Where Memories Lie

by Deborah Crombie

  What if Kristin had known something about Amir Khan, or about the brooch, that had made it worthwhile to shut her up?

  Cullen had a friend in Fraud, a chap who had been one of his classmates in the academy. Charles Lessing, like Cullen, had been saddled with the disadvantage in police work of a public school education, and that background had formed a bond between them.

  He would give Charles a ring at home and see if Amir Khan had come across the sights of SO6.

  That decision made, he looked round, saw that he had come even with the Pizza Express, and realized that he was starving. A pizza and a glass of house red would be just the ticket while he made his phone call and waited for the Harrowby's warrant to process.

  ***

  "I'll have the Chateaubriand. And the best Côtes du Rhône on the list." Harry closed the French House menu with a snap. The waiter, who had served Harry many a soup du jour and glass of plonk, raised an eyebrow.

  "Mr. Pevensey-"

  "It's quite all right." Harry gave him his most magnanimous smile. "And I'll be having a pudding as well."

  "If you say so, Mr. Pevensey." The waiter, still looking skeptical, went to place the order, and Harry sat back in his chair, surveying the tiny first-floor dining room with a proprietary air.

  The French House was an actor's pub, and Harry had been coming here as long as he had been in the business. The staff had always welcomed him, even when he could afford no more than one cheap glass of wine, and tonight he meant to treat them royally. After dinner, he would go down to the bar and order another bottle of wine, perhaps even drinks all round. And if, at the end of the evening, he was too tipsy to stagger his way from Dean Street back up to Hanway Street, he'd bloody well take a cab.

  Today he had stood up for himself, for the first time in his life. His fortunes were going to change, and in anticipation of his newly liberated state, he'd taken out the money put by for next month's rent to finance his little celebration.

  The waiter brought his bottle of wine and ceremoniously uncorked it. Harry took the obligatory taster's sip, then nodded, and watched the ruby liquid spill into the glass. Of all the words he could think of for red-vermillion, scarlet, ruby, garnet, claret, burgundy-at least two were related to wine and two to gems, which seemed a particularly appropriate combination.

  Harry had always loved the color of red wine, and had wondered if the quality affected its richness and depth. Tonight, as he held his glass to the light, he had no doubt that he had been right.

  Swirling the wine in the glass, he drank a silent toast to himself. He deserved this, and more, for all the years he had settled for second best and let himself be treated like a lapdog at the beck and call of his betters.

  And they owed him, the Millers. It was a debt he'd been waiting a long time to call in. Of course, even though he'd had a very interesting chat that afternoon with a friend in the antiques trade who had told him the brooch might fetch well over the reserve, he supposed he could be generous and give Dom a percentage. After all, he didn't bear the boy any malice, and wouldn't want to see him come to serious harm from the heavies with whom he'd got himself involved.

  It wouldn't hurt Dom Scott to sweat a bit, however-perhaps he'd learn the error of his ways-and besides, Harry thought it a good idea to see what the brooch actually fetched before deciding on the extent of his generosity.

  He settled back in his chair, sipping his wine and enjoying the ambience of the little restaurant, with its crisp white tablecloths and the large front windows open to the fine May evening. There was no music, and no mobile phones were allowed, so that the cadence of conversation rose and fell in its own musical counterpoint. This was the way life should be lived. A pretty woman dining alone across the restaurant kept glancing away when Harry caught her eye, but her lips curved in the little smile that meant she was enjoying the attention. Perhaps, thought Harry, he had not lost all his charm, and a little flirtation would be the perfect final act to his evening.

  By the time his main course arrived, he had made considerable inroads on the bottle of Côtes du Rhône, and the woman across the room had given him an enticing glance across the top of her glass.

  "Another one, Mr. Pevensey?" the waiter asked.

  "Yes," said Harry, with his blood singing. "I believe I will."

  ***

  As the CID room emptied in the late afternoon, the air cooled and Gavin began to feel he could breathe again. He had come back from the museum and sent out a request for the previous week's newspapers. Although he thought it most logical that the paper from which David Rosenthal had torn the cutting had been Saturday's, he thought it prudent to widen his search.

  Now the piles of newspapers teetering on his desk threatened to bury him. He had separated the broadsheets from the tabloids, on the assumption that something that had interested David Rosenthal would have been in a more reputable paper. But even the task of sorting through every page of the Times, the Telegraph, the Guardian, and the Evening Standard proved daunting, as he had no idea what might have caught David Rosenthal's eye. A mention of Nazi war trials or criminals? Mistreatment of Jewish refugees? A hint that terrorist organizations might be operating in London? A mysterious death or murder?

  Sighing, he had put the Times aside and begun on the Guardian when his superintendent's secretary appeared at his desk.

  "You're working late, Gladys," he said, pushing the hair from his brow with grimy fingers.

  Gladys was a well-padded girl, with a propensity for flowered prints and tightly crimped hair, but was good natured enough to rub along with the guv'nor, no mean accomplishment. Now she gave him a concerned look. "His Highness wants to see you, in his office."

  "What now?" Gavin looked down at his newsprint-blackened hands and his loosened collar and tie.

  "Bee under his bonnet about something. I'd go soonest, if I were you. I'm off." She favored him with a toothy smile. "Cheerio. Hope you're not for the block."

  "Thanks, Gladys," Gavin muttered under his breath. He slipped into his jacket, but took the time to stop in the lav and wash his hands, pull up his tie, and comb his hair. There was no point in facing his guv'nor at more of a disadvantage than necessary. The super was a man of moods and best approached with discretion on a good day.

  Francis Tyrell was an Irish Catholic who wore his ambition on one shoulder and a chip on the other, so that one's reception depended on which side one faced. Gavin knocked at the open door, and when Tyrell looked up at him with a scowl, Gavin's heart sank.

  "Sir. Gladys said you wanted to see me."

  Tyrell nodded towards the chair, a hard-seated, slat-backed affair that always made Gavin think he might be tied up for an execution. Occupants of the chair were not meant to be comfortable, nor were they made any more so by the superintendent's looming bulk and florid face. Tyrell's still-thick hair was of a color that many a new officer had learned at his peril was not under any circumstances to be called ginger.

  "This case you're working on," Tyrell said without preamble. "This business of the murdered Jew."

  The pejorative use of the word Jew raised Gavin's hackles immediately. Tyrell was known for his prejudices, but this sounded ominously political.

  "David Rosenthal," Gavin corrected. "A husband, a teacher, and a scholar. Brutally stabbed as he sat in Cheyne Gardens-"

  "I know the facts of the case, man," Tyrell said impatiently. "And I know that those facts are all you've got. You're wasting your time, Hoxley, and the department's resources. The man was robbed and killed. No suspects. End of story."

  Gavin stared at him, shocked. Then he said, "I don't believe for a minute that this was an ordinary robbery. David Rosenthal's possessions were removed to hide his identity-"

  "And you have what proof of this?" Tyrell's face was turning an unbecoming shade of puce, a clear danger signal.

  "I have a number of leads, sir-"

  "You have a desk full of moldy newspapers, and about as much hope of finding anything as a blind man lo
oking for a tit. Drop it, Gavin."

  "But, sir, I have reason to believe that Rosenthal saw something in the newspaper the day he died, something that sent him to Chelsea. And I think that either he met someone or he was waiting for someone-"

  "I don't give a fig what you think. You don't have a shred of evidence, and that's the end of it."

  "But-"

  "Inspector, unless you want to lose your job, you'll leave this alone."

  Gavin made an effort to stop an angry retort. This was beyond a reprimand, and certainly beyond issues of CID manpower.

  Superintendent Tyrell shifted in his chair and looked, for the first time, uncomfortable. "You're a good copper, Hoxley. Don't make a balls-up of this. This is coming straight from the top. I can't ignore it, and you'd be a fool to."

  "The top?" Gavin still wasn't quite believing what he was hearing.

  "Whitehall, man. So save us all a load of grief. Go home, and forget you ever heard of David Rosenthal."

  ***

  The gig had finished a little before midnight. They'd played in a public hall in Guildford, and Andy Monahan thought for the hundredth time that they were going to have to take a stand, the three of them, and tell Tam, their agent, not to take any more bookings in places like that.

  The room had been filled with teenagers intent on snogging; drinking anything they could get their hands on; or smoking, inhaling, or ingesting likewise. There had been a few kids, up towards the front, who had actually listened to the music, but at the end of the evening he always felt they might as well have been playing for sheep.

  Tam called these bread-and-butter bookings, but in Andy's opinion they didn't generate enough income to be worth the time and disappointment. And it was time they might have spent playing in a club where someone who mattered might have heard them.

  They'd had to load up their own equipment, of course, then cross their fingers as usual and hope that George's van made it back to London in one piece. As Andy hadn't been driving, he'd drunk his share of the bottle of vodka going round in the back, but rather than making him mellow, by the time they reached Oxford Street, he was more pissed off than he'd been when they left Guildford.

  George slowed at Hanway Street and pulled into the curb. "Close enough, mate?" he asked. "Don't want to try to get the van round that corner." Hanway Street made a sharp right into Hanway Place, where Andy lived in a housing-authority flat, and if anyone had parked illegally, the van would have to be backed out into Oxford Street, no mean feat even for the entirely sober.

  "Yeah, thanks." Andy climbed out, cradling his Stratocaster in its case. His amps he would leave in the van, as they had another gig tomorrow night-or tonight, he reminded himself, glancing at his watch, which showed it had just gone two.

  Nick, who had drunk more than his fair share of the vodka, leaned out the window and intoned with great seriousness. "Chill, Andrew. You've got to chill, man."

  Andy's frustration flared like a lit fuse. "Fuck you, man," he shouted back, and aimed a vicious kick at the side of George's van. But George was already pulling away, and the attempted blow only made him lose his balance. "Fucking morons," he muttered, teetering for a moment, then righting himself, holding the Strat case to his chest as if it were a child.

  Maybe it was time he started looking for another band, one that really wanted to make music. And maybe he'd drunk a bit more than he'd thought, he decided as he trod carefully up the narrow street. Had to watch where you put your feet, people were always leaving bloody rubbish on the pavement. He'd stepped over a paper McDonald's bag, a broken beer bottle, and what smelled suspiciously like a puddle of urine, when he saw what looked like a large plastic bin liner lying in the middle of the street, just after the bend. A bin liner with things spilling out, even worse. But it was an odd shape, with what looked like arms and legs, except the angles were wrong.

  Andy slowed, squinting, wishing he wasn't too vain to wear his glasses to a gig. Reaching the bundle, he pushed at it with his toe and met a slightly yielding resistance, and then the shape resolved into a human form, a man in a dark suit, lying in the street. Drunk, Andy thought fuzzily, but no one could lie like that, even if they'd passed out, legless. And the face-the face was turned away from him, but he could see that its shape was wrong, too, as if it had been mashed by a giant hand. Worse still, even distorted, it was a face Andy recognized.

  Dear God. Andy backed up until his heels hit the curb, sat down with a graceless thud, and vomited right down the front of his Stratocaster case.

  CHAPTER 13

  On numerous occasions during the 1930s-even after Kristallnacht-British diplomatic observers concluded that anti-Jewish violence had passed its peak.

  – Louise London, Whitehall and the Jews, 1933-1948

  Gemma had sat at the hospital bedside until long after Vi drifted off, watching her mother's face, made unfamiliar by repose. When had she ever watched her mother sleep, seen the tiny tics that signaled dreams, wondered what her mum was dreaming?

  What did she know of her mother's memories or desires, of her life outside of the daily routine of husband, children, and work? Had her mum imagined a different life for herself, adventures that had never come to pass, a husband or lover who expected more than familiarity and tea on the table?

  Even now, lying in bed watching the splash of early morning sun on the opposite wall and enjoying the warmth of the cocker spaniel sprawled across her feet, she felt unsettled in a way that was deeper than worry over cancer and treatments, although that was bad enough.

  Last night she had sensed a resignation that frightened her. What if her mum didn't want to fight this thing? Could she, who had always seemed indomitable, leave them so easily? Would she slip away, leaving Gemma to discover she had never really known her at all? And someday would her own children feel the same way about her?

  She could hear the boys' voices floating up from downstairs, a medley of the usual morning laughter and complaint. They had been asleep by the time she'd got home last night, and this morning Duncan had been up early, whispering that she should have a lie-in, that he would get the boys ready for school.

  But suddenly she wanted to be up, wanted to be in the midst of the clamor, wanted to spend the time she'd missed with the children the past few days. She threw back the covers and jumped out of bed, saying, "Sorry, boy," as she gave Geordie an apologetic pat. Grabbing a dressing gown, she padded barefoot down the stairs, the dog following.

  She found the boys in the kitchen, dressed in their school uniforms, eating toast, and Kincaid slipping into his jacket.

  "I've got to go," he said, kissing her on the cheek. "I'll take Toby. Come on, sport," he added. "Last bite, and get your satchel."

  "No, wait," said Gemma. "He can be late. You go on."

  "You're sure?"

  "Positive." She brushed a stray dog hair from his jacket and waved him off. "Go."

  "I'll ring you."

  When the door had closed behind him, she turned to the boys. "What's your first class, Kit?"

  "History," he mumbled through toast and jam, making a face.

  "Any papers due, or quizzes?"

  "No. Just old Toady lecturing." He gave an exaggerated snore.

  "Old Toady?"

  "Mr. Tobias," Kit corrected, rolling his eyes. "Why would anyone want to know about the War of the Roses? Dead boring, if you ask me."

  "I'm sure I don't know, but I suppose it wouldn't hurt you to miss a lecture." When Kit stared at her in surprise, she grinned back. "I have a plan."

  ***

  Cullen paused at the door to Kincaid's office. His boss sat at his desk, head bent over a disordered fan of papers. His hair stood on end and the knot on his tie was pulled loose, unusual evidence of frustration so early in the day. Maybe, thought Cullen, he could improve things.

  "Name and address, guv," he said, entering.

  Looking up, Kincaid rubbed at his eyes. "What?"

  Cullen had got the warrant first thing that morning, and had
been at Harrowby's door when the salesroom opened. Mrs. March had shown him to Khan's office, and Amir Khan had offered him a seat before perusing the paperwork.

  Although as immaculately turned out as he had been the previous day, Khan's handsome face looked a bit hollow, as if he was tired, and he was warily polite. Cullen, who had gone in hyped for a protest, found himself a bit disappointed.

  "It's all in order," he said when Khan started through the warrant for the third time.

  "I'm sure it is, Sergeant Cullen. But it's my nature to be thorough, and I have to protect the interests of our customers. Do you mind if I make a copy for our records?"

  "Be my guest," Cullen said, thinking he wished the man would bloody get on with it.

  Khan stood and ran the warrant through the copier on top of a file cabinet with what seemed to Cullen agonizing slowness. Then he handed the paper back and opened one of the files, taking out a card. Returning to his desk, he transcribed the information from the card onto a sheet of notepaper and handed it across.

  Cullen squinted at his unexpectedly illegible handwriting. "Harry Pevensey? And that's Hanway Place?"

  "Yes," said Khan, sounding slightly irritated.

  "And you met this Harry Pevensey?"

  "Of course." The irritation seemed to be quickly turning to annoyance. "He said he was an actor, although I suspect not a terribly successful one."

  "Did you think he came by the brooch legitimately?" Cullen asked, dogged.

  "Sergeant Cullen. As I've said before, if we made sure that every client who brought in an item to sell had come by it legitimately, we'd have little business. People tell us what they want to tell us, and we check that information as far as we are able. In a case like this, the item speaks for itself, and it didn't really matter if Mr. Pevensey said he'd found it in a rubbish bin."