The Garden of Lamentations

by Deborah Crombie

  “Mum,” she said warily. “I’m just in the middle of—”

  “You’re always in the middle of something, darling. Did you forget Sunday lunch again?” Lady Adelaide asked, disapproval evident in her tone.

  “Oh, sh—” Melody caught herself. She had forgotten. Again. And it was her family’s weekly ritual, not to be missed on pain of death. “Sorry, Mum.” Taking a sip of her tea, she winced as it scalded her mouth. “Look, I do have other plans, and besides, I’m not the least bit presentable for lunch.”

  “Come anyway.” There was a hint of steel in Lady Adelaide’s voice. “You haven’t been here for weeks, and your father is getting quite cross.”

  Ivan Talbot was not referred to as “Ivan the Terrible” at home and at the paper without reason. But while Melody could easily weather one of her father’s temper tantrums, she knew his feelings were hurt, and that was much harder to ignore. As was her mother’s displeasure. Addie Talbot had enormous charm and impeccable breeding, and she used both to ensure that her husband’s life ran as smoothly as possible.

  “Look, Mum, I promised a friend. I’m gardening—”

  “Gardening? Don’t be silly, darling. You don’t know a thing about gardening. Just have a wash. You can change into something when you arrive. I’ll tell your father you’re coming.”

  The connection went dead.

  This time Melody swore loudly and long. A woman pushing a pram down the other side of the street gave her an affronted look and walked faster. When the woman glanced back, Melody raised her hand in a little wave of apology.

  She looked a right idiot, standing in the street muttering to herself. But there was no point in ringing her mother back.

  She would go, then, but it would bloody well be in her own time. First she had to at least speak to Doug.

  Collecting herself, she shouldered her handbag and picked up both cups of tea. The blinds in Doug’s front bow window were open, but she’d seen no sign of activity. Reaching the front porch, she awkwardly pushed the bell with her elbow. The ring was clearly audible through the door, but there were no answering footsteps. She waited a moment, then set the cups down on the step and pounded smartly on the door itself. Dead silence. Nothing moved behind the green-and-gold stained glass set into the door’s upper half.

  “Damn you, Doug Cullen, if you’re pouting,” Melody said aloud. Taking her mobile out again, she dialed his number. There was no answer, and she didn’t hear the phone ringing in the house. If he’d come back from the river and gone out in the garden by himself, why wouldn’t he pick up?

  Unless he was hurt . . . Or he’d done something stupid and fallen. Again. Her palms started to sweat.

  The house was terraced. There was no access into the garden except through the house, and she didn’t have a key. Now her hands were trembling. If only she could make sure he was okay. Maybe the neighbors had a key, or there was a way through their gar—

  No. Melody took a breath and flexed her hands, forcing herself to relax. That was stupid. Of course he was all right. For all she knew, he’d turned his mobile off when he was out on the boat. Or he’d decided to stop in one of the riverfront pubs for a drink and hadn’t heard the ring tone. Assuming he’d not had an accident in the boat . . . No, she thought again. She’d sat on Putney Bridge for ten minutes waiting for the traffic light to change. There had been nothing on the river but some rowing eights and coaching launches. No accidents. She was being ridiculous.

  Fishing in her bag for a piece of paper, she scribbled a note to Doug on the back of her Starbucks’ receipt. She hesitated for a moment, then took the much-creased and folded garden plan she’d drawn from her bag and put it and the note by the doorsill, weighting them both with the cup of now-cooling tea.

  Refusing to let herself glance back at the house, she walked back to the car, got in, and drove to Kensington.

  When she reached the town house, she stopped for a moment to gaze at it. With its own small gated front garden and white stuccoed facade, it looked plain enough. If you weren’t familiar with London property values, you wouldn’t guess that only someone very well-off could afford such a place. Ivan Talbot, owner of one of the most successful newspapers in London which had its premises just round the corner, certainly fell into the well-off category. But he hadn’t been born to money, and he’d never made a secret of the fact that he’d grown up a working-class lad in Newcastle.

  The black wrought-iron gate buzzed open before Melody could touch the intercom button. Her mother had been watching for her, having had no doubt that she would turn up as requested.

  The glossy black front door swung open as Melody reached it and Addie Talbot gathered her into the house with a hug. Addie was, like her daughter, just a bit over five feet tall, but her delicate bone structure made her feel fragile as a child beneath Melody’s hands. Melody kissed her smooth cheek and stepped away, taking in her mother’s cream linen trousers and teal silk blouse—her mum’s idea of casual wear.

  Addie examined her at arm’s length. “Darling, you do look a fright.”

  “I told you I wasn’t presentable,” said Melody, unable to keep the defensive tone from her voice. “And if you’ve invited anyone else, I’m leaving.”

  Her mum had a very bad habit of using Sunday lunches as occasions to trot out what she thought were eligible bachelors, making it clear that her parents felt she was in danger of becoming an old maid. Melody had not yet got up the nerve to bring Andy here—nor to tell Andy anything about her parents other than that her dad was in the newspaper business.

  “Darling,” said Addie, her forehead creasing in the deepest frown she ever allowed herself, “what on earth have you done to your hair?”

  “Oh.” Melody ran a hand across the top of her head. She’d actually forgotten her mother hadn’t seen it. “I cut it.”

  “You cut it? With a pair of kitchen scissors? Surely Jean Paul would never have done that to you.”

  “No. I didn’t cut it myself, Mum. I went to a salon. I just felt like a change.” Melody had never worn her hair much longer than chin length, but a few weeks ago she had walked into a salon in Brixton on her lunch hour and had walked out with her dark hair as short as a boy’s. Shorn like a pilgrim, she’d thought to herself when she looked in the mirror. She felt naked—and surprisingly unfettered. She wasn’t at all sure that was a good thing.

  “If you wanted a change, you might have bought a new outfit,” her mother said, but now there was a hint of amusement in her voice. “I think it rather suits you, but I’ve no idea what your father will say.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Downstairs, putting lunch together. It’s just cold salads, but I think he has a special treat in mind for you.”

  Ivan Talbot, who could afford to eat at the best restaurants in London, and often did, had never forgotten his Newcastle roots. He liked to potter in the kitchen, making what he referred to as ordinary food.

  “We should go down,” Addie went on. “He’ll be wondering what happened to us.” The town house kitchen and adjoining living area were in the basement, overlooking the back garden. The ground-floor sitting and dining rooms were seldom used except for formal entertaining.

  “Let’s face the music, then.” Melody led the way.

  The stairs that led down to the basement were bare Portland stone, the treads slightly worn in the center. In the town house’s heyday they would have been covered with a durable runner to muffle the sound of the servants going up and down from kitchen to dining room. But Melody’s father had insisted they be left uncovered. He liked, he said, to see the bones of the house.

  “Hi, Dad,” said Melody as she came to the bottom of the stairs and stepped down into the kitchen. Tall as a Viking, fair hair going a distinguished gray, Ivan Talbot stood at the work top, wearing an apron. It should have looked silly on his large frame, but he managed, as he did most things in life, to carry it off with aplomb.

  He gathered her into a hug and for a moment she l
et herself relax against his broad chest. “It’s about time you showed your pretty face, lass.” His northern vowels were still strong, even after more than thirty years in London. Although Melody was sure his sharp eyes missed nothing, he made no comment on her hair or her clothes. Her mother had come in behind her and begun gathering plates and cutlery.

  “Cold ham, cucumber salad, beetroot, potato salad,” he said when he had released her, pointing to the dishes set out on the work top. “I thought we could picnic in the garden, as fine as it is. And”—he gave her a boyish grin and pulled a dish from the fridge—“my smoked whitefish spread. We’ll make the toast to have with it at the last minute. The bubbly is chilling.” “Bubbly” to Ivan meant the Veuve Clicquot nestled in a silver ice bucket.

  The doors at the end of the sitting room stood open and the space beyond glowed like a green gem. It was an elegant design, the plants in multiple shades of green fading to whites, arranged artfully around a patio of the same pale gray Portland stone used inside the house. And it was as different from the glorious, shaggy flower border that Melody had envisioned for Doug Cullen’s little garden as night from day.

  “Are you quite all right, darling?” asked Addie, pausing with a tray in her hands. “You had the oddest look for a moment, as if you’d lost something.”

  Melody blinked and shook her head. “No, I’m fine. Really.”

  “I thought you might be upset about your chief superintendent. Such a dreadful thing.”

  “What?” Melody stared blankly at her mother, not comprehending.

  “I thought you’d have heard at work,” said Ivan.

  “I haven’t been in all weekend.” Melody felt suddenly woozy, as if all the blood had drained from her head. “What are you talking about? Has something happened to Superintendent Krueger?” Diane Krueger was her and Gemma’s superior at Brixton Police Station.

  “No, no,” her father shook his head. “Your mother meant your friend Kincaid’s guv’nor. Or ex-guv’nor, I should say. At Scotland Yard. Chief Superintendent Childs. Apparently he was attacked last night near his home. Left for dead in a churchyard. They’re not certain he’ll make it.”

  Chapter Five

  “What do you mean, left for dead?” said Melody. “Is he going to be all right?”

  “I’ve no idea, love, or I’d have said.” Her father frowned. “I didn’t mean to surprise you. I really did assume you’d have heard.”

  Forcing herself to unclench her hands, Melody tried to speak more calmly. “I told you I hadn’t been in to work this weekend, and no one’s rung me. Do you know what churchyard, or where he was taken to hospital? Was he—was he”—she swallowed hard— “shot?”

  “I don’t know.” Ivan put the champagne he’d been holding back into the ice bucket and came over to her, placing a large, cold hand on her shoulder. “It just came across the news desk. I told them not to run it without more information. Do you want me to see what else I can find out?”

  “Oh. No, Dad, but thanks.” The last thing she wanted was for Ivan to stick his newspaperman’s nose into police business—or for Ivan to do anything that might make their connection public. “I was just . . .” She swallowed again, then managed, “Curious.”

  Her mother looked unconvinced. “You really do look quite peaky, Melody. You should take more care of yourself. I always said this police job was a bad idea. And after what happened to you—”

  “Mummy,” Melody broke in. “Excuse me for a minute, okay? I have to make a phone call.” Before her mother could protest, Melody walked outside. There was a swatch of perfect green lawn beside the rectangular lily pond, but she kept going until she reached the bottom of the property. Her parents had built an outdoor fireplace into the stone wall at the very back, with two chairs and a small table. It was their favorite place to enjoy a drink on chilly evenings. Today, however, the sun beat down with full force, reflecting searing sunlight from the stone underfoot. Melody felt exposed, as if the rays might reveal her very bones.

  She pulled her mobile from her pocket. But then she hesitated, her finger poised over the keypad. Her first instinct had been to call Doug. Childs had been his boss, too, as well as Duncan’s.

  But . . . no. She had left her peace offering for Doug, and she couldn’t bear to be rejected again. Nor was it her place to tell him. That should fall to Duncan.

  Moving her finger, she touched the most familiar number on her phone screen. Gemma.

  Kincaid hadn’t believed it when Gemma told him. It had taken a call to Tom Faith, who’d informed him that what Melody had said was unfortunately true. Denis Childs had apparently been set upon in the churchyard of St. James Clerkenwell sometime the previous evening, and was now in the Royal London Hospital’s traumatic brain injury ward with a severe head injury. Faith didn’t know more than that, and was planning to go to hospital himself.

  “I’ll meet you there,” Kincaid said, and it was not until he’d rung off that he realized he’d just told Gemma he would stay with the children while she went out with MacKenzie.

  “Go,” Gemma told him. “I’ll work something out.”

  As he drove across north London, he replayed last night’s meeting over and over. Why had Denis been so cagey about the pub, choosing a place where neither of them would be recognized? Had he been afraid he was being followed? And if that were true and someone had trailed him to the Duke, had they seen Kincaid, too?

  He frowned as he passed St. Pancras Station. As if he needed a reminder of Ryan Marsh. It had been Marsh who had helped Melody Talbot aid the victims of an exploding white phosphorous grenade in the station concourse. It had been Marsh who’d thought he might have been the intended target, Marsh who’d feared that he was being watched or followed by someone within the force itself. But Marsh was dead. And Denis Childs was lying in hospital after voicing the same sort of conspiracy hints.

  If Denis was being followed, was Kincaid putting himself at risk by being seen to have a further connection?

  Swearing, Kincaid slammed on the brakes to avoid running a red light. The hot exhaust fumes rolling in the open windows of the old Astra were making him feel woozy and he shook his head to clear it. He was being bloody paranoid. Bonkers.

  Surely Denis had been attacked by a random mugger. And of course he should visit him. The man had been his boss and his colleague for years.

  Glancing in the rearview mirror, he glimpsed Charlotte’s car seat in the back and felt a sudden shiver of cold in spite of the heat of the day. What if, just if, he wasn’t crazy? He had his family to think of.

  He had to know more. He had to talk to Denis if he could. There was too much at stake for him to just stick his head in the sand and hope he was imagining things.

  MacKenzie’s husband, Bill, once again came to the child-minding rescue. But Charlotte, already disappointed by Kincaid’s abrupt and unexpected departure, clung to Gemma’s legs and cried when Gemma took her into the Williamses’ house. It had taken some coaxing on Gemma’s part before she agreed to go outside and swing in the garden with Toby and Oliver.

  “I’m so sorry,” Gemma said to MacKenzie as they got in the car. “Bill’s a saint to put up with a sniffling three-year-old.”

  “That never happens at our house,” MacKenzie answered with a grin, then sobered. “And he needed a break. He’s been working nonstop trying to book another model and reschedule the catalog shoot.” She made a rueful face. “That seems awfully callous, doesn’t it, to be inconvenienced by Reagan’s death? But it’s not just the models—there are loads of people to reschedule, and we had to find a new venue. The one we had booked yesterday was only available for the day. Bill’s been pulling his hair out.”

  “Fortunately, life goes on,” Gemma said. “You can’t feel guilty about it.” She drove back past her own house and turned right into Clarendon Road.

  “You would know, I suppose,” MacKenzie said slowly. “I’d never given it that much thought—that you have to deal with families of victims. I don�
�t know how you do it.”

  Gemma glanced at her friend before she spoke. “I won’t say it gets easier. But, often, people want to talk. So you give them the opportunity. It helps them.”

  “I have no idea what to say to Reagan’s mother. I’ve never met her, and it’s been hard enough talking to Nita.”

  “The words will come. And the important thing is that you’ve made the effort.” Slowing, Gemma turned into Blenheim Crescent. “We should have walked,” she said, eyeing the parked cars lining both sides of the street. But, miraculously, she spied a gap and in a few moments had squeezed the Escort into it.

  This was familiar territory, just north of Kitchen and Pantry on the corner at Elgin Crescent, and their friend Otto’s café on Elgin Crescent, too, nearer Portobello Road. A 52 bus barreled past on Kensington Park Road, but Blenheim Crescent itself was quiet, as if the residents were napping after their Sunday dinners.

  “It’s back this way,” MacKenzie said when they got out, gesturing towards the north side of the street. She touched Gemma’s arm, halting her. “I keep thinking . . . what if it was Oliver . . .”

  “You mustn’t.” Giving her a quick hug, Gemma didn’t add that there was nothing she dreaded more than talking to parents who had lost a child. “Now, which house?” she asked, determinedly cheerful.

  Taking a breath and giving her a slightly shaky smile, MacKenzie led her a few doors back. The sun glinted off the parked cars, making Gemma narrow her eyes against the glare.

  MacKenzie stopped, nodding towards a house midway down the terrace. “This one.”

  Unlike its more colorful pastel neighbors on either side, the house was a pale gray with a glossy black door. And unlike some of its neighbors, the house was not divided into flats. Steps led down to a barred basement area, and up to the front door. The curtains were open in the ground-floor bay window, and Gemma realized she could see straight through the rooms and into the garden at the back.