“Notting Hill vanity,” whispered MacKenzie, following her gaze. “If you have a garden house or flat, you want people to know it.”
“It must be like living in a goldfish bowl,” Gemma said, although she guessed that most families spent their time in the usual basement kitchen/sitting areas rather than in the more formal first-floor rooms.
They climbed the steps, the sun hot on their backs, and MacKenzie rang the single bell.
The woman who opened the door wore expensive exercise clothes, yoga bottoms and a fitted T-shirt, the sort of thing that Gemma couldn’t afford and wouldn’t have time to wear if she could. She was thin, with an angular face that was striking rather than pretty, and wore her light brown hair in a feathered collar-length cut. “MacKenzie,” she said, drawing them into the entrance hall and skimming MacKenzie’s cheek with an air kiss. “Thank you for coming. Reagan’s mum is here,” she added more softly as she closed the front door. “I’m feeling a bit desperate.” Gemma saw that under the flawless makeup her eyes were red-rimmed and puffy.
“Nita, this is my friend Gemma James,” MacKenzie told her. “I thought she might be able to help. Gemma, Nita Cusick.”
Nita took Gemma’s hand in a firm, dry clasp. “That’s good of you,” she said to Gemma. “Any help is appreciated. Did you know Reagan?”
“No, I’m afraid I didn’t.” Gemma was about to add that she’d met Nita’s son the previous day, but Nita was already opening the door into the sitting room.
Entering behind her, Gemma’s first impression was that she had stepped straight into a bower. The room’s sofas and armchairs were covered in a pale lemony yellow floral, a pattern that was repeated on the walls but in more neutral tones. Scattered vases held bunches of white hydrangeas. Light poured in from the large windows overlooking the rear garden.
But any exclamation of pleasure Gemma might have made was stopped by the sight of the woman sitting in the corner of one of the long sofas. In Nita Cusick’s elegant sitting room she seemed as out of place as a dandelion in a hothouse. She was, Gemma guessed, not much older than Nita, but her clothes were ordinary and there were threads of gray in her dark hair. If she had worn any makeup it was long gone, and her face was swollen and blotched from weeping.
“Gwen,” said Nita, “this is my friend MacKenzie Williams. And her friend Gemma—”
“I’m Gemma James,” broke in Gemma, having seen the blank look on Nita’s face. “I’m very sorry for your loss, Mrs. Keating.”
Gwen Keating nodded at Gemma, but all her attention was on MacKenzie. “Mrs. Williams,” she said. “Reagan talked and talked about you. She thought you and Mr. Williams hung the moon.” Her voice was soft, her accent lightly Welsh.
“Oh, we thought she was wonderful, too.” MacKenzie, her eyes brimming with tears, sat down beside her on the sofa and took her hand. “I’m so sorry. I still can’t really believe it.”
“Did you know my daughter?” Gwen Keating asked, looking up at Gemma. When Gemma shook her head, Gwen pulled a crumpled catalog from her handbag. “Here. Look. She said Mr. Williams loved the way she photographed.”
Sitting down on her other side, Gemma took the catalog. It had been folded open to a photo of a dark-haired young woman sitting on a brick wall. She wore jeans and an Ollie signature floral print shirt, and looked into the camera with an engaging half smile. Gemma recognized the picture—she had the same catalog at home somewhere in her kitchen. “Oh, I’ve seen her. She’s lovely,” she murmured, gazing at the photo, and realizing only as she spoke that she’d used the present tense. The girl radiated vitality—it seemed impossible that she was dead.
Gently, she pressed the catalog back into Gwen Keating’s hands. Nodding, Gwen hugged the catalog to her chest with one hand and raised the other to her chapped lips.
Gemma looked round, hoping for tissues and a glass of water for the grieving woman, but the adjacent coffee table held nothing but a low bowl of white roses, their scent strong in the warm room. Nita Cusick hadn’t joined them, but stood near the door, looking as if she might bolt at any moment.
“Nita,” she said, “I wonder if Gwen might like a cup of tea? I’d be glad to make it.”
“Oh. Of course.” Nita looked so surprised that Gemma wondered if people in her social set didn’t drink tea. “Right. I’ll just pop down and put it together.”
“Let me help,” Gemma offered, standing.
For a moment she thought Nita might refuse, but then Nita nodded and said, “Thanks.”
Gemma gave MacKenzie an encouraging smile as she followed Nita back into the central hall, where an elegant staircase led up and a slightly narrower one on the left led down.
“The kitchen’s this way,” Nita tossed over her shoulder as she started down.
Reaching the bottom, Gemma stepped down onto a stone-flagged floor and looked round with interest. Like the sitting room upstairs, the room stretched from the front of the house to the back. And like the wallpaper upstairs, the room was done in soft neutral tones, but here there was no pattern. The street windows were covered in tailored shades, but the large back windows were exposed. They framed the view so that the outside scene might almost have been a painted mural, and the reflected greenish light gave an underwater cast to the room.
The kitchen fittings were obviously bespoke and, Gemma suspected, very, very expensive.
“It’s Wilkinson and Barley. The kitchen furniture,” said Nita, who had turned and seen Gemma running a finger along the edge of the marble-topped center island.
“Oh, yes, I know it,” responded Gemma. She had indeed seen the Notting Hill showroom, but that didn’t mean she had ever been inside it.
“They’re my clients.”
Gemma must have looked slightly at sea, because Nita went on, “My firm’s clients. I do public relations and marketing for them.”
“It’s beautiful. Really lovely,” said Gemma, making an effort to redeem herself. And it was, but the room didn’t look as if anyone ever cooked in it, and in her opinion it cried out for at least a spot of color.
Nor, she noticed, was there a kettle on the enormous black six-hob Aga, although a coffeemaker and an espresso machine were among the few things to mar the pristine work tops.
“I don’t drink tea,” said Nita, confirming Gemma’s guess. “But there’s an electric kettle and”—she paused as she opened a cupboard near the garden windows and reached inside—“this.” When she turned back, Gemma saw that she held a chipped red teapot. “It was Reagan’s,” Nita continued. “She missed having a teapot so she picked this one up at the market. I have her tea, too.” Nita opened a drawer as if to look inside, but stopped and pressed the teapot against her chest. “I—I don’t know if it would be right to use it. Her mother—would she recognize it? I wouldn’t want to cause her more distress.”
“Here.” Gemma went to her and gently took the pot and placed it near the kettle. “I’m sure it will be fine. Let’s see that tea.” Looking in the drawer, Gemma found a box of Tetley’s English Breakfast tea bags tucked neatly in beside coffee-making oddments. She debated over three bags or four for the pot, then went for strong. They all needed it.
Nita stepped aside as Gemma put the bags in the pot, then filled the kettle from one of the two sinks in the center island. “What about mugs?” she asked when the kettle had begun to heat, but Nita again had the dazed expression she’d worn upstairs. Gemma touched her arm. “Nita?”
“Oh, sorry.” Nita seemed to make an effort to smile, but when she began to take white mugs from an upper cupboard, Gemma saw that her hand was shaking.
“Nita, maybe you should sit down for a bit.” Looking round, Gemma saw nothing that might offer a little support—the bar stools were metal and backless.
“No. I’m fine. Really,” Nita said, but she turned her back to Gemma and leaned on the work top with both hands. “I’m used to dealing with crises, for heaven’s sake. My clients count on me to handle any sort of emergency. But this”—she sho
ok her head—“I just can’t seem to focus. I keep thinking I’ll ask Reagan to do this or that, and then I remember . . .”
“It must be a terrible shock.” The kettle came to the boil and Gemma poured the hot water into the teapot. “Were you close? How long was she with you?”
“Two years.” Seeming to recover some of her composure, Nita straightened and moved to fetch a tray for the tea things. “MacKenzie will tell you—Reagan was . . . Reagan was a lovely girl. I just can’t believe . . .”
Gemma waited for the words she was sure would follow, but Nita didn’t say the expected. Instead, Nita went on, haltingly, “The police said . . . they said they had to check to see if alcohol or drugs were involved. I can’t believe that.” Nita shook her head. “Not Reagan. I don’t know what they’ve told Gwen. But Reagan was living in my house, so I feel . . . responsible . . .” For the first time, there were tears in Nita’s eyes, and Gemma thought she could understand why Nita had been so awkward and scattered upstairs with Gwen.
MacKenzie hadn’t told her this, but then MacKenzie wouldn’t have known unless Nita had shared it with her. “If it’s a suspicious death, of course they will want to—” Gemma began, but stopped when it occurred to her that it also seemed that MacKenzie hadn’t told Nita her friend was a police officer. It wouldn’t do to blurt it out suddenly, or to know more than a civilian. “I’m sure the police will have been very gentle with Gwen,” she amended. “Under the circumstances. And as for being responsible, Reagan may have been living under your roof, but she was how old?”
“Twenty-four.”
“Then she was a grown woman and responsible for her own behavior.”
“Well, yes, I suppose, but . . .” Nita stopped and gave Gemma a tremulous smile. “I can see that you’re right. I saw her. Did MacKenzie tell you?”
“Yes, MacKenzie did tell me. It must have been terrible for you.”
“I’m glad Gwen was spared that. But she said, when she came in, that she’d been to the mortuary straightaway. To see the . . . the body. And I wasn’t sure what would be worse . . .”
“That’s not a choice anyone should have to make.” There was much that Gemma would have liked to ask, about Reagan, and about what Nita had seen. But the tea was getting cold and MacKenzie would be wondering what had happened to them. She saw that Nita had only put out three mugs. Moving them to the tray, she asked, “Are you not having any?”
Nita made a face. “I’ve had too much caffeine today.”
“We’d better go up, then. Here, let me,” Gemma added, taking the tray. As she turned towards the stairs, she noticed a big basket, tucked away between the bottom of the staircase and the cupboards. Out of it poked a pair of muddy trainers and a football. She realized what had been bothering her since she’d first entered this house—there had been no sign that a boy lived here.
She thought of her own sitting room and kitchen, scattered with an ever-changing array of toys and junk. And usually Toby’s muddy trainers as well, which were the same brand as these but a few sizes smaller.
Did Jess live with his father, then, and only visit here? But then why the nanny, Reagan? Or had she somehow got everything all wrong?
Turning to Nita, she said, “I met your son yesterday. Jess. At ballet. I think that’s why MacKenzie asked me to come today. How is he doing with this?”
Nita frowned and rubbed a hand across her eyes. “I don’t know. He won’t come out of his room. He won’t talk to me. He seems to think that this is somehow my fault.”
“So you’ve decided you don’t like my whitefish?” asked Ivan Talbot, watching Melody put a little of the spread on a cracker, then set the cracker down again.
“It’s not that, Dad.” Melody forced a smile. She had managed a bit of the cucumber and a bit of the cold potatoes, but she couldn’t bear even the thought of the ham, and the whitefish was running a close second. She pushed the food around on her plate, hoping to disguise her lack of appetite. Her mother, she knew, had missed nothing, but so far hadn’t commented. “It’s the heat, I think,” she said. “And I have a bit of a headache.”
“We could go inside,” suggested Addie.
“No, no. This is lovely.” Melody shook her head, a bit too violently, and winced.
Now her mother was frowning at her. “Perhaps you should go have a lie down.”
“No, really, Mummy. I’d rather be out here.” That much, at least, was true. They were sitting at the table on the flagstone patio just outside the kitchen. The house shaded this part of the garden from the afternoon sun and there was a little breeze. She just couldn’t seem to get food down, and she couldn’t sit still, which was made worse by the fact that she knew how much her mother hated fidgeting. The champagne she had managed to drink, however, and she didn’t stop her father when he topped up her glass.
“If you’re worried about your chief superintendent,” said her father, “we should listen to the news. I’m curious to see what the Yard is going to release.” Before Melody could protest, he got up and went into the house, returning with the brown kitchen radio and tuning it to BBC1.
It was ten to two and the hourly update would be coming on soon. The song in progress finished and then came Sunday-afternoon host Alice Levine’s familiar voice, burbling on about something that Melody only half heard.
“I’m not at all sure the Met press office will say anything,” Melody told her father, abandoning even the attempt to eat the whitefish spread.
Unless he dies, thought Melody, and felt her heart skip painfully in her chest. Could Gemma have learned anything yet? She crumpled her napkin in her lap and shifted in her chair. What had happened? She couldn’t just sit while—
Alice Levine’s voice faded and the music started again, but this time Melody felt a jolt of recognition at the first note. It was the one song she avoided on the YouTube videos. Andy and Poppy had been playing it live when the grenade had gone off in St. Pancras Station.
She stood and reached across the table, fumbling to switch off the radio, knocking it over in the process and starting her champagne glass toppling. Her father grabbed the glass, his quick reflexes saving it, but both parents were looking at her as if she’d suddenly gone mad.
“Melody, what on earth?” said her mother, frowning as she righted the radio. “And I like that song.”
Oh, God. Her mother, a fan? Should she say, “Oh, by the way—that guy, the one who was playing at St. Pancras? He’s my lover.” It was all she could do to hold in a strangled laugh. “I’m sorry,” she said hurriedly. “I just remembered. There’s something I have to do. At work.” She leaned over and kissed her mother’s smooth cheek, then gave her father a quick hug. “I’ll ring you. Thanks for the lunch.”
“But, darling,” her mother said, pushing her chair back as if to stop her, but Melody was already ducking into the kitchen. She hadn’t missed the speculative look in her father’s eyes, and she ran up the stairs and out the front door like an Olympic sprinter.
She didn’t stop until she’d turned the corner into the east side of the square. When she halted, gasping, she was suddenly aware that people were staring at her.
The sunlight seemed too bright. Her head was pounding, and her heart was still racing. For a moment she thought she might be sick. She grasped the top of the garden’s fence and the iron felt cool under her hand.
Better, she thought. Better. Then she heard a siren in the distance and suddenly she couldn’t get her breath at all. Her vision blurred. A wave of terror gripped her, wrenching at her gut. Panting, she clutched the fence now with both hands. Was that smoke she smelled?
She could hear Andy and Poppy’s song playing in her head. Then people were shouting and crying. The sirens were getting nearer. The smoke burned her eyes and seared her throat, then the ground seemed to tilt beneath her feet. Christ, what was happening to her?
Suddenly, she felt a hand on her shoulder and a woman’s voice said, “Melody? Melody, is that you? Is something wrong?”
> Spinning round, Melody caught a glimpse of a red dress, then tried to focus on the worried face before her. “Hazel?”
Chapter Six
Kincaid’s route had taken him down City Road and then Commercial Street, into the heart of Whitechapel. Even though Brick Lane was one street to the east, with the Astra’s windows down he could swear he smelled halal chicken and curry mixed with the exhaust fumes from the traffic.
The stark spire of Christ Church rose ahead as he neared Spitalfields Market on the right. And just before Christ Church on the left came Fournier Street, where Charlotte had spent most of the first three years of her life. The impulse to turn and drive down the street was almost irresistible, but that would take him into Brick Lane, which was one way in the opposite direction, and he didn’t want to backtrack.
But in his mind’s eye he saw the tall, narrow Georgian house with its blue door and heavily shuttered windows. Charlotte’s parents, Sandra and Naz Malik, had bought it when no one wanted to live in Whitechapel and had restored it with much love and little money. When they’d died, the house had sold for more than they could have dreamed, and that money had gone into trust for Charlotte.
This was Charlotte’s heritage, he thought, the bold graffiti and the women in silks bright as butterflies, the accents of the passersby mingling Cockney, Punjabi, and Urdu. How much did Charlotte remember, even now?
Her mother, Sandra, a brilliant fabric artist, had used the colors and textures of the East End in her work. Her father, Naz, a second-generation Pakistani, had been a lawyer who’d made a good practice representing local clients.
After their deaths, unwilling to let Charlotte go to maternal relatives who were both grasping and criminal, Kincaid and Gemma had petitioned social services to allow them to foster Charlotte. Although Louise Phillips, Naz’s law partner and the executor of Naz and Sandra’s estate, was fond of Charlotte and assiduous in looking after her financial affairs, she’d had no desire to take on the everyday care of a small child.
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