Where Memories Lie

by Deborah Crombie

  "Tests, they said. And more tests in the morning."

  Kincaid pulled out his phone. "I'll ring Gemma. She'll want to go-"

  "No." Ern Walters cut him off before his finger touched the first key. "There's no need for her. Cyn's there."

  ***

  Harry Pevensey rubbed the crust from the rim of his cold cream jar, flicked it from his fingers, then took a very long swallow of his Bombay Sapphire on ice before switching his glass to his left hand and methodically working the greasy cream into his face with his right. Round strokes from the chin up, around the eyes and the forehead, so as not to cause wrinkles, then the wiping with tissues tossed carelessly in the direction of the waste bin. Carefully, he examined the face that emerged from beneath the white mask, and took another swig of gin.

  That was one of the few perks still accorded him, the drink sent down from the bar to his dressing room after a performance, even in this miserable pub in Kennington.

  His dressing room, indeed. The thought made him laugh. Once it would have been his dressing room, when he'd played leads, or even second leads. But now he'd been relegated to the Stranger in a profit-share production of Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard, with an appearance only in act two, and insult added to injury, sharing a room with a half-dozen amateurs with even smaller parts. There was perhaps no greater sign of an actor's career in decline.

  He'd waited for the others to swipe off their makeup and go giggling into the night so that he could have his gin and contemplation in peace. That much dignity, at least, he had left.

  The face that regarded him in the mirror was still handsome enough, the complexion a pale olive, the hair thick and dark except for the smattering of gray at the temples that he covered carefully with dye on a toothbrush. A closer inspection, however, revealed the faint web of broken veins in the nose and cheeks, the slight sagging of jowls, all signs and portents of worse things to come.

  Yes, there was no denying that his career was in decline, but the truth was that his whole life had been a decline, except for one brief spark, and that had turned to ashes quickly enough.

  He was born Hari Pevensey, the given name a sop from his Anglo father to his Indian mother. His father, the youngest son of declining Dorset gentry, had gone out to "Indya" to try his hand at engineering. At that he had failed dismally, but he had managed to bring home the youngest, dowryless daughter of a minor Indian prince whose fortune had not survived India 's independence.

  Nor had the couple's return to England been a success. What remained of the family had been horrified by the foreign bride who gave herself airs. His father had been found work managing a box factory, his parents and their newborn son installed in a two-up, two-down Victorian semidetached, and Harry suspected that shortly thereafter marital relations cooled to an arctic level that had precluded more children. He could certainly not remember any sign of affection between his parents, both of whom must have felt royally cheated by fate.

  Then, when he was five, Harry's parents had performed the most dramatic feat of their lives by orphaning him spectacularly, having drunk to excess and crashed their car into a Dorset hedge. Spending the remainder of his formative years passed among aunts and his English grandmother, Harry buried Hari as thoroughly as he could; it was his skill in protective coloration as well as his slightly exotic good looks that had got him into a London art school.

  Those had been the days, he thought with a nostalgic sigh as he wiped the last dabs of white from his chin. In the early seventies, heady with his first flush of success, he'd hobnobbed with rock stars in Chelsea clubs, drunk too much, slept with anyone who took his fancy, and gradually discovered that his looks concealed a talent that was facile at best.

  And now here he was, examining the pouches under his eyes, cultivating a taste for gin he couldn't afford, and contemplating with great reluctance his return to his once-trendy flat in Fitzrovia.

  There was one small ray of hope in his dismal outlook, however. There might be a payoff from the recent little financial gamble he had let himself be talked into, against his better judgment. But then, what good had his judgment ever done him, and what had he to lose? Besides, there had been the satisfaction of spiting Ellen. Even now that thought was enough to make the Sapphire burn more warmly in his stomach.

  But in fact, he'd since realized, there might be more to gain than that. If the deal came off, his percentage might keep the creditors at bay a bit longer. Optimism inspired an attempt at a jaunty smile in the mirror. There might still be life in the old devil yet. He ran a brush through his hair, collected his raincoat, and flipped off the lights, and when the doorman tipped his cap to him, Harry saluted in return and set off home whistling.

  ***

  Like Doug Cullen, Melody Talbot left Duncan and Gemma's house on foot. She, however, had not far to go, and had been glad to walk in the rain-freshened air. Pulling her coat a bit tighter, she'd detoured around St. John's Gardens, taking Lansdowne Walk instead. Although she'd never admit it to anyone else, since the Arrowood murders she hadn't liked walking down St. John's alone at night.

  At Ladbroke Grove she'd cut over a street and entered the station, ostensibly to collect some of her things, but in truth she'd just needed a dose of familiarity. But the building echoed emptily, and few of the faces on the Saturday-night rota were familiar. She rummaged in her desk, to save face, then went out again into Ladbroke Road, the clack of her footsteps loud on the pavement.

  The dressy shoes felt artificial, just as she had felt all evening. What had she been thinking, to put herself in such a situation, with superior officers and that nosey parker Doug Cullen to boot?

  She'd been flattered to be asked. But it had been much too dangerous, the temptation too great, the revelatory stakes much too high.

  Her footsteps finally slowed as she neared her flat. She had never invited anyone there, not even Gemma. It was one of her hard-and-fast rules, and although her address was available in her personnel file, so far no one had had the temerity, or possibly the interest, to show up on her doorstep.

  The second thought saddened her, and as she entered her building and took the lift to her top-floor flat, she felt more regret than her usual relief.

  What had she got herself into, leading this double life? It had been the rebellion, the gamble of it, in the beginning, the pleasure of flaunting her father's disapproval, but she hadn't realized how much she would come to love the job, or just how lonely and isolated her secrecy would make her.

  Was she overly paranoid, refusing to invite anyone to her home? The flat, in an updated 1930s mansion block, had been her bargain with her father, his concern for her safety set against her desire for anonymity. But she'd made sure the place was small enough, and sparsely furnished enough, that she could get by with saying it was only a let, and that she'd got a good deal. Admitting that she owned the place was a different matter entirely.

  Lowly police constables did not buy flats in Notting Hill. Not unless they had money and influence, both things she'd worked hard at denying since childhood.

  But things would never be the same if she were found out. Oh, they couldn't fire her outright, that would cause a scandal greater than her presence. But she would be quietly pulled from the more sensitive jobs, and there would be no possibility of promotion, not even to some isolated hamlet in Outer Mongolia. There would be jeers and whispers in the canteen, conversations that would stop when she entered the room, and she would never again be one of the mates.

  The lift stopped and Melody stood for a moment, blinking in the light of the corridor, before taking the last few steps to her door.

  The flat looked just as neat and tidy as she had left it, radio on, Classic FM playing quietly in the background for company. Not neat and tidy, she corrected herself. Sterile.

  For once, she kicked off her shoes haphazardly and tossed her coat over the arm of the sofa. Barefoot, she padded to the corner bay window that overlooked Portobello Road. No sound rose from the street. It was pa
st closing and even the pubs were quiet.

  It was too bad, Melody thought, that she hadn't fancied Doug Cullen, the little swot, because she suspected that she just might have encountered someone as lonely as she was.

  ***

  Gemma made the drive to Leyton on autopilot. It was a good deal farther than it had been when she'd lived in her friend Hazel's garage flat in Islington, and there was no easy route. She wound her way through the quiet streets, north, then west, skirting Willesden, Hampstead, then Camden Town, all the while her mind revolving in tight little circles of denial. Not her mother, dear God, not her mother. It just wasn't possible.

  Kincaid had argued with her about going to hospital, of course, told her there was nothing she could do tonight, that her father hadn't wanted her to go.

  How like her dad, to have trekked halfway across London rather than to have rung her. He'd wanted to confront her, she suspected, to let her know that he felt what had happened to her mother was somehow her fault.

  That had stung, but it wasn't her brief flare of temper at her dad's pigheadedness that had sent her flying across London, but panic, and a wash of guilt. How could her mother have been ill and she not known?

  She had seen her just a few weeks ago-or had it been longer? Time flew, work and the children kept her busy, and then when she did visit, it was to contend with her father's silent pall of disapproval. But these were all excuses that seemed flimsy and selfish now.

  Leyton slid by, the streets of her childhood suddenly painfully familiar, and then she was entering the grounds of Whipps Cross University Hospital. The silhouettes of the late-Victorian buildings loomed fittingly massive against the pink glow cast by the ever-present city lights.

  She had been born here, as had Toby, as had her sister and her sister's children, not to mention much more noteworthy personages such as David Beckham and Jonathan Ross. But even they were minor footnotes to all the births and deaths this place had seen in the last century.

  Familiarity with the complex allowed Gemma to park and find her mother's ward easily enough, and there she found her sister as well. Cyn was sound asleep, sprawled across three chairs in the waiting area, her red-gold hair tumbled back like a drowning Ophelia's, her tanned midriff showing, tropical-pink toenails peeking coyly from beneath the hem of her jeans. Trust Cyn to look fetching in even the worst of circumstances, Gemma thought with a burst of irritation, but then her sister emitted a faint snore and Gemma sighed. Cyn was Cyn, after all, but she could at least have rung. She had probably been enjoying her role as the good sister too much-or perhaps, Gemma thought more charitably, she'd just been too worried.

  She'd meant to wake her sister, but decided to let Sleeping Beauty lie and speak to the charge nurse instead.

  Her heart quickened as she entered the ward itself. The bright lights of the corridor couldn't combat the dead-of-night silence, the sense she always felt at such times in such places of life hanging by a thread.

  But the charge nurse, a slightly tubby Pakistani man, was cheerful enough, and was willing to bend the rules and allow her into her mother's room. "Anything for London 's finest," he said, with an assessing stare that meant she probably didn't measure up to her sister.

  "About my mum, do you know anything at all?" she asked, hesitantly, not sure she was ready for an answer.

  "Waiting for blood tests, love," was all he would say. "It's just down on the right. You can sit with her as long as you're quiet."

  The cubicle was dark except for the bluish fluorescent light burning above the bed. Her mum looked oddly small and withered against the starched white sheets, and Gemma noticed for the first time that her mother's red curls were fading to gray. An IV line snaked from a shunt in her hand to the standing pole at the head of the bed, but otherwise there were no wires or tubes, no indication that Vi Walters's universe had been turned on its head.

  Her eyes were closed, her forehead creased in a slight frown, as if sleeping were an effort. When, Gemma wondered, had she last seen her mother in repose? Her mum was always busy, always doing, the only respite she allowed herself the occasional cup of tea in the small kitchen of the flat above the bakery. Sometimes, after a particularly hard day, she would prop her feet on one of the other chairs and sigh, but if Gemma's dad came in, she would right herself briskly, as if she didn't want to be seen slacking.

  Gemma pulled the stiffly upright visitor's chair as close to the bed as she could and took her mother's hand a little awkwardly, unsure if the touch would wake her, but her mum's eyelids merely fluttered, then the line on her forehead relaxed, as if she'd found some subconscious comfort.

  Dawn found Gemma still there, her cheek now pillowed on the bed beside her mother's hand, when the consultant making early rounds came in with his diagnosis.

  CHAPTER 4

  As the years go by the truth becomes more and more agitated; the energies that go into the maintenance of the fortress are Herculean; they must be manned night and day…

  – Diana Petre, The Secret Orchard of Roger Ackerley

  "He was circumcised, if that helps." Dr. Rainey peered over his half-glasses at Gavin Hoxley, then back down at the body on his mortuary table. "He could very well have been Jewish."

  Hoxley averted his eyes. Circumcised or not, the sight of naked male genitalia, blue tinged and limp, made him feel acutely vulnerable. Nor did he like seeing his unidentified victim stripped of all dignity. The man's hands and nails had been clean, his hair and face barbered and shaved. He had been someone, this thin man with the salt-and-pepper hair, and now he was nothing but a specimen to be poked and prodded on Dr. Rainey's table.

  The fact that the man might have been a Jew made Hoxley still more uncomfortable. If it was true, it meant that the autopsy itself would be considered a desecration of the remains.

  Not that Hoxley put much stock in autopsies himself, or cared much for pathologists under the best of circumstances. Most of them treated wrongful-death investigations as a nuisance, but Rainey, a small, agile man with a long, mobile face and curly brown hair, had a policeman's curiosity. Hoxley had requested him specifically, even though it had meant trekking across London Bridge to Guy's Hospital.

  Looking up, he found Rainey regarding him with the same intense gaze he leveled at his corpses. "You look a bit worse for wear yourself," Rainey commented.

  "Thanks, Doc. We try to impress." With a grimace, Hoxley brushed his hat at the front of his suit, a futile gesture. Arriving home in the early hours of the morning, he had flung jacket, shirt, and trousers across a chair without a thought for wrinkles.

  Then, when he climbed into bed, he'd discovered that the small détente he'd established with Linda earlier in the evening had vanished-she'd turned away from him, balancing on her edge of the bed like a tightrope walker, and the inches between them seemed as cold and dangerous as no-man's-land.

  When he'd roused himself from a fitful sleep a few hours later, she hadn't spoken, even though he'd known from her breathing that she was awake. Not wanting to disturb the children, he'd settled for a quick wash and shave instead of a bath, and it was only when he'd looked in his car's driving mirror that he'd seen the patches he'd missed on his chin. It was fitting, he thought, that he looked like the walking wounded.

  "Late night, early start," he went on with a shrug, "and I don't have a thing on the victim. What else can you tell me, Doc?" A fingertip search of the garden started at first light had turned up no trace of a murder weapon or any of the victim's possessions, nor had nearby neighbors admitted to knowing the man or to seeing anything unusual.

  Rainey turned up the victim's palms. "No defense wounds, so I'd say he knew his killer, or was approached in some way that enabled the killer to take him completely by surprise." With a gloved finger, he traced the wound on the left side of the chest, just beneath the breast. "I'd say this was the first blow, and the killing blow. It was an upward thrust to the heart, and more than likely made by someone who knew what he was doing. These others"-his finger
skimmed four more dark slashes in the white skin-"might have been done to mask the deliberateness of the first blow, or perhaps rage got the better of our killer."

  "You said 'someone who knew what he was doing.' You're assuming the killer was male?"

  "Merely being grammatical," Rainey answered, shaking his head. "A woman could have wielded that knife, if she had knowledge and upper-body strength. That might account for the element of surprise. Still…" Rainey studied the wounds. "I'd put my money on a man, probably ex-service. That would account for the knowledge, and the knife."

  Hoxley waited, eyebrow raised, knowing Rainey liked the drama of his revelations.

  "I assume you'll want to know what sort of weapon was used?"

  "So tell me about the knife," said Hoxley, giving in.

  Rainey smiled, showing even white teeth. "A wide, double-edged blade, with a definitive hilt. If you look carefully, you can see the faint indentation it left on the skin."

  Following the pathologist's pointing finger, Hoxley saw nothing, and decided Rainey's eyes must be better than his. He nodded agreement, however, not wanting to stop the flow of information.

  "My guess would be a hunting knife, or more likely, considering the location of the crime, a combat knife."

  "Ah. Near the Royal Hospital. That's why you think the killer might have been ex-service." Hoxley frowned. "Very neat, but then, I don't trust neat."

  "A wager?"

  "I'll buy you a pint if you're right," replied Hoxley. "That's about all my salary will cover. Anything else you can tell me from the external exam?" He wouldn't stay for the dissection-Rainey could send him a report on the state of his victim's internal organs.

  "The hands are soft, but he has a callus on the side of his right index finger, probably from holding a pen. And his teeth. The dental work's not English. Maybe Eastern European."