Where Memories Lie (6 page)

“And he’s not comfortable with things being out of order on his patch?” Kincaid could see that, he supposed. “But your mum—why didn’t he stay with her, last night?”

“Because he wouldn’t have known what to do.”

In the end, Kristin hadn’t gone home with the bloke from the dance floor. Partly caution had kicked in through the haze of music and alcohol, partly guilt, and very largely embarrassment. She hadn’t wanted to admit that she still lived at home, that her parents were expecting her. Silly, really, as no one young with an ordinary job could afford to live on her own in central London these days, and it wasn’t as if she had a curfew or anything. It was just that she knew her mum would wake in the night, and if Kristin hadn’t come in, her mum wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep. Hardwired, the worrying, her mum told her apologetically. Just because your kids were grown didn’t mean you automatically stopped.

She’d been tempted, though. He—she’d never learned his name—had nuzzled and stroked her while they danced, until she was breathless and wobbly kneed. But when the lights came up for last call, she’d excused herself to the loo and fled up the stairs into the cool night air. Then, her feet pinching in her impossibly high heels, shivering in her flimsy dress, she’d cursed Dominic Scott all the way up the hill to her bus stop.

There were no messages on her phone—voice or text—nor were there any when she woke late that morning, her head throbbing. She groaned, shielding her eyes from the sun spilling in through her bedroom window. Then she rolled over and lobbed her mobile at the far wall in a fit of pique. Damn Dominic. If he thought she was going to take being treated like this, he was bloody well wrong.

She threw on jeans and hoodie and laced up trainers, then, staggering to the bathroom, splashed cold water on her face and swallowed a couple of paracetamol. For a moment, she contemplated
makeup, then decided she didn’t care and settled for running a brush through her short hair.

Her parents had gone out to Sunday lunch, saving her having to explain her intentions. She let herself out of the flat and started east on the King’s Road. Walking made her feel better, gave her a chance to sort out her thoughts. At Edith Grove she turned towards the river, only absently aware of the Sunday walkers and the pewter glint of sun on the Thames. This way she avoided passing the World’s End, the pub where she had met Dom Scott, a junction point between her world and his. It had seemed bridgeable, then, the gap between her parents’ council flat and his mum’s great house on Cheyne Walk.

Of course, she hadn’t met Ellen Miller-Scott. Nor had she known that Dom didn’t actually
work,
only put on expensive suits and made the occasional command appearance at his mother’s board meetings.
The family business,
referred to with the hushed reverence accorded a religious institution. It was not, she had learned, Dom’s father’s business, but his grandfather’s, Ellen’s father’s. And although he was expected to take it over, Ellen seemed little inclined to let Dom do anything. It was only lately that Kristin had begun to wonder if Dom was actually capable of holding down a real job.

How hard could it be, investment banking? As far as she could figure, they took people’s money, and when it didn’t look like things were going to work out, they dumped the poor sods in the shit. Dom could do that in a heartbeat.

Her steps slowed as she neared the end of Cheyne Walk. What exactly would she say to him? That she’d had it? That she should have gone home with the lovely guy from the club last night? That she should go out with Giles, the anorak from work who fancied her like mad? (She tried to ignore the little voice that said she didn’t fancy Giles at all, no matter how hard she’d tried.) That Dominic Scott was going to ruin her life, and her career, if she didn’t put a stop to it?

Kristin rang the bell at Dominic’s house, heard it chime musically. Suddenly she felt queasy and almost turned away, but the door swung open.

It wasn’t Dom. Ellen Miller-Scott stared at her, one perfect eyebrow raised quizzically. She wore designer yoga gear in pale gray, and Kristin felt sure the outfit had never seen a particle of sweat. Her blond hair was flawless, her makeup understatedly glowing.

“I want to talk to Dom,” Kristin blurted out, sounding to her own ears like a petulant child.

“I’m sorry, darling, he’s not here.” Ellen smiled. “I rather fancied he was with you. Can I give him a message?”

Kristin felt a painful flush of color rise to the roots of her hair. “I’ll ring him. Or I’ll tell him when he rings me.” Bitch. She could feel the woman laughing at her humiliation, was sure she would have snickered at Kristin’s attack of middle-class morals last night. “Thanks,” she forced out, turning on her heel.

“You’re welcome,” Ellen called after her, silvery sweet.

Kristin started back the way she had come, eyes on her feet, face still burning. It was only when someone knocked into her shoulder, hard, that she looked up and saw Dom coming towards her along Cheyne Walk. Her heart did its usual flip-flop, regardless of her wishes. He hadn’t seen her.

She had an instant to take in the too-long hair, unwashed, brushed back from his face, the suit jacket and dress shirt over jeans and trainers, worn with a disregard that spoke not of style but of his having thrown on the first things within reach on the floor. Where the hell
had
he spent the night?

Then he looked up and saw her. “Kristin!” He paled, a hard feat for someone whose skin already looked like putty. Reaching her, he touched her shoulder, then her face, gazing at her with a painful intensity. “What are you doing here? I tried to ring you—”

“You did not.” She stepped back. “I checked my messages. You left me stranded at that fucking club—”

“I can explain—”

“No, you can’t.” The words seemed to come from an unexpected place within her. “There’s no excuse, Dom. I deserve better than that.”

He stared at her. Passersby parted around them, as if they were the Rock of Gibraltar in a moving sea. “No, you’re right,” he said slowly, and a fear she couldn’t explain shot through her.

Her resolution failed. “Look, I didn’t mean—”

“No. You’re right. There’s no excuse.” He was still looking at her with that gobsmacked expression, his gray eyes wide. “No excuse for expecting you to deal with me being fucked up. I’m not worth it.” He touched her cheek again, and she shuddered with a sinking dread. “I think maybe we shouldn’t see each other for a bit, while I try to straighten things out,” he went on. “If there’s anything, you know, with the job, Harry can let me know. That’s for the best, don’t you think, love?” He waited, head slightly bowed, as if expecting absolution.

“You bastard.” Planting her feet a little more firmly, Kristin pulled back her arm and smacked him across the face as hard as she could.

It wasn’t until Kincaid had gone up to check on Gemma after her bath that he thought to ask her about Erika.

Gemma lay curled under the duvet, Geordie snuggled beside her. “Sometimes I think this dog is out to replace me,” he said, sitting on the bed and fondling one of Geordie’s dark gray ears.

“He can’t do the washing-up, so I think you’re safe,” Gemma answered drowsily as he pulled the duvet up around her shoulders a bit more firmly.

“You never told me what Erika wanted last night.”

“Oh.” Gemma blinked and pulled herself up a little. “She lost a valuable brooch during the war, and it’s turned up for auction at Harrowby’s. She wants me to look into it.”

Frowning, Kincaid said, “How are you going to manage that, with your mum ill? Can’t you tell her it’s too much?”

“I can’t
not
help Erika. I’ll manage somehow. I could stop at Harrowby’s in the morning, once I’ve been to check on Mum.”

“You can’t ask questions officially unless Erika’s filed a complaint,” he protested.

“I’m sure I’ll think of something,” Gemma said firmly. “Official or not.”

Gemma took the Central Line straight to St. Paul’s tube station, glad that it was Sunday and the crowds were light, and grateful that for once the weekend tube closures hadn’t affected her travel. Emerging into the sunlight, she walked west up Newgate Street, worry over her mum running like a treadmill in her head.

That afternoon, she had got on the Internet and looked up types of leukemia, treatments, and prognoses. The prospects had terrified her.

But as she passed an opening leading to St. Paul’s Churchyard, she glanced up and stopped, transfixed. A slice of the cathedral appeared in the narrow gap, the great dome dead center, like a jewel in the eye of the needle, glowing in the setting sun.

A man bumped into her and she murmured, “Sorry,” but still she hesitated, then on an impulse turned and walked down into the churchyard itself. The weekday City bankers were absent, and she
guessed it was mostly tourists who sat on the cathedral steps, faces turned to catch the last of the afternoon warmth. The days were lengthening. It would be summer before she knew it, and for just an instant the passage of time seemed inexorably fast.

A sudden hollow feeling possessed her, and for a moment she considered going in, then chided herself. She hadn’t any idea how to pray, and would feel silly trying.

And besides, she thought St. Paul’s, glorious as it was, was more a commemoration of Christopher Wren than an offering to God. She turned back, and as she threaded her way towards Newgate Street, she wondered if Wren would have liked the pristine and sterile place his City had become. In his day it would have been teeming with refuse and smells and colors, and the cathedral would have risen out of the muck, a monument to higher things. What awe must have filled people as they looked at it, and what was there now to take its place?

Giving herself a mental shake, she lengthened her stride and left St. Paul’s behind. But as she reached the hospital, its ancient walls looked grim as battlements, and she had to steel herself to walk in through the main gate.

The courtyard, with its gentle fountain, came as a relief, and shrill childish voices echoed through the open space—familiar voices, Gemma realized, as she saw a flash of red curls bob up on the far side of the fountain. It was her niece and nephew, playing hide-and-seek, her brother-in-law watching.

Spotting her, the children ran over, wrapping themselves around her legs with welcoming shrieks of “Auntie Gemma!” Gemma knelt to hug them, and in the process little Tiffani somehow managed to transfer chewing gum to Gemma’s hair, while, with a shout of glee, Brendan clouted her in the side of the head with a plastic lorry.

“Well,” she addressed her brother-in-law, Gerry, as she disentangled herself and tried to pick the pink sticky gobs from her hair, “they’re in good form, don’t you think, Ger?”

Gerry nodded agreeably from his bench. “Expect so. Can’t do a thing with them, myself.” He folded his hands over his paunch with an air of satisfaction. Gemma could have sworn he’d put on a stone since she’d seen him at the New Year.

“For heaven’s sake, Gerry, there are ill people here,” she retorted, giving in to exasperation.

“And your point is?” The look he gave her was not half so friendly, and left her wondering if he was really as dim as he seemed. It occurred to her that it was quite possible he thought her a self-righteous cow, and went out of his way to let the children misbehave just to irritate her.

The children, the girl just older than Toby and the boy just younger, began to tussle over the lorry, their voices rising towards full-blown conflict. “Cyn’s in with Mum?” Gemma asked, resisting the impulse to correct them.

“And your dad.”

“Oh, lord,” she breathed. “Look, I’ll see you.”

“Good luck,” Gerry called after her, and she couldn’t be sure whether his tone was mocking or sympathetic.

She followed the rabbit warren of tunnels that led to the King George V ward with a sinking heart and an incipient sense of panic. The hospital was undergoing renovation, the tunnels makeshift, grim affairs connecting disparate wings, and as one turn led to another, her mouth went dry.

God, she hated hospitals in the best of circumstances, and she’d never thought to find herself visiting a loved one in this old pile. It was, Duncan had informed her, the oldest hospital in London, and when she reached the wing itself she could well believe it. It had been modernized many times over the centuries, of course, but there was an air of age and illness that no amount of refurbishment could quite erase.

Checking the directions to her mother’s ward, she took the stairs, not trusting her sudden attack of claustrophobia to the lift. A sister
buzzed her into the ward, where she found her father and sister sitting sentinel on either side of her mother’s bed. Her mother lay propped up against the pillows, her hair arranged in tight curls and her lips and cheeks rouged an unnaturally bright red—Cyn’s doing, no doubt. Her mum was making an obvious effort to seem brisk and cheerful and, when Gemma came in, to play her usual role as mediator.

When she kissed Gemma on the cheek, her lips felt dry as paper. “I’m so glad you’ve come, love. The boys—did you bring them?”

“No, since they couldn’t come in to see you.” Gemma resisted the urge to elaborate, realizing that the fact that Cyn’s kids were there, even in the courtyard, made her look as if she’d let her mum down. Instead, she asked, “How are you feeling, Mummy?”

“Your dad brought me a filled roll from the bakery,” her mother answered, deflecting. “Wasn’t that nice? The food here’s dreadful, but what can you expect?”

Gemma took in the remains of the roll on the bedside tray, barely nibbled, and felt her own stomach clench with anxiety. Her mother was eating like a bird, and she’d lost more weight than Gemma had realized. “Have the doctors been in? What have they said?”

“Oh, more tests. You know doc—”

“We don’t really need to be talking about that, do we now?” her dad cut in, speaking for the first time. “We’re here to cheer your mother up.”

“Surely Mummy is the one to decide whether she wants to—”

“It’s all right, love.” Her mother forced a smile. “I’m sure they know what they’re doing.”

Gemma bit her lip. The last thing her mum needed to hear were the statistics Gemma had read on the shockingly bad quality of hospital care or the chance of secondary infection.

Her sister, who had been remarkably quiet, looked up from examining her long pink nails and gave her a very slight shake of the head. In spite of the fact that she didn’t often see Cyn these days, and that they had fought like demons growing up, they shared an
ingrained understanding of the family dynamic. That one gesture spoke volumes—things were bad, and their mother meant to keep it from their father, with his full cooperation. Vi Walters had spent her life protecting her husband from upsets, and she wasn’t about to let a little thing like illness change matters.

“Right, then.” Gemma stood and kissed her mother again, more gently this time. “I’ll come in the morning, Mum, see how you’re getting on.” With her father manning the bakery, she might have a chance of learning the truth.

Melody Talbot’s mobile rang on Monday morning one minute before her alarm was due to ring. Muzzily, she groaned as the horrible buzzing noise went on.

“What?” she mumbled when she managed to get the phone right side up and pressed to her ear.

“Melody? Are you okay?” Gemma’s voice.

Melody came fully awake, ignoring the pain that shot through her head as she sat fully upright. “Boss. Yeah. Yeah, I’m all right. What’s up?” Her father had called a command performance yesterday at the Kensington town house, as a result of which, Melody, normally a moderate drinker at most, had come home and polished off the better part of a bottle of red wine.

“Could you handle the incoming for me this morning? Just for a bit. I’ve some personal business. Shouldn’t take long.”

Frowning, Melody answered, “Okay. No problem. I’ll be in as soon as I can.” Delegating wasn’t one of Gemma’s strong points, nor was it like her to skive off work, especially on a Monday morning. Tentatively, Melody said, “Is there anything else I can—”

“No. I’ll ring you as soon as I’m on my way back to the station. And thanks.”

The mobile went dead. Slowly, Melody disconnected and sat up, throwing back the duvet. Pain shot through her head and she winced.
But it was nothing that a cocktail of aspirin and paracetamol and a hot shower wouldn’t fix, and it was a minor distraction compared to the warm glow she felt knowing Gemma depended on her.

Kincaid had volunteered to get the children off to school, giving Gemma an early start. It was a duty they rotated, depending on whose workload was most demanding, but as Notting Hill Police Station was a short walk for Gemma, and Toby’s infant school just next door, the morning routine fell to Gemma more often than not.

In truth, Kincaid enjoyed the extra hour with Toby and Kit. Although he tried to spend some time on his own with the boys on the weekends, he’d found there was a special closeness about mornings in the kitchen.

He’d made soft-boiled eggs and toast, with juice for Toby and hot milk with a splash of coffee for Kit. It was a house rule that the boys sat at the table, even if only for five minutes, and he wasn’t sure if the restriction made them eat at light speed or if they would inhale their food under any circumstances.

This morning, however, Toby had dawdled, picking pieces from his eggshell, then dipping them in the yolk and drawing on the plate. Kincaid suspected he’d picked up on Gemma’s worry, even though he’d been told only that Gran wasn’t feeling well. “Enough,” Kincaid said to him. “Go wash and get your lessons.” These morning boys, freshly scrubbed and brushed and in their school uniforms, looked slightly alien to him, like someone else’s children. By afternoon their hair would be tousled, their shirttails half out, their ties askew, and they would look comfortably themselves again.

When Toby had slipped from the table and gone pounding up the stairs, Kincaid scooped out the remainder of his egg, mixed it with the toast crusts, and set it on the floor for the dogs.

“Gemma would throw a wobbly,” said Kit, taking his cornflakes bowl to the sink.

“I’ll bet she does the same thing when I’m not here.”

Kit gave him a half smile. “I’m not supposed to tell you.” He lingered while Kincaid rinsed his own plate, and when Kincaid looked up he said tentatively, “About Gran. Is she going to be all right?”

The fear of loss always hovered very near the surface for Kit, and although Kincaid would have preferred not to worry him, they’d had to tell him all that they knew.

Kincaid knew he couldn’t sugarcoat it. “We’ll know more after this morning. But the disease is treatable, and Gran’s a fighter.” He tried to block out Gemma’s description of her mum on yesterday afternoon’s visit.

“I’ve been looking it up,” said Kit. “Leukemia. It’s cancer of the blood and bone marrow, and it can spread all over the body, even into the brain. She’ll need radiation and chemotherapy, and if those don’t work—”

“Kit, stop. You’re jumping the gun here.” Kincaid turned and grasped his son’s shoulders. “We don’t know how far advanced the cancer is. And Gran’s never been ill. That must give her a better chance.”

“But if the treatments don’t work, the best option for bone marrow replacement is from a sibling, and Gran doesn’t have brothers or sisters.”

Kincaid saw the unvoiced echo in his son’s eyes.
And neither do I
.

Damn and blast the Internet. Sometimes it was a bigger curse than a blessing, especially with a bright and vulnerable child. Did Kit feel they had failed him by not providing him with a half brother or sister? Kincaid tried to shrug off the thought. That was a subject that had been dropped the last few months, and it had eased a tension in his relationship with Gemma.

He heard Toby singing to himself as he thumped back down the stairs, dragging his backpack behind him. To Kit, he said, “Listen, sport, we’re all going to be late. We’ll talk more tonight.” Then, as a
distraction, he added, “Did Gemma tell you about Erika’s long-lost brooch turning up for auction?”

“Yeah.” Kit’s expression lightened. “Cool. Except Gemma said she seemed upset. Maybe I could stop by and see her after school?”

“I think we’ve got a live one, guv,” the desk sergeant at Chelsea Station told Hoxley when he walked into reception.

“Live what?” asked Hoxley, amused. Nearing retirement, Ben Watson was bald as a billiard ball, heavyset, and little inclined to stir himself except for the walk from desk to pub, but he kept an avuncular finger on the pulse of everything that went on in the station. He was also inordinately fond of fishing analogies, although Hoxley doubted he’d ever held a fishing rod in his life.

“Your unidentified corpus. Notting Hill rang. They’ve a woman reported her husband missing. Fits the description.”

Hoxley gave him his full attention. “Address?”

“They’ve kept her at the station. Told them you’d be there soonest.”

Wincing, Hoxley muttered, “Damn.” Delivering bad news was difficult enough in the familiar environment of the home, and he didn’t look forward to questioning a bereaved widow in a sterile interview room. But if indeed this was his victim’s wife, she would be prepared for the worst, and he would be able to put a name, and a life, to the man he had left on the postmortem table.

Once more outside St. Paul’s tube station, Gemma hesitated. She could go straight on to work, or she could change at Notting Hill for South Kensington and make the inquiry at Harrowby’s auction house she’d promised Erika. She felt frustrated and restless, this morning’s visit to hospital having proved as fruitless as the previous evening’s. Her mum had been out of the ward, having a bone mar
row biopsy, the charge nurse had revealed reluctantly, as if imparting state secrets.
And no, she didn’t know how long it would take, and there was a good possibility the patient would go to X-ray and sonography as well.