The Garden of Lamentations

by Deborah Crombie

  Wrong shift, Gemma thought, but didn’t correct her.

  “What do you think of the gardener?” Kerry asked. “Right out of D. H. Lawrence, isn’t he?”

  Gemma thought it over. “He could have known her better than he admitted. There’s definitely something he’s not telling us. But he’s not exactly a bit of rough, if that’s what you were getting at.”

  “Dishy enough that a twenty-something might fancy him.”

  “Yes, but there’s a big gap between her fancying him—or him fancying her—and him having a reason to kill her,” Gemma argued. “If he’s married, he doesn’t wear a ring.”

  “We’ll find out. I’ve got his particulars. And I’d like to know if he was making up the whole midnight shenanigans story out of whole cloth, or if he’s protecting someone.”

  “I’d say start with his Mrs. Armitage. He seems to admire her. We’ll find out if it’s mutual.” Gemma gazed at the surrounding houses. Clive Glenn had been right about the number of residents, and she knew from her own communal garden that many of them probably didn’t know one another. Even if the lack of access limited the number of suspects, finding connections to Reagan Keating was going to be a daunting proposition.

  The constable arrived, but it was not the same officer who had been called to the scene on Saturday morning. Kerry, frowning again, gave him instructions on where to wait until the crime scene team arrived, and asked to be notified immediately when they did. “No point cooling our heels here in the meantime,” she said to Gemma. “But I think when we speak to residents, we should keep it to suspicious death, at least for the time being. I’d not like the girl’s mother to hear that her daughter was murdered before I have a chance to speak to her. I tried ringing her a few minutes ago but got voice mail.”

  “Gwen Keating told me she meant to go back to work today. She said she couldn’t abandon her students this close to the end of term. And what else would she do?” Gemma added. “I don’t think sitting home alone would be bearable.”

  “I’ll ring her again this afternoon, then.” Kerry looked unhappy.

  Clive Glenn had told them Mrs. Armitage lived on the north side, near the Kensington Park Road end, but they’d only walked a few yards when a woman came out of the nearest house on the left.

  “Can I help you?” she called, stopping at the low iron fence and gate that separated her patio from the gravel path.

  “We’re police officers, ma’am.” Kerry took her warrant card from her bag as they joined the woman.

  “Detectives?” The woman studied Kerry’s ID, then returned it. “Are you here about the girl who died? I saw you from my study window, talking to Clive.” Slender and sensible looking, with short, mouse brown hair and a pleasant voice, she reminded Gemma of a younger version of Kincaid’s mother, Rosemary.

  “We are looking into her death, yes,” Boatman answered. “And you are?”

  “Marian Gracis.”

  Gemma extended her hand over the gate with a smile that she hoped hid her irritation with Boatman for not introducing her. “I’m Detective Inspector Gemma James. Did you know Reagan Keating, the young woman who died, Mrs. Gracis?” Using “Mrs.” with a stranger was always tricky. Women who were not married or had kept their own names could be offended, but to Gemma, “Ms.” always sounded casual to the point of rudeness.

  “To speak to,” said Marian Gracis. “She seemed a very nice girl. What a terrible thing to happen. Do you know anything yet?”

  “We’re looking into it,” Boatman told her. “And of course we’re interested in talking to residents here in Cornwall Gardens. Did you see or hear anything unusual on Friday evening, Mrs. Gracis?”

  Marian Gracis frowned. “But I understood that Reagan just . . . died. What would I have seen?”

  “Perhaps she was with someone earlier?” suggested Gemma. “Someone who might have known if she was feeling ill. Or . . . odd in some way.”

  “If you’re implying that Reagan took drugs, I don’t believe it.” Some of the woman’s friendliness had evaporated. “Nor do I believe she took her own life. Oh, yes,” she added, as if they’d expressed surprise, “rumors are going around the garden. My boys heard it from one of Roland’s sons. And of course Mrs. Armitage is buttonholing anyone who has the bad luck to run into her.” Her expression made it clear that she didn’t hold Mrs. Armitage in the same regard as Clive Glenn.

  “Your sons,” said Gemma, “are they friends with Jess Cusick?” She thought Marian Gracis was about the same age as Nita Cusick.

  “Not friends, exactly. They’re a good bit older. Fourth and sixth form. But Jess did tag after them when he was younger and he wasn’t so tied up with his dance classes.” Marian shook her head. “He’s such a talented boy. This must be so awful for him. Especially after that poor boy’s death last year.”

  “What boy?” asked Gemma. No one had mentioned anything about another death.

  “Henry Su. He was in Jess’s year, but I don’t think they were exactly friends.”

  “What happened to him?” asked Kerry.

  “Asthma attack. All the neighbors were searching for him when he didn’t come in that night. They found him in the old toolshed at the back of the Sus’ house. Apparently the door was stuck and he couldn’t get out. He must have panicked, poor kid, and triggered his asthma. Anyway, it was all dreadful, but now the Sus have torn down the old shed and are building a huge extension, and Mrs. Armitage is on the warpath.” Gracis sighed. “Rightly so, but I don’t think anyone else has the heart to tackle the parents on it.”

  “When did this happen?” asked Gemma.

  “Oh, before Christmas. It was bitterly cold. No one could imagine what the boy was doing in the shed.”

  “You said this boy—Henry—and Jess weren’t exactly friends. Why was that?” Gemma thought that Toby would be thrilled to have another boy his age close by.

  Marian Gracis looked uncomfortable. “I don’t want to speak ill of the dead, especially a child.”

  After a moment, Gemma prompted her. “But?”

  Gracis hesitated a bit longer, then gave a rueful shrug. “You want to like children, to think the best of them. You really do. God knows my boys were insufferable sometimes. But the truth is that Henry Su just wasn’t a very nice child. I think somehow that made it all the more horrible. People felt guilty because they didn’t feel worse, if you know what I mean.”

  “Not nice in what way, exactly?” asked Gemma, even though she could sense Kerry’s impatience.

  Gracis bit her lip, then grimaced. “Honestly, Henry Su was a bully. But you should ask Roland. He has a son the same age and Henry made the boy’s life a misery.”

  When Melody’s mobile rang, she fumbled it off her desk in an effort to silence it before Krueger, who was standing in the door of her office with her back to the CID room, heard it.

  “About time,” she whispered when she got the phone to her ear, sure it was Gemma calling.

  “For what?” said Doug Cullen, sounding puzzled.

  “Doug. I thought—” Melody caught herself, lowered her voice. “Hold on, okay?” Leaving the CID room, she ducked into Gemma’s office. After all, DS Krueger had said she was in charge. She shut the door and sat at Gemma’s desk. “I thought you were Gemma,” she said, dropping the whisper. “She’s gone walkabout this—”

  “Denis Childs was attacked,” Doug broke in, sounding breathless. “He’s in hospital. He’s in a coma.”

  “I know.”

  “You know?” Doug’s voice rose another octave. “And you didn’t bother to tell me?”

  “I seem to remember that you weren’t speaking to me.”

  “Oh, that. My phone was turned off.” When Melody didn’t respond, he added, “Look, sorry. I didn’t—it was stupid, all right?”

  “You could say that,” Melody agreed, knowing she was being annoying and enjoying it.

  “Can we talk about this later?” Doug’s frown was evident in his voice. “Does Duncan know? About De
nis?”

  “I told Gemma. I assume she told him, but I haven’t spoken to her since.”

  “Wait a minute. Then who told you?”

  Melody hesitated. There were voices in the corridor now. “I can’t talk here,” she whispered. “I’ll take an early lunch. Meet me at the Caffè Nero across from Brixton tube.” She disconnected before Doug could argue.

  Melody loved the old Morleys department store. She supposed one day it would either be tarted up or torn down, but for now she could enjoy the feeling of being transported back a few decades whenever she walked through the door. The Caffè Nero was on the first floor, so she entered through cosmetics and took the stairs to the coffee shop.

  She bought a small latte, then found a table by the front window with a view of the Brixton Underground sign. Peering down at the street, she spotted Doug coming out of the Underground station. His jacket was slung over his shoulder and the knot on his tie was pulled down. He was limping, and as he paused to search for the café, he pushed his round glasses up on his nose.

  He disappeared from view and a few moments later came into the café, his limp more pronounced. “Bloody stairs,” he said, sinking into a chair with obvious relief.

  “There is a lift, you know.”

  Doug scowled at her. “Bloody nuisance trying to find it.”

  Melody wasn’t sure if he meant the lift or the café, but neither one was difficult. “What have you done to yourself?” She nodded towards the ankle.

  His frown grew deeper. Doug Cullen, with his blond, fine hair and Harry Potter glasses, was much too baby faced for such a glare. “I’ll get you a coffee while you think about it,” Melody said.

  When she came back with his drink, his expression had relaxed a bit. He wasn’t just hot, she realized as she studied him, but sunburned. “Bit too much rowing,” he said in answer to her question from a moment earlier, taking the coffee with a nod of thanks.

  “Surely you weren’t out long enough to get that burnt.”

  A blush turned his face an even deeper red. “I may have done some digging.”

  Melody gave him a skeptical eye. “May have? Some? How much some?”

  He shrugged. “All the beds. I guess I . . . um . . . got a little carried away.”

  “Good God. No wonder you’re limping. You are a prize idiot, Doug Cullen.”

  “Yeah, well.” Sipping at the coffee, he winced, then took off the lid and blew across the top. “Maybe so.” He met her eyes for a moment. “Look, I am sorry about yesterday. I was an ass.”

  “I’ll say,” she muttered, then added, “I was worried about you.” It was her turn to fidget and she turned her cold paper coffee cup. “Can we just forget about it?”

  Doug looked relieved. “Okay. Fine. I’m fine with that.” Suddenly he squinted at her. “What on earth have you done to your hair?”

  Melody started to laugh. She couldn’t help herself. When the patrons at the next table gave her disapproving looks, she clamped a hand over her mouth until she managed to get control. “Some detective you are,” she sputtered.

  “I knew something was different,” Doug protested, turning red again. “It looks . . . nice.”

  “God preserve me from fulsome compliments,” she said, rolling her eyes.

  “I didn’t mean—”

  “Of course you didn’t. Just stuff it, okay?” She crossed her arms and leaned back in her chair. “So you wanted to talk to me?”

  Now Doug had to lean towards her and lower his voice. “I want to know how you knew about the chief. And what you know.”

  “My father told me. He said it came across the news desk.”

  But Doug was sharp, and he’d picked up on her hesitation. “You think your dad got it from someplace else?”

  “He has a lot of . . . contacts. For all I know he heard it from the commissioner himself. But . . .”

  “But what?”

  Melody wrapped her hands around her cup. This was what she’d decided not to tell Gemma. But surely she could tell Doug. Maybe he’d tell her she was crazy and then she could forget the whole thing. “He—my dad—came to see me this morning. He was—well, you know what Ivan is like when he knows things—”

  “I don’t, actually,” interrupted Doug. “Since you never see fit to introduce your lowly friends.”

  “It’s not that at all,” Melody said, stung. “Do you want me to go on or not?”

  “Yeah. Sorry.” Doug did not look suitably abashed. Or convinced by her excuse.

  “About Den—the chief.” She leaned in, elbows on the table. “My dad was hinting that he had a checkered history. And that maybe his past had caught up with him.”

  Doug just stared at her. “I don’t believe it,” he finally said. “Not the chief super. But . . .” He sipped at his cooling coffee as he thought. “Things have been really weird the last few months. Gemma’s transfer. Duncan’s transfer, without a word. And mine—although I think I was just collateral damage. The chief disappearing for months. And then this. It’s hard to believe he turns up back to work at the Yard and just randomly gets mugged and nearly killed. Or—” Doug blinked.

  “What do we know about him, the chief super, really?” Melody said slowly.

  Doug shook his head. “I can’t—I don’t believe he would do something—”

  “Just because you don’t believe doesn’t mean you can’t look.”

  They stared at each other. Then, Doug took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. The lenses had protected the skin around his eyes from the sun, leaving it oddly pale against his red face. Putting his glasses back, he said, reluctantly, “Yeah. Okay. I can look. If only to prove your dad wrong. But you can, too.”

  “I suppose I can,” Melody said slowly. She knew she could access the newspaper’s files—she’d done it before. What the hell were they getting themselves into, if the attack on Denis Childs had not been random?

  She looked at her friend across the table and he seemed suddenly very vulnerable. “Doug?”

  “What?” he said, sounding startled by her tone.

  “Just don’t get caught.”

  June 1994

  He kissed his wife goodbye and walked the three blocks to the more commercial street where he’d left his Ford Transit overnight. Every week, he tried to see that ordinary walk as the transition between his real life and his other life, but he found it was getting harder to make the distinction.

  The day was already warm when he climbed into the van. It reeked of sweat and old food wrappers left behind by the load of protesters he’d driven to last weekend’s demonstration. He wrinkled his nose in disgust and wound down the windows.

  The Transit was almost ten years old but its unglamorous exterior disguised a 3.0 liter V6 engine. It was powerful and reliable, both essential for a cover vehicle. Useful transport meant you were much more likely to be accepted into the hierarchy of a protest group. Of course, then it was necessary to have a cover that explained his need for the van. His was that of an odd-job gardener and landscaper. He was big enough, and fit enough, for the job to be credible, but he’d had to learn enough to be able to talk plants, and to help out members of the group who needed work done. The job also explained his easy availability for those things in which he wished to be involved, and gave him a good excuse to bow out of those he wanted to avoid.

  Turning on Radio 2, he drove north through central London. When the remake of “Love Is All Around” came on, he switched the radio off with a grimace and went back to thinking about what he’d say when he met up with his group that night.

  All the undercover officers had elaborate cover stories to explain their weekly absences from their groups. His was a father dying of cancer in Norwich, an old man with no one else to look after him.

  In reality, those who were married—and most of them were—went home to spend one day a week with their families. He was sure that Special Branch recruited married officers deliberately, considering they were at less risk of “going na
tive.” In spite of which, although it was not officially condoned, cops on long-term undercover assignments were encouraged to “cultivate useful relationships.” In other words, to sleep with the enemy. For many, he knew, their initial access to a group came through forming a sexual liaison with a female member.

  So far, he’d managed to avoid that sort of entanglement. It had taken patience to insinuate himself into his little group, but he had no shortage of that. For months, he’d hung around the community center in Notting Hill where his targets assembled, casually joining in conversations, then displaying a wary interest. Eventually, over bottles of cheap wine in the flat he’d taken just across the canal in Paddington, he told them that he was widowed, his young wife lost tragically in a motor crash. The story made him cringe, and in his lowest moments he wondered if he was somehow jinxing his wife as well as his hale and hearty father who was living happily in Hertfordshire.

  But it seemed he’d told the tale convincingly. He was fussed over by the women and clapped on the back by the men. After that, he’d begun to be included in the distribution of leaflets and the planning of a few demonstrations.

  His campaigners were a loosely knit collection of antidiscrimination protesters, some white and some black, brought together and galvanized by the brutal murder of a young black man named Stephen Lawrence in south London the previous spring. On the twenty-second of April 1993, eighteen-year-old Lawrence, an athlete and a good student who had hoped to become an architect, was walking home from his uncle’s house in Plumstead with a friend, Duwayne Brooks.

  Lawrence, walking ahead to see if a bus was coming, was set upon by five white youths and stabbed to death.