The Garden of Lamentations

by Deborah Crombie

  Gemma thought suddenly of Denis. His sister’s unselfishness had given him a new chance at life, only to have it now hanging in the balance.

  “To make it worse,” Peacock went on, “now his parents are building a bloody great extension where the shed was. It’s illegal, and it’s horrible, but no one really wants to take them on because it seems insensitive. Except Mrs. Armitage, of course, the head of the garden committee.” Peacock’s expression relaxed into a smile. “She doesn’t suffer from delicacy.”

  “She found Reagan Keating, didn’t she?” said Kerry.

  “So I heard. Poor kid. What do you think happened to her?”

  “So you did know Reagan?” asked Gemma, well aware that he had not answered their original question.

  “I’d met her, of course. I remember how cut up she was the night Henry was found. But I’ve not seen her much since Arthur went away to school, and I can’t say I ever knew her well.”

  “Is there anyone on the garden who was a particular friend of Reagan’s?”

  Roland Peacock thought for a moment, frowning. “You might speak to Asia Ford, in the house next to the Cusicks’ but one. She seemed quite friendly with the girl at the garden party.”

  “Garden party?” Gemma repeated.

  “Two weeks ago. Our annual spring fling. Games and refreshments and punch. Silly games like egg-and-spoon races. Although, in fact, there was more than punch. Asia was touting her homemade limoncello. Tasted like bathroom cleaner, if you ask me.” He waved his hand in a dismissive gesture. “The whole thing is a chance for the new money to trot themselves out in front of those of us who are middle-class professionals, or worse, have inherited our houses. We are a nuisance they’d like to be rid of. Then their property values would go up.”

  “All good mates, then.” Kerry gave him a sharklike smile. “We’ve been given to understand that sometimes there’s a bit of, um, hanky-panky that goes on in the garden at night. Illicit activity, if you take my meaning. Residents visiting other residents, that sort of thing.”

  “Hanky-panky? God, I haven’t heard that in years. And, no, Chief Inspector, I don’t know anything about any illicit activities. My wife would kill me.”

  Then Peacock seemed to realize what he’d said and looked, for the first time during the interview, truly horrified.

  Roland Peacock had told them they’d recognize the house by the wisteria growing over the small patio. Indeed, Gemma had noticed the flowers when they’d walked along the south side of the garden that morning. The scent, heavenly on the morning air, was even stronger now in the heat of the day. The plant grew on a pergola anchored by the two brick walls separating Asia Ford’s patio from its neighbors on either side. It made Gemma think of a purple-roofed cave.

  Beneath the clustered blooms there was a bricked area with worn, comfortable-looking wicker furniture, and a small greenhouse. Almost every available space was filled with pots and plants and gardening tools, but shelves in the greenhouse held a beautiful array of glass bottles. Strings of fairy lights hung beneath the pergola.

  As in most of the houses, a low iron fence and gate separated the private patios from the larger space. Gemma hesitated at the gate—it seemed an intrusion to just walk into a space so personal.

  Kerry, who had stopped to check on the SOCOs, had just joined her when the house door opened and they were spared the dilemma.

  A woman came out, greeting them with a smile. “Were you looking for me? I saw you from the kitchen window.”

  “Are you Asia Ford?” asked Gemma, although she was certain it must be she. The name, with its combination of the exotic and the commonplace, fit her perfectly. With her loosely tied hair, cotton T-shirt, and flowing skirt, Gemma at first thought her young, perhaps Reagan’s age. But as she came into the brighter light by the gate, Gemma saw that there were silver sparkles in her light brown hair and that her face was lightly lined.

  “I am. Can I help you?” Asia Ford took in Kerry’s very official jacket and skirt and her smile faded. “I saw the people in boiler suits. Is this about Reagan?”

  “I’m afraid it is,” Gemma said, and introduced them. “Can we have a word?”

  “Oh, dear.” Ford touched her fingers to her lips, but the gesture only partly covered the spasm of distress. “Such a dreadful thing.” She shook her head as she unlatched the gate. “Please, come and sit. I was just making some lemonade. I’ll bring the pitcher out.”

  Kerry started to protest but Gemma quickly said, “Thank you. That would be lovely.” The jacket potato and coffee at lunch had left her thirsty, and it was getting very warm. She sank gratefully into one of the wicker chairs and Kerry followed suit although with obvious reluctance. It was cooler under the purple canopy and the sweet scent of the blossoms hung about them like a physical presence.

  After a moment, drawn by curiosity, Gemma stood up again and went to the door Ford had left standing open. “Can I help?” she called, looking into a kitchen cum sitting room.

  Roland Peacock’s living area had been scattered with things in everyday use, but beneath the surface clutter the rooms had been modern and expensively designed. Asia Ford’s kitchen and sitting area, however, might have existed in a time warp.

  An enormous old cream-colored Rayburn dominated the room, and Gemma thought it might heat the entire house in the winter. There was a scarred Welsh dresser, more of the same wicker furniture as that on the patio, a table covered with a floral oilcloth, and beside the Rayburn, a sofa of indeterminate age and color draped in cashmere shawls. A farmhouse sink and oak work tops stood below the window.

  The walls—what could be seen of them beneath an assortment of prints, paintings, and posters—were the same pale green as the walls of Gemma’s childhood flat. Every surface in the room seemed filled with odd bits of china, books, and jugs filled with fresh-cut flowers.

  It ought, thought Gemma, to have been claustrophobic, but instead she found it immensely charming. “What a wonderful room,” she exclaimed.

  Ford looked up from the mismatched glasses she was setting on a tin tray. “Do you like it? The house was my parents’, and I’ve never been inclined to do it up. Or had the money, truthfully, with what it costs these days to refit things.” To the tray, she added a clear pitcher afloat with sliced lemons, a small bowl of ice cubes, and a vase filled with the same trailing, pale pink roses Gemma had seen at the bottom of the garden. “Climbing Cecile Brunner,” Ford said, following her glance. “Clive Glenn cuts them for me. I love the scent. You could hold the door for me,” she added, and together they took out the refreshments.

  Gemma remembered what Peacock had said about the new money wanting to get rid of the residents who’d inherited their properties. She could just imagine a builder slavering at the thought of tearing out that kitchen and putting in all the mod cons, and it made her sad. Not that either Ford or Peacock were old—she would put Ford perhaps in her fifties and Peacock in his forties, although it was hard to judge men in those mid years.

  “Your parents—did they live here a long time?” she asked.

  “My mother was born in this house. Her father was a factory manager, very respectably middle-class although Notting Hill had declined from its heyday by then. My parents were missionaries so the house was rented out piecemeal over the years,” Ford added as she put two ice cubes in each glass and topped the glasses up from the pitcher.

  Gemma had been expecting a fizzy drink or lemonade made from a tin, but what she tasted when she lifted her glass was fresh, cool, and tart enough to make her mouth pucker. She drank half of it down in a gulp. “That’s wonderful.”

  “I grow my own lemons,” said Ford, with a gesture towards the little greenhouse. Beyond the glass bottles, Gemma glimpsed the glossy dark green foliage of lemon trees, and remembered Roland Peacock’s comment about the limoncello.

  “Miss Ford,” she said, “Roland Peacock said you were friendly with Reagan Keating. He said the two of you were chatting at the garden party.”


  “Please, call me Asia. ‘Miss Ford’ makes me feel like a spinster aunt.” The animation faded from her face and she sighed. “Reagan liked to help me with things. And she loved it here.” Her gesture took in the patio. “We were so looking forward to the summer and picnics. Silly things.”

  “You spent quite a bit of time with her, then?” said Gemma.

  “I think Nita’s house was not . . .” Asia Ford winced. “I don’t mean— It’s just that I think Reagan was homesick. I know she missed her mum. There was always just the two of them and they were close. Her mother must be devastated. Have you spoken to her?”

  “I met her yesterday,” said Gemma, without explaining the circumstances. “But I believe she’s gone back to Cardiff.”

  “I’ll write to her. I’m sure Nita has her address.” Asia shook her head. “I just can’t believe Reagan is gone. Such a beautiful, healthy girl, dying like that. What could have happened?” She looked directly at Kerry. “You must have some idea.”

  “We’re looking into it,” Kerry told her. “That’s our procedure with unexplained deaths.”

  “Reagan would never have harmed herself,” Asia Ford said, as if something in Kerry’s tone had suggested it. “She was a positive person. Interested and engaged, with a plan for her life.”

  “Did she confide in you about things?” Gemma asked. “Do you know if anything was troubling her? Please,” she added, seeing Asia’s hesitation. “You never know what might be of help.”

  Asia refilled their glasses, then spent a moment wiping down the pitcher with a cloth. “I think she’d had a falling-out with her boyfriend,” she said at last. “A blond boy. Very good looking. Although I don’t think that was the reason Reagan liked him. Or at least not the only reason,” she added with a smile.

  “Was that Hugo?” asked Gemma.

  “Yes, that’s right. Reagan brought him to visit a few times. He was very charming.” There was a distinct lack of enthusiasm in the comment.

  “You didn’t like him?”

  “I wouldn’t say that, exactly. He’s a well-brought-up young man with good manners. He was always perfectly polite. But—” Asia made a face. “I don’t think he thought much of me. I’m not exactly what you would call up and coming. At any rate, I could always sense . . . something . . . I don’t know . . . condescension, perhaps, beneath the nice manners.”

  “Is that why Reagan fell out with him?” Kerry asked.

  “I doubt Reagan noticed, and I certainly never said anything. It was just me being overly sensitive, I imagine. And then there were the bricks.”

  They must have looked puzzled because Asia nodded towards a small pile of bricks by the door to the greenhouse. “I’m trying to finish paving the greenhouse floor to match the patio. Reagan suggested he could help. He didn’t come with her to visit after that.” She grinned at the memory, grief momentarily forgotten.

  Gemma could imagine such a pretty boy being horrified by the thought of a little manual labor. “Was it that Brit caused the problem between them, do you think?”

  “Oh, I think that would be overestimating my importance in Reagan’s life.” Asia swirled the liquid in her glass as she considered. “Reagan could be very definite about things. A bit of a straight arrow.” She looked up at them and Gemma saw that her eyes were an unusual color, a gold that was almost amber. “I think,” Asia said slowly, “that he’d done something she didn’t approve of. And that she was considering breaking things off.”

  Asia Ford wasn’t able to tell them much more about Hugo. He’d only been introduced to her by his first name. She’d gathered that he was a student at one of the London universities—a business degree, she thought. And his familiarity with the Notting Hill area had made her think that perhaps he lived nearby.

  They’d meant to try Mrs. Armitage again, but as they were leaving Asia had told them that it was Jean Armitage’s bridge day. Jean, said Asia, usually made a day of it by doing her weekly shopping afterwards.

  “Are you friends?” Gemma asked, curious since she’d got the impression Mrs. Armitage was rather starchy.

  “United in loving this place. It’s funny. Jean and her husband bought their house when I was a teenager. I was quite terrified of her. Now I see that she wasn’t all that much older than me and no doubt I threatened her authority. Who’d have thought we’d both still be here?”

  Gemma would have asked more, but Kerry had had a call from the crime scene techs so they said goodbye and hurried back towards the top of the garden.

  One of the SOCOs, a round-faced man with red-blond stubble, met them at the perimeter. “Detectives,” he said, nodding at them. “We’ve found some indentations in the grass that might have been made during a struggle. We’ll do our best to match them up with the position of the body. But here’s an interesting thing.” He held up a plastic evidence bag. In it was a white blob, about two inches in diameter. “There was a puddle of candle wax in the grass. No container, no wick. Just wax.”

  “Relation to the body?” Kerry snapped.

  The SOCO glared at her. “As we weren’t called to the scene with the body in situ, I can only extrapolate from the photos taken by the attending officers.” Having made his point, he turned back towards the scene. “However, I would guess the wax was two or three feet from the victim. We’re going to extend the perimeter,” he added, “but I don’t think it will be worth getting in the lights and generators.”

  Glancing at the lengthening angle of the sun, Gemma gasped, checked her watch, then took Kerry aside. “I’ve got to go. Duncan’s in Cheshire and I haven’t made other arrangements for collecting my daughter from school.”

  “And I have to ring the grieving mother,” Kerry said. “We’ll start again in the morning.”

  By the time Gemma had arrived home with Charlotte, Kit and Toby were there as well. She still hadn’t heard from Kincaid, and when she’d tried ringing him, his phone had once more gone to voice mail. But even without news, she’d have to tell the children something.

  Corralling them in the kitchen with the promise of a snack to hold them until dinner, she took some cheese from the fridge and cut it into cubes, then began slicing apples. When she had the plate ready, she sat the little ones at the kitchen table and called Kit in from the living room. If asked, Kit would have said he was too old for after-school snacks, but he scooped up half the cheese and apples and started out of the kitchen again.

  “Kit—”

  “I’ve got homework—”

  “I know you do, lovey, but just wait a minute, please. I need to talk to you all. Your dad’s not going to be home tonight—”

  “That’s really a news flash,” Kit broke in, apple halfway to his mouth.

  “Don’t be cheeky,” Gemma snapped back, irritated. “I mean that he’s gone away. To Cheshire. To see your grandparents.”

  “What? Why?” Kit frowned. “Why didn’t he tell us?”

  “Because he just found out this morning.” Toby and Charlotte were squabbling over the cheese, so Gemma spoke directly to Kit. “Hugh had some chest pains yesterday. They’re doing a procedure this afternoon. A stent. It’s a—”

  “I know what a stent is,” Kit interrupted. “Are they just doing one? How bad is it? Are they going to have to do a bypass?” His cheeks had gone blotchily pink and his voice rose as he added, “They’ll have to crack his chest if they do.”

  Toby, picking up the strain in his brother’s voice, let go of the last cube of cheddar and looked up. “Crack whose chest? Granddad’s? Why? Is he going to die?”

  “No, he’s not going to die, sweetie,” said Gemma. “Of course he’s not. He’s just had some discomfort and they’re going to make him feel better. I’m sure your dad will tell you all about it when he rings. You and Charlotte can take the dogs out for a little run, and I promise I’ll let you know as soon as your dad calls.”

  When she heard the French door bang behind them, she thought suddenly of Henry Su. She’d never worried about the
children when they were playing in the communal area, but perhaps it wasn’t as safe as she’d thought.

  Turning to Kit, she said, “Darling, would you tell them to stay close to the patio? I—”

  “You tell them,” said Kit. “I’ve got to work on my project.” But he had his phone out as he stomped out of the kitchen, and Gemma felt sure he was already texting his cousin Lally in Nantwich. She knew he was angry because he was frightened and she didn’t have the heart to reprimand him.

  Sighing, she’d started for the patio doors to check on the children when the front bell rang. “What now?” she muttered, changing direction and yanking open the front door.

  Melody Talbot stood on her doorstep, looking every bit as sullen as Kit had a moment before. Before Gemma could speak, Melody blurted out, “Where the hell were you today?”

  Chapter Twelve

  “You’d better come in,” said Gemma, frowning. She realized she’d never had a chance to ring Melody back that day, but she didn’t understand why Melody seemed so upset. Or why Melody looked so bedraggled. Her red silk blouse was half untucked, and her short, dark hair looked damp and disheveled. “Where’s your car?” Gemma added, glancing up and down the street.

  “Walked from Holland Park tube.”

  Gemma bit back more questions as she ushered Melody in. “I’ll just put the kettle on. I think we could both use a cuppa.” What Melody needed, she thought, was a glass of Asia Ford’s lemonade, but tea was the best she could do. As she walked back through the house, she realized she could no longer hear the children. “Hang on a sec,” she said. “Let me check on the little monsters.”