PRAISE FOR DEBORAH CROMBIE“One of mystery fiction’s finest stylists.”—Mystery News
KISSED A SAD GOODBYE“Thanks to Crombie’s ability to bring people and places to life with a phrase, none of the seams show as the story zips along.”—Chicago Tribune
“An engaging, richly peopled, satisfying mystery.”—Houston Chronicle
“Compelling from start to finish. Another winner from a dependable and gifted pro.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“[A] beautifully executed story of murder and revenge … With each volume, Crombie grows in the understanding of her characters and hones her writing and creative skills with verve and elan.”—Booknews from The Poisoned Pen
“Gripping. Highly recommended.”—Library Journal
“Readers … who loved Deborah Crombie’s Dreaming of the Bones will not be disappointed with Kissed a Sad Goodbye.… Outstanding.”—Mystery Lovers Bookshop News
“Crombie’s plot is unpredictable, leaving a reader guessing.… Her characters are well drawn.”—Austin American-Statesman
“Kissed a Sad Goodbye is a sweeping novel that casts a spell on the reader. The story is complex, with many satisfying twists and turns.”—Romantic Times
DREAMING OF THE BONESA New York Times Notable Book of the Year
Named one of the century’s best mystery novels by the
Independent Mystery Booksellers AssociatonNominated for the Edgar and the
Agatha awards for the year’s best novel
“Fascinating … multilayered.”—The New York Times Book Review
“A definite recommendation for fans of
Elizabeth George, P. D. James, and Ruth Rendell.”—Library Journal
“Dreaming of the Bones will make you cry and catch
your breath in surprise.”—Chicago Tribune
ALSO BY DEBORAH CROMBIE
All Shall Be Well
A Share in Death
Leave the Grave Green
Mourn Not Your Dead
Dreaming of the Bones*
A Finer End*
AND AVAILABLE IN HARDCOVER
FROM BANTAM BOOKS:
And Justice There Is None*
*Available from Bantam Books
This edition contains the complete text
of the original hardcover edition.
NOT ONE WORD HAS BEEN OMITTED.
KISSED A SAD GOODBYE
A Bantam Book
PUBLISHING HISTORY
Bantam hardcover edition published April 1999
DOCKLAND: AN ILLUSTRATED HISTORICAL SURVEY OF LIFE AND WORK IN EAST LONDON, North East London Polytechnic in conjunction with the Greater London Council, distributed by Thames and Hudson, Ltd. 1986.
MEMORIES OF CHILDHOOD ON THE ISLE OF DOGS, 1870-1970, edited by Eve Hostettler, published by the Island History Trust. 1993. The Island History Trust can be reached at Dockland Settlement, 197 East Ferry Rd., London E14 3BA, phone 171-987-6401.
All rights reserved.
Copyright © 1999 by Deborah Crombie.
Map by Laura Hartman Maestro.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 98-50186.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. For information address: Bantam Books.
eISBN: 978-0-307-78939-6
Bantam Books are published by Bantam Books, a division of Random House, Inc. Its trademark, consisting of the words “Bantam Books” and the portrayal of a rooster, is Registered in U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries. Marca Registrada. Random House, Inc., New York, New York.
v3.1
For Rick
who makes it possible
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks to Kate Miciak, my editor, whose insight and encouragement made this a much better book; to Nancy Yost, my agent, for her support; to Gina Wachtel, for her heroic juggling of schedules; to Tom Cherwin, for his copyediting expertise; to Honi Werner, for capturing the mood of the story so well with her evocative jacket art; to Kathryn Skoyles, whose hospitality allowed me to experience the Island firsthand; to Karen Ross, M.D., of the Dallas County Medical Examiner’s Office, for her medical advice; to those who read the manuscript and contributed suggestions: Carol Chase, Terry Mayeux, Barbara Shapiro, and the members of the EOTNWG; and special thanks, as always, to Rick and Katie for putting up with me in the midst of a book.
Contents
Cover
Other Books by This Author
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Map
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
About the Author
CHAPTER 1The old dockland is still clear in the minds of Londoners. Generations of children grew up in streets where the houses were dwarfed by ships, whose sides rose like cliffs over their back gardens.
George Nicholson, from Dockland:
An illustrated historical survey
of life and work in East London
He saw each note as it fell from his clarinet. Smooth, stretched, with a smokey luster that made him think of black pearls against a woman’s translucent white skin. “If I Had You,” it was called, an old tune with a slow, sweet melodic line. Had he ever played this one for her?
In the beginning she’d stood in the street as he played, watching him, swaying a little with the music. He’d distrusted her power clothes and her Pre-Raphaelite face. But she’d intrigued him as well. As the months went by, he never knew when she would appear. There seemed no pattern to it, yet whenever he moved, she found him.
It had been a day like this, the first time he’d seen her, a hot summer day with the smell of rain on the threshold of perception. As evening fell, the shadows cooled the hot, still air and the crowds poured out onto the pavements like prisoners released. Restless, jostling, they were flushed with drink and summer’s license, and he’d played a jazzy little riff on “Summertime” to suit their mood.
She stood apart, at the back of the crowd, watching him, and at last she turned away without tossing him even a cursory coin. She never paid him, in all the times after that; and she never spoke. It had been he, one night when she had come alone, who’d called her back as she turned away.
Later she sat naked in his rumpled bed, watching him play, and he had seen the notes disappear into the shimmering web of her hair. When he’d accused her of slumming, she’d laughed, a long glorious peal, and told him not to be absurd.
He had believed her, then. He hadn’t known that the truth of it was beyond his imagining.
“I WON’T GO.” LEWIS FINCH LEANED back in his chair and obstinately planted his booted feet on the worn rail beneath the kitchen table.
His mother stood at the cooker with her back to him, putting cabbage and potatoes on to boil for his dad’s dinner.
“You’ll need someone to look after you, if Da’s called up,” he ventured. “And if Tommy and Edward join—” He realized his mistake even as she whirled round to face him, spoon still in her hand.
“Shame on you, Lewis Finch, for trying me so. Do you not think I have grief enough with your brothers’ silly talk of uniforms and fighting? You’ll do as you’re told—” She broke off, her thin face creased with concern. “Oh, Lewis. I don’t want you to go to the country, but the government says you must—”
“But Cath—”
“Cath is fifteen next month, and has a job in the factory. You’re still a child, Lewis, and I won’t rest unless you’re safe.” She came to him and pushed his thick fair hair from his forehead as she looked into his eyes. “Besides, it’s all just talk now, and I don’t for one minute believe we’re really going to have a war. Now, go on with you, or you’ll be late for school. And get your dirty boots off my table,” she added with a telling glance at his feet.
“I am not a child,” Lewis grumbled aloud when he’d banged his way out the front door, and for a moment he was tempted to give school a miss altogether. It didn’t seem right to sit in a stuffy classroom on the first day of September.
He looked up Stebondale Street, thinking longingly of the newts and tadpoles waiting in the clay ditch behind the fence, but he hadn’t anything to collect them in. And besides, if he was late Miss Jenkins would smack his hands with her ruler in front of the class, and his mum had threatened to send him to St. Edmund’s if he got into trouble again. With a sigh, he stuck his hands in his pockets and trudged off to school.
The morning wore away, and through the open window of his class in Cubitt Town School Lewis could see the dark bulk of the warehouses lining the riverfront. Beyond the warehouses lay the great ships with their exotic cargoes—sugar from the West Indies, bananas from Cuba, Australian wool, tea from Ceylon.… Miss Jenkins’s geography lecture faded. What did she know about the world? Lewis thought as she droned on about taxes and levies and acts. Now, the Penang, she could tell you about far-off places, she could tell you about things that really mattered. One of the few masted ships that still came up the Thames, she lay in Britannia Dry Dock for refitting, and just the smell of her made Lewis shiver. After school he’d—
The creak of the classroom door brought Lewis back with a blink. Mr. Bales, the headmaster, stood just inside the door, and the expression on his long, narrow face was so odd that Lewis felt his heart jerk. From the corridor rose a dull roar of sound, the chattering of children in other rooms.
“Miss Jenkins. Children.” Mr. Bales cleared his throat. “You must all be very brave. We’ve just had an announcement on the wireless. War is imminent. The government has given orders to evacuate. You are all to go home and report back here with your bundles in one hour.” He turned away, but with his hand on the door turned back to them and shook his finger. “You must have your name tags and gas masks, don’t forget. And no more than an hour.”
The door closed after him. For a moment the room held its breath, then a shout came from Ned Norris in the back row. “A holiday! We’ve got a holiday!”
The class took up the chanting as they surged out to meet the other children in the hall. Lewis joined in, pushing through the front doors and leaping from the steps with a Red Indian whoop, but his heart wasn’t in it.
The children scattered, but as Lewis turned up Seyssel Street his feet slowed. He was suddenly aware of the sounds of the Island—the constant clangs, creaks, and whistles from the docks, and from the river the hoots of the tugs and the low thrumming of the ships’ engines. How could there be a war, when nothing had changed?
He thought of the Penang again, being fitted out for her return journey to Australia. He’d stow away, start a new life in the Outback, not be parceled off to some strange family in the country like a piece of stray baggage. Almost eleven was old enough for a job, he was big for his age, and strong—surely someone would have him.
Turning into the top of Stebondale Street, he saw his father’s old bicycle propped neatly against the front door of their house. His mother’s lace curtains, fragile from so many washings, fluttered in the open front window.
He knew then that he couldn’t run away, because he couldn’t bear the thought of his mother’s tears or his dad’s gentle disappointment.
Lewis kicked hard at the bike and it toppled with a satisfying crash. He left it lying in a heap as he went through to the kitchen, and when he saw his parents’ faces he knew that the news had come before him.
GEORGE BRENT SWUNG HIS ARMS AS much as the dog’s lead allowed and picked up his pace a bit. He needed the exercise as much as Sheba these days, for even in this heat he ached when he got out of bed most mornings. He pushed away the fleeting thought of coping with the cold and damp of winter. No point whinging about something that couldn’t be helped, and in the meantime it was a gloriously hot, summer day. Winter was months away, and his worst worry was the possibility of sunburn on his bald head.
Sheba trotted ahead of him, muzzle low in search of scent, her small black body quivering with energy. As they passed the Indian restaurant on Manchester Road, she raised her nose in a long sniff. The spicy smells emanating from its kitchen were as familiar to George now as the odor of cabbage and sausage had been in his childhood, but he’d never quite made up his mind to try the stuff—though he conceded that the urgings of Mrs. Singh might one day tip the scale.
He lifted his hand to Mrs. Jenkins in the dry cleaner next door to the restaurant, then quickened his pace yet again. He was late this morning, on account of helping Mrs. Singh with her telly, and most likely he’d missed his mates who gathered for coffee at the ASDA supermarket. But it was only fair, wasn’t it, doing a good turn for a neighbor? Especially as good a neighbor as Mrs. Singh.
Smiling at the thought of what his daughters would say if they knew what he got up to with the widow next door, he turned the corner into Glenarnock. They thought he was past it, but he still had a bit of lead in his pencil. And it was hard to expect a man to go without after so many years of having it regular. He meant no disrespect to their mum’s memory, after all.
As they came into Stebondale Street, Sheba tugged against the lead, sensing the nearness of the park, but George slowed as they reached the terraced houses across from the entrance to the Rope Walk. They made him think of the program on the Blitz he’d heard on the radio the evening before. As he’d sat snug in his kitchen with his evening cup of tea, it had brought the memories flooding unexpectedly back—the sound the planes made as they came in for a bombing run, the sirens, the devastation afterwards.
Coming to a halt, he told Sheba to sit. He took the houses for granted now, passed them every day without a thought, but this one short block of half a dozen homes was all that had survived of Stebondale as he’d known it before the war. The rest had been destroyed, like so much of the Island, like the house he had grown up in.
He’d been too old to be sent to the country, so he’d seen the worst of the bombing in the autumn and winter of 1940. The corners of his mouth turned up as he remembered the relief he’d felt when he’d presented himself at the recruiting office on his seventeenth birthday. The real war, he’d been certain, would be better than just waiting for the bombs to fall.
A few months later those nights in the Anderson’s back garden shelter had seemed an impossibly safe haven. But he had come back, that was the important thing, and his time in Italy had taught him to let the future fend for itself.
Sheba’s yip of impatience ended his reverie. He moved on obligingly and soon she had her anticipated freedom, running full tilt off the lead. George followed after her at his own pace, along the Rope Walk between the Mudchute and Millwall Park, then huffed a bit as they climbed to the Mudchute plateau. There Sheba disappeared from view as she followed the rabbit trails though the thick grass, but he stayed to the narrow path that followed the boundaries of the park. The dog always seemed to know where he was even when she couldn’t see him, and she wouldn’t stray far.
When he reached the gate that led down to the ASDA supermarket, he glanced at his watch. Half past nine—his mates would most likely be gone. The sun had moved higher in the sky and he was sweating freely—the thought of a cuppa, even on his own, was tempting. But the longer he tarried, the hotter it would be going home.
Mopping his head with his handkerchief, he walked on. Here the brambles encroached on the path, catching at his trouser legs, and he stopped for a moment to unhook a particularly tenacious thorn from his trainer laces. As he knelt he heard Sheba whimper.
He frowned as he finished retying his shoelace. It seemed an odd sound for Sheba to make here, where her normal repertoire consisted of excited barks and yips—could she be hurt? Unease gripped him as he stood quickly and looked ahead. The sound had come from further down the path, he was sure of that.
“Sheba!” he called, and he heard the quaver of alarm in his voice.
This time the whimper was more clear, ahead and to the right. George hurried on, his heart pounding, and rounded a gentle curve.
The woman lay on her back in the tall grass to the right of the path. Her eyes were closed, and the spread of her long red-gold hair mingled with the white-flowering bindweed. Sheba, crouching beside her, looked up at George expectantly.
She was beautiful. For an instant he thought she was sleeping, even hesitantly said, “Miss …”
Then a fly lit on the still white hand resting on the breast of her jacket, and he knew.
CHAPTER 2Down by the Docks is a region I would choose as my point of embarkation if I were an emigrant. It would present my intention to me in such a sensible light; it would show me so many things to turn away from.
Charles Dickens (1861)
At five minutes to ten on an already hot Saturday morning, Gemma found herself looking for an address in Lonsdale Square. A few minutes’ walk from her Islington flat, the square was lined solidly with the cars of residents at home for the weekend. A posh neighborhood, this, the preserve of upwardly mobile Blairites, and Gemma wondered how the woman could afford such an exclusive address. The terraced Georgian houses looked severe, their gray-brick facades relieved only by trim in black or white … except for the one with the glossy red door.
Gemma checked its number against the address on her notepad, then climbed the steps and rang the bell. She tucked a stray wisp of hair back into its plait and glanced down at her casual Saturday clothes—jeans and sandals and a linen shirt the color of limes. What did one wear for the occasion? Maybe she should have—
Before she could talk herself into retreating, the door swung open. “You must be Gemma,” the woman in the cherry-red jumper said, and smiled. She wore little makeup other than the red lipstick outlining her full lips, her short dark hair was fashionably ragged, as if it had been trimmed with nail scissors, and against her pale skin her eyes were a clear and luminous hazel. “I’m Wendy.”
“I like your door,” said Gemma.
“I find it breaks the ice. Come in.” The room into which she led Gemma faced the street. It stretched towards the back of the house, long and narrow with simple lines and a high ceiling. A formal Georgian mantel on the outside wall divided the room into two perfectly proportioned halves.
Beyond that all Gemma’s expectations failed. The walls were crayon yellow, the furniture sixties contemporary in primary colors, and above the mantel hung a huge poster of the Beatles crossing Abbey Road.
An upright piano stood against the long wall, between the fireplace and the rear of the room. As Gemma looked round, the woman touched her arm and gestured towards the sofa.
“Sit down. I’ve made us some coffee. This morning we’re just going to get acquainted.”
“But I thought …” Gemma’s nervousness flooded back. Whatever had possessed her to make this appointment, to give up a free Saturday morning that could have been spent with Toby? It had been a stupid idea, a chance thought followed up when it should have been dismissed, and now she was about to make an utter ass of herself. Thank goodness she’d told no one but her friend Hazel what she meant to do.
Wendy Sheinart sat down beside Gemma and lifted the coffeepot. “Now.” Smiling, she filled Gemma’s cup. “You can tell me why you want to play the piano.”
KINCAID HAD PACKED THE SORT OF picnic he thought a boy would approve of—thick ham sandwiches, potato crisps, Cokes, and the pièce de résistance, an enormous slab of chocolate gâteau from the bakery on Heath Street. He stowed the hamper, specially bought for the occasion, in the Midget’s boot, then put down the car’s top with a grateful glance at the clear blue arch of sky visible over Carlingford Road.
After the heavy rains of the first few weeks in June, the prospects for Wimbledon Finals had looked dismal. But Kincaid had persevered in his quest for tickets, finally securing two center-court seats for the day, and it seemed that the weather gods had seen fit to reward his diligence.
Offering up a silent thanks, he hopped into the car with an unaccustomed sense of anticipation. The Midget’s engine roared obediently to life, and as he eased it into gear he felt a spasm of guilt for having even considered getting rid of the old car. Abandonment seemed a poor compensation for its years of faithful service—a bit like putting down a good dog—not to mention the fact that Kit would probably never forgive him. The boy had fallen in love with the car at first sight, and the last thing he needed now was another loss, however small.
Since his ex-wife’s murder in April, Kincaid had done what he could to fill the gap in her son’s life. He had also come to feel sure that Kit was, in fact, not Vic’s second husband’s son but his own child, conceived just before he and Vic had separated twelve years ago—though he had yet to tell Kit what he suspected was their true relationship.
Turning into Rosslyn Hill, Kincaid headed south, into Haverstock Hill, then into Chalk Farm and Camden High Street. When he’d passed through Camden Town on his way home from Gemma’s earlier that morning, the street vendors had been setting up their booths. Now the Saturday market was in full swing and the display of colorful cotton skirts and dresses made him think of Gemma. The clothes would suit her, and she’d enjoy the bustle of it all. Perhaps one day soon they could bring Kit for a Saturday outing.
He wondered how she meant to spend her Saturday. She’d assured him that she hadn’t felt left out over the tennis, that he and Kit needed a bit of male bonding, but she hadn’t offered any hint of her own plans. Or had he simply failed to ask?
The sudden braking of the car in front caused him to give up his ruminations on the minefields of relationships and to concentrate on survival. The traffic crept along the rest of the way to King’s Cross, but still he found a space at the curb and made his way to the platform with time to spare.
When the Cambridge train eased to a stop a few moments later, Kincaid felt the same flash of excitement he’d known as a child on meeting a train. In his small Cheshire town the trains had brought a whiff of the outside world, of adventures yet to be had, people yet to be met.
He craned for a sight of Kit’s fair hair through the mill of disembarking passengers, then waved as he spotted him. Smiling to disguise the painful jolt that Kit’s resemblance to Vic still gave him, he gave the boy a friendly thump on the shoulder before holding out his hand for their customary high five. “Hullo, sport. Anyone for tennis?”
Grinning, Kit slapped his palm, then swung his holdall over his shoulder as they walked towards the exit. “Colin was so jealous. You should’ve heard him moaning and whinging about it. Laura was that fed up.”
“And I’m sure you did your best not to rub Colin’s nose in it,” Kincaid said wryly as he opened the boot and took Kit’s bag. “No, don’t look in there.” He snapped the boot shut before Kit could see. “I’ve got a surprise.”
“A surprise? Really?” Kit’s eyes widened, proof that eleven was not too old for treats. He swung himself over the passenger door into the Midget with the finesse of a hurdler. “What kind of surprise?”
“The edible sort,” Kincaid teased as he started the car. “Wait and—” His phone shrilled just as he eased the nose of the car into the street. Swearing under his breath, he slipped it from his pocket with one hand while maneuvering the car back into its parking space with the other.
“Kincaid,” he snapped, and heard in answer the familiar voice of the Yard’s receptionist telling him to hold.
“What is it?” asked Kit.
Covering the mouthpiece, Kincaid said, “Work.” Then he added, with more confidence than he felt, “Won’t take a minute.”
Chief Superintendent Denis Childs came on the line, sounding as unruffled as always. Kincaid had been guilty more than once of wishing for a natural disaster, just to see if Childs were capable of an elevated pulse.
“Look, Duncan, I’m sorry.” The smooth rumble of the superintendent’s voice hinted at his bulk. “I know you’re not on the rota this weekend.”
Kincaid’s heart sank. An apology up front was not a good sign.
“But it’s been one of those days,” his boss continued. “The other teams have already been called out, and we’ve just had a homicide report that the local team feels needs our intervention. Their DCI is away for the weekend, and their guv’nor feels it might be a bit much for the newly promoted inspector on call this weekend.”
“A proper baptism,” Kincaid agreed. “Where’s the body, then?”
“The Isle of Dogs. Mudchute Park.”
“Oh, Christ.” Kincaid hated outdoor crime scenes. At least indoors you had some hope of containing the evidence.
“A young woman,” continued Childs. “From the preliminary reports it sounds like a strangulation.”
“Are the SOCOs on the way?” Kincaid asked, grimacing. An outdoor sex crime. Even better. “Have the uniformed lads cordoned off the area?”
“In the process. How soon can you be there?”
“Give me—” Kincaid glanced at his watch, and the movement brought Kit’s white, tense face into his focus.
He had forgotten him.
“Guv—” Then he stopped. How to explain his predicament to his chief? “Under an hour,” he said at last, with another glance at Kit. “I’ve some things to take care of first. What about Gemma?”
“The duty sergeant’s ringing her now. Keep me informed,” Childs added, and rang off.
Kincaid switched off the phone slowly and turned to Kit. “I’m sorry. Something’s come up, and I’m afraid I’ll have to go to work.”
“Can’t you—” the boy began, but Kincaid was already shaking his head.
“I’ve no choice in the matter, Kit. I’m really sorry, but you’ll have to go back to Cambridge—”
“I can’t,” said Kit, his voice rising. “The Millers have gone away for the weekend. Don’t you remember?”
Kincaid stared at Kit. He’d forgotten that as well. He was finding it increasingly difficult to coordinate the demands of his job with his commitment to Kit, and now he seemed to have run up against an insoluble dilemma.
“I suppose you’ll have to stay at the flat on your own, then,” he said with a smile, trying to soften the blow.
“But the tennis—” Kit bit down on his lip to stop its trembling.
Kincaid looked away, giving the boy time to collect himself. Then an idea occurred to him and he said slowly, “Maybe we can work something out. Wait and see.”
“CORNSILK,” THE PAINT SAMPLE HAD READ, and Jo Lowell had liked the name as much as the color. As she painted, Jo imagined it spreading over her kitchen and dining room walls like warm butter, and when she’d finished, the rooms seemed to glow with perpetual summer sun.
There was nothing like a bit of fresh paint to cheer you up if you were in the doldrums, she often told her clients, but she seldom found the time to take her own advice. And of course her clients almost never did the actual painting themselves, but she thought the physical labor might be the most effective part of the therapy. Perhaps she should change her business cards to read Interior Decorating and Mood Counseling and raise her hourly rates.
The small smile raised by the thought quickly vanished as she thought of the previous evening. Her cheery yellow walls and soothing green trim had done little to prevent the very eruption of tempers she’d meant to avoid. She’d intended a little civilized dinner party—a means of making peace with Annabelle without actually having to offer forgiveness, because in spite of everything that had happened between them, she had missed her sister.
Jo had been good at entertaining, once, but this had been her first attempt without Martin, and it had been difficult to find the right mix of people. One of the worst things she’d found about divorce was the division of friends into his and her camps. Martin’s friends, of course, were out of the question, but she hadn’t dared bring her own partisan supporters into contact with Annabelle, whom they viewed as the villain of the piece. So she’d invited guests she’d felt sure would contribute to a pleasant, neutral evening—a couple who were recent clients; Rachel Pargeter, a neighbor who had been a close friend of their mother’s; Annabelle and Reg. And it had almost worked—until her son Harry had told his aunt what he thought of her.
Carefully, Jo slipped the last of the bunch of early sunflowers into the vase on the dining room table. The kitchen door slammed and Sarah’s high, piping voice carried clearly from the back of the house. “Mummy, Mummy!”
“In here, sweetheart.” Gathering up her shears and the florist’s paper, Jo headed for the kitchen. Her daughter stood just inside the door, her dark hair disheveled, her cheeks pink from the heat. She’d spilled something that looked suspiciously like Coke down the front of her tee shirt, and the waistband of her little flowered shorts had worked its way below her navel. At four, Sarah was a highly articulate and skilled tattletale.
“Harry’s in the shed, Mummy. You said he wasn’t to go in there. And I know he broke something, ’cause I heard it smash.”
Jo felt the swiftly rising bubble of anger; she clamped down on it. Sarah didn’t need any encouragement for her righteous indignation. “I’ll deal with Harry—you wash your hands at the sink. You’ve been into the Coke again, haven’t you, missy?”
Sarah glanced down at her shirt, and Jo saw the swift calculation pass across her heart-shaped face before she said earnestly, “It wasn’t me, Mummy, really it wasn’t. Harry got it out and he spilled it on my shirt.” She tugged the stained fabric away from her chest as if removing any association with it.
“Oh, dear God.” Jo closed her eyes and breathed a prayer. Her precious baby daughter was going to be an actress or a criminal, and she felt incapable of dealing with either possibility just now. She took a deep breath. “Right. When you’ve finished with your hands I want you to pick up your toys in the sitting room, and I don’t want to hear any more stories. Is that clear?”
Sarah put on her best injured face. “But, Mummy—”
Jo, however, was already pushing open the door to the garden. She was learning that the only way to manage her daughter was to disengage from the dialogue, because if she continued to participate the child would eventually wear her down. With Harry, things had been different. The slightest reprimand had been enough to bring the boy to tears, as if his emotions ran uncontainably close to the surface. And now that sensitivity seemed to have been translated into a sullen anger she was unable to breach.
The garden was quiet except for the drone of the bumblebees in the lavender, and it seemed deserted. The only signs of suspended activity were a chipped cricket bat and an old rubber ball lying in the thick grass, but at the bottom of the garden the door to the shed stood open. The small mail-order building was her retreat and studio.
She’d painted the outside a color called Labrador Blue and picked out the trim in white. Inside, she’d washed the walls with diluted emulsion, then furnished the space with bits and pieces of old furniture, a few watering cans, and books. Here she experimented with the custom finishes that were her trademark, or read, or sometimes just tried to sort out her life. And the shed was strictly off-limits to both children.
Slowly, she crossed the lawn and stepped inside. Harry sat on the floor with his back to the bookcase, his knees drawn up to his chin. Beside him lay the cut-glass jug she’d filled with roses from the garden, its handle snapped off. Water pooled on the floor and ran into the rag rug; roses lay scattered like flotsam from a storm.
Jo knelt and touched him on the shoulder. “Did it cut you? Are you all right?” When he didn’t answer she pried his hands from his knees and checked them. They were unblemished. She kept one hand in hers and tried again. “Harry, did you break the vase because you were angry with me? You know what you did last night was wrong, but maybe I was wrong to punish you instead of talking about it.”
Harry turned his head further away from her and the sunlight slanting in from the window lit his hair like a flame. What an irony it was, thought Jo, that while Sarah had inherited her own dark auburn coloring, Harry might have been cloned from her sister’s genes. And her father, who had always adored Annabelle at Jo’s expense, had fastened his expectations on Harry as the heir to, if not the family name, at least the family tradition.
“Sometimes mums can be wrong, too,” she continued. “But somehow I have to make you understand that you can’t say things like that to people. I’m sure you hurt Annabelle very—”
“I don’t bloody care.” Harry snatched his hand away and for the first time looked at her. “She’s a whore. I meant to hurt her.” He blinked and tears spilled over into his pale lashes.
“Harry, you mustn’t use words like that. You know better—”
“I don’t care! I hate her.”
“Harry, darling—”
“Don’t call me that.” He pushed himself up from the floor and stood over her. “I’m not your darling, and I hate you, too!” Then, with a slam of the door, he was gone.
THE COINS CLINKED INTO GORDON FINCH’S clarinet case in a staccato, irregular rhythm. The children tossed them, then stood as close as they dared, rapt with attention, moving their bodies unselfconsciously to the music. Both the small girls and boys were bare-chested in the heat, the definition of their ribs showing like the delicate tracery of the branching veins in a leaf. Their faces were flushed from the sun, and some held half-forgotten ice creams in sticky fingers.
He envied them their uncomplicated innocence, intact until someone came along to bugger it up for them. Thank God he hadn’t the responsibility for the shaping of a life. Caring for Sam was about as much as he could manage, and he’d been off his nut to think otherwise.
He finished “Cherry Blossom Pink” and wiped the clarinet’s mouthpiece. The children watched him, large-eyed, jiggling up and down in expectation. Their parents stood behind them, some half sitting on the knee-high iron railing that separated the flower bed from the round, brick bulk of the Isle of Dogs entrance to the foot tunnel. Lifting the clarinet to his lips again, he played a bit of “London Bridge.” The children giggled and he thought for a moment, searching his memory for tunes they might like, then improvised “Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush.”
A pied piper with a clarinet, he slid into “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da,” then “When I’m Sixty-Four,” from the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper album, and the children bounced and swayed happily. But after a bit their parents grew restive, and one by one the families began to drift away. They all had agendas, he thought as he watched them leave—places to go, things to do, people to see. Surely he didn’t envy them that as well?
Finishing the piece, he drank from the bottle of water he’d bought at the refreshment kiosk a few yards away. He stood with his back to the spreading plane tree at the far end of Island Gardens. Behind him, just the other side of the tree, ran the river promenade. People strolled by at the undemanding pace dictated by the hot summer day, pausing occasionally to rest on the benches or gaze at the bright glint of the Thames. Directly across the river, the twin white domes of the Royal Naval College irresistibly drew the eye, echoed by the round dome of the Greenwich end of the foot tunnel.
Between the Naval College and the tunnel rose the tall masts of the Cutty Sark, in dry dock at Greenwich Pier. The ship was the last survivor of the lovely clippers that had once unloaded their cargoes in the East End’s docks, and he’d often wished he had been born in time to witness the end of that era. But near the Cutty Sark, the much smaller, flag-bedecked Gipsy Moth proved that adventure was still possible, for in 1967, Sir Francis Chichester had single-handedly sailed the tiny yacht around the world.
A voyage around the world would present an easy solution to his own present predicament, but Gordon knew even as the thought flitted through his mind that he was too well-rooted here, in the place where he’d spent his childhood, and that running away would solve nothing in the end.
Squatting, he sloshed a bit of water into the bowl he always carried for Sam. “Thirsty, mate?” The dog raised his head, then lumbered to his feet with an air that spoke more of duty than desire. After a few obliging laps of water, he circled twice on the patch of bare earth he’d chosen as his bed and settled himself again, nose on his front paws. Sam’s movements were visibly slower these days, but it was hot, after all, and the heat made everyone lethargic. Still, Gordon had made up his mind not to take the dog down into the tunnel anymore—the seeping dampness couldn’t be good for the animal’s joints.
Not that he wanted to play in the tunnel anyway, after what had happened last night. Of course, he’d known he would see her—it was inevitable, living and working in such close proximity. Yet he had stayed on the Island, playing in the park, in the tunnel, beneath the shadow of the cranes on Glengall Bridge, tempting fate. Even today, as good as this pitch was, there were places he might have done better. Maybe he should pack up and try South Ken, or Hampstead High Street, or Islington again.
He knelt, hands on the clarinet as he prepared to break it apart, and before his eyes flashed an image of Annabelle’s face, white and furious. Last night, anger had stripped her of the cool veneer of detachment she’d maintained even when he’d told her he wanted no more to do with her. He’d thought that, perhaps for the first time, he’d had a glimpse of who she really was, what she really felt, but still he’d not been willing to believe her. Now, doubt gripped him and he wondered if he had been blinded by pride.
What if he’d misjudged her? What if he had been wrong?
JANICE COPPIN’S HEART HAD JUMPED WITH a peculiar mixture of dread and excitement when the phone rang. Getting called out on the job was always difficult on the weekends—with Bill gone, she had to send the children to the center, and at ten pounds per child, per day, she sometimes wondered if she’d be better off on the dole. Not that Bill had been worth much as far as looking after the kids went—or good for much of anything at all, for that matter, the big lout, except dropping his trousers and getting her pregnant. She should have listened to her mum.
Her daughter, Christine, came in and sat on the edge of her bed, watching her with the intensity Janice always found a bit unsettling. The eldest of her three children, Christine was an awkward girl who took her responsibilities seriously, as if perpetually making up for having been conceived among the bushes in the Mudchute with Bill’s leather jacket for a bed. Her chubby body stubbornly refused to acknowledge the onset of puberty and her straight brown hair looked as if it had been cut using a bowl as a guide, but she seemed as yet oblivious to these deficiencies.
“What is it this time, Mummy?” she asked, pushing her spectacles up on her short nose.
Working one foot into a new pair of tights, Janice glanced at her daughter. A suspicious death, the duty sergeant had said, and as her guv was away for the weekend, the case would be hers. But she answered, “Don’t know yet, love”: she tried not to discuss cases she thought would upset the children. “Shit!” she added as she stood and the tights laddered. Last pair; they’d have to do. It was her day for the hairdresser’s, so it meant going at least another week without a cut or color. And it was too hot for her wool suit. She’d have to wear it anyway, no matter if she stank like a stevedore at the end of the day—it was the most professional-looking thing she had, and if this was going to be her big day she was bloody well going to look like it.
“Will you be home before the center closes?” Christine ignored her swearing, though the boys would have jumped on her because she was always on at them about it. “The boys won’t want to go to Granny’s.”
“Tough on them, then,” Janice replied impatiently, and sighed. She slid her feet into her new navy shoes and put on her jacket. Already she could feel the wool scratching through the thin fabric of her blouse. “Chris, you know I’ll be home as soon as I can. I’ll ring the center, okay? When I see how it’s going.”
Christine nodded, her eyes solemn behind the spectacle lenses.
“You collect the boys from next door and take them along to the center—tell them I said to mind or else.” She grabbed keys and handbag from the chest of drawers on the way out of the room. Glancing back, she saw the unmade bed, the pile of dirty laundry she hadn’t found the time to wash; thought of the dishes waiting in the kitchen sink and the littered sitting room. You wanted this, she reminded herself. You wanted out of uniform; you pushed and stepped on toes to get here.
Outside the door of the flat, she gave Christine a quick hug, then stood watching her as she ran next door. Across the street her neighbor washed his car, his bulging gut stretching his thin cotton vest. His trousers rode so low that when he bent over half his arse was exposed. Janice turned away, feeling slightly nauseated, knowing he’d smile and whistle if he saw her looking. The bastards; they thought you wanted them no matter how they looked.
She hesitated, debating whether to walk across Glengall Bridge. It was the most direct route—taking the car meant driving right round the dock, but on the other hand arriving at a crime scene on foot wouldn’t do much to establish her authority.
A few moments later she pulled her Vauxhall up beside the assembled pandas in the car park of the ASDA Superstore. DC Miller came to meet her, his spotty face pale—on closer inspection, he looked decidedly green about the gills.
“Tell me this is a joke,” she instructed him. “Manufactured by that old fart George Brent just to ruin my Saturday morning.”
Miller blanched a bit further. “No, ma’am. There’s a body.” He pointed at the slope leading to the park. “Just up there.”
A derelict, thought Janice, just found himself a nice peaceful place to pass away. Inconvenient but not messy. Not on this weekend when her guv was off drinking himself into a stupor at his son’s wedding.
“It’s a woman,” said Miller. “Young. Crime scene team is on its way.”
Janice felt the prickle of sweat in her armpits. It was her show, then, ready or not.
CHAPTER 3The Mudchute is an area of land which originally belonged to the dock authorities. Covering about 30 acres, roughly square in shape, it has high clinker banks (on which grass and wildflowers now flourish). These banks were built to contain a lake of silt dredged up from Millwall Dock in the 1880s and 1890s.
Eve Hostettler, from Memories of
Childhood on the Isle of Dogs, 1870–1970
Kincaid had to stop and consult his London A to Z twice, much to his chagrin, but it had been some time since he’d worked a case in the East End, and he’d seldom had reason to venture further east than Wapping or Limehouse. It was all called “Docklands” east of the Tower now, but not even the massive rebuilding scheme of the last decade had managed to completely erase the character of the individual neighborhoods.
A glance at his map as he passed Canary Wharf told him that he was entering the Isle of Dogs peninsula. He drove south on Westferry Road, following the line of new housing developments and unfinished building sites sprouting like mushrooms between the road and the shore. Many of the hoardings displayed the legend Finch, Ltd. in a bold graphic.
Occasionally he caught a glimpse of the river between the buildings, and once a flash of an enormous passenger liner, white and clumsy as an iceberg. As he neared the bottom of the horseshoe he turned left on East Ferry Road, heading north again, up the center of the Island.
To his left he saw a row of Victorian terraced houses that formed part of a prewar housing estate; to his right lay a wasteland of construction. This had to be the extension of the Docklands Light Railway he’d read about, which would take the train under the river to Greenwich, and then to Lewisham, but he hadn’t visualized the extent of the chaos the controversial project would generate.
The engineers had managed, however, to keep East Ferry Road passable, and beyond a hoarding on his right the land rose steeply to the plateau of Mudchute Park. Kincaid bypassed the first entrance to the park, a steep, arched tunnel across from the Millwall Dock, and soon came to the entrance of the ASDA supermarket.
As he turned into the car park he saw the pandas, blue lights flashing, clustered in front of the ASDA service station. Gemma’s battered Escort stood a little to one side; a pair of uniformed constables held back a gathering crowd of interested onlookers.
Pulling up between Gemma’s car and a red Vauxhall, Kincaid got out and headed for the knot of people gathered at the rear of the car park. The bodies shifted and he had a glimpse of Gemma’s copper hair and green shirt as she turned to meet him.
“Guv.” Gemma greeted him with a brief nod. “This is DI Janice Coppin. She’s the senior officer here.”
Kincaid held out his hand to the woman in the navy suit, who gripped it as briefly as courtesy allowed. The expression on her blunt face imparted no more welcome than her handshake, and even her stiff blonde hair seemed to radiate displeasure.
“What have we got, Inspector?” Kincaid asked easily, but he remembered his chief’s comment about the newly promoted DI not being considered up to the job, and thought it wouldn’t surprise him if Coppin felt hostile towards Scotland Yard for invading her patch.
“Up there.” DI Coppin stepped aside so that he had a clear view of the entrance to the Mudchute, tucked away in the heavy shrubbery that lined the perimeter of the car park. “A woman’s body, exposed by the side of the path. We were waiting for you,” she continued. “The pathologist’s finished, but we couldn’t move the body until you had viewed it in situ.”
Kincaid had no intention of apologizing to her for his tardiness. He said merely, “Let’s have a look, then,” and started towards the park entrance.
The litter strewn over the car park tarmac spilled onto the ground, clustering thickly along the paved path that climbed towards the plateau and the entrance to the park. The rubbish made a mockery of the pastoral, wooden arbor built over the park’s swinging gate, and would prove a headache, he knew, for the team collecting evidence.
The wooded slope was gentle, but by the time Kincaid had pushed carefully through the gate bars, he’d begun to sweat. The path forked before him, and even after the rains of the past few weeks, its surface was trampled hard enough to resist an impression from his rubber-soled shoes. Ahead and to the right it climbed towards a dividing hedge and beyond that the high open spaces of the park; to his left it wound along the edge of the steep bank, and a dozen yards along it he saw a cluster of white-overalled crime scene technicians.
Kincaid slipped on an overall and started towards them. Out of long habit, he put his hands behind his back as he followed the line of the blue and white crime scene tape. It removed the unconscious temptation to touch.
The technicians parted at the end to let him through, and he saw her then, half in the hedge’s shadow.
“She was a looker, all right,” said Willy Tucker, the photographer, at his elbow.
She lay on her back, between the edge of the path and the hedge that separated this alley of park from the higher ground. His first impression was that her clothes had been straightened.
The short skirt hugged her thighs too neatly. The long, black linen jacket was still held together by its pewter buttons, though one cream satin bra strap showed where the jacket had slipped a little from her shoulder. She wore no blouse.
Glancing at Tucker, Kincaid said, “Her tights—they weren’t disturbed?”
“Not that we could see without moving her.”
The tights were sheer, the merest whisper of black against her pale skin, and both legs had laddered. One foot was bare, the other encased in a black shoe with a high, chunky heel.
Kincaid squatted, still keeping his distance, and at last looked at her face. It was a smooth oval, the skin unlined even in the strong light. The nose was straight, the lips well-defined. As the patch of shade retreated, sunlight sparked from the cloud of her red-gold hair. So alive did it look that if not for the slight congestion of her face and the hovering flies, one might have thought she had simply lain down for a rest.
An earthy, spicy smell rose from the crushed vegetation beneath his feet and her body, making him think of lovers entwined in a hillside bower. “Have you found her other shoe?” he asked.
The photographer shook his head. “Not so far. The uniformed lads have started a radial search.”
All dressed up and nowhere to go, Kincaid thought as he stared down at her still body. He stood, resisting the urge to smooth the fine wayward hair from her cheek. “Maybe she left it at the ball.”
GEMMA WATCHED KINCAID MAKE HIS WAY back down the cordoned path, his face shuttered as always in such circumstances. “Have we got ourselves a nutter, then, guv?” she asked when he reached them. You didn’t say “serial killer,” not when there was the remotest possibility of being overheard by the long ears of the press, but it was always the first thing you thought with a young woman murdered like this.
Glancing back at the crime scene technicians crouched like strange white insects near the corpse, Kincaid shook his head. “I think her killer knew her. It looks as though someone arranged her clothing, and if she was sexually assaulted it’s not obvious. We’ll know more after the postmortem.”
“I’ll arrange for the mortuary van now,” said DI Coppin. “If that’s all right with you, sir,” she added with unconcealed hostility.
Kincaid’s eyebrow lifted a fraction, but, once again, he didn’t rise to the challenge. “Go ahead, Inspector. The sooner the better, in this heat. It’s a good thing the temperature dropped last night.”
Coppin made an awkward descent, hampered by the narrow skirt of her wool suit. Gemma watched her until she’d cleared the swinging gate and vanished from sight, then turned to Kincaid. “Listen, guv—”
Before she could continue, Kincaid motioned her into a small patch of shade, away from the uniformed officers. “It’s too bloody hot to stand about in the sun,” he said, pulling a handkerchief from his trouser pocket and blotting his forehead with it.
A curving, split-rail fence separated the grassy area bordering the path from the sloping ground that marked the park’s edge, and from where Gemma stood it drew her eye towards the entrance. The flat, trellised top of the wooden gate gave it the look of a Japanese shrine; beyond the thick screen of trees, the gleaming buildings of Canary Wharf rose incongruously against the pastoral view.
The comfortingly familiar smell of bacon and eggs cooking in the ASDA’s cafe reached them on a faint puff of breeze and Gemma’s stomach rumbled loudly in response. Too nervous to eat before her piano lesson, she’d meant to treat herself to a late breakfast afterwards. But she should have known better, as her mobile phone had rung before she and Wendy Sheinart had finished their half hour’s conversation.
“About the DI, guv,” she said, glancing at the uniformed officers to make sure they were out of hearing. “Her chief inspector’s off at his son’s wedding this weekend, and it seems he called us in without informing her. She feels it should have been her case, and I can’t say I blame her. Maybe if you could go a bit easy on her—”
“Sets a bad precedent,” Kincaid said, grinning, then sobered. “It’s a tough break for her, but if she’s going to be an effective officer, she’ll have to learn to cope.”
Gemma’s own experience was proof enough of that, but she felt sympathetic nonetheless. “Still, I’d not like to be in her shoes.”
“My guess is they pinch,” he said under his breath, for Coppin had finished with the radio and begun the climb back up the hill from the gate.
Reaching them, the DI made a visible effort to regulate her breathing before she spoke. “They’re on their way. What next, sir?”
“Tell me what the pathologist found.” Kincaid pulled his small notebook from the pocket of his trousers.
Coppin consulted her own notebook. “The pathologist estimates that the victim died sometime in the night or the early hours of the morning—can’t have been much longer than that in this heat or the deterioration of the body would be marked. There are no outward signs of sexual assault, but there is some obvious bruising on the throat.”
“Any identification?”
“No, sir. We’ve not found her handbag, nor any obvious dry cleaner’s markings in her clothing.”
“Who found her?”
“A pensioner, sir. George Brent. Lives in the council flats down the bottom of the park. He was out walking his dog when he saw her at the edge of the shrubbery, but I’m surprised no one called it in sooner—she was visible as a bloody beacon.”
“Has he been interviewed?”
Coppin frowned. “No—I didn’t see much point. I know him—he’s a harmless old man, not likely to have noticed anything important.”
After a moment’s pause, Kincaid said evenly, “Inspector, at this stage of an investigation, we don’t know what’s important, and everything has a point. I’ll see Mr. Brent myself.”
“But—”
“In the meantime, we’ll need to get the house-to-house inquiries started as soon as possible and the incident room set up. Our first priority is identification, and we had better be prepared to make use of the media.”
A SHREDDED PIECE OF PLASTIC BLEW fitfully across the section of the ASDA car park visible through the screen of trees. Watching from her balcony, Teresa Robbins thought of a film she’d seen once about tumbleweeds in the American desert. The giant weeds had blown in a similar way, in erratic bursts, as if they had a life of their own. The movement of the bit of rubbish made her feel vaguely uneasy, as did the hot breeze that animated it.
Yet she stayed, leaning against the chipped iron railing, craning to see beyond the trees. She’d seen the first police car arrive midmorning, while she’d been hanging out washing on her half of the narrow concrete balcony. There was a cluster of cars now, pulled up in a rough circle beyond the petrol station. It worried her, not knowing what was happening, but she couldn’t bring herself to join the crowd of onlookers gathering in the car park.
A loud thump from next door warned her that her neighbor was up, and that her time on the balcony was limited. Teresa prized her quiet mornings there, especially Saturdays, when she had the time to tend her geraniums and petunias. The evenings were his, given over to heavy metal music and six-packs of lager, and he fueled their ongoing skirmish by leaving fag ends in her flowerpots for her to clean out the next morning. She knew she should tell him to bugger off, but standing up to people was never as easy for her as it was for Annabelle.
She’d improved at it, though, in the five years she’d worked for Annabelle Hammond. It simply never occurred to Annabelle that she wouldn’t get what she wanted, whether professionally or personally, and Teresa had often watched with quiet amusement as her boss sailed into a meeting with unsuspecting executives who had not been prepared to take her seriously because she was female. By the time they stopped gaping at her looks, Annabelle would have their signatures on the dotted line.
Although Teresa knew she could never aspire to Annabelle’s flair, she’d worked at her job as the firm’s bookkeeper with a zeal and efficiency no one from her Croyden comprehensive would ever have expected from her—a girl so ordinary that she’d once overheard a teacher describe her as “the girl most likely to disappear.”
After a series of accounting jobs that hadn’t quite fit, she’d started at Hammond’s with little expectation. To her surprise, she’d soaked up the business like a sponge, discovering a talent for organizing as well as figures. She learned she could juggle things in her head, and had even begun to develop a passion for tea that rivaled Annabelle’s. A year ago, Annabelle had promoted her to chief financial officer.
They made a good team. Between them, they had taken Hammond’s Fine Teas from the past into the nineties, and it was only in the past few months, as Annabelle had begun to address the future of the firm, that Teresa had seen her display any doubt or hesitation.
She frowned as she thought of the breakfast Annabelle had organized with Sir Peter Mortimer at the Chili’s in Canary Wharf this morning. Annabelle had not shown up, and it was unthinkable that she would not keep such an appointment. Reg and Teresa had entertained Sir Peter as best they could, but without Annabelle, they had not dared broach the reason for the invitation. And as the day wore on with no word of explanation from her, Teresa felt increasingly worried.
Next door, another thump was followed by the sudden blare of music—the heavy repetitive bass and growling lyrics that made her head ache. With a grimace, she turned and gathered her things from the wooden drying rack. She’d ring Annabelle at home again, and if there was no reply, she’d go to the office in case Annabelle showed up there.
As Teresa glanced down at the car park once more before retreating into the flat, an unmarked white van moved slowly across the tarmac.
WHILE THEY WAITED FOR THE MORTUARY van, Gemma nipped down to the supermarket cafe for a bacon-and-egg roll and a cup of tea, not knowing when she might have another chance to eat. The air-conditioned market provided a welcome refuge from the heat and she looked round with interest as she peeled the cling-film from her roll.
Cavernous and comprehensive, the store was the sort Gemma hadn’t much opportunity to visit, but she assumed it was what the inhabitants of the posh developments expected. It was only when she’d watched the shoppers for a few minutes that she realized most of them were solidly working class. Curious, she quickly finished her sandwich and entered the main part of the store. To her surprise, although the shelves were well-stocked, there was a distinct shortage of gourmet items and a preponderance of white bread.
She bought a packet of ginger-nut biscuits for emergency rations, tucking it in her handbag as she emerged into the glare of the street. The mortuary van was parked unobtrusively at the rear of the car park, its rear doors standing open. She crossed the hot tarmac, and as she reached the path leading up to the Mudchute, she saw that the attendants were attempting to maneuver the stretcher and zipped black body bag through the cubicle of the swinging gate. They were red-faced and sweating, and one swore steadily and inventively. Kincaid stood a few yards up the hill, his hands in his pockets, his lips pressed together in impatience.
The attendants put the stretcher down and looked up at him. “ ’Fraid we’re going to have to upend her, guv,” said the one with the rich vocabulary.
“Just be careful, will you?” Kincaid admonished them, and Gemma heard him mutter something about “buggering up the physical evidence” under his breath.
“We’ll get some straps.”
Gemma took advantage of their descent to the van to slip through the gate and join Kincaid.
“Feeling a bit better?” he asked.
“Much. Where’s the inspector?”
“Limehouse Station, getting things organized. Just our luck they closed the old station here on the Island and the new one’s not finished.”
Looking up at him, Gemma noticed the small spot on his chin he’d missed with the razor that morning, shaving in her cupboard-sized bathroom. She was close enough to smell her soap on his skin and the thought of their shared shower brought a smile to her lips. “Sorry about your Saturday,” she said. “What about Kit?”
“The Major stood in for me.”
“Kit must have been disappointed, just the same.”
“Yes.” Kincaid didn’t meet her eyes.
“How rotten for you.” Gemma knew he hated to let Kit down, and she also suspected that any guilt he felt over failing in his commitment to Kit was strengthened by his guilt over Vic’s death. Although he didn’t talk about it, she’d sensed it gnawing at him the past few months, and she felt it driving a wedge between them.
“Worse for him, poor little beggar.”
Gemma thought of Toby, who accepted her frequent unexpected absences with equanimity because it was all he’d ever known. “He will get used to it, and you’ve not much choice, have you?”
“We’ll have her out of here in a tick, guv,” called out the talkative attendant, returning from the van.
Glancing at Gemma, Kincaid seemed about to reply, then shrugged and turned his attention back to the corpse on the stretcher. Frowning, he said, “If she were dumped here, how did the killer get her into the park? That gate would have made things bloody difficult.”
“I suppose you could get through it with a body over your shoulder, if you were strong enough. But you’d be visible, even at night. There must be other entrances.” Watching the men strap down the body, then hoist the stretcher into an upright position and maneuver it through the gate, Gemma added, “Did you find anything under the body?”
“No. Nor any definite evidence of dragging. But the ground’s hard. It might not have left traces.”
Leveling their burden on the far side of the gate, the stretcher-bearers moved down the path to the car park. As Gemma and Kincaid followed, the attendants slid the stretcher roughly into the van and slammed the doors.
Gemma winced as she thought of how carefully the woman’s body had been placed in its bower of grass. “That wasn’t necessary. There’s no bloody hurry now, is there?”
Kincaid gave her a surprised glance. “You know it doesn’t mean anything to them. She’s not a person anymore.”
Gemma shook her head. “She is to someone, somewhere.”
“She did look remarkably peaceful,” he said, and she heard the understanding in his voice. It was odd, thought Gemma, that the more disfigured the corpse, the easier it seemed to distance oneself from the victim’s humanity. With a light touch on her shoulder, Kincaid added, “I suppose we’d best get on with it. I think we should see the pensioner who discovered the body. And I’d like to have a look at the geography of the park on our way.”
When he’d retrieved his jacket and his A to Z from his car, they climbed back up to the Mudchute plateau. Skirting the crime scene, they continued eastwards along the path. To their left lay a steep bank, and at its bottom the high-fenced back gardens of a new housing estate. The dense growth of brambles and bindweed that covered the slope and spilled over to crowd the edge of the path showed no signs of trampling. Pausing to look down, Gemma felt the palpable weight of the sun beating against her scalp as the air over the high ground of the park shimmered in the midday heat.
Beside her, Kincaid picked a ripe blackberry and popped it in his mouth. “From the map, it seemed possible that she’d been killed in the housing estate, then dragged up into the park.” He shook his head. “But there’s no access, unless you can fly.”
Gemma tentatively considered a blackberry. She’d read about berry-picking in books, but it was something she’d never done—in her childhood, berries had come in punnets at the greengrocer’s, and her family hadn’t had time for holidays in the countryside. As Kincaid moved away she reached out and plucked one. It left sticky purple stains on her fingers, and as she hurried after him, the wild, sweet-tart taste of it on her tongue gave her an unexpected sense of liberation.
Before them both path and bank made a sharp right turn. Gemma thought of the brief glimpse she’d had of the slightly irregular square of park on the map. “I thought it would be an ordinary city park, but it’s more like the rolly bits of Hampstead Heath laid out on a tabletop, isn’t it?”
“A living tablecloth?”
“I suppose so. But it is an odd place, and an odd name.”
“The Mudchute was built from the silt dredged up from the Millwall Dock—I think the mud was quite literally pumped through a chute,” Kincaid said. When Gemma gave him a surprised look, he smiled and added, “I asked Inspector Coppin about it and got the penny lecture from her for my pains. The land belonged to the Dock and, being off-limits, was a huge temptation to the local children for years. It was only made a park about twenty years ago.”
They had reached a bench set back from the path, a sort of natural lookout point. Gemma stopped and gazed round at the rolling, scrubby grassland, dotted with the occasional tree. “But it’s enormous. What was it all for?”
“Dockworkers’ allotments, mostly, and timber storage. Look, there’s someone’s garden.” He pointed down the now-gentle slope at a small vegetable patch fenced off with chicken wire. “Some of the park is still used for allotments, though I wonder if they’ll be kept up when the pensioners are gone. There’s a demonstration farm here now, used mostly for educating schoolchildren.”
“It sounds like you managed to thaw Inspector Coppin.”
He grinned. “Only because she enjoyed knowing more than I did.”
Ahead of them, the path disappeared into a wide, level expanse of dirt, and the breeze brought them a distinct whiff of manure. “Is that a road?” asked Gemma.
Kincaid consulted the map. “We’re coming to the farm now, and it looks as though a track comes up from the farm entrance. We’ll have to see if it’s accessible at the bottom.”
“If you could drive a car this far, you could carry a body to where we found her.”
Looking back along the path, Kincaid mused, “A good walk, carrying such a burden.” He knelt and felt the dry earth with his fingers. “But as hard as the ground is, you might be able to drive partway along the path without leaving a trace.”
They started down the gentle incline and soon reached the main farm buildings. Inside the central courtyard a group of small children ate ice creams bought from the concession kiosk. “A thriving business, that,” said Gemma. The sight of the children made her think of Toby, left in her sister’s care by default. A day spent with Cynthia’s little hellions and her son would be wound up like a top for a week, but what choice had she had?
Where the dirt farm road met paved street, a large, metal-barred gate stood propped open. A rusty padlock hung from a chain looped through its leading edge.
“Doesn’t look as though it’s been closed recently.” Kincaid rubbed the toe of his shoe against the dusty road surface. “No sign of scraping or dragging that I can see.”
Gemma touched the pitted surface of the gate. “So the murderer could have driven her into the park.” She looked round at the council flats lining the paved cul-de-sac. “But in this area you’d surely run a risk of being seen even in the middle of the night. Nosy neighbors.”
“They might remember seeing an unfamiliar car, even if they thought it was just teenagers looking for an uninterrupted cuddle.”
Smiling at his choice of words, Gemma touched his arm briefly as they turned towards the street. “How delicate of you, Superintendent. Where do we find Mr. Brent, then?”
He consulted the map. “This is Pier Street. It should take us right into Manchester Road if we continue along it.”
The council houses they passed as they walked were built of the gray concrete blocks typical of the sixties, but most appeared well-kept. Front doors stood open in the midday heat, and although the bead curtains hanging in most doorways afforded inhabitants a bit of privacy, they allowed cooking odors an easy escape. Gemma sniffed appreciatively at the scent of garlic mingled with spices not quite as familiar.
Some of the tiny front gardens had been paved over entirely, others had a few pots and hanging baskets or revealed a small attempt at a plot of flowers, but the garden of the flat they approached would have made a garden center green with envy. Every inch of the eight-foot square was filled with something blooming, and as they came nearer Gemma saw that one would have to squeeze through a gate held ajar by a mass of purple clematis.
She checked the number over its door. “Mr. Brent, I believe.”
“The inspector said something about his prize flowers.”
“An understatement.” No bead curtain covered this doorway, and as they brushed their way down the narrow path, the smell of roasting meat competed with the cloying scent of the flowers. From inside, a telly blared forth the theme from Grandstand.
Kincaid tapped on the doorjamb, waited a moment, then called “Hullo!” over the din.
“Just coming,” answered a woman’s voice. She appeared from the rear of the house, wiping her hands on a flowered pinny. “Can I help you?”
“We’re here to see Mr. Brent.”
Grimacing, the woman said, “Hang on a moment while I turn this racket down.”
As she slipped through the sitting room door, they saw a flash of television screen, then the noise stopped.
Returning to them, she nodded. “That’s better. Bloody thing drives me crazy. Now, what did you say you wanted?”
“Mr. Brent,” answered Gemma. “We’re from the police. We’d like to talk to him about this morning.”
The woman’s face instantly creased with concern. “A terrible thing. Dad’s been that upset, it’s taken me the whole morning to get him settled. I had to promise him roast chicken and potatoes, in this heat, and now you want to get him all riled up again.” She was small and wiry, with cropped hair kept black with the help of the dye bottle. Beneath the flowered pinny she wore stretchy trousers and an open-necked tee shirt.
Kincaid smiled. “I’m sorry, Mrs.—”
She touched her hair, then held her hand out to Kincaid. “Hubbard. Brenda Hubbard, née Brent. I’ll just—”
“Bren!” a man’s voice called from the back of the house. “Who is it, Bren?”
Brenda hesitated a moment, then shrugged. “It’s the police, Dad. They’ve come to see you.” Stepping back, she led the way into the sitting room.
Gemma instinctively drew in her arms as they entered, for the small room was stuffed so full of things that movement was restricted to a narrow path through its center. The fringed lamp shades competed with the poppy-sprigged wallpaper, which shouted in turn at what was visible of the bold floral carpet. Souvenir-type knickknacks and family photographs jostled for space on every flat surface, but the photos held the advantage by spilling over onto the walls.
Brenda Hubbard looked back at Gemma, then gestured at the photos. “I tell Dad there’ll be no room for him one of these days, but he can’t bear to part with any of them.”
Pausing, Gemma examined a group of particularly ornate frames atop a bookcase. “School class?” she asked, pointing at the photo in the largest.
Smiling, Brenda said, “Family. There were fourteen of us. Thirteen girls and a boy, the last. Mum was determined, I’ll give her that.” She briefly touched a photo of a faded, sweet-faced woman surrounded by children, then moved on.
The blue plush reclining chair in front of the television provided the room’s sole island of solid color, but it was empty. The glass door to the small, concrete patio stood open, and in the shade of a garden umbrella sat an elderly man in a white plastic patio chair. Beside him, a Patterdale terrier raised its slender black head from its paws at their approach.
“Mr. Brent.” Kincaid held out his warrant card as they followed Brenda onto the patio. Glancing at the dog, which was now sniffing his ankles, he added, “I’m Superintendent Kincaid and this is Ser—”
“Get down, Sheba.” George Brent scolded the dog gently, then scrutinized them with alert blue eyes. “Janice Coppin sent you, did she? I’d not have credited her with that much sense.”
Brenda Hubbard gave an exasperated shake of her head. “Dad, that’s not a nice thing to say and you know it.” With a look at Gemma and Kincaid, she added apologetically, “Janice was at school with our Georgie, and Dad took against her over some silly thing that no one else even remembers.”
“Your mum remembered. And it wasn’t a silly thing to our Georgie—she stood him up for the Settlement Dance.” Having made his point to his daughter, George Brent held out his hand to Kincaid. His grip was strong, and the arms and shoulders revealed by his cotton vest still showed muscular definition.
Kincaid pulled over two more plastic patio chairs. “Do you mind if we sit down, Mr. Brent?”
“Oh, forgive my manners.” Brenda Hubbard sounded a bit flustered as she helped them arrange the chairs. “Can I get you something to drink? Tea? Or some orange squash?”
“Squash would be lovely,” said Gemma, as much to remove the distraction of bickering with his daughter from Mr. Brent as to quench a genuine thirst.
As Brenda disappeared into the kitchen, Kincaid began again. “Mr. Brent, we don’t want to upset you, but we need you to tell us about what happened this morning.”
“Whoever said I was upset?” Brent gave a dark glance towards the house. “Load of bollocks,” he added under his breath, but as he spoke he reached down and buried his fingers in the dog’s rough coat.
“It’s not every day you find a dead body, Mr. Brent,” Gemma said gently. “It would upset anyone.”
Brent looked away. Gemma saw the movement of his Adam’s apple as he swallowed, and the spasm clenching the hand still resting in the dog’s fur. “Beautiful. She was so beautiful. I thought she was sleeping, like a fairy princess.”
Returning with their drinks, Brenda served them without interrupting, then pulled another plastic chair into the shade and sat down.
“Why don’t you start from the beginning, Mr. Brent,” suggested Kincaid. “You took your dog to the park?”
“You’d had your breakfast, hadn’t you, Dad?” prompted Brenda. “You always take Sheba for her run after breakfast.”
“That’s right. Right round the park we go, every morning and every evening. Keeps us fit, doesn’t it, girl?” He stroked the dog’s head; the animal’s tail thumped.
“What time was this, Mr. Brent?”
“A bit later than usual, on account of helping Mrs. Singh next door with her telly. About half past eight, I’d say, and already hot as blazes.”
Gemma sipped her drink, then asked, “Did you take your usual route?”
“We always go the same way, don’t we, girl?” said Brent, and Sheba’s tail moved again in assent. “Up from the bottom of Stebondale Street, into the park at the Rope Walk, across and up the other side.” He shook his head. “Bloody construction mucking things about. Can’t hear yourself think.”
“That’s along East Ferry Road?” asked Kincaid.
“Farm Road, we always called it. There were still farms round about when I was a boy, though you’d not think it now. I remember when we lived in Glengall Road, before the bombings—”
“Mr. Brent,” Kincaid interrupted gently. “Tell us what happened next.”
George Brent took a handkerchief from his trouser pocket and rubbed it slowly across the polished dome of his head as he watched Sheba, now happily digging in a patch of the small flower bed at the edge of the patio. “You’re a right devil, aren’t you, girl?” he said softly, then met Kincaid’s eyes. “Most mornings I stop at the ASDA for a cuppa, meet my old mates, you know, though Harry Thurgar for one is getting a bit past it … but I was too late this morning, so we went on along the top.”
His gaze strayed again, back to the dog. “I let her off the lead—she’s always after rabbits, or what she thinks is rabbits. Then I heard her whining, and when I caught up to her …”
At the word “rabbits” Sheba sat back on her haunches and cocked her head expectantly, then moved to her master’s side. Her long, elegant profile made Gemma think of the paintings of dogs on Egyptian friezes. Hadn’t the Egyptians believed that dogs followed their masters to the underworld?
“Did you touch the body, Mr. Brent?” she asked.
“No, I … Well, maybe I did, just a bit, to see if …”
“But you didn’t move her?”
Brent shook his head. “All I could think then was to get help, I don’t know why. Ran to the ASDA, silly bugger; too old to run like I used to. Used the phone to ring 999.”
“You waited for the police?” asked Kincaid.
“Didn’t know they’d send Janice Coppin, did I?” Brent scowled and Sheba responded with a low humming in her throat. “Treated me like a child, or a dimwit. She’s no better than she should be, that woman, and her husband’s a no-account—”
“Dad, that’s enough,” said Brenda. “And Bill’s her ex-husband now, you know that.” She looked at Kincaid and Gemma. “If that’s all …”
“Just a couple of questions more, Mrs. Hubbard.” Kincaid turned back to her father. “Had you ever seen the woman before, Mr. Brent?”
“I … I’m not certain.” Mopping his head again with the handkerchief, George Brent seemed suddenly to age, as if his uncertainty weighed heavily.
“You don’t have to be sure.” Gemma smiled to put him at ease. “Just tell us where you think you might have seen her.”
Brent said hesitantly, “At the shops, just along the road. That hair, so lovely … but I never quite saw her face.”
“Recently, Mr. Brent?”
Gemma heard the hint of excitement in Kincaid’s deliberate drawl.
Brent shook his head. “No, I … My memory’s not what it used to be. I think it was nearer the spring, maybe Easter. I’m sorry,” he added, as if he’d seen the disappointment in their faces, but Gemma had the distinct feeling that the old man hadn’t told them everything he knew.
Kincaid rose. “You’ve been a great help, Mr. Brent. And we’re going to let you have your lunch now. There’s just one more thing. You said you walked Sheba yesterday evening—did you go the same way?”
“Have to put her on the lead to stop her, wouldn’t I? Like a clockwork dog round that path, she is.” Brent chuckled at his own wit.
“What time was this?”
“Nine o’clock news was just coming on. Hate to miss the news, but it’s too dark after.”
“And you’re sure the body wasn’t there?”
Brent bristled. “I’d have seen her, wouldn’t I, even in the dusk. I’m not bloody blind.”
“Of course not, Mr. Brent,” Kincaid reassured him as Gemma stood. “And we do appreciate your time.”
As they turned to go George Brent called after them, “You tell that Janice she’s a silly cow. Our Georgie would never have left her on her own with a pack of rotten kids.”
REG MORTIMER SELDOM DRANK. A SOCIAL pint occasionally, or a glass or two of wine with dinner, but urgings to more than that he usually fended off with a smile and an offhand remark about keeping fit. Reg could never bring himself to admit the truth—that it made him ill, revoltingly, nauseatingly, childishly ill.
His hand trembled as he lifted the glass to his lips—Jack Daniel’s because he found the sweetness of the Bourbon easier to stomach than the tangy bite of Scotch. Could one call this medicinal? The half glass he’d drunk had done nothing to still the panic fluttering beneath his breastbone. Nor had it helped him decide what he ought to do.
Turning, he glanced at the phone in the corner, then again at the thinning crowd in the bar. At lunchtime people came in the Henry Addington at Canary Wharf to see and be seen, though this being Saturday the men had traded their business suits for carefully pressed Levi’s and khakis, and in this heat the women wore shorts and bright sundresses. Beyond the windows in the pub’s curved marble front wall, the sun blazed, making a molten sheet of the water, muting even the reds and purples of the buildings at Heron Quays across the dock.
Lunchtime was easing into afternoon, and there was still no sign of Annabelle. It had been a thin chance, coming here, where they often met on a Saturday, but he had rung her flat until the phone seemed glued to his ear. Then he’d gone round and pounded on her door, and he’d done the same at the warehouse.
Not that Annabelle ever made a habit of instant availability—he sometimes thought she enjoyed putting him off, teasing him. But she always returned calls, and although he suspected she was still angry with him, he couldn’t imagine Annabelle missing a meeting as important as this morning’s for personal reasons.
Of course, he’d lost his temper last night—he’d be the first to admit it, if she would only give him a chance—but the fact that the party at Jo’s had turned into a fiasco hadn’t been his fault.
Despite the heat in the bar, Reg shivered. He thought of what he had revealed to Annabelle last night, spurred by jealousy, and of what he had kept from her. He had driven her away, and he couldn’t bear the thought of losing her. Not now, with so much at stake. But how could he repair the damage he’d done?
And why hadn’t Annabelle turned up this morning? As hard as he and Teresa had tried to smooth things over at breakfast, his father hadn’t been fooled for a minute. Sir Peter’s support was crucial—they all knew that—but what Annabelle and Teresa didn’t know was how desperately Reg needed things to work out the way they’d planned.
He’d phone Annabelle again. Surely she would answer—it had been an hour since he’d last rung, plenty of time for her to have returned home. Perhaps she had even been trying to ring him. Yet even as he stood, a bit unsteadily, a wave of dread coursed through him, as certain as the nausea that followed.
• • •
“THERE’S NO POINT SENDING SOMEONE ROUND the shops in Manchester Road until we get a photo.” Kincaid leaned against the corridor wall outside the incident room at Limehouse Police Station, sipping tepid tea from a polystyrene cup.
“I’ve sent one of the lads to pick up the prints,” said Gemma, adding, “Hope there’s one that will be palatable to the public.” Kincaid couldn’t tell if her grimace reflected the prospect of dealing with hysterical residents or the thought of the nasty liquid in her cup.
He nodded agreement. “The photos should be all right. Her face was remarkably well-preserved.” The afternoon having so far yielded no clues to the woman’s identity, the distribution of photographs to the inquiry team became the logical next step.
Gemma’s empty cup squeaked as she crumpled it. “Will you release a drawing to the media?”
During the course of the afternoon, they had set the routine of investigation in motion; the first round of house-to-house inquiries, concentrated on the supermarket and the streets immediately adjacent to the park; the intensive search for physical evidence, always a race against contamination of the crime scene; the checking of the victim’s description against the Police National Computer’s missing persons reports. But he’d delayed speaking to the media until he’d prepared a formal statement describing the dead woman and asking the public’s help in identifying her or reporting suspicious sightings in the area. “No, not yet. We’ll try the description first, and if that doesn’t produce results, we’ll have the police artist make a sketch.” Finishing his tea, he tossed his cup in the bin and pushed himself away from the wall. “I suppose I’d better face the lions.” He pulled up the knot on the tie he’d rescued from the boot of the car, then ran his fingers through his hair.
Gemma smiled. “You’re quite presentable. They’re waiting in the ante—”
The incident room door swung open and Janice Coppin came out. Although the passing hours had taken their toll on both starched hair and suit, they’d done little to temper the inspector’s prickliness, although Kincaid had found her to be competent and patient with her staff. “There you are,” she said as she saw them. “The duty officer’s just rung from downstairs. There’s a bloke at the window raising holy hell because they won’t let him register a missing person until the twenty-four-hour limit’s up.”
Kincaid heard the intake of Gemma’s breath as she said, “A match?”
Coppin shrugged. “His girlfriend didn’t come home last night. Her name’s Annabelle Hammond, lives just at the end of Island Gardens. And he says she has long, red hair.”
CHAPTER 4By 1797, over 10,000 coasters and nearly 3,500 foreign-going vessels were coming up to London annually. The West India vessels contributed particularly to the river’s traffic jam.… In September 1793, [the West India Merchants] held a meeting in an attempt to resolve it, which was to lead in due course to the building of London’s first commercial docks.
Theo Barker, from Dockland
“Bloody poser,” Janice Coppin muttered, jerking her head towards the interview room, where she had sequestered the man who wished to make a missing persons report. “Ought to have his mobile phone surgically implanted in his ear.”
Gemma knew the type all too well. They indulged in the prolonged and very public use of their mobile phones in the trendier cafes and coffeehouses, and this disregard for both cost and manners apparently served as a badge of social status. “Do you think we should take this seriously, then?” she asked.
“Can’t see him as a practical joker,” Janice answered reluctantly. “And his distress seems genuine enough. It’s just that he fancies himself a bit.” With a dark look at Kincaid as he came through the door at the end of the corridor, she added in Gemma’s ear, “But I imagine you’re used to that.”
Before Gemma could come up with a retort, however, Kincaid joined them. “I postponed the media a bit longer, until we see what this chap has to say. Have you told him anything?”
Janice shook her head. “Just that someone will speak to him. And I sent one of the constables in with a cuppa.”
“Right. Then let’s not get the wind up with an abundance of police presence. Why don’t you run a check on—what’s his name, Inspector?”
“Reginald Mortimer.” Janice articulated each syllable distinctly, crinkling her nose as if she found it distasteful.
“Run a check on Mr. Mortimer, then, Inspector, while Gemma and I have a word with him.”
“Sir—”
Kincaid stopped, hand on the doorknob.
Janice hesitated, then shrugged. “Never mind.” As she turned away, Gemma saw her glance at her watch.
It was the time of day when domestic arrangements needed adjusting if you weren’t going to get home, and as Gemma followed Kincaid into the interview room, she wondered when she’d have a chance to check on Toby. She told herself, as she often did, that her frequent absences would only make her son stronger and more independent, but the argument never quite convinced her.
The interview room was larger than most, with a frosted-glass window on the corridor side, but it was still stuffy with the remainder of the day’s heat. It contained the usual laminate table in an unsightly orange and a half-dozen mismatched chairs of dubious heritage.
The man sitting on the far side of the table looked up at them and started to rise, his expression anxious. As Kincaid stepped forward with an introduction, Gemma studied Reginald Mortimer. Janice had been right. Mortimer wore sharply creased khaki trousers and the knit shirt with designer logo required of a yuppie. Thrown over the back of the chair was a nubby linen jacket; the most expensive of mobile phones peeped from the inside breast pocket.
Of slightly above average height and slender build, he had wide gray-blue eyes and shiny brown hair that flopped over his brow with a slight wave. She wondered if Kincaid would notice the man’s physical resemblance to him.
Reg Mortimer smiled as he shook Kincaid’s hand, and the likeness lessened. His features, she decided, were all just a bit too delicate, and he looked nearer her age than Kincaid’s. He smelled slightly of alcohol and nerves.
“I’m sure this is all a mistake. You must think me a dreadful ass,” he said. His voice was pitched higher than she found pleasing, and no doubt it was his fruity, upper-class accent that had set Janice’s teeth on edge.
“Sergeant James,” Gemma said, pressing his damp palm with her own as she settled into a chair and took a pen and notebook from her bag. “Can we get you some more tea?”
“No, I’m fine, really.” Reg Mortimer shook his head and she saw his eyes dart towards the tape-recording equipment. “Look, I never meant to make such a fuss. I got a bit carried away in the heat of things, then when your sergeant chap on the front desk didn’t seem inclined to be cooperative …”
If he’d had a drink to steady his nerves, he didn’t appear to be drunk. Gemma heard no slurring in his speech, and his eyes tracked steadily as he looked at them.
“Don’t let the equipment put you off, Mr. Mortimer.” Kincaid waved a hand at the tape recorder as he sat down. “This is all quite unofficial—we just needed a quiet place to have a chat.” He smiled and pulled his chair a bit closer to the table, as if to emphasize the informality of the interview.
“Never been in a police station before.” Mortimer’s attempt at insouciance didn’t quite come off.
“They don’t rank high on the list of pleasant work environments, complete with mod cons. Now, Mr. Mortimer,” Kincaid continued, and Gemma felt tension rise at his change of tone. “Something must have worried you quite a bit to bring you here. Why don’t you tell us about it.”
Looking from Gemma to Kincaid, Reg Mortimer began hesitantly, “It’s my fiancée, Annabelle … Annabelle Hammond. She didn’t come home last night.”
“Do you and Miss Hammond live together, then?” Kincaid asked.
“No. No, we don’t.” Reg Mortimer’s answer seemed reluctant. “Annabelle has a flat just opposite the Island Gardens DLR Station. On Ferry Street.”
Kincaid crossed his ankle over his knee and adjusted his trouser cuff. “So you can’t be sure she didn’t return home?”
“Well, no, I can’t be positive, but I’ve checked quite thoroughly.”
“Could Miss Hammond have decided to go away for the weekend without telling you?”
Mortimer shook his head, stirring the lock of hair that fell forward on his brow. “It wasn’t like that. We were together last night. We’d been to a party in Greenwich, at her sister Jo’s. But Annabelle wanted to leave—”
“What time was this, Mr. Mortimer?”
“Half past nine-ish, I think, but—”
“A bit early for leaving a party, wasn’t it?” Kincaid raised a doubtful eyebrow.
“Annabelle wasn’t … wasn’t feeling well,” Mortimer said, reaching for his tea. It would be cold and scummy by now, Gemma thought, only appealing as a distraction.
“Mr. Mortimer.” She chose her words carefully. “Has it occurred to you that perhaps Annabelle made an excuse, because she had other plans?”
“I’m sure she didn’t.” He met her eyes. “We were going for a drink, after. We started back through the foot tunnel—we’d walked to her sister’s—when … Well, it was all very odd.…” He faltered.
With a glance at Kincaid, Gemma continued the questioning. “What was odd, Mr. Mortimer?”
Frowning, he rubbed his palms against his knees. “The lifts were closed, so we took the stairs down to the tunnel level. She was fine then; it was only when we started down the slope of the tunnel itself that she went very quiet—have you ever been in the tunnel?” He looked at Gemma as he spoke and she shook her head. “It is a bit creepy,” he continued. “Cold, and the sound echoes everywhere—but Annabelle never seemed to mind before. But her steps got slower and slower, until after a few yards she stopped and told me to go on, she’d meet me at the Ferry House for a drink in a few minutes.”
“And you left her there?” Kincaid asked. “At the edge of the tunnel?”
Mortimer flushed. “There’s never any point arguing with Annabelle when she makes her mind up about something. But I did try. She said she was all right, she just needed a few minutes on her own. So after a bit I went on. The funny thing is … when I was halfway up the other side I looked back, and I could have sworn I saw her talking to the street musician.”
“There was a busker in the foot tunnel?” Gemma asked, surprised. It seemed an odd place, but then she’d seen them often enough in the tube station tunnels.
“There usually is, in the center of the flat stretch. But I don’t remember seeing this chap before.”
Kincaid uncrossed his ankles and leaned forward a bit, a signal to Gemma that his attention was fully engaged. “Did you go back, then?”
Mortimer wrapped his hands round his cold cup as if for comfort and shook his head. “I wish I had, now.”
“Did you see her again?”
“I waited at the pub for an hour, then I waited outside her flat.”
“You don’t have a key?” Kincaid’s tone indicated skepticism.
“No. Annabelle is adamant about her privacy,” Mortimer answered without defensiveness. “I went back to the tunnel, but there was no sign of either of them. Then I tried the flat again, and rang her from my mobile.”
“And then?”
“I went home. I started phoning again at first light, and I’ve been round to her flat and to the office—we work together—periodically all today. This afternoon I rang her sister, but she hadn’t heard from her, either.”
“Does Miss Hammond make a habit of going off like that?” Kincaid asked.
“Not that I’m aware of,” Mortimer said dryly. “And she’s certainly never done anything like this before. You think she’s gone off with some bloke for a dirty weekend, and I’m having a fit of the vapors over it, don’t you?” he added, his voice rising.
“Not at all,” said Kincaid. “We’re very interested in what you’ve told us.”
Reg Mortimer’s eyes widened and Gemma heard the quick intake of his breath before he said, “What is it? What’s happened?”
“Just bear with us a bit longer, Mr. Mortimer,” Gemma said gently, in an effort to put him at ease. “We don’t know that anything has happened to your fiancée, but it would be helpful if you could give us a bit more information about Miss Hammond.”
After a moment’s hesitation, Mortimer answered. “Annabelle’s thirty-one. She was thirty-one in January. She’s the managing director of Hammond’s Teas. It’s her family’s business—Annabelle took over from her father five years ago. I handle the marketing side of things. The warehouse is just down the far end of Saunders Ness Road.”
Gemma hadn’t a clue where that might be, but she wrote it down in her notebook. “And what does Annabelle look like?” She saw the tendons flex in Mortimer’s hands as they tightened on the mug. “Height?” she prompted, not wanting to give him any longer to ponder the significance of the questions.
“About like you. And she’s slender, with red hair.” He studied Gemma. “But not like yours—it’s lighter, almost golden, and longer, too.”
“Eyes?”
“Blue.”
“And can you tell us what she was wearing last night?” Gemma asked, eyes on the pen poised over the page of her notebook.
She felt his gaze on her face before he answered softly, “A black jacket. Long, with silvery buttons. And a little black skirt.”
Making a conscious effort not to glance at Kincaid, Gemma wrote deliberately in her notebook. She felt none of the elation she’d expected over an almost certain identification. Until this moment, the anonymous woman had been merely a puzzle; now she had become real, someone with a name, a job, a family, a lover.
Kincaid rested his fingertips on the edge of the table. “Mr. Mortimer, you’ve been very helpful, and we appreciate that.”
Gemma looked up and reluctantly met Reg Mortimer’s eyes, knowing she needed to observe his reaction as Kincaid continued.
“But I’m afraid I have to tell you that the description you’ve given us of Annabelle Hammond matches that of a woman found this morning in Mudchute Park.”
Mortimer’s face was still, expressionless. He licked his lips. “Dead?”
“I’m afraid so.”
For a moment longer Reg Mortimer stared at them, the only change the draining of color from his face. Then the handle of the tea mug he still held snapped cleanly off. He looked down at the shard of cheap pottery in his hand, as if he couldn’t quite work out where it had come from.
“If you could make a formal state—”
“Since when?” Mortimer demanded.
“Sometime last night. I’m afraid we can’t be more definite than—”
“How?”
“Mr. Mortimer, we’re not sure of anything yet. If you could just give us her sister’s name and—”
“I want to see her.”
“I’m afraid it’s customary for a family member to make the identification,” Gemma said gently. “If you could just—”
“Surely you won’t make Jo …” His voice broke.
“It’s procedure, Mr. Mortimer. I’m—”
“I don’t think I can bear not knowing.”
Although she understood his plea, Gemma shook her head. “I’m sorry,” she said again.
Mortimer rose unsteadily to his feet. “Then I think I’d like to go home.”
Kincaid pushed back his chair. “We’ll arrange it. But if this busker was the last person to see Annabelle, we’ll need to talk to him. Had you seen him before? Can you describe him?”
For a moment, Gemma thought Mortimer hadn’t heard, but he wiped a trembling hand across his mouth and seemed to make an effort to collect himself. “The street musician? I’d never seen him before. And I didn’t really look when I passed him in the tunnel.… But when I looked back …” He closed his eyes, frowning, then gripped the back of his chair for support as he swayed a little. “He was tall.… I remember Annabelle was looking up at him. Short hair … fairish. Military clothes.”
“What instrument did he play?” Gemma asked.
Reg Mortimer opened his eyes. “I remember I thought it a bit unusual. The clarinet.”
KIT STOOD IN THE CENTER OF Kincaid’s sitting room, watching the millions of sparkling, dancing dust motes illuminated by the late afternoon sun that blazed in through the open balcony doors. Having placed his holdall at the end of the sofa, he’d unzipped it and taken out one of his natural history books, placing it carefully on the coffee table so that he’d feel like he belonged here. He’d only spent the night in the flat once before—usually Duncan came to Cambridge and took him out somewhere, or he stayed with the Cavendishes in the big house while Duncan stayed with Gemma—and he had so looked forward to this weekend, just the two of them on their own.
Sid, Kincaid’s black cat, lay curled on a patch of sunlit carpet, eyes slitted in contentment. Kneeling, Kit ran his fingers through the cat’s silky fur and scratched behind his ears. He felt the vibration of the cat’s purr travel through his fingers and up his arm until it seemed as if it were reverberating inside his brain. The contact made him miss Tess with an almost physical pang.
Cats were all right, he supposed—he’d never had one, never had a dog for that matter until Tess had come into his life—but there was nothing like a dog for making you feel less lonely.
He stood and shoved his hands in his pockets. He wouldn’t bloody cry, not even here on his own, though these days he fought a constant battle against the tears that seemed to hover behind his eyelids, waiting to pounce on him at the most humiliating moment.
This morning had been a near thing when Duncan told him he’d have to go to work—it made him flush just thinking about the way his eyes had filled and his voice had quavered. But things hadn’t turned out as badly as he’d expected. He had liked the Major, rather to his surprise, because the old man hadn’t fussed over him—hadn’t patted him or said “poor boy” or looked at him in that pitying adult way. An adventure, the Major had called it as they set off on the tube to Wimbledon, and Kit had done his best to master his disappointment. But even though the tennis had been glorious, it hadn’t been the same without Duncan. It just wasn’t bloody fair.
Since the Major had left him here and gone down to his own flat, Kit had poked about at his leisure, examining books and CDs and the photos on the walls. He’d tried the telly remote control, zapping through the channels, but there was no Sky TV and he flicked it off in disgust. For a while he’d stood on the balcony, looking down into the bright blooms of the Major’s garden, but he’d come in again when the emptiness of it began to make him feel queer.
His face felt stretched and hot from sunburn and he realized suddenly that he was thirsty. Wandering into the kitchen, he opened the fridge and stared at the contents. A carton of orange juice, a pint of milk past its sell-by date, a cola, and two cans of lager. For a moment Kit was tempted—he was nearly twelve, after all, and he ought to take advantage of being on his own to do something grown-up—but there were only two beers and Duncan was sure to notice if one went missing. With a shrug he chose the cola, popping the top and tossing the ring into the rubbish bin. He rummaged idly through the kitchen drawers as he drank, thinking that if he found a fag he’d try that instead, but then he remembered he’d never seen Duncan smoke.
Why hadn’t Duncan rung him like he’d promised? Where was he now? It must be a murder—that’s what he did, after all, even though he didn’t like to talk about it. Kit tried to imagine a body, riddled with bullets like the ones in the videos he liked, but he couldn’t erase the one image he didn’t want to see—his mum lying so still on the kitchen floor in their cottage.
Throwing the empty cola can into the bin, he glanced at the clock—almost seven. He’d refused the Major’s invitation to come down to his basement flat for baked beans on toast and a game of cards, but he supposed he could change his mind. Anything was better than staying here on his own.
THE COACHES THAT WOULD TAKE THE children to the railway station waited at the curb in front of Cubitt Town School. Parents clustered round them, straining for a last glimpse of sons and daughters as the children were marshaled into untidy queues by the teachers. Many of the mothers were weeping, and the sight of his mum’s tear-streaked face caused Lewis almost as much embarrassment as the paper name tag pinned to the breast of his jumper. He felt like a bloody parcel, and a parcel without a destination at that, for they hadn’t been told where they were going. Many of the children had been bundled into winter coats and stank of sweat and damp wool; some of the smaller ones had already been sick from the heat and excitement.
The queue shifted suddenly as the children in the front began boarding the first bus, and a gasping moan rose from all the parents at once. Little Simon Goss’s mum burst into sobs, arms outstretched as she begged them not to take her baby. As Lewis turned away in mortification, he glimpsed his father at the back of the crowd. Their eyes met: he saw that his father’s were filled with tears.
Swallowing hard, Lewis lifted his hand in a wave; then the momentum of the queue overtook him, carrying him along until he was pushed and shoved up the steps of the bus. He clambered over bodies until he managed to secure a seat at the nearside window, and from there he watched as the remainder of the children were loaded. Finally they were ready, and he lifted his hand once more to his parents as the bus rumbled into life.
Then they were moving, and he felt excitement fizz in his chest—in spite of the uncertainty, in spite of the fact that his suitcase lacked many of the items on the required list, in spite of the humiliating name tag and the gas mask in its cardboard box banging against his chest. Yet as the bus began its lumbering turn into Manchester Road, he twisted round in his seat for one last look at the life he was leaving behind.
At first, as the coach rumbled and belched its way down the Commercial Road and then over the Tower Bridge, he thought they might be going to Waterloo. At home, he had a worn and treasured map of London, and if he closed his eyes he could see the placement of the great railway stations as easily as if he held it in front of him. Paddington, King’s Cross, Euston, Marylebone, Victoria, St. Pancras, Waterloo. The trains left each station in a different direction, so that when he learned their point of departure, he’d have some idea of their final destination.
But as they continued south into Lambeth, he knew they’d left Waterloo behind, and soon they were crossing the Thames again over the Lambeth Bridge. Victoria. They were going to Victoria, then, and from there—south.…
Giddily, he stared up into the station’s vaulted arches as he was herded across the concourse to join the queues of strangely silent children snaking down the platforms. Steam hissed and swirled round the trains; the only sounds were the shouts of the porters and conductors and the echoing of whistles in the cavernous space.
In spite of the teachers’ efforts at order, the boarding of the train entailed much pushing and shoving as the children scrambled for seats next to windows and friends. Lewis’s carriage was packed with several classes, but still he managed to secure a window seat, and taking pity on little Simon Goss, he squeezed the boy in beside him. There was a wait, then a great roar from the children as a guard waved a green flag and the train began to move.
As they chugged out into the sunlight, sandwiches were pulled from paper wrappers and chocolate bars were opened. The silent apprehension of the queues gave way to holiday chatter and absently Lewis ate the bread and drippings his mother had given him, his face pressed to the glass. The suburbs seemed to go on forever—Clapham … Wandsworth … Balham.… Splotches of green began to spring up between the clusters of buildings. Then the splotches spread together until it was the clumps of houses that stood out, dark patches against the green of the rising hills.
The children grew quiet again, absorbing the strangeness of the countryside, and the temperature continued to rise. When the train ground to a halt, a moan of tension ran through the car and Lewis felt a wave of nausea. They waited, whispering, but soon the train began to move again.
As the heat grew and the children became more anxious, the special treats eaten by many inevitably came back up. To make matters worse, it was soon discovered that the train had no toilets. Lewis tried pinching his nose to block the stench, but it only made his thirst worse. Simon Goss had gone to sleep, slumped against Lewis’s numb shoulder. The younger children who weren’t sleeping grizzled for their mothers, a continuous keening of misery.
The train slowed once more. Lewis opened eyes he had squeezed shut against the glare. His eyelids felt sticky. Licking his parched lips, he squinted at the station sign as the train squealed and shuddered to a stop. Dorking. Wherever that was. He closed his eyes again and leaned his head against the window, wondering if he’d dozed and dreamed that they were doomed to stay on this train forever.
The sound of an engine roused him. He looked out, blinking. A green coach pulled up to the station, then another, and another. Men shouted commands and the buses were maneuvered into position beside the platform. Lewis felt his heart thud as the children woke and a stir ran through the car.
The loading of the buses went smoothly, as most of the children were too hungry and exhausted to cause any trouble. Lewis’s class was put with another, and as their coach pulled away from the station, the children clutched their parcels and stared out at the red-bricked buildings of the high street. But they soon left the town behind, and the road ran west into wooded, rolling hills and the afternoon sun.
Lewis had found himself near the front of the coach, and to quell the panic rising in his chest at the sight of all that openness, he spoke to the driver. “Where are we, mister?”
The driver, a thin man with a leathery face and wispy hair, glanced back at him and smiled. “Surrey, lad.”
That didn’t mean anything to Lewis. He tried again. “How far is it? Where are we going, mister?”
Another flick of the man’s eyes in the mirror and he replied, “Ten miles or so. Not far. You’ll see.”
Subsiding in his seat, Lewis thought the man had a funny sort of accent, all stretched-out and blurry-sounding. But at least they’d be off this bus soon. The twisting and rising and falling of the road was making him feel all-over queer, and he wrestled with the catch on his window until he managed to get a bit more air.
He tried closing his eyes, but that only made it worse, so he looked at the great, green hump of land rising away to the right.
Following Lewis’s gaze in his mirror, the driver said, “That’s the north Surrey Downs, lad. Old earth, that is. Feet have walked that way since the Dark Ages.”
Lewis did not find the thought comforting.
After a bit they turned off to the left into a lane no wider than the coach. The lane dipped down between thick hedges, curving and turning, and at every bend Lewis gasped in terror and squeezed his eyes shut. Surely they would crash into the hedge, or meet something coming the other way, but the driver seemed unconcerned and eventually Lewis relaxed a little.
Then the hedges disappeared, and a triangular bit of grass appeared. A few houses were clustered round it, and a ways up the hill on the opposite side rose the steeple of a church. The coach continued past the green and into another narrow lane, but this one had houses either side, and it came to a dead end at a long, low building that bore the legend: Women’s Institute.
They had arrived.
• • •
“KIT SHOULD BE BACK AT THE flat by now.” Kincaid disconnected the mobile phone as he negotiated the entrance to the Blackwall Tunnel.
He’d left the top down on the Midget, and Gemma held back the strands of hair that had blown loose from her hair grip with one hand while she turned the pages of the map book with the other. “I’m sure he’s fine,” she reassured him without looking up. “The Major will keep an eye on him.” She traced a spot on the A to Z page with her finger. “I think I’ve found the street, but it doesn’t look like much on the map. It’s just above the old center of Greenwich.”
“Right. I think I can get that far.”
They were on their way to interview Annabelle Hammond’s sister, having been given her address by Reg Mortimer.
“Did you find anything on Mortimer?” Gemma asked as they emerged from the tunnel into the evening sunlight. She’d been arranging for a car to run Mortimer home while Kincaid had a word with Janice Coppin.
“Sod all, at least in the system. Not even a traffic ticket, as it seems our Mr. Mortimer doesn’t drive.” He squinted as he turned west into Trafalgar Road and the low sun blinded him. “What did you think of his story?”
“Holes you could drive a lorry through,” Gemma responded. “If Annabelle Hammond left her sister’s party because she felt ill, why would Mortimer have left her on her own in the tunnel?”
“And why not go back when he saw her talking to the busker? Unless … he invented the busker so he wouldn’t seem to be the last person to have seen her alive,” Kincaid mused.
“In that case, why call attention to himself by reporting her missing?”
Kincaid shrugged. “We don’t know for sure that it is her. We’re way ahead of ourselves.” Glancing to his left, he saw the beginning of Greenwich Park, its manicured lawns rising up the slope of the hill that housed the Old Royal Observatory. He remembered how crushed he’d been when he’d learned that Greenwich Mean Time was now measured from Deptford. A little bit of childhood romance had died at that moment. “We’ll have to bring the boys here,” he said, pointing. “Tour the Cutty Sark, visit the Observatory. Kit would be interested, don’t you think? And there’s a tea kiosk.”
“For the bottomless stomach,” Gemma said, smiling. “You’ll turn left just ahead, pass the police station, and turn right on Circus Street, then turn left again on Prior.”
He followed her directions, winding ever upwards until they came to the tiny unpaved lane with the rather grandiose name of Emerald Crescent. It turned out to be more of a Z than a crescent, a narrow, twisty alley flanked by hedges, back gardens, and a few large, old homes. Just past the final sharp zag to the left they found the address they’d been given for Jo Lowell, Annabelle’s sister.
Square and symmetrical, with charcoal brickwork and white trim, the house was separated from the lane only by the iron railings that marked the basement entrance. Through the window to the left of the front door they could see a vase of sunflowers on a table.
Kincaid reversed past the last bend until he found a spot of verge large enough for the car. He killed the Midget’s engine, then climbed out and stood for a moment, listening to the sounds of early evening in the lane. A child shouted, a dog barked, and somewhere dishes clattered. “A peaceful evening,” he said softly as they started walking towards the house.
“Until now.” Gemma moved a bit closer to him, her shoulder brushing against his. “Can’t be helped.”
He looked down at her, appreciative of the implied comfort. She knew how much he hated this part of the job. For a brief moment as they reached the door, he let his hand rest on the small of her back in acknowledgment. Then he pushed the bell.
The chimes echoed, and as a voice called out, “Coming!” the door swung open. The woman who stood before them stared at them with the blank expression reserved for the unexpected caller, then she smiled tentatively. “Can I help you?”
Kincaid smiled back. “Are you Josephine Lowell?”
Her brow creased. “Yes, I’m Jo, but look, if you’re selling something—”
“We’re with the police, Mrs. Lowell.” As Kincaid introduced himself and Gemma, displaying his warrant card, her dark eyes dilated. “What …” She glanced towards the back of the house, where the sounds of children in dispute could be clearly heard.
“We need to ask you a few questions, Mrs. Lowell. If we could come in?”
“Oh … of course.” She stepped back. “Do you mind if we talk in the kitchen? I was just putting dinner together and I think things have got a bit out of hand.”
They followed her through a dining room that was painted a soft yellow and accented with the sunflowers they’d seen through the window, then into a comfortable kitchen that looked out on the back garden. A small girl stood on a step stool at the cooker, stirring something in a pan, and an older boy seemed to be trying to wrestle the spoon from her hand. The room smelled of onions, garlic, and spices, overlaid with the sharpness of cooking tomatoes. Spaghetti sauce, Kincaid guessed.
“Give over, Sarah. You’ve got sauce all over the cooker.” The boy made another grab for the spoon but the girl snatched it back and turned with a howl.
“Mummy! I wanna stir!” Tomato sauce dripped from the spoon to the floor in patterns like blood spattering.
“All right, you two, that’s enough.” Jo Lowell removed the spoon from her daughter’s fist as she scooped her off the stool, then swiped the floor with a kitchen towel from the roll on the worktop.
The boy flushed to the roots of his red hair. “I was just trying to help. It’s not my fault she’s made a mess. You always—”
“Harry, please.” Jo Lowell’s exasperation made it clear that this was an oft-played scenario. “Would you take Sarah out into the garden for a few minutes?”
As if alerted by something in his mother’s voice, the boy turned and really looked at them for the first time. “But—”
“Harry.” Jo’s tone was firm.
With a last glance at them, he capitulated. “Okay, okay.” Taking his sister by the hand, he said as he led her towards the door, “Come on, Sarah. I’ll let you bat.”
Gemma smiled as the garden door banged after them. “A great sacrifice, bowling to your little sister.”
Jo shook her head. “Harry’s life seems to be full of trials these days. But you don’t want to hear about that. Please sit down.” She gestured towards the breakfast alcove to the left of the back door, then turned to the cooker. Steam billowed from a large pot behind the saucepan. “Let me just turn these things off.” As she adjusted the knobs, the gas flames dwindled to blue, then sputtered out. She turned and leaned against the cooker, arms folded across her chest. “Can I get you something?”
“No, we’re fine, thanks,” Kincaid said, studying Jo Lowell as he pulled out a chair for Gemma. A smudge of tomato sauce adorned her tee shirt, and her jeans were stained with splotches of paint; a cotton scarf held her dark auburn hair back in a careless ponytail. She wore no makeup and her skin was slightly freckled. He thought she looked a bit too thin, and there were dark shadows beneath her eyes, as if she hadn’t slept well. Although attractive, she bore little obvious resemblance to the dead woman in Mudchute Park. But then there was the boy’s hair.… He seated himself so that he could see out the large window into the garden. “We’d just like to ask you a few questions about your sister.”
“My sister?” Her surprise seemed so genuine that he wondered what she had been expecting.
“Her fiancé, Reginald Mortimer, has made a missing persons report. He said he’d rung you?”
Jo gave a dismissive wave of her hand. “Yes, he did, but I just assumed Annabelle was still narked with him and had made herself temporarily unavailable.”
“Then this has happened before?”
“Well, no, it’s just that last night …”
Before Jo’s hesitation could develop into real caution, Gemma interposed. “What happened last night?”
“They were here—Reg must have told you—and I think they had a bit of a row. That’s Annabelle’s way if she’s cross with you—she cuts you off for a bit.”
“Is that why they left? Because they’d had a row?”
“Why do you want to know?” asked Jo Lowell. “Look, I think you’d better tell me what’s going—”
“Have you any idea what the row was about?” Kincaid said, not yet willing to be deflected.
“No, I’m sorry, I don’t.” Shifting her stance against the cooker, Jo clasped her hands together.
“This was a dinner party?” prompted Gemma. “Celebrating anything in particular?”
Through the open door, they could hear Harry’s continuous grumbling and Sarah’s high, strident voice making the occasional response. Jo glanced out the window over the sink, then said, “No, it’s just that my husband and I are divorced, and this was my first attempt at entertaining on my own.”
“Must have put quite a damper on your party, your sister and her fiancé having a row,” Gemma said sympathetically.
“It was a bit uncomfortable,” Jo admitted, frowning.
“I understand they work together. It must be awkward there, as well, if they don’t get on.”
Jo shrugged. “I’d say they get along better than most—they’ve had long enough to work out their differences.”
“They’ve known each other a long time, then?” Kincaid asked.
“Since we were children. Our parents were friends. In fact, it was Father who encouraged Annabelle to take Reg on.”
“In the professional sense, you mean, not the personal?”
“Father’s always had dynastic ambitions for Annabelle, and Reg fits the bill quite nicely all round. A merger of the Hammonds with the Mortimers would almost make up for not having a son in the firm.”
“What’s so special about the Mortimers?” asked Gemma.
“Sir Peter—Reg’s father—is rather a big cheese in restaurants and hotels, that sort of thing. I’m quite fond of him, actually. Annabelle could do worse in the way of a father-in-law.” Frowning, Jo added, “What is this all about? Surely you’re not taking this missing persons thing seriously?”
“Mrs. Lowell, have you seen or heard from your sister since she left your house last night?” He knew he was slipping into policespeak, but, like the ceremonial and familiar language of funerals, it had its uses.
Jo stared at him. “No, but there’s nothing unusual about that. Sometimes we don’t talk for weeks. What—”
“Mrs. Lowell, I think you should sit down.”
She came slowly, unwillingly, to the table, slipping into a chair without taking her eyes from them. Her expression was anxious. “What’s happened? Is Annabelle all right?”
He looked out the window at the tableau formed by the two children on the green square of lawn. Sarah Lowell stood with her back to them, bat raised, and as her brother threw the ball the sun glinted from his hair.
If they were wrong, Jo Lowell would endure the trip to the morgue for nothing. And if they were right, he wished he could preserve for her this moment untouched by loss, bound by the sound of the children’s laughter on the evening air.
KINCAID HAD SENT GEMMA HOME AFTER their return from the morgue. They’d not make any further progress on the case tonight, and he’d only to tidy up the tag ends of the paperwork at Limehouse Station. Or so he’d insisted, but the truth of the matter was that he’d needed a bit of time on his own to sort out his impressions of the day.
Jo Lowell’s quiet identification of her sister’s body had been harder to take than tears. His condolences had sounded stiff and intrusive even to himself, and he’d had her driven home without attempting to question her further.
Now that they had put a name to the face, the investigation would move into the sifting of evidence and the tracing of every connection with Annabelle Hammond. The constable dispatched to the Greenwich Foot Tunnel had found no sign of the busker described by Reg Mortimer, but from the beginning Kincaid had had his doubts about the story’s authenticity. It was just too bloody convenient, and he’d begun to suspect that Reg Mortimer had a great capacity for inventiveness.
Having organized his makeshift desk as best he could, he said good night to the officers still on duty in the incident room and left the station through the side entrance. As he retrieved the Midget from the car park, he heard music and laughter pouring out of the pub next door. The image of Kit waiting alone in the flat squelched the temptation of a pint before it was fully formed, and he climbed in the car and started the engine. Tomorrow he’d pick up an unmarked Rover from the Yard, but tonight he would enjoy the rare treat of driving through the warm darkness with the top down.
He loved London at night, when the streets had emptied and the lights ran together in a kaleidoscopic blur. As he pulled out into West India Dock Road, he could see to his left the flashing beacon atop Canary Wharf’s Canada Tower. He wondered if Annabelle Hammond had seen it last night as she emerged from the Greenwich Tunnel, and who had been with her.…
Of course, they couldn’t overlook the possibility that Annabelle had been killed by a stranger, perhaps an attempted rape gone wrong; she might simply have been in the wrong place at the wrong time. But his instincts told him that there was more to it than that. He guessed Annabelle Hammond had been the sort of woman who aroused strong emotions, and that it was this quality in her that had led to her death.
The drive from Limehouse to Hampstead took him half as long as during the day, and when he reached Carlingford Road he found a parking space near his flat, a miraculous feat at this time of night. The windows of the Major’s basement rooms were dark, so he entered the building and climbed the stairs to his own flat.
Carefully, he slid his key into the lock and eased open the door. His sitting room was in semidarkness, lit only by the small lamp on the kitchen island and the soundless, flickering images on the telly. Kit lay on the sofa in jeans and tee shirt, sound asleep, one arm outstretched, Sid curled up on his chest. The cat opened green eyes and blinked at Kincaid; the boy didn’t stir.
As Kincaid stood watching, he had the same odd sensation in his chest that he’d experienced the last time he’d seen Kit sleeping—the day he’d found the boy hiding in the Grantchester cottage after his mother’s death.
Turning away, he discovered on the kitchen island a covered plate of sandwiches, a glass of milk, and a note in Kit’s small, neat hand.Dear Duncan,We saved you some sandwiches from the picnic. But we (meaning me!!) polished off the cake. The Major wants to take me to Kew Gardens tomorrow, that is if you have to work.PS I fed Sid. He really likes ham sandwiches.PSS The tennis was brilliant! But I wished you were there.
This missive was signed with a large calligraphic K and embellished with birdlike squiggles.
Kincaid found a light blanket in the linen cupboard and covered Kit as far as the cat. Then he put the sandwiches and milk in the fridge, quietly poured himself a finger of twelve-year-old Macallan, and carried the note and his drink across the room to the armchair. There he sat for a long time, motionless except for the occasional lifting of his glass, watching the gentle rise and fall of Kit’s breathing.
AFTER SHE HAD PUT THE CHILDREN to bed, Jo slipped next door and let herself into her father’s house with her key. He had taken Sir Peter and Helena to dinner at the Savoy, but he would be home soon and she had steeled herself to break the news to him then.
She hadn’t been able to bring herself to speak to the children, not yet, although she knew she’d have to face it in the morning. They’d gone to bed without a fuss, a signal that they sensed something was wrong, but they hadn’t asked. Nor had they questioned her unexplained absence when the police had driven her to the morgue, though Harry had made a token complaint about being sent to the neighbors’ for a while.
Standing in the hallway, she listened to the sounds of the empty house. The grandfather clock ticked; the floor creaked; from the kitchen came the low hum of the fridge and the intermittent drip of the tap. She had grown up in this house, and to her it seemed a living, breathing entity, as familiar as her own body. It had its own unique smell, and she closed her eyes as she tried to pick out the individual components. Was there the faintest hint of tea rose still, four years after her mother’s death? It had been her mother’s scent, and the house had been filled with the garden’s roses from spring to frost. Did odors linger like ghosts, invisible, yet there for those able to perceive them?
She gazed up at the portrait of her mother on the landing. The beaded lace veil and headdress Isabel Hammond wore in the portrait hid most of her red-gold hair, but the eyes that looked down at her were Annabelle’s.
The only blessing Jo could see in her sister’s death was that her mother had not had to endure it. Although her mother had seen Annabelle more clearly than most, she had loved her fiercely nonetheless. As Jo loved her own children, despite their faults—and she found her mind could not fasten on the thought of their deaths, at any age.
Moving into the dining room, she encountered her father’s essence; the muskiness of his shaving soap, overlaid with the sharpness of glue and the slight spiciness of balsa. He had always been good with his hands, and when her mother’s ill health, and then his own, had compelled him to turn the day-to-day running of the business over to Annabelle, he’d begun building scale models of tea clippers. Since childhood he’d been fascinated by the intricacy and precision of the ships that had first brought tea to Britain.
The dining room table served as his workbench, and he’d not only given up any pretense of using the room for its original function, he’d built special illuminated shelves to hold his creations.
Jo picked up the half-completed model in her hands, running her fingers over the curve of the hull, searching for imperfections. Would his bits and pieces of wood be enough to compensate for the loss of a daughter he had valued above all else?
He still lived on income from his interest in the firm—as did she, to some extent. The money from her shares supplemented her own business, allowing her to work from home, and to be there for the children. Would Hammond’s provide security for any of them, with Annabelle gone?
Jo shook her head and went to the drinks cabinet. No point thinking that far ahead, yet. There was this evening to get through first; tomorrow she would think about the next thing. She’d learned that when her mother died. And that there was no harm in the occasional numbing drink. Pouring some of her father’s treasured Courvoisier into a snifter, she carried it to the sitting room and sank into the armchair by the empty fireplace. The windows stood open and the edges of the drapes moved fitfully in the night air.
Green velvet; her mother’s choice. If Jo stood near them she thought she could smell the pipe tobacco her father had smoked when they were children. It had been Annabelle who had bullied him into giving it up. She’d claimed it made her feel sick, that she couldn’t bear to be in the room with him when he smoked; then she’d administered the coup de grâce by refusing for weeks to kiss him good night. As a power play it had been brilliant, a harbinger of things to come.
Jo’s hand jerked at the sound of a car coming up the lane and the brandy sloshed over the lip of the glass. She held her breath. How could she possibly do this? What preparation had she in her thirty-four years that would allow her to tell her father this terrible thing? For a brief moment she hoped that Reg Mortimer had phoned his parents, and that Peter and Helena had told him; then she cursed herself for a coward. Gravel crunched as the car turned into the drive. She heard the gears shift as it began to climb.
Carefully, she set the glass on the end table and rose. Her limbs felt awkward, uncoordinated as a toddler’s, and once she had managed to unfold herself from the depths of the chair, she stood rooted to the spot. The car door slammed and a moment later she heard her father’s key in the door she had left unlocked.
The door swung open. “Jo?”
She found her voice. “In here, Dad.”
“Good. I could have sworn I’d locked the door, and I’d hate to think I was becoming an absentminded old dodderer.” Coming into the sitting room, he offered his cheek for a kiss. He wore the light gray summer suit that set off his silver hair. In his late sixties, William Hammond was still a handsome man, and since Isabel’s death he’d had a time of it fighting off what Annabelle called “the widows’ club.”
Had called, Jo reminded herself. She swallowed. “Dad—”
“Peter and Helena send their regards. I see you’ve got a drink already. I think I’ll join you in a nightcap. Didn’t want to overdo and drive; you know how touchy they are these—”
“Dad.” Jo touched his arm. Her hand was shaking. “I need you to sit down.”
William peered at her face. “Are you feeling all right, Jo?”
“Dad, please.” She saw his expression of mild concern turn to alarm.
“What is it, Jo? Are the children all right?”
“They’re fine. It’s—”
“Is it Martin?”
“Dad, please.” She pressed her hand against his chest so that he was forced to retreat a step. When the backs of his legs hit the edge of the sofa, he sat involuntarily. Jo dropped to her knees before him. “Dad, it’s Annabelle. She’s dead.”
“What?” He stared at her, uncomprehending.
“Annabelle’s dead.” Annabelle’s dead. The phrase echoed in Jo’s head like a children’s nursery rhyme.
William drew his brows together. “Don’t be silly, Jo. Whatever is the matter with you?”
Jo reached out and grasped his hands in hers. The skin on his knuckles felt like silk under her fingers. “The police came to my house. Reg reported her missing because she didn’t come home last night.”
“But surely they’ve just had a tiff of some sort—”
“That’s what I thought when he phoned me this afternoon. But the police found her body. I know. I saw it.”
“No …” The muscles in William’s face began to sag with shock, like modeling clay held too close to a flame. He shook his head rigidly. “There must be some mistake, Jo. Annabelle can’t be dead. Not Annabelle …”
Not Annabelle. Never your precious Annabelle. “Daddy, I’m so sorry.” As she squeezed her father’s hands, she felt the enormity of it overwhelm her. Annabelle had always been there, to love and to hate. However would she manage without her?
CHAPTER 5Isle of Dogs, the intended site [of the West India Docks], was then a lonely, boggy waste used for the pasturing of cattle. It was said to have only two inhabitants: one drove the cattle off the marshes and the other operated the ferry to Greenwich.
Theo Barker, from Dockland
When Kincaid’s alarm blared, he was sleeping with his pillow over his head. It was already full daylight at six o’clock, and when he emerged from his cocoon, the air from the open window smelled fresh and clean. That made him a bit less reluctant to roll out of bed, though it didn’t quite compensate for having to get up at such an ungodly hour on a summer Sunday morning. The postmortem on Annabelle Hammond was scheduled for eight o’clock, and he’d arranged last night to meet Gemma at the Yard beforehand and go together from there.
Although he showered and shaved as quietly as he could, when he tiptoed into the sitting room on his way to the door, Kit stirred and opened his eyes.
“What time is it?” Kit asked sleepily, propping himself up on his elbow. “Did you just get home?”
“It’s half past six in the morning, and I’ve been home but I have to go out again.” Kincaid bent down to stroke Sid, who had abandoned Kit and was rubbing madly about his ankles, purring. “I was going to leave you a note.”
Kit threw off the blanket and sat up. “Can I go with you?”
“Sorry, sport. It’s work.”
“But it’s Sunday.”
Kincaid sighed. “I know. But that doesn’t matter when there’s a case on.”
“It’s a murder, isn’t it?” Kit stared at him, wide awake now.
Pushing Sid gently out of the way, Kincaid sat on the edge of the coffee table.
Before he could answer, Kit continued, “You could take me with you. I’d wait in the car. I wouldn’t be any trouble.”
Kincaid thought of the body that would be laid out on the stainless steel mortuary table, and of what would happen to it. “Kit, I can’t. It’s just not on, and I have no idea how long I’ll be.”
“But I have to get the train back to Cambridge tonight.” Kit’s blue eyes widened in alarm. “I’ve got school tomorrow; it’s exam week. And there’s Tess—”
“I’ll get you to the train, don’t worry. And in the meantime, why don’t you take the Major up on his offer. I think you’d like Kew.” Kincaid glanced at his watch. “I’m sorry, sport, but I’ve got to—”
“There’s nothing for breakfast.” Kit’s mouth was set in the stubborn line Kincaid had begun to recognize as his way of coping with disappointment.
“I know,” Kincaid said with a rueful smile. “I’d planned we’d do the shopping together.” He thought for a moment. “I’ve an idea.” Removing his wallet, he peeled off a few notes. “There’s a good cafe round the corner on Rosslyn Hill. Why don’t you treat the Major to a proper breakfast. There’s enough for the tube and your admission to the gardens, as well.” He tucked his wallet back into his pocket, then hesitated a moment, not knowing how to make Kit understand that he wasn’t abandoning him by choice.
“I’ll see you tonight,” Kincaid said finally, and as he let himself out of the flat, it occurred to him that perhaps his justification wouldn’t hold water, because he had, after all, chosen the job.
“MILE END AT EIGHT O’CLOCK ON a Sunday morning,” muttered Gemma as they made their way down into the bowels of the hospital. “Just where I wanted to be.” She hated the smell of disinfectant and the underlying, cloying smell of illness.
To distract herself, she thought of the music store she’d seen as she walked to the Angel tube station this morning. It had been closed, of course, but she’d crossed Pentonville Road and peered in the windows. Maybe tomorrow she’d have a chance to buy the music books Wendy had recommended, and at next Saturday’s lesson—assuming this case allowed her to go—she would actually start playing the piano.
Last night, after putting Toby to bed, she’d dimmed the lights and poured a glass of white wine from the open bottle in the fridge. Then she’d stood, hesitating, looking out into the twilit garden. As much as she valued her all too infrequent opportunities for solitude, she’d felt itchy, unable to settle; she wondered if a few minutes’ quiet chat with Hazel would help her erase Annabelle Hammond’s image from her mind.
As she’d quietly let herself out of the flat and made her way across the garden, she blessed the chance that had led her to the Cavendishes. Hazel had not only offered to care for Toby, along with her own daughter, while Gemma worked, but she’d become a much-valued friend as well. In many ways, Gemma felt closer to Hazel than she did to her own sister, for she’d learned blood was no guarantee of sympathy or common interest.
She’d found Hazel and Tim sharing a quiet moment at the kitchen table, drinking mugs of hot cocoa. “I’m interrupting,” she’d said, one hand still on the doorknob. “I’ll just say good night.”
“Don’t be silly. Come and sit down,” Hazel had said, patting the chair beside her. “I’d offer you cocoa, but I see you’ve brought your own tipple,” she’d added with a glance at Gemma’s wineglass. “Hard day?”
“A right bugger.” Gemma had wandered over to the table but hadn’t sat. “And you can imagine what Toby was like after a day at Cyn’s. He fought going to sleep like it was the end of the world, then passed out from one second to the next.” Touching the soft knitting wool in Hazel’s basket, she’d added, “Would you mind if I went into the sitting room for a bit?”
Tim had looked up from his paper and smiled. “Help yourself.”
She’d wandered into the sitting room, drawn by the piano. Sliding the cover back, she’d run her fingers lightly over the keys just for the smooth feel of them, then pressed a few randomly, listening to the notes vibrate and die away. She couldn’t imagine that she would ever be able to string the notes together in a way that would make music—and after her talk with Wendy Sheinart, she found herself trying to work out why she had such a strong desire to do so.
There had been a case the previous autumn that had unexpectedly opened up the world of opera for her, and she’d found herself fascinated … and since moving into the garage flat, Hazel’s wide-ranging collection of CDs had allowed her to sample everything from piano concertos to improvisational jazz … and then in the spring there had been the street musician with the clarinet, who had drawn her to listen whenever she passed the Sainsbury’s on her way home from work. An odd coincidence, she thought fleetingly, that Reg Mortimer had described a busker with a clarinet, but surely it was no more than that.
Having asked her why she wanted to play the piano, Wendy Sheinart had accepted her fumbling attempt at an explanation with a smile. “You don’t have to understand it,” she’d said. “I think perhaps a need to make music is innate with some of us, and background and experience don’t figure into it. And it really doesn’t matter. I just wanted to be sure you were doing this for you.”
“Here we are.” Kincaid touched her arm, and with a start Gemma realized she’d been about to walk past the doors to the morgue. He gave her a quizzical glance. “Why do I get the feeling you’re not all here this morning?”
Gemma smiled and pushed the bell for admittance. “Sorry. I was gathering wool.”
“Then I envy the sheep.”
The door swung back and they identified themselves to the ponytailed young man in spectacles.
“Dr. Ling’s expecting you,” he informed them as he ushered them in.
Kincaid frowned. “Dr. Ling? Would that by any chance be Kate Ling?”
“In the flesh,” said a white-smocked woman as she emerged from the postmortem room. Dark hair as straight as broom bristles framed her pale, oval face and swung just above her shoulders. The pathologist’s dark eyes gleamed with the wicked humor Gemma remembered. They had worked with her in Surrey the previous autumn, on a case that had resulted in the death of one of Gemma’s friends and the near-fatal injury of another. The unexpected rush of memory was sudden and painful enough to leave Gemma momentarily speechless, but Kincaid carried on in the breach.
“What are you doing in London?” he asked, shaking Kate Ling’s hand warmly.
“A promotion of sorts,” Kate answered. “The Home Office had a vacancy needed filling, and I drew the short straw. But I can’t say I’m minding the bright lights all that much, and I get a nice variety of clientele.” She nodded towards the room at her back. “Nice fresh one, this, and just out of the cooler. Shouldn’t be too unpleasant for you, if you’re ready.”
They followed her into the room, masking and gowning as Kate retied her mask and pulled the instrument trolley up to the autopsy table. Was it possible to envy the dead? Gemma wondered as she looked at Annabelle Hammond’s body. The breasts were perfectly formed, neither too large nor too small; the neck slender, the shoulders well-shaped; the waist small and belly flat; the thighs smooth and slim. Even her feet and ankles were beautiful, and Gemma had seldom seen a set of toes worth writing home about. Fat lot of good all that loveliness did her now, of course—and it might even have got her killed. But it had certainly been a body to inspire passion, even obsession.
“Did you do the on-scene yesterday?” Kincaid asked Kate Ling. “Sorry to have missed you. Bit of a balls-up there.”
“The old headless-chickens routine,” Kate agreed as she pulled a new pair of latex gloves from the dispenser. “But I imagine we’ll cover everything now.”
As she reached up to switch on the microphone over the table, Kincaid said, “What about time of death? Off the record?”
The corners of Kate’s eyes crinkled as she smiled beneath her mask. “Half past twelve.” She laughed aloud as she saw Kincaid’s skeptical expression. “You asked me for off the record, and now you don’t believe me? Seriously, though, I’d say it’s not likely she was killed before midnight, although the calculation of body cooling is made a little more difficult by the fact that the ambient temperature began rising rapidly as soon as the sun came up. Lividity was fixed, but the corneas had just begun to cloud, and rigor was not fully established.”
Gemma looked up from her notebook, pen poised over the page. “Eight hours or less, then?”
Shrugging, Kate said, “There are always unanticipated factors. Perhaps the tox report and stomach contents will help you.”
“Spoken like a true pathologist,” Kincaid said, grinning, and it abruptly occurred to Gemma that he found Kate Ling attractive. It wasn’t that he was flirting, exactly, but there was somehow an extra degree of attentiveness in his responses. And his interest was a dangerous thing, as she well knew.
“Was she killed where she was found?” Gemma asked, diverting Kate’s attention from Kincaid.
“It looks that way, unless she was moved very shortly after death. The lividity corresponds to the position of the body.”
“Can you hazard a guess yet as to how she died?” Kincaid asked.
“Now that would be telling.” Kate reached up and switched on her microphone, then stated that she was continuing the external examination of Annabelle Hammond. She tilted the head back so that they had a good view of the throat. “We won’t know until we get into the tissue if there was any crushing of the larynx. But the bruising on the throat is minimal, as is the facial congestion.”
“Anything else obvious?”
Kate lifted one of Annabelle’s hands and then the other, examining the long, slender fingers. “No visible blood or tissue under the nails, but we’ll send samples to the lab just in case.”
When she’d finished her careful scraping of the nails, she buzzed for the attendant. “Gerald, let’s have a look at her back.”
Gerald turned the slender body with the ease of practice, and Kate began her examination of the back of Annabelle’s head, carefully parting the mass of red-gold hair with her gloved fingertips. “Here’s something,” she said after a moment, glancing up at them. She used a magnifier for a closer look. “I think it’s possible we have some blunt force trauma here. There’s a bit of loose hair and tissue, maybe a bit of swelling. We won’t know for sure until we peel back the scalp.”
Gemma swallowed and focused fiercely on her notebook. This was the part she hated most, even more than the initial incision and the removal of the internal organs. She’d always assumed that this part of the job would get easier for her the more exposure she had, but that hadn’t turned out to be the case, and somehow it was always worse when the corpse was as unblemished as this one.
“What about fluids on the body?” she heard Kincaid ask as she stared at the loops and dashes of her shorthand.
“Nothing came up on the swabs, and I’ve not found anything else obvious. No evidence of recent intercourse, either.”
“There’s no indication that this was a sex crime, then.”
Gemma heard Kate’s shrug in her voice as she said, “Not unless it’s a nutter who just likes to fantasize about it afterwards. But they usually leave something behind.”
When Kate had finished with Annabelle Hammond’s back and had Gerald turn the body again, she said, “Unless you have something else in particular you want me to look for, I’m ready to start the internal now.”
As Kincaid shook his head he met Gemma’s eyes. He knew she’d be struggling, but he wouldn’t embarrass her by saying anything. And from his expression, he wasn’t too keen, either.
Kate chose a scalpel from her array of instruments and spoke into the mike. “Right, then. Let’s begin with a Y incision.”
Gemma concentrated on breathing through her nose and recording Kate’s observations in her notebook. Healthy female. Probably an occasional smoker. No sign of a pregnancy, or of previous pregnancies.
When the internal organs had been removed and weighed, Kate said, “We’ll get the stomach contents off to the lab—should have something for you shortly. Now let’s have a look at the neck.”
Gemma glanced up just long enough to see the scalpel poised over Annabelle’s white throat; then she forced her gaze back to her shorthand.
“Look.” Kate sounded as though she’d found a prize in her Christmas cracker. “There’s some bruising on the tissue that didn’t show up on the skin. Odd, but you sometimes see that. And the hyoid cartilage is intact.”
“Are you saying she wasn’t strangled?” Kincaid asked, frowning.
“No, just that it’s not obvious. And there’s always the possibility of vagal inhibition. But let’s have a look at that head injury.”
Gemma took a deep breath and focused on Annabelle Hammond’s toes.
EVEN WITH THE AID OF A sedative, Reg Mortimer had slept poorly. He had dreamed of Annabelle, disjointed fragments in which she had either dismissed him or furiously accused him of something he could not remember. In the last dream, they had been children again, and he had watched helplessly as she stepped into an abyss—then it had been he who was falling, and he’d awakened with mouth dry and heart pounding.
He forced himself to bathe and dress, to eat a bowl of cornflakes and drink a cup of tea, but through it all he had the strangest feeling of unreality, as if any moment he might wake again and find that everything, even the dreaming, had been a dream.
By half past nine, the walls of his flat had begun to close in, and not even the much-prized view of the Thames from his sitting room window offered relief. He had loved the playful conceit of his building, with its architectural mimicry of a great steamliner, but now he had a sudden vision of the building tipping, plunging to the depths and taking him with it.
Reg blinked away the vertigo and grabbed his keys from the entry table. The central lift whooshed him to the ground floor and the lobby doors ejected him into a fine morning. His feet took him south, along the river path and the blinding, molten sheet of the Thames, then into Westferry Road and round the corner into Ferry Street.
The sight of the blue and white tape fluttering from the door of Annabelle’s flat brought him up short. A uniformed constable stood near a van, talking to a man in a white overall. Reg stood for a moment, watching, then forced himself to go past. Whatever impulse had driven him there was spent, but he knew now where he should go.
By the time he’d crossed under the river and climbed halfway up the hill in Greenwich, he was sweating. He entered Emerald Crescent from the bottom end, slowing his steps as his sense of unreality deepened. The lane had the peculiar Sunday morning sort of quietness that spoke of families sleeping in or lazing over coffee and newspapers; birdsong swelled from the hedges, and death seemed an impossibility.
As he neared the top of the lane, the land rose sharply on the left and through the thick screen of trees on the hillside he could glimpse William Hammond’s pale blue door. Ahead, just past the lane’s right angle, Jo’s house sat foursquare and level with the lane. The back gardens of the two properties were adjacent, but not connected.
Jo and Martin Lowell had bought the house during Isabel Hammond’s last illness, and while he would find it difficult to live next door to his father, he could understand Jo’s choosing to settle so near her parents. His own family had lived in a Georgian terrace in Knightsbridge, and when he’d come here as a child he’d been fascinated both by the secret quality of the lane and by the Hammonds’ house. Perched at an angle on the side of the hill, canopied by trees, it had seemed magical.
But this morning he didn’t want to see Jo—he wasn’t ready to think about what had happened there on Friday evening. It suddenly occurred to him that she might be with William and he hesitated a moment, then shrugged and began climbing the steps cut into the thick ivy on the hillside. It would be all right; Jo wouldn’t say anything in front of her father.
A sound caused him to spin round and almost lose his balance on the steep steps. He could have sworn he’d heard a high, faint laugh, but there was no one there. Then as he turned back something flickered in his peripheral vision—a girl running up the steps away from him, barelegged and with a long red plait bouncing on her back.
Blinking, he took a breath. Nothing there. He shook himself like a dog coming out of water and continued to climb, slowly—a lack of sleep and proper meals, that’s all it was, and too much thinking about the past.
By the time he reached William’s front door he had recovered his equilibrium. He rang the bell and waited.
William Hammond answered the door himself. As Reg gazed at him he realized that until now he hadn’t thought of William as old. He’d been too much in awe of him as a child, and he had somehow kept that image fixed in his mind. But this morning William seemed to have shrunk. The black suit he wore emphasized his frailness, and against his silver hair his skin looked pale as driftwood.
Swallowing, Reg said, “Mr. Hammond. I’m so sorry. Is there anything I can do?”
William smiled and extended a hand that trembled as if he had palsy. “Reginald, my dear boy. How good of you to call. Do come in and have some tea.”
Reg followed him through the house and into the kitchen. William put the kettle on the hob, then motioned Reg into a chair. “Jo said she’d bring over some cakes, but I’m afraid she hasn’t managed it quite yet.”
“It’s all right, Mr. Hammond. I’m sure Jo has enough to deal with this morning.”
“Yes, yes, she’s taking things in hand. Telephoning and such. She and Annabelle are always so good at organizing, just like their mother.” William set delicate cobalt and russet teacups on a tray, then reached for a brightly colored foil packet of Ceylon tea adorned with the Hammond’s emblem. Annabelle had developed the blend herself, and it had been her favorite.
Reg stifled the urge to rise and snatch the packet from William’s hand. “Would you mind if we had the Assam? Somehow I don’t think I …”
William seemed to see what he was holding for the first time. “Oh, of course. Quite right …” He stood for a moment, as though the interruption had caused him to lose his place in the ritual, then he exchanged the tea packet and went methodically on with his preparations. When the pot had been warmed with the hot water, he filled it and brought the tray to the table. Reg saw that his hands had stopped shaking.
Suspended between the ticking of the kitchen timer and the tocking of the grandfather clock in the hall, they waited for the tea to steep. Feeling no sense of discomfort in the silence, Reg looked round the familiar kitchen. Here since his childhood had hung William’s collection of framed Hammond’s advertisements, some of them going as far back as the 1880s, when a young man named John Hammond had left his Mincing Lane employer and made the unprecedented move of setting up as a tea merchant on the Isle of Dogs. He had been William’s great-grandfather.
“I always loved these.” Reg gestured towards the black and white drawings. “Especially the ones from the London Illustrated News.”
“Yes. That was Annabelle’s favorite, the one with the little Chinamen.” While a pretty woman in late Victorian dress dozed in an armchair, a swarm of Chinese the size of pixies struggled to pull a canister of tea to the top of a table, where a teapot and cup sat waiting. “I’m afraid now it would be considered racist, but I’ve always thought the poster had great charm, and Annabelle made up stories about the little men—even named them, I believe. Their faces are so individual.” William stared at the drawing for a long moment, then said softly, “I’m afraid I’ve not taken it in yet, not really.”
“Have you seen the police?”
“The police? No. But Jo says … Jo says they told her we can’t bury … we’re not to arrange the funeral, because …” The kitchen timer dinged, and William lifted the teapot with apparent relief. He pushed his spectacles up on his nose and carefully poured a little milk into his cup before adding the tea. The milk first, always, after steeping the loose tea at least five minutes in a warmed pot. Annabelle had taught Reg that when they were children, and she had learned it from her father.
And like her father, she had always insisted on bone china, arguing that the development of English china and the drinking of tea were so intertwined as to be inseparable. It had been an esthetic preference as well, because she felt the delicacy of the porcelain affected the taste of the tea, and because the perfection of the ritual mattered to her as much as the quality of the tea itself.
Forcing himself back to the present, Reg said, “I’m sure the police don’t mean to be insensitive,” although he didn’t like to think of the reasons they might need to keep Annabelle’s body. “You can understand that they have to be thorough about these things.” He took his cup and added a spoonful of sugar. Annabelle had nagged him into cutting down from two spoons to one, insisting that too much sugar blunted the taste of the tea. He added a second teaspoon and stirred.
“I don’t understand how something like this could happen,” William said slowly. “They say she was in the park.… But why would she have gone alone to the Mudchute at night? Surely Annabelle would never have been so foolish.…”
Surely not, thought Reg, but had any of them known Annabelle as well as they thought? And how could her death have been random, a grotesque coincidence unconnected with the events of the past few days? But beyond that, his mind closed in upon itself, refusing to follow the chain of probabilities to a possible conclusion.
Looking up, William met Reg’s gaze. He grimaced. “I’m so sorry, my dear boy. I didn’t mean to imply that you had been remiss in any way. This must be difficult enough for you as it is. Your plans …”
How could he tell William that it had been months since Annabelle had been willing to discuss their wedding, and that when he’d asked her point-blank to set a date, she’d refused? Lifting his cup with both hands, he sipped at the tea. It was too hot, but he welcomed the mingled sensations of pain and pleasure on the delicate tissues of mouth and tongue. Anything was better than numbness. Carefully, he said, “You and I know how headstrong Annabelle could be. And I’m sure we both learned that most of the time it was easier to let her have her own way than to fight a losing battle. But this time I let her go too far.…” His eyes filled with tears.
Reaching out awkwardly to pat him on the shoulder, William said, “You mustn’t blame yourself. It’s just as you said: Annabelle liked her own way about things. But she was a dear girl, all the same, everything a father could have wanted.” His face convulsed with emotion and he looked away, staring into the leafy rectangle of the kitchen window.
Reg gave him time. Without asking, he added a little milk to William’s cup, filled the cup with fresh tea from the pot, then rose and retrieved the still-steaming kettle from the hob. When he’d topped up the pot with hot water, he turned back to the cooker and stood gazing, like William, out of the window. He felt the air move round his face, heavy as a hand, warmer than his skin; it seemed to have no power to dry the sweat sliding under his collar.
Jo’s children were playing in her garden next door—he could hear their voices fading in and out intermittently, like a radio broadcast from a far-off country. It might have been himself he heard, his voice mingled with Jo’s and Annabelle’s as they played in this same garden.… Had it been this green when they were children? Perhaps it had, for he remembered suddenly that Annabelle had liked to pretend it was the jungle in Sri Lanka, and that her mother’s hedge of rhododendrons was a plantation of tea bushes. He wondered if there was some genetic factor involved in the inheritance of passions, for in Annabelle, William’s fascination with tea had appeared full-fledged and undiluted, while in Jo it had never aroused more than a mild interest.
When she’d been too young to read the more complicated text in her father’s books, Annabelle had demanded explanation of the pictures, and they’d fueled her imagination. One wet spring day in the garden, she’d decided they would pick tea. It would be the finest tea, a royal tea, she’d proclaimed as she armed Reg and Jo with baskets and instructed them to pluck only the bud and the first leaf from each stem.
They had not been discovered until the poor rhododendrons had been stripped of almost every tightly furled pink bud, and when confronted by her furious and baffled mother, Annabelle had shouted that she’d only been doing the job properly. She’d spent a week in her room after that.
“Do you remember when Annabelle plucked the rhododendrons?” he asked.
William smiled. “And when her mother allowed her out of her room, she nearly burned the shed to the ground, trying to dry the leaves.”
Reg walked round the table and sat again, slowly. He wrapped his hands round his Wedgwood teacup and stared at the skin forming on the surface of the tea, clouding it, just as time would cloud their memories and Annabelle’s sharpness would disappear beneath a film of kindly self-deception. She would become the “dear girl” William thought her, and her father’s illusions would remain unmarred by the less-than-perfect person Annabelle had been.
Looking up, he met William’s eyes. “Nothing meant more to Annabelle than the business. I know that.” Reg heard the bleakness, unexpected, in his own voice, but he continued. “We have to carry on the way she would have wished. We owe her that.”
JANICE COPPIN TOOK A LAST BITE of her donut, then brushed the flakes of sugar icing from her desk. Sipping her coffee to wash away the sweetness, she reshuffled her paperwork and scowled. She’d groused under her breath last night when Mr. Scotland Yard had sent her to Reg Mortimer’s flat. While she thought Mortimer a bit of a poser, she hadn’t relished seeing him white and ill with the news, suddenly bereft of all his charm.
But perhaps she hadn’t been quite fair to the superintendent. There were worse tasks, including the one Kincaid had undertaken himself last night—informing the dead woman’s sister and accompanying her to the morgue. And he had asked her if she wanted to attend the postmortem this morning—she just hadn’t been able to admit that she wasn’t sure she had the bottle for it, and she couldn’t have borne embarrassing herself in front of him.
It was even remotely possible, she supposed, that when Kincaid had told her to go home last night and see to her family, he hadn’t been condescending to her because she was female. His sergeant had mentioned having a young son, so he would be familiar with the difficulty of making arrangements.
Janice wondered if they were sleeping together. It happened often enough, and she sensed an unspoken familiarity between them that went beyond the requirements of the job. Not that she cared, of course—if the woman was daft enough to get involved with her superior officer, that was her problem.
But if she was going to give Kincaid credit for some sensitivity, perhaps she ought to give his advice a second thought as well. He’d said there was no such thing as an unimportant witness in a murder investigation, even old George Brent—though they’d got no further forward when they’d interviewed him.
This was her patch, her neighborhood; she had history and a knowledge of these people that outsiders couldn’t begin to appreciate. It was time she put it to good use. She’d have another word with old George, even if it meant apologizing for some long-ago slight.
First things first, though. Standing up, she dropped the donut wrapper in the bin and flicked the crumbs from her jacket. Reg Mortimer’s description of the busker in the tunnel had brought immediately to mind the controversial son of Lewis Finch, a local property developer who had made his name and fortune in the rebuilding of the Docklands. She couldn’t imagine what connection Gordon Finch could have had with the late Annabelle Hammond, but she had a pretty good idea where she might find him.
THE THREE TERRACED HOUSES AT THE end of Ferry Street had been built in the late seventies, the first phase of a massive waterside housing scheme that had failed because of the oil recession. Only the jutting angles of the rooflines were visible now over the brick wall and well-established private gardens that separated the houses from the street, but they were spectacular enough to make Kincaid wish he could see them from the river.
Janice Coppin had been his informant—when she’d heard the address last night, she’d wrinkled her nose and pronounced that the houses looked like a house of cards in the process of collapsing. He smiled now at the aptness of the description, but he found he liked the playful quality incorporated into the strong geometric design, and he wished the economic climate had allowed completion of the project.
According to Janice, in the intervening years, the economy had recovered, plummeted, and recovered again. Recently, an old building that stood between the private gardens and Ferry Street had been converted into flats, and it was here that Annabelle Hammond had lived.
The door to Annabelle’s flat faced on the side street, a bit of pavement running down to the water. A bronze plaque set into a concrete base informed Kincaid that this was Johnson’s Drawdock, and was the site of the old ferry to Greenwich. He turned and looked across Ferry Street, his eye caught by the bright red and blue cars of the Docklands Light Railway thundering across the old Millwall viaduct into Island Gardens Station, almost directly across the street.
Crime scene tape fluttered across the flat’s entrance alcove, where Gemma stood chatting with the uniformed constable left to keep an eye on things. “The lads were a wee bit impatient with the lock,” the constable was saying as Kincaid joined them. “So I’m to hang about until we get it sorted.”
“Go get yourself a cuppa,” said Gemma. “Or even a bite of lunch?” she added with an interrogatory glance at Kincaid.
Kincaid nodded. “I expect we’ll be here a few minutes. Time enough for a quick break if you’d like.”
“Right, sir. Cheers.” He gave them a wave as he started across the street towards the park.
Kincaid raised an eyebrow as he looked at what was left of the lock on Annabelle Hammond’s door. “I think ‘brutal’ might be a bit more descriptive.”
“Inconsiderate of her not to have left us with a key,” Gemma said as she pushed the door wide and Kincaid followed her in.
He glanced at her, concerned. Gemma seldom indulged in sarcasm, but when she did it was her way of whistling in the dark. The door swung closed behind them and suddenly the silent vacuum of the airless hall seemed louder than a symphony. “Good soundproofing,” he commented as he switched on the lights and scooped up the post scattered on the floor. After flipping quickly through the letters, he put them on a side table. “Nothing too interesting, but we’ll go through it later.”
“No revealing letters addressed to herself?”
“No such luck. Just bills, from the look of them.” He glanced from Gemma to the closed doors lining the T-shaped corridor. “Eenie meenie?”
Gemma considered, then pointed to the door at the other end of the T’s short arm. “That one.”
“Right.” The sand-colored Berber felt soft under his feet as he walked down the hall. “No expense spared on the carpet,” he commented.
“No expense spared anywhere, I should think,” said Gemma, close behind him. “A flat in this building must have cost a pretty penny.”
Opening the door, he found that they had chosen the sitting room. They stood on the threshold, staring. It was a large room, done in simple, spare furniture, the color scheme one of neutral sands and oatmeals. On its far side, French windows looked out over an enclosed garden, and it was the greenery framed in the glass panes that provided the room’s focal point.
“It’s beautiful,” murmured Gemma, moving into the room. “Restful. She must have loved the garden.”
From a small, flagged patio, steps led down to a walled oasis. A white wooden table and chairs stood under the trees at one end, a few pots of impatiens provided splashes of color, and on the lush rectangle of lawn, a croquet set had been abandoned, as if someone had been called away midgame.
The waiting garden gave Kincaid a stronger sense of life interrupted than he’d felt standing over Annabelle Hammond’s body in the morgue.
Turning away, he examined the room curiously. The SOCOs had been a bit more delicate in here, it seemed, and had left little evidence of their presence other than the thin dusting of fingerprint powder. There was a fireplace on the left-hand wall, fitted with gas logs and framed on either side by custom-built shelves filled with books. What people chose to read never failed to fascinate him, and he crossed the room to take a closer look.
There were a number of hardcover best-sellers, and a handful of titles that he recognized as being novels about successful women overcoming obstacles. None showed a particularly adventurous or introspective turn of mind, and all were tucked neatly between brass or alabaster bookends, with the spines arranged according to height rather than by content or author. It seemed as though Annabelle Hammond had been as tidy in her reading habits as she was in her housekeeping, and had reserved her passions for things other than books.
“Anything interesting?” asked Gemma as she came to stand beside him.
“Interesting by its absence, maybe. And obsessively neat.”
“So I noticed.” Gemma gestured towards the coffee table, where a few upscale design magazines were precisely stacked. “There’s no sign of anything in progress—no half-read books or magazines, no newspapers left open, no basket of knitting or needlework.” Turning back to the shelves, she touched the CDs stacked beside the stereo system. “She liked music, though, and her taste was a bit more eclectic. There’s jazz and classical here, as well as pop.”
His hands in his pockets, Kincaid resumed his wandering about the room, stopping to peer in the small kitchen alcove at the back. It was as neat and neutral as the sitting room, with a few expensive appliances that looked unused. The refrigerator contained a pint of milk, some orange juice, butter, a bottle of wine, and some olives. It reminded Kincaid of his own.
“She must have eaten all her meals out, or had take-away,” he said. Gemma didn’t answer, and when he stepped back into the sitting room, he saw that she was still standing before the bookshelves, staring at the single photograph in its ornate brass frame.
It was of Annabelle, alone. She stood in a meadow, wearing a barley-colored dress. She was laughing into the camera, and her hair shimmered like molten gold in the sun.
“You know,” Gemma said slowly, “I don’t think this room is about being peaceful at all. I think it’s about not competing with Annabelle.” She turned to him. “It’s a stage. Can you imagine how she would have stood out in here, against this neutral background? You wouldn’t have been able to take your eyes from her—not that I imagine that was easy to do under any circumstances.”
One could see bone structure in the dead, but not the shape of a smile, or the sparkle in a glance, and the photograph gave animation to the face they had experienced as beautifully formed but without personality. Kincaid lifted it for a closer look. “She was truly lovely. And you might be right.”
“I wonder who took the photo,” Gemma said as he returned it to the shelf. “I’d say that either she felt a connection with that person, or she was a marvelous actress.”
“There’s a sense of mischief, of daring, even, in this photo that’s not evident here.” Kincaid gestured round the room. “I don’t think this was where she lived—emotionally, I mean.”
“So where did Annabelle Hammond express herself?” Gemma mused. “Let’s have a look at the rest of the flat.”
In the bedroom, Annabelle had incorporated soft, sea blues into the sand-colored scheme, but it was as tidy as the sitting room. No clothing lay draped over chairs or dropped hurriedly on the floor, but a look in the wardrobe caused Gemma to whistle through her teeth. “We can certainly guess where she spent a good deal of her money,” she said, fingering the fabrics.
Kincaid glanced into the adjoining bath. Towels were draped over the radiator, a silk dressing gown hung from a hook on the back of the door. “I’ve a feeling she made the bed as soon as she got out of it. She might have even dried the bath.”
Next they tried the middle door in the hallway. The room was a small office with a built-in desk, filing cabinets, and work area. A printer stood on the desk, alongside a lead and connector. “She must have kept her computer at the office,” Kincaid said as he opened drawers, poking about for anything that looked interesting.
“Look at this.” Gemma stood before a corkboard that had been mounted on the wall. “Seems Annabelle had a personal life, after all.” Gently, she lifted layers and shifted drawing pins.
There were photographs, many of which Kincaid recognized as Jo Lowell and her children. In one Annabelle sat in a garden, a red-haired baby in her lap, an older couple standing behind her. The man was tall and silver-haired, the woman had a faded beauty that might once have equaled Annabelle’s. “Her parents?” Kincaid guessed, touching the photo. “And her nephew, Harry?”
“The children’s christening invitations are here, too,” Gemma said. “But there’s something odd. Look. There are several pictures of little Sarah as a baby, then nothing. It looks as though Annabelle was a most devoted aunt, yet there are no recent photos of either of the children.”
Kincaid sifted carefully through the items. There were birthday cards and restaurant menus, bits of ribbon, a dried rose, a postcard of a Rossetti angel that bore a remarkable resemblance to Annabelle, and a flyer for a musical program in Island Gardens. He caught a glimpse of a red-haired child, but on closer inspection the photo bore the subtle signs of age. The child was Annabelle herself, he felt sure, a sunburned sprite with a mop of red-gold curls and a butter-wouldn’t-melt expression. On one side stood a thin boy with Reg Mortimer’s recognizable, guileless smile; on the other, Jo Lowell frowned into the camera. “The Three Musketeers, it seems,” he said softly. But Gemma was right—in the last few years, her niece and nephew seemed to have disappeared from Annabelle’s life.
“Look at this one.” Gemma handed him a page torn from the Tatler. The full-lengh photo showed a grown-up Reg and Annabelle in the full splendor of black tie and ball gown. Arms clasped, both smiled into the camera’s eye. “A gilded couple.”
He glanced at Gemma. “What is it, love? Not envious of their social accomplishments, are you?”
She shook her head. “It’s just that she seemed more than ordinarily alive—charmed, even. How could someone snuff out such beauty?”
“Perhaps she was killed because she was beautiful, not in spite of it,” Kincaid suggested. “I think such beauty could inspire a dangerous jealousy.”
“Reg Mortimer doesn’t strike me as the type to fly into a jealous rage, but I suppose anything is possible.” Moving to the desk, Gemma reached for the answering machine beside the telephone. “Let’s see if Mortimer rang as often as he says he did.” She hit play, and after a moment they heard Mortimer’s voice.
“Annabelle, it’s Reg. I’m at the Ferry House.” There was a pause, then he added, “Look, do come.” A beep ended the message, followed by another beep beginning the next. “All right, I deserve to be punished. But enough is enough, don’t you think? I’ll apologize on bended knee.”
After that there were two calls without messages. “Mortimer again?” Kincaid speculated, but before Gemma could respond, a new message began.
“Annabelle? Where are you? Ring me at home.” A man’s voice, deeper than Mortimer’s, used to giving commands. Another beep, and the same voice said, “Annabelle, where the bloody hell are you? It’s Lewis. Ring me back.”
There were several more calls without messages, then a woman’s voice saying, “Annabelle, it’s half past nine. I know you can’t have forgotten—we’re waiting for you,” and again, “Annabelle, where are you? We’ve finished breakfast. We can’t stall Sir Peter any longer. Please ring me at home.”
The last caller he recognized as Jo Lowell, sounding relaxed and a little amused. “Annabelle, Reg says you’ve abandoned him and he’s worked himself into a real tizzy over it. Do put him out of his misery. Ring me when you get in.”
Kincaid looked at Gemma and raised an eyebrow. “I’d say Reg and Annabelle did have a row, from the sound of that.”
“Yes, but it supports his statement that he waited at the pub.”
“Maybe,” Kincaid answered with some skepticism. “Would Sir Peter be Reg Mortimer’s father, do you suppose? And who is Lewis?”
His phone rang. While he extricated it from his pocket with one hand, with the other he brushed the backs of his fingers against Gemma’s cheek, feeling a sudden swelling of desire at the nearness of her. He touched her lips with his fingertips, heard the quick intake of her breath. The flat was empty, after all.…
“Kincaid,” he said impatiently into the phone.
“It’s Janice Coppin here, sir. I think I’ve found our busker.”
JANICE MET THEM AS THEY CAME into Limehouse Station from the car park. Her nod to Gemma held the slightest suggestion of a wink as she said, “I’ve put him in the interview room to cool his heels. He’s not too happy about helping us with our inquiries.”
“Have you told him anything?” Kincaid asked.
“No. Just confirmed where he was night before last, though he didn’t like to admit it. Told him we had a dozen witnesses willing to swear he was in that tunnel.”
“Is that where you found him? In the tunnel?”
“In the park. Island Gardens. From the description I guessed who he was, and he has a few regular pitches on the Island. He’s one of our local activists—you know, does his part to keep the yuppies at bay.” Her sidelong glance at Kincaid as she spoke made it clear she was pleased enough with herself to risk sending him up. “The ironic thing is that he’s Lewis Finch’s son.”
“Lewis Finch?” Kincaid repeated, and Gemma thought of the message on Annabelle Hammond’s answering machine. “Who’s he when he’s at home?”
“Our legendary Lewis, the saint of the East End, according to some. He’s responsible for redeveloping and restoring many of the old warehouses and factories on the Island.”
Gemma heard skepticism in Janice’s voice. “Is that not a good thing?”
Shrugging, Janice said, “I can see the dissenters’ point. Once most of these places are tarted up, none of us who grew up here on the Island can afford to live in them.” She nodded towards the interview room. “You can see where the son gets his looks, if not his views. According to rumor, Lewis Finch is quite the ladies’ man.”
Was it possible that Annabelle Hammond had been one of his conquests? wondered Gemma as they entered the interview room.
Then, as Kincaid said, “Why don’t you begin the questioning, Janice,” Gemma stopped dead on the threshold.
The man stood in the center of the room, facing them, hands jammed in the pockets of his army-issue trousers. The sleeves had been cut out of his camouflage jacket, revealing the muscular definition of his suntanned arms. Since she had last seen him, his fair hair had grown out a bit and he’d added a gold earring in his left ear.
“You’ve no right to keep me here like this,” he said, and she remembered how unexpected she had found his educated voice. “Either let me leave or I’m calling my solic—” He saw her, and faltered.
His surprise, thought Gemma, must have been greater than hers, because she realized now that at some level she’d made the connection between Reg Mortimer’s description and this man.
For a few months, he had played his clarinet in front of the Sainsbury’s on the Liverpool Road, until he had become a regular if enigmatic part of her life. Although he had seldom spoken or smiled, she’d been drawn to him in a way she could not explain. But when she’d at last ventured to speak to him, he’d answered so brusquely that she’d felt a fool, and shortly after that he’d vanished from the area. She had not seen him since.
Sitting down, Janice Coppin switched on the tape recorder and gave the date, then addressed the busker. “Your name, please, for the record.”
Without taking his eyes from Gemma, he said, “It’s Finch. Gordon Finch.”
CHAPTER 6Bounded on three sides by the river Thames, and communications hindered (in those days) by the swing bridges at the entrances to the working docks, [the Island] had (and still has) a special feeling of isolation, which separates it from the rest of East London.
Eve Hostettler, from Memories of
Childhood on the Isle of Dogs, 1870–1970
“Sit down, Mr. Finch.” Janice Coppin positioned her chair squarely in the center of the interview table; after a moment, Gordon Finch sank reluctantly into the chair on the other side. Kincaid and Gemma sat on either side of Janice and a bit back, so that Janice became the natural focus of attention.
Gemma was glad Kincaid had given Janice the lead, for it gave her a chance to study the busker, who hadn’t met her eyes again. It had been some time since she’d seen him, and she thought perhaps he’d lost weight. Surely the planes and angles of his face seemed more pronounced. His short cap of fair hair stood up in tufts where he had run his fingers through it, and darker stubble shadowed his chin.
“I want my solicitor,” he said. “You’ve no right to hold me here without my solicitor present.” How many street musicians, wondered Gemma, had a solicitor at their beck and call?
“You are free to ring your solicitor, Mr. Finch,” Janice countered. “But you understand that we are not charging you with anything—we merely want your help in answering a few questions.”
“What sort of questions?” Finch said warily, not sounding reassured.
Janice lined up her notebook at a right angle to the table’s edge. “You’re aware, of course, that busking is in direct violation of—”
“Oh, come off it, Inspector. It’s Sunday afternoon, the best day of the week, and most likely you’ve made me lose my pitch. If you mean to slap me with a fine for busking, do it. Otherwise let me go back to work before all the punters pack up their pushchairs and their picnics and go home.” He moved his chair back, as if to rise.
Kincaid clasped his hands over his knee and smiled, making it clear he had no intention of terminating the interview. “Are you an observant man, Mr. Finch? It seems to me that your particular line of work would provide you with a unique opportunity to witness the vagaries of human nature, as well as its more ordinary comings and goings.”
“Vagaries?” Gordon Finch stared at him, and Gemma chalked one up to Kincaid. “What the bleedin’ hell is that supposed to mean?”
Kincaid grinned. “I don’t believe you suffer from the constraints of the verbally challenged, Mr. Finch, but I’ll tell you exactly what I mean. You’re the ideal witness. You observe everything, but people don’t see you. How many people who pass you could say later what clothes you wore? Or what piece you played?”
Finch shrugged, but Gemma saw interest in his light gray eyes. “Ten percent, maybe. On a good day.”
Beside her, Gemma felt Janice Coppin stir with the impatience of one not used to Kincaid’s interview methods.
“Frustrating, I should think,” Kincaid continued conversationally. “Not to be appreciated. Like playing the violin in an Italian restaurant.”
“They’re punters—what can you say?” Finch shrugged dismissively. “But there are some who listen, some who even come back,” he added, glancing almost imperceptibly at Gemma.
She looked away, shifting her gaze to his hands. Although he seemed more relaxed, his hands rested awkwardly on the tabletop, as if he were used to having something in them.
“On Friday evening, you were busking in the Greenwich Foot Tunnel,” said Kincaid. “I want you to tell us what you saw.”
“Sorry, I don’t follow you.” Finch frowned slightly.
“Did anything at all unusual happen?” Kincaid leaned forward, as if he could will an answer from him.
Finch thought for a moment, then shook his head. “Not that I remember. What are you getting at, exactly?”
“About half past nine—is that right, Inspector?” Kincaid glanced at Janice.
Janice made a show of looking through her notebook, although Gemma felt sure she knew the time perfectly well. “Yes, sir. Between half past nine and ten o’clock.”
“About half past nine, a man and a woman entered the tunnel together, from the Greenwich end. But according to her companion, the woman suddenly refused to go on, insisting that he leave her there and meet her later. We thought perhaps you could corroborate his statement.”
“How could I possibly know something like that?” Finch sounded more baffled than irritated.
“Because the woman was a strikingly beautiful redhead, and her companion says she spoke to you.”
Gemma saw the involuntary jerk of Gordon Finch’s hands, but when she looked up at his face, his expression was guardedly neutral. “I don’t remember anyone speaking to me. What’s all this about, anyway? Why don’t you just ask her, if you’re so anxious to know what this woman did?”
Kincaid settled back in his chair, absently turning the pen he’d picked up from the interview table round and round in his fingers. “I’m afraid that’s not possible, Mr. Finch. She’s dead.”
Gemma watched Gordon Finch’s face now, looking for the telltale signs of guilt—the nervous blink, the uncontrolled twitch of the mouth—but she saw only the blankness of shock.
“What? What are you talking about?” He looked directly at Gemma this time, as if trusting her to tell the truth.
“Her name was Annabelle Hammond.” Gemma’s voice felt as if it needed oiling. “She was killed on Friday night, sometime after she left the Greenwich Tunnel.”
“But—” Finch shook his head once, sharply, and Gemma saw the flicker of some intense emotion in his eyes before his face settled into an impassive mask and he said flatly, “I can’t help you.”
Holding his gaze, Gemma said, “Then you wouldn’t know if your father knew Miss Hammond, or the nature of their relationship.”
“I’ve no idea. My father’s affairs are his business. Now, either charge me with something or let me get back to work before my day is a total sodding loss, all right?”
Gemma knew they’d no further cause to hold him. But she also had no doubt that Gordon Finch had known Annabelle Hammond, and known her well.
TERESA STOOD AT HER SINK, WIPING the same plate over and over with a tea towel. After Jo’s call she’d sat for a long while on the edge of the sofa, the phone still in her hand. Then, stiffly, she had stood and searched out the dust cloth, and after that the vacuum.
It was Sunday. She always did her chores on a Sunday, to be ready for the week. Whenever she tried to fix her mind on the thing Jo had told her, the thought skittered away, elusive as a bat at dusk, and she returned to the familiar loop. It was Sunday. She did her chores on Sunday.
The strident buzz made her jump and the plate flew from her hands, clattering unharmed to the lino. It was a moment before she connected the sound to her doorbell, and then her heart leapt with hope. It had been a dreadful mistake, of course; she should have seen that.
Dropping the tea towel in a sodden heap on the floor, she wiped the damp palms of her hands on her jumper and hurried through the sitting room. She flung the door open and stared at Reg Mortimer, who stood with his finger poised over the buzzer.
In all the time they’d worked together, Reg had never come to her flat, though she’d had a few guilty and quickly squelched fantasies in which he had. She’d told herself often enough that Reg Mortimer floated through life like oil atop water—he was seldom ruffled, never shaken, and if anything stirred in the depths, he did a good job of keeping it to himself.
But today she hardly recognized him. The skin beneath his eyes looked bruised with exhaustion, his lips were bloodless and clamped in a thin line, and she saw that his raised hand shook slightly.
“Teresa, I … I thought Jo must have rung you.…”
So it must be true—his presence here told her that, as did the sight of his face. “Jo said …” She faltered, then swallowed, forcing herself to continue. “But I didn’t really believe it.”
He nodded, once, an undeniable confirmation. She stepped back and he came into the flat, closing the door behind him. For a moment they stood staring at one another, then Reg touched her shoulder awkwardly. “Teresa, I’m so sorry.”
That he should express concern for her, when he and Annabelle had been everything to each other, pulled the last prop from her fragile composure. She covered her face with her hands and began to weep like a child.