The Sound of Broken Glass: A Novel

PROLOGUE

. . . Denmark Street is forever associated with music. Earning the nickname of London’s Tin Pan Alley in the 1920s, musicians have flocked to this renowned corner of Soho since its origins as a sheet music supplier in Victorian times.

—www.covent-garden.co.uk

It had been years since she’d been in an English church. Would the place be locked early on this miserable January evening? she wondered. Moved by a sudden impulse, she waited for a break in the traffic and dodged across Charing Cross Road into Denmark Street.

And then she stopped again, mesmerized, staring in the windows of shops closed for the night but still lit to show their wares. How could she have forgotten? This was the street of guitars. The instruments, with their sinuous shapes and glowing hues, seemed to beckon.

She walked on, slowly now, past one shop and then another. The colors leapt out at her—scarlet, robin’s-egg blue, honey, mahogany, palest flax, then the bold shout of black and white.

There was an allure, not only in the beauty of the instruments, but in their inaccessibility. Promise sealed behind glass. Many of the guitars had hand-lettered cards attached, describing their provenance. She liked the idea that guitars, like people, had histories.

Moving to the next shop, she found she was looking, not at guitars, but at flyers taped in the front windows of a tatty club. THE 12 BAR CLUB, according to the sign above the door.

The 12 Bar. She recognized the place now. It had been here for years—once or twice as a teenager she’d made the trek from Hampstead, and it had seemed so grown up, so sophisticated. Full of smoke then, of course, but she hadn’t minded. Every guitarist worthy of the name had played the tiny, grubby club, and girls went hoping to catch a glimpse of someone famous.

She glanced again at the flyers taped to the window. The name of one band made her smile; then her breath caught in her chest and she peered more closely at the grainy black-and-white photo beneath the band’s name.

That face . . . A tingle of shock ran through her. Could it be? After so long? Surely not, but . . . She smudged the cold glass with her fingertip as she read the names of the band members.

Her vision blurred. She blinked until it cleared, but the name was still the same. Oh, dear God, she breathed, and the past came upon her like a rushing tide.

CHAPTER ONE

Crystal Palace is an area of South London between Dulwich, Croydon and Brixton. Its name has been associated with many different things. Crystal Palace was originally coined by Punch magazine to describe The Great Exhibition, an iron and glass building designed by Joseph Paxton moved to Crystal Palace Park in 1854 and destroyed by fire on 30th November 1936.

—www.crystalpalace.co.uk

Crystal Palace, August, Fifteen Years Earlier

He sat on the front steps of the house in Woodland Road, counting the banknotes he’d stored in the biscuit tin, all that was left of his mum’s wages. Frowning, he counted again. Ten pounds short. Oh, bloody hell. She’d found the new stash and pilfered it. Again.

Blinking back sudden tears, he scrubbed the back of his hand against his nose, trying to quell the panic rising in his stomach.

Panic and hunger. It was only Wednesday and she didn’t get paid again until Saturday. How was he going to feed the two of them on the little bit of money that was left? Not that his mum did much but pick at the eggs and toast he made her when she got up in the mornings, and once she went on at the pub she seemed to survive on cigarettes and the occasional basket of chips.

Chips. His stomach growled. Shut it, he said aloud. He could make toast and Marmite for his supper. And next week he’d do a better job of hiding the money.

The last few months he’d taken to waiting for her outside the pub on Saturday nights when she got her pay packet, even though she scolded him for being out alone in the center of town that late. The publican, Mr. Jenkins, handed him the money directly, accompanied by a wink and a hearty thump on the back. Mr. Jenkins wasn’t too bad a bloke, although Andy was sure he kept back a bit for his mum to spend on drink.

On the nights she came home staggering, he didn’t like to think where she’d got the extra cash. Nor did he like to think about what would happen when he went back to school after the summer hols. He wouldn’t be home when she woke, wouldn’t be able to see that she ate, wouldn’t be able to make sure she stayed sober at least until she got to work.

She seemed so much worse lately, and if she lost her job . . . He shook his head, refusing to go down that path.

He’d figure out something. He always had. Maybe he could get some kind of a job, now that he was thirteen.

He blinked again, this time because sweat had started to trickle into his eyes. The sun hadn’t yet dropped below the houses on the west side of Woodland Road, and hot as it was on the front steps, it was hotter still inside their ground-floor flat.

Besides, he liked watching the afternoon comings and goings in the road. And the view. Their steep street was tatty, most of the houses in disrepair, some derelict. But if he looked north, down the hill, he could see the green swath of London in the haze, and know that just below his line of vision lay the curve of the Thames.

If he walked up to the top of the hill, he could see the heart of the City, glimmering like a mirage. Someday he was going to live there, in a place where things happened. He was going to get out of bloody Crystal Palace and take his mum with him. If they lived somewhere else, maybe she would improve.

Cheered, he reconsidered the prospect of toast and Marmite. There was a tin of baked beans left in the cupboard—maybe he’d have that instead, and then the chocolate bar he’d squirreled away.

The afternoon dozed on, quiet as the grave except for the rumble of his stomach. He’d decided he couldn’t put off his tea any longer when he heard the grind of a car’s gearbox from the bottom of the hill. A little car was trundling up. He recognized it—a Volkswagen that had seen better days.

He recognized the driver, too, as the car pulled into the curb in front of the house next door. It was their new next-door neighbor—a widow, his mum said, although he didn’t think the woman who climbed out of the car looked old enough to be a widow. More like someone’s big sister, with her flowered summer dress and softly waving brown hair.

Their two houses were mirror images, the front steps and doors adjacent, so that as she climbed the steps she was almost near enough to touch. She was carrying a bag of shopping and he thought about asking if she needed help, but he was too shy.

But then, as she passed him, she met his gaze and nodded. It was a serious nod, the kind you’d give a grown-up. He nodded back.

She shifted her shopping to dig in her handbag for her keys, but when she had her key in the lock, she paused. Hot day, isn’t it? she asked.

This small remark was made with such gravity that he felt it deserved an equally sage response. Unfortunately, his tongue seemed stuck to the roof of his suddenly dry mouth. Cooler out here, he finally managed to croak.

She seemed to consider this. What about your garden? she asked. It should be shady, this time of day.

There’s nothing to see in the back. His flat had access to the long, narrow garden at the back of the house, but it was weedy and neglected. Gardening was not his mum’s strong suit.

True enough. Her smile was brief, impersonal, and he was sure she must think him an idiot. But as she clicked the key in the lock, she turned back to him as if on a sudden impulse. Look, she said. I’m Nadine. I’ve got some cold fizzy drinks in the fridge. I could bring one out for you, if you like.

There was not much, thought Duncan Kincaid, that he loved more than a crisp winter day in Hyde Park.

Even as a child in Cheshire, he’d preferred winter-bare trees against clear, pale skies to the more fulsome glories of summer. Obviously, he wasn’t the only one savoring the break in the past two weeks’ miserable January weather—the park was full of people running, walking dogs, and taking children for outings.

He was, in matter of fact, doing all three.

Papa, said Charlotte from her jogging pushchair, I want to see the horses.

You always want to see the horses, he teased. Papa, she’d begun calling him. Not Dad, like Kit, or Daddy, which Toby used interchangeably with Duncan. He’d asked Louise Phillips, who had been Charlotte’s father’s law partner, if Charlotte had called Naz that, but she’d said no, that she’d only heard Charlotte use the Pakistani abba. Papa, he thought, must have come from one of Charlotte’s storybooks, perhaps even Alice in Wonderland, which remained her favorite; they had now read it so often he thought it must be burned into his brain.

Rotten horses, Charlotte added with a giggle. Rotten horses in Rotten Row. With a three-year-old’s sense of humor, she was easily amused. Bob wants to see horses, she added, settling her bedraggled green plush elephant more firmly in her lap so that he could enjoy the view. Charlotte had at first protested against the pushchair, insisting that she was old enough to walk, and Kincaid had convinced her only by arguing that Bob would like to ride in a buggy that was also called Bob—a trendy brand with the Notting Hill set.

Kincaid slowed to a walk and even Geordie, their cocker spaniel, seemed glad of the respite. Tess, their terrier, got left at home when they went for their runs, as her little legs couldn’t keep up.

Now Geordie looked inquiringly at Kincaid, his tongue lolling. You’d like to see the horses, wouldn’t you, boy? Kincaid asked. Unfortunately, Kincaid had discovered that the sight and smell of the horses turned their normally good-natured dog into a barking, lunging demon. Geordie seemed to overestimate his size if not his own ferocity.

Let’s leave it for next time, shall we? he suggested to Charlotte, rolling the pushchair off the path. You could throw the ball for Geordie for a bit instead.

Her mass of caramel-colored curls tickled his nose as he unbuckled her from the buggy and swung her to the ground with a bounce. He caught the scent of the organic baby shampoo that Gemma teased him for buying, and an indefinable trace of the exotic. Distilled little girl, he thought wryly as he unclipped Geordie’s lead and pulled the tennis ball from the pocket of his anorak.

Geordie dropped into a perfect sit and barked in anticipation. This precious object was no ordinary tennis ball, but a lurid pink-and-green dog ball, its skin cracked, the squeaker long since excavated, and Geordie loved the husk from the depths of his cocker spaniel heart.

Kincaid tossed it and both dog and girl gave chase, Geordie yipping, Charlotte shrieking. Geordie, of course, reached it first, and the two began a happy game of keep-away.

He’d stopped at the edge of a grassy hollow near the north boundary of the park, and the game gave Kincaid a chance not only to catch his breath but also to survey the park’s other occupants. He watched them, jogging, walking, throwing Frisbees for dogs, and a few hardy souls just sitting and soaking up the welcome winter sun. Were they skiving off work? he wondered. A couple coming from opposite directions stopped for what seemed a casual word, but when the woman looked round, her glance seemed slightly furtive. Then she took the man’s arm and they walked away.

A clandestine meeting, Kincaid thought, then admonished himself for his suspicions. It was the detective’s mind, and he didn’t seem able to turn it off. Not that it was much use to him, these days, although the care of children ages three, six, and fourteen certainly required vigilance.

When he and Gemma had begun fostering Charlotte at the end of the previous summer, they’d agreed that Gemma would take parental leave first, and then, if Charlotte was still not able to adjust to child care, Gemma would go back to work and Kincaid would take the same length of leave.

Things had not quite worked out as they had planned.

Rather than starting back in her post as detective inspector at Notting Hill Police Station, Gemma had been asked to fill an emergency vacancy on a murder investigation team in South London as acting detective chief inspector.

Kincaid had watched with pride—and some envy—as she settled into the new and demanding job. And while he had struggled to fit himself into the role of caregiver in their blended family, he’d also found that he’d come to know the children in ways he could never have imagined when he had been consumed with his own work.

But his intended leave had come to an end with the first of the year, and Charlotte had not, after all, been ready to start school. They’d given it a disastrous week at the local preschool. Charlotte had howled inconsolably all day, every day. Finally, even her teacher had suggested that she might need a bit more time in her new home before taking on the stress of a different environment. The severe separation anxiety suffered by a child who’d experienced a loss the magnitude of Charlotte’s, Miss Love had told him, in the lecturing tone usually reserved for preschoolers, required time and patience.

As if they didn’t know, Kincaid had thought, and bitten his tongue.

Now, halfway through January, Kincaid found himself questioning his supply of the requisite patience, missing his job, and worried that the job didn’t seem to be missing him.

Papa, are you sad? asked Charlotte. The game of fetch had come to a halt. She was kneeling beside a drift of leaves at the base of a tree, studying him intently, the blue-green of her eyes startling against her pale brown skin. Charlotte had attuned herself to his moods in a way that was sometimes unnerving.

Of course I’m not sad, he said, going to her. Geordie snuffled his face as he knelt, leaving a wet smear on his cheek. How could I possibly be sad when I can go to the park with you? What have you found there? he added. She’d fished something from the leaves that was definitely not Geordie’s ball.

A body. Charlotte held up her prize for his inspection. It was indeed a body—that of a Barbie doll, naked, its head slightly askew, blond hair tangled as a rat’s nest. Can I keep her? Charlotte asked.

I don’t see why not, Kincaid said, although he was well aware of Gemma’s feelings about Barbie dolls. Perhaps this one wouldn’t count. The doll’s skin looked sickly pink in Charlotte’s hand, and its anatomically bizarre body alien. But Charlotte was a rescuer, and was already running towards the pushchair, where she wrapped the doll in an old bit of baby blanket she kept for Bob the elephant.

She’s cold, Charlotte explained, and Kincaid suddenly realized that the weather was changing. The bright blue January sky had gone hazy, and he could see a bank of dark clouds moving in from the west.

In you go, then, he said, lifting her back into the pushchair and whistling for Geordie, "or your dolly will be cold and wet. Home, James."

My name’s not James. And I don’t want to go home, protested Charlotte. K and P, K and P, she chanted as he swiveled the pushchair and started back towards Notting Hill Gate.

K and P, eh? He frowned, pretending to consider. I suppose we could stop in for a bit. Maybe we’ll see MacKenzie and Oliver, eh? Kitchen and Pantry, the coffee shop on Kensington Park Road, had become a regular weekday-morning refuge, as it was for many local mothers with small children. At least it gave Charlotte an opportunity to socialize, Kincaid told himself as he picked up his pace.

Not to mention the opportunity it gave him for adult—and, he had to admit, female—company. He did his best to ignore the fact that his capitulation got easier by the day.

We could have played Clerkenwell. George looked up from tightening his snare drum, his round face already turning pink from the heat in the pub, his tone aggrieved.

How many times have we played every bloody pub in North London? Andy shot back. The fact that he knew he was in the wrong made him defensive. The gig they’d turned down had been at the Slaughtered Lamb, a good music venue with a reputation for launching up-and-coming bands. It was time we did something different. It sounded weak, even to him.

Nick kept his head bent over the tuners on his bass, not looking at either of them. "It was time you did something different, you mean," he said, the hurt in his voice evident whingeing.

Members of bands tended to find separate personality niches. In theirs, George, despite his slightly chubby, jolly looks, was the moaner. Andy had the lead guitarist’s attitude. And Nick, the lead singer and bass player, had a bass player’s imperturbable cool. If Nick was angry, you knew you’d crossed a line.

Look, guys, Andy began, but he had to raise his voice over the increasing racket from the Friday-night post-happy-hour drinkers. It was a good pub, but the band was obviously secondary to the food and drink and they were jammed into a small space at the back on one side of the bar. Tam said this producer would be here—

To hear you, said George, now in full scowl. Not that anyone is likely to hear anything in this place. And do you know how far away I had to park the fucking van? They’d unloaded their equipment at the White Stag, with the van on the double yellows. Then George had driven off to find a place to put his battered Ford Transit. It had been a full twenty minutes before he’d reappeared, damp from the rain and huffing. We might as well be marooned on a desert island. Bloody Crystal Palace, I ask you.

Bloody Crystal Palace was right, thought Andy, and cursed himself. He’d known it was a bad idea, but Tam had been so persuasive. As managers went, Tam wasn’t a bad egg. He’d done his best for them, but lately Andy had begun to sense even Tam’s good-natured optimism flagging. Bands had a shelf life, and theirs was expiring. Chances were that if they hadn’t made it by now, they weren’t going to.

The fact that they all knew it didn’t make it any easier, or mean that they talked about it. But Nick had enrolled in an accounting course. George was working days in his dad’s dry-cleaning business in Hackney. And Tam had been booking Andy more and more session work on his own. The truth was that he was better than they were, and they all knew that, too. But as much as Andy had groused about the band and about needing a change, he was finding the reality of it bitterly hard. They were mates. They’d been together, off and on, in various groups, for nearly ten years. Nick and George were the closest thing he had to family, and he’d only now begun to realize what it would mean to lose them.

Look, guys, Andy said again. It’s only one night, all right? Then we can—

Tam’s here. George settled onto his stool and gave a little tap on the snare for emphasis. "So where’s this mysterious producer who’s coming to see if you can play with a girl."

Just shut up, will you, Andy hissed. He could see Tam pushing his way through the crowd, an expectant smile on his face. Their manager’s real name was Mick Moran, although few remembered it. He was a Glasgow Scot, and had acquired the nickname courtesy of the wool tam he wore, winter and summer, to cover his balding pate. The hat was so old that its red-and-green Moran tartan had long since faded into clan neutrality.

Lads, said Tam when he reached them. All set, then? Looks a good crowd. He rocked on the balls of his feet, grinning at them.

Right, Tam. Andy forced a smile, restraining himself from saying that the crowd looked the sort that would shout over the music and request the lamest covers imaginable. Neither Nick nor George responded, and when he glanced round, both looked mutinous.

Right, then, Andy thought. If that was their attitude, so be it. He ran his pick across the strings of his Strat to check the tuning one last time, then launched into the distinctive opening chords of Green Day’s Good Riddance. He usually sang backup, but this was one of the few songs where he rather than Nick sang the lead.

The evening went downhill from there. Nick and George were off on their timing, and when Nick took the lead he mumbled and slurred the lyrics. Glimpsing Tam’s worried face in the back of the room, Andy played faster and louder. If his bandmates were determined to bugger this for him, they were doing a bloody good job.

Then he saw another man with Tam. Tall, with close-cropped hair and beard and wire-rimmed glasses. Caleb Hart, the producer who had asked Tam to book them here. The producer who had discovered a promising girl singer, and who needed a guitarist to record with her. Caleb Hart and Tam went way back, and when Tam had told him he had a good session man, Hart had suggested this gig and a practice session the next day in a studio he used in Crystal Palace. He’d wanted to hear Andy with the band, and Andy had made the mistake of telling Nick and George the reason for the booking.

Now Hart said something in Tam’s ear and shook his head.

The band shuddered to a halt at the end of Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit and Andy felt the sweat of desperation. Someone in the crowd yelled, Mumford!

A joker on the other side of the room shouted back, ‘Stairway to Heaven,’ you wanker. A groan went up. ‘Stairway,’ ‘Stairway,’ the joker’s friends began to chant, and a rumble ran through the room. The temperature in the bar had risen along with the alcohol consumption and Andy knew things could turn ugly fast.

Stairway topped most bands’ hated-cover list, and Nick couldn’t sing the Robert Plant vocal to save his life. But Andy could play the hell out of Jimmy Page’s lead, so he hit the effects pedal and launched straight into the guitar solo, giving it a bluesy-reggae twist that had the crowd stomping within a minute.

When he knew he had them, he segued into Dr. Feelgood’s Milk and Alcohol, playing Wilko Johnson’s lead and singing Lee Brilleaux’s husky vocal, which thank God was simple enough that he could play and sing at the same time.

It wasn’t until he hit the last chord and gave a bow to the audience that he realized he was bleeding. He’d cut his left thumb and the bright blood had splattered, almost invisible against the Strat’s red finish.

Time for some of that alcohol, he said into the mike. We’ll be back in a few.

He scanned the audience. Tam and Caleb Hart were nowhere to be seen. But then he caught a glimpse of a profile, just a flash of a woman’s face in the back of the room as she moved among taller punters. Then she too was gone, but memory pricked him, and he felt dislocated, breathless, as if the air had been sucked from the room.

Then he heard George laugh, a high-pitched snigger, and he was aware again of the blood on his thumb and of his own fury. You bastards, he said, turning on Nick and George. What the hell do you think you were playing at?

George raised a full pint and gave him a mock salute. To our guitar hero.

You bastards, Andy said again. He was shaking, and wondered fleetingly if he was ill. You deliberately—

A hand tugged at his sleeve. Hey, mate. The voice was slightly slurred.

Turning, Andy found himself facing a bloke about his own age in a scruffy hoodie. When Andy frowned at him, the bloke pushed his hood back, revealing short brown hair that still managed to look unkempt. Light caught the wisp of a soul patch under a lower lip that was just a bit too full.

Look, said Andy, I’m in the middle of—

Always knew you’d be good. Nice guitar. The guy reached towards the Strat.

Don’t touch my guitar. Andy’s response was automatic. Memory was tugging at him again, and he felt queasy. You— He shook his head and peered again at the bloke’s face, wishing he’d worn his glasses. Do I know you?

Ha bloody ha. Always the joker, our Andy.

What the hell was this bloke on about? Andy stepped back. Look, just bugger off. And don’t call me—

You really don’t remember me? Soul-patch sounded petulant now, and something in the tone blasted Andy’s vague perception of familiarity into full-blown recognition.

Joe?

I knew it was you when I saw the poster for the band. I knew you’d come back someday. Soul-patch smiled, showing white, even teeth that seemed at odds with his overall air of neglect. I thought we could have a pint, maybe. Old times, yeah? Or are you too good for us now? Andy the rock star.

Soul-patch. Joe. Bloody Joe, grown up to be even more pathetic than he had been as a kid. The anger boiled up in Andy, so fierce it almost doubled him over. Old times? You little shit. He knew he must be shouting, but he didn’t care. You—Why would you think I ever wanted to see your stupid face again? Andy saw the crowd around them as a blur through a red, beating haze.

Hey, man, it’s been years. Joe was wheedling now. Water under the bridge. Can’t we just for—

Forget? Don’t you even think it, Andy spat at him, his hands balling into fists without his volition. Nick stepped up behind him, murmuring something, but Andy shoved him back with his shoulder.

I just wanted to be friends, that’s all—

Friends? Friends? You should have thought about that then, shouldn’t you? Andy went cold, the room fading until there was only a hum in his ears. He wanted nothing but to blot that face from his vision. Just. Fuck. Off. His right fist slammed into Joe’s face.

Then Nick was wrapping his arms around him, dragging him backwards through the jumble of cables, pushing him down onto his amp.

A new face loomed over him, a silver-haired man, booming at him in authoritarian tones. . . . can’t have that in a public place . . . management should call the police . . . assaulting customers, you little hooligan.

Hooligan? Andy managed a strangled laugh. You’ve no idea. Who the hell are you? He struggled to get up, to tell this wanker what he thought of him, but Nick still had him firmly by the shoulders.

Leave the laddie be. It was Tam’s voice. And take care with the wee guitar, Tam added, his strained face swimming into Andy’s vision as he pulled the Strat over Andy’s head and set it in its stand. You, laddie, outside, he ordered, yanking Andy to his feet, and the crowd parted as Tam marched him through. There was no sign of Joe or the silver-haired man.

Tam pushed him out the side door that faced on Church Road and Andy gasped at the sudden enveloping chill. The drizzle had turned to fog, dense as cotton wool.

Spinning Andy round to face him, Tam gave him a shake. What the hell were you thinking in there? First you let those idiots sabotage the gig and then you start a bloody barroom brawl? The fog muted his voice, but Andy had never seen Tam so angry.

I—

Tell me you havenae broken your bloody hand, Tam went on, gentler now, but the Glasgow accent was still in full force. Let me see it.

Andy held his right hand up, wondering that he hadn’t felt the pain.

Can ye move your fingers?

Andy gave them an experimental wiggle and nodded, then cradled his hand to his chest. It stung like bloody hell now.

Ice. You’d best get ice on it. Tam’s voice went steely again. But first you’re going to tell me what happened in there. And you’d better be bloody glad that Caleb Hart left before you pulled your little stunt.

They were pissed off, Nick and George, Andy said, hoping to deflect Tam from what had happened after. I suppose they had a right—

They have a right to play in their fricking locals on Saturday nights if they get their jollies from it. They’re amateurs. But you— Tam stabbed a finger at Andy’s chest, narrowly missing his injured hand. You just barely pulled that one out of the barrel. Caleb still wants you to play with the lassie tomorrow, and you bloody well better be able to use those fingers on the guitar.

But I don’t—

I don’t want tae hear it. Tam stepped back, his eyes narrowed, his voice gone quiet, and that was worse than the temper. If you screw this up, lad, you don’t have the brains God gave a sheep, and your talent isn’t worth your fricking piece-of-crap guitar case. He drew a breath, then said even more softly, If you walk away from this, I’m finished with you. You hear me, laddie? Ten years I’ve given you, for a break like this, and you’re just too bloody scared to take it.

Tam should have looked ridiculous, his stubby hands clenched at his sides, his lips pinched into a bloodless line, but he didn’t.

Andy shivered. He felt a swirl of violence in the chill air, a pulse of emotion that made the hair rise on the back of his neck.

But it hadn’t come from Tam—Tam’s anger was palpable, direct. This was something else, some indefinable malice that moved in the fog, and Andy was, suddenly, frightened.

And he also knew that Tam was right.

CHAPTER TWO

The exact boundary for the Crystal Palace area isn’t precise, because it takes the name from Crystal Palace Park. There is also a Crystal Palace Railway Station and a Crystal Palace Ward in the London Borough of Bromley.

—www.crystalpalace.co.uk

The persistent sound tugged Gemma from the depths of sleep.

She rolled over and groaned, pulling the pillow over her head to shut out the irritating tune. Duncan patted her shoulder and mumbled something.

Phone, he said more distinctly. It’s yours. It was, she realized—the annoying stock ring tone that everyone in the family griped at her to change. Emerging from under the pillow, she realized that pale gray daylight had infiltrated the room, and when she squinted at the clock it read 8:05.

Oh, God, she said, her heart thumping into overdrive as she came thoroughly awake. How had they slept so late? Why weren’t the children up? Kit could manage to sleep in on weekends, but Charlotte and Toby were usually bouncing on the bed by seven.

Then she remembered. Last night had been Duncan’s newly instituted family pizza-and-game night. Pizza, homemade. Game, Scrabble. Nothing electronic allowed, and no takeaway. Kit had complained mightily when his phone and his iPod were both banned, but in the end even he had seemed to enjoy the evening. The little ones had stayed up late, and once they were tucked in and Kit was in his room, she and Duncan had polished off a very nice bottle of Bordeaux in front of the fire, planning how they’d spend the weekend. Today was for shopping and lunch with the kids; then on Sunday she’d promised to take the children to Leyton to visit her parents.

Her phone fell silent, but before she could breathe a sigh of relief, it started ringing again. Not a good sign. Sitting up, she yanked the duvet up to her shoulders, then fumbled the mobile from the charger. She glanced at the caller ID before clicking on.

Melody, she said on a yawn.

Sorry, boss. Melody sounded wide awake. Saturday’s canceled, I’m afraid. We’ve got a call-out.

Domestic? asked Gemma, still holding on to a smidgen of hope for her weekend. Friday nights were notorious for domestic disputes escalating into alcohol-fueled violence, but the cases were usually fairly straightforward.

No. Something much more interesting, Melody said cheerfully. A man found in a hotel room. Naked, bound, and strangled. I can pick you up in—as she paused, Gemma knew they were making the same calculations, how long for a barely wet shower, clothes, a minimum of makeup—twenty minutes, Melody said. Twenty-five, max.

With an apologetic shrug aimed at Duncan, Gemma slipped out of bed and headed for the bathroom. Where are we going? she asked Melody.

Crystal Palace.

By midday that August, you could fry an egg on the tarmac of Crystal Palace Parade, and the air in the town center reeked of bus exhaust mixed with just a hint of candy floss.

In the mornings, Andy had his cornflakes in the kitchen,