Where Memories Lie

CHAPTER 9

The United Kingdom was the first refuge for perhaps half the 2,200 refugee scholars who had emigrated from Germany by 1938.

—Louise London, Whitehall and the Jews, 1933–1948

Gemma had her mobile in hand as she walked out the door of Lucan Place. She’d thanked Inspector Boatman and taken her leave as quickly as was polite. “If there’s anything you can tell the team, once an SIO is assigned,” Boatman had added. “We still can’t be sure at this point that it wasn’t drink-driving-related manslaughter, or that she wasn’t a random victim, if it was homicide. But if it should have some connection with your inquiry…”

Gemma had responded with no small irony that she would certainly be in touch.

MIT. The Metropolitan Police’s Murder Investigation Teams, sometimes called Major Investigation Teams. But no matter the nomenclature, this was Kincaid’s job, his territory—why not his team?

He answered on the first ring. “Hullo, love. What’s up? Are you at hosp—”

“No. No, I haven’t made it yet. Something’s come up. The girl I met yesterday at Harrowby’s, Kristin Cahill—she’s been killed in a hit-and-run. Manslaughter at the least, homicide at the worst. Chelsea is calling in the Yard. I want you to request the case.”

There was silence on the line. She could almost see him thinking, his brow creased in a slight frown. “Look,” she said. “I know it’s slightly irregular, but—”

“Slightly? Gemma, I’ve a personal involvement—”

“No, what you have is a bit of background information that would give you an advantage. You never met Kristin Cahill. And who else,” she added, “would take what I have to say as seriously?”

“But that’s just it, isn’t it?” he argued. “You’re too close—”

“I met this girl. I asked questions that might have got her into trouble. I want to know, one way or the other. And I want justice for her, even if her death had nothing to do with my questions about the Goldshtein brooch. She was twenty-three years old, for heaven’s sake, just starting out in her life,” Gemma added vehemently. “And I liked her.”

She was still standing on the pavement outside Lucan Place, and a shopping-laden woman passing by gave her a curious glance. Gemma started back toward the Fulham Road, and dropped her voice. “Duncan—”

“I don’t like it,” Kincaid broke in. “But I’m never going to hear the end of it, otherwise, am I? And what exactly do you suggest I tell Chief Superintendent Childs?”

Although Gavin now had some idea of what had been in David Rosenthal’s satchel, he was no closer to knowing why it had been taken, or what Rosenthal had been doing in Cheyne Walk.

He had been to the school in North Hampstead where David had taught. Rosenthal “kept himself to himself,” his fellow teachers had said, with a wariness that made Gavin wonder what they might have said had he not been an outsider, a gentile, as well as a policeman.

He met the head last, who invited him into his office. Saul Bernstein was younger than Gavin had expected, perhaps only in his thirties, a chubby man who seemed to be compensating for his lack of years with an air of gravitas and a billowing pipe.

The day had turned unseasonably hot for May, and the small room was stuffy but nonetheless pleasant, with its odor of books and pipe tobacco. The sound of boys playing at some game drifted in through the open window.

“Did no one like David Rosenthal?” asked Gavin, when he’d taken the proffered seat on the far side of Bernstein’s desk.

“Like?” Bernstein sounded slightly puzzled. “I wouldn’t say that David’s colleagues didn’t like him. Everyone is still quite shocked, you know—David’s death is not the sort of thing one expects—”

“Murder,” Gavin interrupted, suddenly wanting to shake this man’s complacency. “David Rosenthal was murdered. Violently. I’d say someone disliked him intensely.”

“Quite.” Bernstein paled a little, and set the pipe in an ashtray. “But I assure you it wasn’t anyone here. As I said, it wasn’t a question of David’s colleagues disliking him. David was civil, considerate, uninterested in petty staff squabbles, and did his job with dedication. And that was all. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who seemed less interested in the approval of his peers.”

“What about the approval of his students?”

“David was a good teacher, as I’ve said. Very thorough, and well prepared. But I doubt he would have noticed whether or not his students liked him.”

“David Rosenthal wore a tiny gold mezuzah on a chain round his neck. It was the only thing not taken when he was killed. His wife said that one of his students gave it to him.”

Bernstein frowned. “We don’t allow the boys to give gifts to the teachers, or vice versa. It too easily creates a climate of favoritism. And misunderstandings.”

“And did David have any misunderstandings with anyone? Any arguments?”

“No.” Bernstein hesitated, then shrugged. “Not here, at least. But there was something. The Jewish community has dispersed somewhat since the war, but it is still fairly close knit. There is a network of sorts, so that one picks up information—not necessarily true, of course—about people that one doesn’t know personally.”

Gavin waited, and after a moment, Bernstein went on. “I don’t like to tell tales, Inspector. But I saw David once, in the East End, talking to a man who is reputed to be involved with a…vengeance group.” He pinched his lips together as if the words themselves were distasteful.

“Vengeance?”

Bernstein settled himself more solidly in his chair. “It’s my opinion that we must move forward, put the past behind us. But there are those who…feel differently. Those who believe that not all who committed atrocities against the Jews during the war received justice. This man…he was pointed out to me once, as someone who espoused those…philosophies.”

Tired of the circumlocution, Gavin said, “What was the man’s name?”

“I don’t know. I only recognized his face.”

“And did you ever ask David about this man, or this meeting?”

“No.” Bernstein looked uncomfortable. “He didn’t see me, and I thought it best…left alone.” He didn’t meet Gavin’s eyes. “There was something about him that repelled any attempt at confidence…You may think this fanciful, Inspector, but a bitterness hung about David Rosenthal…It made me think of the odor of charred ashes.”

Kincaid had always found the truth to be the most effective measure in dealing with Chief Superintendent Denis Childs. After a brief wait in the anteroom, during which he chatted with Childs’s secretary, he was called into the inner sanctum.

He found his boss looking less sanguine than usual. His doctor had put him on a fitness and slimming regime, and while Childs might have dropped a few pounds, it had not improved his temper. It seemed to Kincaid that Childs was simply one of those men who were meant to be fat. It suited his personality, and attempting to change his essential physiology was more than likely an exercise in futility.

Still, he asked, “How are you, sir?” as Childs invited him to sit, and got a grimace and a mutter in reply.

“A treadmill,” Childs said. “They have me walking on a treadmill! As if one doesn’t walk enough in London.”

Kincaid hid a grin. “You look well.”

“Ha.” Childs glared at him. “I’ll have to get a new wardrobe soon, and I hate shopping. But”—he leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers in his familiar pose—“you didn’t come to see me to discuss my suits.”

“No. There’s been a suspicious death in Chelsea, and Lucan Place is going to be calling for a team. I’d like to take it.”

Childs raised a brow. “Have you acquired telepathy, then?”

“No, sir,” Kincaid said. “Although there are days when it might prove helpful.”

He proceeded to explain how Gemma had met Kristin Cahill, had thought something seemed a little dodgy, and how Kristin had subsequently died.

“I take it Gemma wants you on the case?”

“Yes. But I have to admit I’m curious, too. Gemma’s instincts are seldom wrong, and if this has to do with the auction house, we could be looking at something big.”

“And what about Gemma? I can’t see her being content to take a backseat, and I don’t imagine Mark Lamb would be too happy to have her haring off after a Homicide division inquiry.”

“As it happens, Gemma’s taking a bit of personal time at the moment. Her mum’s ill.”

“Sorry to hear that,” said Childs, but there was an unmistakable glint of humor in his eyes. “Ring Lucan Place, then, and get the record transfer started. And keep me informed.”

Doug Cullen was less than pleased to be assigned a case on some whim of Gemma James’s. Although he’d worked with Kincaid long enough now to have got over the first rash of professional jealousy, and he’d come to know Gemma well enough to like her personally, he didn’t fancy being dictated to by his guv’nor’s former sergeant, much less his girlfriend.

He was skeptical about the investigation’s validity, as well. That was a notoriously bad stretch of road—there had been a fatality there just recently, when some idiot in a fast car had blown through World’s End at three in the morning and wrapped himself round a light pole. Odds were that this girl had stepped out in front of someone equally careless—wrong place, wrong time.

But as the material began to come through from Chelsea, his certainty wavered. It had been fairly early, for one thing, not long after pub closing time, and before the staggeringly pissed emptied out of the nightclubs. And although a lack of braking wouldn’t have convinced him, the preliminary accident investigation reports showed clear signs that the car had accelerated away from the curb west of Edith Grove and into the intersection.

And then there was the photo of the girl herself, a copy of a recent snapshot contributed by her parents. Kristin Cahill had been undeniably pretty, but it was more than that. There was a slightly wistful appeal in her eyes, and in the little half smile she had thrown at the camera. Finding himself wishing that he had met her, Doug began to see why Gemma might have got her knickers in a twist over the girl’s death.

Still, when he and Kincaid arrived at Harrowby’s an hour later to begin questioning the staff, he wasn’t best pleased to find Gemma James waiting on the pavement.

“I thought I might be able to help,” said Gemma, taking in Cullen’s glare and the slight twitch of Kincaid’s lips.

“And I thought you were going to hospital,” Kincaid replied.

Gemma tamped down a twinge of guilt. “Cyn rang. She said they’ve taken Mum down for more tests, so there was nothing I could do until later. And since I’d met some of the staff here…” Seeing Cullen’s blank look, she realized Kincaid hadn’t told him about her mother. “My mum’s in St. Barts,” she explained to Cullen. “Having some tests.”

“Oh, sorry.”

Unwilling to say more, Gemma nodded her thanks and let Kincaid lead the way towards the salesroom door.

Kincaid was, after all, the senior investigating officer, and while she might tag along, she had better not charge into things like Boadicea come to conquer. What she’d have done if another team had shown up, she didn’t like to think.

“I’m glad you took the case,” she murmured to him.

“You were persuasive.” He paused, studying her. “And as long as you’re here, it might not be a bad idea for you to introduce us. Up the ante a bit if they think that something they said to you, or that Kristin said to you, brought you back.”

Harrowby’s seemed eerily quiet, the auctioneer’s podium empty, the large television dark, the rows of chairs that had held yesterday’s bidders unfilled. And gone was the composed Mrs. March who had greeted them at reception the previous day. Although neatly dressed in what appeared to be a cashmere twinset, her nose was red, her makeup smudged, and she held a ragged wad of tissues in her hand.

For a moment she looked blankly at Gemma, then recognition dawned. “You didn’t say you were with the police. Yesterday.” Mrs. March gave a slow, baffled shake of her head. “She’s dead. Kristin’s dead.”

“It was a personal visit yesterday, Mrs. March,” said Gemma gently, glancing at Kincaid, who seemed content to stay in the background. “But yes, we know Kristin’s dead. That’s why we’re here. Can you tell me a bit about what happened?”

“Kristin didn’t come in for work this morning. That’s very unlike her. She’s a good girl.” The look she gave them was beseeching. “You do have favorites, you know. And Kristin, for all her cheekiness…She wanted to please. And she was…kind to me.”

Suddenly Gemma saw, beneath the starchily prim exterior, a lonely woman who had taken any crumbs Kristin had, however unwittingly, thrown in her wake, and turned them into gems.

“So you were worried about her this morning,” she prompted as Mrs. March’s eyes filled and she pressed the ball of tissue to her nose.

Mrs. March sniffed and lowered her hand, tears temporarily staved off. “I rang her at home. Just to see if she was all right. She seemed a bit…unsettled…yesterday. I wasn’t sure if it was your visit or the flowers, or if it was because Mr. Khan…” Glancing round, Mrs. March lowered her voice. “Well, he was a bit rough on her, to tell you the truth.”

Gemma sensed a quickening of attention from Kincaid and Cullen, but she didn’t want either of them to interrupt her rapport with Mrs. March. “Was this before or after our visit, Kristin’s little…um, disagreement with Mr. Khan?”

“After.” For the first time, Mrs. March seemed to take in the two men with Gemma, both wearing suits and carrying themselves with the indefinable but unmistakable bearing that marked them as police officers. “I—I don’t want to speak out of turn. You’re all police, aren’t you?”

Kincaid stepped in. “Mrs. March, we only want to help. I’m Detective Superintendent Kincaid, and this is Detective Sergeant Cullen. Can you tell us what happened when you rang Kristin’s home this morning?”

It was a good deflection, Gemma thought. They would save Mr. Khan for later.

“A police officer answered the phone. She said she was a family liaison officer, and that there had been an accident.” The tears began to flow, this time unchecked. “She said that Kristin was dead. That she had been hit by a car as she was crossing the road last night. I still can’t believe it.”

“And after the call?” asked Gemma. “You told the rest of the staff? It seems very quiet round here today.” She gestured towards the empty auction area. “Is it on account of Kristin?”

“No. There’s no sale on today. Everyone is working on the displays and cataloging things that are upcoming. Although some of the girls were very upset.” Mrs. March blew her nose, with signs of returning to her usual briskness. “And then there was Giles, of course. He was completely shattered. Even Mr. Khan insisted that he should go home.”

“Giles?”

“Another one of our sales assistants. He and Kristin were…special friends.”

Gemma vaguely remembered a pudgy-faced young man watching them as Kristin had led her back to the office. “Were they going out?”

“No…At least I don’t think so. But Giles was…fond of her. Very cut up.” Mrs. March glanced up, and her expression grew suddenly wary. “Oh, there’s Mr. Khan now.”

Turning, Gemma saw Amir Khan striding towards them from the corridor that led to his—and Kristin’s—office.

“Mrs. March, you should have rung me,” he said as he reached them, and Gemma knew they would get nothing more from the receptionist for the moment. “Inspector James.” Khan’s gaze flicked from Gemma to Kincaid and Cullen. “If you are here about the brooch, I’m afraid that what I said yesterday still stands.”

“It’s a bit more complicated than that, Mr. Khan. We’re here about Kristin Cahill’s death, and I should think that might have changed things considerably. Oh, and this is Superintendent Kincaid and Sergeant Cullen. From Scotland Yard.”

Khan stared at her with what she could have sworn was genuine astonishment, and Gemma felt a moment’s pleasure in seeing this slickly urbane man discomfited.

But he seemed to recover quickly enough, giving her a smile that showed a flash of even white teeth. “Certainly, Kristin’s accident was unfortunate, but I don’t see—”

“Unfortunate!” Mrs. March rose from her chair. “Mr. Khan, how can you possibly say such a thing?” She was trembling. “The poor girl is dead! I’d call that more than unfortunate!”

“Nonetheless, Mrs. March,” Khan sounded more annoyed than placating. “That has nothing to—”

“Actually, we’re not here about the Goldshtein brooch,” Kincaid interrupted. “At least not directly. We’re here because we have reason to believe that Kristin Cahill’s death was no accident.”

Amir Khan hustled them into his office before Mrs. March had a chance to do anything but sink back into her chair, looking stunned.

Cullen, who had been occupying himself by examining an intricate wooden model of a steamship that was apparently going on the block, followed, unease now added to his aggravation. He hadn’t cared for feeling like a piece of furniture while Gemma led the questioning, although he had to admit she had probably got more from the receptionist than he would have if it had been his call. But by rights it should have been his guv’nor in the lead, not Gemma, who had no business here.

And now he was faced with Amir Khan, the sort of man who as a boy would have been his nemesis at school—Anglo-Indian, yes, but the product of money and breeding, with the perfect accent, the perfect clothes, an undoubtedly sharp and sarcastic tongue, and who had probably captained his cricket team. Doug hated him on sight.

“Now you’ve set the cat among the pigeons,” said Khan as soon as he had them sequestered in his office. The space was cramped, and he didn’t ask them to sit. A bouquet of long-stemmed pink roses sat on the far desk, some of its buds already drooping. “I don’t know what sort of nonsense this is,” Khan continued, “but Mrs. March will have it spread round the salesroom in five minutes.” He glanced at his watch, which Doug suspected was a real Cartier and not a copy. “Or sooner. I don’t appre—”

“Mr. Khan.” This time Kincaid took the lead. “This is not nonsense. Someone ran Kristin Cahill down last night, brutally and deliberately. I don’t care if it upsets your staff. And as we will be talking to each of them in turn, there’s no way you could keep the news from them.”

“But surely that’s not possible.” Khan glanced from Kincaid to Gemma, his certainty wavering. “Why would anyone want to hurt Kristin?”

“We were hoping you might tell us,” Kincaid said. “It seems you gave her a bit of a bollocking yesterday, after Inspector James left.”

“Bollocking?” Khan gave a grimace of distaste. “I’d hardly say that, even if I were to use such a word.”

“Then what would you call it? A row?”

“Certainly not. I merely reminded Kristin that our first priority is our clients’ confidentiality, and asked her to be discreet.”

“You mean discreet about the Goldshtein brooch?” asked Gemma.

“Discreet as regards giving out information pertaining to any of our buyers or sellers, and that included the seller of the Goldshtein brooch.”

“Kristin had been working for you a year, I think? Why would you suddenly feel a need to remind her of something she surely knew quite well?”

Khan leaned against his desk and picked at his perfectly starched shirt cuff, looking less than comfortable for the first time. “Of course, Kristin was well aware of our policy. But this was the first time she was to receive an introductory commission. And to my knowledge, this was the first time she’d ever had someone make a prior claim on an object taken in for auction.”

“An introductory commission?” asked Gemma. “I remember you saying Kristin had brought the piece in. What does that mean, exactly?”

“Kristin had an acquaintance with the seller. When one of our staff brings in someone with a piece to auction, the staff member receives a small commission.”

“How small?” Kincaid asked sharply.

“Four percent.”

“Four percent of how much?”

“The reserve price on the brooch is one hundred twenty thousand pounds. But with the reputation of the designer, and the size of the diamonds, it could go considerably higher.”

Cullen heard Gemma give a small whistle under her breath. “So Kristin could have made as much as five or six thousand pounds?” she asked. “Or more?”

“Or nothing,” replied Khan. “The brooch might not meet its reserve. That’s always the danger when setting a limit.”

“When you say Kristin brought in the seller, does that mean she knew him or her personally?” asked Cullen.

“I’ve no idea. She didn’t explain the connection to me, and I didn’t ask.”

“You keep talking as if the sale of the brooch is still on,” said Gemma. “With Kristin’s death—”

“Kristin’s death doesn’t change anything, Inspector. Of course, it’s regrettable, but there is certainly no reason we should consider removing an item from the sale because of it.”

“But if Kristin had a connection with the seller—”

“It doesn’t matter,” Khan said with finality. “That association is now meaningless.”

“And Kristin’s commission?”

Khan shrugged. “A moot point, obviously.”

“And that means more profit to the salesroom,” put in Cullen, wanting to ruffle this man’s smooth exterior.

But Khan merely gave him an amused look down his aquiline nose. “And more for the seller, Sergeant—I’m sorry, I don’t remem—”

“Cullen,” Doug said sharply.

“Sergeant Cullen, then. You can’t seriously think that the seller would have murdered Kristin for the paltry few thousand pounds’ difference her commission would have made in his profit?” While Doug was considering the difference that paltry sum would make in his life, Gemma stepped up to Khan and looked him in the eye.

“Possibly not, Mr. Khan. But under the circumstances, you can see that we must interview the seller.”

“Then I’d suggest you have a word with Kristin’s friends and associates. But as a representative of Harrowby’s, I can’t give you that information. Our client confidentiality cannot be breached.”

Kincaid, who had been leaning against a filing cabinet, hands in pockets, straightened up and gave a deceptively courteous smile. “Then I suspect a warrant will make a fairly good battering ram.”