The Garden of Lamentations

by Deborah Crombie

  “Come in the kitchen and I’ll make us a pot of tea.”

  MacKenzie followed her obediently, but as Gemma reached for the kettle, she said, “Um, anything stronger on offer?”

  “That bad?” Gemma turned to study her. MacKenzie wore one of her trademark Ollie printed skirts and a crisp white blouse, but she looked thoroughly wilted. Her dark, curly hair was pulled into a haphazard ponytail, and her lips looked bloodless.

  Still, even in the worst of circumstances, MacKenzie Williams was stunning. MacKenzie had a model’s poise combined with the confidence of a born entrepreneur, and the money and the social status of the Notting Hill elite. But Gemma quickly discovered that there was no artifice to MacKenzie—she was as down to earth and as kind as anyone Gemma had ever met.

  MacKenzie nodded. “Awful.”

  “We’d better fortify you, then.” Gemma retrieved a bottle of Pinot Grigio from the fridge and gave two wineglasses a quick swipe with a tea towel. “It’s stuffy in here,” she said when she had poured wine for them both. “Let’s go out on the patio.”

  “Where is everyone?” MacKenzie asked as Gemma led her through the sitting room. “I’ve never seen the house so quiet.”

  “Duncan’s taken the little ones and the dogs to the park. Not that you’d know it from the mess,” Gemma added, navigating through the litter of toys on the floor. “Kit’s at Starbucks with his mates. Supposedly studying.”

  MacKenzie managed a smile. “Texting and watching videos on their phones, more likely.” She stopped to stroke the small furry bundle on the sofa back. The bundle moved, resolving itself into two kittens, black-and-white Jack and tortoiseshell-and-white Rose. They stretched and yawned, showing tiny needle-sharp teeth, then Jack gave MacKenzie’s finger an experimental nibble. “Ow.” She jerked her hand back. “Little bugger.”

  “He is that,” Gemma said, laughing.

  “At least you have two. They can keep each other entertained. Bouncer is climbing up my legs. Even when I’m not wearing trousers.”

  Gemma was glad to hear MacKenzie’s voice sounding steadier.

  The patio was still in the sun, but the air had cooled a bit from midafternoon and it felt pleasant. “It looks lovely,” MacKenzie said as they sat, and Gemma felt gratified to have her flower-potting efforts appreciated.

  “I’m not much at gardening. But I thought with the fine weather, we should be enjoying . . .” She stopped, seeing MacKenzie’s expression.

  MacKenzie waved a hand at her to go on and took a gulp of her wine. “Of course you should,” she said when the wine had gone down. It’s just . . . I can’t help thinking . . .”

  “Would you rather go in?”

  “No. Don’t mind me. I can’t go avoiding gardens just because of where they found her.”

  “Cornwall Gardens, you said?” Gemma thought for a moment, trying to place it.

  “Just north of Blenheim Crescent—”

  “Up against Kensington Park Road,” Gemma finished. “I know where it is.” It was one of a string of communal gardens strung jewel-like through this part of Notting Hill, much like the one stretching before them in the afternoon light. Other than the two of them on the small gated patio, the space was deserted. “You’d think,” she said, wanting to ease MacKenzie’s tension, “that people would use these gardens more, as coveted as they are. Our children play in the communal area, but we hardly see anyone else, even out of term time.”

  “The adults work all day, and the children are in boarding school or scheduled activities.” The disapproval in MacKenzie’s voice was clear. The Williamses were an anomaly in their social circle. They’d managed to build a successful business that included their child, and family remained their top priority.

  “I have one in a scheduled activity now,” Gemma reminded her, teasing a little.

  “Oh, that’s different.” MacKenzie waved her now half-empty wineglass, sloshing it. “Toby wants to do it. Most of these kids are shuttled from one activity to another because their parents can’t be bothered to spend time with them.”

  Glad she’d had the forethought to bring the bottle, Gemma topped up MacKenzie’s glass. “What about Jess, then? He obviously does ballet because he wants to. I’ve never seen a more motivated child.”

  MacKenzie looked surprised. “You know Jess?”

  Earlier, Gemma had merely said that she thought she’d seen him outside the ballet class. “I interrupted his practicing. We chatted a bit.”

  “I would never have described Jess as chatty,” MacKenzie said, raising her eyebrows.

  “He’s remarkably gifted, isn’t he?”

  “Yes. But he can be a bit surly with it. Not out of meanness, but because he’s so . . . driven.” MacKenzie gazed at her glass, her eyes filling. “And now . . . no child that age should have to deal with such a thing.” Glancing up at Gemma, she added, “This sounds absurd, but I’ve never known anyone who died before. I mean someone young. It just seems so . . . so wrong . . .”

  “Yes. Of course it does. Tell me about Reagan,” she said, gently. “How did you come to know her?”

  MacKenzie’s neck was long and slender—it was one of the things that made her photograph well—and Gemma saw the muscles in her throat move as she swallowed. “It was Nita. Jess’s mum. Bill used to play racquetball with Jess’s dad, Chris, before he and Nita divorced. I saw Nita in Kitchen and Pantry one day, and Reagan was with her.”

  At the corner of Elgin Crescent and Kensington Park Road, the café was a well-established Notting Hill gathering spot, especially for yummy mummies, as the area’s trendy, well-off mothers were called. It was, in fact, where Duncan and Charlotte had met MacKenzie and Oliver.

  “I had Oliver with me,” MacKenzie said, “and she was so good with him. So I wondered if she might look after him occasionally, if she had any time free from Jess.”

  Gemma had not figured out why a ten-year-old required a full-time nanny, but she didn’t interrupt.

  “But I didn’t want to poach on Nita’s territory—she can be a bit touchy—so I asked her first and she said it was fine. After that Reagan began coming for an hour or two a couple of mornings a week, when Jess was at school. Watching her with Oliver, I started thinking that she might be a real find for the catalog. She wasn’t turn-your-head pretty, you know? But there was something about her—a . . . a sort of . . . freshness.”

  When MacKenzie paused, Gemma refilled her glass once more, then topped up her own. The moisture on the bottle felt cool under her fingers, and a breeze lifted the hair on the back of her neck. She shivered, suddenly chilled, but MacKenzie, intent on her thoughts, didn’t see it.

  “She has—had—the most marvelous skin. It seemed to glow. And there was always a sort of sparkle to her . . .” MacKenzie faltered, shaking her head. “We were supposed to do a shoot this afternoon, after you picked up Charlotte. That’s how I found out what had”—her voice failed and she swallowed again—“had happened. I kept trying to call her this morning. When I didn’t hear back from her I called Nita, and she—she said . . .”

  “You said Reagan was found under a tree. Tell me exactly what happened.” Gemma heard a dog bark, and distant voices. There were people now in the dappled shade at the far end of the garden.

  “I only know what Nita told me. One of Nita’s neighbors was out walking in the garden just after sunup,” said MacKenzie. “She found her—Reagan—and called the police. Nita didn’t know anything had happened. She had a yoga class. When she got home, she checked on Jess, but he and Reagan were both gone. She thought Reagan had taken him somewhere, maybe to K and P for breakfast. Then she saw all the commotion in the garden, but before she could ask what had happened, the police came to her door. The neighbor had recognized Reagan, but Nita had to identify her bod—” MacKenzie stopped and drained her glass, but shook her head when Gemma offered her the bit left in the bottle.

  “That must have been awful,” Gemma said. “Was Reagan”—she’d started to say assaulted but tri
ed for something a little gentler—“hurt?”

  “Not that Nita could see. She was wearing the dress she’d gone out in last night.”

  Gemma frowned. “The garden is gated, right?”

  “Yes. There’s only the one entrance other than through the residences.”

  “Nita didn’t see her come home last night?”

  “No. She said she took a sleeping pill. She does sometimes, when she has to get up early.”

  “What about Jess? Did he see her when she came in last night?”

  “Nita said he went to bed early.”

  “Hmm.” If Jess’s mum had been asleep and Reagan had been out, Gemma thought it highly unlikely that an unsupervised ten-year-old had gone willingly to sleep. She thought over her conversation with the boy earlier in the day. He hadn’t seemed as if he had anything other than dancing on his mind, and she hadn’t sensed any guile in his manner. But if his mum had been looking frantically for him since she’d learned of Reagan’s death, where had he been before he came to the ballet studio? “What about this morning?” she asked. “Where was Jess?”

  “I don’t know,” answered MacKenzie. “He refused to say.”

  In the end, Kincaid told Gemma part of the truth.

  That was what the lawyers always advised their clients—tell the truth as far as possible.

  He’d worried over what to do all through his outing to the park with the children, and then through dinner, glancing surreptitiously at the anonymous text when no one was looking. He’d caught Gemma watching him as he pushed his food around on his plate, but she hadn’t said anything in front of the children.

  At seven o’clock sharp he carried his plate to the sink and told the children to go play in the sitting room.

  “You only want to get rid of us when you want to have a conversation,” said Kit. “But it means I don’t have to do the washing up. I’ll be in my room.” A moment later his footsteps clattered on the stairs.

  “What—” Gemma began, when they had the kitchen to themselves, but he interrupted her.

  “I’m sorry, love, but I’ve got to go out for a bit.”

  “Now?” She frowned. “Is it work?”

  “I’m not sure.” That, at least, was honest. “I got a text this afternoon from an unfamiliar number.” He took his phone from his pocket and showed her the text.

  Gemma had risen and begun clearing the table, but she stopped, crockery in her arms, and studied the phone. “The Duke? You’re not seriously thinking of going?”

  “Well, I thought I would just see—”

  “You have no idea who this is from?” She looked up at him, the frown deepening. “And where the hell is Roger Street?”

  He had, in fact, replied, “Who is this?” to the text, but hadn’t been surprised when he didn’t get an answer. “It’s in Holborn. Not far from the station.”

  “Someone from work, then?”

  “It’s possible,” he said cautiously. He wasn’t going to mention going to the Yard, or the fact that the text had come in just as soon as he’d left Denis Childs’s office. Had someone seen him there?

  “Have you been to this pub?” asked Gemma, putting the plates in the sink with a clunk and picking up a dishcloth.

  “Never heard of it until today. Most of us go to the pubs round Lamb’s Conduit Street. The Lamb, or the Rugby.”

  “It has to be someone who has your number.”

  Trust Gemma to be logical. “True. Probably someone from work playing a prank, but I won’t know unless I go.” He thought he sounded believably casual, but Gemma gave him a thoughtful look over her shoulder. She’d been drinking wine with MacKenzie Williams when he came in, and now she looked flushed and slightly pink with sunburn.

  “If I didn’t know you better,” she said with a half smile, “I’d think you were looking for an excuse to spend Saturday night drinking pints with the blokes.”

  Just then Toby shouted from the sitting room, “Begone, thy evil scum!” There was a squeal, and Charlotte began to wail.

  Gemma rolled her eyes. “Can’t say that I’d blame you.” Handing him the dishcloth, she left the room and came back a moment later with Charlotte, tear-streaked and sniffling, on her hip. “I’ve sent Toby to his room. That’s your cue, I think. Go while the going’s good. But take the tube, not the car. And I expect to hear all about it when you get home.”

  Permission granted, Kincaid thought, and he didn’t know whether he should feel relieved or worried.

  He’d had to wait for the train from Holland Park to Holborn. The delay had made him pushed to reach the pub by eight o’clock, and when he turned into Theobald’s Road, the darkening sky to the east made it seem even later.

  As he reached the police station he stopped and checked the map on his phone. The Duke in Roger Street was certainly near enough to the station, but it was several streets to the east and not easily accessible. It was a good brisk walk and he was puffing a bit by the time he reached the pub. He stopped to catch his breath and survey his surroundings.

  Lamps flickered on in the nearby buildings. Much of this little part of Holborn was Georgian, but the triangular-fronted pub before him was the apex of a terraced art deco block of flats.

  Kincaid whistled. The mansion block was a hidden gem, indeed, and the pub’s steel-framed art deco windows glowed cheerily. But in spite of its welcoming facade, the pub had no Saturday evening spillover onto the pavement and Kincaid wondered if he had indeed come to the right place. Perhaps it was someone from work playing a joke after all, and they’d got him out of the house for nothing. Out of the house—

  Shit. Gemma and the kids. Panic welled up in his gut and for an instant he saw it, the image from his dreams, the ruined head, and blood seeping into the carpeting. Swallowing against the sudden nausea, he told himself not to be stupid.

  Gemma and the kids were fine. Lifting his shaking hand to the door, he pushed it open.

  His first impression was of pink. Not just pink, but the sort of mauve pink of Victorian parlors—or Victorian brothels. The walls might have been splashed with a liberal coating of Pepto-Bismol. The unexpected Victorian effect was heightened by the potted palms tucked into every available corner—there were even two on the bar itself. The place was tiny, but mirrors hung all round the walls made it appear larger. The tables and booths were filled, but the only patrons standing were at the curved wooden bar itself. The pub was a true local, then, Kincaid guessed, and perhaps a secret happily kept.

  He stayed just inside the door, scanning faces. At first he thought there was no one familiar. Then he swung back, staring at the man sitting alone in the farthest booth, the one tucked away by the back door. Gone was the familiar bulk, and the once-sallow skin looked rosy in the light reflected from the pink walls. But Kincaid would have known the dark hair and the slightly slanted eyes, black as jet, anywhere.

  Denis Childs raised a glass to him in greeting.

  Chapter Three

  “What the hell are you playing at?” Kincaid said when he reached the table. He stared at Childs, his breath coming a little too fast. “And what the hell happened to you?” he added before he could stop himself.

  It wasn’t that Childs looked bad. Although his color was not quite as pink as it had seemed from across the room, he appeared remarkably healthy. The man actually had cheekbones, for God’s sake, and the hand resting on the tabletop was no longer pudgy, but large-knuckled and bony.

  “Why don’t you have a beer?” Childs gestured to the filled pint on Kincaid’s side of the table. “I understand it’s quite good here. And you might consider sitting,” he added, his voice still smooth as treacle.

  A glance round the room told Kincaid that the other patrons were staring at him. He slid into the booth, landing a little heavily on the hard bench, but he didn’t take up the pint. “You seemed quite sure I’d come,” he said, with a gesture at the beer.

  “I thought it worth the gamble.”

  “Why here?”

 
“It’s not far from where I live.”

  “In Holborn?” Kincaid was shocked to realize he’d had no idea where Childs lived—he’d always assumed it was somewhere in the suburbs.

  “A bit to the east,” Childs said. “Clerkenwell, actually. We bought the house years ago, when people thought we were daft to take on a Georgian house in central London.”

  A canny decision, Kincaid thought—but then the man had always been canny. He rested his hand absently on the pint.

  “Go on. It’s not poisoned,” Childs said, raising his glass and lifting a mocking eyebrow.

  Kincaid hesitated, then touched the pint to Childs’s glass and sipped. The beer was good, creamy and malty with just the right hint of bitter. “Thanks. You’re not drinking beer?”

  “Tonic. No beer for me these days, alas.” Childs waved a hand at himself, as if encompassing his changed appearance. “I’m a new man. Quite literally. Or at least part of me is. I had a liver transplant.”

  Kincaid stared. “What? But when? No one said—”

  “I had it done in Singapore. That’s why I was away. And I’d asked that it not be broadcast.”

  “But—” Kincaid was still trying to digest this.

  Childs sipped his tonic, then set his glass on the table and steepled his hands together—a gesture that Kincaid knew well. “One reason I went to Singapore,” he said, “is that, as you know, my sister is there. She gave me part of her liver. And”—he forestalled another question with a shake of his head—“we could have done that here, yes, but even with a donor, it can take years to get the procedure scheduled. I didn’t have years.”

  “You knew,” Kincaid said, thinking of Childs’s increasingly sallow skin over the past few years. Of course. He’d been jaundiced. And he had been losing weight for at least a year before his sudden leave. “The slimming. I thought it was for your health.”

  “It was for my health,” Childs agreed, “although perhaps not in the usual sense. Excess weight complicates any surgery and recovery.”