The Garden of Lamentations

by Deborah Crombie

  “Bloody hell,” said Gemma as it sunk in. “That was Nick Callery.” She’d heard him described often enough that she had no doubt. Kincaid had called him “the gray ghost.” Callery was the elusive piece in the puzzle. Other than the fact that he worked directly for Evelyn Trent, they had nothing concrete on him.

  “You know him?” asked Kate.

  “Not personally, no. But he works for DAC Trent.”

  “Bloody hell,” Kate whispered as the implications sunk in.

  “Kate, do you think you could identify him from a photo?”

  She nodded, slowly. “I’m certain of it. He’s not someone you’d forget.”

  Gemma took a breath. “I know it’s a lot to ask, but would you testify about what he asked you to do? If you’ve read today’s Chronicle, you’ll have an idea what you’re getting yourself into.”

  Kate was silent for a long moment. Then, she stood and went back to the box she’d been packing when Gemma came in, and shoved in another stack of books. “I love my job,” she said at last, her voice rough. “And I’m bloody good at it. Whatever else that bastard did, he cost me my integrity. Yes, I bloody well will testify.”

  The heavy sitting-room curtains came down in a billow of dust. Melody stood back, surveying her handiwork with satisfaction. The dark brocade hangings had come with the flat and she’d always hated them. She’d kept them for the practical reasons—of which her mother never failed to remind her—of keeping the morning sun from fading the furniture, and of blocking the noise from Portobello Road.

  “To hell with the noise,” Melody said aloud, then sneezed from the dust. And she liked the morning sun. Cranking open the casements, she let fresh air stream into the flat, and went out to shop.

  Two hours later, she came back loaded with carrier bags. She’d bought bright cushions for the sofa from a stall under the Westway, and two original photo prints of Portobello Road that she thought were perfect for the window wall.

  Then, olives and fresh bread, some cheese, fresh fish, vegetables, and a riotous armful of tulips.

  She busied herself, putting away groceries, hammering and hanging, finding a vase for the flowers, and lastly, setting her small dining table with the china and crystal her mother had given her. Why, she wondered, had she never done this before? Even when Andy had stayed with her, they’d eaten pizza or fish and chips at the coffee table.

  As a reward for her labors, she made herself a cup of tea and sat down to work on the garden-center list she was making for tomorrow morning’s shopping expedition with Doug. Although last weekend’s unseasonably hot weather hadn’t returned, it was clear and fine, and promised to continue so through the morrow. It would be perfect gardening weather.

  When the flat bell buzzed, she started, nearly spilling her tea. She wasn’t expecting anyone and her heart thumped with the old panic. But when she went to the intercom, the fuzzy voice she heard was Duncan’s. Buzzing him up, she looked around a little wildly. He’d never been to her flat. No one, except Andy and her parents, had been to her flat, not even Doug.

  When Kincaid pressed the flat bell a moment later, she unlatched the door and invited him in.

  He stood just inside the sitting room, looking round with interest. “Nice place,” he said. “It suits you. And a great view.” He wore jeans and a cotton shirt, and looked a bit rumpled. Following her gaze, he picked a dried leaf from his hair. “Kids,” he said in explanation. “Charlotte and I went to the park. Look, Melody, I’m sorry to intrude like this. But I have a few minutes before I have to pick Toby up from dance, and I’d been wanting a chance to talk.”

  “No, it’s fine. Please, sit down,” she blurted out, embarrassed at her lack of manners.

  He took the single armchair, but sat on the edge, looking tall, and for Duncan, unusually awkward.

  “Can I get you something?” Melody asked. “Tea? Some lemonade?”

  “No, really, I won’t keep you but a minute. I just wanted to say thank you. For speaking to your father.”

  Melody knew that Deputy Assistant Commissioner Trent was being questioned on multiple counts, although it looked as though the prosecution might focus at least their initial charges on the crime with the most likelihood of direct physical evidence—the murder of Detective Constable Sheila Hawkins in 1994.

  Tissue had been collected from under Hawkins’s fingernails, but investigators had not tested Evelyn Trent for a match at that time. Trent’s DNA had now been sampled, and considering the things Trent had said to Denis in the hospital room, a positive result was likely.

  “You gave us insurance,” Kincaid said. “It will be months, perhaps years, before we know who else was under her influence, what strings she might have pulled. Without the paper’s involvement . . . I hate to think what might have happened, to all of us.”

  Melody nodded, unsure what to say. She could imagine all too well, but she still wasn’t ready to talk about it.

  “How’s Andy?” Kincaid asked, gesturing at the dining table. “Somehow I thought he was still on tour.”

  “Oh. He is. In Norway at the moment, I think.”

  Andy had rung her, finally, on Thursday night. He’d had his phone stolen in Hanover, he said, and with the tour schedule, it had been a bitch to get a new one. And, he’d said, sounding nervous, the tour had been extended for at least a few more weeks, maybe more.

  “It’s all right,” Melody had told him. And it was. She’d realized she needed time. Time to work things out for herself, to see who she might be when she wasn’t worrying about anyone else’s expectations—or rebelling against them.

  Now, seeing Kincaid’s confused glance at the dining table, she laughed. “I do have a dinner date, if that’s what you’re wondering. Hazel Cavendish said we should get together, so I invited her.”

  “Oh, good,” he said, and she could tell he was relieved that he hadn’t stumbled into a secret affair. “Give her our love. We should get together with her soon, ourselves.” He stood. “Well, I won’t keep you.”

  But when she walked him to the door, he hesitated, then said, “Melody, I’m not sure if this is the right thing to do. But when I went to Ryan’s island, I found this.” Reaching into his jeans pocket, he pulled out a neatly folded square of blue cloth. “I thought,” he added as he handed it to her, “that you might like to have it.”

  Melody took it. Even before she unfolded the cloth, she knew what it was. She smoothed Ryan’s blue bandanna with her fingers.

  “Yes,” she whispered. “I would. And thank you.”

  Kate Ling had done a wrong thing for a right reason, Gemma thought as she drove back through Kensington. Would she make peace with herself, eventually? Gemma wondered. She hoped so.

  But thinking about Kate brought her no closer to knowing whether she, too, had done a wrong thing for a right reason.

  MacKenzie Williams had rung her as she was leaving the hospital. MacKenzie had been devastated by the outcome of the investigation into Reagan Keating’s death. She’d felt responsible for getting Gemma involved, and betrayed and disgusted by the fact that the woman she’d considered a friend could have done such a terrible thing. And, like Gemma, she was worried about Jess.

  “Let me keep the kids tonight,” MacKenzie offered. “To make up. You and Duncan go out somewhere nice. You need a break, just the two of you.”

  Gemma had to agree. She and Duncan had talked, but they’d either been interrupted by domestic crises, or were too exhausted to do more than brush the surface. She understood now why he’d kept things from her, understood why he’d turned to Doug and Melody for help rather than to her, but that understanding had not dissolved the barrier that had grown up between them. She could feel it, just like she could feel her resentment, a hard knot in her chest.

  As she reached Notting Hill Gate, she glanced at the car clock. Toby’s ballet class was finished and Duncan would have picked him up. The children would be home. There were chores to be done, and then the shopping. And the small matter of d
eciding what she would wear to dinner.

  But there was something more important she had to do first.

  Leaving the car in Powis Square, Gemma walked through the leafy front garden of the Tabernacle. It might have been last Saturday, with families eating and children playing, and what she would have sworn was the same dog tied to a table.

  She went in the redbrick building, up the stairs and into the quiet of the upstairs landing. For a long moment, she stood outside the doors to the dance studio vestibule, not sure she could face disappointment. But having come this far, it would, she told herself, be silly to turn back. She pushed open the doors. The vestibule was empty, but the thump of the piano came from inside the studio. Through the glass panel in the studio door, she caught a glimpse of bodies moving to music. Children, the girls in leotards, the few boys in the familiar white T-shirts and black tights. It might have been Toby’s class, fast-forwarded a few years. The dancers were taller, their bodies more developed, their movements precise and graceful.

  And, there, in the center of the whirl of bodies, she saw him, his light brown hair flying out as he spun, his face joyously intent.

  Quickly, she turned away before he could catch a glimpse of her.

  But all the way down the stairs and out to the car, and for a long time afterwards, the image stayed imprinted in her memory.

  Jess was going to be all right.

  Gemma had chosen Carluccio’s, the branch of the Italian café just off Kensington High Street. It was still warm enough to sit at one of the outside tables. “You could have picked something more posh,” Kincaid had teased, but she said it was fancy enough for her, and she’d been wanting to come here when the weather turned fine.

  They ate chicken liver pâté with red onion relish, then spinach ravioli, and sipped glasses of chilled prosecco. Kincaid sat back as the waiter cleared their plates, watching Gemma in the softening light. She wore a sundress in bright spring teals and corals, with a white cardigan thrown over her shoulders. The freckles from last weekend’s sunshine were fading, and he missed them.

  He’d missed her, too, more than he’d realized, but he didn’t know how to tell her.

  When the waiter returned for their dessert orders, he offered them a complimentary limoncello. Gemma gave a quick, emphatic shake of her head, and Kincaid ordered coffee for them both instead.

  “Denis is home,” he said, when they were stirring cream into their cups. “I talked to him this afternoon.”

  “We should take them something,” Gemma said. “Maybe tomorrow, if he feels up to it.”

  “As long as it’s not bloody flowers,” Kincaid said, imitating Denis at his most irritable. “He said,” he went on, carefully, “that dominoes would undoubtedly fall in the Met. That there would be a need, at the Yard, for good police officers.”

  Gemma looked at him across the table, her gaze unreadable. “He’s offering you your job back?”

  “Or a pick of jobs, I think.” They were close enough that he could easily touch her hand where it rested on her cup, but he didn’t.

  “Will you take it?” she asked, but he still couldn’t tell what she was thinking.

  He looked away, trying to formulate what he felt. After a moment, he said, slowly, “No. I don’t think so. I like where I am. I like the people I work with. Well, except for that ass Sweeney.” Tom Faith had told them that Sweeney had come into his office with a memo while he’d been speaking to Denis on the phone from the hospital. DC Sweeney was now suspended from duty pending an investigation into his activities and connections. “But I always thought he was a rotten apple,” he added, stirring his coffee again. “Anyway, the thing is, I don’t want to be seen as having profited from the damage. And I’ve had enough of internal politics to last me a lifetime.”

  Gemma’s smile, when it came, lit her eyes. “I’m glad. It would be going backwards, I think. But what about Doug? Will you leave him slaving away doing data entry at the Yard? He’s too good a detective to waste.”

  Kincaid shrugged. “Maybe the brass’s good feeling will extend to finding him a place at Holborn.”

  “Oh, dear. I can just see Doug butting heads with Jasmine Sidana.” Gemma was laughing now, and he couldn’t remember how long it had been since he’d heard her sound happy.

  “I’m sorry,” he said in a rush. “I’m sorry I kept secrets from you.” This time, he reached across the table and rubbed his fingers across the tender flesh at the base of her thumb, then clasped her hand. When she didn’t pull away, he said, “It won’t happen again.”

  “Promise?” Looking up, she held his gaze.

  “I promise. But there is one thing you should know.” Feeling her tense, he squeezed her hand and grinned. “I had a good talk with my mum before I left Nantwich. She thinks we should consider buying the bookshop from them.”

  “What?” Gemma gaped at him. “No way. You’re taking the piss.”

  “I’m not. Can you see us, living the quiet life in the country?”

  “Get off,” said Gemma, shaking her head, but she still didn’t remove her hand from his. “Just don’t tell Kit.”

  “Why not?”

  Gemma picked up her spoon with her free hand and needlessly stirred her own coffee, now undoubtedly cold. “I’ve, um, sort of promised him we’d go for a holiday. When school is finished. He wants to see your mum and dad.”

  “Well, fine. We can do that. I’d like to see them, too. And I won’t give Kit any ideas about staying.” He slid his fingers to the inside of her wrist, where he could feel the beat of her pulse. “But in the meantime,” he said, softly, “I think I’d like to go home.”

  Author’s Note

  While all other characters in this novel are entirely the product of my imagination, Stephen Lawrence was very much a real person. The young black man was murdered in south London in a racially motivated attack while waiting for a bus on the evening of April 22, 1993. The case became one of the highest profile racial killings in UK history, its fallout including profound cultural changes to attitudes on racism and the police, to the law and police practice, and the partial revocation of English double jeopardy laws. Two of the perpetrators were convicted almost twenty years later in 2012, but as of this writing, the investigation into Lawrence’s murder continues.

  Acknowledgments

  This book would not exist without a veritable tribe of friends who have given me insight, ideas, and heaps of moral support. In the UK: Kate Charles, Barb Jungr, Kerry Smith, Abi Grant, Steve Ullathorne, and especially Karin Salvalaggio, tireless companion in my search to find the perfect pub.

  Huge thanks to my friends who have read this book in various stages and offered invaluable advice: Gigi Norwood, Kate Charles, Marcia Talley, Theresa Badylak, and especially Diane Hale, who stuck with me from the very first scene and who often knows my characters better than I do.

  Special thanks to Caroline Todd, who inspires me with her energy and enthusiasm, and who constantly encourages me to WRITE FASTER.

  My fellow Jungle Red Writers have been with me every step of the way, and I am daily grateful for your friendship and our online community: Rhys Bowen, Lucy Burdette, Hallie Ephron, Susan Elia MacNeal, Hank Phillippi Ryan, and Julia Spencer-Fleming. Reds rock!

  Marian Gracis and Edward and Thomas Miller were kind enough to lend me their names.

  Illustrator Laura Maestro has once again provided a brilliant endpaper map which brings the book and its characters charmingly to life.

  Thanks, as always, to my agent, Nancy Yost, for her patience (and for the puppy photo encouragement!).

  And, of course, many, many thanks to the brilliant team at William Morrow: Carrie Feron, Tavia Kowalchuk, Danielle Bartlett, Lynn Grady, Liate Stelik, and many more.

  On the home front, hugs, kisses, and much gratitude to Rick Wilson, Kayti and Michael Gage, and my darling granddaughter, Wren.

  About the Author

  Deborah Crombie is a native Texan who has lived in both England and Scotland. She l
ives in McKinney, Texas, sharing an historic house with her husband, three cats, and two very demanding German shepherd dogs.

  Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.

  Also by Deborah Crombie

  To Dwell in Darkness

  The Sound of Broken Glass

  No Mark Upon Her

  Necessary as Blood

  Where Memories Lie

  Water Like a Stone

  In a Dark House

  Now May You Weep

  And Justice There Is None

  A Finer End

  Kissed a Sad Goodbye

  Dreaming of the Bones

  Mourn Not Your Dead

  Leave the Grave Green

  All Shall Be Well

  A Share in Death

  Copyright

  This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  garden of lamentations. Copyright © 2017 by Deborah Crombie. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins Publishers.

  First William Morrow hardcover published: February 2017

  Title page image by Deliverance/Shutterstock, Inc.