Part 19 (1/2)
By the time they arrived back in Cleaver Square, the crime scene van was gone and the early winter dusk was falling.
”I'm going to check with Maura before I head back to Brixton,” said Gemma as she unfastened her seat belt.
”I'll be right behind-” Melody stopped as her phone dinged a text. She checked it, expecting a reply to her request for an FLO for the Francises, but it read: CAN YOU COME BY FLAT? SOMETHING REALLY COOL TO SHOW YOU. A x.
Her heart thumped. So he wanted to see her again. She didn't know if she was pleased or terrified.
To Gemma she said, ”I-I've something I want to check out. Won't be long. I'll see you at the station.”
Gemma gave her a curious look, but nodded and said, ”See you in a bit, then,” as she shut the door and waved her off.
What excuse she could invent, Melody didn't know, any more than she could pretend that Oxford Street was conveniently on her way between Kennington and Brixton. But she would think of something.
The closer she got to Hanway Place, the stupider Melody felt. She should have answered the text, not just driven straight there like a lemming going over a cliff. Would he think she had nothing better to do than to show up on his doorstep practically the minute he beckoned?
Which was, of course, exactly what she was doing, but having committed herself, she wasn't going to back out.
It was dark by the time she found a place to park her car in the narrow street. She hesitated, then got out and rang Andy's bell. As she stood in the shadowy doorway, the memories from last night came flooding back. When the door latch clicked open, her knees felt so weak she wasn't quite sure she could climb the stairs.
He was waiting for her at the open door of his flat, as he had been before, but this time he was grinning with unabashed pleasure. ”I'm so glad you came,” he said, kissing her on the cheek and helping her out of her coat.
”It was on my way.” Melody shook her head, then said, ”No, it wasn't. I wanted to come.” She could still feel the imprint of his lips against her cheek and was finding it hard to breathe. ”But I wanted to tell you-Look, Andy, about last night, I didn't want you to think that I usually-on a first date-” She was still standing awkwardly in the middle of the room, wis.h.i.+ng she could shrink, like Alice.
”Oh, was that a date?” He raised an eyebrow and she felt a complete idiot. Then he touched her cheek. ”I don't, either, you know,” he said softly, meeting her eyes. ”You thought I invited every girl I took to the Twelve Bar back to bed?”
”Well, you know, big rock star and all,” she teased him back, not about to admit that she had in fact thought that.
”I may have to change my strategy, though.” He grabbed her hand and led her to the futon, now folded back into its sofa configuration, the rumpled sheets neatly folded. Seeming oblivious to her discomfort, Andy pulled her down beside him. ”Look at this.” His laptop sat open on the coffee table. He moused over the Play arrow on the video open on the screen and clicked it.
Melody watched, mesmerized. It was Andy and Poppy in the studio rehearsal s.p.a.ce on Sat.u.r.day, doing ”Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes.” The video segued to them in the recording studio, wearing headphones, singing close into studio mics, then to Andy playing a s.h.i.+ver-inducing riff on the melody line. The camera work and editing were smooth, but captured all the raw joy and charm that Melody had seen. The video s.h.i.+fted again, back to the rehearsal s.p.a.ce, but the light had altered and Andy and Poppy were wearing different clothes. This, she thought, must have been yesterday, and you could see that even in a day, their styles had melded into something even more unique and infectious. Poppy put a thumping ba.s.s under her soaring lead vocal while Andy sang harmony. They ended perfectly on the beat, burst into laughter, and the screen went dark.
”Oh,” Melody breathed. ”That was brilliant. Just brilliant. How-”
”It was Caleb. He put it up last night, just wanting to see what sort of response it got. It's gone bonkers.”
Melody looked back at the screen. ”That many LIKEs? In a day? b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l. That's not just bonkers. That's . . . that's . . . viral.”
”It was just a job,” he said, sounding baffled. ”I never expected . . . Tam and Caleb have been working on contracts and agreements all day. And Poppy seems to be taking it all in stride.”
”And you?”
He took her hand and rubbed his thumb across her knuckles. It was his left hand, the unbruised one, but she noticed a healing cut across the ball of his thumb. ”I feel like I've been picked up by a tidal wave and I don't know where it's going to set me down,” he said slowly. ”It was always the dream, you know, but I think I'd given up on it a long time ago. I've been playing professionally for more than ten years, waiting for the big rock star break. I think I'd resigned myself to a lifetime of bad bands and session work. At least the sessions marginally paid the bills and I didn't have to go to work in a b.l.o.o.d.y dry cleaners. But this-now-I don't know if I'm prepared for this.”
”Andy-”
He gave her hand a squeeze. ”And I'm an a.s.s, doing the whole confessional thing, but I couldn't tell Nick or George, and I thought you'd understand. I haven't even asked you how your day went, or if I interrupted you in the middle of anything terribly important.”
”We had another murder. Like the one in Crystal Palace, but this time in Kennington. A barrister found in his flat.”
”You mean with all the weird s.h.i.+t? The tying up and stuff?”
She'd told him last night how Vincent Arnott had been found.
”Yes. I keep thinking that while we were at the club, or . . . here . . . somebody was doing that to him. And he was young, our age, which shouldn't make it seem worse but somehow it does. If Arnott invited some woman to that seedy hotel, well, it doesn't exactly make him culpable-”
”But he exposed himself to it by his behavior?”
Melody nodded. It was odd, talking like this. Of course she discussed cases with Gemma and with Doug, but she never talked about how she felt about them. ”He was killed in his flat. He doesn't seem to have been picking up women. According to his mother and his sister, he didn't even like them very much. All Shaun Francis did was go to the pub.”
Andy's hand on hers went still. ”Shaun Francis?”
”Yeah. He-”
They'd been sitting right against each other on the futon, arms and thighs touching. Now Andy let her hand go and pulled away from her as if he'd been burned. ”Is this some kind of a sick joke?” His voice was shaking.
”Andy-”
”Tell me you're having me on.”
”Why would I do that?” His reaction frightened her. ”Andy, what is it? Don't tell me you knew Shaun Francis?”
His laugh was harsh, humorless. ”Unless there's more than one. He was the biggest b.a.s.t.a.r.d I ever met. And I haven't seen him since I was thirteen years old.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN.
A board of trustees were set up and the leader was Sir Henry Buckland. He was said to have a great love for the Crystal Palace. Buckland and his staff were soon busy in the restoration of the building. This brought visitors back and the palace was beginning to show a small profit. Buckland not only restored the building, but also the grounds surrounding it, including its fountains and gardens.
-Betty Carew,”Did you go to school with him?” asked Melody.
Andy shook his head. ”Fat chance, that. I was a charity pupil at a Catholic school. He went to some poncey public school.”
”Then how-”
”That summer, I was just learning to play the guitar, and I used to practice in the park. He-Shaun and his . . . mate-started hanging around.”
”Crystal Palace Park?”
”Yeah, but they didn't live in Crystal Palace. I never understood why they started coming there. Or why Shaun chose me as a target for his bullying. Now, I suppose it must have been the guitar.” Andy flexed his hands, as if they felt empty. ”Shaun couldn't stand that I could do something he couldn't, and that it was something he couldn't buy.” He looked up at her, his dark blue eyes shadowed. ”But I can't believe he's dead. You're sure?”
”We've just come from seeing his mum in Dulwich. And it was his sister who found him.”
”His sister? I didn't know he had a sister.” Andy must have interpreted Melody's expression as doubt, because he added, ”We weren't friends. I never really knew anything about him except that he seemed to have an unlimited supply of cash and could come and go as he pleased.”
”I'd say he was a mummy's boy of the worst sort. No limits.”