The Sound of Broken Glass Part 18

-Betty Carew, www.helium.com "G.o.d, I'm starving," said Gemma as she buckled herself into Melody's pa.s.senger seat. They'd decided to leave Gemma's car at the square, as she would need to return. "But this has turned into the day from h.e.l.l and I don't think lunch is an option. I want to talk to Shaun Francis's mother before the daughter's had too much time with her."

Melody started the car, then reached into the back and held up a paper bag. "Ta da. From the pub. I got us both prawn and rocket. Seemed the safest-or at least the least messy-choice."

Taking the bag, Gemma reached in and pulled out packets of crisps and two wrapped sandwiches. "Bless you. The barman must have fancied you to do them up like this. You'd better watch yourself, influencing the witnesses like that."

Melody made a strangled sound, but when Gemma looked at her she was concentrating on reversing into the road.

"Want me to feed you bits?" Gemma continued as she opened her sandwich. "Looks delicious, but it is a bit splodgy."

"I'll nibble at the traffic lights. And really, I'm not all that hungry."

Gemma gave her a concerned glance. "Are you feeling okay? Postcrime scene queasies?"

"No, I'm fine. And that wasn't half as bad as the Belvedere in Crystal Palace. Thank G.o.d Shaun Francis kept his central heating turned down."

Biting into her prawn and rocket sandwich, Gemma nodded agreement. She chewed for a moment, then said, "I can see why he ate his meals at the pub. Although maybe it wasn't the best plan for dieting." Brushing a crumb from her lip, she added, "Maura Bell wasn't nearly as hard to deal with as I expected. Duncan worked with her on that arson case in Southwark, you remember? Made her sound a bit of a dragon."

"Maybe she gets on better with women," Melody suggested.

"Could be." Gemma had left Bell in charge of the Cleaver Square scene, and felt confident in doing so. "Didn't Doug go out with her for a while?"

"Doug?" Melody shot her a shocked glance, then looked back at the road, both hands gripping the wheel. "Are you sure? He never said anything to me."

"According to Duncan. It didn't work out. Doug never told him why."

"But-" Melody shook her head. "I can't believe it. They're chalk and cheese. I mean, Doug's brilliant, and if you give him a problem to solve he's like a terrier with it. But this is the bloke who spent months trying to decide between two shades of cream for his sitting room ceiling. The bloke who actually went to the Doctor Who exhibition at Olympia and took photos of the TARDIS. He's a supergeek. And she's-I don't know. Sort of scarily efficient. And a bit snarky."

"Melody." Gemma rewrapped the second half of her sandwich. "Are you a little bit . . . peeved?"

"No. No, it's just . . . weird. And we're mates. I don't know why he didn't tell me."

"Do you tell him about your dates?"

"I don't have dates," said Melody, with unexpected emphasis, then changed the subject. "Boss, do you want to stop at the station?"

They were coming into Brixton. Gemma considered. "No. We'll get tied up." Realizing what she'd said, she added, "No pun intended. But I checked in with Shara while you were in the pub. Mrs. Arnott's sister identified the body. She didn't have anything helpful to add about her brother-in-law. According to Shara, she's more concerned about how she's going to care for her sister. Can't say I blame her. She said she didn't realize just how ill Mrs. Arnott was."

"He must have done a good job covering up for her."

"Maybe. But I think sometimes dementia sufferers can put up a pretty good front for a short time. Enough to fool someone who didn't deal with them on a daily basis. Sad."

"And Arnott's chambers?" asked Melody.

"So far, Shara had only managed to catch two out of the eighteen barristers. They expressed shock and dismay, but couldn't imagine how something like that could have happened to their esteemed colleague, et cetera, et cetera. I'm quoting. Shara was not a happy bunny."

"No, I imagine not. Patience is not one of her virtues. Nor is she fond of lawyers."

"I've told her to stay until everyone has come in from court, and to follow them to their local wine bar if necessary. And to find out if any of them knew Shaun Francis."

"There has got to be a connection," Melody muttered. "Two lawyers-not just lawyers, barristers-who go to pubs on a regular basis on their own, aren't particularly liked, and chat up people they don't know."

"Shaun Francis was thirty years younger," said Gemma. "Did the barman at the Prince of Wales say anything about him picking up women?"

"No. Just that he knew some of the other lawyers who came in regularly, and that the bar staff avoided getting stuck with him because he was a bore and-although he put it more politely-a bit of a t.o.s.s.e.r."

"His neighbor and even his sister seemed to have agreed on that part." Gemma pushed a stray strand of hair from her cheek. "But I'm still not looking forward to talking to his mum."

The address Amanda Francis had given Gemma was in Desenfans Road, just outside the center of Dulwich Village. It was redbrick, semidetached, in a quiet street, the sort of comfortable suburban house that always costs much more than one thought it should. The garden on the left-hand side looked neglected, even by winter standards, and Gemma surmised that neither Amanda nor her mother were green-fingered types.

"Once more unto the breach," murmured Melody as they got out and walked to the door.

"You're liking old Will today."

"Henry the Fifth, this time. I had a huge crush on Kenneth Branagh," admitted Melody. "Don't ask how many times I've seen the film."

"And you were accusing Doug of geekiness."

Thus armored, they rang the bell.

Amanda Francis answered immediately. It was obvious she'd been crying again. Her face was more swollen, and she held a sodden tissue to her nose. "No one told me how I should tell her," she said. "I remembered when the police came after my father was killed. They just said it, as if there was no point dragging it out, so that's what I did. But now I don't know what to do."

"Can we see your mother?" Gemma asked.

"She's in the conservatory." Amanda led them through a dark and cluttered hall into an even darker and more cluttered sitting room. The room felt stuffed, as if it might split at the seams, and Gemma and Melody had to thread a path through the center. "Sorry," said Amanda, as if expecting their reaction. "When we had to move here, Mum couldn't bear to let go of any of the furniture from the big house. The conservatory's the only room that's bearable."

It was just that, bearable, thought Gemma as they entered the gla.s.sed-in room at the back of the house. Some very nineties-style rattan floral-cushioned furniture, a carpet, a television, and a view of a back garden as neglected as the front. At least Kathy Arnott would, for a while, have the solace of her garden. There was none here.

Weak sun broke through the clouds, illuminating the dust in the room and the woman sitting in one of the rattan chairs. Shaun Francis's mother was stockily built and dark haired, like her children. Gemma thought she might once have been pretty. She wore now the utterly blank face of grief.

Amanda knelt beside her chair. "Mummy, these are police officers. They've come to talk to you about Shaun."

Mrs. Francis looked up at them, dark empty eyes flaring with sudden hope. "There's been a mistake. You've come to tell me there was a mistake."

"No, Mrs. Francis, I'm afraid not." Gemma sat on the edge of the floral sofa. "We're very sorry for your loss. But we need to ask you some questions about Shaun. Amanda identified the-him."

"You can't believe anything the girl says." The look the woman cast at her daughter was venomous.

"Mummy, please." Amanda flushed, turning the blotches on her face a brighter red. "Don't say things like that."

"I can't be doing without my Shaun," her mother said, immutable.

"Mummy, Shaun came for Sunday lunch once a month. I do everything for you."

"He was making something of himself," said Mrs. Francis. "He had things to do. Important things."

"He didn't come to lunch yesterday because he was playing squash. How important was that?"

Gemma cast a glance at Melody, who had perched on the sofa beside her. Amanda Francis sounded close to a meltdown, and she doubted a full-blown family feud would allow them to get anything sensible out of the mother. "Amanda," she said, "maybe you could make your mother a cup of tea."

"She wouldn't drink it," Amanda answered, sulky as a child.

"Us, then. We'd love some, wouldn't we, Sergeant?" Having seen the state of the house, Gemma wasn't sure she would drink it, either, but she wanted Amanda out of the way.

"Okay." Amanda gave a reluctant nod and left the room.

Without her daughter to combat, Mrs. Francis seemed to deflate. Her eyes brimmed and a few black tears streaked down her face. Why, wondered Gemma, had she put on mascara if she spent the day alone in the room with the telly?

"What am I going to do?" wailed Mrs. Francis, her words eerily echoing her daughter's.

"Mrs. Francis, did your son know a man named Vincent Arnott? A barrister?"

"Shaun's friends were in the City. He wouldn't want to bring them here."

"Vincent Arnott was in his early sixties, Mrs. Francis. Perhaps you or your late husband might have known him."

She shook her head. "Richard's friends weren't barristers. He was an investor. Shaun was going to get it all back. He promised me."

"Get what back, Mrs. Francis?"

"I'm sorry, but there's no milk." Amanda Francis stood in the doorway. "Inspector, could we go for a walk?"

As Gemma left the sitting room, she'd whispered to Melody, "Will you get an FLO organized?"

"Right-o. But I wouldn't want to be in their shoes," Melody had murmured back.

"You'll have to forgive my mother," Amanda Francis said as she walked quickly round the corner and into Court Lane, the street that led towards the center of Dulwich Village.

"This must be very hard for her," Gemma said now, attempting diplomacy, once she'd taken a grateful breath of cold, fresh air.

"Mummy's a bit too fond of the sherry under the best of . . . circ.u.mstances." Amanda choked back a sob on the last word. "I suppose you could call this the worst of circ.u.mstances."

"What did your mother mean when she said your brother was going to 'get it all back'?" asked Gemma.

"I'll show you." Amanda's pace was fast, and Gemma realized her heaviness disguised the fact that she was strong and quite fit. "She said my dad was an investor. Makes you think stocks and bonds and something quite sensible doesn't it?" She forged ahead, the scorn in her voice coming back to Gemma on the wind. "But it wasn't like that. My father was always on to the next good thing. He played the dot-com bubble in the mid-nineties. Made millions."

They'd reached the village and Amanda slowed, allowing Gemma to catch up with her. The little row of shops and cafes was all tasteful charm-all things that might be considered necessities by those with surplus income. The signposts at the intersections were wooden, continuing the deceit of a country village set down smack in the middle of suburbia.

Gemma followed, curious, as they left the village center behind and began to see houses again. But these were grand, detached homes, many half hidden behind high evergreen hedges-most had lush winter-green lawns.

Amanda stopped in front of a particularly impressive specimen of gleaming white stucco with dark shingles on its many gables. "This is where we grew up," said Amanda. "Until the bubble burst. Fortunately, Father had a life insurance policy that kept us from being dest.i.tute, although Mother has never for one moment accepted living in what she refers to as 'reduced circ.u.mstances.'"

"What happened to your father?" asked Gemma.

"He drove his car into a bridge abutment. There were indications that he tried to brake at the last minute, so the insurance company eventually paid out. It was a.s.sumed he'd fallen asleep at the wheel."

"You don't think so?"

"There's no way to know, is there?" Amanda shrugged, as if it didn't matter. "There was enough money from the insurance and the sale of the house to pay his creditors and Shaun's school fees, and to keep Mummy in what most people would consider reasonable comfort."

"Did Shaun really promise he'd get it all back for her?"

"No. That's just one of her fantasies. Shaun spent every penny he earned-and more-on his flat and his clothes and his . . . amus.e.m.e.nts."

"Amus.e.m.e.nts?"

"Oh, eating every meal out. Good wines. Membership in the best squash and racquetball club in the City. Everything always had to be the best for Shaun."

"Amanda . . . " Gemma paused. There was no easy way to ask the question. "Amanda, do you know if your brother was involved in any . . . unusual . . . s.e.xual activities?"

"You mean like-what I saw?" Amanda turned away from the house and started slowly back towards the village center, her shoulders hunched. "Not that I know of. But why would he have told me? I know he went out with women, but I don't think he liked them much. Who can blame him, with Mummy as an example? But if he was into . . . kinky stuff . . . I'd think it would have been Shaun doing the tying up. And hitting."

"Did he ever hit you?"

"Once or twice. When we were kids."

"Amanda." Gemma stopped in front of the children's boutique, gazing absently at a flowered corduroy dress in the window that was just Charlotte's size. Then she turned to the woman beside her. "I have to ask. Where were you last night?"

"Home. With Mummy."

"And Friday night?"

Amanda seemed puzzled, but answered readily enough. "Home. Where else would I be?"

Gemma looked at Amanda Francis, with her blotched, un-madeup face, her unstyled hair, the clothes that seemed deliberately unflattering, and wondered why she felt the need for such protection. "Amanda, you have a good job. Why do you stay with your mother?"

"What else would I do?"

Melody had endured her half hour with Mrs. Francis by sending texts requesting a family liaison officer and by having a discreet look around the room. Mrs. Francis had drawn into herself, not answering Melody's attempts at conversation or questions. Melody hoped the FLO was male-she suspected that Mrs. Francis was a woman whose universe revolved around men.

On a side table, she'd found some dusty golfing trophies-presumably the late Mr. Francis's-and some photos. The newer ones showed Shaun in cap and gown, Shaun clowning for the camera in his barrister's wig, Shaun in a group that looked as if it might have been taken at his chambers Christmas party.

There were none of Amanda, but there was an older family grouping, obviously taken when the brother and sister were teenagers and their father was still alive. Amanda had braces on her teeth and looked desperately eager to please. Shaun glared belligerently into the camera, and Melody wondered what sort of bribe it had taken to get him to the photographer's studio.

By the time Gemma returned with Amanda and they took their leave, Melody felt she'd been released from prison. Gemma had stressed to Amanda that she should not give details of Shaun's murder to her mother or to anyone else. The FLO would be able to buffer them from reporters when the press did turn up.

"I didn't dare snoop much," she told Gemma once they were in the car. "Not that I thought Mrs. F would notice, but I wasn't sure when you'd be back. Surely Amanda Francis has made some sort of . . . habitat . . . for herself in that place."

Gemma related her conversation with Amanda, then added, "I wonder if he abused his sister."

"That might make sense of some of the nasty undercurrents."

"And give her a whopping motive."

"Would Mummy give her an alibi?" asked Melody doubtfully.

"If Mrs. Francis sits in front of the telly and drinks sherry all evening, Amanda may come and go without her noticing. But that doesn't solve the problem of Vincent Arnott. And if Rashid is right about the scarf, it's not just method-there's actual physical evidence linking the two murders."