Where Memories Lie (22 page)

“Mrs. Rosenthal, he was doing his job,” Superintendent Tyrell said with a great show of patience. “That doesn’t mean that all was well. In confidence,” he added, lowering his voice, “there were domestic…difficulties. And the war. He served, you know, and for some men, it only takes a small thing to tip the balance—”

A rush of anger filled the void within her. “I do not believe for one minute that Gavin Hoxley was the sort of man who would commit suicide.” She stood so that she could look down at Tyrell. “There must be some other explanation.”

Tyrell laced his fingers across his paunch and looked at her with a sudden speculation that made her feel unclean. “Mrs. Rosenthal. You do realize that if it ever were to come out that Gavin Hoxley had crossed the line with a witness, it would ruin his reputation. I’m sure you wouldn’t want that. Nor would you want to cause more grief to his family. His wife and children have suffered enough as it is, don’t you think?” He fixed her with pale blue eyes that made her think of the dead fish on the market stall.

It was blackmail, no matter how politely it was couched. And she was helpless against it. Gavin was lost to her. Even in death she could not touch him, could not help him.

Everything that had mattered to her was slipping away, dissolving like mist when she clutched at it. Erika made a last desperate effort. “But my husband—what about my husband’s murder?”

Tyrell smiled. “Someone else will look into it, Mrs. Rosenthal. I promise you.”

Gemma hailed a cab and within minutes was standing on the Embankment across from Cheyne Walk. She stared out at the river, framed between the Albert and Battersea bridges. The day was still overcast, and the water looked dull and impenetrable.

The report on Gavin Hoxley’s death said his body had washed ashore farther downstream, near Chelsea Bridge. That didn’t mean that was where it had gone in, however, but there would have been no way of calculating tide and current unless one knew
when
he had gone in.

She looked east. According to his personnel file, Hoxley had lived in Tedworth Square, near the top of the Royal Hospital Gardens. Had he, as the report inferred, simply walked down Tite Street and jumped in the river? The report said there had been no marks on his body to suggest an altercation, and that the balance of his mind may have been disturbed due to domestic problems. No postmortem had been ordered.

It seemed to Gemma a very cavalier judgment, even for a time when procedures may not have been as stringent—and if that was the case, Gavin Hoxley had been an anomaly. If his work on David Rosenthal’s murder had been anything to go by, she couldn’t have done a better job herself.

She watched a number 11 bus trundle down the Embankment, and suddenly felt a weird sense of displacement, as if time had rippled. Gavin Hoxley had surely stood here, watching the buses go past, admiring the delicate tracery of the Albert Bridge, puzzling over a crime he couldn’t solve. In the hours spent reading his notes, she’d come to feel she knew him, and now she experienced a sharp and personal sense of loss.

Silly, Gemma told herself. Gavin Hoxley had been dead for more than fifty years. But somehow that made no difference.

And because Gavin Hoxley had died, she thought, David
Rosenthal’s murder investigation had been shelved. Or…had it perhaps been the other way round?

Hearing a shout, Gemma turned and saw Kincaid and Doug Cullen getting out of a car in Cheyne Walk. She waved, then walked back to the crossing and waited for the light.

When she reached them, she said, “Anything new?”

“More a lack of anything new,” Kincaid answered. “We keep coming back to the fact that Dom Scott and the brooch are the only two links between the victims. We thought maybe Dom stole the brooch and used Harry to sell it so he wouldn’t be connected. Then when Erika came forward he had to cover his tracks.”

“So you’re just stirring it?”

“Basically, yeah.” He shrugged. “What was it you wanted to talk about?”

Gemma hesitated, looking up at the house. “It’s complicated. I’ll tell you after.” She mounted the steps and pushed the bell.

The door flew open before Gemma’s finger left the buzzer.

Ellen Miller-Scott stared out at them. Gone was the salon polish they had seen before. Her blond hair was disheveled, her face bare of makeup and tear-streaked. “But I just called,” she said on a sob. “How did you—You’ve got to help me—He—I can’t—”

“Where?” Kincaid barked at her. “Show us.”

She turned and started up the stairs, stumbling and grabbing the banister for support. As soon as Kincaid saw where she was going, he shot past her, and Gemma followed, taking the steps two at a time, leaving Cullen to help the woman.

But Kincaid came to a dead stop at the door of Dominic Scott’s apartment, and Gemma almost cannoned into his back.

“Oh, Christ,” he said, stepping slowly into the room, and without his body as a shield, Gemma saw what he had seen.

Dominic Scott hung from the beam in his sitting-room ceiling. A rope made of neckties was knotted round his neck, and a chair lay on its side beneath him. He wore jeans and a dress shirt, unbuttoned,
and his feet were bare. His handsome face was purple, suffused with congestion, and his open eyes had the opaque flatness that belonged only to the dead.

There was a terrible smell, and urine dripped from inside the leg of his jeans onto the carpet.

“Can’t you do something?” wailed Ellen Miller-Scott, and Gemma realized that she had come in behind them, and that Cullen was trying to restrain her and dial his mobile at the same time. Gemma put her arm round the woman so that Doug could release her.

Dominic’s mother turned to her, pleading, “Can’t you get him down? Please? I tried, but I couldn’t—”

Gemma met Kincaid’s eyes and tightened her hold. “Mrs. Miller-Scott. Ellen. I’m sorry, but I’m very much afraid it’s too late.”

January 1945
Wednesday, 17th

While Gemma restrained Ellen Miller-Scott, Kincaid took Cullen aside and asked him to ring for the pathologist and SOCOs.

“Right, guv,” said Cullen. Then he added in a whisper that carried, nodding in the direction of Dom Scott’s body, “But how likely is it that someone did that to him?”

Kincaid gave him a quelling glance and shook his head, but Gemma knew what he was thinking. It wouldn’t be the first time they’d seen it happen, someone strangled, then strung up to make it look like a suicide.

Ellen Miller-Scott pulled away from Gemma. “What do you mean, a crime scene? You can’t think—Dom—” She looked at her son’s body and took a heaving breath.

“Mrs. Miller-Scott, let’s get you downstairs.” Ellen Miller-Scott was definitely not going to fail a hearing test, Kincaid thought. “Doug, will you wait for reinforcements?”

Gemma didn’t think Cullen looked terribly thrilled at the prospect, but he nodded and pulled out his phone.

But it wasn’t until the ambulance team had arrived, shaken their heads and said, “Not our job, guv’nor,” that Gemma and Kincaid managed to get a protesting Ellen Miller-Scott downstairs and into her white sitting room.

The bold splashes of color in the paintings on the white walls seemed garish and somehow indecent after what they had seen upstairs. “I don’t want to leave him,” Ellen said again, looking back towards the stairs.

Gemma guided her to a spot on the sofa, deliberately positioning her so that the front hall was out of her view, while Kincaid pulled up an occasional chair so he could look at her directly.

“Mrs. Miller-Scott—Ellen—I know your son was upset over Kristin Cahill’s death,” he said. “But was there anything else troubling him?”

Ellen Miller-Scott rubbed hard at the fingers of her left hand with her right, as if she might peel the skin off. Shock and distress had left her looking her age, and Gemma could see the imperfections in her skin that makeup had covered on their first meeting.

“He—There were men, wanting money,” Ellen said. “Dom had had some problems with drugs since, oh, since school. Prescription stuff, mostly. You know, he injured his knee at football, and then it was difficult for him to stop the pills. I’m sure it happens all the time.” Even now, it sounded as if it were hard for her to admit. “And I—I didn’t like people threatening him, but this time I decided that it had to stop, that he would never get better if I helped him. But I never thought—What if—” Her face contorted in a sob, and turned, looking again at the doorway.

It seemed to Gemma that the human need to keep watch over
the dead was beyond reason—rooted in the knowledge that once the loved ones left your sight, they were lost to you forever. She couldn’t imagine how she would feel if it were Kit or Toby.

Just as quickly as that thought flickered across her mind, she tried to shut it out—you couldn’t do the job if you saw your own family in every victim. But because she had known Dom Scott, she was more vulnerable. Her mind strayed to her own mum. How hard must it be for her mother, who worried about her, not to tell her so? And now that their roles were reversed, could she do as well?

Kincaid’s gentle voice drew Gemma’s attention back to Ellen. “You can’t think that your decision had any bearing on your son’s actions,” he said. “You did what any parent might have done.”

“But—What if—” Ellen went back to rubbing at her fingers, her eyes blank.

“What about this morning, Ellen?” asked Gemma. “Did you talk to Dom this morning?”

Ellen gave Gemma a startled glance, as if she’d forgotten her presence, although Gemma sat near enough to touch. “I—We had a row,” she said, haltingly. “There was a company meeting and he didn’t want—Dom was always—I told him to get ready whether he wanted to go or not, that he couldn’t spend the rest of his life moping over that girl.”

Gemma saw Kincaid’s eyes widen, but Ellen didn’t seem to realize she’d said anything offensive.

“I took a shower,” she said, “thinking he’d cool off, be reasonable about it, but when I went back upstairs—He was—I couldn’t—” She put a hand over her mouth, then wailed, “Oh, dear God. I can’t believe it. He can’t be dead—Dom—”

“You did the right thing, ringing for help,” Kincaid assured her hurriedly, and Gemma hoped Cullen had called for a family liaison officer. They couldn’t leave her on her own when she was this distraught. “Ellen,” Kincaid went on. “I know this is difficult, but we need to ask you some things. You said Dominic was
upset about Kristin Cahill’s death. Did he talk to you about Harry Pevensey?”

“Who?” Ellen looked bewildered.

“Harry Pevensey. The man who was killed yesterday. Did Dom not tell you?”

“I don’t understand. Who was he?” She looked utterly bewildered. “What do you mean, he was killed?”

“Someone ran him down. Just like Kristin Cahill,” said Gemma.

“But—What does that have to do with Dom?”

Kincaid leaned forward. “That’s what we were hoping you could tell us. Harry Pevensey put a brooch up for sale at Harrowby’s through Kristin Cahill. And it was Dom who introduced them.”

“A brooch?” Ellen Miller-Scott fastened on the word. “Dom wouldn’t—Dom didn’t know what a brooch was. He had no interest in art, or collecting”—her gaze strayed to the paintings—“or any of the things our family—my father—had worked so hard to achieve. The business—” She shook her head. “Dom just couldn’t seem to learn the simplest things. My father—I’m glad he didn’t live to see
this
—”

Gemma stared at her, reminding herself that people who were in shock often said things they didn’t mean, but that didn’t stop her feeling a wave of revulsion for the woman sitting beside her.

“So Dom never spoke to you about Har—” Kincaid had begun, when the sound of voices came from the front door.

Doug Cullen came in, saying, “Guv, the pathologist is here. It’s Dr. Ling. She’s gone straight up. And family liaison’s here as well.”

Gemma found herself more ready than usual to leave the bereaved in the competent hands of the family liaison officer. This one, who followed Cullen into the room, was a good-looking man about Gemma’s age with curly dark hair.

As Gemma stood, he gave her a quick smile, then focused on Ellen. “Mrs. Miller-Scott? I’m Mark Lombardi. I’m very sorry for your loss.” He glanced at Kincaid, said, “Sir?” and at Kincaid’s nod of
assent, took Gemma’s place. “Mrs. Miller-Scott, can I get you anything? A cup of tea?”

“But I—” Ellen protested. “My son. What are they doing?”

As Lombardi said, “Why don’t we go into the kitchen, and I’ll explain everything to you,” Kincaid motioned Gemma into the hallway.

“Looks like she’s in good hands.” He nodded towards Lombardi. “And I suspect she does better with men. Let’s go see what Kate has to say.”

“I—You go on.” Gemma didn’t usually willingly leave Kincaid at the mercy of Kate Ling’s flirtatious banter, but she suddenly found she was not eager to see Dominic Scott’s body again.

“Are you all right?” Kincaid asked, his brow creasing in instant concern, a habit held over from the days of her precarious pregnancy.

“I’m fine, really,” she reassured him. “Just need a breath of air. Tell Kate I’ll say hello when she comes down.”

The crime scene techs arrived right on Kate’s heels, and Gemma let them in as she let herself out. She stood for a moment on the steps, imagining the routine going on inside. The sun had come out, but the wind was still cold, and she shivered. Pulling her jacket a bit tighter, she crossed the road again, and when she reached the Embankment, looked down at the sun sparking off the broad curve of the river.

How, she wondered, could a mother care more for her dead father’s opinion than for her son, whose pathetically grotesque body still hung suspended from a beam in her house?

Kate Ling stood in the door of Dominic Scott’s apartment, white coveralls slung over her arm like a party wrap. “Duncan,” she said as she turned to him. “You’ve made my day.”

“Not my call, I promise. But I’m glad it’s you.” He was, too, as
she was a good friend, and never hard on the eyes. She was perfectly turned out, as always, in tight buff trousers and a crisp white shirt, and her dark, shining hair swung straight as broom bristles round her delicate face.

Kate nodded at the room as the techs came in and started to work. “Looks to me like something just got up this poor bugger’s nose.”

Kincaid had yet to see Kate Ling ruffled by death—she saved her compassion for the living, and had been tactfully kind to them both when Gemma had lost the baby. “I daresay,” he answered. “This poor bugger is connected to two homicides.”

“You think he was the perpetrator?” Kate asked, her words punctuated by the repeated flash of the camera.

“It would explain this.” But even as he said it, Kincaid wasn’t sure that he believed it. It had taken ruthlessness as well as a capacity for risk to murder Kristin Cahill and Harry Pevensey, and he wasn’t sure either of those things squared with the taking of one’s own life, whether out of despair, fear, or guilt.

“Have enough, Joe?” Kate asked the photographer.

“Couple more, Doc.” The photographer shot a few more angles, then gave her a nod of assent. “All yours, then.”

“Okay, let’s get him down,” Kate called out to the mortuary attendants who had come in with her, and slipped on her coverall.

They were already suited, and had brought a folding ladder—they looked, Kincaid thought, like painters. And like painters, they efficiently spread a cloth on the floor, and went to work.

It was a job Kincaid did not envy. One climbed up on the ladder, and while Kate and the other attendant lifted Dom Scott’s body enough to take the tension off the makeshift rope, he untied it from the beam. Then Kate and her partner gently eased the body down onto the cloth.

“Nice-looking lad,” she said, studying the congested face. “And nice taste in ties.” She touched the silk with a gloved fingertip.
“Hermès. One of these would set you back a month’s wages.”

Kincaid raised an inquiring eyebrow, wondering at her sartorial knowledge, as well as what she considered his month’s wages, but she merely quirked a corner of her mouth. He knew nothing of her personal life, except that she was not married, or at least if she was, she wore no ring.

Looking back at the ties, Kincaid wondered if their use had been a last bit of rebellion aimed on Dom Scott’s part towards his mother—she had told her son to get dressed whether he liked it or not, as if he were a recalcitrant child, and he had made the ultimate refusal.

“He struggled,” said Kate, lifting Dom’s hands and examining the fingertips. “They usually do when they strangle themselves rather than breaking the neck. See, there’s some bruising and torn nails, and here”—she touched the silk at his throat—“there are some little tears in the fabric.”

Kincaid made an involuntary grimace and Kate shot him a quick look. “Had you met him, then, before this?”

“Yes. We’d interviewed him a couple of times.”

“Always makes it harder,” she said. “Fortunately, I seldom have that problem. At least there doesn’t seem to have been any autoerotica involved. He kept his trousers on. But I’ve certainly seen more determined suicides.” She looked up. “That wasn’t a very good knot. Or a very big drop. And the neckties were resourceful enough, but if he’d really been determined, he’d have used a length of flex, something like a lamp cord, maybe. If you want my very professional opinion, I’d say it took him a good few minutes to die.”

“His mother was here. He might have had a half-formed hope that she would find him.”

“Well, speculating’s your job,” said Kate. “Let’s see what I can tell you for certain.” She pushed back the cuffs of the unbuttoned sleeves of his shirt, then turned his wrists over. “Ah. Look at this.”
She traced the faint white lines on the pale, smooth skin on the underside of Dom’s wrists. “More on the left than on the right. Was he right-handed?”

Kincaid thought back, recalling Dom lifting a hand to pick at his shirt, or to push the hair from his forehead. “I think so. Hesitation scars?”

“Yes. And let’s see what else.” She pushed the left sleeve up above the elbow. The inside of Dom Scott’s arm bore a trail of purple marks, some faded to scars, some fresh bruises, the punctures still visible. “And on the right, too,” Kate said, pushing back the other sleeve. “I won’t be surprised if we find tracks on the thighs as well, and any other place he could find to stick a needle.” She looked up at Kincaid, all humor gone, her face implacable. “This boyo needed help in a big way.”

Gavin Hoxley was buried the next day in Brompton Cemetery, with full police honors. Erika had found the notice in the
Times,
and in doing so had learned for the first time his date of birth, the names of the parents who had predeceased him, and the names of his wife and children. His death had, of course, been reported as an accident, and she recalled with bitter irony his superintendent telling her that the department took care of its own.

The preponderance of mourners, however, allowed Erika to stand back from the crowd, unnoticed. The fine May weather continued unabated, and Gavin Hoxley’s widow—Linda, she was called—wore black linen, and a hat that Erika would have admired when she’d worked in the millinery department at Whiteleys, early in the war. The children, a boy and a girl, looked stodgy and dull, as if they had failed to inherit their father’s looks as well as the spark that had set him apart.

At any other time, Erika would have scolded herself for the unkind thought, but on this day she did not care. She watched the griev
ing widow, supported on either side by an older couple who must be her parents, throw a clod of earth on the coffin, and Erika felt not even a stirring of pity.

For Linda Hoxley would recover, would marry again, would perhaps even have more children.

For a moment, as Erika watched Gavin’s children follow their mother’s example, she felt a wild flare of hope—perhaps she was carrying Gavin’s child. But the thought faded as quickly as it had come. She had been too damaged by the things that had happened to her. The doctors had told her so in her first weeks in England, and although she had never been given a chance to test their diagnosis, she’d not doubted the truth of it.