Deborah Crombie - Where Memories Lie

"Have you started talking to yourself?" said a voice behind her.

She jumped, swearing, and turned to find Doug Cullen watching her with a grin. "I was just-never mind," she said. "You shouldn't sneak up on people."

"And you shouldn't do a strip in public if you don't want people watching."

Melody flushed, furious with him and with herself. "It's warm, and warmer down there."

"You were going to steal a march on me, weren't you?" said Cullen, giving her a considering eye.

"And you weren't?" she challenged.

"I couldn't," he answered mildly. "You have Dominic Scott's photo."

Somehow this made her more aggravated, not less. Gritting her teeth, she said, "Yes. So let's get it over with," and charged towards the stairs.

But she found immediately that it was a steep, straight flight, and not made for plunging down in heels. Forced to slow down and step carefully, she felt Doug Cullen's eyes on her back and it made her as awkward as the schoolgirl she had once been.

But as she reached the floor of the club, the pulse of the music and the liquid blue light subsumed all other perception. Even though it was still early, the floor was crowded. Melody found she had to twist and sidle to make her way through the crush of bodies.

Managing to squeeze into a space at the bar before Cullen, Melody smiled at the barmaid, a pretty girl with Scandinavian-fair hair woven into a thick plait. Melody watched her making a cocktail, graceful as a dancer as she mixed, shook, and poured.

When she'd served the pink concoction to the waiting customer, she turned to Melody. "What can I get you?" Her accent was as English as Melody's own.

"We just want a word, if you don't mind." Melody held up her warrant card and the two photos she had pulled from her bag. "I'm DC Talbot." She nodded at Cullen, who had maneuvered into a space beside her. "Sergeant Cullen."

The girl looked slightly wary, but after checking that no one was waiting to be served at her end of the bar, said, "Okay. Shoot. I'm Eva, by the way."

"Were you working Monday night?"

Eva frowned, thinking, then nodded. "Yeah. I was on. Not my usual, but I was filling in for Jake."

Melody handed over the photos. "Did you see either of these people that night?" She wondered how the girl could remember anyone in the constant onslaught of faces at the bar, but to her surprise Eva nodded again and tapped the photos.

"Yeah. I've seen them before. But that night they didn't seem to be getting on. He was waiting for her, and she was stroppy from the minute she came in. Said she didn't want a drink, then when he ordered for her anyway, she practically downed it in one go."

"Then what happened?" asked Doug, interrupting the flow of the girl's narrative and irritating Melody. But Eva gave him an assessing look and smiled.

"I got busy. Next thing I saw, she was leaving, and he looked royally pissed off."

"Did he follow her?" Melody kept her tone as casual as was possible at a half shout.

Eva shook her head. "No. Had another drink. But he was broody, and didn't talk to me when I served him. Didn't tip me, either. Pretty boy," she added, with another smile at Cullen. "But I've seen him with some dodgy blokes."

"Anyone you know?"

"No. Just didn't look the sort you'd want to meet in a dark alley, if you know what I mean."

"Did you see what time he left?" asked Cullen, raising his voice against a new influx of customers.

"No. We get really busy just after the pubs close, and I don't remember seeing him after that." She glanced at the raucous crowd shoving up to the bar. "Look, sorry-" She handed the photos back.

"Thanks," said Melody. "You've been great. One more thing-where did they sit?"

"Front corner." Eva gestured towards the banquette tucked up against the street side, and glancing at the photos of the couple she had never met, Melody had a moment's vision of Dominic Scott and Kristin Cahill hunched over the table, arguing, their faces tense. Had it been about more than Dominic standing Kristin up on Saturday night?

Bringing her back to the present, Eva gave her a smile even more brilliant than the one she'd given Cullen, then said, "Why are you asking, by the way?"

Melody found she didn't want to be the one to bring a shadow on this bright girl. "Oh, just routine. Ta. Have a good night."

Melody raised a hand in salute, ignoring Cullen's frown, and led the way back through the crowd and up the stairs to the street.

It was a lovely evening. The setting sun had turned the buttermilk clouds in the sky behind the Coronet Theatre to a brilliant gold, and it looked as though cherubs might bounce down from them at any moment, blowing trumpets.

As they stood side by side on the pavement, for a wild instant Melody considered asking him if he wanted to get a meal and a glass of wine at the Pizza Express up the road.

But before she could speak, Cullen said, "It's iffy, then." He stared out at the traffic rushing past as the light changed at Pembridge Road. "The witness report puts Kristin's accident at not long after pub closing. Could Dominic have followed her, knowing her pattern, then run her down?"

"If that were the case, where did he get the car?" argued Melody, her goodwill dissipating. "I don't imagine Dominic Scott grew up learning how to hot-wire joy rides on the street. And if his mum took his Mercedes away when he lost his license, I don't imagine she gave him free access to her car for a night on the town." She shrugged. "I don't know. Somehow this doesn't feel like a lover's quarrel."

"And you're the expert?"

Melody turned to look at him. Even though she sensed he didn't like her, she was surprised by the meanness of the dig.

Retaliating, she said, "She fancied you, the girl at the bar, don't you think?"

Cullen flushed. "You're taking the piss."

"And what if I am?" She gave him a mocking smile and slung her jacket over her shoulder as she turned away. "Don't you have a warrant to run down?"

Cullen watched Melody Talbot walk away. What was it about the woman that got up his nose so?

For one thing, she seemed to assume that she had the right to lead an interview, even though he was the ranking officer and it was officially his and Kincaid's case.

She had an assurance he envied, and then there was this sense he had that she could see through him, knew all his little insecurities as well as she did her case notes-and that made him want to lash out at her. It was stupid, he knew, and if he kept it up, it would get back to Kincaid and might jeopardize his job. If he had a political bone in his body, he was going to have to be civil to her.

But that didn't mean he couldn't come up with other ways to show her up.

He began to walk aimlessly towards Holland Park, even though he knew he should get the District and Circle train from Notting Hill Gate back to Victoria and the Yard.

He thought back to their interview at Harrowby's that morning, and to the slightly shifty Amir Khan and the matter of the brooch. What if Kristin Cahill's death had nothing to do with her row with her boyfriend, and everything to do with the Goldshtein brooch? Kincaid had told him that Kristin's associate, Giles Oliver, had said that Khan had raked Kristin over the coals the day Gemma had inquired about the brooch, and that Khan had seemed to have it in for Kristin in general.

What if Kristin had known something about Amir Khan, or about the brooch, that had made it worthwhile to shut her up?

Cullen had a friend in Fraud, a chap who had been one of his classmates in the academy. Charles Lessing, like Cullen, had been saddled with the disadvantage in police work of a public school education, and that background had formed a bond between them.

He would give Charles a ring at home and see if Amir Khan had come across the sights of SO6.