To Dwell in Darkness (5 page)

Checking a text on her phone, Sidana said, “We'll know soon enough. The pathologist and the SOCOs are here. Sweeney's bringing them in.”

“Melody,” Kincaid said. “Andy and Poppy, they're all right?”

“They're fine. They were great—they helped clear the crowd. But, Duncan—” She swallowed and went on. “Tam and Caleb were here. Standing outside the café, not twenty feet from him. People got splashed with phosphorus. Tam got burned. The medics are getting him ready for transport now. I think it's pretty bad.”

As Gemma drove down St. John's Gardens, she saw their friend Wesley Howard's white van parked across from their house. He'd left her the empty parking space nearest the front door, bless him. And she had to admit, as she pulled up and got out of the car, that the weather was too miserably cold for humans and animals alike. Even in her puffer coat, she shivered and pulled the collar up to her chin. It was already dark, and the lights gleaming from the front windows of the house radiated welcoming cheer.

But when she unlocked the front door and stepped in, the house was remarkably quiet. No dogs barked or came to greet her, nor were there any of the expected childish shrieks. Usually—especially when Wes was there—everyone would be gathered in the kitchen and something good would be cooking. Were they all still out in the garden, in the dark, trying to rescue the cat?

Then she heard a sound, and Toby came round the corner from the central hallway in an exaggerated tiptoe, finger to his lips.

“Shhh, Mummy. Bryony says we have to be really quiet, and only one person at a time can go in to see Xena or she'll be scared.”

“Xena? Who's Xena?”

“The mummy cat. I named her,” he added proudly. As Toby neared his seventh birthday, his fascination with pirates had mutated into an obsession with old episodes of
Xena: Warrior Princess.

Gemma sighed. “Where's Charlotte?”

Just then their foster daughter came running from the hall and wrapped her arms round Gemma's legs in her usual greeting hug. Gemma picked her up and kissed her cheek.

“How's my favorite girl?” Gemma whispered into her curly hair.

“Mummy, there are kittens!” Charlotte squirmed down and grabbed Gemma's hand. “Come and see.”

“Shhh,” said Toby, scowling.

“Wes says Toby is bossy.”

“If they gave medals for bossy, Toby would get one,” Gemma agreed, but she kept her voice to a whisper. “Okay, where's Xena?”

“In the study with Bryony,” said Kit, coming into the room with Wesley. Gemma had yet to get used to the fact that in the last few months, Kit had grown almost as tall as Wesley, who was now in his mid-twenties.

“I'll take you, Mummy,” whispered Toby.

“Gemma's perfectly capable of finding her own way to the study,” said Kit.

“Kit, don't snipe,” she scolded, but gently. He still looked pale and strained about the eyes. “Why don't you all go into the kitchen and make a pot of tea?” she suggested, thinking that what she would really like was a nice glass of wine, feet up, and the telly on.

She let Toby and Charlotte lead her to the study, then very gently nudged them back and eased herself in the door.

“Hey,” Bryony said softly, smiling up at Gemma from where she knelt on the study floor. Her deep auburn hair gleamed in the light from the shaded desk lamp. Beside her, tucked partway under the desk, was a large pasteboard box.

“Hey, yourself.” Gemma knelt beside her. Bryony was not only their veterinarian but a good friend. “What have I got myself into?” She looked into the box, then breathed, “Oh. My.”

The cat was a brown tabby. A white blaze ran down one side of her nose and splashed onto her chest and belly. All four paws were white as well. She lay on her side, looking contentedly up at Gemma and Bryony with gold eyes. Four tiny kittens were lined up to her belly, nursing, like a row of little mice.

“She's so thin,” Gemma whispered. “And the kittens are so young.”

“I'd say they're not more than a couple of days old. And that mum here was close to starving. The boys did a good thing. I'm not sure she'd have lasted the night.”

“She just let you pick her up?”

Bryony nodded. “I took a carrier and put the kittens in first. She's very tame. She must have been someone's pet.”

“Well, she got around a bit, didn't she?” said Gemma, examining the kittens more closely. One was a tabby, like its mother. One was black and white, one as black as Sid, and the fourth was calico. “Maybe Toby wasn't too far off with the name. Warrior princess, indeed.”

Gemma contemplated the logistics of making sure the smaller children didn't let Sid or the dogs into the room. “We need an airlock.”

There was a scratching noise at the door. “Mummy,” came Toby's plaintive voice. “Mummy, when are you coming out? Your tea's ready. I want to see the kittens.”

“Tea?” said Bryony, stretching and standing.

“Not much repayment for this,” Gemma told her. With a last brush of a fingertip on the first kitten's head, she stood as well.

“Not at all.” Bryony grinned. “It got me out of giving injections to Mrs. Scherzer's bulldog, which looks like Winston Churchill and has the disposition—and the gas—to match. Oh, Gemma, one more thing,” Bryony added as they reached the door. “As I said, she's very tame. Before the children get too attached to her, we'll need to make sure she's not microchipped.”

Gemma stopped with her hand on the doorknob. “Chipped? Oh, damn, I hadn't thought of that.”

“If she is someone's pet, they may be looking for her. You'll have to reunite her with her owners.”

In that instant, Gemma went from wondering how she was going to manage a stray cat, with kittens, to contemplating the horrifying prospect of telling the children the cat belonged to someone else. “Bugger. That's a good thing, I suppose,” she said, but without conviction.

Bryony clapped her on the shoulder. “All's well that ends well. In the meantime, your boys have saved her and her kittens from freezing to death.”

In the kitchen, Gemma gathered Kit and Toby to her in one-armed hugs, all they would tolerate. “You two are very kind and very resourceful. Bryony says you probably saved the kitties' lives.”

Toby puffed up like a little blond penguin. “But,” Gemma went on before Toby had a chance to brag. “Don't make a habit of breaking and entering, all right? I might have to arrest you. Next time you hear something crying, you call me first. And as it is, I'll have to have a word with the communal garden committee about the damage to the shed.” She gave them another squeeze and let them go. “What smells so heavenly?”

Wesley was stirring something in a pot on the Aga. His ready grin lit his dark face. “I brought you some of Otto's famous Russian stroganoff from the café. And Kit has the makings of a salad, I think.” Since they had met Wesley in the course of a murder investigation two years previously, he had worked part-time at Otto's café in Elgin Crescent, just off Portobello Road. The youngest of five children, he still lived at home with his mother, Betty, while attending business college.

Wes and Bryony had been friends when Gemma met them, but in the past few months their relationship seemed to have developed into something more intimate.

“Tea,” Bryony said, pulling mugs from the rack and lifting the steaming pot. “I could murder a bloke, me matey, for a good cuppa.” She flourished a mug at Toby, who giggled and danced away.

Bryony added milk to the mugs and poured for herself and Gemma.

“I want tea,” said Charlotte. She sat at the kitchen table, her legs swinging, drawing a pink blob that Gemma suspected was a cat. She coughed a little, but it wasn't the hacking of last night. She looked better, too, her blue-green eyes bright, her café-au-lait skin almost rosy.

Bryony poured her a mug of milk and added a splash of tea. “There you go, sweetie. Good for what ails you.” She picked up the remote for the kitchen television. “Let's just see how cold it's going to get tonight, if you don't mind.”

Glancing at the clock, Gemma saw that they'd just catch the end of the six o'clock news.

“Gemma.” It was Kit, his voice hesitant. “Look.” He pointed at the breaking-news banner scrolling across the television screen.

Focusing on the screen, Gemma caught “Explosion” and “St. Pancras International.” She grabbed the remote from Bryony's hand and turned up the sound. The perfectly groomed news presenter looked seriously into the camera as she said, “. . . an incident at St. Pancras International railway station has closed all traffic through the station at this time. There are reports of an unidentified explosion and injuries, but we have yet to ascertain the extent of the damage.” The camera cut to the Gothic front of the station and the St. Pancras Renaissance Hotel, eerily illuminated by the flashing lights of emergency vehicles.

Only when Gemma felt the kitchen chair beneath her did she realize Bryony had guided her into it. The broadcast switched to the weather, but no one was paying attention.

“Andy was playing,” whispered Gemma. “Andy and Poppy. Melody was going to the concert. And St. Pancras—that's Duncan's patch.”

Mary Shelley, the author of
Frankenstein,
used to rendezvous with Shelley next to her mother's tomb to plan their elopement, Dickens recalls wandering through the churchyard, and Blake placed the site on his mystical map of London.

—Matt Shaw, kentishtowner.co.uk,
“Why It Matters—Saving St. Pancras Old Church”

Melody had never been so glad to see anyone. She almost gave in to the urge to hug Kincaid, although she was not a hugging person. But her relief lasted only until she had to tell him about Tam.

“Where is he?” Kincaid asked.

She gestured towards the triage area. “Andy and Poppy are with him.”

“I'll be right back,” Kincaid said to DCI Callery and, pulling his respirator back on, headed towards the triage area.

Callery glanced at Kincaid's back, then gave Melody an assessing stare. “Who the hell are Andy and Poppy? And Tam when he's at home?”

Melody noticed that Callery's eyes were the same silvery gray as his hair and his suit. She wondered if the clothing coordination was vanity or happenstance, then chided herself because she didn't seem able to discipline her random thoughts. “Andy and Poppy are the band,” she answered, trying to collect herself. “They were playing when the . . . device . . . went off. Tam is Andy's—the guitarist's—manager. They're—we're—family friends.”

“What were you doing here?”

She was tempted to say that she had just as much right to walk through the station as anyone else, then wondered what it was about the man that made her feel so stroppy. “I'd come for the concert. I'd just got here when it happened.”

“You ran towards the fire.”

Melody wasn't sure if it was a criticism or a commendation. “I did my job.”

“Did you see anything—or anyone—else?”

“I—”

Sidana, Kincaid's new DI, interrupted her. “Sorry. But the SOCOs are here.”

Turning, Melody saw two crime scene techs, already suited, and a plainclothes officer she didn't recognize. He wore a long camel-hair overcoat that looked too snug on his overly muscular frame.

Behind him, wearing a familiar black leather jacket and carrying a bag, was Rashid Kaleem, the Home Office pathologist. Kaleem was one of a dozen pathologists on the rota for Greater London, but Melody had worked with him often enough to consider him a friend. They'd met during the case in East London that had brought Charlotte to Kincaid and Gemma.

Rashid flashed her his brilliant smile. “Melody, what are you doing here?” he asked as he pulled a sealed Tyvek suit from his kit. “Surely this isn't South London's case?”

“I just happened to be here. But what are you—”

“Duncan rang me.” He slipped on the blue crinkly suit with practiced ease, then the shoe coverings. “Asked if I was on call. So what have we got?”

“Crispy critter,” said one of the crime scene techs. “Better you than me, mate, having to deal with the remains.”

Kincaid returned to the group. He wasn't wearing his respirator, and his face was grim. He nodded to the pathologist. “Rashid, thanks for coming.” To the others, he added, “The brigade crew manager says he thinks we can do without the respirators now. This concourse is a wind tunnel. And I've had the station manager on the phone. We need to get this scene cleared. ASAP.”

As they walked back towards the corpse, Kincaid said to Melody, “Can you tell me exactly what happened?”

“I was late. Andy and Poppy were already playing. I stood at the back. Then, there was a whooshing sound—no, wait.” Melody frowned. “No, that's not all.” The scene came back to her jerkily, like rewound film. She coughed and cleared her raw throat. “I saw some protesters. Half a dozen, maybe. Over there.” She pointed towards the Marks & Spencer. “They had placards but I couldn't read them. I remember thinking what a nuisance. I didn't want them to spoil Andy and Poppy's show, and I didn't want to have to deal with them. Officially, you know. Then I saw a British Transport officer, a woman, and I thought, okay, her job. I remember feeling relieved. I looked away and that's when I heard it. The sound. A whoosh like the gas burner on a hot-air balloon. Then the screaming started.” She realized she was shivering as she finished. Rashid gave her a concerned look.

Nick Callery picked up the questioning. “You didn't see the victim before the fire?”

“I looked that way. I saw Tam and Caleb, standing in front of the café. They had coffees. I could tell they'd been sitting, but they'd stood up to see the band, pushing back their chairs. They didn't see me.” Melody rubbed her face. “No, wait. That was before I saw the protesters. The sequence is all jumbled. But I don't remember anyone standing out when I looked in that direction . . . Maybe the cameras picked him up.”