregular, but—”

“Slightly? Gemma, I’ve a personal involvement—”

“No, what you have is a bit of background information that would give you an advantage. You never met Kristin Cahill. And who else,” she added, “would take what I have to say as seriously?”

“But that’s just it, isn’t it?” he argued. “You’re too close—”

“I met this girl. I asked questions that might have got her into trouble. I want to know, one way or the other. And I want justice for her, even if her death had nothing to do with my questions about the Goldshtein brooch. She was twenty-three years old, for heaven’s sake, just starting out in her life,” Gemma added vehemently. “And I liked her.”

She was still standing on the pavement outside Lucan Place, and a shopping-laden woman passing by gave her a curious glance. Gemma started back toward the Fulham Road, and dropped her voice. “Duncan—”

“I don’t like it,” Kincaid broke in. “But I’m never going to hear the end of it, otherwise, am I? And what exactly do you suggest I tell Chief Superintendent Childs?”

Although Gavin now had some idea of what had been in David Rosenthal’s satchel, he was no closer to knowing why it had been taken, or what Rosenthal had been doing in Cheyne Walk.

He had been to the school in North Hampstead where David had
taught. Rosenthal “kept himself to himself,” his fellow teachers had said, with a wariness that made Gavin wonder what they might have said had he not been an outsider, a gentile, as well as a policeman.

He met the head last, who invited him into his office. Saul Bernstein was younger than Gavin had expected, perhaps only in his thirties, a chubby man who seemed to be compensating for his lack of years with an air of gravitas and a billowing pipe.

The day had turned unseasonably hot for May, and the small room was stuffy but nonetheless pleasant, with its odor of books and pipe tobacco. The sound of boys playing at some game drifted in through the open window.

“Did no one like David Rosenthal?” asked Gavin, when he’d taken the proffered seat on the far side of Bernstein’s desk.

“Like?” Bernstein sounded slightly puzzled. “I wouldn’t say that David’s colleagues didn’t like him. Everyone is still quite shocked, you know—David’s death is not the sort of thing one expects—”

“Murder,” Gavin interrupted, suddenly wanting to shake this man’s complacency. “David Rosenthal was murdered. Violently. I’d say someone disliked him intensely.”

“Quite.” Bernstein paled a little, and set the pipe in an ashtray. “But I assure you it wasn’t anyone here. As I said, it wasn’t a question of David’s colleagues disliking him. David was civil, considerate, uninterested in petty staff squabbles, and did his job with dedication. And that was all. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who seemed less interested in the approval of his peers.”

“What about the approval of his students?”

“David was a good teacher, as I’ve said. Very thorough, and well prepared. But I doubt he would have noticed whether or not his students liked him.”

“David Rosenthal wore a tiny gold mezuzah on a chain round his neck. It was the only thing not taken when he was killed. His wife said that one of his students gave it to him.”

Bernstein frowned. “We don’t allow the boys to give gifts to the
teachers, or vice versa. It too easily creates a climate of favoritism. And misunderstandings.”

“And did David have any
misunderstandings
with anyone? Any arguments?”

“No.” Bernstein hesitated, then shrugged. “Not here, at least. But there was something. The Jewish community has dispersed somewhat since the war, but it is still fairly close knit. There is a network of sorts, so that one picks up information—not necessarily true, of course—about people that one doesn’t know personally.”

Gavin waited, and after a moment, Bernstein went on. “I don’t like to tell tales, Inspector. But I saw David once, in the East End, talking to a man who is reputed to be involved with a…vengeance group.” He pinched his lips together as if the words themselves were distasteful.

“Vengeance?”

Bernstein settled himself more solidly in his chair. “It’s my opinion that we must move forward, put the past behind us. But there are those who…feel differently. Those who believe that not all who committed atrocities against the Jews during the war received justice. This man…he was pointed out to me once, as someone who espoused those…philosophies.”

Tired of the circumlocution, Gavin said, “What was the man’s name?”

“I don’t know. I only recognized his face.”

“And did you ever ask David about this man, or this meeting?”

“No.” Bernstein looked uncomfortable. “He didn’t see me, and I thought it best…left alone.” He didn’t meet Gavin’s eyes. “There was something about him that repelled any attempt at confidence…You may think this fanciful, Inspector, but a bitterness hung about David Rosenthal…It made me think of the odor of charred ashes.”

Kincaid had always found the truth to be the most effective measure in dealing with Chief Superintendent Denis Childs. After a brief wait in the anteroom, during which he chatted with Childs’s secretary, he was called into the inner sanctum.

He found his boss looking less sanguine than usual. His doctor had put him on a fitness and slimming regime, and while Childs might have dropped a few pounds, it had not improved his temper. It seemed to Kincaid that Childs was simply one of those men who were meant to be fat. It suited his personality, and attempting to change his essential physiology was more than likely an exercise in futility.

Still, he asked, “How are you, sir?” as Childs invited him to sit, and got a grimace and a mutter in reply.

“A treadmill,” Childs said. “They have me walking on a treadmill! As if one doesn’t walk enough in London.”

Kincaid hid a grin. “You look well.”

“Ha.” Childs glared at him. “I’ll have to get a new wardrobe soon, and I hate shopping. But”—he leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers in his familiar pose—“you didn’t come to see me to discuss my suits.”

“No. There’s been a suspicious death in Chelsea, and Lucan Place is going to be calling for a team. I’d like to take it.”

Childs raised a brow. “Have you acquired telepathy, then?”

“No, sir,” Kincaid said. “Although there are days when it might prove helpful.”

He proceeded to explain how Gemma had met Kristin Cahill, had thought something seemed a little dodgy, and how Kristin had subsequently died.

“I take it Gemma wants you on the case?”

“Yes. But I have to admit I’m curious, too. Gemma’s instincts are seldom wrong, and if this has to do with the auction house, we could be looking at something big.”

“And what about Gemma? I can’t see her being content to take a
backseat, and I don’t imagine Mark Lamb would be too happy to have her haring off after a Homicide division inquiry.”

“As it happens, Gemma’s taking a bit of personal time at the moment. Her mum’s ill.”

“Sorry to hear that,” said Childs, but there was an unmistakable glint of humor in his eyes. “Ring Lucan Place, then, and get the record transfer started. And keep me informed.”

Doug Cullen was less than pleased to be assigned a case on some whim of Gemma James’s. Although he’d worked with Kincaid long enough now to have got over the first rash of professional jealousy, and he’d come to know Gemma well enough to like her personally, he didn’t fancy being dictated to by his guv’nor’s former sergeant, much less his girlfriend.

He was skeptical about the investigation’s validity, as well. That was a notoriously bad stretch of road—there had been a fatality there just recently, when some idiot in a fast car had blown through World’s End at three in the morning and wrapped himself round a light pole. Odds were that this girl had stepped out in front of someone equally careless—wrong place, wrong time.

But as the material began to come through from Chelsea, his certainty wavered. It had been fairly early, for one thing, not long after pub closing time, and before the staggeringly pissed emptied out of the nightclubs. And although a lack of braking wouldn’t have convinced him, the preliminary accident investigation reports showed clear signs that the car had accelerated away from the curb west of Edith Grove and into the intersection.

And then there was the photo of the girl herself, a copy of a recent snapshot contributed by her parents. Kristin Cahill had been undeniably pretty, but it was more than that. There was a slightly wistful appeal in her eyes, and in the little half smile she had thrown at the camera. Finding himself wishing that he had met her, Doug
began to see why Gemma might have got her knickers in a twist over the girl’s death.

Still, when he and Kincaid arrived at Harrowby’s an hour later to begin questioning the staff, he wasn’t best pleased to find Gemma James waiting on the pavement.

“I thought I might be able to help,” said Gemma, taking in Cullen’s glare and the slight twitch of Kincaid’s lips.

“And I thought you were going to hospital,” Kincaid replied.

Gemma tamped down a twinge of guilt. “Cyn rang. She said they’ve taken Mum down for more tests, so there was nothing I could do until later. And since I’d met some of the staff here…” Seeing Cullen’s blank look, she realized Kincaid hadn’t told him about her mother. “My mum’s in St. Barts,” she explained to Cullen. “Having some tests.”

“Oh, sorry.”

Unwilling to say more, Gemma nodded her thanks and let Kincaid lead the way towards the salesroom door.

Kincaid was, after all, the senior investigating officer, and while she might tag along, she had better not charge into things like Boadicea come to conquer. What she’d have done if another team had shown up, she didn’t like to think.

“I’m glad you took the case,” she murmured to him.

“You were persuasive.” He paused, studying her. “And as long as you’re here, it might not be a bad idea for you to introduce us. Up the ante a bit if they think that something they said to you, or that Kristin said to you, brought you back.”

Harrowby’s seemed eerily quiet, the auctioneer’s podium empty, the large television dark, the rows of chairs that had held yesterday’s bidders unfilled. And gone was the composed Mrs. March who
had greeted them at reception the previous day. Although neatly dressed in what appeared to be a cashmere twinset, her nose was red, her makeup smudged, and she held a ragged wad of tissues in her hand.

For a moment she looked blankly at Gemma, then recognition dawned. “You didn’t say you were with the police. Yesterday.” Mrs. March gave a slow, baffled shake of her head. “She’s dead. Kristin’s dead.”

“It
was
a personal visit yesterday, Mrs. March,” said Gemma gently, glancing at Kincaid, who seemed content to stay in the background. “But yes, we know Kristin’s dead. That’s why we’re here. Can you tell me a bit about what happened?”

“Kristin didn’t come in for work this morning. That’s very unlike her. She’s a good girl.” The look she gave them was beseeching. “You do have favorites, you know. And Kristin, for all her cheekiness…She wanted to please. And she was…kind to me.”

Suddenly Gemma saw, beneath the starchily prim exterior, a lonely woman who had taken any crumbs Kristin had, however unwittingly, thrown in her wake, and turned them into gems.

“So you were worried about her this morning,” she prompted as Mrs. March’s eyes filled and she pressed the ball of tissue to her nose.

Mrs. March sniffed and lowered her hand, tears temporarily staved off. “I rang her at home. Just to see if she was all right. She seemed a bit…unsettled…yesterday. I wasn’t sure if it was your visit or the flowers, or if it was because Mr. Khan…” Glancing round, Mrs. March lowered her voice. “Well, he was a bit rough on her, to tell you the truth.”

Gemma sensed a quickening of attention from Kincaid and Cullen, but she didn’t want either of them to interrupt her rapport with Mrs. March. “Was this before or after our visit, Kristin’s little…um, disagreement with Mr. Khan?”

“After.” For the first time, Mrs. March seemed to take in the two
men with Gemma, both wearing suits and carrying themselves with the indefinable but unmistakable bearing that marked them as police officers. “I—I don’t want to speak out of turn. You’re all police, aren’t you?”

Kincaid stepped in. “Mrs. March, we only want to help. I’m Detective Superintendent Kincaid, and this is Detective Sergeant Cullen. Can you tell us what happened when you rang Kristin’s home this morning?”

It was a good deflection, Gemma thought. They would save Mr. Khan for later.

“A police officer answered the phone. She said she was a family liaison officer, and that there had been an accident.” The tears began to flow, this time unchecked. “She said that Kristin was dead. That she had been hit by a car as she was crossing the road last night. I still can’t believe it.”