The Garden of Lamentations

by Deborah Crombie

  “You must be Hugo,” said Kerry, reaching the table first. “I’m DCI Boatman.” She held out her hand and he half-rose to shake it. “And this is DI James. Do you mind if we sit?”

  There was room on the banquette beside Hugo. When he nodded to his friends, they vacated their seats, the young man moving round beside him and the woman pulling an unused chair from another table. Gemma found it interesting that it was the young man who sat beside Hugo. He was rather plain, and made more so by the contrast with Hugo. His mousy hair was a little long, like Hugo’s, but unstyled and, although Gemma put him in his early twenties, his face still showed a scattering of spots.

  “I’m Sidney. Sidney Wyatt,” he said, with a hint of belligerence. He wore a stained brown T-shirt that bore the faded logo of a band Gemma didn’t recognize. Hugo, on the other hand, had thrown a royal blue blazer over a white T-shirt and looked as though he’d stepped out of a fashion advert.

  In a soft voice, the young woman introduced herself as Thea Osho. Her skin was a deep, burnished black. She had full lips and high cheekbones. Her dark eyes, which slanted upwards at the corners, were accentuated by expertly applied eyeliner. Her head was shaved on one side and the rest of her hair fell in long, tiny braids that had brightly colored metal discs attached to the ends. It was a look that no one ordinary could have pulled off. She greeted them with a smile that seemed genuine and a glisten of tears in her eyes. “We want to know what happened to Reagan,” she said. “We’re her friends, too.”

  So, not there as emotional support for Hugo, Gemma thought, or at least not on Thea’s part.

  When the waitress came to the table, Kerry ordered a latte, but Gemma shook her head and took out a little notebook. She wanted to listen without the distraction of a drink.

  “You didn’t know that Reagan was dead?” she asked, directing her question to Thea.

  Thea shook her head, the little discs on the ends of her braids jingling. They were bottle caps, Gemma decided, that had been pounded flat. “I’d been texting her, then ringing her since Friday,” Thea said. “At first I thought she was just busy with Jess’s dance classes and her modeling.”

  “But you didn’t hear from her,” Gemma said, when she paused.

  “No. Then her voice mail filled up. I was a little worried about her, but I never thought . . .”

  “You didn’t go to her house?” Kerry asked, having accepted a beautifully designed latte from the waitress, who called her “love” with a familiarity hinting at visits more regular than Kerry had admitted.

  “Oh, no. I wouldn’t have done that.” Thea sounded surprised. “Reagan didn’t really like her friends coming there. And to be honest, I never felt welcome.” She shrugged a dark shoulder, exposed by the thin strap of her tank top. “I don’t think her boss approved of me,” she added with a little grimace and a finger touched to her cheek, making it clear she meant the color of her skin. Her movements were so fluid that Gemma thought of Jess, and wondered if Thea danced, too. And if she’d at first wondered if there was anything between this girl and Hugo Gold, she decided that there was not. He was gazing past her, his face blank, and there was no spark of intimacy between them.

  “Hugo.” Kerry, fortified by a sip of coffee, sounded ready to get down to business. “When did you see Reagan last?”

  He seemed to bring himself back to them with an effort. “It was Friday.” His accent was quite posh but his voice, thought Gemma, was just a bit too high to be pleasant. “We all went to the piano bar on Friday night,” he added, looking at Sidney and Thea as if for confirmation. They both nodded.

  “The piano bar?”

  “Kensington Piano. It’s across the road,” said Hugo, gesturing towards Kensington High Street. “Upstairs.”

  Although she’d never been in, Gemma had often walked past its tiny frontage with the black downstairs door.

  “I understood you were a couple,” Kerry said. “You didn’t try to reach her over the weekend?”

  Hugo shifted in his seat. “No. We had a bit of a row at the club and I thought she was still cheesed off with me. I thought she’d text me when she’d had a chance to cool off. You know, to apologize.”

  Kerry looked surprised. “Reagan needed to apologize to you? Why was that?”

  He shrugged. “She was just having a bad night. Pissed off with everybody. I told her to chill, it was Friday night and we were out to have a good time, and for that she bit my head off.”

  “Was she drinking?”

  He shrugged. “She had one, maybe two drinks. But Reagan isn’t—wasn’t—a big drinker.”

  “Then what happened? Did you see her home, Hugo?”

  “No. She just left. It was only about half past ten. She said she had a headache.”

  “Did Reagan have her mobile with her?” Gemma put in, still bothered by the missing phone.

  “Well, yeah, I’m sure she did,” said Hugo, but he sounded uncertain. “I mean, why wouldn’t she?” From his tone, Gemma might have asked if Reagan had gone out without an arm.

  Thea spoke up. “She did. I saw her texting.”

  “Any idea who she was texting?” Gemma asked.

  Thea shook her head. “No. Maybe it was work. Or her mum.”

  Gemma had the feeling Thea knew, or guessed, more than she was saying. And neither Nita Cusick nor Gwen Keating had mentioned hearing from Reagan on Friday night. “Do you know any other friends that she might have been in contact with?”

  “We were her best friends,” said Sidney, joining in for the first time. He sounded truculent, as if Reagan hadn’t had any right to other friends. Thea gave him a glance filled with what Gemma would have sworn was dislike. So these three were definitely not the Three Musketeers.

  “Is there any chance she left her mobile at the club?” asked Gemma.

  “I don’t think so.” Thea frowned. “But I suppose she could have dropped it and not realized. It was mad in there. It always is on the weekend, but on Friday there was an engagement party as well as a birthday party. It was an absolute crush—you couldn’t move for the people. Reagan wanted to go someplace else, but no one was listening,” Thea added, her tone accusing.

  Hugo bristled. “Reagan knew what the place was like when we made the plans. She’d been before.”

  Gemma guessed that he didn’t like being criticized. She knew Kerry was thinking the same thing when Kerry said, suddenly sharp, “So your girlfriend wasn’t feeling well in a crowded club, and you just let her go home by herself, Hugo? You weren’t worried about her?”

  He glared at Kerry. “Why should I have been? She was a grown-up. All she had to do was get the bus up the hill.”

  Gemma gaped at him. What charm had Reagan seen in Hugo’s utter self-absorption?

  It was Thea who turned on him. “Except she wasn’t okay, was she, Hugo? She died. Died! If you’d gone with her—if any of us had gone with her—she might have been okay.” She looked from Gemma to Kerry. “And you still haven’t told us what happened to her. MacKenzie Williams just told Hugo she’d been found dead in the garden. How did she die? Something terrible happened to her or you two wouldn’t be talking to us. You don’t get two senior detectives doing interviews for a natural death.”

  Gemma said merely, “Had you all been to the Cusicks’ house? Even though you say Reagan didn’t encourage visitors there?”

  They all nodded, if a little reluctantly. Hugo glanced at Sidney before saying, “We went to pick her up a few times. When she wasn’t quite ready, or Nita was late getting home and she couldn’t leave the kid, she invited us in. And I went over a few times when Nita was out. But it was all very up front and proper,” he added, as if they’d accused him of impropriety.

  “Thea?” Gemma asked, turning to her.

  “Well, yeah, I’ve been to the house a few times. More than that, I guess, but usually when Nita was out.”

  “You’ll have gone in Reagan’s room?”

  “Yeah, of course.”

  “Did Reagan have
a computer?”

  Thea nodded. “A nice one, too. She was saving money—that’s one of the reasons she took the job, because it meant not having to pay rent on a flat—but she splashed out on a few things like the computer and her little printer.” She gave Gemma the brands of both.

  While Gemma was making notes, Kerry said, “What about the garden? Did you go in, any of you?”

  “We had drinks on the patio once or twice,” said Thea. “But the whole place—the house, the patio—was bloody sterile. It was never comfortable. Nita doesn’t even like Reagan cooking in the kitchen.” She didn’t seem to realize she’d used the present tense.

  “Hugo?” asked Kerry.

  He looked wary. “Yeah, a few times. We walked around. Where was she—” He stopped, swallowing. “You know.”

  Instead of answering, Kerry asked, “Did she show you the gate?”

  “No.” He frowned. “Why would she? We always went through the house.”

  “And you didn’t go there to talk things over with her after she left the club on Friday night?”

  “No. I told you. There was nothing to talk about,” Hugo said, his voice rising.

  “Okay, okay, calm down.” Kerry smiled, which Gemma didn’t think Hugo would find the least bit reassuring. “We have to ask these things. It’s best if you just answer and get it over with. Where did you go after you left the club on Friday night?”

  Hugo glanced at Sidney, then said, “We hung out with some mates at UCL. Student accommodation. We got thoroughly pissed, if you must know.”

  “This was all three of you?”

  “No, just Sidney and me. Thea had her own thing.”

  “Can your mates corroborate this?”

  “Well, yeah, I suppose. But I’m not sure how much anyone will remember. Or that they’ll be thrilled to talk to the police.” For the first time, Hugo looked a little frightened. Gemma wondered if there had been drugs involved in his get-together, as well.

  “We’ll try not to make them too uncomfortable,” said Kerry, with such sincerity that Gemma had to hide a grin. “Thea, what about you?” Kerry added.

  “I went to my boyfriend’s. I’d had enough noise for one night. We stayed in and watched telly.” Unlike Hugo, she seemed relaxed. “I still wish I’d checked on Reagan. Maybe I could have done something . . .”

  “You can’t know that,” Gemma told her, although she couldn’t blame her for feeling that way.

  “I’ll need all your particulars, and contact information for your friends”—Kerry nodded at Hugo and Sidney—“and your boyfriend,” she added to Thea. “As well as the times you left the club. Did you go together?”

  “Yeah,” said Thea. “We all took the tube back to Euston Road, then split up from there.”

  “I’ll need each of you to come into Kensington Police Station and make a written statement of everything you’ve told us here.” Before any of them could protest, Kerry added, “I understand if you have lectures or commitments this morning, but I’d like for you to do this today. We don’t want to have to send a panda car for you, now do we?” With that, she drank the last of her latte and signaled for the bill.

  When Kerry had paid, she and Gemma took their leave. Before they reached the restaurant door, Gemma looked back. The three heads were bent together over the table, and as she watched, Sidney lightly rested his fingertips on the pocket of Hugo’s blazer. It was an oddly intimate gesture.

  They’d reached the street when Thea came running out the arcade doors, calling out to them. “I told them I was late for a class,” she said, glancing back at the arcade. “But I thought you should know. I think Reagan meant to break it off with Hugo. She was seeing someone else.”

  “Do you know who?” asked Gemma.

  “His name is Edward Miller. He’s a client of Nita Cusick’s.”

  Kincaid woke on Tuesday morning feeling a little the worse for wear, as well as stiff from sleeping on Juliet’s sofa, which was a foot too short for him. Juliet was dashing round the house, shouting at the kids to hurry or they’d be late to school, and he couldn’t believe he’d managed to sleep through the chaos.

  “And I’ve a building site to get to,” Juliet added, handing Kincaid a cup of tea as he wandered into the kitchen. She filled a thermos for herself from the teapot and added milk and sugar. “You can use my shower,” she added, giving him a critical eye. “I take mine after work.” She wore her builder’s overall, and looked all the more feminine for it.

  Sam and Lally trooped noisily in wearing their school uniforms, shrugging into backpacks, and Kincaid felt a sudden searing homesickness. He’d missed telling the children goodnight last night when Gemma hadn’t returned his call, and now he was yet again missing their morning routine.

  He was wondering why Gemma hadn’t rung him back when Juliet gathered up her things and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek.

  “You will look after Daddy this morning, won’t you?” she asked.

  “Of course.” He pulled her into a hug. “And you keep me posted on things, okay?” What he didn’t want to say in front of the children was that he was counting on her to tell him the things that his mother would not.

  “Do you have to go?” asked Sam, long-faced.

  “I’m afraid I do. I have to go to work, and your cousins miss me.” He tousled Sam’s hair and resisted the urge to do the same to Lally. Instead, he leaned down and kissed her very gently on the cheek. “You look after your mum, okay?”

  Lally nodded, blushing, and pulled something from the pocket of her jeans. She handed him a folded piece of paper. “Will you give this to Kit?”

  “Yes, of course.” He tucked it carefully into his shirt pocket.

  “It’s origami. I’ve been practicing.”

  “I’ll tell him. He’ll be—”

  “Must run,” interrupted Juliet, hustling the children towards the door.

  “Jules,” he said, and when she turned back he added, “Thanks. For everything. And”—he grinned—“keep Ronnie Babcock in line.”

  Although his father was now stable and settled at home, worry over his parents consumed the first hour of Kincaid’s return journey. But by the time he reached Birmingham, his night was catching up with him. The car was warm and he was beginning to nod. He rolled the windows of the old Astra down farther and turned up the radio, but nothing helped the sleepiness. “As bad as drink,” he mumbled, and pulled off with relief at the first motorway services.

  Stopping in an empty spot at the edge of the car park, he turned off the car and was asleep within seconds.

  He woke with a start a half hour later. His mouth felt like old leather and his head was pounding. Sprucing himself up as best he could, he went into the shop and bought a coffee. Then, realizing that he hadn’t eaten since the night before, he added a sandwich and a bottle of water. A few minutes later, back in the car, he’d polished off the sandwich and the bottle of water. Feeling much more alert, he took a sip of the coffee, then started the car and eased back onto the motorway.

  As he drove, he found himself thinking about his conversation with Ronnie Babcock the night before. Ronnie was right, he realized now. With everything that had happened to Denis and to Ryan Marsh, he’d been so emotionally involved that he’d failed to do basic police work. But how could he go about any proper investigation now without leaving tracks that could endanger him and his family?

  As he gazed once again at the rolling hills of the Cotswolds to the west, a flicker of half-formed thought nagged at him. He’d almost grasped it just before he woke from the deep sleep in the car, he remembered now. Had he been dreaming? Had it been to do with Ryan? He glanced at the overhead motorway sign—he was coming up on the exit for Oxford. And south of Oxford, there was the cottage near Sonning where he and Doug and Melody Talbot had visited Ryan Marsh’s wife, Christie. Was she still there? he wondered. If so, would she still be watched? It was too dangerous, he thought, to pay her a visit.

  And then he thought of the island,
Ryan’s hideaway on the Thames, near Didcot. Christie Marsh had known roughly where it was because she’d followed her husband as far as the river, and it had been Christie who had told them about it. It was where he and Doug had found Ryan and convinced him to come with them. If they hadn’t, would Ryan still be alive?

  Had Christie managed to find the island after Ryan’s death? If not, what might Ryan have left there?

  With sudden decision, Kincaid swung the car into the lane for the Oxford exit. He meant to find out.

  Chapter Fifteen

  After leaving Bill’s and the tube station arcade, Gemma and Kerry tried the piano bar, on the other side of Kensington High Street. The place was locked up tight, its hours stating that it didn’t open until five. “We’ll have to come back,” Boatman said. “Maybe about half past four, see if we can catch the staff before the punters start coming in.” Gemma agreed, but also thought it was going to be another long day, and she’d not had a word from Kincaid about when he might be home to help with the kids.

  From there they walked back to Kensington nick, retiring to Kerry’s office for a strategy session and, in Kerry’s case, more coffee. Gemma decided the woman must have caffeine for blood.

  “So what did you think of our little trio?” Kerry asked, leaning against the edge of her desk as she had the day before.

  “Unlikely,” Gemma said after a moment’s thought. “On all fronts. Reagan seems to have been a sensible girl. I can’t imagine what she saw in Hugo Gold. Although he was different in the photos,” she added. “Maybe since they modeled together, she saw the persona he generates in front of the camera.”

  “Yes, good point. But Sidney is rather unpleasant, wouldn’t you say?” Kerry added with an expression of distaste.

  “I got the impression Hugo rather enjoys Sidney’s adoration, although I doubt he returns it. And Thea—what is a girl like that doing with either of them?” Gemma shook her head, adding, “I’d like to talk to MacKenzie Williams about Hugo.” Taking out her notebook, she jotted “talk to MacKenzie” on her running list.