Where Memories Lie

CHAPTER 17

April 1945

Thursday, 5th

No more bombs for more than a week. No one knows what it means to us to go to bed in peace, and not take leave of all our possessions, and wonder if we shall wake up in pieces, or with the roof collapsing on our heads, unless they have lived with it.

—Vere Hodgson, Few Eggs and No Oranges: The Diaries of Vere Hodgson, 1940–1945

“You’re right. I was jealous,” admitted Giles. “But I can’t drive. I failed my bloody test three times before I came up to London, and there’s really not much point here.” He sat in the chair with the curved wood arms, and the dog went to him and collapsed at his feet with a sigh.

“So is that your excuse for running Kristin down?” asked Cullen. “Bad driving?”

“Don’t be stupid. I’m telling you that I wasn’t driving. But I knew where Kristin lived. We’d talked about it—about how she wanted to get out from under her parents—and it wasn’t that far from here.

“So that night, I wanted to see who she was meeting. I didn’t think I could hang about outside the Gate without her noticing, but I thought if I waited for her to come home, I’d see who dropped her off, and there are plenty of places along the King’s Road where you can fade into the shadows.”

“And you knew this because you’d done it before?” Kincaid asked.

Oliver scowled at him. “What do you think I am? Some sort of pervert? No, I hadn’t waited for her at night before, but I knew where her building was. I mean, if you go down the King’s Road, you can’t help but notice.” When Kincaid merely raised an eyebrow, he swallowed and went on. “But it was a stupid thing to do. It was getting cold, and I’d walked up and down enough that I thought people would start to notice me. There was a woman out with her dog who looked at me like—well, never mind. So I’d just about decided to go home when I saw her.”

“You saw Kristin?”

“Walking down the King’s Road, like she’d come from the bus stop. I wasn’t close. I’d started walking west, but I’d turned to look back. The light turned at Edith Grove, and then, just as she stepped out into the street—” Giles slid from the chair to the floor, ducking his head and wrapping his arms round the dog.

“Giles,” Kincaid prompted, and Oliver lifted his head. “What happened then?”

Giles swallowed hard. “A car pulled away from the curb in front of her building. And it just—it just—it sped up, instead of stopping at the light. And it just—hit her. She—Kristin—bounced, like she wasn’t even human, and hit the street. The car just kept going.”

Making an effort to keep the disbelief from his voice, Kincaid said, “Giles, what did you do?”

“I was—I was going to—but a man came out of one of the flats. And then I—I couldn’t—”

Cullen had no such compunction. “You mean you just left her? You just left her lying there?”

“I wasn’t—She had help.” Giles looked up, his face tear-streaked. “I couldn’t—there was nothing I could do. So I went home. And then I waited to hear. There was no one I could call. I didn’t know where they’d taken her. So I had to—I had to go in to work, knowing—”

“You little tosser,” said Cullen, not disguising his disgust. “How could you? How could you just go off and leave her?”

“I thought she’d be all right,” Giles shot back. “And then I’d have to explain what I was doing there. And she—she would think—she would never—”

“Understand,” Kincaid finished for him. If it was true, Giles Oliver had been an idiot and a coward, but he was also a witness—at this point their only witness. “The car, Giles. What was it?”

Giles shook his head. “I don’t know. I’m not very good with cars.”

“You don’t know?” Cullen’s voice rose in outrage, and the dog lifted his head.

“Okay, let’s go back a bit,” said Kincaid, attempting to ratchet the tension down. “You said you walked back and forth for a bit. Did you see the car before it pulled away from the curb?”

“I—I don’t remember.”

“Think, man.”

Giles screwed up his face in concentration. “I was on the opposite side of the street. There were cars parked all along. I didn’t notice. I’m sorry.”

“Let’s go at it a different way, then. You’re accustomed to looking at things. You saw the car pull out from the curb. You must have had some impression, even if you didn’t recognize the make. Was it light colored or dark?”

“Dark,” Giles said without hesitation.

“Okay, good. Large or small?”

“It was big. And sort of square.”

“A coupe?” Kincaid asked, deliberately leading.

Giles frowned. “No. I remember the back end looked big. It was an SUV, I think. A country sort of car. A Land Rover, maybe.”

“Anyone home?” Gemma called out as she let herself in the front door. The dogs came running to her, sniffing her legs and jumping up in excitement as if she’d been gone a week rather than most of the day.

She hadn’t stayed long at the hospital. Her mum had been obviously exhausted, and Gemma felt she was doing more harm than good by keeping her from resting.

And she felt guilty for having let her temper get the better of her with her dad, and even worse for having inflicted an emotional outburst on her mother. That was the last thing her mum had needed.

“In here” came Kit’s answer from the kitchen. The house was warm from the day’s heat and smelled tantalizingly of baking dough and spices. Pizza.

Giving Geordie’s ears a last fondle, she followed her nose. Kit stood at the fridge, examining the contents as if he were looking for buried treasure.

“Where is everyone?” Gemma asked.

“I thought we had more milk,” Kit said, then shut the fridge door and turned to her. “Wes had to go. Toby’s watching a cartoon in the study. I said he could, if he finished his lessons. Duncan rang and said he’d been held up—he tried to ring you but your phone was off.”

“Oh, damn.” Gemma realized she’d switched her phone off at the hospital and had forgotten to switch it on again. “Did he say why?”

“Just that he’d ring you later. Do you want some pizza?” Kit asked. “It’s Pizza Express from the freezer.”

“Oh, Kit.” This seemed to be Gemma’s day for feeling contrite. She had left the children to fend for themselves, and had been so caught up in her own worries that she hadn’t even thought to check in. “I am sorry. We expect you to do too much, and you never complain.” Impulsively, she went to him and slipped an arm round his shoulders in a hug.

He ducked his head in a way that reminded her of Toby, but smiled. “It’s okay,” he assured her. “Really. I don’t mind.”

She let go before he reached complete embarrassment overload, but couldn’t resist ruffling his hair.

“Get off,” he said, bouncing away from her with a grin. “Toby and I were going to take the dogs for a walk before it got dark. Do you want to come?”

Gemma hesitated, then shook her head. “Um, no, but thanks. I’ll think I’ll stay here and have a bit of your pizza.”

While Kit got the dogs’ leads, she fetched Toby from the study, switching off some American cop show on the telly while giving him a hug and as much of a cuddle as he’d allow.

“I was watching that.” Her son pulled away from her with a scowl, a sure sign of a five-year-old’s temper tantrum brewing.

“You’re a bit stroppy today, sport,” she said, using Duncan’s nickname for him.

“I’m not stroppy,” Toby protested. “Whatever it is.”

Gemma pretended to think hard. “Obstreperous.”

“You’re silly, Mummy,” said Toby, not mollified. “I’m not that, either.” He punched at her with his fist, but she caught him by both wrists.

“Enough of that.” And enough of things he shouldn’t be watching on the telly, she added to herself. She’d have to speak to Kit about it, as Toby was obviously changing the channel when Kit left the room, but she hated to nag Kit when he made such an effort. It was a case once more of giving Kit more responsibility than he should have to bear, not to mention her falling down on her parenting.

Swinging Toby round, she tickled him until he squealed, then marched him from the room. “You go with Kit to walk the dogs, and when you get back we’ll have a special treat. A game.”

“Can we play Giant Snakes and Ladders?”

Gemma cursed herself. That was Toby’s latest favorite, and required more energy than a marathon, especially when you added barking dogs and a cat interested in anything spread out on the floor. “Of course,” she said, hoping that dinner would revive her a bit.

But when the boys and dogs had gone out in a flurry of motion, she decided she wasn’t hungry after all, and instead poured herself a glass of white wine from the fridge, popped a CD in the kitchen player, sank into a chair and kicked off her shoes.

Closing her eyes, she tried to shut out the replay of her row with her dad and her worry over her mum. She wiggled her toes and held the wine in her mouth before she swallowed, tasting all the flavors.

After a moment, the music began to do its work. She’d put on Barb Jungr, one of her favorite singers, but it wasn’t Jungr’s smoky voice that caught her attention now, but the sweet, spare notes of the piano accompaniment.

God, how long had it been since she’d played the piano? She’d canceled lesson after lesson, and without that discipline, had practiced less and less. How had she let something she loved so much slip away from her?

But with the job, and Duncan, and the boys, and the dogs—as if to remind her of his presence, Sid chose that moment to pad into the kitchen and jump up on the table—and the cat, Gemma amended, she seemed to have little time for herself.

And yet, even with more in her life than she could manage well, she still felt the sting of loss, and cataloging the practical difficulties they’d have faced in caring for another child made not a whit of difference.

Pure selfishness, she told herself firmly. And she had been selfish enough lately.

With that reminder, she exchanged her glass for her mobile and rang Erika’s number. It was past time she checked on Erika rather than sending Kit as an emissary, and she had questions she needed to ask.

But Erika’s number rang on unanswered. Gemma drank a bit more wine, then dialed again, but there was still no reply, not even the answer phone. Although Gemma knew Erika was careless in remembering to switch the machine on, she felt frustrated by her inability to leave a message, and a little uneasy.

She was wondering how she might convince her very independent friend that she should get a mobile phone when her own phone rang. She jumped, sloshing her wine, and answered a little breathlessly.

It was not Erika, however, but Melody Talbot.

“Boss,” said Melody, “before you ask, yes, I’m still at the office, but I really am going home.

“But there was something a bit odd. I was looking through those newspapers you asked me to collect for you. Did you know that Erika Rosenthal had a piece in the Guardian the day David Rosenthal was killed?”

Erika moved through the day as if held to the earth by the slenderest of tethers.

She rose at her usual time, even though she’d been given a temporary bereavement leave from her job in the administrative offices at Whiteleys department store. Finding she was ravenous, she’d made tea, with two pieces of toast and two soft-boiled eggs, an unheard-of indulgence with rationing still in effect, but she felt reckless with hunger. If she had nothing to eat the rest of the week she couldn’t bring herself to care.

Carrying her plate and cup out into the garden, she sat on the stone wall in the one spot penetrated by the morning sun. In spite of her hunger, she ate slowly, savoring every taste and texture as if it were for the first time—the buttery richness of the egg yolk, the crunchiness of the toast, the earthy astringency of the tea.

And she, who had lived in her own mind for so long, found that she wanted to share every thought, every impression, every instant of experience with Gavin. He would understand. He would know what she meant, what she felt, almost before she knew herself, and the perfection of it made her eyes fill with the tears she had not cried for her husband.

David. She knew that somewhere within her she carried a kernel of grief for the man she had lived with for almost fifteen years, and that most of all she would mourn what might have existed between them, and for the long, barren waste of their marriage.

But now she felt distanced, as if a stranger had lived that life, or as if it were a distant memory, something seen from the wrong end of a telescope. David had been lost to her long ago, and she knew now that grief had been woven into the very fabric of her life.

As she did the washing-up and went about her daily routine, she wondered if a time would come when she would feel guilt for having taken another man so precipitously into her bed. But she couldn’t imagine that her union with Gavin Hoxley could ever seem an act of disloyalty, and she didn’t want to think of consequences, or of the obstacles that stood between them.

Not now. Not yet. Nothing could take this moment, this hour, this day, from her. She had been waiting for it her whole life.

Gemma had survived Giant Snakes and Ladders, had put Toby to bed, had had a bath herself, had said good night to Kit, who was reading in his room, and Kincaid still had not rung. She tried calling him, but his phone went straight to voice mail, and she didn’t leave a message. Something must have happened, and he would let her know when he could.

Nor had she had any success reaching Erika, although she kept trying until she felt it was too late to call. She told herself she was being paranoid, that Erika had every right to go out of an evening, or to leave the phone unanswered if it suited her. But no amount of rationalizing quieted the little tickle of worry.

Had Erika’s story in the Guardian had some bearing on David Rosenthal’s death? But Melody had told her that it was an opinion piece, something about the shifting role of women in the postwar workplace, which sounded so like Erika that it made Gemma smile. She couldn’t imagine it had been more than coincidence. But, she couldn’t stop reminding herself, the two other people who’d had a connection with Erika’s brooch were dead.

In pajamas and dressing gown, Gemma went downstairs and idled restlessly at the piano, trying to pick out a tune that teased at her memory, but her fingers seemed disconnected from her brain. Giving up after a few discordant notes, she wandered into the kitchen and contemplated the wine still in the fridge, but it had lost its appeal.

Instead, she filled a mug with milk and popped it in the microwave, then took the steaming drink to the table. She wanted to think more clearly, not less.

Geordie and Tess had stayed upstairs with Kit, but Sid, who seemed to be her shadow today, had followed her. He jumped up on the table and wrapped his tail round his paws, regarding her with unblinking green eyes, and for once Gemma didn’t shoo him off. Instead, she scratched him under the chin until his eyes narrowed to slits and he began to purr. “You know everything, don’t you, boy?” she said softly, and at the sound of her voice, the cat blinked and curled his tail a bit tighter, as if containing his contentment.

As Gemma began to relax, her mind drifted randomly through the things that were worrying her. Her mum…her dad…Kristin Cahill…the poor man she hadn’t met, Harry Pevensey…Erika…and Gavin Hoxley. She kept coming back to Gavin Hoxley. It was odd, but a day spent reading Hoxley’s notes had made her feel she knew him, and she had liked him. It seemed to her that he had cared about David Rosenthal in a personal way, as she often cared about her own cases. And he had been too good a detective to have just dropped an unsolved case, so what had happened?

She could ask Erika, of course. Erika would have known Hoxley—it was obvious from his notes that he had interviewed her. But then, Erika had never told her that David Rosenthal had been murdered. Why?

Gemma circled round to Gavin Hoxley again, and she realized she had made a decision. She would ask Erika about her husband’s death, but first she would go back to Lucan Place and find out why Hoxley had dropped David Rosenthal’s case.

As the day slid into evening, Erika found herself staring more and more often at the telephone, as if she could will it to ring, or holding her breath as she listened for the sound of footsteps in the paved yard outside her door.

Gavin hadn’t said he would ring, after all, or that he would come back to her as soon as he was able, but that he would do so had seemed as natural to her as breathing.

She did chores already done once. She made herself eat a little something, a habit from the war, when one never knew when one might get another meal, but her appetite of the morning had gone. She switched on lamps, brushed her dark hair until it crackled, and smoothed her hands down the skirt of her best dress.

By nightfall, doubt had come creeping in. Had she been a complete fool? Had she only imagined that what had happened between them was special? She was, after all, inexperienced in these things, and probably more naive than she had realized.

Had she fallen for the oldest chestnut in the world, that of the married man who claimed to be unhappy with his wife? She had been wrong, so wrong, about David. Had she been wrong about Gavin as well?

But as the hours passed, and she played over and over the things they had said, and done, and shared, she knew in her heart that it had been real, and that knowledge chilled her to the bone.