The Sound of Broken Glass (40 page)

There was a slow shuffle of feet, then the priest's voice, calling a good night to someone. Then, at last, quiet. The doors swung closed with the weight of centuries, and the lights went out.

It was a strange crowd which came out to see the end of a famous London landmark. There were the connoisseurs forearmed with a knowledge of local topography. There were the sort of young men and women to be seen at almost any free entertainment in the streets. There were vast numbers of cyclists, both men and women. There were youngish men and women with traces of Bloomsbury, Hampstead and Chelsea in their clothes and speech, taking the whole affair very gravely. But among these were to be seen many elderly men and women to whom the destruction of the Palace meant the end of a chapter in their lives.

—www.sarahjyounger.com

Melody hadn't slept well. She'd spent the remainder of last evening at Doug's, using Doug's laptop to read all the court records he'd accessed.

She'd gone home to Notting Hill dispirited, and once in bed, she'd tossed and turned, plagued by fragmented dreams in which something kept eluding her, something she had seen or heard but that slipped away from her like quicksilver whenever she almost grasped it.

When she woke, feeling heavy from lack of sleep and queasy with anxiety, she found she had a text message from Gemma telling her not to bother picking her up, as she was taking the tube to Putney to pick up her car. Melody groaned. She should have been up earlier.

And on top of that, the weather forecast on Radio 2 was dismal—temperatures hovering at freezing with a chance of snow and sleet—so when she'd showered, she pulled on a sweater, jeans, boots, and an old down coat she kept for forays to her parents' country house.

When she reached Brixton, she found Gemma not in the CID room but in her office.

“Bad night?” asked Gemma, glancing up at her.

“That obvious?” Melody rubbed her hands over her face. “God, I must look a fright. Sorry I didn't stop to get coffee, boss. I was late enough as it was.”

Gemma gestured to a lidded paper cup on her desk. “I got it for you. You can pop it in the microwave if it's gone cold. Although,” she added, casting another glance at Melody, “you look as though you might need to mainline it. Turn up anything new with Doug?”

“No.” Melody had rung Gemma on her way to Doug's last night, saying just that she'd spoken to Andy and that he was all right. “I'm a bit worried about Doug's ankle, though. He's keeping off it pretty well but it doesn't seem to be improving much.” She frowned, taking in the notes scattered over Gemma's desk. “Any developments here?”

“I've been checking Caleb Hart's alibis.” Gemma took a sip of her own coffee, made a face, and put the cup down. “Ugh. Cold. Anyway, I finally managed to talk to the pop singer, although it took speaking to her agent and her agent having her ring me back through the station number, just to ensure I was really the police. But she said yes, she was having a bad night on Friday, and that she did ring Caleb and ask him to come to her flat in Knightsbridge. He arrived there well before eleven and stayed until the early hours of the morning.”

“So he's definitely a nonstarter for Friday. And Sunday?”

“I've had forensics pick up his computer to run a check—not that he was happy about that—but I think we'll find he was online when he said he was. The video went up at nine, so I suppose it's possible he uploaded it, then drove to Kennington and somehow drugged and murdered Shaun Francis, but it seems highly unlikely.

“Oh, and I've been on the phone with Poppy's father, Tom, and he confirms what Hart told us. He did help get Hart into rehab, and the whole family has been very supportive of his sobriety. So Hart had nothing to hide.”

“And”—Melody found she hated to ask—“Nadine?”

Gemma pushed her chair back and stretched. “You speak a bit of French, don't you? I should have let you take that one. I managed to get the shop owner on the phone at his home, first thing this morning. He's a very excitable Frenchman named Guy, who said—at least I think that's what he said—that we were a bunch of English idiots who couldn't be trusted to find our own arses.

“He found Nadine living on the streets in Paris a year or so after we think she left England. She never talked about what had happened to her, but he saw something in her . . .  He said”—Gemma paused, as if trying to remember the conversation word for word—“he said that even in her desperation, she had not lost her kindness. Then he said that if we didn't find her and make certain she was all right, he would personally come to London and twist our heads off. And something in French that I didn't understand but I don't think it was complimentary.”

Melody was too busy thinking to smile. “That's what Andy said. That Nadine was kind. The kindest person he'd ever known. Does that sound like a person who would drug and strangle two people for revenge?”

“People change.”

“If losing her husband, then being accused of a crime she didn't commit, then losing her job and her home and living rough on the streets in Paris didn't change her, why now? And where the bloody hell is she?”

Gemma's phone rang. “It's Maura,” she said as she looked at the ID. “I asked her to track down Joe Peterson's girlfriend.”

When she answered, Melody listened to the one-sided conversation and watched Gemma look more and more unhappy. “You're sure?” asked Gemma. She listened for another moment, then added, “Right. Thanks, Maura. We'll get on it.”

“What?” said Melody as soon as Gemma had rung off, her stomach lurching.

“Joe Peterson. Maura talked to his girlfriend. Make that ex-girlfriend. She said that Joe's father cut him off completely a few months ago and that Joe had just got worse and worse since then, even on his medication. Temper flare-ups, rows. Apparently they had a bugger of one on Friday and he hit her. She left, told him she was finished, and she hasn't been back since. She's afraid to get her things.”

“Friday night?”

“No. That's the thing. Friday afternoon.”

Melody and Gemma looked at each other across the desk. “He lied,” said Melody. “Andy said he was a liar, even as a kid, and we know he lied about what happened with Nadine Drake. Why did we assume he was telling the truth about Friday night?”

She saw again the flat—the mess, the possessions half thrown in boxes. And then it clicked, the thing that had been nagging at her subconscious. “The poster,” she said. “In Joe's flat.”

“So?” Gemma looked at her blankly. “What of it?”

“It was the Crystal Palace football team. In their home colors. Navy and maroon. Don't you see? Joe follows Crystal Palace. The scarf.”

Gemma's eyes widened in understanding. “The unidentified fibers found at both scenes. Fuzzy navy and maroon. And not only that, but the girlfriend said ‘anxiety medication.' Xanax? We wondered where that came from. Bloody hell and damnation.”

“And the blood,” said Melody. “Oh my God, the blood. On the sheet in the hotel room. Who did we know who bled that night, besides Andy from a cut on his thumb? Joe. Andy punched Joe in the face, hard enough to make his nose bleed. You could still see the bruise on the side of his nose as well as under his eye.”

“Christ.” Gemma jumped up from her desk and ran for the CID room, Melody right behind her.

“Shara,” called Gemma, “get me the CCTV from Friday night. Biggest monitor.”

“Right, guv.” Changing workstations, Shara typed in the file number, and a moment later they were all looking at the grainy footage.

“I want Arnott leaving the pub.”

Shara jumped the film forward, then there he was. The smaller figure beside him was half hidden from the camera by his body, and yet there was something indefinably female about it.

“Nadine,” whispered Melody. “It has to be.”

Then they saw him, the hooded figure, appearing in the frame as Arnott left it, going in the same direction. No. Following.

“That's Joe Peterson,” said Gemma with certainty. “Right size, right build, and something about the posture. But what the hell happened in that hotel room? Were Peterson and Drake working together? Her friend in Paris said he found her living on the streets. I suspect that means she knew how to pick men up. And maybe tie them up as well, if that was what they fancied.”

“What if . . . ” Melody stared at the frozen picture, trying to imagine the scene in the pub. “What if she went to see Andy at the White Stag that night? It wouldn't have been that difficult to learn where the band was playing, even if the gig was scheduled at short notice. And she recognized Arnott. I doubt he'd have realized who she was after fifteen years—she would have just been another case to him, not someone who ruined his life. And he was drunk.”

“That makes an argument for her luring him to the hotel and killing him, but it doesn't explain where Peterson comes into it.” Gemma turned to Shara. “Can we see the footage from Kennington?”

They all watched carefully, first the film from Kennington Park Road, near the tube station, then the film from Kennington Road, the main thoroughfare on the opposite side of Cleaver Square.

“Look.” Shara froze the frame. “There. Coming from the bus stop. It's him.” The hooded figure appeared for an instant, in between other pedestrians, then vanished as the footage jumped forwards. But there had been the suggestion of a bulge beneath his jacket that might have been a scarf knotted round his neck. The time stamp showed 7:35.

“He took the bus from Crystal Palace,” said Melody. “And he knew exactly where he was going. He must have known where Shaun lived and which pub he frequented. Maybe Arnott was spur of the moment, but Shaun's murder was planned. Why didn't we see him before?”

“Because we weren't looking for him,” answered Gemma. She straightened. “If Nadine Drake wasn't involved in killing Arnott, she could be in serious danger. Shara, get uniform to double the watch on her flat and the shop.”

“And Andy.” Melody's voice caught in her throat. “The headmaster said that after Nadine was fired, Joe Peterson was ostracized at school. Shaun, his only real friend, cut him off. His marks fell. He had to leave the school, and it sounds like he's been going steadily downhill ever since. Who would he blame?”

“Shaun,” said Gemma slowly, thinking it through. “Arnott, possibly as a substitute for his father, who he may not dare to confront even now. And . . . ” She looked at Melody, concern in her eyes. “Do you know where Andy is?”

Melody felt as if the air had been sucked from the room. “He said he was recording with Poppy today. I assumed he meant the studio in Crystal Palace.”

She woke, so cold and cramped that her limbs were paralyzed. No light yet filtered through the windows of the nave, but her body told her it was near daybreak. Her stomach cramped with emptiness. Carefully, she moved her fingers, then her toes, until she could stretch. Something was digging into her hip, a lump in her coat pocket. She remembered the chestnuts.

When she could lever herself into a sitting position on the pew, she took the package from her pocket and ate the tough, cold, mealy nuts, one at a time, sucking at bits to get enough saliva into her mouth so that she could swallow.

The windows began to appear, faint gray outlines that seemed to shift in shape as she watched.

Nadine felt the city coming to life outside the walls of the church. That, too, was something she had learned in Paris, to catch that hum, the vibration of trains beginning to run and people all around, waking, thinking, moving, talking. Each city had its own particular pulse.

And last night, London had taken her into its arms and given her shelter. With that thought came the realization that her panic had vanished while she slept. Perhaps the city—or this church—had given her more than sanctuary.

As light filled the great windows, her course came to her with sudden clarity. No more running. No more hiding. She would go to the police and tell them what she had done that night in the Belvedere Hotel.

But first, she had to find Andy.

For the third time, Andy flubbed the intro to the number they were working on and swore.

From the control booth, Caleb said, “Five-minute break, okay? In fact, why don't I go fetch us some sandwiches from the pub while you two compose yourselves?” he added, dripping sarcasm, and Andy suspected he was nipping out to call Tam and ask him what the hell was wrong with his guitarist.

Poppy waited until Caleb disappeared from the booth window, then turned off her mic and reached across to switch Andy's off as well. Wearing a knitted reindeer sweater and an orange Peruvian cap with the earflaps turned up, she looked like an elf that had wandered in from the wrong hemisphere. Fortunately, she'd taken off her bright-pink puffy jacket and draped it over her instrument case.

“What is up with you today, guitar boy?” she asked, with a glance at the now-empty control booth. “You got sausages for fingers?”

Andy flexed his uncooperative hands. “It's the cold, maybe.” A lame excuse if he'd ever heard one, and Poppy rolled her eyes.

“Yeah, right. Not cold in here, is it? Buck up, will you?” She took off her cap, leaving her hair standing on end from the static, like Bert the cat when he'd had a fright. “Have you looked at the video today? We've got like a gazillion more views.”

He had no doubt she knew exactly how many—she'd been tracking them like a stock analyst. Poppy Jones had brains as well as phenomenal talent, and just now he could see the third ingredient necessary for success, steely determination, glinting in her wide blue eyes. Today he felt far short of the mark.

“Sorry, Poppy. The next take will be better.”

This time the look she gave him could have come from someone twice her age. “You all right, Andy? Really?”