The Sound of Broken Glass

by Deborah Crombie

  “Oh, one more thing,” Rashid added as he rose. “The SOCOs checked with me on the victim’s blood type. That spot of fresh blood on the sheet? It wasn’t Arnott’s.”

  Getting Doug in—and out of—Melody’s little Renault Clio had been a bigger undertaking than she had expected. Even after she’d slid the passenger seat all the way back, he’d had to grab the car’s roof and lever himself in, grimacing as he positioned the unwieldy surgical boot in the foot well.

  “Sorry, sorry,” she’d murmured as she eased the car into traffic, hating the sight of his white face and clenched teeth.

  Fortunately, the Sunday-morning streets were as empty as they were ever likely to be, and it wasn’t far from the hospital to Putney. He’d needed her arm to get out when they reached his house, and that had made him grumble under his breath.

  “You’ll get better at it,” she said, walking beside him as he hobbled up to the front door. “Are you sure you don’t need a crutch or something?”

  “No, they said I just had to stay off it as much as possible the first day or two. I don’t need a bloody crutch or a cane, thanks very much.” He fumbled the key in the lock, then stepped into the house with an obvious sigh of relief.

  Melody had to bite her lip when she followed him into the sitting room and saw the overturned ladder and the spilled paint decorating not only the drop cloth but the surrounding carpet, like a monotone Jackson Pollock painting. “Good thing you’d decided to rip the carpeting out,” she said only half jokingly. They’d discovered that beneath the worn brown flat-weave carpet, the original Victorian floorboards were in almost perfect condition. “Don’t worry. I’ll help you clean it up later.”

  She uncovered the armchair Doug had protected with a sheet and pulled up an ottoman. Both were finds from the Chelsea auction house they’d visited on several occasions, and she was glad they’d escaped unscathed. As Doug sat heavily in the chair and propped up his foot, she fetched his laptop, his phone charger, and the telly remote, putting them on a side table.

  Surveying him with satisfaction, she said, “All comfy now?” then clapped a hand over her mouth. “Food. I forgot about food. Do you have anything in the house?”

  “I thought we’d be going out yesterday, so I was going to do the shopping today.” There was a tinge of self-pity in Doug’s answer, but she couldn’t really blame him.

  “I can dash round the corner and get you an Egg McMuffin from the McDonald’s,” she offered.

  Doug made a face. “No, I’m fine, really. They fed me something horrible in the hospital first thing this morning.”

  “Cup of tea?”

  “No. You go on,” he insisted. “I know you’re late as it is. And thanks, Melody, really.”

  “Okay,” Melody agreed, reluctantly. “But I’m going to pop in again after the briefing.”

  He flapped a hand at her in a half wave, and when she looked back from the door, his eyes were already closed.

  To Melody’s relief, when she arrived at the station, Gemma was just hurrying in the door to the CID suite. “Boss. Glad I’m not the only one late,” Melody whispered.

  “We’ve just seen Rashid,” Gemma muttered back as their boss, Detective Superintendent Diane Krueger, turned to look at them with disapproval.

  “Nice of you ladies to come in this morning.” Superintendent Krueger had not made any casual concessions to Sunday—she wore a charcoal pin-striped suit with a knee-length skirt, and had her thick brown hair pulled into a neat French twist. “I’ve got a media interview in an hour, and I’d like to have something to tell them. Or at least know what not to tell them.”

  Krueger was a striking brunette in her midforties, slender, with a face that both still and video cameras liked. Melody knew that Gemma, who was a bit self-conscious about her North London accent when she heard it recorded, was always happy when Krueger volunteered for media duty.

  Shara MacNicols, there before they were, gave them a smug look. She was seated in front of a computer monitor at one of the suite’s long worktables, the pile of Arnott’s DVDs beside her. Melody hoped she’d been watching them with the sound turned off.

  “Sorry, guv,” Gemma said to the superintendent. “We’ve just been meeting with the pathologist. He got the postmortem done ahead of schedule.” As she and Melody slid into seats at the conference table, she went on, “Surely we want to say as little as possible. As in, ‘London barrister found dead in suspicious circumstances near his Crystal Palace home. Police await coroner’s ruling.’”

  “Thank you, Gemma. I’ll be sure to let you know next time I need help with a press release.” Krueger sighed and relented a little. “Of course we’ll try to keep this as low key as we can, at least until we have a better idea of what we’re dealing with. But there’s a very active virtual forum in the area, and a member reported police activity at the Belvedere Hotel. A newspaper stringer picked it up, talked to the staff, and Bob’s your uncle. The journos are already camping in front of the station, and I can’t keep them from talking to the hotel staff. By tonight we’re going to be front-page and the ten o’clock news. I’d like to have something a bit more definitive to tell them.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Gemma knew the super was right.

  Crossing the room to the whiteboard, Krueger stood with marker in hand, ready to add to the information already posted. “So, what did the delicious Rashid have for us?”

  “Vincent Arnott was strangled, as we assumed,” said Gemma quickly, aware that Melody was not in the loop. “Rashid said it was done from behind and that it was not self-inflicted. There was no sign of sexual assault or activity.”

  She went on to detail Rashid’s findings of the two different fibers, the gagging, and the fact that the spot of fresh blood had not belonged to the victim. “His alcohol level was high but not enough to incapacitate him. He did, after all, walk into the hotel and pay for the room, and there were no signs of further alcohol consumption.”

  Krueger added key points to the board. “The lack of sexual activity doesn’t mean we can rule out some sort of bondage nutter. Shara, is there anything on those videos to suggest he was into cross gender?”

  “Not so far. Women wearing cheap dominatrix gear, tying up middle-aged men and telling them to be good little boys. Pretty pathetic, really.”

  “I assume you’d recognize expensive dominatrix gear if you saw it?” asked Krueger. It was their guvnor’s idea of a joke, and when they all smiled obediently, she continued. “We’ll see if forensics can get a DNA profile from that blood spot. Maybe some perp will conveniently pop up in the database. If not, we’ll at least have something that might link a suspect to the scene, if—let’s make that when—we do turn up a viable suspect. In the meantime, do we know anything about Arnott’s work situation?”

  “I’ve got the home number for his chambers clerk,” said Gemma. “I’ll see if I can set up an interview for today.”

  “What about the CCTV?” Krueger consulted her notes. “You had that pulled, I think, Melody.”

  Crossing to one of the computers, Melody logged into the case file. As she brought up the CCTV footage, she said, “Unfortunately, we’ve only got a camera covering the pub. There was nothing along Church Road by the hotel.”

  “So Big Brother is not everywhere,” said Krueger. “Unfortunate indeed, in this instance.”

  Melody turned the monitor and they all gathered round the screen. “Damn,” she said when the sequence began. “It’s like bloody pea soup.” The angle of the camera just caught the front of the White Stag, the intersection, and a few yards of Church Road, but the swirling fog would have made the location unrecognizable if one hadn’t already been familiar with it.

  Melody fast-forwarded and they watched the frames jump. Groups of people entered and left the pub’s front entrance, moving in jerky quick time, like an old silent film. The digital counter clicked towards eleven o’clock, and suddenly there he was.

  Arnott, recognizable in a break in the fog by his
shock of silver hair. Melody slowed the tape, then backed up. There, again, Arnott exiting the pub, and now they could see that there was another person with him. But the figure was smaller, and shielded from the camera by Arnott’s body. The couple moved away quickly, even in real time, and vanished from view a few yards along Church Road.

  “That’s definitely Arnott,” said Melody. “But I can’t even tell if that was a man or a woman with him.”

  “Back up just a couple of frames,” Gemma asked, then frowned as she watched the sequence again. “A woman, I think. There’s something slightly possessive about his posture, and something in the way she—if it is a she—moves . . . ”

  Melody started to back the tape up once more, but Gemma said, “No, go on. Let’s see what else there is. All we know for certain now is that Arnott did leave the pub with another person, probably a woman.”

  The tape ran on, and almost immediately, another group of people came out of the pub, milling about for a moment before splitting off in different directions, some to the left towards Westow Street, some to the right towards Belvedere Road. One, presumably male, with hood up and head down, crossed the intersection, but the fog swirled in and obscured him after that.

  Then, from around the corner, where Melody remembered the pub had a side entrance, came an instantly recognizable figure. Andy Monahan, in a dark peacoat, head bare, guitar case over his shoulder, pulling an amp on a trolley. And with him, a thin, dark-haired young man carrying a longer, thinner case and pulling an amp as well.

  A white Ford Transit van pulled up, and when the heavyset driver got out, Melody realized she’d seen him in the group that had walked towards Belvedere Road. He conferred with Andy and the dark-haired bloke, then disappeared towards the side entrance and returned carrying a drum kit. All three loaded equipment into the van, then seemed to argue for a few moments.

  Then the drummer—or so Melody assumed—got into the driver’s side, the dark-haired bloke got into the passenger seat, and their doors slammed shut with what seemed unnecessary force. The van sped away, leaving Andy Monahan standing with his guitar at the curb. A moment later, a Mini Cooper pulled up. Andy leaned in the window, apparently conferring with the driver. She saw him shake his head and gesture, as if reluctant or unhappy. But then he got in and the Mini zipped round the corner into Westow Street and disappeared.

  Melody sat back, feeling a rush of relief she wasn’t sure she could justify. “That seems to bear out what Andy—the guitarist—and his manager told me yesterday. Still, I’ll confirm the make on the manager’s car. And I’d like to talk to the other members of the band. They were arguing about something, and I want to know what it was.”

  Kincaid rang the bell at Doug’s house in Putney, stamping his feet against the cold, for the day had set in crisp and—for the moment—clear. He held a paper bag from which rose the enticing aroma of hot beef burgers from the Jolly Gardeners just up the road.

  He was about to ring again when he heard Doug shout, “Coming. I’m coming,” then the lock clicked and the door swung open.

  Surveying his erstwhile partner’s rumpled hair, heavy-lidded eyes, and booted foot, Kincaid said, “You do look a sight.” He held up the bag. “I thought you might like some lunch.”

  “Oh, God.” Doug hobbled out of the way so that Kincaid could come in. “I’m starving. There’s no food in the house. Melody offered to get something this morning, but I knew she’d already gone out of her way to fetch me from hospital and I didn’t want to hold her up any longer.”

  Kincaid followed him into the sitting room, where Doug levered himself back into his armchair and propped his booted ankle on the ottoman. An old episode of Top Gear was playing soundlessly on the telly, and Kincaid suspected Doug had been napping. Then he took in the tipped ladder and the spilled paint. “Bloody hell!”

  Doug gave a disgruntled sigh. “I think I’m going to be apologizing for my stupidity for the rest of my life. At least, as Melody reminded me, I was going to tear the carpet out anyway. I thought you were minding the kids, with Gemma on a big case,” he added as Kincaid pulled up another chair and unwrapped the burgers.

  “Betty invited us all for Sunday lunch. I took advantage. Told her I was sure you needed some TLC. Although Melody seems to have done pretty well in the caretaking department, I must say.”

  “She feels sorry for me.” Doug shrugged, but he looked pleased nonetheless.

  Glancing at the front window, Kincaid saw a bright blue Renault Clio pull up to the curb. “Speak of the devil.” He grinned.

  “Melody? Here?” Doug looked round for someplace to set his burger and began to push himself out of the chair. “She said she was coming back but I didn’t think she’d manage it.”

  “Stay put. I’ll go,” Kincaid told him.

  “I see we have a party,” said Melody when he greeted her at the door. She held a bag identical to the one Kincaid had brought, and when she came into the sitting room and saw their burgers, she laughed. Holding up her bag, she said to Doug, “I brought you the Gardeners’ Sunday roast chicken. I thought you could save half for your dinner, but now you can have the whole thing tonight.”

  “Thanks,” Doug called out as she went to the kitchen and popped the bag in the fridge. “But what about you? No lunch?”

  Melody came back into the sitting room and perched on the edge of a chair. “Sandwich at the station. And I can’t stay long. Just wanted to make sure you were coping.”

  “How’d you get away?” Doug asked.

  “Skiving.” Melody gave a dimpled smile. “No, really, I’ve got interviews, and Putney wasn’t that far out of my way.”

  “Interviews? Where?” Doug, obviously more interested in keeping Melody there than in eating, managed to find a spot for his half-eaten burger. He nibbled absently on a chip.

  “Well, the thing is,” answered Melody, “I’m not exactly sure.” She outlined the morning’s developments, then added, “Gemma has Shara going round the pub in Crystal Palace again—her reward for having to watch the porn videos this morning—just in case any of the Sunday patrons were there on Friday night and might remember seeing Arnott talking to, or leaving with, a woman who might possibly fit the description of the person on the CCTV. And, of course, it’s always possible that someone might admit to having had a previous liaison with him.”

  “Of course?” said Doug. “Is it really all that likely?”

  Melody shrugged. “You never know. A lonely woman, she might see it as a chance at a little attention. Maybe even an inch in the Evening Standard: My Encounter with the Victim.”

  “Cynic,” said Doug. He looked much more chipper than when Kincaid had come in.

  “What about Gemma?” asked Kincaid, wishing she had rung him with an update.

  “Still slaving away at the station. The results of the search of Arnott’s car should be coming in, and she’s hoping the computer techs will have something from his home computer. Oh, and I think she’s tracked down the clerk from Arnott’s chambers. Someplace in Battersea. The clerk, I mean, not the chambers.”

  Doug rolled his eyes. “Obviously. And you still haven’t told us where Putney was on the way to.” He frowned at his garbled sentence, and Kincaid thought he was tiring. “I mean—Well, you know what I mean.”

  For the first time, Melody seemed a little hesitant. “I’ve already spoken to the guitarist—the one that Arnott shouted at—but I want to talk to the other guys who were playing in the band on Friday night. There was something going on with them—they seemed to be arguing after the gig. It may not have any connection with the case, but I want to know what the row was about. I rang the manager, Tam, and confirmed that it was his Mini we saw on the CCTV picking up the guitarist. And I got phone numbers and home addresses for the bass player and the drummer. The bass player, Nick, lives in Earl’s Court, and Tam said if I wanted to catch him I’d better go toot suite. His term, not mine. So I should be on my—”

  “Melody,” Kincaid broke in. “The
band’s manager is named Tam? And he drives a Mini?”

  “Yeah. Funny little guy, but nice. He said his name is really Michael, but he wears this ratty old Scots tam—”

  “Jesus.” Kincaid shook his head. “I should have realized—I would have realized, if Gemma had told me . . . ” He frowned at Melody. “This guitarist—what’s his name?”

  “Andy. Andy Monahan.” Now Melody was looking puzzled. “Why?”

  “Because,” said Kincaid. “I know Tam Moran. And I know your guitarist, too.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Recording studios started setting up in the 1960s, and it was then that Denmark Street’s name was etched into the archives. Denmark Street’s impact on the contemporary music scene is widely regarded as far greater than the more populist location of Abbey Road.

  —www.covent-garden.co.uk

  “I still can’t believe it,” said Tom Kershaw when he opened the door of his Battersea flat to Gemma. It was the same thing he’d said to her over the phone when she’d finally reached him an hour earlier and had informed him of Vincent Arnott’s death.

  She’d had no trouble finding the flat by his directions. It was a relatively new gated community with its own communal garden flanking the river.

  Kershaw was a thin, balding man in his forties, with a pleasant face. Now, he hesitated for a moment, glancing back into the flat, then said, “Do you mind if we talk outside? It’s just that it’s Sunday, and all the kids are at home.” Gemma heard the sound of a piano being laboriously practiced, then a woman hushing a childish shriek. The lingering aroma of a Sunday roast wafted out.

  “Not at all.” Gemma smiled, wishing she’d worn a warmer coat. “It’s not exactly a suitable discussion for the family.”