The Sound of Broken Glass (16 page)

Gemma lifted her head and sniffed. “You're cooking. It smells delicious.”

“A Moroccan veggie stew.” The corners of Hazel's mouth curved in a little smile.

“Hazel,” said Gemma, twigging, “is Tim by any chance staying for dinner?”

“Well, it only makes sense, really. There will be plenty, and Holly likes us to eat together.”

“Protesting a bit much, are we?” Studying her friend, Gemma realized that Hazel was looking very well. She'd gained some much-needed weight, her dark curls were lustrous, her eyes sparkling. “I don't suppose it's made sense for Tim to stay the night when he comes for these dinners?”

Lifting her mug to her lips with both hands, Hazel blew on the surface of the tea. She shrugged, her eyes crinkling mischievously. “Once or twice. When we've had a glass or two of wine. But he's slept on the sofa.”

Laughing, Gemma said, “Hazel, you are married, in case you'd forgotten.”

Hazel quickly grew serious. “I haven't forgotten. But it's . . .  delicate. Almost like dating, in a weird way, and I don't think either of us want to make any false steps. Or give Holly false hope that things will be the way they used to be.”

“But there is hope?” Gemma asked carefully, not wanting to push her friend.

“Oh. I think so, yes. But things will never be exactly as they were, for either of us. And I've discovered that there are things I quite like about my new life. I've realized that I was always looking after other people and never myself, and that's something I need to learn to balance. Now,” she said, with a deft change of subject, “what about you? Big case on, I take it? And Duncan and the kids are occupying themselves for the weekend? Duncan seems to be managing well.”

“Too well, I'm beginning to think,” said Gemma, finishing a biscuit. “I know he must be worried about getting Charlotte settled and getting back to work, but he doesn't talk about it. He's relentlessly cheerful, and I swear he's turning into bloody Nigella. The dinner menus get more complicated by the day and he turns his nose up at the suggestion of takeaway.”

Hazel added a little tea to her cup and stirred it, wearing what Gemma thought of as her “therapist's face.”

“Yes, I know, I know,” said Gemma with a sigh. “He's a very intelligent man who's used to a stimulating, high-powered job where he's in charge of everything. Signing Charlotte up for every play group in Notting Hill and taking on gourmet cooking is his way of coping with the situation. I didn't expect him to sit home and watch daytime telly. But, still, there's something . . . ” She shook her head. “I don't know.” When Hazel raised an eyebrow, Gemma added, “I will talk to him. Promise. But this case is worrying enough for the moment. In fact, I'm just as glad Holly isn't here. Maybe you could give me an opinion. Unofficially.”

Nodding, Hazel said, “I'll do my best.”

Gemma described the murder, then told her what they'd learned about Vincent Arnott. “I can't make sense of the contradictions. The man was apparently very solicitous of his wife. Obviously fastidious in the extreme.” Gemma paused, frowning, and set her empty cup on the tray. “Oh, I suppose I can understand the picking-up-women thing . . .  But the bondage seems an aberration for a man who controlled everything in his life with such precision.”

“Actually, that's not uncommon. That was probably the only time he felt he didn't have to be in control. His wife's illness may have precipitated a long-harbored fantasy into active behavior.”

Gemma watched the gas fire for a moment, contemplating that, then turned back to Hazel. “Okay. I can see that, too. But his chambers' clerk told me that Arnott didn't like women. How do you square that with his care of his wife?”

“You described her as ‘childlike.' Is it possible that she was always something of an innocent, and that the dementia has only made it more apparent? It could be that they never had much of a sexual relationship, even before her illness. Or possibly not at all.”

“Tom—his clerk—did say that Arnott had been having affairs as long as he'd known him, and from what I gathered, they'd worked together nearly twenty years. So what you're suggesting,” Gemma added slowly, “is that Arnott saw his wife as the virgin and other women as whores?”

“That's not uncommon, either,” said Hazel. “It would be interesting to know what sort of relationship your Mr. Arnott had with his mother.”

“Interesting, yes,” agreed Gemma. “Helpful, maybe, if he were the murderer and not the victim. But as it is, I'm not sure it would get me any closer to figuring out who killed him. Or why.”

Before picking up Charlotte and Toby, Kincaid had taken Kit on a shopping trip to Whole Foods Market and let him pick out ingredients for dinner. Now, banned from the kitchen while Kit prepared a surprise, Kincaid was helping Toby and Charlotte make a pillow fort in the sitting room when he heard the click of the front-door lock and Geordie's excited yip.

“Mummy's home!” Toby shouted, sending their carefully constructed edifice slithering to the floor. Charlotte began to cry.

Scooping her up, Kincaid kissed her and said, “Never mind. We'll build it again. You can show Mummy.”

When Gemma came into the room, she looked more chipper than he'd expected after her long day. “What have we here?” she said. “Do I see the remains of a castle?”

“And the walls came tumbling down,” Toby intoned. “But you can help fix it, Mummy.”

She tousled his hair and gave Charlotte a hug. “Where's Kit? And what is that heavenly smell?”

“You'll have to ask Kit,” said Kincaid. “It's his production and I am totally, completely in the dark.”

“Okay, kitchen first,” Gemma told Toby. “You and Charlotte start building again, and I'll come supervise in a bit.”

Kincaid followed her into the kitchen, where they found Kit, pink cheeked from the heat of the Aga.

“I hear you're the chef du jour,” Gemma told him, giving him a hug as well. “Whatever it is, you could bottle the smell and sell it.”

“It's mac cheese,” said Kit. He grinned at their startled looks. “Gourmet mac cheese. I made up the recipe myself.”

“Wow.” Gemma sank into a kitchen chair with a sigh of contentment. “Gordon Ramsay couldn't do better.” Then she gave Kit a steely look. “Just promise me, if you decide to be a chef, that you won't swear like him.”

“All chefs swear,” said Kit, unconcerned. Turning back to the work top, he lifted a vase and set it carefully in the center of the table. “And these are for you.”

“Tulips! And red. My favorite. Thank you, Kit.” Then she added, laughing, “But that still doesn't mean you can swear. Or maybe only a little.”

He smiled back, then glanced at the kitchen timer. “The mac cheese has got fifteen more minutes. Okay if I go check my e-mail?” When they nodded, he added, “No tasting, though.” A moment later they heard him galloping up the stairs.

“I think his feet have grown a size since Christmas,” Kincaid said. Then, studying Gemma, he asked, “Tea? I suspect you could use a bit of fortifying.”

“I'm full up with tea. And biscuits, actually. I stopped to see Hazel on my way home.”

“Wine, then?” Kincaid headed for the fridge rather than the kettle.

“I wouldn't say no.”

He poured her a glass from the bottle they'd opened the night before. “Personal or professional, this visit to Hazel?”

“Bit of both.” After an appreciative sip of the wine, she quietly filled him in on what they'd learned that day about Vincent Arnott, then set her glass down and rubbed at her cheekbones. “We're nearing the end of the crucial first forty-eight hours, and we still don't have any really viable leads. This could turn into a monster of a case when the media get hold of the details and we haven't made any progress.”

“The Mad Strangler of Crystal Palace.”

Gemma grimaced. “Or worse.
Sex, Bondage, and Murder
.”

Sid, their black cat, jumped up on the kitchen table. Kincaid scooped him off and set him on the floor, where the cat rubbed round Gemma's ankles until she reached down to stroke him.

“I saw Melody today,” Kincaid told her, trying to work out how to approach this delicately. He didn't want Gemma to feel he was interfering in her case, but he couldn't withhold what he knew, either. “She came by to check on Doug while I was there.”

“Really? How's he doing?”

“I suspect by tomorrow he'll be pulling his hair out from boredom. Or hacking into the MoD. But the thing is, Melody was trying to track down the members of the band who were playing in the pub on Friday night, and she said she got their details from their manager.”

“Well, that seems logical.” Gemma looked puzzled.

“She didn't tell you the manager's name?”

“I don't think so. But I'm sure it's in her case notes.”

“You'd remember if she'd told you,” he said. “It's Tam. Our Tam. Louise's Tam.”

Gemma just stared at him blankly for a moment. “As in Tam and Michael?” she said at last.

“The same.”

“Bloody hell.” She lifted her wineglass and this time took a gulp.

“It gets better.” Kincaid sat down across from her. “The guitarist who got in a row with your victim in the pub on Friday night? It was Andy Monahan.”

“Andy . . . ” Gemma frowned; then her eyes widened in recognition. “Andy. Blondish. Bit cheeky. Always gives me a wave and a smile when I see him coming and going at Louise's. He's usually carrying his guitar case.” She shook her head in disbelief. “What on earth was he doing arguing with Vincent Arnott? And that means it was Tam who gave him an alibi for the time of Arnott's murder.”

“Bit awkward, isn't it? I wondered . . . ” Kincaid hesitated, thinking of all the things he hadn't said, all the things he should have mentioned to Gemma—Louise's illness, the possibilities he was exploring for Charlotte . . .  and his worries about the job. The bloody, bloody job.

He shrugged. He'd find the right time.

“What, love?” Gemma reached across the table to touch his hand. “Are you all right?”

He took her hand in his. “I'm fine. But . . .  I wondered if you might like me to have a word with Tam. Just in case he knows anything he'd not have thought to mention to the police.”

Melody had spent the afternoon shuttling between Earl's Court, Hackney, and Bethnal Green, with no success anywhere.

She had found Nick's mother at home at the family's flat on the respectable Fulham edge of Earl's Court. Nick, said his mum, was off at a coffeehouse, studying for an accountancy exam, but she wasn't sure where. Melody had left her card. She'd also tried Nick's mobile, leaving a message on his voice mail.

As she started for Hackney, she'd tried the mobile number Tam Moran had given her for George, the drummer, which again went to voice mail.

“Why do people bother having mobile phones if they never answer them,” she muttered. Maybe by the time she arrived, George would have rung her back.

But when she reached the flat in the well-kept estate east of Haggerston Park, there was no one home at all. Nor was there any sign of the white Transit van she'd seen in the video footage.

She waited a bit, in case someone showed up, but the car quickly got cold without the engine running. Frowning, she dug in her bag for the card Tam Moran had given her. His home address was near Columbia Road, not far at all. She could stop by, she thought. Tam seemed like a settled chap who might be at home on a Sunday afternoon.

Kincaid had explained that Tam lived next door to Louise Phillips, who had been Charlotte's father's law partner and was now the executor of Charlotte's estate.

“And Andy Monahan?” she'd asked. “How do you know him?”

“He was a witness to a murder near his flat, in that case we worked last spring—the one that involved Erika. It wasn't until I saw him visiting Tam when I was at Louise's last summer that I knew they had a connection. I hope he's not involved in your murder.”

Melody hadn't thought it very professional to add that she hoped not, too.

When she reached Columbia Road, she found Tam's flat easily enough and climbed the stairs to the first-floor balcony. But the only answer to her knock was the ferocious barking of the two German shepherd dogs she could see through the flat's front windows, and there was no sound or movement from the adjoining flat, which she assumed must be Louise's.

Discouraged, she went back to the car and sat for a moment, irresolute. Heavy clouds were massing in the west of the already darkening sky. She'd wasted the entire afternoon, and now the day was almost gone.

As she reached in her bag for her phone, intending to check in with Gemma, she knocked Tam's card from the console and it fell facedown on the passenger seat. On the back, Andy Monahan had scribbled his address and phone number.

“Hanway Place,” she read. She remembered him saying it was just off Oxford Street and Tottenham Court Road. And that was right on her way back to Notting Hill.

Bugger the band, she thought. She'd talk to Andy himself, and she wasn't going to call first.

Hanway Place was a dark little alley of a street, tucked away behind the massive Crossrail construction at the intersection of Oxford Street and Tottenham Court Road. Melody double-checked the address on the card, as the building looked more like a warehouse than housing. But when she'd parked and gone to the door, she found a row of bellpushes with adjacent name holders. Most of the building appeared to be empty, but beside a flat on the first floor the tag read “A. Monahan” in the same distinctive handwriting scrawled on the back of the business card.

She pushed the bell and when the intercom clicked on, said, “It's Melody Talbot. Can I have a word?”