The Sound of Broken Glass

by Deborah Crombie

  A figure rose from among the boxes stacked near the heater. “No, sorry, mate. I knew you’d come, but I got a bit cold waiting for you, so I lit us a fire.”

  “Joe? What the hell are you doing here? Where’s Nadine?” Andy set down the Strat, suddenly wanting his hands free.

  “Oh, I knew you’d fall for that old trick.” Joe giggled. It was the same sound Andy remembered from years ago. He felt sick. “I’ve no idea where your precious Mrs. Drake is,” said Joe. “But I know what she did in that hotel on Friday night, and I know she’s going to go down for triple murder.”

  “You’re lying. You always lied. Nadine would never hurt anyone.”

  Joe unwound the navy and maroon Crystal Palace scarf from round his neck. “Wouldn’t she?” he said, running the scarf through his fingers. “You’re such an innocent. But it doesn’t really matter what you think, does it, Andy lad? As long as the police think she did it.”

  Andy’s shock must have shown on his face because Joe laughed again. “Oh, the police warned you, too, did they? That’s hysterical, that’s what it is.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Because now they’re going to think she killed you, too. When they find her—and they will—I don’t think things will go well for her. And then that’s all of you, finished.”

  “You’re . . . ” Andy’s tongue felt stuck to the roof of his mouth. “Crazy,” he managed to finish.

  “Like a fox.” Joe cocked his head. “You didn’t want to be bothered with me, did you? Did you think I’d forget what you did to me? What you all did to me? No one would talk to me, not even Shaun. I had to leave school the end of that year. They wouldn’t stop whispering that ‘what happened to poor Mrs. Drake’ was my fault. And my father, he—he—” Joe’s face twisted in a spasm that might have been grief or pain.

  Andy took a step closer. “Look, Joe, whatever you’ve done, I’m sure there’s some way—”

  “Whatever I’ve done? Oh, I’ve hardly done anything yet. Just wait until they arrest the bitch.” Tilting his head again, he seemed to consider Andy. “But I want them to find you first. Maybe I should make an anonymous call. What do you think, Andy?”

  Andy tensed, every muscle in his body ready for fight or flight. “I—”

  But he’d left it too late.

  A piece of lumber seemed to appear in Joe’s hands. Before Andy could move, Joe swung it, catching Andy in the forehead.

  Andy staggered, stunned, then shook his head and wondered how he’d got on the floor. The room swam. Something wet trickled into his eye as he tried to sit up.

  Then Joe was on him, pushing his head back to the bare floorboards with a crack, and something soft and scratchy was pulled and twisted round his neck.

  The scarf. Andy scrabbled at it, trying to get his fingers into the space between the fabric and his skin. Joe’s weight pinned him, and above him, Joe’s face contorted as he grunted with the effort of twisting the scarf.

  Spots swam before Andy’s eyes. He couldn’t let himself black out. Letting go of the scarf, he reached for Joe’s shoulders and gave a mighty shove.

  Joe fell to one side, rolled, and hit the gas heater.

  It tipped and clanged over. Flames sputtered and then began to lick across the floor.

  Through a haze of blood, Andy saw his childhood nightmare come to life.

  “I can’t get the car down the lane.” Melody’s Clio had slipped and slid going up Gipsy Hill until they’d reached the level surface of the triangle and driven round to Westow Street. The visibility had deteriorated so badly since it had begun to snow that she almost missed the lane altogether. “And there’s no bloody place to park here.” She felt like screaming with impatience.

  “I’ll stay with the car.” Gemma was already unfastening her seat belt. “You go down and see if Andy’s there. Just don’t break your neck.”

  “I’ll try not to,” Melody answered with as much of a smile as she could muster. Once out of the car, she picked her way carefully down the cobbled lane, thankful she’d worn boots and warm clothes. She’d forgotten a hat. Reaching up, she brushed at the gathering snowflakes in her hair.

  As she reached the bottom of the lane, something bright orange bobbed towards her from the direction of the studio. Squinting through the snow, she recognized Poppy, wearing a ridiculous knitted hat.

  “Poppy,” she called, a little breathlessly. “Have you seen Andy?”

  “He buggered off while Caleb was out getting sandwiches,” said Poppy as they met. Poppy, zipped into a puffer jacket that looked suitable for the North Pole, was carrying her bass. “Good thing Caleb decided to call off the session because of the weather, or he’d be royally pissed off with Andy. And I’ve got to get to the train or I won’t get home to Twyford.”

  “Wait.” Melody touched her arm. “Do you know where Andy went?”

  “No. He got some cryptic note shoved under the studio door. I managed to read a bit before he took it away from me. Something about a meeting, and then it said”—Poppy drew her eyebrows together—“something like, ‘You know where.’” She shrugged. “Whatever that means. But he seemed to know.”

  “How long ago?”

  “Maybe half an hour.”

  “Right. Thanks.”

  “Is he all right, do you think?” asked Poppy as they started back up the lane together.

  “I’m sure he is,” answered Melody, although she wasn’t sure at all. “You’d better hurry or you won’t be able to get down Gipsy Hill.”

  Wearing boots that looked as though they were soled with tire tread, Poppy forged ahead. She waved as she reached the top of the hill, then disappeared.

  Melody slowed, thinking furiously. What would send Andy tearing out of the studio in the midst of a recording session? And who would leave him a note?

  She thought of Nadine, who had seemed to appear and disappear like a ghost all through this case. She still didn’t know what part Nadine had played, but if Nadine had wanted to meet Andy, where would she have chosen that he would recognize instantly?

  And then she knew. Andy had never told her where he’d lived in Crystal Palace, but she’d seen Nadine’s old address in the files she’d looked through at Doug’s last night, and she’d looked it up on the map.

  Woodland Road.

  But if they were right, it wasn’t Nadine who was the danger.

  Nadine stood at the top of Woodland Road. She thought she’d seen Andy make the turning, but when she’d reached the corner, he’d disappeared. Where could he have gone except the flat?

  But why? Surely he didn’t still live here, after all these years? She’d never thought to be in this place again, and she’d never imagined the street in weather like this. She’d moved in in the spring and out in the autumn.

  Peering through the swirling flakes, she hesitated. She didn’t want to go down, didn’t want to see the house again. Didn’t want to remember.

  Lights were coming on, yellow pools shining like floating stepping-stones leading the way. She’d come this far to speak to Andy—she couldn’t let herself turn back. Step by step, she started down the hill.

  The thin-soled boots she’d put on yesterday for working in the shop were soaked through, and gave her no purchase on the icy pavement.

  A last treacherous slip, and then she was opposite the houses, staring at the steps where she and Andy had so often sat in the late-afternoon sun.

  But something was wrong. Andy couldn’t still live here—his old house was obviously vacant and undergoing renovation. Boards covered the front windows loosely, and she thought the front door stood slightly open.

  Had she been mistaken? Had he gone on at the junction? Or farther down the hill?

  She stood, shivering, racked with indecision. The minutes seemed to pass as slowly as the chilled blood flowing in her veins.

  Then, she saw a flicker of light in the gap between the boards covering the windows. Not yellow. Orange. The light danced, grew brighter.
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br />   Galvanized into movement, she slid her way across the street, bumping into the rubbish skip and grabbing on to it for purchase. Panting, she tried to make out the sounds coming from inside the house. Was that voices, or did she hear the crackle of flames?

  The steps might have been Everest, but clinging to the side rail, she made it to the top and pushed open the door.

  Joe recovered first. He was up and had managed to get between Andy and the door while Andy was still trying to get to his feet, woozy from the blow to the head.

  Once upright, Andy stomped at the nearest flames and tried to shout, “We have to get out!” but the words were a croak.

  “What? Afraid of a little fire?” Joe was balanced on the balls of his feet, and an extension cord from the builders’ debris suddenly appeared, stretched between his hands.

  “You’re mad,” said Andy. “You’re absolutely freaking mad.” Futilely, he tried swiping at the fire with Joe’s scarf, which had fallen to the floor, but the fuzzy threads at the end sizzled and popped when the fire caught them. Andy dropped the scarf, his head swimming from even that effort. “Let me out. This whole place will go.”

  But when he stepped towards the door, Joe raised the cord. “I don’t think so. Or you can try your luck getting past me—”

  The door swung open.

  She stood, a dark silhouette lit by the white aureole of snow, but now he would have recognized her anywhere.

  “Andy? Oh, my God, the fire—Andy, are you all right?”

  Nadine started across the room towards him, but Joe, who had been hidden from her by the open door, sprang forwards and looped the power cord over her head, tightening it behind her neck.

  She gasped and twisted, but when Joe hissed, “Don’t move,” she went still.

  “Let her go!” Andy glanced at the flames, spreading in little rivulets across a trail of spilled sawdust on the floor. Hadn’t he read somewhere that sawdust would ignite? “Do whatever you want with me, but let her go.” He was pleading now.

  “Oh, I don’t think so.” Above Nadine’s head, Joe smiled. “I wanted her, too—did you think I didn’t? But I didn’t know where to find her again. And now she’s come right to me, thanks to you.”

  “Joe, please,” said Andy, and saw Nadine’s eyes go wide in her frightened face. The fire was spreading, popping, and he coughed as the smoke reached his lungs.

  “The police will think you killed her. Maybe they’ll even think you killed the others. Then you were overcome by the fire before you could get out.” Joe gave a vicious yank on the power cord.

  Nadine reached for it, trying to pull it away from her throat, but Joe twisted harder. He kept the pressure up until her hands fell away and she slumped against him.

  “Bastard!” shouted Andy. The word seemed to echo down the years, entwined with memory and dreams. He’d backed up against the worktable, and now he fumbled behind him, his hand closing on something cold and thin.

  A screwdriver blade. He pulled it towards him until his fingers closed tightly over the molded plastic of the handle. Then he launched himself across the room.

  Releasing his hold on Nadine, Joe raised his hands to defend himself. His mistake.

  Nadine crumpled at his feet. Then Andy was on him. His weight and momentum took them both down, and the blade of the screwdriver found its target.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Walking through the ruins gives a taste of what an extraordinary sight the palace must have made. It indicates how powerful the trace of something that has essentially vanished can be. In the case of the Crystal Palace, I think that’s because its real power lay not in Joseph Paxton’s innovative design for the iron-and-glass structure alone—it was always its appeal to the imagination that mattered most.

  —www.sarahjyoung.com

  They were halfway along Westow Hill when Melody saw that the traffic ahead had come to a dead standstill. “Pull up on the pavement and put on the flashers,” she told Gemma, who had stayed behind the wheel of the Clio. “We’ll have to go the rest of the way on foot. And I checked the sat nav. We can’t get down Woodland Road in any case—it’s one way coming up.”

  She pulled a Metropolitan Police sign from the glove box and put it against the front windscreen as Gemma nosed the car up onto the curb.

  The pavement was less icy as they hurried towards Woodland Road, but when they reached the junction, the north wind hit their faces with a frigid blast.

  “Oh, bugger,” said Melody, looking down. The road surface was already an inch deep in white powder. They could hear tires spinning as a car halfway up the incline tried to get traction.

  “Do you remember the flat number?” asked Gemma.

  “I think so. It’s not far down.”

  “Ready?” Gemma gave her a quick look. “Let’s go.”

  They had made it only a few yards when Melody saw it. Smoke, mixed in the dizzying eddies of snow, coming from a house a little lower down on the opposite side of the street. “There,” she shouted back to Gemma, pointing. “There’s a fire. I think it’s the house.”

  They skidded the rest of the way, regardless of safety, crossing the street when they were opposite the house and could see the smoke pouring from the cracks in the boarded windows.

  Melody slipped at the bottom of the steps and pain seared her knee as she went down on the ice-encrusted concrete. Her knee throbbing, she gritted her teeth and pulled herself up by the railing. Behind her, she heard Gemma calling 999 for the fire brigade.

  When she heard the high-pitched, keening scream from inside the house, she stopped for an instant, terror gripping her. Andy. Dear God, Andy.

  Closer to, Melody could see that the front door stood partially open. She pulled herself up the remaining steps, then stopped before she careened through the door, realizing she was weaponless. Even a standard-issue baton would have given her some defense. Then the scream came again. Feeling Gemma at her shoulder, she pushed open the door and shouted, “Police!”

  The smoke blinded her. Blinking, she coughed and ducked lower. The scream came again. Turning towards it, she made out not Andy, but Joe Peterson, curled into a fetal ball on the floor, his hands clutching his stomach.

  A hoarse voice said, “Melody.” A few feet from Peterson, Andy sat against a wall, his face so covered in blood that he was almost unrecognizable. In his lap he cradled a woman.

  A power cord dangled loosely from her neck. Nadine. It must be Nadine.

  “He tried to— He tried to strangle her,” croaked Andy. “But she’s not—”

  There was a crack and a burst of flame from the back of the room.

  “We’ve got to get out.” Head down, Gemma came to them.

  “Are you all right?” Melody asked Andy urgently, frightened by the blood.

  “Head cut. Just . . . woozy. Couldn’t lift her.”

  “Right. Come on.” She and Gemma eased Nadine from his lap and lifted her up, supporting her under her shoulders. Andy clambered unsteadily to his feet, and the three of them dragged Nadine towards the door. She stirred and began to protest, coughing. “Easy, easy,” said Melody. “We’ve got you. We’re almost out.”

  Joe Peterson’s screams had dropped to animal-like cries. “Don’t leave me,” he moaned. “You can’t leave me, you bastards.”

  “We’ll come back. And the fire brigade’s on its way,” shouted Gemma as they pulled Nadine out the door. They all took gulps of fresh air, then, eyes streaming, Melody gasped, “How the hell are we going to get her down the steps?”

  Then figures appeared in the blowing snow, neighbors come to help. There were voices, then helping hands to steady them as Melody, Gemma, and Andy managed to ease Nadine down the steps without any of them falling. Nadine began to cough again.

  “Blankets,” called Gemma. “Can someone get blankets?”

  “Oh, God,” whispered Andy. Beneath the blood, his face was ashen. “I thought she was dead.”

  Melody gave his arm a squeeze. “I think she’s
okay.” She pointed back at the house. “Joe. What happened to him?”

  “He was— He was waiting. He jumped me, then tried to strangle me. Then Nadine. I stabbed him.” Andy’s voice shook. “Screwdriver. I think it was a Phillips.”

  More smoke rolled out the door. Dread clutched at Melody. “Gemma, come on. We can’t wait for the fire brigade or the medics. Andy, you stay with Nadine. We’ve got to get Joe out or he’ll burn.”

  “Melody, no.” Andy grabbed her arm. “You can’t go back in. It’s not safe!”

  “I can’t leave him. I’ll be all right.” She gave him what she hoped was a reassuring smile, then followed Gemma.

  Sirens wailed in the distance, but Melody didn’t know how long it would take the emergency vehicles to get through the traffic, and even when they did, they wouldn’t be able to get down the hill.

  “Bloody steps,” said Gemma as they reached the bottom. She paused for a moment, then slipped out of her coat and threw it over the first couple of risers. “But I’m not leaving Joe Peterson in that house. If he’s murdered two people and almost killed a third or a fourth, I damned well want him to stand trial.”

  Melody’s old down coat covered the rest of the risers. They tamped the fabric down, then climbed the steps and ducked back in the door, locating Joe as much by memory as by sight. The smoke was heavier now, the heat fierce.

  “Get one shoulder. I’ll get the other. We’ll have to drag him,” said Gemma through a strangled cough. Melody’s eyes were stinging.

  Joe was whimpering, but when they got their arms under his shoulders and began to pull him towards the door, he screamed, then started to struggle and swear at them.

  “It hurts, it hurts. You bitches! You’re killing me.” Even with their arms under his shoulders, he managed to reach for the handle of the screwdriver that they could now see protruding from his gut. A dark, wet patch surrounded it and Melody could smell blood beneath the smoke. “Get it out!” he screamed as Melody yanked his arm back.

  “Don’t be an idiot. You want to bleed to death? Leave it alone.” She and Gemma backed out as fast as they could, and when they were out the door there were again helping hands to transfer him down the steps.