The Sound of Broken Glass

by Deborah Crombie

  The details fell into place gradually, as he got older and learned to decipher his mum’s muttered comments. “Greener pastures” meant another woman, a girlfriend. As far as Andy knew, his parents had never got a divorce. He thought his dad had sent money for a while, but it had long since stopped.

  At first, his mum had had a job as a cashier at the supermarket, but after a couple of years, one day she’d just stopped going to work. He never knew what had happened. For a time they seemed to live on bread and Marmite, and then his mum had got the job at the pub, and for a while after that things had been better.

  Sometimes there were “uncles,” but they never seemed to stay for long, and Andy was always glad to see the back of them.

  From his seat on the park steps, he watched other families, his curiosity tinged with envy. Mothers handing round ice creams, fathers playing football with sons. He couldn’t imagine what that would be like. His mum had never come to the park with him, although he had another vague memory of his dad bringing him to see the dinosaurs once.

  There were other boys, too, in the long August afternoons, about his age and on their own like him—sunburned savages who roamed the park in baggy shorts and expensive trainers with blinding-white laces. There were two, in particular, who came almost every day on bikes that he knew cost more than his mum made in a month. They raced and wheeled, then stood astride their bikes, watching him from the corners of their eyes. He couldn’t tell if their gazes held interest or menace, but on this day, he hugged the guitar a little closer and glanced at his watch.

  He had a schedule to keep now. The park, then an hour or two in the library, then home to get his own tea. Then, as the sun sank behind the houses on the west side of Woodland Road and the air began to cool, he’d sit on the steps with the guitar on his knees and wait.

  He knew to the minute when he’d hear the little Volkswagen chugging up the hill.

  “A hotel, you said?” asked Gemma when she was buckled into the passenger seat of Melody’s bright blue Renault Clio. Having thrown on trousers and boots and her cream-colored wool coat over a sweater, Gemma had pulled the tumble of her hair into a short haphazard plait. She saw that her partner, however, wore a dark trouser suit set off by a turquoise blouse, and had not a hair out of place in her dark, lustrous bob. Melody Talbot was the only woman Gemma knew who could wear a suit without looking dowdy, and on this miserable morning she found it a trifle annoying.

  Melody downshifted through the light at Holland Park Avenue. “Some place called the Belvedere.”

  The streets were glistening from the fine drizzle, and Gemma was glad, at least, that they wouldn’t be working outside. “Has the super been notified?” she asked. Their team’s detective chief superintendent, Diane Krueger, would coordinate the investigation from South London headquarters.

  “She’s on her way into the station.”

  “The team?”

  “Techies en route, as is the Home Office pathologist. And Shara will be there before us, as she lives in Brixton.”

  Gemma glanced at Melody, alert for any inflection in Melody’s tone. As soon as Melody had passed her sergeant’s exam, Gemma had requested Melody’s transfer to her new South London team.

  They were short staffed, the team having lost not only its DCI, the officer Gemma had replaced, to a severe heart attack, but also a detective sergeant who had transferred to another division.

  But Melody had not got off to a good start with the team’s detective constable, Shara MacNicols, although that had not been Melody’s doing.

  Shara was a young single mum and a good copper, but possessive of what she felt was her patch. Gemma didn’t like the friction on her team, but knew the situation needed both time and delicate handling. She sympathized with Shara—she’d been on her own with a small child, trying to make it in the job in a system that had seemed weighted against her—and she knew that to Shara it looked as if Melody had been brought in over her head because she was white and came from an obviously privileged background.

  In truth, it was the chip on Shara’s shoulder that was holding her back, but the young woman would never believe that. And then, Gemma thought with a glance at her partner and a suppressed smile, there were Melody’s suits. She supposed she couldn’t blame Shara for marking Melody out as a highflier.

  “Do we have an ID on the victim?” she asked, putting aside the problem of her team’s dynamics.

  Melody had no need to consult notes. “A Mr. Vincent Arnott. At least according to the driving license in his wallet. The hotel clerk told uniform that he always signed in as Mr. Smith.”

  “How original,” said Gemma, then frowned. “Always? He was a regular? What sort of hotel is this?”

  “I don’t know it.” Melody glanced at the car’s sat nav. “It’s the other side of Crystal Palace from the park. Church Road.”

  “The only thing I know about Crystal Palace is the football team,” said Gemma. In the light Saturday traffic, they’d reached the Battersea Bridge. Looking down as they crossed the Thames, she saw that the water was as gunmetal gray as the sky.

  As they drove through Battersea, she thought of her friend Hazel, who lived in a tiny walled bungalow just off the Battersea Road, and felt a pang of regret. She’d hoped to squeeze in a weekend visit with her, but now that looked unlikely.

  “I went once,” said Melody, and when Gemma looked at her blankly, added, “To Crystal Palace. The park. A school trip. Was it the beginning of year three or year four?” she mused, frowning. “Anyway, it was early in term, September, I think. We’d studied pictures in class, and I remember I walked along the empty terraces, trying to imagine what it must have been like, that great glass palace. And I couldn’t comprehend how there could be so little left of something so grand and marvelous.”

  “It burned, didn’t it?”

  Melody nodded. “A few years before the war. I suppose it was unlikely to have escaped the bombing, in any case, a target like that.” She gestured upwards, towards the rise of Clapham Common and the wall of fog above it. “You could see it from the City, you know.”

  “It was that big?”

  “Huge. And plunked right on top of Sydenham Hill, the highest point between London and the south coast.”

  “What’s it like, Crystal Palace? The area, I mean.” Having grown up in North London, and until this new posting, having worked mostly in West London, Gemma was still learning her new patch.

  “Going upmarket a bit, I think, but I don’t know it well myself. Look.” Melody pointed at the blue patches appearing in the fog, and Gemma glimpsed one of the Crystal Palace television masts before cloud shrouded it once again.

  Melody concentrated on her sat nav as they looped round the elegant buildings of Dulwich College, then wound up through bare trees until the road leveled again at the top of Gipsy Hill.

  Gemma glimpsed pubs and shops as they looped around a triangle of streets at the hill’s summit, following the one-way system. Then as they began a gentle descent down a tree-lined road, she saw the familiar strobe of blue lights. The journey had taken them less than forty-five minutes, door to door, so they’d made good time.

  “The Belvedere, I believe,” said Melody as she pulled up behind the last panda car.

  The hotel was on their right, a large, sprawling building, pale-pink stucco with deep-blue awnings on the lower windows. A uniformed constable was stringing blue-and-white tape across the stairs leading up to the entry. At the top of the steps, DC Shara MacNicols seemed to be engaged in a heated discussion with a stocky woman in a blue suit.

  “Hotel manager?” murmured Melody as she killed the Clio’s engine and snapped open her seat belt.

  “That would be my guess.” Gemma got out, flashing her ID at one of the uniformed constables keeping an eye on the perimeter as she and Melody made their way towards the hotel’s entrance.

  As they drew closer, Gemma saw that Shara had red beads in the ends of the tiny braids in her hair, a splash of color bright
as berries against the gray day. The other woman’s pale skin looked blotched from shock, her straw-blond hair dry and disheveled.

  “You didn’t check his identification?” Shara was saying as Gemma and Melody reached the two women.

  “Mr. Smith, he always paid in cash. It did not seem necessary,” answered the woman, and from her faint accent Gemma guessed she was Eastern European.

  Shara acknowledged them with a nod. “Guv. Sarge. This is Irene Dusek. She’s the night manager who checked in our victim.”

  “I’m Detective Inspector James, Ms. Dusek,” said Gemma. “And this is Detective Sergeant Talbot.” She frowned as she continued. “Ms. Dusek, I’m sure you’re aware that hotels are required to take down their guests’ identification details.”

  “Yes, but Mr. Smith, we know him. He was never any trouble, and he never stayed long.”

  “Well, he’s a bit of trouble now, isn’t he?” said Shara, and Gemma shot her a quelling look. Dusek sounded frightened, and Gemma was more concerned about information than government hotel regulations.

  “What time did Mr. Smith check in last night?” she asked.

  Dusek seemed to relax. “It was maybe eleven, but I am not sure exactly.”

  “Was someone with him?”

  “Oh, no. Mr. Smith, he always comes alone.”

  “Did he have luggage?” asked Melody.

  “Oh, I did not see. I was busy—there was a phone call. Maybe he got something from the car.” Dusek shifted, and Gemma guessed she was lying.

  “You saw his car?” she asked.

  “No, no. But I thought—he looked like a man who would have a car. A nice car, you know.”

  “So this gentleman”—Shara put heavy emphasis on the word—“came regularly, on his own, with no luggage. And you said he didn’t stay long. Did you mean he didn’t usually stay the entire night? It sounds to me like you’re running a brothel here.”

  Dusek shook her head emphatically. “No, no,” the woman said. “We do nothing bad. The housekeeper said he check out early. We are respectable hotel.” Her grasp of English seemed to be deteriorating under stress.

  Gemma examined the frontage of the hotel, seeing no obvious secondary entrances. “Ms. Dusek, are there other accesses to the hotel?”

  “We have the fire doors, of course. They are required.” Dusek seemed glad of firmer ground. “On the sides and in the back of hotel.”

  “Okay,” said Gemma. “We’ll have a look at those. But first we’d better see your Mr. Smith.”

  Dusek gave a little sob and pressed her knuckles to her mouth. “He was nice man, always very nice. I do not understand how this thing could happen.”

  “That’s our job to find out, Ms. Dusek. We’ll need to speak to you again. Is there someone who can sit with you?”

  “There is Raymond, the day clerk. And the housekeeper. She is very upset.” Coatless, Dusek had begun to shiver.

  “Let’s get you inside, then.” Gemma guided the woman into the lobby and Melody and Shara followed.

  The lobby, adorned with a violently patterned carpet in pink and blue, had a slightly scuffed reception desk to one side and a sitting area with a television on the other. Grouped around one of the tables in the sitting area were a woman in a maid’s smock who was sniffing into a handkerchief, a young spotty-faced man in white shirt and black trousers, and a large uniformed constable. They looked as if they might be unlikely participants in a card game, or, considering the pot and cups arrayed on the table, a tea party.

  The constable rose immediately and came towards them. When Gemma had identified herself, he said, “DC Turner, ma’am. Gipsy Hill Station.” He was fair and slightly bovine, but his blue eyes were sharp.

  “Ms. Dusek is going to stay with you for the moment. I’ll want to speak to the others later as well. Can you send the SOCOs to us when they arrive? And the doctor? Oh, and, Turner, I don’t want any of the guests leaving until we’ve interviewed them.”

  “In hand, ma’am. There’s only a dozen in this whole place, apparently. Not exactly a booming business. Those that have come down, I’ve put in the dining room.”

  Gemma nodded. “Good. And can you see that no one leaves through the fire doors?”

  “Done, ma’am,” Turner said, with obvious self-satisfaction that was redeemed by his grin.

  “Cheeky sod,” Shara muttered.

  Although Gemma would have preferred the scene-of-crime team on hand before she viewed the body, she felt there was little point in interviewing further staff until she knew exactly what they were dealing with. “All right, Turner. We’ll be—”

  “Through reception, down the stairs and to your right. You’ll see the constable on the door.” Turner’s smile had disappeared. “And you’ll be glad if you missed your breakfast.”

  Gemma followed his directions. Any moderately favorable impression she’d had of the hotel vanished as they left the public areas. The stairwell was dim, the walls scuffed and chipped. It smelled of damp, thinly disguised by industrial disinfectant. The basement corridor was no better. Two of the fluorescent light fixtures were out, and the others hummed unpleasantly. The uniformed officer standing at parade rest towards the end of the hall was a welcome sight.

  He was younger than Turner, and she suspected he had drawn the short straw.

  “Ma’am.” He nodded when she showed her ID, but didn’t meet her eyes.

  The door in front of which he stood guard was closed, but the key was in the lock.

  “Has anyone touched this other than the housekeeper?” she asked.

  “DC Turner was the first on scene, ma’am, but he used his gloves. I—didn’t go in.”

  “Right, then. Good lad.” Gemma pulled a pair of nitrile gloves from her coat pocket and slipped them on. “Let’s have a look, shall we?”

  Turning the key, she pushed the door open and stood on the threshold.

  The smell hit her in a wave. Urine, feces, and the unmistakable stench of death. The hotel might be short on guests but was not stinting on its central heating. The room was like an oven, and Gemma felt the sweat prickle beneath the collar of her coat.

  Gray daylight poured in through windows set high up in the room’s outside wall. She blinked as her eyes adjusted, then focused on the room’s double bed, illuminated by a sudden shaft of sunlight like a tableau in a medieval painting.

  “Bloody hell,” she said.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The Crystal Palace was a huge glass and iron structure originally built in 1851 for the Great Exhibition held in London’s Hyde Park. Prince Albert, head of the Society of Arts, had the idea of an exhibition to impress the world with Britain’s industrial achievements. Countries including France, the United States, Russia, Turkey and Egypt all attended with exhibits falling into four main categories—Raw Materials, Machinery, Manufacturers and Fine Arts.

  —www.bbc.co.uk

  Gemma pressed her lips together. Melody and Shara stood just behind her, their breathing loud in her ears. They all seemed suspended in that instant.

  Then Shara said, “Trussed up like a bloody chicken, isn’t he? But a bit scrawny, if you ask me,” and that broke the tension.

  Letting the air out through her nose, Gemma moved a step forward into the room, careful not to touch anything. Her first thought on hearing the description of the scene had been that a bit of autoerotica had gone wrong. Now she said, “Not likely he did this to himself, is it?”

  The man lay faceup on the bed. The thin top sheet was rumpled beneath his feet, which were bound tightly with a black leather belt. Although otherwise naked, he still wore socks, and the right one was pushed halfway down his foot, as if he’d managed to dislodge it in a struggle. The dangling sock somehow made the scene more grotesque.

  His knees were drawn up. Beneath them were stains on the bottom sheet where he had voided his bowels and bladder. His hands were beneath his buttocks, and the tail end of a conservatively patterned red-and-blue necktie peeped out to one side.
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  “He must have been tied facedown,” said Melody. “Not just the hands. Look”—she pointed at his feet—“the belt buckle and knot are on the backside of his ankles.”

  “So, did he turn himself over, or did someone else turn him, either before or after they strangled him?” asked Gemma. The ligature bruising was clearly visible on his throat, as was the fixed lividity, but there was no sign of the implement that had been used.

  “I should be able to tell you that,” said a familiar voice, and Gemma turned to see Dr. Rashid Kaleem, Home Office pathologist, and her friend. His short hair was the color of the black leather jacket that covered his T-shirt, and his smile would have done justice to a toothpaste advert.

  “Rashid. I’m glad it’s you.” Although Gemma had met Rashid on a case in which she had not been officially involved, she’d found that he was often assigned to South London investigations, and she liked working with him. He was young, smart, precise, and he didn’t treat police officers as an annoyance. The only drawback was the swoon rate among female officers.

  “Someone had a bit of fun here, eh?” Rashid set his bag just outside the door and drew on gloves. “Any idea who he is?”

  Gemma pointed at the neatly folded clothing on the room’s single chair—a Barbour-type jacket, dark trousers, a navy pullover that looked like it might be cashmere, and a pale-blue oxford shirt. Atop the shirt lay a man’s leather wallet. She turned to the constable on the door. “Who checked his wallet, DC—”

  “Gleason, ma’am. It was DC Turner. He said he didn’t disturb the clothes any more than necessary.”

  “A Mr. Vincent Arnott, according to the initial report,” put in Melody. “It seems he was accustomed to checking into the hotel as Mr. Smith.”

  Rashid raised his dark eyebrows. “Well. It will be interesting to see if Mr. Arnott-Smith was always so orderly, or if someone else was Mr. or Ms. Tidy. Was anyone seen with him?” Although Rashid’s accent was perfect BBC-received English, Gemma knew that he’d grown up on a council estate in Bethnal Green, and his easy charm concealed a fierce intellect.