Deborah Crombie - Where Memories Lie

"Holy shit." Cullen was peering at one of the two speakers flanking Oliver's audio setup. He jabbed a finger at the speaker. "Do you know how much one of these things costs? These are B and W's. Five thousand pounds apiece. Five thousand pounds for just one of these, and you've got two. You could buy a bloody car for what these things are worth."

Kincaid wasn't sure if he sounded more outraged or envious. "B and W's?" he asked.

"Bowers and Wilkins. Based in Worthing. They make the best high-end loudspeakers this side of the Atlantic."

Oliver backed up a step, as if looking for a bolt-hole. "No, man, you don't understand." He shook his head. "I got them secondhand. I never paid that much for them."

"Yeah, right." Cullen rolled his eyes. "I get the catalogs. These are new."

Cullen, a secret audiophile? Kincaid logged the fact for future reference, then said, "My, my, Doug. You have big aspirations on a policeman's salary." He turned to Oliver. "And, Giles, when you add in the rest of this equipment, I suspect you seem to have even bigger ones for someone making a salesclerk's wages. That must be some fiddle you've got going, if you can afford equipment like that. Maybe there's a bit more to it than the odd percentage on a phantom bid. Did Kristin find out you had your finger in more than one pie?"

"You have no business questioning how I spend my money." Oliver drew himself up, but Kincaid could see that he was shaking. "I have an allowance from my parents, if you must know. And none of this has anything to do with Kristin. She never came here. She never saw any of this."

Thoughtfully, Kincaid said, "That brings us very nicely back to where we started, doesn't it, Giles? Rejection. Jealousy. Kristin turned you down flat that night, and not very nicely, either, according to her mum."

"Just because you don't have a driving license doesn't mean you can't drive," chimed in Cullen. "And with all this equipment, I'd be willing to bet that hot-wiring a car is not beyond your skills. One was stolen just a few streets from here the night Kristin Cahill was killed. It was found abandoned the next day-the police assumed it was joyriders. But maybe you took it, Giles, and left it after you ran Kristin down."

"I never hurt Kristin," protested Giles, sounding near tears. "I loved her."

"That's obsession, Giles. Not love," Kincaid said. "She didn't even like you." The dog lifted his head at the change in his voice, then settled back down with a grunt. "Did you get Harry Pevensey's name from the files?" Kincaid went on. "Did you think he was Kristin's secret lover? The one who sent her the roses?"

"I'd never heard of him until you said his name a few minutes ago." Oliver looked round wildly, as if help might appear out of thin air, but even his dog had abandoned him. "I'm not talking to you anymore. I don't care what you say."

Kincaid sighed and, slipping the dog's head from his knee, stood. "Then I think we'd better take you into the Yard. We'll see if your prints match any of those found on the stolen car."

"But-You can't." Oliver sounded more shocked than belligerent. "What about Mo?"

"Surely you have a friend or a neighbor who could look after your dog."

"No. There's no one. There's this daft woman with cats downstairs, but she can't stand him. I don't know anyone else."

"Your parents?"

"They're in Hampshire."

Kincaid glanced at his watch. "Too late for the RSPCA. I suppose we'll have to have him impounded."

"No!"

"They won't put him down for twenty-four hours," Kincaid said, disliking himself for the deliberate cruelty, but willing to use it. "Doug, ring the animal warden-"

"No, wait." Oliver looked as though he might imitate Dominic Scott and faint on them. "I'll tell you everything."

They made love the first time with the ferocity of starvation, abandoning clothes in an awkward stumble to the bedroom, desperate to touch skin to skin.

The second time they had been tender, gentle in discovery, laughing a little at the wonder of it.

And much later, once more, with a lazy, sated pleasure that turned suddenly to urgency, leaving them gasping and shaken.

And in between, they had talked. He told her about his childhood in Chelsea, about his fascination with the ever-present river and his love of the Albert Bridge, about life in London before the war. She told him about a Berlin that had seemed to her enchanted in those years before the war, about her writing, and about continuing her studies, a secret she had not shared with anyone, even David.

Easily, they traded favorite foods, and books, and music, and places they had seen. And all the while they navigated around the boulders beneath the surface of the stream-David, and David's death, and Gavin's wife and children, as if by doing so they could make a world that contained nothing but the two of them, and they said nothing, nothing at all, about the morrow.

Erika knew now that the way she and Gavin had come together was the way it was meant to be between two people, and that for David sex with her had been little more than a duty. Her husband had been her first lover, and she had thought herself somehow lacking, or her desires unnatural.

And the other-the other didn't bear thinking of, especially not here, not now.

Gavin had left her at dawn, even though she'd begged him to stay. "I don't want your neighbors talking," he said, and she'd reluctantly let him ease his warm body from hers.

When he'd dressed, he'd bent to kiss her once more, whispering, "This is too fine a thing to spoil," and when she'd heard the latch of the door click behind him and his footsteps fade away in the quiet street, she had hugged her joy to herself like a pearl, and fallen instantly into a dreamless sleep.

"You're right. I was jealous," admitted Giles. "But I can't drive. I failed my bloody test three times before I came up to London, and there's really not much point here." He sat in the chair with the curved wood arms, and the dog went to him and collapsed at his feet with a sigh.

"So is that your excuse for running Kristin down?" asked Cullen. "Bad driving?"

"Don't be stupid. I'm telling you that I wasn't driving. But I knew where Kristin lived. We'd talked about it-about how she wanted to get out from under her parents-and it wasn't that far from here.

"So that night, I wanted to see who she was meeting. I didn't think I could hang about outside the Gate without her noticing, but I thought if I waited for her to come home, I'd see who dropped her off, and there are plenty of places along the King's Road where you can fade into the shadows."

"And you knew this because you'd done it before?" Kincaid asked.

Oliver scowled at him. "What do you think I am? Some sort of pervert? No, I hadn't waited for her at night before, but I knew where her building was. I mean, if you go down the King's Road, you can't help but notice." When Kincaid merely raised an eyebrow, he swallowed and went on. "But it was a stupid thing to do. It was getting cold, and I'd walked up and down enough that I thought people would start to notice me. There was a woman out with her dog who looked at me like-well, never mind. So I'd just about decided to go home when I saw her."