The Garden of Lamentations

by Deborah Crombie

  “I didn’t actually know her,” Gemma corrected. “She looked after a friend’s son occasionally, and she also did some modeling for her catalog.”

  “So you never actually met Reagan Keating?”

  Shaking her head, Gemma said, “No. But MacKenzie Williams was very upset by the news. She asked me to go with her to the Cusicks’. I thought it was the least I could do.”

  “Quite right, although I doubt it was a pleasant visit. Who did you speak to?” Boatman settled back in her chair, cradling her coffee cup, as if she had all the time in the world for a friendly gossip.

  “Nita Cusick, Reagan’s employer, and Reagan Keating’s mum, Gwen.” Gemma didn’t mention Jess.

  Boatman sipped her coffee and stared into space for a moment, obviously thinking. When she looked back at Gemma, her gray eyes were razor sharp. “Did either of them know you were a police officer?”

  “It didn’t come up. I’ve no idea if MacKenzie had mentioned it earlier. I was there as a friend.”

  “Of course.” Boatman held up a hand in an apologetic gesture. “I understand. I just thought you might have got a little less . . . guarded . . . impression of the situation than we might, officially. You know how barriers go up when people know they’re talking to the police. Even the most blameless souls start thinking about the parking ticket they forgot to pay.”

  Gemma smiled. “Exactly what situation are we talking about here?” she asked. “Gwen Keating said the officer she spoke to suggested that Reagan’s death was drug or alcohol related. Is that true?”

  “Did he? Damn,” Boatman added under her breath, looking irritated. “Sergeant Enright is a clod with no common sense and fewer people skills. He had no business sharing assumptions with a shocked mother.” Before Gemma could remind her that she hadn’t answered her question, Boatman added, “Mrs. Cusick and the mother, how did they take the suggestion that the girl’s death might be down to drugs or alcohol?”

  “About as well as you can imagine. The mother was adamant that her daughter would never have overdosed on either. So was Mrs. Cusick.” Gemma set her coffee cup down on the desk with a click. “Look, DCI Boatman, what’s going on here? I was there as a guest. I can’t offer you any kind of a professional opinion on Reagan Keating’s habits.”

  “It’s Kerry, Gemma. I thought we were on a first-name basis.” When Gemma didn’t respond, Boatman sighed and added, “Apparently, Mrs. Keating and Mrs. Cusick were at least partly correct. I’ve had the preliminary report from the pathologist. According to the initial tests, her blood alcohol level was quite high.”

  “But, you just said they were correct.” Gemma was surprised as well as puzzled. She realized she’d been putting more weight on the assurances from MacKenzie, Nita, and Gwen Keating than perhaps she ought. “I don’t understand.”

  “Nor do I. The pathologist says it’s unlikely the girl’s alcohol level was high enough to kill her. She did, however, find some other indications of foul play. What, I don’t know yet.” Boatman raised a hand before Gemma could interrupt. “I was just on my way to the mortuary. I’d appreciate it if you’d come along.”

  The exterior of Holborn Police Station was as unwelcoming as ever, its glass and dull concrete facade not improved even by the bright May morning sun. As Kincaid climbed the front steps, he pulled his lanyard from his jacket pocket and slipped it on. Entering reception, he almost bumped into Chief Superintendent Faith coming out.

  “Sir,” he said automatically, then felt a little jolt of apprehension. Why was Faith leaving the building first thing in the morning? “Sir, is there . . . any news?”

  “No, no change.” Faith looked tired, the hollows under his cheekbones more pronounced than they had been yesterday. “I’m just going to check on Diane.” Frowning, he seemed for the first time to focus on Kincaid. “Have you been to hospital already?”

  For an instant, Kincaid wondered if someone had seen him at the London. But that was ridiculous. He’d gone nowhere near the critical care ward. “No, sir. Not since yesterday. I thought I might stop in later.”

  “Oh, right. Good man.” Faith clapped Kincaid on the shoulder and turned back towards the doors. Only then did Kincaid notice the man behind him.

  “Duncan. Good to see you.” Nick Callery held out his hand and gave Kincaid’s a firm shake.

  Kincaid had worked with Callery, a DCI in the counterterrorism unit, while investigating the St. Pancras grenade death. It was the case that had led him to Ryan Marsh, but he’d never shared anything about Marsh with Callery or his unit. Callery wore what Kincaid thought of as his usual attire, a silvery gray suit that matched the color of his short silver hair. He was, Kincaid guessed, in his forties, with a trim, athlete’s build, and his lightly tanned face was unlined.

  “Yes, you, too,” he responded, with more warmth than he felt. He’d found Callery a bit overbearing.

  “I was sorry to hear about what happened to Denis Childs. I’d just stopped in to ask the chief here if he’d had any news. I understand you worked with Childs for some time.”

  “Yes. Yes, I did.” That was as much as Kincaid found himself willing to say.

  Callery didn’t seem to find his abruptness odd. “Your friend,” he went on, “the officer who responded to the grenade. Talbot, wasn’t it? How is she?”

  Kincaid hadn’t expected Callery to remember Melody, much less to ask after her. “She’s fine. I’ll tell her you asked after her when I see her next.” He noticed Callery had a small bandage on his left hand.

  Following his glance, Callery smiled. “Kitchen accident. I’m a clumsy bastard. Good to see you. We must have a pint sometime.” He nodded at Kincaid, then followed an impatient-looking Faith out the main doors. Watching the two men walk down the steps, Kincaid couldn’t tell if they were leaving together. He shrugged and continued on his way up to CID.

  His team were all in. Detective Sergeant Simon Gikas, his crime scene manager, was as usual hunched over his computer keyboard. Detective Inspector Jasmine Sidana, his second in command, was on the phone. And Detective Constable George Sweeney was, quite literally, twiddling his thumbs, with his feet propped up on the rubbish bin at the side of his desk. None of them had the air of being particularly busy, although the room hummed with the expected Monday-morning activity.

  “Boss,” said Gikas, looking up with a grin. “We were beginning to think you’d skived off for the day.”

  “You should be so lucky.”

  Ending her phone call, Sidana gave him a nod of greeting. “Boss.”

  If not as effusive a welcome as he’d got from Gikas, the nod was at least friendly. They’d come a good way since he’d started at Holborn back in February. Sidana had felt she’d deserved a promotion to DCI, along with the leadership of the team, and she’d resented him bitterly. Perhaps she still did, Kincaid thought, but they’d progressed to the point where she seemed willing to work with him civilly. She was still prickly and as starchy as her trademark white shirts, but she was a good officer. He’d come to like her and to value her insights on a case.

  Sweeney, who seemed in no hurry to take his feet off the rubbish bin, was the thorn in his side. The man was arrogant and his work slipshod at best. Kincaid couldn’t figure out how Sweeney had been promoted to detective constable, or placed on this team.

  Before he could reprimand him, Kincaid’s phone rang. His first thought was that it was news about Denis, but when he glanced at the caller ID he saw that it was his mother. He walked into his office and closed the door as he answered.

  “Mum? What’s up?” It wasn’t like Rosemary Kincaid to ring him at work. “Are the kids okay?” He worried about his sister Juliet’s two, especially Lally, who was only a few months older than Kit and had a talent for trouble.

  “The children are fine,” said Rosemary, and he heard a little tremor in his mother’s warm voice. “It’s your father, darling. I didn’t want to worry you, but he’s had a little . . . episode.”

  “An episode?” h
e repeated, not comprehending. “Mum, what are you talking about?”

  “It was last night, late. He said his chest felt a bit odd. He didn’t want to make a fuss—you know how your father is—and he was sure it was just indigestion. But it didn’t go away. Finally, I made him ring Jim, and Jim admitted him to hospital right away.”

  Jim Strange was his family’s GP as well as one of his parents’ closest friends.

  “Is he okay? Why didn’t you call me?” Through the glass of his inner-office window, Kincaid saw Jasmine Sidana glance up at him and he made an effort to lower his voice. “Where is he now?”

  “There was no point upsetting you last night,” said Rosemary. “He’s fine. He’s just going to have to have a little procedure this afternoon. A stent, the doctor says.”

  “A stent? But that’s—”

  “Very routine these days, according to the cardiologist.” Rosemary seemed to be making an attempt at her usual brisk manner, but the tremor was still there. “I’ll ring you as soon as he’s out of the theater,” she added. “I promise, I—”

  “No,” Kincaid interrupted. “Mum, I’m coming up.”

  “Don’t be silly, darling. I’m sure there’s no need. You can’t just leave work at the drop of a hat—”

  “I’ll see you in a couple of hours.”

  Chapter Nine

  As she reached the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital in Fulham Road, Gemma was still trying to work out if she’d been asked or ordered to accompany Kerry Boatman. The Chelsea and Westminster had the best burn unit in London, and she’d become quite familiar with the hospital when their friend Tam Moran, Andy Monahan’s manager, had been badly burned in the St. Pancras grenade fire.

  The curved awning over the hospital’s front entrance had always made her think of a bus stop, and there was Kerry, waiting for her beneath it as if this was any ordinary meeting on any ordinary spring day. Gemma had a moment to study the other woman, unobserved, as she waited to cross the road.

  The pleasantly neutral expression Kerry had worn during their interview had been replaced by a frown. She glanced at her watch and checked her phone twice before looking up and spotting Gemma.

  When Gemma reached her, she said without preamble, “Gemma, look, I’m sorry to have hijacked you on this. I didn’t want to talk about it at the station, but I’m in a bit of a pinch here. My regular partner is out on maternity leave. I’ve got pressure from the brass to look into this, thanks to your posh friends”—Kerry softened the comment with a half smile—“and I’ve been assigned a sergeant who can’t open his mouth without putting his foot in it. If the pathologist is right about the foul play, this case could turn into a real political balls-up.”

  “So you thought you’d make me the football?” Gemma said, eyebrows raised.

  Kerry gave her a sheepish shrug. “Well, maybe a little. But I honestly thought I could use your help. And that you might have a personal interest in finding out what happened to this girl.”

  As she did. “Then let’s see what we’re dealing with, shall we?”

  When they were led into the mortuary’s glassed-in viewing room, the pathologist was sitting at a desk in the postmortem room itself. She was writing notes, her back to them, her straight black hair just brushing the shoulders of her scrubs and swinging a little when she moved. She must have heard their arrival because she turned just as Gemma said, “Kate?”

  “Gemma!” Dr. Kate Ling stood and came towards the glass barrier, a smile on her face. It had been some time since Gemma had worked with her, but she thought Kate—who had always had the sort of delicate frame that made Gemma feel large-boned and awkward—looked thinner, and her face looked drawn. Kate’s smile, however, seemed to reflect genuine pleasure.

  “How are you?” asked Kate. “And the family?”

  “Everyone’s well. We haven’t seen you in donkey’s years. I thought perhaps you’d taken a post somewhere else.”

  Kate gave a little grimace. “I took some time off. My mum’s been ill.”

  “Sorry to hear that,” Gemma said. She’d have asked more but Kerry shifted beside her. Guessing the two weren’t acquainted, she hurried to make the introductions. “Dr. Kate Ling, this is DCI Kerry Boatman.”

  “Nice to meet you,” said Kerry, but Gemma could sense her irritation with the niceties. “I understand you’ve found some irregularities with our unexplained death,” Kerry went on.

  “You could say that,” Kate answered. “Let’s take a look.” She slipped on her headset and a pair of gloves while they stepped right up to the glass. “I wanted you to see what I found on my external exam before I opened her up.” Her voice was amplified now, as if she was in the room with them, and she gave Gemma a little sideways smile. No doubt she remembered occasions when Gemma had been a little squeamish.

  When Kate lifted the sheet from the form on the nearest table, Gemma recognized the face she’d seen in photographs. She thought she’d been prepared for that, but still it shocked her to see the resemblance to the woman she’d met yesterday, Reagan Keating’s mother, Gwen. It made Reagan, as the living, breathing person she had been, seem suddenly very real.

  “My guess is that your young woman suffocated,” Kate went on. “First, she has classic petechiae.” She pulled back an eyelid with her gloved finger, but Gemma couldn’t actually make out the tiny red dots in the eye caused by bleeding of the capillaries.

  “You’re sure she wasn’t strangled?” asked Boatman.

  “There are no marks on her throat. Of course it’s possible that something may show up on the internal exam, but I’m inclined to doubt it.” Kate glanced up at them. “There were trace fibers in her nose—fibers that match the skirt of her dress.”

  Gemma thought about it. “Couldn’t she have wiped her nose with her skirt?”

  “Hard enough to cut the inside of her lip with her tooth, and to leave bruising in the tissue on the inside of her mouth?” Kate shook her head. “I don’t think so. There was another fiber caught on the edge of the same tooth, and there was a tiny spot of blood on the hem of her skirt.”

  “So you’re thinking that someone held her own skirt over her nose and mouth? Any signs of a struggle?”

  “There was a bit of grass under her fingernails, but no foreign tissue or fiber. There are other scenarios that might account for the cut and bruising in her mouth and the fibers in her nose. But that’s not all I found. Look at this.”

  Kate folded back the sheet and pointed to faint purple marks on Reagan Keating’s bare left shoulder. “Bruising. There’s more on her right thigh.”

  Gemma tried to visualize the scene. “So you’re suggesting someone knelt on top of her, holding her down while they smothered her with her own skirt?”

  “Someone right-handed,” Boatman put in thoughtfully. “Using their right knee and left hand to keep her down. But wouldn’t that take a great deal of strength?”

  “That would depend on a good many other factors.”

  “Including the girl’s physical condition.” Boatman frowned. “You said her blood alcohol was high. So she was drinking.”

  “That’s an assumption. But, yes, according to the initial tests, I’d definitely say she would have been impaired. And of course we won’t know about drugs until the tox screen comes back.”

  “Was she sexually assaulted?” asked Gemma.

  “No. Although there were signs of fairly recent intercourse, but not immediately before she died.”

  “Still,” mused Gemma, “she might have had an argument with a boyfriend.” She was thinking of the blue-eyed blond in the photos on Reagan’s corkboard.

  Kate shrugged. “It’s possible. But I can tell you that argument or no, whoever smothered her straightened her clothing and composed her body afterwards. She didn’t lay herself out like a sleeping princess.”

  Kincaid stood on his own doorstep, the sound of the taxi’s tires fading away in Ladbroke Road. This little part of London might have been a ghost city. Not a car moved
in the silent streets. There was not even a dog walker or pram pusher to disturb the leafy peace. The air was filled with birdsong, and the trees in the big garden were coming into the full, ripe green of summer.

  Fishing out his key, he unlocked the cherry red door and stepped inside. The house was even quieter than the street. Then Geordie gave a startled yip, as if he’d been awakened from a nap, and a moment later the dogs trotted into the hall, tails wagging and noses quivering. “Some use you’d be if I really was a burglar,” he said, scratching Geordie behind the ears, and giving Tess a quick rub on her wiry head. The house felt odd, too, devoid of human presence but haunted by the smell of coffee and burnt toast.

  He knew he’d left Gemma in the lurch that morning. He also knew that any irritation she harbored would vanish when he told her Hugh was ill. He’d meant to ring her as soon as he reached the house, but now found he didn’t think he could cope with hearing her sympathy. Not yet, at least. He’d ring her from the car, once he was well on the way, once he’d had a little more time to get used to the idea.

  With midday traffic, it shouldn’t take him more than a couple of hours to reach southern Cheshire. His parents and his sister lived in the market town of Nantwich, but the nearest hospital was in Crewe, five miles away.

  The dogs followed him upstairs as he went to throw a few things in an overnight bag. A clean shirt, his shaving kit, a warmer jacket. Just because it was balmy in London didn’t mean it would be warm farther north. He stood for a moment, wondering what he’d forgotten, and felt the house settle around him. It was odd that the empty house made him feel the presence of Gemma and the children so strongly. It was as if their daily lives had left an imprint in the air, while he felt insubstantial.

  His whole life seemed suddenly insubstantial, as if everything that mattered to him might vanish like smoke on the wind. He could not imagine his dad ill. He knew his parents were getting older, of course he did. But Hugh Kincaid had more energy than anyone he knew. Always full of the next project, the next enthusiasm.