“Careful, careful,” Gemma said. “Move him as little as possible.”
In the light, Melody could see that Joe’s face was contorted with pain, his lips drawn back from his teeth in a feral snarl.
The sirens were close now. When she looked up, she saw blue lights flashing at the top of the street and welcome figures in blazing safety-green jackets moving down the hill.
Her cheeks felt scorched and her knees were threatening to buckle. Leaving others to tend to Joe Peterson, she stepped back, searching for Andy.
Turning, she saw him sitting on the far curb, his face still a smear of blood, a blanket-wrapped Nadine huddled in the curve of his arms. Then their figures were obscured by the whirl of snow and ash.
The first ambulance had taken Joe Peterson, the second, Nadine. Andy, protesting, had also been transported to Casualty at King’s College Hospital in a panda car, to have his head wound cleaned and treated.
The fire brigade had managed to run hose down from Westow Hill. They’d kept the fire from spreading to the neighboring houses, but the flat itself was gutted. Gemma hoped the new owners had been well insured.
Having had to abandon Melody’s Clio, which was well and truly stuck on Westow Hill, she and Melody had been given a lift—a very slow lift—to the hospital in one of the area cars. In the hospital toilet, Gemma scrubbed the soot from her face and hands and brushed her hair, but there was no way she was going to disguise the smell of smoke emanating from her clothes. She’d have to explain when she got home, and Duncan was not going to be happy when he learned she’d run—twice—into a burning building. Oh, well.
She came back into the waiting area to find Melody looking pale and exhausted. “Are you all right?” she asked.
“All’s well that ends well, isn’t it?” Melody tucked a slightly singed bit of hair behind her ear and smiled, but Gemma could see that her heart wasn’t in it.
“Andy’s going to be all right.”
“I know,” Melody answered, not meeting her gaze. “Should we see him first?”
“No. I think we should talk to Nadine. There are still some things I don’t understand.”
Nadine Drake had been treated for heavy bruising on her throat, but the A and E staff had informed Gemma that she was not seriously injured and could be interviewed.
Joe Peterson would not be answering questions any time soon. He was being prepped for surgery to determine the extent of the damage from his abdominal wound.
They found Nadine in a curtained cubicle, sitting, propped up on a gurney. As they entered, an aide was spreading another warmed blanket over her. “She’s still a little shocked and cold,” the aide told them. “And her throat’s very sore, so don’t stay long.”
It was Gemma’s first real look at Nadine. Even with her dark hair still stringy and damp from the snow, and her face pale from shock and streaked with ash, she was lovely. Full lips, a straight nose, high cheekbones—it was the sort of face that aged well. But it was her eyes that held Gemma. Deep and dark, they held intelligence, pain, and, even now, a flash of humor.
Looking up, she gave Gemma and Melody a tentative smile. “I think I have you two to thank,” she said, her voice hoarse. “And Andy. Are you sure he’s all right?”
“He’s fine,” Gemma told her. “He’s just having the cut on his head seen to. It looks much worse than it is. Now.” She pulled up a plastic chair, although Melody remained standing by the curtains. “Nadine—do you mind if I call you Nadine?—I think I understand part of what happened today. Andy got a note purporting to be from you, but it was actually from Joe Peterson, in an attempt to lure him to a place where he could be easily attacked. What I don’t know is how you came to be there, too.”
“I followed him. Andy, I mean, not Joe. I didn’t know about Joe. I still can’t quite believe it.” Nadine sipped some water from a straw in a plastic cup and cleared her throat. “I asked in Denmark Street this morning until someone told me where Andy was recording. On my way there, I saw him walking along Westow Hill. I wasn’t certain he’d gone to the old house, but then I saw the flames . . . ”
Pausing, she sipped more water, then shook her head and sank back against the pillow. “Andy could have been killed. We both could have been killed. And none of this would have happened if I hadn’t come back to England,” she added, her voice catching. “I thought I’d put that part of my life behind me, everything that had happened years ago. But being in London again . . . It began to prey on me. I—” Nadine swallowed and closed her eyes. When she opened them again, Gemma almost looked away from the raw regret in her gaze. “I felt so guilty for abandoning Andy without so much as a good-bye. I knew he was a child at risk, that his mother couldn’t care for him, and yet I—I failed him. And myself. That haunted me for years. So when I first saw his name in the window of the club in Denmark Street, I couldn’t believe it. I felt so lost here, and that thread from the past seemed . . . ” She sighed. “A sign, I suppose. I convinced myself that was why I’d been brought back to London, to make amends. I started to follow the band’s gigs. I just wanted to speak to him once, to say I was sorry and to see if he was all right.”
“So it was Andy you went to see at the White Stag on Friday night?” asked Gemma. “Not Vincent Arnott?”
“God, no, not Arnott.” Nadine shuddered. “I couldn’t believe it when I saw him drinking at the bar. I thought I was delusional. I still wasn’t certain it was him until there was some sort of scuffle, then he—Arnott—went over and started shouting at Andy.”
She stopped and Gemma waited, not prompting her. The murmurs and clinks of the busy hospital ward flowed around them.
How long had it been, Gemma wondered, since Nadine had talked to anyone about her past—if ever? Guy, her boss in Paris, had seemed unaware of her reasons for leaving England.
“There was a girl,” continued Nadine, after some more water. “Maybe in her early twenties. On her own. I watched him start to chat her up and I felt sick. That sanctimonious bastard. And I was angry, so angry that I couldn’t think of anything else then, not even Andy. He—Arnott—all those years ago, made me out to be some sort of pervert, a violator of children, when I’d done nothing, nothing but try to be a good teacher. And there he was, trying to seduce a child.”
“What did you do?” Gemma asked softly when Nadine fell silent.
“I had to stop him. The girl was laughing, flattered. When she went to the loo, I went after her. I told her I knew him and that I’d just seen his wife come in, looking ready to kill. The girl ran out of the pub after that like a rabbit, and I’m sure Arnott had no idea what had happened to his conquest.”
“So you . . . consoled him . . . ”
Nadine nodded. “I’d had a bit too much to drink by then. False courage. I only meant to let him make a play, then I was going to laugh at him, humiliate him. But then he . . . he treated me like a common tart. As if I should be grateful for his attention. And he—I could tell he didn’t recognize me.” She bunched the hospital blankets between her hands. “After everything he’d done to ruin my life, I was nobody. Nobody! That was the worst thing.”
“So when he suggested the hotel—”
“I had to see what he meant to do. I wanted to prove that he was the one who was the pervert.” Nadine leaned forward, still clutching the blankets, her voice rasping with the effort of speaking. “He had me wait at the fire door while he got a room. The place was disgusting, but it was obvious he’d been there often. Once in the room, he undressed and asked me to tie him up. I did what he asked. He was—enjoying it. It was—vile.” Her face grew paler and she hesitated before going on. “I played along. I used my scarf to gag him. Then I had him turn over, facing me, and I told him it was part of our little game.” Nadine swallowed again, coughed, and took a deep rasping breath. “Then—Then I stood there, looking down at him, and I told him I hoped he’d enjoy explaining himself to the hotel staff in the morning. The expression on his face . . . I felt such triumph. He stil
l had no idea who I was, or what he had done to me, but possibly for the first time in his life, he had no control. And I just—walked out. It seemed like the ultimate revenge.” She lifted a shoulder in a gesture that seemed particularly French.
“What happened then?” asked Gemma, leaning forward.
“As soon as I got away from that damned hotel I was already ashamed of myself. Ashamed of what I’d done. Ashamed of how I’d felt doing it. I almost went back, but I couldn’t make myself. I didn’t know if the band had finished at the White Stag, but there was no way I could face Andy after that. Not that night. I flagged a taxi on Church Road and went home.”
Gemma threw a swift glance at Melody, who still stood by the cubicle curtains, her face unreadable. Then Gemma said quietly to Nadine, “But you still wanted to see Andy, didn’t you.”
“Not that next day, no. I was so sickened by what had happened. By what I’d done. But I’d seen Andy’s name on the schedule for the club in Denmark Street for Sunday night, and by that time I thought—I still thought I owed him some sort of explanation or apology.
“But when I saw him play that night, really play, with his heart in it, I knew he was all right. More than all right.” Nadine’s expression softened at the memory. “And then”—Pausing, she looked at Melody, studying her as if making an assessment. Then she nodded again, once, and spoke to her directly. “After that first set, when I saw him look at you, I knew he didn’t need my interference or my apologies. He’d moved on, and I knew I must, too.
“It was only when I was walking home from the club that I saw on the telly about Arnott. That he was dead. I thought”—Nadine turned a pleading gaze back to Gemma—“I thought I’d killed him. That maybe he’d suffocated from the gag, even though it wasn’t tight. I should never have left him like that. It was stupid and childish. But I didn’t see how I could explain what I’d done . . . Oh, God.” Nadine sagged back against the pillow.
“The police believed you before, when Joe Peterson made those accusations against you,” said Gemma.
“Yes, but little good that did me.” There was a first hint of bitterness in Nadine’s smile. “All week, I’d been frantic with worry, trying to decide what to do. And then yesterday, when I saw the police outside the flat . . . I just . . . panicked. It was only when I’d had time to come to my senses that I knew I had to confess what I’d done. But I also knew I needed one last chance to talk to Andy, after all. I was sure he thought badly enough of me, but I couldn’t bear him thinking I’d deliberately harmed someone, even that horrible man.”
“And what about Shaun Francis?” asked Gemma.
“Shaun Francis . . . ” Nadine frowned. “Oh, he was the other boy, wasn’t he? The one who backed up Joe Peterson’s story?”
“But you hadn’t seen him since?”
“No.” Nadine looked confused. “Why would I have—”
“He was killed, too. After Arnott.”
Nadine glanced from Gemma to Melody. “But what—I don’t understand any of this. Why would someone kill Shaun Francis? And why was Joe waiting for Andy in the house? Why did he attack Andy and me?”
Gemma answered. “Nadine, Vincent Arnott didn’t suffocate. He was strangled. Shaun Francis was strangled the same way two nights later, but this time with the scarf you used to gag Arnott.”
“What?” Nadine’s eyes grew wider. “Dear God. My scarf. So that’s why you came to my flat. You thought I killed both of them?” She took a moment to think it through, then frowned. “But in the house today, Joe said something about ‘the others.’ It was Joe who killed them?”
“Peterson was there at the White Stag on Friday night, perhaps for the same reason as you. Maybe he saw Andy’s name on the pub flyer and wanted to see what Andy had made of himself. He approached Andy at the break. Andy was furious. He hit him. This was the scuffle that prompted Arnott’s outburst.
“Then,” Gemma continued slowly, still working things out for herself, “we have to assume Joe recognized you and Arnott. We have CCTV footage of him following the two of you from the pub. I wonder . . . ” She paused, visualizing the hotel. “The room at the Belvedere had ground-level windows. Do you remember if the curtains were closed all the way?”
Nadine shook her head. “I—I don’t think so. They didn’t hang right.”
“If Joe followed you to the hotel,” Gemma went on, “and saw Arnott let you in the fire door, he could have seen into the room through the cracks in the curtains. And we discovered that the latch on the fire door was broken. So when you left—”
“Oh, God,” Nadine whispered. “He just walked in. I gave him the perfect opportunity. If I hadn’t—and he took my scarf from Arnott’s mouth after he was dead?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Melody said suddenly, sharply, stepping forwards. “It was Andy that Joe was angry with that night. He was always jealous, and Andy publicly made a fool of him. If Joe hadn’t followed you, he might have waited for Andy, and who knows what he might have done? He came close enough today. All of this—everything that happened all those years ago, and everything that’s happened this last week, these two murders—spiraled out from Joe Peterson’s actions. Not yours. Not Andy’s.
“Andy never knew, by the way, what the boys had said about you. He didn’t know you lost your job or why you left your house. All this time he’s thought it was his fault, that you left because you blamed him for what happened.”
Nadine’s eyes brimmed with tears. “But I never—”
“He wants to see you,” said Melody. “He wants to make sure you’re all right.”
“Oh, no, but I—” Nadine wiped at her tear-streaked cheeks. “How can I face him now, if all this time he’s thought that of me?”
“Because he knows the truth. And I think it’s far past time the two of you really talked. I’ll get him, shall I?”
Slowly, Nadine nodded. But when Melody turned to go, she whispered, “Wait. Will you stay?”
“I’ll get Andy,” said Gemma, and slipped from the cubicle.
For a moment, Nadine gazed at Melody, searching her face. Then, her whisper so faint that Melody stepped up to the gurney to hear, she said, “I’ll go back to Paris, you know, as soon as I can. I realized, before any of this, that I should never have come back to England. There’s no life for me here.”
“But Andy—”
“I’ll be an old friend.” She smiled. “He can write to me, if he wants. I’ll follow his career. Maybe someday the two of you can come to Paris.”
“But I—but we aren’t—”
“I saw you together, at the club in Denmark Street. And today, when you went back into that fire—he wouldn’t leave me, but he was terrified for you. I thought—I hoped that you would promise to look after him.”
Melody shook her head. “I don’t think Andy needs looking after.”
“Oh, but that’s where you’re wrong.” Nadine reached out and touched Melody’s hand. “We all need looking after. It’s the greatest of mistakes to think otherwise. No one knows that better than me.”
When Doug Cullen’s doorbell rang on Thursday evening, he thought it was about time that Melody had come to tell him in person what had been happening, instead of sending him abbreviated and inscrutable texts.
“I’m coming, I’m coming,” he shouted as he hobbled to the door. Maybe he should just have a key made for her, if his damned ankle didn’t get better soon.
But when he opened his door, it was not Melody who stood on his slushy step, but Detective Inspector Maura Bell.
In her tan trench coat, she looked just as he remembered, although perhaps a bit more worn. Incongruously, she was holding a bunch of supermarket flowers. As he stared at her, she thrust them out. “I heard you broke your ankle.”
“What are you—how did you—”
“Your friend Sergeant Talbot gave me your address. I thought, since you never returned my calls, that maybe with the bum ankle you couldn’t avoid me.”
“But I— You were
the one who—” Doug stopped. The memory of her rejection still made him cringe. He’d thought their relationship was going somewhere until the night he tried to kiss her on the Millennium Bridge.
“You never gave me a chance to explain.”
“You didn’t have to—”
“Just shut up, will you, Doug?” She gave the exasperated sigh he remembered. “I’d been seeing someone before I went out with you. We’d split up. Before I met you that night, he’d rung, wanting to get back together. I’d thought it might work out, and so I didn’t want to— It was complicated.”
Doug frowned. “Did it work?” he asked, interested in spite of himself.
“For a week.” Maura made a disgusted face. “Lucky it lasted that long. I was an idiot, and all the while I was ringing you and you wouldnae talk to me. Look. I didnae come to grovel. I just thought maybe we could be . . . friends. If you’re not going to let me in, at least take your stupid wee flowers. I’m bloody freezing.” Maura shivered.
It had started to snow again, great white flakes that drifted gently in the glow from the streetlamp.
Doug pushed his glasses up on his nose. He remembered now, not how hurt he’d been, but how much he had liked this prickly, funny woman, who was never less than honest.
“I seem to be making a habit of acquiring female friends,” he said. “I suppose I could do with one more.” Opening the door wide, he stepped back. “You didn’t by any chance bring anything edible?”
Melody and Gemma waited at the hospital for Joe Peterson to come out of the operating theater. The afternoon had drawn into night, and when Melody, restless, went to look out the reception area doors, the snow was falling again.
The foyer door opened and Andy came to stand beside her. His hair fell over the square of white gauze on his forehead, making him look quite rakish.
“Is she gone, then?” asked Melody. He’d insisted on staying with Nadine until she was released.
The Sound of Broken Glass Page 33