The Sound of Broken Glass (23 page)

“Your chambers,” said Gemma, keeping her voice level, “is there another barrister called Vincent Arnott?”

Amanda looked at her blankly. “Never heard of him. What has that to do with Shaun?”

Well, that was one easy connection she could cross off her list, thought Gemma. She tried another tack. “Were you close, you and your brother?”

“I don't know.” Amanda's laugh was harsh. “By what standards? Other brothers and sisters? All I can tell you is that if Shaun needed something, he would call me.
Always available Amanda
, that's me.” Her face crumpled. “Now what am I going to do?”

A tap at the window signaled the return of the friendly PC. “Ta,” said Gemma as she rolled the window down and took the steaming cup.

The distraction had given Amanda Francis a chance to get herself under control again.

“Amanda, had you noticed anything different about Shaun recently?” asked Gemma as she turned back to her. “New friends? New girlfriend? Was he worried about anything?”

“Shaun's girlfriends tended not to last long. And friends—he hung out with some of the guys from chambers. And the pub here.” She glanced across the square. “Not that he ever invited me.”

“What about yesterday? Did you speak to him? Did he say anything about his plans?”

“He was going to play squash,” Amanda said with a disapproving sniff. “He was never any good at sports, but lately he'd been on this slimming thing and had started playing squash at the weekends. He'd pulled a muscle in his back and I told him it was stupid not to lay off a bit longer. But of course he didn't listen—”

She stopped, shaking her head, her eyes brimming. “How stupid. It doesn't matter now, does it? Whatever I said, or whether or not he paid attention. Did I—did I really see what I thought I saw? Did someone really do that—those—things to him?”

Glancing towards the flat, Gemma saw Rashid come out of the building and speak to Maura Bell. They'd need that print kit, and she needed to get Amanda Francis away from the scene.

“Amanda, did you drive here or come on the tube?”

“Oh, the tube. I don't have a car. I take the train into the City from Dulwich every day.”

“Dulwich?” asked Gemma, alarm bells ringing. That was almost to Crystal Palace. And hadn't there been someone else mentioned who lived in Dulwich?

“I can't afford a flat in the city, like Shaun.” Even now, Amanda Francis couldn't keep the bitterness from her voice. “I still live with my mum in—Oh, God.” She put a shaking hand to her mouth and her words came out in a wail. “How am I going to tell my mother that Shaun is dead?”

Crystal Palace was cursed by bad luck and financial crisis. In 1861 the Palace was damaged by strong winds and on Sunday 30th December 1866 a fire broke out destroying the North End of the building along with many natural history exhibits.

—www.bbc.co.uk

He gave up going to the park to practice. Now that the boys knew where he lived, they seemed to appear like shadows wherever he went.

Just bullies, he told himself. He knew enough like them at school, and he'd learned that the best way to deal with their sort was to pretend they were invisible. But it had taken the joy out of playing his guitar on the steps by the Sphinx, and he felt threatened by their presence in a way he didn't quite understand.

What did they want with him? Why, when they had money and things and the freedom to go where they pleased, did they care about a poor kid from Crystal Palace?

He'd never told them his name, but one day when he'd walked his mum to the pub for her shift and she'd given him an unexpectedly affectionate hug, he turned and found them watching from outside the shop next door.

“Your mum's a bit of a slag, eh, Andy,” said Shaun, and Joe snickered. “You didn't tell us she worked in a shit hole of a bar.”

Andy had had enough. He was on them in an instant, grabbing Shaun by the front of his T-shirt. “You just leave me the fuck alone. And you leave my mum the fuck alone.”

“Oh, look, it can swear,” mocked Joe, his voice high with excitement. “What are you going to do about it? Tell your mum? Fat lot she could do.”

Andy had let go of Shaun's T-shirt when he turned to Joe, and the boys fell against each other, laughing.

“You—”

“Or you could hit us with your guitar,” said Shaun. “Unless something happened to it.”

“Ooh, wouldn't that be a shame.” Joe giggled. “Bet you couldn't afford to buy a new one.”

Andy was breathing so hard his vision blurred. “Don't you dare—”

Shaun leaned closer, leering, daring him. “Or maybe you could get your neighbor to protect you. She's totally hot.”

“You bastards.” Andy took an ineffectual swing at Shaun, who was inches taller and a stone heavier. “You leave her—”

The shop door opened and the Pakistani owner came out. “What's this going on in front of my shop? You trying to ruin my business, you little hoodlums?” He grabbed Shaun and Joe, who were closest, by their collars. “And you, Andy Monahan, you should be ashamed of yourself. Go on now, the lot of you, or I'll call the police.” He let Joe and Shaun go with a shove and they stumbled away, then turned and gave Andy and the shop owner a two-fingered salute before running off.

Burning with shame, Andy said, “Mr. Patel, I didn't—”

“I know you didn't start it, Andy. But you should keep away from those boys. They are bad news.” Clucking in disapproval, he went back into his shop.

After that, Andy stopped playing his guitar on the front steps of the flat, too. He played inside, or on the back steps overlooking the barren garden when there was a patch of shade. Most days, he still waited for Nadine, but found he couldn't talk to her without watching the top of the street for those now all-too-familiar silhouettes.

Awkwardness seemed to develop between them. Where before they had talked so easily, now there were silences he didn't know how to fill.

“Andy, are you all right?” Nadine asked one afternoon. “I miss you playing. Although I hear you sometimes from my kitchen, playing on your back steps.”

He shrugged, knowing he couldn't tell her the real reason. “It's hot. My hands sweat. It gets shady in the back in the afternoon.”

“Oh, right.” Nadine rubbed the finger on her left hand where Andy thought she must have once worn a wedding ring, something he'd noticed she did when she was thinking. Or unhappy. He knew she didn't believe him.

“I could come out later,” he said hurriedly. “When it starts to get dark. I don't need much light to play.” He'd never seen the boys after sunset. Night was now the only time he felt safe. “It's cooler then.”

“That's a deal.” She smiled and he felt he'd been given a reprieve. “I'll make lemonade and sandwiches for later then, shall I?”

The scent of the geraniums grew stronger at dusk. Nadine had tended them until they'd begun to spill over the pots and trail onto the steps. That night she wore a white dress, and in the dimness the red blossoms looked like dark blood splashed across her skirt.

She'd brought a candle as well as the promised lemonade and sandwiches, and after they'd eaten, Andy played in the flickering light.

He'd been working on a version of Dave Brubeck's “Take Five,” but this was the first time he'd tried something so difficult in front of Nadine. After the first few bars he forgot his nervousness and lost himself in the notes.

When he'd finished he looked up and grinned. “It needs the rhythm part.”

“How did you learn that?” Nadine sounded awed and Andy fingered the strings on the old Höfner, suddenly shy.

“Just listening. One of my dad's old records.” He couldn't afford new CDs, although he occasionally picked things up at charity shops and jumble sales.

“Andy,” Nadine said slowly, “you say ‘just listening' as if anyone could do that. You know that's not the case, don't you?”

He shook his head. “I got some guitar books from the secondhand shop, so I know what the chords are called. But the songs in the books are stupid. It's more fun to listen to things I like and try to make what I play sound the same.”

Nadine was silent for so long that he was afraid he'd sounded a complete tosser. “I watch music videos, too,” he added, “so I can see how the real guys do it. But listening is better.”

“Andy . . . ” This time it was Nadine who gave a little shake of her head. She'd pulled her thick chestnut hair up to cool her neck in the heat, but a loose tendril swung with the movement. “You have a gift,” she said, as serious as he'd ever heard her. “And there's no one to—” She stopped, and he somehow knew that she'd been about to tread on territory they both avoided—his mum.

Nadine noticed things—how could she not, living next door? She knew the hours his mum worked, knew Andy did the shopping and the cooking and made sure his mum got to and from work every day. And although he never said, he suspected she knew that there was never quite enough money to get through the week.

Often she'd just happen to have sandwiches or biscuits for him, or she'd say she'd made more than she could eat for dinner, no point just throwing it in the bin. And he knew she kept an eye on him when he was home alone at night, which he found weirdly comforting.

But once, when she'd hesitantly asked if it might help if she talked to his mum, he'd felt such panic that he'd shaken his head and bolted into the flat. It had been two days before he'd spoken to Nadine again, and she hadn't brought it up since.

He didn't want the two halves of his life to come together. His mother didn't approve of Nadine, although he wasn't quite sure why. And Nadine—he didn't want anyone, especially her, to know how bad things really were with his mum. It made him ashamed. And afraid.

Nadine stood, suddenly. “I'll be right back. Wait for me.”

He sat obediently as the minutes ticked by, watching the last of the light fade over the distant city below, playing little bits of things he'd been learning, a Django Reinhardt song, the first few bars of Bert Jansch's “Angie.” He'd begun to think he'd said something wrong and Nadine wasn't coming back when he heard the soft click of her door latch.

When he looked up, he saw that she was cradling a flat, rectangular guitar case against her chest.

Sitting down, she laid the case across her knees and stroked its surface with her fingertips. “You need a better guitar.” Her voice was hoarse, as if she'd been crying, but her face was concealed in shadow. She slid her hands over to the three latches and flipped them up, but still didn't open the case. “This was my husband's,” she said. “I haven't opened it since he—died. But it's doing no one any good sitting in my cupboard. I want you to have it.”

“But—”

“He found it in a car-boot sale. He was so proud of it, though he only messed about with playing. He hadn't any real talent, but he recognized it when he saw it. I think he'd have wanted this”—she patted the case—“to go to someone who deserved it.”

“But I—”

“Shhh.” She pushed open the lid, lifted out the guitar, and handed it to him. “See? It suits you.”

Andy could only stare at the thing he held in his hands. “It's—”

“A 1964 Stratocaster. Fiesta red. Marshall had it valued. Everything's original—headstock, body, the pickups. There's an amp, too. You can get it tomorrow.”

Finally, he looked up at her, past feeling any shame for the tears in his eyes. “But I can't possibly—”

“Yes. You can. Just play, Andy.” She touched one of the geranium blossoms. “No one has been kind to me except you. Think of it as red for red.”

It was an ugly building, one of the postwar concrete blocks that had filled the bombed gaps in the East End. Two stories, with graffiti covering sections of the street-level wall, although on a closer look Kincaid realized that it was not ordinary tagging but quite well-executed street art.

He entered the double glass doors at the far end to find that appearances were once again deceiving. Caleb Hart's office had an expensively fitted-out reception area that sported an equally decorative receptionist. On the wall above her desk a stylized logo read
HART PRODUCTIONS
.

“Can I help you?” asked the receptionist, and her tone told him immediately that this was not a place where the uninvited walked in off the street.

“I'd like to speak to Mr. Hart.” Before she could utter the refusal forming on her lips, he added, “My name's Duncan Kincaid. Tell him I'm a friend of Tam Moran's.” He was glad he was no longer wearing a Scotland Yard suit—he doubted it would have cut any ice here.

“I'll just check,” she said, with a minute degree of thaw, and left her desk to disappear into what Kincaid assumed was the inner sanctum, rewarding him with a view of very long legs in a very short skirt.

A moment later she reappeared. “Caleb says he'll see you.”

It was hardly gracious, but Kincaid considered himself lucky to have got past the guard dog.

“Thanks.” He gave her his best smile, although he suspected it was wasted.

The man who came out of the inner office to greet him was tall and slender, with a neatly trimmed brown beard and glasses. Kincaid thought he looked more like a teacher than a record producer, although unlike Tam, his clothing was trendy and obviously expensive. Black shirt, black silk jacket, designer jeans, high-topped boots. Kincaid felt shabby and altogether too GAP by comparison.