Deborah Crombie - Where Memories Lie

"You're sure?" asked Cullen, before Kincaid could dial.

"Of course I'm bloody sure." Kincaid turned on him, and Cullen realized he was in a blazing fury. He didn't blame the constable for hightailing it out of range. "Someone is a step ahead of us, and this poor bastard-Harry Pevensey-is dead because of it. I don't intend to let this happen again, and heads are going to roll for no one having had the sense to call in CID before now. We should have seen the body in situ. The pathologist should have seen the body. And I want the uniform who interviewed the neighbor who found him."

He punched in numbers as if the phone were complicit in the cock-up.

As Cullen listened to his boss working his way up the food chain, first at the local station, then at the Yard, with increasing ire, he was glad not to be on the receiving end. Kincaid usually managed through diplomacy, and Cullen guessed that some of his uncharacteristic burst of anger was directed towards himself.

But how could they have prevented this chap's death when they hadn't known who he was until that morning? If Kincaid thought they could have talked the information out of Amir Khan without a warrant, he was overestimating their powers of persuasion.

Could Khan, who had known the warrant was imminent, have decided to silence Harry Pevensey? Cullen's friend in Fraud had not got back to him-he would give him another call at the first opportunity.

Now he studied the accident scene, and when Kincaid had ended his calls, said, "Guv, how the hell did someone manage to run this bloke over here? It's a bottleneck, and difficult enough to get a car round the bend at a crawl."

Kincaid followed his gaze, frowning. "They didn't come round the bend. See that?" He pointed to a refurbished block of flats that faced Hanway Place's sharp right-hand jog. "They could have reversed into that little alcove, and waited. That way they had a straight shot down this section of the street."

"Still," argued Cullen, "they wouldn't have been able to get up much speed."

"Enough to knock him down," Kincaid said grimly. "And if it was the same car that hit Kristin, it was an SUV, and it might have been possible to reverse over him."

"Ugh. Risky as hell."

"So was Kristin Cahill's murder, which was one reason I thought it might not have been premeditated. But perhaps getting away with that one made him cocky."

"Whoever it was knew Kristin Cahill's patterns, and this bloke's-Pevensey," Cullen speculated.

"Or made a damned good guess," Kincaid said. "While we're waiting for uniform to get here with the witness's name and statement, let's see if the accident lads confirm our theory. And then we need to get into Harry Pevensey's flat."

"Good God, the guy was an old maid," said Cullen, surveying Harry Pevensey's flat from the door. "This stuff looks like something out of my gran's."

They had not waited for uniform to bring them a key from the victim's effects, but had got the flat number and rung a mobile locksmith.

The flat, in a housing-authority block that had seen better days, was little more than a bedsit, one room, with a small kitchen alcove and a doorway leading to what he assumed was the bath. The furnishings, like the building, were well worn, but what Kincaid saw was quality, carefully, perhaps even desperately, preserved.

The bed was neatly made, the kitchen tidy. One wall held a collection of signed photographs of actors Kincaid vaguely recognized, while on the other a false mantel framed an electric fire. Propped on the mantel were postcards and invitations, some yellowing with age. A small painted secretary looked like the only possible receptacle for papers.

"He liked his gin," said Cullen, who had gone straight for the rubbish bin in the kitchen. "Cheap stuff, for the most part."

Kincaid had gone to examine the little gallery more closely. Several of the obviously dated photos showed a handsome, dark-haired man with more well-known stage actors, and were signed, "To Harry."

Cullen had moved on from the kitchen and was riffling through the bills tucked into one of the secretary's compartments. "Electricity overdue. Overdue account with a local off-license-that's no surprise-and it looks like he owed his"-he held the paper up and squinted at it-"his tailor. This guy had a tailor?" He gave a dismissive glance round the flat. "Money could have been better spent, if you ask-"

"Who the hell are you?" The raised voice came from the door, which they had left off the latch.

Turning, Kincaid saw a young man in a T-shirt emblazoned with GOT SLIDE? and ragged jeans, staring at them belligerently. His bleached-blond hair stood up as if he'd just got out of bed, and his eyes were dark-shadowed in an oval and somewhat androgynous face.

"The police," Kincaid said easily. "Who are you?"

"Oh, Christ." The young man sagged against the doorjamb, as if punctured. "You know, then? Harry's dead."

"You were Harry's friend?" Kincaid asked, thinking it unlikely, but he'd seen stranger alliances.

"I'm his neighbor. Andy Monahan."

"You found him?" said Kincaid, remembering the name the local station had given him.

"Christ," said Andy Monahan again, blanching so that the dark smudges under his eyes were more pronounced.

Kincaid crossed the room in a swift stride and, taking Monahan firmly by the arm, guided him to a chair. "Here, sit." To Cullen he added, "Get him some water." It was a distraction, but often a successful one, and he didn't want anyone sicking up in Pevensey's flat.

Monahan took the glass Cullen brought and drank it steadily down, then leaned back and closed his eyes for a moment. "Sorry. It's just that I think I'll see that-see him-for the rest of my life."

"Why don't you tell us what happened," Kincaid suggested, perching on the arm of the other chair. "Start at the beginning. Were you and Harry friends?"

"Not exactly. But he was all right. He'd feed my cat for me when I was away on a gig. He liked to talk, when he was into the gin, about the times he'd acted with Hugh Laurie, and Nigel Havers, and oh, he even said he'd done a play once with Emma Thompson and Ken Branagh. It was probably bollocks, but I didn't mind."

"Harry was an actor?"

"Yeah. But not a very lucky one, obviously." Monahan gestured round the flat. "I mean, I'm one to talk, but he was like, old. Fifties. I'm just starting out."

"You're a musician?" Kincaid asked.

"Guitarist. Been playing since I was twelve. Band's called Snogging Maggie, but it's not, honestly, as good as it could be."

Snogging Maggie ? Kincaid thought. He didn't even want to go there. A closer look had made him revise his estimate of Andy Monahan's age. He might be in his late twenties-it was the blond hair and the prettiness that made him seem younger. And he suspected that it was shock that had prompted the confessional state.

"So tell us about last night."

Andy gripped the frayed knees of his jeans. "We had a gig in Guildford. Total shit. By the time we got back to town, it must have been going on two. The guys dropped me off at the top of the street-you can't get the van through if there's anyone parked.

"We were drinking a bit. Nick and me. Not George, who was driving," he assured them, as if he thought they would run his friend in. "So I was a bit pissed, you know, and when I saw-I thought it was some old bit of rubbish-I thought he was-I pushed at him with my toe-" Andy covered his face with his hands, rubbing at his cheekbones to ease what Kincaid suspected was the ache of tears. "Puked all over my fricking Strat case, didn't I?" he said through his fingers. "Jesus Christ. Harry."

"You called the police?"

"Dropped my mobile in the gutter, in God knows what. Couldn't punch the fricking keys." He dropped his hands and looked up at Kincaid. "I couldn't watch. When they put him in the bag. I thought that was only on the telly."