Part 33 (1/2)
”What happened then?” asked Gemma, leaning forward.
”As soon as I got away from that d.a.m.ned hotel I was already ashamed of myself. Ashamed of what I'd done. Ashamed of how I'd felt doing it. I almost went back, but I couldn't make myself. I didn't know if the band had finished at the White Stag, but there was no way I could face Andy after that. Not that night. I flagged a taxi on Church Road and went home.”
Gemma threw a swift glance at Melody, who still stood by the cubicle curtains, her face unreadable. Then Gemma said quietly to Nadine, ”But you still wanted to see Andy, didn't you.”
”Not that next day, no. I was so sickened by what had happened. By what I'd done. But I'd seen Andy's name on the schedule for the club in Denmark Street for Sunday night, and by that time I thought-I still thought I owed him some sort of explanation or apology.
”But when I saw him play that night, really play, with his heart in it, I knew he was all right. More than all right.” Nadine's expression softened at the memory. ”And then”-Pausing, she looked at Melody, studying her as if making an a.s.sessment. Then she nodded again, once, and spoke to her directly. ”After that first set, when I saw him look at you, I knew he didn't need my interference or my apologies. He'd moved on, and I knew I must, too.
”It was only when I was walking home from the club that I saw on the telly about Arnott. That he was dead. I thought”-Nadine turned a pleading gaze back to Gemma-”I thought I'd killed him. That maybe he'd suffocated from the gag, even though it wasn't tight. I should never have left him like that. It was stupid and childish. But I didn't see how I could explain what I'd done . . . Oh, G.o.d.” Nadine sagged back against the pillow.
”The police believed you before, when Joe Peterson made those accusations against you,” said Gemma.
”Yes, but little good that did me.” There was a first hint of bitterness in Nadine's smile. ”All week, I'd been frantic with worry, trying to decide what to do. And then yesterday, when I saw the police outside the flat . . . I just . . . panicked. It was only when I'd had time to come to my senses that I knew I had to confess what I'd done. But I also knew I needed one last chance to talk to Andy, after all. I was sure he thought badly enough of me, but I couldn't bear him thinking I'd deliberately harmed someone, even that horrible man.”
”And what about Shaun Francis?” asked Gemma.
”Shaun Francis . . . ” Nadine frowned. ”Oh, he was the other boy, wasn't he? The one who backed up Joe Peterson's story?”
”But you hadn't seen him since?”
”No.” Nadine looked confused. ”Why would I have-”
”He was killed, too. After Arnott.”
Nadine glanced from Gemma to Melody. ”But what-I don't understand any of this. Why would someone kill Shaun Francis? And why was Joe waiting for Andy in the house? Why did he attack Andy and me?”
Gemma answered. ”Nadine, Vincent Arnott didn't suffocate. He was strangled. Shaun Francis was strangled the same way two nights later, but this time with the scarf you used to gag Arnott.”
”What?” Nadine's eyes grew wider. ”Dear G.o.d. My scarf. So that's why you came to my flat. You thought I killed both of them?” She took a moment to think it through, then frowned. ”But in the house today, Joe said something about 'the others.' It was Joe who killed them?”
”Peterson was there at the White Stag on Friday night, perhaps for the same reason as you. Maybe he saw Andy's name on the pub flyer and wanted to see what Andy had made of himself. He approached Andy at the break. Andy was furious. He hit him. This was the scuffle that prompted Arnott's outburst.
”Then,” Gemma continued slowly, still working things out for herself, ”we have to a.s.sume Joe recognized you and Arnott. We have CCTV footage of him following the two of you from the pub. I wonder . . . ” She paused, visualizing the hotel. ”The room at the Belvedere had ground-level windows. Do you remember if the curtains were closed all the way?”
Nadine shook her head. ”I-I don't think so. They didn't hang right.”
”If Joe followed you to the hotel,” Gemma went on, ”and saw Arnott let you in the fire door, he could have seen into the room through the cracks in the curtains. And we discovered that the latch on the fire door was broken. So when you left-”
”Oh, G.o.d,” Nadine whispered. ”He just walked in. I gave him the perfect opportunity. If I hadn't-and he took my scarf from Arnott's mouth after he was dead?”
”It doesn't matter,” Melody said suddenly, sharply, stepping forwards. ”It was Andy that Joe was angry with that night. He was always jealous, and Andy publicly made a fool of him. If Joe hadn't followed you, he might have waited for Andy, and who knows what he might have done? He came close enough today. All of this-everything that happened all those years ago, and everything that's happened this last week, these two murders-spiraled out from Joe Peterson's actions. Not yours. Not Andy's.
”Andy never knew, by the way, what the boys had said about you. He didn't know you lost your job or why you left your house. All this time he's thought it was his fault, that you left because you blamed him for what happened.”
Nadine's eyes brimmed with tears. ”But I never-”
”He wants to see you,” said Melody. ”He wants to make sure you're all right.”
”Oh, no, but I-” Nadine wiped at her tear-streaked cheeks. ”How can I face him now, if all this time he's thought that of me?”
”Because he knows the truth. And I think it's far past time the two of you really talked. I'll get him, shall I?”
Slowly, Nadine nodded. But when Melody turned to go, she whispered, ”Wait. Will you stay?”
”I'll get Andy,” said Gemma, and slipped from the cubicle.
For a moment, Nadine gazed at Melody, searching her face. Then, her whisper so faint that Melody stepped up to the gurney to hear, she said, ”I'll go back to Paris, you know, as soon as I can. I realized, before any of this, that I should never have come back to England. There's no life for me here.”
”But Andy-”
”I'll be an old friend.” She smiled. ”He can write to me, if he wants. I'll follow his career. Maybe someday the two of you can come to Paris.”
”But I-but we aren't-”
”I saw you together, at the club in Denmark Street. And today, when you went back into that fire-he wouldn't leave me, but he was terrified for you. I thought-I hoped that you would promise to look after him.”
Melody shook her head. ”I don't think Andy needs looking after.”
”Oh, but that's where you're wrong.” Nadine reached out and touched Melody's hand. ”We all need looking after. It's the greatest of mistakes to think otherwise. No one knows that better than me.”
When Doug Cullen's doorbell rang on Thursday evening, he thought it was about time that Melody had come to tell him in person what had been happening, instead of sending him abbreviated and inscrutable texts.
”I'm coming, I'm coming,” he shouted as he hobbled to the door. Maybe he should just have a key made for her, if his d.a.m.ned ankle didn't get better soon.
But when he opened his door, it was not Melody who stood on his slushy step, but Detective Inspector Maura Bell.
In her tan trench coat, she looked just as he remembered, although perhaps a bit more worn. Incongruously, she was holding a bunch of supermarket flowers. As he stared at her, she thrust them out. ”I heard you broke your ankle.”
”What are you-how did you-”
”Your friend Sergeant Talbot gave me your address. I thought, since you never returned my calls, that maybe with the b.u.m ankle you couldn't avoid me.”
”But I- You were the one who-” Doug stopped. The memory of her rejection still made him cringe. He'd thought their relations.h.i.+p was going somewhere until the night he tried to kiss her on the Millennium Bridge.
”You never gave me a chance to explain.”
”You didn't have to-”
”Just shut up, will you, Doug?” She gave the exasperated sigh he remembered. ”I'd been seeing someone before I went out with you. We'd split up. Before I met you that night, he'd rung, wanting to get back together. I'd thought it might work out, and so I didn't want to- It was complicated.”
Doug frowned. ”Did it work?” he asked, interested in spite of himself.