Kissed a Sad Goodbye

Reg gathered her into his arms, and it was not until her sobs had at last subsided into hiccups that Teresa began to take stock of her position. Her wet face was crushed uncomfortably into Reg’s knit shirt, just beneath his chin, while he rubbed the middle of her back with the palm of his hand. He smelled faintly of sweat and aftershave—and with that thought she realized with horror that her nose was running and she hadn’t a tissue. She pulled herself free of his arms and turned away. “Oh, God, I’m sorry. I’m a mess.” Sniffing, she groped blindly for the box of tissues on the coffee table, knocking it to the floor.

“It’s all right. You’re fine.” He retrieved the tissues and pressed a wad of them into her hand. “You have a good blow, and I’ll make you a cuppa.”

“But I … but you won’t know where—”

“I’m sure I can manage that much in your kitchen. Sit down, please.”

Teresa sat, because her rubbery knees threatened to give out if she did not.

She heard the opening of cupboards and the burble of the kettle, and a few moments later Reg reappeared, cradling a mug. He lifted a brow as he sat down beside her and transferred the mug to her hands. “Tea bags? What heresy.”

“Only for emergencies.” Teresa attempted a smile, but the tremble in her lip threatened to betray her. She sipped gratefully at the tea, even though it was too hot and too sweet.

“Then I’d say this qualifies.”

She glanced at him. “I should have known yesterday morning, when she didn’t show up for breakfast with Sir Peter. Annabelle would never have missed that meeting without letting us know. I should have realized—”

“Don’t torment yourself over it, Teresa. Nothing you could have imagined would have helped Annabelle. She was already dead.”

“They’re sure?”

“As sure as the police are likely to admit about anything.”

“But you knew, didn’t you? Jo said you went to the police, that was how they identified … her body. You knew because you were closer to her.…” She touched his arm in a gesture more familiar than she could have imagined an hour ago.

He stood abruptly. “I don’t believe that. It was logic, that’s all. I knew what you knew—that she’d never have missed that meeting, not unless … And I knew she hadn’t come home.”

“But you were together—”

“Not the whole evening.” Moving restlessly to the balcony door, he looked out. “After Jo’s party she asked me to meet her later at the Ferry House. But she never came.”

“But …” Teresa stared at his back. What he was telling her didn’t make sense, but she didn’t feel she could push him. “The police … did they say how …”

Reg shook his head. “No. Didn’t they tell Jo?”

Teresa hesitated. This must be horribly difficult for him, she knew, but surely he’d thought of nothing else, and perhaps she could set his mind at rest. “Only that they didn’t believe she’d been … you know … assaulted.”

“And that’s supposed to make it more acceptable?” His tone was bitter. “Along the lines of ‘she led a full life’?” Seeming to sense her shock, he turned towards her, shrugging in a gesture of apology. “I’m sorry. I know that sounds horrible, but just now … nothing seems any consolation. She’s gone and—” He turned away for a moment, then spun round and came back to the sofa. Sitting on its edge so that he could see her face, he took her hand and gave it a squeeze. “Don’t mind me. I’m just feeling bloody.” He smiled and released her hand. “I went to see William this morning.”

With horror Teresa realized she’d not even thought of William, had not thought of anyone’s grief other than her own, until Reg had appeared at her door. “How was he?”

“Shocked. We talked a little.”

“About Annabelle?”

Reg turned her empty mug carefully on its coaster. “And the business. He’s asked me to look after things for a bit. But I can’t manage without your help. Things are going to be difficult enough as it is.”

A jolt of alarm shot through her and she sat upright. “You didn’t tell him what we meant to propose to Sir Peter?”

“Of course not. But we’ll not be able to keep Hammond’s out of the red for much longer without taking some sort of action—”

The phone rang, startling them both. Teresa stared at it as if a serpent had appeared without warning on her coffee table.

“Hadn’t you better answer?” said Reg.

She lifted the phone slowly and pushed the talk button. “Hullo?”

She listened for a moment, then said, “Yes. Right. Half an hour.” She clicked off and looked at Reg. “It was the police. They want me to meet them at Hammond’s.”

LEWIS AND THE THREE OTHER REMAINING children sat on the cold lino in the hall of the village’s Women’s Institute. The two girls were thin and plain and wore spectacles, and fat Bob Thomkins had blubbed so much that his face had come out all splotches.

The adults had come in one or two at a time, walking among the children as if choosing from damaged groceries. They’d taken the smallest and prettiest children first, often separating siblings who had pleaded to stay together. A kind-looking lady in a flowered dress had chosen Simon Goss, shaking her head regretfully when the little boy had clung to Lewis’s hand and cried. So sorry, she’d said, she could only take the one, and she’d a son the same age as Simon.

Lewis had known hunger often enough, and grief, when his baby sister, Annie, had died of the smallpox—but he had never in his ten years felt unwanted. The only thing that gave him a small bit of consolation was that no one wanted the teachers, either, and Miss Jenkins and Miss Purdy looked as forlorn as he felt.

A gas lamp flared as the billeting officer lit it, sending long shadows jumping across the walls and floor. A few scarred wooden chairs had been pushed into a circle near the door, and there the officer and the two teachers conferred in low voices. Lewis thought he heard the words “last resort” as they flicked worried glances at the remaining children.

At that moment he made up his mind to go home. As soon as their backs were turned he would slip away and find the road out of the village. A vision of the darkness sliding over the great, empty countryside he had seen from the coach gave him pause, but then anything was better than this waiting. He could thumb a lift back to London, and if he was lucky, maybe he’d find something to eat.

As he drew his legs under him, tensing his muscles for a chance to bolt, he heard a familiar sound. A horse’s hooves clip-clopped on the pavement, just like old Snowflake’s when he pulled the milk float at home. But milk came in the morning, not in the evening. A shiver of fear ran down Lewis’s spine as the hoofbeats stopped and the horse blew loudly just outside the open door of the hall. He stood, heart hammering.

The man who came into the hall didn’t look frightening. He wore a black uniform and a cap, like the chauffeurs Lewis had seen at the cinema, and might have been a bit older than Lewis’s dad.

“John, how good to see you,” Mrs. Slocum, the billeting officer, gushed with relief. “I knew we could count on Edwina to take the rest of the children.”

Removing his cap with a nod to the teachers, the man said a bit brusquely, “I’m sorry, Mrs. Slocum, but Mrs. Burne-Jones only gave me instructions to bring the one.” Glancing at the children, he pinched his lips together. “You say this lot is all you have?”

“I’m afraid so,” said the billeting officer, and Lewis wondered if the note of apology in her voice was meant for the children or for the man in the uniform. “But surely—”

“And needs must it’s a boy, as she means to put him in the room above the stable,” John said firmly. The thin line of his lips almost disappeared as he regarded Lewis and Bob Thomkins. He lifted a finger. “I suppose that one will do.”

Realizing that the finger was pointing in his direction, Lewis looked wildly behind him, just in case some other boy had materialized.

“All right … Lewis, isn’t it? Get your bag. You’ll be going up to the Big House with Mr. Pebbles here,” said Mrs. Slocum, her disapproval of the unknown Mrs. Burne-Jones’s stubbornness plainly evident. Then she forced a smile. “John, do tell your mistress that we’ve three more without a place to lay their heads. And there are the teachers, of course. Surely she could find room for them, even temporarily.”

John motioned Lewis towards the door. “I’ll put it to her, Mrs. Slocum, but you know what she’s like when she’s made up her mind.” He touched his cap and followed Lewis outside.

The white horse gleamed palely in the dusk. It stamped and shifted in its harness as they approached, rocking the dogcart. John jumped up to the seat and gathered the reins, then frowned down at Lewis. “Well, what are you waiting for, boy?” Then he added, a bit more kindly, “Have you never seen a pony cart before?” He patted the seat beside him with the flat of his hand. “Hop up here, quick now. We’ve a ways to go and supper’s waiting.”

The word “supper” fell enticingly on Lewis’s ears. Deciding he could always run away afterwards if he didn’t like the place, he tried to climb up on the cart as if he’d done it often.

John clucked to the horse and they set out at a gentle pace. The village was dark as pitch with the enforcing of the blackout, except for a splash of light as someone pulled aside the curtain over the door of the pub on the village green.

Lewis’s heart lurched with homesickness at the brief sight of the men gathered near the door, pints in hand, enjoying the warmth of the evening. But they soon left such comfort behind, and as the lane began to climb, the darkness grew ever more dense. The horse’s footfalls were muffled by a carpet of leaves, and Lewis sensed as much as saw the interlacing of the boughs above their heads. He felt lost in the blackness, as insubstantial as the mist he’d seen forming in the hollows.

Fixing his eyes on the faint glimmer of the horse’s rump in front of them, Lewis asked, “How does he know where to go in the dark?”

A snort that might have been a laugh came from the man sitting beside him. “Have you never driven a horse before, lad? He knows my signals from the reins, but he doesn’t need me up here. He can find his way home just as well as you or I.”

“What’s his name?” asked Lewis, encouraged by the patient answer.

This time the chuckle was unmistakable. “Zeus. Daft name for a horse if you ask me, but then nobody did.”

Lewis glanced at his companion, relieved that the sharp nose he could see faintly silhouetted under the peaked cap did not seem to indicate a bad temper. “Are you the groom, then?”

“You are a cheeky sort.”

“It’s just that I thought you might be a chauffeur,” Lewis hastened to add, afraid he’d overstepped the bounds with his new friend. “But you’ve not got a car.”

“It seems I’ll be driving whatever Miss Edwina requires,” said John, and Lewis was relieved to hear the undertone of amusement again. “Young Harry Watts, the groom, ran off yesterday to join up. It’s Harry’s room you’ll be getting, lad. Not that he did much anyway, with only two horses to look after, old Zeus here and Miss Edwina’s hunter. She prefers the automobile, but she wasn’t inclined to waste petrol on fetching a London ragamuffin up from the village.”

Lewis considered taking offense at being called a ragamuffin, but decided his pride didn’t warrant drying up his font of information. “What sort of an auto is it?”

“There are two, lad. The MG Roadster Miss Edwina drives herself, and the Bentley I drive for her.”

“Blimey,” Lewis whispered under his breath. The autos were the stuff of legend, beasts not glimpsed among the lorries and tradesmen’s vans of the Island. Just what had he got himself into? “Who is Miss Edwina?” he ventured. “Is she very rich?”

John chuckled. “That’s Mrs. Burne-Jones to you, lad, and I suppose she does well enough for herself. You’ll see for yourself in half a tick. We’re almost there.”

Lewis couldn’t see any change in the dappled, leafy darkness surrounding them, but talking to John had made him feel a bit less frightened of it. After a moment’s silence, he risked one more question. “Is there a Mr. Burne-Jones?”

“Broke his neck in a hunting fall the first year they were married. But if you ask me, she was just as glad to come back here. The house belongs to her family, the Haliburtons, drafty old pile that it is. Now hush, lad, and grab on to the cart.” Twitching the reins, John made a clucking sound to the horse. Zeus turned sharply to the left and the cart lurched into a rut, rocking Lewis half out of his seat.

When he’d righted himself he realized they had emerged from the trees. He could see stars now, flinty specks against a sky as black as deep water. A spicy, green scent filled his nostrils as the cart brushed against a hedge; when he reached out to touch the leaves they felt soft against his fingers.

Then the road curved round a bend and he saw a darker shape rising against the sky, and to him it seemed as massive as one of the great ships. He gave a silent gasp of amazement—nothing he’d heard could possibly have prepared him for the sheer size and grandeur of this house.

As he gaped, he heard John chuckle beside him. “Miss Edwina’s grandfather built it. Knew how to do things proper in those days, not like these modern things they throw up now. It must have been a sight, with a full staff and more gardeners than you could shake a stick at.”

Lewis only half heard, his eyes fixed on the bulk of the house as the drive curved round it and the great peaks of the roof shut out the stars. John coaxed the horse to a stop and jumped down, then lifted Lewis’s battered case from the back. “I’ll turn you over to Cook now. You might just sweet-talk her into giving you a bite of supper.”

“But Miss Edwina … won’t I see her?”

“Don’t hold your breath, lad.” John put a hand on Lewis’s shoulder and marched him up to a door. “She has folks visiting from London, but I daresay she’ll get round to you eventually.”

His mouth suddenly dry with terror, Lewis turned and clutched John by the sleeve. “You’ll come in with me, won’t you?”

For a moment he thought the man would refuse, but then his new friend sighed and said, “I’ll have to answer to my Mary for keeping her supper waiting. But I suppose I can get you settled in the kitchen, then I’ll come back and take you to your room after you’ve had a bite to eat. It must be hard, away from home on your own. Where’s your family, lad?”

“The East End,” answered Lewis, thinking of the comfortable muddle of his neighborhood. “The Isle of Dogs.” Looking up at the dark walls looming in front of him, his question popped out before he’d thought whether or not he should ask it. “It’s so big—the house—why wouldn’t Miss Edwina take the others?”

John Pebbles shook his head. “Because she’s a stubborn woman, and she’s made up her mind there’s not going to be a war. She always wants to think the best, does Miss Edwina, but I’ve no doubt she’ll be sensible enough when the time comes.” He sighed in the darkness. “And come it will, sooner rather than later, I fear.” With that, he opened the door and nudged Lewis into the warmth and light of the kitchen.

HOW LIKE HER EX-HUSBAND, TO WEAR a button-down shirt and trousers on a day when everyone else had exposed their skin to the legal limit, thought Jo as she watched Martin Lowell cross the street and enter the park. She’d phoned and asked him to meet her here, near the outdoor tea garden.

When Harry had been small they’d come here every fine Sunday afternoon. They’d had tea and read the Sunday papers with Harry in his pushchair; then as he grew they’d helped him toddle up the hill towards the Observatory; and later still they’d crossed the road and explored the Maritime Museum.

Her choice of rendezvous had been instinctive, comforting, but obviously it hadn’t inspired any fond memories in Martin. As he reached her, he pushed his tortoiseshell spectacles up on his nose and glowered at her.

“I don’t know what you’re trying on, Jo, but I’m not having it. This is my afternoon with the children and I don’t want to hear some silly excuse—”

All the civil and reasonable words she’d rehearsed as she walked down the hill were washed away on a flood of anger so intense it left her trembling. “Martin, shut up, will you?”

He stared at her, too surprised for a moment to respond, then said, “Don’t take that tone with me, Jo. There’s no—”

“Martin, listen to me. Annabelle’s dead. She’s been murdered.”

“What?”

“You heard me. They found her body in Mudchute Park yesterday morning.” Jo watched him, wondering how long it had been since she’d seen his face wiped clean of his perpetual disapproval.

Then his lips twisted and he said, “Serves the bitch right.”

“Martin, don’t—”

“What was she doing, shopping her wares in the park? That’s what happens to whores like her. You should have known—”

“You bastard!” Jo’s hand seemed to lift of its own accord. Through a haze of fury she felt the impact of her palm connecting with his cheek; her eyes filled with tears as her skin began to smart. Cradling her injured hand with the other, she stepped back, afraid of retaliation, then realized that Martin was far too aware of the stares of passersby to risk incurring any more attention. She’d made a public spectacle of him, and there was nothing he hated more.

“That was bloody uncalled-for,” he hissed at her. Her handprint stood out white against his flushed cheek. “Have you completely lost your mind?”

“I don’t care what sort of villain you’ve chosen to make of her, she was my sister. My sister! How could you—” Swallowing, she looked away, not trusting herself to go on. She gazed at the tea garden, where the interested spectators had gone back to their drinks and conversations, with only an occasional glance towards Martin and her.

“Don’t you ever get tired of playing the martyr, Jo? I should think that even you would have to put some limits on forgiveness—”

“It doesn’t matter what I feel now. I’ve got to tell the children. And I thought you might …”

“Might what? Tell them a little morality tale? Explain to them that this is what happens to tarts and home-wreckers?”

Jo felt her anger drain away as quickly as it had come, and she swayed with exhaustion. It had been a hopeless quest, and now she wanted only to go home, but she couldn’t, not yet. “Promise me you won’t talk to the children about Annabelle. Promise me you won’t say these things to Harry.”

Martin stared at her, the chin she had once thought strong thrust out in obstinate refusal. “Why shouldn’t I tell them the truth? You’ll make a saint of her—”

“At least promise me you won’t see them until they’ve had a chance to absorb it. They’re children, for God’s sake. Can you for once think of someone besides yourself?”

“That’s rich, coming from you,” he said venomously, and she suddenly saw the same endless argument, spiraling down through all the days of her life. And she’d been foolish enough to think that divorce would mean an end to it. She closed her eyes and his voice faded until it was a faint, tinny squawking.

“Jo, what’s wrong with you? Don’t you dare bloody faint on me, do you hear me?” Martin’s fingers bit into her shoulder, pulling her back. “Did you hear me? I said I’d not take them this afternoon. Now go home.”

He released her and, shoving his hands in the pockets of his trousers, walked away.

KINCAID DID HIS BEST TO JUGGLE a ham salad sandwich as he drove. One hand for steering and one for shifting left none for eating, and as he transferred the sandwich to his right hand while shifting with his left, he had a fleeting fantasy that one day the Yard would put comfort before budget and equip fleet cars with automatic transmissions. Next he’d be dreaming of air-conditioning, he chided himself.

“Want to switch?” Gemma asked as she polished off the crumbs remaining in her clear, triangular sandwich box.

“Almost there,” he said through a mouthful. Swallowing, he added, “And we’ll be a bit early, I think.”

“In that case, we might’ve had these in luxury.” Gemma tucked her empty box into a rubbish bag and sipped at a bottle of fruit juice.

“In the canteen? Right.” The smell of hot grease in the stifling midafternoon heat had encouraged them to grab their prepackaged sandwiches from the canteen at Limehouse Station and make a hasty exit.

He turned right into Ferry Street and pointed. “There, on the right. That’s the pub where Reg Mortimer says Annabelle meant to meet him. The Ferry House.”

“Says?” Gemma glanced at him.

“Well, we haven’t any proof, have we?” The street jogged abruptly to the left just after the pub, so that it ran parallel to the river on one side and Manchester Road on the other. Kincaid drove slowly, taking advantage of the Sunday afternoon calm to study the flats between the pub and Annabelle Hammond’s. “We’ll have to send someone to have a word at the pub, and extend the house-to-house along this stretch here. Someone might have seen something.” He tucked the last bit of sandwich in his mouth. “Mortimer might have invented the story about the busker as well.”

“I don’t think so.” Gemma frowned. “Did you believe him? Gordon Finch, I mean?”

Kincaid thought while he chewed, then said, “If he knew why we’d brought him in, he’s a bloody good actor. But I’d also swear he knew Annabelle Hammond, and that the idea of her having a connection with his father didn’t surprise him.”

“I don’t believe he knew she was dead.”

“Meaning he can’t have killed her? Then why not admit he knew her?”

“I don’t know. Maybe he’s not in the habit of dealing cooperatively with the police,” Gemma said with a hint of sarcasm.

“I thought we were quite civilized.” They’d reached Annabelle’s building and he swung in towards the curb, idling for a moment. “For now, I suppose we’ll wait and see what DI Coppin turns up before we get out our hobnailed boots.” Janice Coppin had informed them that the tunnel employed security cameras, and she’d set out in search of the videotapes. “And we’d better have a word with the owners here, too,” he added. The gates that led to the three attached riverside houses were open, allowing a glimpse of a green and inviting enclosed garden.

As he moved on, one of the cheerful-looking red and blue DLR trains pulled into the elevated Island Gardens Station across the street. Gemma watched it, her brow furrowed. “She could have gone anywhere.”

“What?”

“There are three hours unaccounted for between the time Reg Mortimer says he left Annabelle in the tunnel and the time Dr. Ling estimates she died. The train was so close, she could have gone anywhere in London.”

At Island Gardens Station, Ferry Street became Saunders Ness Road, and Janice had instructed him to continue along almost to its end. He glanced at the round-domed entrance to the tunnel as they passed, and at the crowds still making the most of their Sunday afternoon in Island Gardens. Through the park’s spreading plane trees he could see the glint of the Thames, and across the river the white, classical symmetry of the Royal Naval College. “Then someone brought her body back, to make it look as though she were killed on her doorstep?”

“We can’t rule it out.”

“No, but let’s not complicate things any more than necessary for the moment. It’s just as likely she never left the Island, or even this neighborhood.” Once they were past the park, new developments of flats lined the river, each one of slightly different character and architectural style.

“This looks an odd place for a business.” Gemma touched his shoulder as she leaned across to look out his window.

“This was one of the first areas to be heavily redeveloped. Most of the old riverside warehouses have been razed in the last few years to make way for upmarket flats.”

“You’ve been grilling Janice again.”

“Might be more accurate to say she’s been instructing me, whether I like it or not. Hammond’s is one of the last of the old warehouses on this stretch of the river. Look, this must be it.”

He parked the car at the curb and got out, studying the building. It was four-storied, brown-bricked, a square bastion of Victorian industrial prowess, but its grimness was relieved by an arch of orange brick set in above each of its many windows, and another over the main door. A pediment rose above the flat roof, giving the facade an incongruously playful air, and beneath that had been set in plaster Hammond’s Fine Teas, 1879.

Joining him, Gemma tried the glossy, dark blue front door. “Locked. But at least it’s a bit cooler this side if we have to wait.”

Kincaid examined the school across the street. Although the main complex ran to uninspired postmodern, a separate structure at the front proclaimed its Victorian origins with the same triangular embellishments and orange trim as the warehouse. “Not much hope of finding a good witness for Friday evening here. Let’s have a look round the back of the warehouse,” Kincaid said as he turned towards the river. There were no windows along the side at ground level.

The building was flush with the waterline in the back, so that the bricked pedestrian walkway that ran along the river was forced to detour round the front. “Dead end,” he reported, exasperated. “The place is a bloody fortress.”

“People stole things from warehouses in the old days, too.” The tide was out; Gemma wrinkled her nose at the dank smell rising from the exposed mud.

“True, but there must be ground access round the far side. They needed loading bays for wagons even in the days when they brought goods in from the water.

“The river probably smelled worse then, too,” Kincaid added, leaning over the walkway railing for a look at the rubbish revealed by the receding water. “And people probably just left a different sort of litter. Not very encouraging, is it?” He gazed at the three dark smokestacks of the power station across the river, then at the gleam of the Naval College further round the curve. “Sometimes I wonder if we’ve made any progress at all.” Pointing across the river towards the college, he added, “Look at what Christopher Wren accomplished.”

“I’ll vote for plumbing, thank you,” said Gemma, and he realized it was the first time he’d seen her smile all afternoon. The bridge of her nose had turned pink from the sun and the faint dusting of freckles across her cheeks had darkened.

“You all right?” he asked, brushing her cheek with his fingertip.

“Just hot.” She pushed a tendril of damp hair from her brow and looked away.

“I thought—”

A car door slammed nearby. “That came from round the front,” said Gemma, listening. “Someone’s here.” She retraced their steps towards the front of the warehouse and he followed, wondering just what he had meant to say.

A SLENDER, FAIR WOMAN IN JEANS and a yellow tee shirt stood before the door of the warehouse, keys dangling from her hand.

Kincaid called out and she whirled round, looking startled.

“Sorry,” Kincaid said as they reached her. “Didn’t mean to frighten you. We’re with Scotland Yard.” He showed her his warrant card and introduced Gemma, then asked, “Are you Teresa Robbins?”

“An Inspector Coppin rang me.…”

“She’s the local officer on the case. We’d like to ask you a few questions, if you don’t mind.” Kincaid smiled, hoping to put her at ease.

“But I don’t see how I can possibly help you.” Teresa’s thin face was pleasant, if unremarkable, and bore signs of makeup hastily applied to cover the ravages of weeping.

“You can start by looking round very carefully as we go in. I want you to tell us if you see anything at all out of the ordinary.”

“But why—”

“Could Miss Hammond have come here on Friday night to finish up some work?” Gemma suggested.

Teresa put her keys in the lock. “I suppose it’s possible.” She pulled open the large door and stepped back, but Kincaid motioned her to go first.

It took a moment for Kincaid’s eyes to adjust to the dim interior, which was streaked by sunlight slanting in from the high south and west windows. Then Teresa flipped a switch by the door and electric light chased the shadows from the corners.

The room was large, comprising the first two floors of the building. To the right was an industrial lift serving the upper floors; to the left were offices reached by a catwalk that looked down on the main floor. Halfway along the left-hand wall Kincaid saw the loading bays which he guessed must give access to lorries.

But these features he took in gradually, for first to draw his eyes were the chests. Ceiling-high stacks of square, steel-bound, silver-edged wooden chests filled the room. All bore exotic-looking stamps, in red or black ink, and those nearest him read, Produce of India, Darjeeling, followed by a series of numbers. The air in the warehouse was earthy and sharp with the unmistakable smell of tea.

Teresa had stepped a few feet into the room, looking carefully round her. “Everything looks just the way I left it on Friday.”

“When did you last see Miss Hammond?” Kincaid asked.

“Annabelle left about half past five, I think. I was finishing up the accounts and just said ‘Cheerio.’ You know how it is. I didn’t think I wouldn’t see her—” Teresa swallowed hard.

“You worked late?” Gemma gave her a sympathetic smile.

“I usually do. Especially on Friday, so as to be caught up for the week.”

“You said you did the accounts—you do the bookkeeping for the business?” Kincaid asked, wondering if Annabelle Hammond would have confided in her employee. But then she had been engaged to an employee, after all, and he supposed you couldn’t get more democratic than that.

“I’m the chief financial officer.” Teresa smiled shyly. “That sounds a bit glorified for what I actually do. I handle the accounts and the financial planning, but it’s a small business, and we all tend to have a hand in everything.”

“I understand that Annabelle and Reginald Mortimer were engaged. Did that make working together awkward for them? Or for you?”

“Awkward?” Teresa stared at Kincaid.

“Surely they had some conflict over things at work?”

“Sometimes men can be a bit sensitive about their authority,” Gemma added with a glance at Kincaid. “You know the sort of thing.”

Teresa shook her head vehemently. “Not Reg and Annabelle. They agreed about things, they wanted the same things for the company. And Reg … Reg worshiped Annabelle.”

Kincaid thought he detected a hint of wistfulness in Teresa’s voice. Had it been difficult for her, always on the outside, looking in? “When was the wedding to be?” he asked.

“The wedding?” Again Teresa gave them a surprised look, as if the question hadn’t occurred to her. “They’d not set a date. Not an official one, anyway.”

“And how long had they been engaged?”

Teresa frowned. “Coming up on two years, I think.”

“Not much reason to delay a wedding these days—both of them independent, with their families’ approval—”

“But they couldn’t have just an ordinary wedding. They had social obligations, and I doubt Annabelle wanted to spare the time from work just now to plan the sort of affair expected of them.” Teresa put forth this theory with great seriousness, as if determined to convince herself.

“Were you and Annabelle close?” asked Gemma. “Would she have confided in you if she’d got cold feet?”

“I … I don’t know.” Teresa lifted her chin defiantly. “Look, I don’t understand why you’re asking all these questions. Jo said that Annabelle was killed in the park, attacked by some pervert. What can that possibly have to do with us, or Hammond’s?”

“Annabelle was found in the park. We don’t know that she was killed there,” said Kincaid. “Can you tell us why she might have been wandering round the Mudchute alone, after dark? In her party clothes and high heels?”

“No, that’s daft. But …” Shadows from the slowly revolving ceiling fans flickered across Teresa’s face, and Kincaid saw the irises of her pale blue eyes dilate like speading ink. “You can’t think here.…” She folded her arms beneath her breasts and looked round as if seeing the warehouse for the first time.

“Did Annabelle tell you what she meant to do on Friday evening?” Kincaid asked.

“They were going to her sister’s. She and Reg. The party had been planned for weeks.”

“And she didn’t contact you later in the evening?”

“Why should she have rung me?” Teresa sounded baffled.

“What if she were worried about something?”

“Annabelle wasn’t the sort to worry,” Teresa replied sharply. “And she wasn’t in the habit of ringing me in the evenings, or of coming back here.”

“Would there have been anyone here on Friday night? Do you run a night shift?”

“We don’t make the tea, Superintendent. We blend and package it, and our production and shipping staff work five-day weeks. The equipment’s upstairs, if you’d like to see, but this is the heart of the business.” She gestured at the large table in the room’s center, and Kincaid sensed her relief at treading familiar ground.

One side of the table’s length held ranks of worn, tin tea caddies and plain foil bags; the other a neat row of rectangular, white porcelain dishes filled with mounds of loose tea, and another row of identical, white porcelain bowls. Gemma touched a finger to the tea in the last dish. “It smells good. What is all this?”

“The tasting table.” Teresa glanced at them and Kincaid thought they must have looked blank, for she frowned and continued, “We don’t sell just any tea. First it must be blended, and Hammond’s has been famous for its blends for a hundred and twenty-five years. We buy the tea at auction—mainly from India and Sri Lanka, but since the late seventies China has opened up to us again, and some tea is exported from Africa and even South America.”

“Sri Lanka—that used to be Ceylon?” Gemma moved round the table studying the tin caddies. “Some of these say Ceylon.”

“Teas from Sri Lanka are known as Ceylon teas in the trade. But in Sri Lanka alone there are over two thousand different tea gardens—those are the estates on which tea is grown—and each estate has a number of different pluckings, or harvests, a year, depending on its altitude. And the tea from each of those pluckings can vary in taste and quality.” Teresa lifted her hands, palms up, in a gesture that indicated the complications of the task.

Kincaid had never thought beyond a vague vision of India or China when he plopped a tea bag in his morning cup. “It’s exponential, then?” he asked.

“Theoretically, yes—in reality, no.” Teresa tucked a strand of straight blonde hair behind her ear and rubbed at the sweat beading her forehead. Although it was cooler in the warehouse than outside, it still felt like a tropical hothouse. “We’ve a history of dealing with certain gardens, and we tend to look for their produce. Annabelle … Annabelle visited some of the gardens in Ceylon and in India after university, but she wanted to go to China for their honeymoon.…” Teresa’s eyes filled with tears. Sniffing, she tugged a tissue from the pocket of her jeans and blew her nose. “Sorry. I just can’t … Some of our buyers didn’t take Annabelle seriously at first. It’s traditionally a male-dominated business, and I suppose they thought she was dabbling until she found something better to do.

“But the truth of it was that she loved tea. She’d been fascinated by every step in the process of manufacturing tea since she was a child, and she wanted to experience it firsthand.”

“And for that she had to go to China or India?” asked Kincaid.

“Yes. All tea is processed right after picking, on the estate where it’s grown. It has to be withered and rolled and dried within hours, or it loses its freshness. And the degree of fermentation must be perfect—if it’s overfermented the tea will taste flat; if it’s underfermented it can go moldy once it’s packed for shipping. The tasting and blending we do here is only the very last stage.” Her gesture took in the chests and the tasting table and the smooth boards of the old warehouse floor, polished from long use to a satiny sheen.

“Was Annabelle in charge of the tasting?”

“No, that’s Mac—Mr. MacDougal. Tea merchants have professional tasters, and Mac’s one of the best in the business. But Annabelle’s … Annabelle was very good, and some of the blends she and Mac created have increased our market share considerably. I simply don’t know how we’ll manage without her.” Teresa’s voice threatened to break and she pressed her lips together in an effort at control. She turned away and led them to racks of shelving against the far wall. “This new design is only part of Annabelle’s vision.”

Kincaid saw that the shelves held round tins bearing the familiar Hammond’s logo. The tins were an unusual shape, tall and thin, and of a striking cobalt blue and russet design, with the logo embossed in gold. He remembered seeing them in some of the more expensive gourmet shops, and at Harrods.

“They’re lovely,” said Gemma, turning a tin so that she could see the design all the way round.

“She chose the colors to please William—her father—after his favorite tea service. She—” Teresa closed her eyes. Shaking her head, she whispered, “I’m sorry.”

“Come sit down.” Gently, Gemma took her by the elbow and led her to the brightly cushioned grouping of rattan chairs positioned near the tasting table. “Let me get you some water.”

“No, I’m fine, really,” Teresa protested, but she sank gratefully into a chair, shivering as if she were cold. “It’s just … I’m still not sure I’ve taken it in.”

Gemma sat beside her. “I think Mr. Mortimer said that Annabelle had assumed the running of the business from her father?”

“His wife was very ill, you know. Cancer. Then after she died, he wasn’t well himself for some time. From the shock, I suppose. Otherwise he’d never have given up control to anyone.”

“Could Mr. Hammond not step in again?”

Teresa’s brow creased in a worried frown. “It’s been five years since William was directly involved with the day-to-day running of the business, although he drops in at odd times of the day and night. I think he can’t bear to let it go altogether.”

“Then with his experience—”

“It’s more complicated than that. Annabelle was taking the company in directions William didn’t approve—”

“But if you’ve been successful, surely he’d want to continue as Annabelle intended.”

“No, you don’t understand. To William, it’s tradition that’s important. Even though his great-grandfather began the business as a gamble on the new tea estates in Ceylon, he can’t see that it was risk-taking that put Hammond’s on its feet in the first place. He wants things done the way they’ve always been—”

“Such as?” Kincaid asked, intrigued.

Sighing, Teresa sat back in her chair. “I don’t know where to start. Tea bags, for one. Until recently, Hammond’s has never sold tea in bags—there’s simply no comparison between our teas and the low-quality blends that are used in most mass-produced tea bags. But Annabelle was convinced that you could put fine tea in a bag, and that if you suffered some loss of quality in the processing, you made up for it by introducing consumers to better teas. A taste for tea needs developing, like a taste for wine, and Annabelle was sure we could switch the customer from bags to loose tea eventually.

“It was the same with flavorings. There’s a huge market for flavored teas, especially in the States, but William wouldn’t hear of it. Annabelle convinced the board that most tea drinkers start out with flavored teas and move on to appreciating the tea itself, but I’m not sure William ever really accepted the decision. He—”

There was a click of a latch and the front door swung open. Kincaid could make out nothing but the tall silhouette of a man, but Teresa pushed herself up from her chair. “Mr. Hammond. What are you doing here?”

“Teresa, my dear.” Coming forward, he took her outstretched hand and gave it a pat. “Jo shouldn’t have asked you to do this. It’s the family’s responsibility to look after things here.” He turned to Kincaid and Gemma. “I’m William Hammond. How can I help you?”

Gemma would have recognized Hammond from Annabelle’s photos without the introduction, although his expensive dark suit added an austerity to his courtly good looks. She wondered fleetingly how he could bear the suit in this heat, but his palm felt cool against hers as he shook her hand.

Teresa touched his arm, and when he turned back to her, she said, “Mr. Hammond. I’m so sorry—”

“I know you and Annabelle were very close,” William Hammond answered with what seemed an effort. “She depended on you a great deal. As does Reginald. He came to see me this morning—” He broke off. “This is a terrible thing for us all. My daughter said you had some questions, Superintendent. And unless Teresa can be of further help, I think she’d like to go home.”

“That’s fine.” Kincaid directed his reply to Teresa. “We know how to reach you.”

Teresa hesitated for a moment and then, with a nod at Kincaid and Gemma, left.

“Sit down, please.” Hammond took the chair Teresa had vacated and motioned for them to follow suit.

“I know how difficult this must be for you, Mr. Hammond,” Kincaid said, tugging at the knot on his tie. He’d abandoned his jacket in the car midmorning, and Gemma wagered the tie wouldn’t last much longer. He glanced at her, a signal for her to take over.

“Have you any idea why someone would want to harm your daughter, Mr. Hammond?” She clasped her hands over the notebook she cradled unobtrusively in her lap.

He stared at her, his eyes tearing. “Annabelle was so beautiful. You couldn’t begin to understand unless you knew her. No man could have asked for a more perfect daughter.”

“I’m sure that’s true, Mr. Hammond,” Gemma said gently. “But we think it’s possible Annabelle may have known her killer. Are you aware of any enemies she might have made through the business? Or of any rifts in her personal life?”

“Of course not. That’s an absurd idea. Everyone loved Annabelle.”

Gemma changed tack. “How did you feel about her engagement to Reginald Mortimer?”

“Her engagement? What has that to do with this?” Hammond drew his brows together impatiently.

“You approved of the engagement?” Gemma pressed.

“Of course. I’ve known the boy since he was an infant. You couldn’t have found a couple more suited to one another, and his family is of the highest quality. His father, Sir Peter, serves on our board as well as being a personal friend. Peter and Helena have taken this very hard.… They looked on Annabelle as a daughter.”

“Reginald and Annabelle got along well, did they?” Kincaid interposed. “No tiffs or rows?”

“As far as I know, they got on extremely well, and if they had any disagreements, they didn’t share them with me.” With a frown, he added, “I hope you haven’t been upsetting Reginald with these sorts of questions. The poor fellow’s had enough to deal with as it is.”

Kincaid allowed a pause to lengthen before he asked, “Mr. Hammond, in your experience, would you say Reg Mortimer is a truthful person?”

“What do you mean by that?” Blue veins stood out on William Hammond’s hands as he clasped them over his knees. “He’s a fine young man. Peter Mortimer and I have known one another since Oxford, and I have the greatest confidence in father and son.”

Confidence enough, wondered Gemma, to marry your daughter off to him, and bring him into your company with no more incentive than friendship? She framed an idea into a question. “You said Sir Peter served on the board. Does that mean he has a financial interest in Hammond’s?”

“Naturally he owns a number of shares. I’m sorry, but I really don’t see the point to this, under the circumstances. And I’ve things to attend to—people will be coming by the house to pay their respects.” Although polite, it was a dismissal as firm as the one he’d given Teresa Robbins.

“Thank you for your time, Mr. Hammond. You’ve been very kind. We won’t trouble you any further at the moment.” Kincaid rose and Gemma followed his cue, uncomfortably aware of her skirt plastered to the backs of her thighs with perspiration. “Our technicians will need to have a look round, however,” Kincaid added, as if it had just occurred to him. “Perhaps Teresa could arrange that for us?”

“Here? In my building?” William Hammond’s voice faltered. He looked suddenly exhausted, and Gemma thought that for all his appearance of control, he’d reached the limit of his endurance.

“They’ll do their best not to disrupt things,” Kincaid replied soothingly.

Gazing at the dust motes swirling in the bars of sunlight that dissected the air, Gemma realized she had become aware of complex layers of scent—the mustiness of old wood and the nearness of water, mixed with the ripe aroma of tea. The sense-tickling smells, the golden light, and the slow movement of the air under the spinning fans made the warehouse suddenly seem a timeless place, and she wondered what other dramas it had witnessed. She turned to Hammond. “I think Teresa said your great-grandfather started the business? So Hammonds have always been here?”

“I’ve always seen that as rather a special obligation, carrying on the family tradition. And it meant so much to Annabelle.…”

“What will happen now?” asked Gemma. “Will Jo carry on in Annabelle’s place?”

“Jo has her own career, and she’s never had much interest in the business.” Hammond met Gemma’s eyes, and the desolation she saw in his made her flinch. “But I doubt it would matter if she had. No one can possibly replace Annabelle.”

CHAPTER 7That ‘The Island is not what it was’, is a sentiment with which every Islander over forty would agree … whilst recalling with affectionate regret the days when ‘every door was open’, and ‘everyone knew everyone else’. Such phrases recall a neighbourliness, and a sense of local identity, both of which have been threatened with destruction by almost everything that has happened on the Isle of Dogs since 1939.

Eve Hostettler, from Memories of

Childhood on the Isle of Dogs, 1870–1970

Kincaid slid into the car and gingerly touched the steering wheel, then snatched his fingers back. “Bloody hell. I’ll bet you could fry eggs on the dash.”

They had left William Hammond on his own, with his assurances that he just needed a chance to get his bearings, but to Gemma the weight of grief in the warehouse had felt so tangible that even the scorching heat outside was a relief. “It’s a terrible thing to lose a child, even if they’re grown,” she said as she grappled with a seat-belt buckle that seemed molten. “Do you suppose it’s even harder if that child is as perfect as Annabelle Hammond seems to have been?”

“She can’t have been all that perfect, or someone wouldn’t have killed her.”

“Are you saying it was her fault she was murdered?” Gemma retorted, then felt a little embarrassed by her defensiveness.

“Of course not.” Kincaid glanced at her in surprise. “But let’s look at what we’ve got so far.” Starting the car, he pulled it forward into a patch of shade and let it idle, fan running. “Annabelle Hammond was extremely beautiful, which, you have to admit, usually implies some degree of self-absorption. She was headstrong, even going against her father’s wishes in the running of the family business, which leads to the next point—she apparently had a real passion for her job. Passion makes people dangerous.”

Gemma thought of Gordon Finch, wondering if Annabelle’s passion had extended to him. She said, “I suspect she’d got cold feet about marrying Reg Mortimer. Otherwise, why put it off?”

“We keep coming back to Mortimer, don’t we? Why don’t we stop at the Ferry House, see if we can confirm his movements on Friday night.”

Realizing with a start that the afternoon had stretched into early evening, she pulled her phone from her handbag. “It’s getting late. I’d better give Hazel a ring first and check on Toby.”

“Oh, shit.”

“What?” She looked up in alarm, her finger poised over the keypad.

“I completely bloody forgot. I promised to take Kit to the station.” He glanced at his watch as he jammed the car into gear. “And there’s no one else.”

“The Major?” Gemma suggested, but even as she spoke she remembered he didn’t drive.

“No car. And I’ve imposed upon him enough this weekend as it is. I’ll have to drop you at Limehouse, and get back to Hampstead as quickly as I can.”

Welcome to the world of the single parent, Gemma thought, but she had the sense to keep it to herself.

KINCAID BERATED HIMSELF AS HE TURNED into the bottom of Carlingford Road. He’d meant to ring during the day and check on Kit, and he’d certainly meant to keep the promise he’d made to him about tonight, but once he’d got involved in the case, his good intentions had come to nought.

Kit sat on the steps leading to the flat, his arms wrapped round his knees, his bag beside him. He watched, unsmiling, as Kincaid pulled up to the curb, and did not rise to greet him.

Kincaid got out and crossed the street. “I’m sorry, Kit. I got hung up.”

Kit didn’t look at him. “I’ve rung Laura and told her not to meet the train.”

“We’ll get you on the next one, then I’ll let her know when to pick you up.” When Kit didn’t respond, Kincaid jingled his keys impatiently in his pocket and added, “Have you said goodbye to the Major?”

This elicited a scathing glance. “Of course I have. And thanked him. Do you think I was brought up in a barn?”

Kincaid closed his eyes for an instant and took a deep breath, the equivalent of counting to ten. “Well, shall we go, then? The sooner we get you to the station, the sooner you’ll be … back in Cambridge.” He had almost said “home.” But since his mother’s death in April, Kit had been without a real home.

Kit stood, his face averted, and trudged to the car as if his feet were mired in treacle. When Kincaid had stowed the boy’s holdall in the Rover’s boot, he got in beside him, pausing when he put the key in the ignition. “We’ll go on to King’s Cross, then if there’s time before the next train, I’ll take you for something to eat. And you still won’t be very late back.”

“It doesn’t matter now. I’ll have missed Tess’s obedience class,” Kit said stonily, his eyes fixed on some invisible point in the windscreen.

“You didn’t tell me Tess had an obedience class.”

“I never had a chance, did I? I’ve hardly seen you all weekend.”

“Kit. I said I was sorry. But sometimes things come up—”

Swinging round to face him, Kit spat out, “You’re always late.” Red spots flared across his cheekbones and he rubbed the back of a fist across his trembling lower lip. “You say you’ll do something, then you don’t keep your word. You’re just like my dad.”

Kincaid clenched his hands round the steering wheel. “Give me a chance, will you, Kit? I’ve never done this before. It’s hard enough for me to juggle my job—”

“Then don’t bother.” Kit turned away, his lips clamped tight and his chin thrust up in defiant bravado. “It’s just the same old crap, isn’t it? My dad—”

“Just because I have a commitment to my job doesn’t mean that I don’t care about you. I’m not going to lose interest, and I’m not going anywhere.”

“Dad did. He—”

“Goddamn it, Kit, we’re not talking about Ian, we’re talking about me. And I’m your dad.” Kincaid heard his words with horror, but it was too late to recall them.

Kit stared at him. “That’s bollocks. What are you talking about?”

Bloody hell, Kincaid thought. What had he done? Shaking his head, he said, “I never meant to tell you this way. But I’m certain I’m your father. I thought—”

“That’s daft. My dad’s in France.”

“Look at me, Kit.” Kincaid reached for Kit’s shoulder, but the boy flinched away. “Look at my face, then look at yourself in the mirror.” He flipped down the passenger side visor. “You are the spitting image of me at the same age. My mother saw it instantly. I see it every time I look at you.”

“I don’t believe you,” Kit said, but he darted a look at the glass.

Pulling his wallet from his pocket, Kincaid extracted two dog-eared photos. “My mother sent me this one. I was eleven.” He handed it to Kit, who accepted it reluctantly; then he held up the second photo. “This one I took from your mum’s office.” Vic and Kit stood arm in arm in the back garden of the cottage in Grantchester, laughing into the camera. “You can see the resemblance, too, can’t you?”

“No.” Kit shook his head and dropped the photo of Kincaid in the console. “I don’t believe it. My mum wouldn’t have …” His eyes strayed to the photo again.

“This doesn’t mean your mum did anything wrong, Kit. You know we were married before she married Ian. She must have been pregnant with you when we separated.”

“She’d have told me. Mum told me everything.”

“You must see that she couldn’t. She was with Ian by then, and she wanted you to think of him as your father.” And then Ian had abandoned them. After Ian’s defection, Vic had brought Kincaid back into her life, and Kit’s, but they would never be sure what she’d intended for them.

Kit kneaded the knees of his jeans with his fingers, refusing to meet Kincaid’s eyes.

“I didn’t know about you until that day I came to Grantchester. Your mum never let me know she’d had a child.”

A tiny rip in the denim grew larger as Kit picked at it. “You’re not my dad. You can’t prove it.” His barley-fair hair fell over his forehead, hiding his eyes, but the stubborn set of his jaw was clear.

Kincaid looked out at his quiet street in the early evening light. Next door a man and a boy washed a car, laughing as they got soaked in the spray. He could smell the smoke from someone’s barbecue, hear the high voices of children in the back gardens. It was the language of families, and he didn’t know it. “I can prove it, Kit, with a DNA test, but I won’t try until you want me to. Give me a chance at being a dad. I know we can work things—”

“Like this weekend?” There was a ripping sound as Kit pulled at the bit of fabric he’d worked loose. “Like you let my mum die?”

“Kit, I—”

“I want to go back to Cambridge. Tess needs her dinner and she won’t have been eating well with me away.” Kit reached for his seat belt, snapped the buckle into place. He hugged his arms across his chest and stared straight ahead.

They drove to the station in silence.

• • •

LEWIS FOUND THE KITCHEN NOT ALL that different from his mum’s. Although the room was enormous, the oak table in its center was scarred and bleached from much scrubbing, with a bottom rail worn by generations of feet. Tea towels hung drying on a rack suspended above the old cooker, the room smelled of baking, a muted wireless played dance tunes in the corner. And Cook, a plump and floury woman as different from Lewis’s willowy mother as chalk from cheese, scolded him in the same affectionate way.

Cook had fed him part of a steak-and-mushroom pie and some cold ham—what she called bits-and-pieces—but it was more meat than Lewis had ever eaten at one sitting. With the addition of a pot of cider, he could hardly keep his eyes open by the time John Pebbles returned to fetch him.

John carried a shaded lantern, and he led Lewis across the cobbled yard by its dim light. When Lewis caught his toe on a stone, John steadied him and clucked with disapproval. “Shame on Cook, plying a mere lad with cider.”

“She said I needed nourishing,” Lewis explained.

John gave a disgusted snort. “Hot, sweet tea, or a jug of milk from the dairy, would have done better. You remember that next time and don’t let Cook teach you bad habits. Here we are, then,” he added as they reached the stable.

As they entered through the central doors, John uncovered the lantern, and Lewis caught a glimpse of stalls to the right. One held Zeus, who looked curiously at them over the door, and the other a dark brown horse with a white blaze down the center of its face.

To the left the old stalls had been torn out, and two humped, canvas-covered shapes filled the open bays. But before Lewis could exclaim, John said, “Tomorrow, lad,” and nudged him up the steep flight of stairs. “You can have a look at the autos then. In the meantime, you’ll be snug enough up here.”

Lewis saw a small, bare-planked room with a single, blanket-covered bed. A straight-backed chair and an old chest with a china basin and ewer atop it completed the furnishings. His battered case sat neatly beneath the heavily curtained window.

“There’s an oil stove, but you won’t be needing that tonight. The pump’s in the yard, and there’s a privy on the far side.” John seemed to hesitate, then said, “I’ll leave you the lantern, but you must promise to take care with it, and don’t forget the blackout.” He set it gently atop the chest, then went to the door. “You just go across to the kitchen in the morning. Good night, lad.” His heavy footsteps clumped down the stairs, and the door at the bottom banged shut.

At home, Lewis had always slept in the same room as his brothers, and his mum or his sister had always been there when he came home from school in the afternoon. Now, he found himself completely alone for the first time in his life.

He sat down on the rough blanket and stared at the lantern light wavering on the walls. Although the room still held the day’s heat, he began to shiver. He got up and extinguished the lantern, then curled himself into a fetal position on the narrow bed, his fist pressed to his mouth to keep the grief welling up inside him from escaping.

And so he slept, deeply and dreamlessly, until the morning sun brought a faint brightening round the edges of his window.

Awakening brought a moment of comfort, until he realized he couldn’t smell his mother’s cooking, or hear faint snatches of the songs she sang as she moved about the kitchen. Reality flooded back into his awareness, and with it the sense of being watched.

He opened his eyes, blinking stickily at a shadow in his doorway. As his vision cleared, the fuzzy form resolved itself into a boy about his own age, who crossed the room and pulled aside the curtains. Light flooded in, and Lewis saw that his visitor was tall and slender, and wore a navy blazer with a school tie. His dark hair was slicked neatly back above a pale face.

“Cook sent me to fetch you,” the boy said in an accent Lewis had heard only on the wireless. “And I wanted to see you for myself. I couldn’t get away last night—Mummy kept me fetching and carrying for Aunt Edwina while they talked about the war.”

Lewis sat up and rubbed his face. “The war? Has it started, then?”

The boy leaned against the window frame. “Not officially, but they expect the announcement sometime today. Aunt Edwina has the wireless on in the sitting room, and Cook’s listening in the kitchen. Aunt Edwina has a wager on with my dad that it will all come to nothing. ‘A bloody old windbag’ is what she calls Hitler. I think she’s wrong, though. There is going to be a war.”

“Is that why you’re here, too?” Lewis asked, feeling confused. He couldn’t imagine this elegant boy being sent away from home like a mislaid parcel.

“Edwina’s my godmother,” the boy explained. “Edwina Burne-Jones, she’s called. This is her house. Mummy is certain the Huns will bomb London, and my school with it, so she wants me to stay down here for a bit. Edwina says you come from the Island. My family’s business is there—Hammond’s Teas.”

“That’s just across the street from my school,” Lewis exclaimed with pleasure at encountering something familiar. “Are you a Hammond, then?”

“Oh, sorry.” The boy pushed himself away from the window and came towards Lewis with his hand outstretched. “I should have said. My name’s William. William Hammond.”

KINCAID KNOCKED AGAIN AT GEMMA’S DOOR. There was no response, even though her car was pulled up on the double yellows in front of her garage flat. He’d driven straight from King’s Cross without ringing first, something he seldom did, and now he realized he’d not considered whether he would be welcome.

But the thought of his empty flat was too sharp a reminder of his failed weekend, so he let himself through the wrought-iron gate that led into the Cavendishes’ garden. Perhaps Gemma had gone next door, as she often did.

The walled garden lay in the cool, rose-scented shadow of early evening, and as he made his way along the flagged path that led to the big house, he saw Hazel on her knees in the perennial bed next to the patio. She wore shorts that had seen better days, and a pink tank top that bared her lightly freckled shoulders.

“Gemma’s taken Toby to the park,” Hazel called out. “You’ll have to make do with me for a bit, unless you want to go after them.”

“I think you’ll do admirably. Although you look like you’re working entirely too hard.”

“Dandelions among the daisies,” Hazel said by way of explanation as he sank into a chair on the patio. “That’s the problem with this gorgeous weather. The weeds love it as much as we do.” She wiped her hand across her brow and left a dirty streak. “There’s some lemonade in the jug.” Frowning, she gave him a closer look. “Unless you’d like something stronger. You look a bit done in.”

He took a glass from the tray on the small table, then reached for the silver jug, its frosted surface traced with runnels of condensation. “No, this is fine, really. You’re a marvel, Hazel.”

“Tell that to my child. We’ve had a spectacularly bad day. Tim finally had to separate us and send me outside for a bit of earth therapy.” Sitting back, Hazel drank from the glass she’d placed on the flagstones.

“Oh, come on, Hazel. I’ve never seen you even out of sorts with the children.”

She laughed. “You should have heard me today, screeching like a fishwife at Holly because she refused to pick up the toys she’d deliberately thrown on the floor. Toby came in for his share of it, too, but he can’t push my buttons in the same way. There’s something about your own child.…” Hazel picked up her spade again and thrust it beneath the spiky leaves of a dandelion.

“Doesn’t your training as a psychologist help?”

“Much to my dismay, I’m discovering that understanding children’s behavior intellectually doesn’t always make dealing with it easier.” The dandelion came up with a spray of dirt and she shook what remained from the roots before tossing it into a pail.

“I don’t even have that small advantage.” He couldn’t keep the bitterness from his voice.

Hazel glanced up at him. “What’s going on? Did you and Kit not have a good weekend?”

“That’s an understatement,” he said with a derisive snort.

Hazel pushed herself up from the flagstones, dusted off her bare knees, and came to sit beside him. “What happened?”

Kincaid looked away. The white lilies in Hazel’s border had begun to glow in the dusk. “I blew it. He was being stubborn and unreasonable, and I just lost it—blurted out that I was his dad, without thinking of the consequences.”

“And?” Hazel prompted.

“He—” Kincaid shook his head. “He was furious. Accused me of lying to him, and told me to bugger off, more or less.”

Hazel nodded. “That’s not surprising. Remember how shocked you were at first? And you’ve turned Kit’s world on end without warning. Not even his mother’s death will have made him doubt his perception of things in the same way.”

Frowning, Kincaid said, “I don’t understand.”

“You’ve made a lie of his life, his image of who he is and how he came to be. Especially now, with Vic gone, that image is all he’s had to sustain him.”

“You’re saying I shouldn’t have told him at all?”

“No.” She touched his arm for emphasis. “Only that you need to understand the depth of the charge you’ve planted. What started the argument?”

“Work. A case came up this weekend—Gemma will have told you—and I couldn’t do what I’d promised. Kit felt I’d let him down. And I had.” He moved restlessly in his chair. “I’d thought that having him live with me was the obvious solution, once he’d had a bit of time to adjust. Now I’m beginning to wonder if my seeing him at all is doing more harm than good.”

“I’m sure that’s not true. But I don’t think you realized the extent of the commitment you made,” Hazel added, sighing. She reached for a box of matches and lit the citronella candle in the center of the table. “You haven’t any experience with that sort of responsibility, and your job makes it doubly difficult.”

“I know. But I still can’t see any alternative to having Kit with me. He can’t stay with the Millers indefinitely, as kind as they’ve been to have him through the school term.”

“No word from Ian McClellan?”

Vic’s ex-husband had returned to Cambridge just long enough to agree to Kincaid’s arrangements for Kit, then he had hightailed it back to his lover. “Not a peep. I assume he’s still enjoying the south of France with his nubile graduate student. But Kit hasn’t given up hoping Ian will send for him.” Kincaid shook his head. “I thought that if Kit learned I was his father, not Ian, it might make Ian’s desertion a bit more bearable.”

“It may, in time. But you’re asking Kit for belief based on nothing but your word. You have no proof.”

He thought of the day of Vic’s funeral, when his mother had taken him aside and told him he was blind not to have seen the resemblance the boy bore to him, or to have calculated the number of months between the time Vic left him and Kit’s birth. His first reaction had been denial; his second, panic; it was only the fear of losing Kit altogether that had made him realize how much he wanted it to be true.

Inside the house the kitchen light flicked on, and he heard the rattle of crockery clearly through the open window. “Kit has more to accept than the fact that he’s my son,” he said slowly. “He blames me for Vic’s death.”

“Duncan, Kit’s a child. He has no other way of resolving what’s happened to him, unless the trial—”

“That’s no help. It may be two years before Vic’s murder comes before the courts. And what if Kit’s right—and I did fail her?”

Leaning forward so that the light shining from the kitchen window illuminated her face, Hazel said forcefully, “You know that’s not reasonable. You did all anyone could have done for Vic.”

Had he? Since Vic’s death he had tried to convince himself of it, but now his nagging doubts leapt out like reaching shadows. “What matters now is Kit,” he said, pushing the thoughts aside. “How can I salvage the mess I’ve made of things?”

Hazel gave him a searching look. “The important thing is not to give up on him. Make him see that you aren’t going to reject him, no matter how he behaves.” Frowning, she thought for a moment, then added, “I’d say he’s testing you—and protecting himself. If he drives you away now, he doesn’t have to worry that you’ll run off and leave him the first time he’s not perfect.”

“Like Ian did.”

“Yes. If you have to break a promise, make it up to him in some way, as soon as you can. It’s the only way he’ll learn to trust you. And Duncan—be patient with him.”

“That doesn’t seem to be my strong suit these days.” Suddenly, a wave of exhaustion swept through him, as if the adrenaline that had carried him through his row with Kit had drained away. With an effort, he finished his lemonade and stood, looking out across the garden. Gemma’s windows were still dark.

“You’re not going to wait?” Hazel asked. “I’ve a quiche in the fridge, and some white wine chilled.”

He hesitated, then shook his head. “I think I need some time on my own tonight. But thanks, Hazel. Will you tell Gemma I came by?”

“Of course.” Hazel got up and gave him a brief hug. “I’d better see if I can make up to Holly with a half hour of Winnie the Pooh.”

If only it were that easy, he thought as he let himself out the garden gate and unlocked the Rover. But he and Kit had no comforting rituals to mend the rifts between them.

As the car’s interior lights came on, he noticed that the center console contained only some peppermints and pocket change. Surely Kit had dropped his old photo there, the one his mum had sent of an eleven-year-old Duncan in scouting uniform, sporting a toothy grin.

When a quick search between the seats and on the floor yielded nothing, he remembered leaving Kit alone in the car for a moment at the station, while he fetched his bag from the boot.

If Kit had changed his mind and taken the photo with him, perhaps there was hope he might come to terms with the idea of their relationship. Kincaid felt his throat tighten with unexpected hope.

A BIT OF SALAD WITH THE first tomato and cucumber from his vegetable plot, peas, two potatoes roasted in their jackets, and two lovely chops from the butcher along Manchester Road. George Brent surveyed this bounty with pleasure and a certain anticipation, for it was the first time he’d prepared supper for Mrs. Singh.

He was quite proud of his developing culinary skills, as the wife had done most of the cooking in the more than forty years they’d had together. Never too late to learn, his old dad had been fond of saying.

It was never too late for some other things, either, he thought with a sly smile. A clean shirt after his bath, a liberal splash of aftershave on his newly shaven neck and jaw—he was undoubtedly as irresistible as one of those young studs on the telly, although when he’d been that age he’d have thought it daft to bathe more than once a week.

When he was a lad, before the war, the Saturday bath had been an occasion. They’d heated water for the big, old tin tub in the scullery, and they’d each had their bit of Sunlight soap. And on fine days, they’d taken their bit of soap down to the river. The water had been clean, then, and the great ships had been as familiar to them as the furniture in their parlors.

The thought of the war reminded him that he’d meant to listen to that program on the wireless again, the one about the Blitz he’d heard on Radio Four the other evening. The events of the previous day had driven it from his mind—that and his daughter Brenda’s fussing, which had only served to remind him of the dead girl every time he turned round. He’d even seen her face in his dreams.

In an effort to put it out of his mind, George imagined Mrs. Singh on the other side of the small table, her knees touching his under the cloth. And the little table did look inviting with two places set on the oilcloth and the jug of bright flowers he’d picked from the garden—a perfect setting for a bit of romance.

As he peeked at the potatoes in the oven and turned the chops over in the pan, the doorbell rang. He glanced at the clock. Mrs. Singh was early, but he liked promptness in a woman. Wiping his hand on the tea towel, he went into the hall.

Janice Coppin stood in his open doorway. “Hullo, George. Surprised to see me?”

“What do you want?” He scowled at her, but she smiled back at him, unfazed.

“Just a word. Can I come in?”

“I’m expecting someone.”

“It won’t take long.”

“All right, then,” he said grudgingly, and led the way back to the kitchen, where he turned off the fire under the pan.

“A lady friend?” inquired Janice, taking in the jug of flowers and the carefully laid plates as she sat in one of the kitchen chairs. “George Brent, you old goat.”

“None of your business, miss,” he growled, but he could’ve sworn he heard admiration in her tone. She wore shorts and a tee shirt rather than her stiff police-lady suit, and looked, George decided, altogether more human.

“It’s about the dead woman, George,” she said. “The one you found in—”

“I know which one. How many dead women do you think I’ve run across lately?”

“Then you remember the sergeant who came to see you?”

He glared at Janice, not bothering to answer. He’d liked the kind-voiced policewoman, a nice-looking lass with her pretty red hair—but that brought to mind the other one, lying so still in the grass.…

“Sergeant James said you didn’t seem quite sure about where you’d seen the dead woman, George. I thought you might have remembered something else.”

George didn’t like to admit how much it had been bothering him, especially to Janice Coppin. “I’m not senile, you know,” he said, but he heard the hesitation in his voice.

“No, of course you’re not,” Janice agreed. “And I’ve not given you credit, have I? For noticing things, and remembering things.”

“Would you like a cuppa, lass?” he asked, thinking that maybe Janice Coppin wasn’t so bad after all.

“That’d be lovely.”

He put the kettle on, and opened the package of Hobnobs he’d bought specially for Mrs. Singh.

When he’d given Janice her tea and biscuit, she said, “I’ve been thinking, George, that if you didn’t want to say where you’d seen the woman, maybe it was because she was with someone you knew, and you didn’t want to get anyone in trouble. But if we’re to catch her killer, we have to know everything we can about her.”

George met her eyes, then looked away, fidgeting with the tea towel he’d used to wipe the sloshed tea from her saucer. “You’re an Islander, lass. You know what it’s like, though you won’t remember the best days, before the war.”

“My mum says she knew everyone when she was a girl, all the neighbors—”

“Hard to get into trouble in those days,” George agreed with a smile. “Someone would rat on you for certain. We played in the street on fine days, hoops and marbles, not like the things kids do today.”

Closing his eyes, he could see it all as clearly as if it were yesterday. “The girls had tops with colored paper stuck on them and they looked so lovely when they spun.… And we all played cricket together, girls and boys, while the grown-ups stood round chatting.…” He opened his eyes and found Janice watching him intently. “I knew him then. Just a little lad, and I was already in my teens. Who’d have thought things would turn out the way they did?”

“What things?”

“The war, his family …” George sighed and shook his head. “But he came back, and I’ve always admired him for that. He never forgot where he came from or what he owed. And he always had a kind word for me and a pint at the pub.”

Janice held her teacup motionless, balanced in both hands. “Who, George?”

“Lewis Finch,” he admitted reluctantly.

“You saw Annabelle Hammond with Lewis Finch?”

“Was that her name? Like Hammond’s Teas?”

“Exactly. It’s her family’s business, and she was in charge of it. Where did you see them?”

George pleated the tea towel. “Once coming out of the Indian restaurant just down the road. He was holding her arm, friendly-like, and she was laughing. You couldn’t help but notice her. Once in the Waterman’s Arms. And another time, in his Mercedes. The windows were tinted but you could still tell it was her.”

“Recently?” asked Janice.

“In the pub, a month or so ago. That time outside the restaurant, I’m not certain, except that it was nippy that day. In the autumn, maybe.”

“And the time in the car?”

“It was just a glimpse, one day when I was taking Sheba for her run. It doesn’t mean anything, that he knew her.”

“No. But we’ll have to have a word with him, just the same,” said Janice, and George thought she didn’t sound any happier at the prospect than he’d felt in telling her what he’d seen.

She finished her tea and stood up. “Thanks, George. I’d better let you tend to your supper.”

With a regretful thought for his potatoes—likely cooked to a crisp—and cold chops, George saw her to the door.

From the walk she turned back and gave him a cheeky grin. “By the way, George—I’m sorry about the Settlement Dance. Tell your Georgie that for me one of these days, would you?”

GORDON FINCH STOOD AT THE WINDOW of his first-floor flat, looking out across East Ferry Road. A breath of cool air stirred the lace curtains. The street lamps had come on, and across the road in Millwall Park the bowlers had given up their game and retired to the pub.

All so normal, all so ordinary. For a moment he held on to the thought that he would turn and life would go on uninterrupted. Annabelle would be standing naked at his kitchen sink, brushing her teeth, holding the mass of her hair back with the other hand to keep it dry. She would lean forward, the angle of the light creating a hollow in the small of her back, highlighting the curve of her hip, then as she straightened the shadows would shift, playing over her skin like a lover’s hands.

From the beginning she’d shed her clothes whenever she walked into his flat, throwing her expensive suits casually over a chair. Sometimes on colder days she slipped on a silk kimono he’d found at a street market. Captivated by the rich colors of the old silk, he’d bought it on impulse. It was the only gift he had given her, hanging ready from a peg on the back of the bathroom door.

He saw the gold and russet folds of the robe fall open, revealing a slice of creamy skin as Annabelle sat at his small table, eating Indian take-away with a plastic fork. The candles he’d stuck in saucers guttered and smoked between them. Laughing, she’d called him a barbarian, but when he challenged her to invite him to her flat for a proper dinner, she refused.

She’d come to him for months before he learned her name, and even then she’d never talked about herself in the ordinary sense. It was only by chance that he’d seen her come out of the Ferry Street flat one day and learned that she lived just down the road—a few blocks and another world away.

Not that he’d needed confirmation that Annabelle Hammond was everything he despised, one of the privileged who take without considering those they trample in the process. Why had he thought he might be the undamaged exception?

Once, straddling him on his narrow bed, she’d held his clarinet between her breasts and asked him if he’d give it up for her. “Don’t be daft,” he’d said, but for a moment the abyss of obsession had opened before him. What might he have done for her, he wondered now, if he hadn’t discovered her betrayal?

CHAPTER 8The Island population had reached its peak of around 21,000 in 1900.… The green fields had been replaced by docks, warehouses, factories and streets of terraced houses. In this predominantly working-class community, young people found a job, married and set up home not far from their parents.

Eve Hostettler, from

Memories of Childhood

on the Isle of Dogs, 1870–1970

In the mid-eighties, Lewis Finch had chosen to live with a view of Millwall Dock rather than a view of the river; in fact, his housing estate had been one of the pioneering Docklands developments, low-rise and less than exorbitantly expensive. Although he’d had many opportunities since to sell at a profit and move into one of his own newer, more glamourous riverside developments, he liked the small scale of the place, liked knowing his neighbors, and he’d found himself loath to make a change.

Nor did he care much for travel, and having arrived home from a weekend conference late the previous evening, he’d begun his Monday morning routine with a particular sense of relief.

Shower, shave, dress, then repair with a pot of coffee, a rack of toast, and a stack of newspapers to his tiny dockside balcony.

As he buttered his toast, he gazed out at the sun-pearled, early morning mist on the water. To the north, across the Outer Dock, he could see Glengall Bridge; to the northwest, the towers of Canary Wharf rose in the distance, barely visible in the haze; to the east were the DLR and the high ground of the Mudchute.

It was his small kingdom—the Island—and if he hadn’t quite managed to re-create the past, at least he’d come to terms with his failures over the years, and with himself.

Or so he’d thought, until Friday night.

The things that had happened with Annabelle had exposed long-buried wounds, and his reaction had shocked him so deeply that he’d spent the weekend trying to regain his balance.

Today, he’d attempt to repair the damage, or at least control it. But it was too early yet to ring Annabelle at the office, so he would read the papers and drink his coffee, and try not to consider the prospect of his life without Annabelle in it.

He began with the Financial Times, as always, then the Telegraph, and last, the Daily Post—his daily prescription for taking the world’s pulse.

The headline jumped out at him from the front page of the tabloid. WOMAN FOUND MURDERED IN MUD-CHUTE PARK IDENTIFIED. He read on, at first with the sort of uneasy curiosity engendered by the mention of violence on one’s own doorstop—then with unbelieving horror.

It couldn’t be. He read it again, tracing the words with his finger as if he were a child, willing it not to be true.

At last, he lowered the newspaper with shaking hands, his vision blurred. What had he done?

Years of hatred had spilled in a moment of fury—then he had let her walk away, white-hot with her own anger. And he feared she’d gone straight to his son.

LOOKING IN THE OPEN DOOR OF Janice Coppin’s dimly lit office, Gemma saw a television on a portable stand flickering bluely in one corner. “You wanted to see me?”

Janice sat on the edge of her desk, sorting through a pile of videotapes. “Did the guv’nor reach you?” she asked, looking up. The room smelled of stale cigarette ends and Gemma saw that the tin ashtray on the desk was near to overflowing, although she didn’t remember ever seeing Janice smoke.

“On my mobile,” Gemma replied. She’d awakened to find Toby fractious and feverish, not a good omen for a Monday morning. By the time she’d got him settled in front of the telly at Hazel’s, she was running late, and Kincaid had rung her to say he’d keep the appointment he’d made with Annabelle Hammond’s solicitor on his own. She’d not had a chance to ask why he hadn’t stayed last night, and he hadn’t offered an explanation.

Coming farther into the room, Gemma peered at the juddering black and white image on the telly screen, her interest quickening. “What have you got?”

“The security-camera video from the foot tunnel. I spent the morning in their office, watching the footage from all the cameras on the time-lapse VCR. Once we’d isolated this camera, they made me a copy.”

Gemma noticed her creased blouse and flattened hair. “What time did you come in?”

“Crack of dawn, it feels like. But worth it.” Janice put down the videos she was holding and picked up the remote. “Watch.”

It was an odd perspective, with pedestrians moving in both directions in the foreground while the tunnel receded in the distance. Then Gemma saw what someone had momentarily blocked—Gordon Finch, standing against the curving tunnel wall, his clarinet case and his dog at his feet. Then the tape jumped jerkily to the next recorded segment, reminding Gemma a bit of an old silent film.

Now a woman stood in front of Gordon, her back to the camera, but Gemma recognized her sleek, black jacket and short skirt, and even in monochrome the wavy fall of her hair was unmistakable. It was Annabelle Hammond.

From her body movements, she seemed to be speaking, but Gordon didn’t respond. Annabelle reached out, touching his arm in a gesture of entreaty. Only then did he look at her and shake his head. For a moment, Annabelle stood there, hand still on his arm. Then she shoved past him and walked away down the tunnel, anger visible in every stride.

The tape jumped again. Gordon Finch slowly broke apart his clarinet and knelt to put it in its case. Still squatting, he leaned back against the white-tiled wall of the tunnel, his eyes closed, one hand resting on the dog’s head.

Then again, the now-familiar jerk and pause, and the frame showed nothing but moving pedestrians and an unoccupied segment of white-tiled wall. Janice stopped the tape.

Gemma realized she’d been holding her breath. “That’s all?”

“There’s no sign of either of them after that, on any of the cameras,” Janice replied as she rewound the video. “But there’s no doubt, is there, that it’s Annabelle Hammond?”

“So he lied to us.”

“It’s certainly obvious he knew her.” Janice slid off her desk and switched on the overhead light, then went round to her chair, brushing a speck from her trousers as she sat down.

That Gordon had known Annabelle came as no surprise to Gemma, but she had not been prepared for the emotional intensity of the eerily silent scene, or for the oddness of seeing Annabelle Hammond come to life. “But did he follow her?” she asked.

“It didn’t look as though they were making an assignation,” said Janice. “She wanted him to do something, and he seemed to be refusing.”

Gemma sat slowly down in the visitor’s chair, smoothing her skirt beneath her thighs. She’d pulled the coolest item she could find from her wardrobe this morning—a short, loose, Indian cotton dress. “Maybe she wanted him to meet her, and after she left he changed his mind.”

“But she was the one who was angry. Why would he kill her?”

“We don’t know what they were arguing about. Or what he might have been building up to,” Gemma countered.

“Even if he met her later, it doesn’t mean he killed her. And what about Mortimer? He says he saw them together—what proof do we have that Mortimer didn’t wait for her?” Janice’s blunt face was set in a stubborn scowl.

Gemma studied her. “You’re defending him, aren’t you? Gordon Finch, I mean. Why?”

“I’m not,” Janice said hotly. Then she shrugged and looked embarrassed. “It’s just that I’d admired what he stood for—you know, the Robin Hood sort of thing. Rich man’s son comes back to his roots and supports the working classes. Probably all a load of bollocks, and it’s not as if his father hasn’t done his part for the Island. And speaking of the father,” Janice added, “I’ve come up with something.”

Gemma thought she detected reluctance. “He cheated on his income tax,” she joked, but Janice didn’t smile. “All right,” said Gemma. “Out with it, then.”

“You were right about George Brent. I went back to see him last night, and it wasn’t too difficult to get him to ‘remember’ where he’d seen Annabelle Hammond.”

“With Lewis Finch?”

“More than once. Coming out of a restaurant sometime in the autumn, then again fairly recently. And he described their behavior as ‘friendly-like.’ ”

“So it was Lewis Finch on Annabelle’s answering machine,” Gemma mused aloud. “And we have evidence that she had some sort of relationship with his son as well.” She nodded at the videotape.

“I think we can take for granted that Annabelle Hammond could lift a finger and have any man she wanted—but doesn’t it seem a bit odd that she chose both the Finches?”

“Coincidence?” Gemma ventured, but she didn’t believe it. “And at this point, we don’t know that she had sex with either of them. Maybe her relationship with Lewis Finch was strictly business, and with Gordon …”

“Music lessons?” Janice gave her a skeptical look. “All right, let’s just say she slept with them both. Why keep up her engagement to Reg Mortimer, if she was so inclined to sample other merchandise?”

“Men do it often enough. But if Mortimer knew, it gives him a hell of a motive for killing her.” Gemma thought for a moment, then said decisively, “We’d better get all our ducks in a row before we pursue this any further. The guv will want to see Lewis Finch when he gets back from the solicitor’s.”

“And in the meantime, I suppose we’d better have Gordon brought in again.” With a grimace, Janice reached for the phone.

“Wait.” The request had been unpremeditated, and Janice’s startled expression prompted Gemma to back it up. “I know it’s not exactly protocol, but it’s obvious he doesn’t respond well to authority. He’ll just be shouting for his solicitor. Let me go and have a word with him.” She glanced at her watch. “It’s only half-nine. I doubt buskers leave for work very early.”

Janice stared at her, her hand still poised over the phone; then, with a sigh, she leaned back in her chair. “On your head be it, then.”

LEWIS DID NOT MEET EDWINA BURNE-JONES that day. After he had finished a breakfast in which the rashers of bacon seemed endless, John had taken him back to the stables and allowed him to help polish the autos. This Lewis had done with reverence, rubbing at the merest smudge on the Bentley until its black paint shone like glass. For the rest of his life he would associate the scent of automobile wax with comfort; for those industrious hours spent with John, listening to his stories and receiving the occasional word of praise, held homesickness at bay as nothing else could.

In the afternoon, John officially introduced him to the horses, showing him how to fill their water troughs and mangers and how to sweep the soiled straw from their stalls, and promising that when Lewis felt a bit more comfortable, he would teach him how to use the curry comb and brush.

There was no further sign of the elegant William Hammond, and by the time Lewis fell into bed after supper, he had almost forgotten about him.

Sunday, September 3rd, dawned clear and mild. Lewis woke to a chorus of birdsong floating in through his open window. Not liking to think what his mother would have said about his consorting with Methodists, he’d refused John’s invitation to attend chapel, and so found himself at a loose end after breakfast.

Cook, seeing a pair of idle hands, set him to work at the kitchen table peeling carrots and potatoes for Sunday dinner.

It was there, in the warm steaminess of the kitchen at eleven o’clock in the morning, that he heard Prime Minister Chamberlain announce over the wireless that Britain had declared war on Germany.

Cook sat down, fanning herself and clucking with dismay. “Oh, Lord, who’d have thought it, after the last one? All the young men will go—such a terrible waste.” She shook her head. “I lost both my brothers in the Great War. Just boys they were, too young to die in the trenches.”

At the sight of Lewis’s face, she reached out and pressed her damp, red hand against his. “Oh, dearie, I am sorry. You told me you had brothers, didn’t you?”

Lewis nodded, but the constriction in his throat kept him from speaking. What he hadn’t told her was that his brothers meant to sign up the very second that war was declared, and had sworn him to secrecy. His mum would be inconsolable when she found out what they’d done.

“Well, mayhap it’s a tempest in a teapot, and nothing will come of it,” Cook said comfortingly. “And speaking of tea, I think a nice cuppa would brighten us up a bit,” she added, heaving herself to her feet. Watching her ample backside as she bustled about the cooker with kettle and teapot, Lewis tried to come to terms with the fact of war. In spite of the weeks of preparing for the blackout, the talk of shelters, the antiaircraft balloons that floated above London like escapees from a child giant’s birthday party, he hadn’t really believed in it. He hadn’t thought his evacuation would mean more than a week or two away in the country, and now it looked as though he was here to stay.

The door to the hall swung open and William Hammond came in. He was dressed as he had been yesterday, in school blazer and tie, but his hair had sprung up from its neat combing as if unable to contain itself. “I say, have you heard? Isn’t it tremendously exciting?”

Cook turned from the kettle with an admonishing shake of her head. “You don’t know what you’re saying, Master William. If your mother heard you—”

“Mummy’s had hysterics all over the parlor. Father’s administered the smelling salts and sent her upstairs for a lie-down,” William volunteered. “And Aunt Edwina wants to see everyone in half an hour, in the drawing room. I think she’s going to make a speech. I’m to tell all the staff.” With that, William charged out as energetically as he had entered, and Lewis was left to wait with Cook.

They gathered in the kitchen—John Pebbles and his wife, Mary, a delicate woman with soft brown hair; Kitty, the parlormaid, a girl not much older than Lewis; Owens, the Welsh butler with the singsong voice; Lewis; and Cook. As they waited, they muttered and exclaimed among themselves, yet when the bell summoned them they trooped to the front of the house in silence.

Lewis found himself last as they entered the drawing room, but that gave him a moment to take in his surroundings. After the smokey dimness of the kitchen and the polished, dark woodwork of the hall and staircase, the white-plastered room seemed garden-bright. A chintz-covered sofa faced the fireplace, flanked by needlepoint chairs displaying a profusion of roses. A side table held a large vase of late summer flowers, and a painting over the mantel carried on the soft reds and blues. Lewis drew his eyes from the oddly dressed children in the painting to the slender man who stood turned away from them, one elbow on the mantel as he gazed out the window.

Then the figure turned, and Lewis saw that it was not a man at all, but a tall woman in riding breeches and coat, with the shortest bobbed hair he had ever seen. Her face was sharp and browned to the color of oak, and she had blue eyes that stood out bright as cornflowers against her dark skin.

“You will all have heard the news,” she said, lifting a packet of cigarettes from the mantel and lighting one with a silver lighter. “It seems I was wrong in believing it wouldn’t come to war, but I hope that will not be the case when I say I don’t think this can last long.” Edwina Burne-Jones spoke with such conviction that for a moment Lewis felt his fear lift. “But in the meantime, we must take the necessary precautions. We will rigorously enforce the blackout. Owens, Kitty, from now on that will be your responsibility.”

“Ma’am,” Owens acknowledged calmly, but Kitty looked terrified.

Edwina drew on her cigarette, then continued as she exhaled. “Everyone should make sure that their gas masks are in working order. And if we have warning of a raid, the cellar should do as a shelter.” She fixed Lewis with her startling blue eyes. “You’re the boy from London?”

Lewis could only nod. Then John’s elbow jabbed him sharply in the ribs and he managed to croak out, “Yes, ma’am. Lewis Finch.”

“It looks as though you may be with us for a while, Lewis. Is there anything you need?”

Blushing crimson to the roots of his hair, Lewis stammered, “Ma’am. I lost my postcard—the one they gave us to send home.”

The skin round the corners of Edwina’s eyes crinkled up as she smiled. “I think we can arrange something for you,” she said, going to the secretary near the window and removing a sheet of paper, an envelope, and a stamp, which she handed to Lewis. Under his fingers, the paper felt smooth as rose petals.

She studied Lewis, narrowing her remarkable eyes against a veil of smoke. “I understand from the billeting officer that your school class will meet at the Institute until room can be made for you in the village school. Lessons will start as usual tomorrow morning.” Pausing, she raked the others with a swift glance, then added, “I want your position here to be clear, Lewis. You are a guest, not a servant. You may help John with his tasks if you wish—he is certainly shorthanded since that infernal boy ran off to join up—but you are not obligated to do so. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Lewis said, although he was not at all sure that he did. How could he be a guest in a place so grand he’d never set foot in its like before?

What he did know was that from that moment on he would attempt to walk on water if Edwina Burne-Jones asked it of him.

GEMMA TOOK THE FIRST PARKING SPACE she came to on East Ferry Road. To her right lay the green playing fields of Millwall Park, spanned by the old brick aqueduct that now carried the red and blue trains of the DLR. To her left, across the street, was a terrace of simple, prewar houses, some painted and stuccoed, some still sporting their original brown brick. According to Janice’s instructions, Gordon Finch lived just a few doors further along.

She started to roll her window up, then shook her head and reversed the crank. There was hardly anything worth stealing, after all, among the odds and ends of papers and food wrappers that littered the car’s interior, and ten minutes with the windows closed would turn the Escort into an oven.

As she walked slowly up the street, checking the numbers on the houses opposite, she wondered what had prompted her to take this interview on her own, knowing it was against procedure, knowing that Kincaid would likely have her head for it.

She’d already stretched the limits of truthfulness by not telling Kincaid that she’d met Gordon Finch before—if you could call their brief encounter “meeting”—and the longer she put it off, the more awkward an admission would become.

But then she knew nothing more about Finch than that he had busked in Islington for a time, so what did it matter, really?

Somehow that argument didn’t make her feel any better. Shrugging, she promised herself a compromise. She would tell Kincaid, the first chance she had to drop it casually into the conversation. And if she thought it necessary after she’d spoken to Finch, she’d send someone round to bring him in to the station.

Reaching the entrance to Millwall Park, she detoured long enough to peek through the wrought-iron fence at the deserted bowling green and the substantial-looking Dockland Settlement House behind it. She guessed this would be the center of working-class social life on the Island, and that Gordon Finch might be a regular here, but she had difficulty imagining him socializing even in the service of political aims.

Retracing her steps and continuing up the street, she’d only gone a few yards when she heard the light notes of the clarinet. She followed the sound across the street to the brown-brick house at the end of the terrace. The music came from the open upstairs window, and as she stood listening, she thought she recognized the Mozart piece she’d heard Gordon play once on the Liverpool Road.

There were two glossy, deep blue doors on the side of the house, and the one nearest the rear bore the number Janice had given her. He must have the upstairs flat, Gemma thought. She knocked sharply and heard the dog bark once in response. It was only when the music stopped that she realized she had no idea what she meant to say.

The door swung open without warning and Gordon Finch stared at her, looking none too pleased. His feet were bare, and he wore nothing but a thin cotton vest above his jeans. Sunlight glinted from the gold earring in his left ear and the reddish stubble on his chin.

“If it isn’t the lady copper,” he said with a look that took in her dress and bare legs.

Gemma was suddenly very aware of the fact that she was wearing only bra and knickers under the thin cotton dress. She felt both unprepared and unprofessional, and wondered why it was that tights gave one a sense of invincibility.

“I’d never have picked you for a snoop. Is this a social call, or are you just doing your job?” His tone made it clear what he thought of her choice of profession.

She collected herself enough to pull her identification from her handbag and flip it open. “I’d like to ask you a few questions, if you don’t mind, Mr. Finch,” she said, determined to regain her authority.

Gordon Finch ducked his head in a mock bow and gestured towards the stairs. “Be my guest.” He stepped back to let her by, and when Gemma brushed past she was close enough to feel the warmth of his breath. The sound of her sandals thumping on the threadbare steps seemed unnaturally loud as he padded silently up behind her.

When she reached the top of the stairs, she went straight through the open door without waiting. Her momentum carried her into the center of the room and gave her an instant to take stock.

Gordon Finch’s dog, Sam, lay on a round cushion near the open window. “Hullo, boy,” she said. “Remember me?”

Lifting his head, the dog regarded Gemma, then returned his head to his paws with a sigh. She obviously had not made a lasting impression.

The single, large room was obviously used as a bedsit. To the back was a kitchen alcove with a small pine table and two chairs, to the front a single bed with a cotton spread in bars of bright reds and purples.

“Does it get your seal of approval?” Gordon Finch said behind her, and when Gemma turned round, he added, “What did you expect? Beer cans and rubbish?”

A bookcase held a CD player but no television, and a music stand was positioned in front of the window. His clarinet rested half out of the open case on the floor, and on the stand pages of sheet music fluttered gently, as if sighing. The flat was tidy and, even though sparsely furnished, looked comfortable.

“Look, Mr. Finch, I’m not here to—”

“Mr. Finch?” he parroted, mocking her again. “Why didn’t you say anything yesterday at the station?” He stood with his back against the door, arms crossed.

“Pardon?”

“You know what I mean. You’d have thought you didn’t know me from Adam.”

Gemma glared back at him. “Are you saying I do? We spoke once, as far as I remember, and I might as well have been a leper. Now I’m supposed to have claimed you as a long-lost cousin?” She’d come here to give him a break, and he’d immediately put her on the defensive. Angrily, she added, “And you lied to us.”

“About what?” He stepped towards her. As Gemma instinctively stepped back, it flashed through her mind that maybe this visit hadn’t been such a wise idea after all. But he merely picked up the packet of cigarettes on the table beside the bed and tapped one free.

“You told us you didn’t know Annabelle Hammond, and that you didn’t speak to her that night,” she said as Gordon lit the cigarette with a match. The smell of smoke filled the room, sharp and pungent.

“So?” His offhand delivery might have been more effective if he’d met her eyes. He extinguished the match with a sharp flick of his hand.

She shook her head in exasperation. “We have the video surveillance tapes. I’ve seen them. Annabelle did stop and speak to you.”

With the cigarette dangling from his lips, he stooped and lifted the clarinet from its case. “That doesn’t prove anything.”

But she’d seen the instant’s freeze before he’d masked his reaction with movement. “It proves that you saw her shortly before she died, and that you had a disagreement.”

Still holding his instrument, he sat down on the edge of the bed. “It wouldn’t be the first time a complete stranger found my playing offensive. Or my looks. Does that make me a suspect?”

“What I saw on that video was not a disagreement between strangers,” she replied. “It was an argument between two people who cared enough about each other to be angry. You knew her. Why are you so determined to deny the obvious?”

Taking a last drag on the cigarette, he crushed it out in a small black and white Wedgwood ashtray. With his gaze on the clarinet, he pressed the keys without lifting it to his lips. She waited in silence, and at last his fingers stilled. He looked up at her. “Because whatever there was between Annabelle and me is no one else’s business.”

“It is now. This is a murder investigation.”

“I had nothing to do with her death. And what was between us had nothing to do with her death.”

“Then doesn’t it matter to you how she died?” Gemma demanded. “Someone killed Annabelle Hammond, and it’s my guess it was someone she knew and trusted.”

“Why? What makes you say that? Surely it was some … You said she was found in the park.… How was she …”

Although in her brief experience Gordon Finch had been sparing with words, it was the first time Gemma had seen him at a loss for them. “We’re not releasing the cause of death just yet, but I will tell you that there was little sign of a struggle, and that she does not appear to have been sexually assaulted.” She hesitated, then added, “And her body seemed to have been rather carefully … arranged.”

“Arranged?” He stared at her. “Arranged how?”

She didn’t know if the details would haunt him more than the images conjured up by his imagination, but she knew she’d said too much already and would have to answer to Kincaid for going over the mark. Temporizing, she said, “As if her dignity mattered. She looked very … serene.”

“Annabelle, serene? That’s an oxymoron.” He stood again, lighting another cigarette.

“Why? What was she like, then?”

Frowning, he inhaled until the tip of the cigarette glowed orange-red. “She was … intense. Alive. More so than anyone I’d ever met.” He shook his head. “That sounds absolute rubbish.”

“No. Go on.”

He shifted restlessly. “That’s it. That’s all I can tell you.”

“But—”

“You don’t understand. I knew how she was with me, but nothing else. Nothing.” Going to the window, he pulled aside the lace panel and looked out. The sounds of the heavy equipment from the construction at the Mudchute DLR Station came clearly on the breeze.

When he didn’t continue, she said, “Were you …”

“Lovers?” The word carried an undertone of amusement. “Past tense. I broke things off with her months ago.”

“You broke it off with her?”

He spun round and took a step towards her. “Is that so hard to believe? Do you think I hadn’t any pride? I’d had enough of games.”

“What sort of games?”

“She came to listen to me play, just like you. And one night she came home with me.”

Gemma felt the flush creeping up her chest and throat. Is that what he’d thought the evening she’d stopped and spoken to him about his dog? She wondered if he’d been more encouraging with Annabelle—not that she’d had Annabelle’s motives, of course.… Or if perhaps Annabelle had liked the challenge.

“I should think you’d have been flattered,” she said, aiming at nonchalance as she perched herself gingerly on the arm of the old chair near the bed.

Its fabric was worn, but he’d covered it neatly with a woven purple rug, and for an instant she imagined Annabelle sitting there, framed by the contours of the chair, her hair glowing against the purple backdrop. Gemma smoothed the rug with her fingers, feeling as though she were infringing upon a ghost.

“Flattered?” With a derisive snort, he added, “By the attention of a woman who didn’t tell me her name for weeks? Who made it a point not to tell me where she lived or what she did?” He flicked ash from his cigarette end with a sharp tap of his fingertip.

“But you found out?”

“Only by accident. I’d just got off the train at Island Gardens one day. I looked down from the platform and saw her coming out of the Ferry Street flat. And once I knew her name, it didn’t take too long to make the connection with Hammond’s Teas.”

“You must have wondered why she was so secretive—what she was hiding.”

“The arrangement suited me well enough.”

“Did it?” Gemma shook her head. “I wouldn’t think the hole-and-corner bit suited you at all. Or that you’d like being treated as if she was ashamed of you.”

“All right,” he said sharply, and she knew her remark had stung. “I didn’t like it. But she said she was engaged to someone in the company, and there were reasons she couldn’t break it off.”

“What sort of reasons?”

“She wouldn’t say. I told you, she didn’t talk to me about herself. She only said that much because—” He stopped, scowling, and ground out his cigarette in the ashtray next to the first.

“Because you threatened to call it off,” Gemma finished for him. “Is that it?” When he didn’t answer, she said, “Is that what ended things between you?”

“No. I just … got tired of her, that’s all.” He jammed his hands in his pockets and stared out the window.

“When did you learn about your father’s connection with Annabelle?” asked Gemma, trying a different tack.

“I didn’t know there was a connection—and I doubt you do, either. You’re fishing, Sergeant.”

“We have a witness who saw them together as far back as last autumn. And your father left a message on her answering machine the night she died.”

“So?” Gordon challenged, but she thought his face had paled.

“When did you first see Annabelle?”

He lit another cigarette. “I don’t remember.”

“You said she came to listen to you play. You must remember what time of year it was,” Gemma insisted.

“Summer, then. It was hot.”

“And when did you break things off with her?”

“A few months ago. I suppose it was early in the spring.”

Was that why he’d been so taciturn when she’d seen him in Islington? wondered Gemma. The timing fit. “And you’d not seen her again until Friday night?”

“Seeing and speaking are two different things. I’d seen her around—the Island’s a small place—but I hadn’t spoken to her.”

A current of air lifted a sheet of music from the stand and sent it drifting lazily towards Gemma. Bending to catch it, she turned it right side up. “It is Mozart you were playing. I thought it must be.”

Gordon looked surprised. “You were listening?”

“I couldn’t help hearing. And I remember you playing it before.”

“In Islington.” He squinted against the smoke rising from his cigarette as he studied her. “You like music, then? Do you play?”

She heard the quickening of interest in his voice, free for the first time of mockery or caution. “No, I …” She hesitated, unwilling to part with her secret. But this was the first chance she’d seen of breaking through his defenses. Shaking her head, she left the chair and wandered over to the kitchen table. She turned to face him again, her handbag clutched against her midriff like a shield. Perhaps he wouldn’t think her daft. “No. I don’t play. But I … I want to learn the piano. I’ve started lessons.”

He ground out his cigarette and came across to her, pulling one of the kitchen chairs away from the table until he could flip it round and straddle it. “Why?”

Gemma laughed. “You sound like my teacher. Why does everyone want to know why? I’m not silly enough to think I’m going to become a great pianist, if that’s what you think. It’s just that music makes me feel …”

“Go on.”

“I don’t know. Connected with myself, somehow.” She smiled, as if making light of it would protect her from ridicule, but he merely nodded as if it made perfect sense. “What about you?” she asked. “You’re good—I know that much. Why do you do this?” Her gesture took in the small flat, the clarinet, the signs of a meager existence.

“I like my life.”

“But you could play in an orchestra, a band—”

“Oh, right. Sit in a monkey suit in a concert hall, or play in some poncey restaurant where no one listens to you?”

“But surely the money would be—”

“I make enough as it is. And nobody tells me when to go to work, or when to go home. Nobody owns me. I could pack up tomorrow and go anywhere, free as a bird.”

Gemma stared at him. She was close enough to notice that his eyes were a clear, pure gray. “Then why don’t you?”

The question hung in the silence between them. After a moment, she said, “That freedom is an illusion, isn’t it? We all have ties, obligations. Even you, as much as you try to deny it. Is that why you broke things off with Annabelle? You were afraid she’d get too close?”

“No, I—”

“She wanted something from you, in the tunnel. What was it?”

He gave a mirthless laugh. “Good question. I asked her that often enough.”

As if unsettled by the tension in their voices, Sam raised his head and whined. Gordon knelt beside him, putting a comforting hand on the dog’s head.

Gemma moved a step closer. “What did she ask you that night?”

“To reconsider. She wanted me to … to go back to the way things were.”

“And you refused her?”

He continued stroking the dog.

“Did you change your mind, go after her?”

“Do you think I killed her?”

Gemma hesitated, thinking of the shock she’d sensed when they told him of Annabelle’s death. “No,” she said slowly. “No, I don’t. But that’s my personal opinion, not a professional clean bill of health. And if I’m wrong about you, my head’s on the block.”

Standing up, Gordon faced her. “Why did you come here on your own? On the strength of that video, you could’ve had me hauled in to the station.”

Gemma touched the pages on the music stand with the tip of her finger. “I don’t know,” she answered. “I felt she meant something to you, in spite of what you said.”

Gordon hesitated, then said, “For what it’s worth, I regretted turning her away so … abruptly. She’d never asked for anything before … or given me reason to think I was more to her than a bit of rebellion on the side.” He shook his head. “But it was so unexpected … and it wasn’t until afterwards I realized she’d been crying.”

“Do you know why?”

“I came straight back to the flat—I suppose I thought she might come here.” He looked away, and the muscle in his jaw flexed. “But she didn’t. I never had a chance to ask her.”

• • •

KINCAID SAT AT A TABLE NEAR the door in the pub just down the street from Hammond’s; Gemma had agreed to meet him for lunch. Smoke filled the air in spite of the open doors, VH1 blared from two televisions mounted near the ceiling, and the menu offered prepackaged pub food.

Frowning, he sipped at his pint, wondering if he and Gemma had miscommunicated about the time or place. Her tardiness had not improved his temper, already frayed by an interview with his guv’nor. Chief Superintendent Childs had expressed himself as not at all happy with their progress on the case, notwithstanding Kincaid’s reminder that it had only been two days and they’d had very little to go on.

He’d just about made up his mind to place his order, hoping a meal would improve his perspective, when he spotted Gemma standing in the doorway. She saw him and smiled, then threaded her way through the tables to him.

“Guv.” She looked flushed from the sun, and a damp tendril of hair clung to her cheek.

“What’ll you have?” he asked as she sat down.

“Mmmm … a lemonade would be nice. Something with a bit of ice.”

“Shall I order the food as well? Fish and chips?”

“Make it two, then,” she said, fanning herself with the menu.

When he returned with her drink, he said, “Did you get Toby settled? How is he?”

“I just rang Hazel from the car. She says he’s fine now, just a bit of the sniffles.” Gemma drained half her glass, then sat back, looking much restored. Touching his arm, she said, “Duncan, about Kit … Hazel said you told him—”

He shook his head. After a night spent tossing and turning, just the thought of talking about it made him feel drained. “It’s a proper cock-up. I wasn’t naive enough to expect to be welcomed with open arms. But I hadn’t thought he’d take it so hard.” He shrugged, making light of it. He couldn’t tell her the worst part.

“He’s been through such a lot, poor little beggar. I don’t imagine he knows what he feels. What are you going to do now?”

The barmaid arrived at the table and plopped loaded plates down in front of them, followed by serviette-wrapped cutlery and plastic packets of tartar sauce. Without a word, she went back to her tête-à-tête over the bar with a shirtless young man sporting a large and very well-endowed, naked lady tattooed on his arm.

Kincaid poked at his fish with the tip of his fork. “Give him more time, I suppose. Try to behave as ordinarily as possible. And have a talk with Laura Miller—see how she feels about having him through some of the summer hols.”

“Why didn’t you wait last night?” Gemma speared a chip. “We missed you by minutes.”

“I’m sorry. I suddenly realized that I was too knackered to think.”

Gemma gave him a swift glance but didn’t pursue it. “Tell me about Annabelle’s solicitor.”

“A very high-powered lady with an office in Canary Wharf. But she was persuaded to give me the time of day,” he answered, feeling relieved. “It seems Annabelle hadn’t much to leave in the way of material things.” Downing the last of his pint of Tetley’s, he thought for a moment of ordering another, but decided it would only make him groggy in the heat. “Her flat was mortgaged, and bought recently, so there’s very little equity. Her car was leased. Some debts, but nothing out of the ordinary.”

“No assets at all, then?”

“I didn’t quite say that. She had her shares in the company, and she left those to Harry and Sarah Lowell. She designated their father, Martin Lowell, as trustee.”

Gemma looked up in surprise. “Not her sister?”

“The solicitor says that since Jo’s divorce, Annabelle had discussed making a change, but hadn’t actually done anything about it.”

“Could Lowell benefit directly from the share income?”

“I imagine that would depend on how tightly the trust is structured. The question is, did Lowell know about the bequest?”

“Annabelle’s death could have been convenient for him, in that case,” said Gemma. Finishing her lemonade, she added, “But we’ve not had the impression so far that Hammond’s Teas was a financial gold mine.”

“Annabelle seemed to live comfortably on her income, but I’d assume she was also paid a salary.”

Gemma pushed her plate aside. “I’d like to know if Jo Lowell was aware of the bequest.”

“Then I suggest we ask her before we interview Martin Lowell. Shall we walk?” he asked, rising.

“I suppose it’s quicker,” said Gemma, but he thought she sounded less than enthusiastic.

As they left the pub and started down Saunders Ness towards the tunnel, she told him about Janice’s interview with George Brent, and the appointment Janice had made for them with Lewis Finch that afternoon.

“I’m impressed with the inspector’s initiative. So there is a connection between Annabelle and Lewis Finch.”

“And between Annabelle and Gordon Finch. Janice found the video footage.”

“You’ve seen it?”

“And I’ve spoken to him. It’s clear from the video that she wanted something from him, and that he refused her. He says he had broken off their relationship, and that she wanted to mend things between them.”

“Then why did he lie?” They’d reached the tunnel entrance, and as they waited for the lift, Kincaid glanced at her. “You had him brought in?”

“I went round to his flat. I thought he might be more cooperative.”

Kincaid frowned. “On your own?”

“That was the idea—a bit less police presence,” she said defensively. “He’s not the sort who responds well to authority.”

“Gemma, for Christ’s sake—the man could very well have murdered Annabelle Hammond. What were you playing at?”

“What was he going to do—bump me off in his flat in broad daylight, after I’d left word at the station where I’d be?” Gemma’s sarcasm echoed the mulish set of her jaw. “That would be daft, and I don’t think we’re dealing with a lunatic. And besides”—she shot him a defiant glance—“I’m still here, aren’t I?”

“That’s beside the point. Just don’t do it again—you might not be so lucky next time. Not to mention the fact that you’ve played hell with protocol.”

“As if you never do,” she muttered.

“Dammit, Gemma, I’m—” He stopped himself. Arguing would only make her more stubborn, he knew, and there was no point turning this into a full-blown row. He’d done enough damage losing his temper the last few days.

The lift doors opened, and as they waited for the disembarking passengers to exit, Kincaid saw that the lift was unusually large and had a uniformed operator. Once inside, he discovered the high-tech counterpart to this rather old-fashioned courtesy: a security camera and monitor, mounted near the ceiling.

They took up positions against the bench in the back as the other passengers crowded in. “If he admitted a relationship with her, I suppose your strategy worked,” he said quietly.

She gave him a wary glance as they continued their descent, as if assessing his change of tone. The camera view shifted from the tunnel to the interior of the lift, and for a moment he saw himself with Gemma beside him. Then the lift sighed to a stop and the doors slid open, disgorging them into the white-tiled dampness of the tunnel.

As they started down the gentle incline, he saw that the condensation from the curving walls had collected into rivulets on the sloping concrete floor. The sounds of voices and footsteps ricocheted eerily round them; from somewhere he heard music. “What exactly did the video show?” he asked. “Did Finch leave with her?”

“It seems Reg Mortimer was telling the truth, at least to a point, about what happened here.” Gemma moved closer to Kincaid, allowing a cyclist walking his bike to pass. Bicycles Strictly Prohibited signs had been plainly posted at the tunnel entrance. “Annabelle stopped and spoke to Gordon Finch, and Mortimer was nowhere to be seen. She seemed to be arguing with Finch, but he didn’t respond. Then she walked away, and a few minutes later he packed up and left.”

“Did he meet her afterwards?”

“He says he went straight home. I’ve asked Janice to send someone round this evening to check with his landlady.”

Glancing at Gemma, he thought she looked pale, but he didn’t know if it was due to the cold light reflecting from the white tiles or the thought of the weight of the river above them.

They walked in silence as they neared the flat stretch of the tunnel, and the echoing music resolved itself into a very bad vocal rendition of “Bad Moon Rising,” accompanied by abysmally played guitar. Wincing, Kincaid commented, “I should think people would pay this bloke not to play. If Gordon Finch is anywhere near this untalented, Annabelle might have been trying to persuade him to give it up.”

“He’s—” Gemma stopped, giving him a look he couldn’t read. Ducking her head, she fished in her handbag and tossed a fifty-pence piece into the busker’s case as they passed. “I’m sure that wasn’t the case.”

“Did Finch admit to knowing about Annabelle and his father?”

“He says he’d no idea. And we can’t be sure she was having an affair with Lewis Finch, just because she was seen with him.”

“Right,” Kincaid said sarcastically, a little amused at Gemma’s determination to think the best of Annabelle Hammond.

They were climbing now, nearing the Greenwich end of the tunnel, and Gemma’s pace had increased enough that Kincaid had to lengthen his stride to keep up with her. The music had faded until it came to them in intermittent, if still discordant, waves.

The tunnel’s end came into view, with clearly visible daylight filtering down the stairwell beside the lift. Gemma bypassed the lift doors. “Let’s take the stairs. I don’t think I can bear being closed up another minute.”

“Reg Mortimer and Annabelle would have come this way that evening. The lifts close at seven,” Kincaid said. Then he added, with a glance at the spiraling steps above them, “But I daresay going down is easier than going up.”

“Reg says they left the dinner party because Annabelle wasn’t feeling well; Jo says they had a row; Teresa Robbins and Annabelle’s father say they never fought about anything. So who’s telling the truth?” Gemma mused as they climbed.

“I’d say Jo, as far as it goes—but I don’t think she’s told the whole truth. We’ll need to talk to Mortimer again, but perhaps Jo can give us a bit more ammunition.”

Emerging a few minutes later, a bit breathless, into sunlight and warmth that felt welcome for a change, they saw before them the tall masts of the Cutty Sark. They detoured round its bow to reach King William’s Walk, then made their way through the center of Greenwich. Small and somewhat tatty shops nestled beside flower-bedecked pubs, and many businesses bore Save Greenwich placards on their windows.

“Save Greenwich from what?” asked Gemma as they passed a particularly inviting pub called The Cricketers.

“Developers, I imagine. With the underground extension going in, this will be a prime area for commuter flats.” It would be a shame, he thought as they left the town center behind and began climbing up through the terraced streets, for Greenwich to fall to bulldozers now when it had escaped much of the devastation suffered by the Isle of Dogs during the war.

By the time they reached Emerald Crescent, he could feel a film of sweat beneath his shirt. The lane seemed even sleepier on a Monday afternoon than it had on a Saturday evening, but a knock at Jo Lowell’s door brought a quick response.

Harry Lowell stared at them, eyes wide in his thin face. It was clear he knew them now as the bearers of bad news.

“It’s all right, Harry,” Kincaid told the boy gently. “We just want a word with your mum.”

“She’s in the shed. I’ll take you.” Harry turned and they followed him through the silent house. “Sarah’s having a nap after lunch,” Harry explained as they crossed the back garden, “and Mummy tries to work when Sarah’s sleeping because she’s such a little pest.” When they reached the small blue shed, he put his head round the door and said, “Mummy, it’s the police.”

Jo Lowell came to the door, wiping her hands on a cloth that smelled of spirits. “What—”

“We’d just like to ask you a few questions, Mrs. Lowell,” Kincaid said. She looked exhausted and untidy, as though she’d hardly slept or looked in a mirror since Saturday. A tank top exposed freckled shoulders pink with sunburn, and her dark hair was pulled carelessly back into a ponytail.

“I’m sorry.” Jo glanced apologetically at her hands. “I was just trying out a new glaze. We can go in the house—”

“This is fine, really,” he reassured her. “It won’t take a minute.”

“All right, then, but there’s not much room.” She stepped back and they followed her into the shed. The single room was clearly a retreat, and he understood her reluctance to allow their intrusion.

The worktable held a tin pail of garden roses and daisies as well as cans of decorating emulsion and brushes. Squares of board showed translucent yellow paint in various stages of crackling as it dried. On the back wall, shelves held an assortment of gardening and design books as well as bits of old pottery and dried herbs. A friendly-looking gargoyle regarded them from atop the iron frame of a mirror.

Jo gestured towards the single rush-seated chair and a small stepladder, then turned over an empty pail as a seat for herself. “Have you found something?” she asked.

Kincaid took the ladder for himself, offering Gemma the chair. “Mrs. Lowell, were you aware that your sister left her interest in Hammond’s to your children?”

She stared at them blankly. “Her shares? To Harry and Sarah? But … She never said.” Her dark eyes filled with tears and she wiped at them with the back of her hand.

“She designated their father as trustee,” Kincaid continued, watching her.

“Martin?” Jo’s face lost what little color it had, and for a moment she seemed too shocked to speak. Then, swallowing, she said, “Surely not … There must have been some sort of mistake.…”

A bumblebee blundered in through the open window and buried itself in the petals of a rose. The scent from the flowers was almost strong enough to mask the paint. Kincaid stifled an urge to sneeze and said, “Annabelle’s solicitor said the arrangement was made several years ago, and that Annabelle had recently discussed changing it when your divorce was finalized, designating you as trustee. But she never got round to it.”

“But this is dreadful. You don’t know … Martin can be so … unreasonable. And this will give him a substantial voting block. How could Annabelle have done such a silly thing?”

“She didn’t know there was any hurry to change it,” Gemma said. “And perhaps Martin wasn’t so difficult when she made the original bequest?”

“No. No, he wasn’t. But that seems a very long time ago.”

Gemma opened the notebook she’d taken from her handbag. “How exactly are the shares dispersed, Mrs. Lowell?”

“My father, Sir Peter Mortimer, and I own the majority—along with Martin, now. My mother bequeathed her shares equally to Annabelle and me upon her death. It’s my income from the firm that’s allowed me to start my own business, and to work from home. If Martin buggers it up …”

“We’ll need to have a word with him, Mrs. Lowell. The solicitor gave us his home address but not his work. If you could tell us where we might find him?”

“Is that really necessary?” A look at their faces seemed to answer her question, and she went on reluctantly. “He manages the bank just as you come into the town center. You can’t miss it.” She stood. “Look, if that’s all—”

“Just a few more questions, if you don’t mind, Mrs. Lowell.” As Jo subsided onto her makeshift seat again, Kincaid added, “You said your sister and Reg Mortimer had a row at your dinner party? Can you tell us exactly what happened?”

“I … I was washing up a bit before the pudding. Annabelle had been helping clear the table. Then she came in and said she wasn’t feeling well, that she’d made her excuses to the other guests and Reg was waiting for her in the lane. She left through the garden.”

“But you didn’t believe she was ill?”

“It was so awkward, and so sudden. And Reg didn’t even tell me good night.” Jo managed a smile. “I’ve seldom seen his manners fail him.”

“You didn’t think it odd that your sister didn’t tell you what was wrong?” asked Gemma.

Jo hesitated a moment. “Annabelle didn’t always confide in me. Even when we were children. Still, I thought she’d ring the next day.…”

“But you were close, weren’t you?” Gemma pressed. “I could tell from the photographs she kept that she was a very devoted aunt—much better than I am with my sister’s kids—or at least she was when Harry was small.”

“Annabelle loved the children. She’d have liked babies of her own, I think, but the company always came first.”

“Was Annabelle partial to Harry?” Gemma remembered the discrepancy in the number of photos of the children.

“Oh, no, I wouldn’t say ‘partial.’ ” Jo pleated the hem of her khaki shorts between her fingers. “It’s just that once she became managing director, she hadn’t as much time for them. Harry took it rather hard. He’s very—” She paused, head cocked as she listened. “I think I hear Sarah. I’d better—”

“Just one more—” Marveling at the acuity of maternal ears, Kincaid stopped as Sarah’s plaintive voice came through the open window. He hadn’t heard a thing until now. “Just one more question, Mrs. Lowell. Do you know a man called Gordon Finch?”

“Finch?” Jo repeated, clearly distracted by her daughter’s calls for her. “Not Lewis Finch?”

“What do you know about Lewis Finch?”

“Only that he and Father don’t get on. It’s not at all like Father, really.”

“Do you know the cause of the friction?” Kincaid asked.

“I remember Mummy saying she thought it had something to do with the time Father spent in Surrey during the war.”

“Your father was evacuated?”

“His mother was sure Greenwich would be bombed—they lived just next door. Father still does.” She gestured towards the uphill side of the lane. “So his parents sent him to his godmother’s. She was extremely eccentric—you know, the sort of woman who wore trousers when women didn’t wear trousers.” Jo smiled. “Father adored her. He often talked about her when we were children. Annabelle always loved hearing stories about the family.”

“Did Annabelle know that your father disapproved of Lewis Finch?”

“Oh, yes. He never made a secret of it. Is Gordon Finch some relation to Lewis?”

“His son. And it seems as though your sister was well-acquainted with them both. Gordon Finch was the busker she spoke to in the tunnel that night.”

“Lewis Finch’s son—a busker?” Jo frowned. “How odd.”

“You don’t think it odd that Annabelle defied your father’s wishes about the Finches?” asked Gemma.

Jo shook her head. “Not if you knew my sister. Annabelle was almost as obsessive about the family and the business as Father, but she had a perverse streak. She loved to meddle in things.”

CHAPTER 9For the lonely cowherd of medieval times, when the Isle of Dogs was a desolate, windswept marsh, as much as for the youngsters who lived in the crowded streets of the industrialized Island, the river has provided over the centuries a moving, colourful pageant of ships and boats, and a link with the life of the great oceans and the wide world beyond the estuary.

Eve Hostettler, from Memories of

Childhood on the Isle of Dogs, 1870–1970

“Annabelle can’t have left voting shares to Martin Lowell.” Reg Mortimer stared at Teresa as if she had suddenly lost her mind.

She stood in the doorway of his office, a sheet of scribbled notes in her hand. The phone call from the solicitor had come just after lunch, but Teresa had sat for a while after hanging up, trying to absorb the news. “The solicitor wouldn’t mistake something like that, Reg. And she didn’t exactly leave the shares to him—he’s just the trustee for the children.”

“Harry Lowell is ten years old, for God’s sake.” Reg pushed his chair back until it banged against the file cabinet. “Lowell can do anything he wants until Harry reaches his majority, and by that time Hammond’s may have gone to the wolves.”

Teresa closed the door. “You’re overreacting, Reg, surely. Why wouldn’t Lowell want the company to do well, for his children’s sake?”

Reg pulled at the knot of his tie as if it were choking him. “You don’t know what he’s like. Or how he felt about—” He shook his head.

“About what, Reg?”

“Nothing. He’s a bastard, that’s all.” Patches of damp had begun to appear on his starched blue shirt. He’d come in that morning shaved and dressed with his usual smartness, but as the day wore on the atmosphere in the warehouse had seemed to exact a physical toll on him, as it had on everyone.

Teresa had arrived early, taking it on herself to inform the sales and production staffs of Annabelle’s death. She had somehow got through it without breaking down, and they had all made a stunned attempt at business-as-usual. It was when she’d shut herself in the large office she’d shared with Annabelle that her composure had dissolved completely. She had wept again, but now that she’d got it over with she felt a bit more able to cope.

“Martin may not even vote the shares,” she said now, attempting to calm Reg. “He knows nothing about the business, after all.”

“He’s a banker, for God’s sake—he understands finance. And he’ll realize he has the power to affect any decision the board makes.” Reg grasped the front of his desk as if for support.

“He’d have to influence one of the other major shareholders to swing a vote. Annabelle said he and Jo weren’t on good terms, and I can’t see your father or William—”

“You know what we have to do. And we might be able to pull it off, unless bloody Martin Lowell interferes.”

“You can’t mean to approach your father now, with Annabelle—” Teresa swallowed hard.

“I don’t see that we have much choice.” Reg stood, still grasping the desk, looking up at her through the fringe of hair that had fallen over his brow.

Watching him, Teresa tried to recall the comfort she’d felt yesterday in his arms. But now he seemed to be disintegrating before her eyes, and for the first time she felt a little frightened. “Just wait a bit. Everything will be fine,” she added, trying to reassure herself as much as him.

“Will it?” He pushed his hair back with a visibly shaking hand and came round the desk. “I wish I had your confidence, Teresa.” Lifting his jacket from the hook on the back of the door, he stood, his face inches from hers. A fine tracery of red veins showed in the whites of his eyes. “Annabelle didn’t deserve you,” he said softly. “And neither do I.” Then a draft of cooler air touched Teresa’s cheek as the door swung shut behind him.

She went out to the catwalk and stood, staring down into the warehouse long after he had disappeared through the front door. When Superintendent Kincaid rang a few minutes later, she had to tell him she had no idea where Reg Mortimer might be.

STANDING IN THE LANE OUTSIDE JO Lowell’s house, Gemma gave Kincaid a questioning look as he retracted the antenna on his mobile phone.

“No joy,” he reported. “Mortimer is temporarily away from the office. We’ll keep trying.”

Gemma glanced at her watch. “We have some time before our appointment with Lewis Finch. I think we should have a word with William Hammond while we’re here.” She nodded towards the house nestled into the side of the hill above them, its pale aqua door just visible through the trees. “I’d like to see what he has to say about the Finches, and about Martin Lowell’s unexpected inheritance.”

“Aren’t we going at this roundabout? We haven’t talked to Lowell yet.”

“We’ll pass right by the bank on our way back through Greenwich.”

“All right. Let’s pay Mr. Hammond a call, then.” Kincaid led the way as they crossed the lane and climbed the steps set into the hillside.

It was cooler under the trees, and the filtered light illuminated patches of multicolored impatiens among the vines. “Someone likes to garden,” said Gemma. “Or liked to,” she amended as they neared the top. “It’s a bit wild now.”

On closer inspection, the aqua door also showed faint signs of neglect, its paint chipped and peeling near the bottom. Gemma rang the bell, and as they waited she listened to the birdsong coming from the surrounding trees.

William Hammond answered the door. He wore red braces over a white shirt and suit trousers, and on his feet only stockings. For a moment he stared at them without recognition, and then said, “I’m sorry,” adding, with a gesture at his attire, “you’ve caught me resting. I’m afraid I’ve not been sleeping particularly well.” He ran his long fingers through his hair in an attempt to arrange it. “Have you any new information?”

“I’m sorry, no,” Kincaid answered. “But there are a few questions we’d like to ask you. It won’t take long.”

“Please, come in,” said Hammond so hospitably that Gemma had the feeling he didn’t find their presence all that objectionable. Perhaps any company was better than time spent with his own thoughts, she reflected.

In the sitting room, dark green velvet drapes had been pulled wide to admit the smallest breeze. Gemma caught the faint scent of dust, and of something it took her a moment to recognize as glue. A pair of men’s dress shoes sat neatly beside the sofa, and the cushion at one end bore the imprint of a head.

As she sat on the chintz-covered chair Hammond indicated, a glimpse into the adjoining room made Gemma catch her breath. “Oh, how lovely,” she said, rising and going to the doorway for a better look. A model ship stood on a dining table, its slender masts a delicate sculpture, its hull gleaming like satin. “Is it the Cutty Sark?”

Hammond smiled. “No, this is the Sir Lancelot. She made the China-to-London crossing in a record eighty-eight days.”

“She’s exquisite,” Kincaid said, joining them. “I remember attempting something from a kit when I was a boy, but this—” He touched the curving hull. “This is a work of art.” Looking round the room at the other ships gracing the shelves, he asked, “How do you model them? I understood that the Cutty Sark was the only clipper of its class left in existence.”

“It takes a good deal of research,” Hammond admitted. “I use written accounts as well as paintings, sometimes with a dash of artistic license thrown in.”

“It must take amazing patience.” Gemma imagined the hours needed to complete the painstaking detail. She thought of her own aborted attempts at simple hobbies like knitting and needlework, and wondered again at her foolish determination to play the piano.

“What began as a childhood interest has become a bit of an obsession the past few years, I’m afraid. But since my wife died it’s helped fill the hours, and now …” William Hammond gazed at the model, lost for a moment in a private contemplation, then he seemed to shake himself and return to them. “I’m sorry. And I’ve forgotten my manners. Let me get you something to drink—some tea, perhaps?”

Merely the thought of a hot drink made beads of perspiration appear on Gemma’s upper lip. “No thank you,” she said quickly. “This won’t take a moment.” At a small nod from Kincaid, she continued, “It’s about your childhood, oddly enough, Mr. Hammond. We understand from your daughter that you were evacuated during the war.”

They had returned to the sitting room, and Hammond sat down slowly on the sofa, his expression puzzled. “Yes, that’s true, but why on earth should you be interested in that?”

“You were sent to your godmother’s, in Surrey?”

“Just northeast of Guildford. A place called Friday Green. My godmother had a large estate there. But what—”

“I know the village,” Kincaid said, smiling. “There’s a nice pub—probably goes back that far. It’s a lovely area. Paradise for a boy, I should think. Did you spend the whole of the war?”

“I … yes, I did, as a matter of fact. My mother was convinced we would be bombed here. As it turned out, we were very fortunate, and Hammond’s suffered only minor damage.”

“And it was during your evacuation that you came to know Lewis Finch?”

“Lewis Finch?” Hammond stared at Gemma blankly.

“I understand he’s quite a prominent developer in the East End these days, known for his commitment to restoration.”

“I—it’s been a great many years but, yes, he was a fellow evacuee.” He shook his head. “But what has this to do with my daughter’s death?”

“Bear with me a moment, Mr. Hammond. According to Jo, you warned her and Annabelle not to have anything to do with Lewis Finch or his family.”

“That’s nonsense,” he replied impatiently. “We simply don’t move in the same social circles.”

“Jo seemed to feel there was some sort of feud between you, and that it had to do with the war,” pressed Gemma.

“A feud?” Hammond sounded surprised. “I can’t imagine where Jo could have got such a melodramatic idea.” With a slight frown, he added, “I might have said that I felt Lewis took advantage of his stay in my godmother’s house to better himself, without giving credit where it was due, but I would certainly not consider that a feud.”

“And you don’t know Lewis Finch’s son, Gordon?”

“His son? Why should I?” He seemed even more perplexed, and Gemma could see that he was tiring.

Wondering how much she should reveal, she glanced at Kincaid, but he merely gave her a minute shrug. Turning back to Hammond, she said carefully, “Sir, Annabelle seems to have been well-acquainted with both Lewis and Gordon Finch. In fact, she had been having an affair with Gordon for some months—and he may have been the last person to see her alive.”

William Hammond stared at her, then drew himself up in his chair until his spine was ramrod straight. “There must be some mistake,” he said crisply. “Annabelle would never have associated with Lewis Finch or his son. Nor would she have betrayed Reginald’s trust.” He turned to Kincaid. “I find it distressing, Superintendent, that you are wasting valuable time pursuing such lines of inquiry while my daughter’s killer goes free.”

AS THE AUTUMN WORE ON, THE threat of bombings receded, and very little disturbed the golden, waning days in the countryside.

The war seemed very far away in Europe, and Lewis soon grew comfortably familiar with the household, for although he kept his room above the stable, Edwina gave him free run of the house. He and William both bathed in the large second-floor bathroom, and when Edwina did not have guests from London, the boys ate with her in the dining room.

Lewis still suffered the occasional pang of homesickness, but a Green coach was organized to bring the evacuees’ parents down to visit every few weeks. In the meantime, there were apples to be picked, jams and pies to be made, woods and quarries and the old Roman forts on the Downs to be explored, and most exciting of all, preparations for Guy Fawkes, for their village had the biggest bonfire in the county.

Lewis did not see William Hammond at school, however, because while the children from the Island had been integrated as well as possible into the village school, William’s parents had arranged a tutor to live at the Hall. This privilege Lewis did not envy in the least.

On a bright Saturday morning in late October, William appeared in the barn as Lewis was finishing up with the horses. He wore a heavy, cable-knit cardigan and shorts with multiple pockets and carried a rucksack, plus a large, carved staff.

Peering round Zeus’s head, Lewis (who had long since lost his shyness with William) snickered. “What is that getup?”

“It’s proper walking gear,” answered William. “My mum and dad sent it for my birthday. I’m going to climb Leith Hill. They say from the Tower you can see thirteen counties.”

“You look like you mean to climb bloody Everest,” said Lewis, but he was intrigued nonetheless.

“You can come if you want,” William offered in an offhand manner, then sweetened the invitation with a bribe. “I’ve got sandwiches from Cook. Ham and cheese.”

Lewis finished spreading fresh straw into Zeus’s stall and hung the fork from its bracket on the stable wall. “I haven’t any gear like that.”

“Doesn’t matter. You can use this stick if you want. I’ll get another from the gun room.”

Brushing his palm against his trousers, Lewis accepted the stick, and hefting it in his hand, he suddenly saw himself striding over tall peaks. “All right, then, I’ll come.”

They were soon ambling down the road towards the village, sandwiches and thermos of tea secured in William’s rucksack. From one of the large pockets in his shorts, William extricated a folded paper. “It’s Aunt Edwina’s Ordnance Survey map,” he said as he smoothed out the creases. “Look. We can go by way of Coldharbour and come back through Holmbury, or vice versa. The climb is steeper the Holmbury way.”

Lewis studied the map, not liking to admit he’d never seen one before and didn’t understand the markings. “Coldharbour, I’d say. I want to see the Danes’ Fort.” He’d heard about the old earthworks from some of the boys at school. “There were smugglers round these parts, too,” he added, glancing at William to judge the effect of this tidbit.

“I never heard that,” William said with some skepticism.

“Even John says so.” Lewis knew that would settle the matter, for they’d discovered that John Pebbles had an intimate and apparently infallible knowledge of the area. They walked on, pointing out spots they thought would have made good smugglers’ hides.

They followed the course of the Tillingbourne for some way, then began a steady ascent that took them into a dark and dense woodland. Lewis, who had not quite got over his claustrophobia under trees, began to fear they were lost, but would’ve died rather than said so.

As if reassuring himself, William said, “I’m sure this is the right way. I can read the map, and Aunt Edwina said it would seem a long way through the woods.” He moved a bit closer to Lewis on the soft, leaf-covered path.

Suddenly, with a rustle and a crackling of brush, a deer erupted across the trail a foot in front of them. Lewis saw a flash of dark, startled eyes and white rump as he felt himself falling backwards, then he hit the ground, buttocks first, with a thump that knocked the wind from him.

William had staggered into the nearest tree and now hung on for dear life. They gaped at each other, wide-eyed, and started to laugh.

“Crikey, that nearly scared the piss out of me,” said Lewis between gasps as William helped him up. That only made them laugh harder, and they stumbled along, the woods ringing with their whoops, until they had to wipe tears from their eyes.

As they neared Coldharbour the trees thinned, and they walked in companionable silence broken by the occasional episode of giggles. They spent an hour exploring the banks and ditches of the Iron Age fort, imagining battles that seemed more real to them than the rumors from Europe, and by the time they’d finished the climb to the summit of Leith Hill, they had worked up quite an appetite.

Having voted to eat their picnic before climbing the Tower, they settled on a stone bench in the sun, facing the distant haze they surmised must be the Channel. His mouth full of ham and cheese, Lewis pointed into the distance. “If the Germans came, you could see them from here.”

“If they come. My dad says they’re calling it the Phoney War now.” William glanced at Lewis. “Do you want to go home?”

Lewis washed down his bite of sandwich with some tea while he thought about his answer. Did he want to go home? A month ago he’d have answered “yes” in an instant. Now, he said with a shrug, “Don’t know, really. I miss my mum and dad. Sometimes I even miss my sister. But I like it here, too.” He dug in the paper sack for one of the apples Cook had packed for them. “What about you? Do you want to go home?”

“Home I wouldn’t mind, but I’d have to go back to school,” William answered with a grimace. “You don’t know what it’s like there,” he added, and glimpsing the expression on William’s usually open face, Lewis didn’t pursue it.

“What about Mr. Cuddy?” he asked instead. “What’s he like?” The tutor, a thin, bespectacled man about the age of Lewis’s father, had seemed kind enough when Lewis encountered him.

“He’s all right. Only it gets a bit boring being on my own all day, and the maths are hard. That’s old Cuddy’s field, and I’m not very good at it.”

“Maybe I could help you sometime,” Lewis offered tentatively. “I like maths. That’s always my best marks at school. Composition’s harder.”

“I’m better at that. Maybe I’ll write one for Mr. Cuddy about the deer,” William said, grinning, and that set them to laughing again.

This conversation bore unexpected fruit a few weeks later, when Edwina called Lewis into her sitting room and informed him that she had arranged, with the permission of William’s parents, for him to be tutored along with William. “I’ve written to your parents, and they agree that this is a wonderful opportunity for you. You’re obviously a bright boy, Lewis, and you deserve a better education than the village school can provide.”

“But I like school … and what about my mates?” Lewis said hesitantly, not wanting to seem rude.

Edwina lit a cigarette with the silver lighter on the mantelpiece and the air filled with the sharp smell of tobacco smoke. “Warren Cuddy is Oxford-educated and a fine teacher. He can open new worlds for you. Friends come and go, Lewis, but the things you learn will always be yours, to use as you will. You may not realize it now,” she added with a smile, “but from this day on your life will change in ways you cannot begin to imagine.”

“I’M BEGINNING TO SUSPECT THAT WILLIAM Hammond may have had a convenient blind spot where his daughter was concerned,” Kincaid said as they walked down the hill towards Greenwich center in the intensifying heat of early afternoon.

“Surely that’s not unusual,” countered Gemma. “Most parents want to think the best of their children—especially if it has to do with sex. On the other hand, Jo Lowell certainly didn’t seem surprised at the suggestion that her sister had cheated on her fiancé.”

“I wonder where Mortimer fell in that spectrum. Did he think Annabelle beyond reproach? If that was the case and he found out about her affair with Gordon Finch, the shock might have driven him to kill her.”

“Or if he was suspicious already and suddenly had his fears proved. But that doesn’t explain the row at the dinner party—and we only have Jo’s word about that—or the fact that he left her in the tunnel with Gordon Finch,” argued Gemma. “And the answering machine messages seem to support his story.”

They had reached Royal Hill and Gemma paused, looking in the window of a cheese shop. In the glass, Kincaid could see the reflection of the police station across the street. “He could easily have killed her, then left messages to give himself an alibi,” he said.

Gemma walked on, swinging her handbag against the skirt of her cotton dress, leaving behind the temptations of white Stilton with ginger and Shropshire blue. “But you could hear the noise of the pub in the background, so it must have been before closing, and the pathologist says Annabelle died after midnight.”

“We’re not going to get anywhere with this until we see Mortimer again,” said Kincaid. “And in the meantime, I’d like to know why Jo Lowell was so reluctant for us to interview her husband.”

“Your curiosity is about to be satisfied.”

They found the bank as easily as Jo had promised, and the clerk at the window directed them back to Martin Lowell’s office.

“Mr. Lowell?” Kincaid tapped on the open door of the small cubicle. “We’re from Scotland Yard—Superintendent Kincaid, Sergeant James.” He showed his identification. “We’d like to ask you a few questions.”

The man at the desk glanced up, a look of irritation marring his handsome face. Dark and clean-cut, he wore the banker’s uniform of white shirt and dark tie, but he’d rolled up his sleeves against the heat. “Scotland Yard? How can I help you? I’m afraid I have a meeting in”—he glanced at his watch—“ten minutes, so I hope this won’t take long.”

“It’s about your former sister-in-law, Annabelle Hammond,” Kincaid said, adjusting one of the visitors’ chairs for Gemma and taking the other himself. Lowell had neither risen nor offered his hand, and now he made no response to Kincaid’s remark. “Has the Hammonds’ solicitor been in touch with you?”

“Yes, this morning. But I don’t see why this should be any concern of yours.”

“Really?” Kincaid raised an eyebrow. “A murder and an unexpected disposition of property usually merit some interest, Mr. Lowell.”

Martin Lowell smiled for the first time. “Are you suggesting I killed Annabelle for my children’s interest in the firm, Superintendent … what did you say your name was? You must be quite desperate.”

Kincaid had no doubt that Lowell remembered his name. “Your suggestion, Mr. Lowell, not mine.” He smiled back. “I was merely wondering if you were aware of Annabelle Hammond’s intentions.”

“I’d no idea until the solicitor rang me this morning. I was certainly surprised, but I’m curious as to why you seem to think Annabelle’s leaving her shares to her only niece and nephew an unusual bequest.”

“It was the fact that she designated you as trustee I found odd, since you’re no longer married to her sister.”

Lowell shrugged. “According to the solicitor, she made the will shortly after her mother’s death, and never got round to changing it. And she may have thought me better suited than Jo to look after the children’s financial interests.”

“Will you take an active role in the firm, Mr. Lowell?” asked Gemma.

Martin Lowell’s glance at her was frankly assessing, and Kincaid saw Gemma flush.

“Any other course would be irresponsible, don’t you think, Sergeant?” Lowell smiled, holding her gaze until she looked away. Then he stood, with another obvious look at his watch. “Now, if you don’t mind …”

“Thanks for your time, Mr. Lowell,” Kincaid said with mild sarcasm as he rose.

When they reached the street, Kincaid touched Gemma’s shoulder. “What was that all about?”

Gemma scowled. “Who gave Martin Lowell license to think he’s God’s gift to women?”

TO GEMMA, HERON QUAYS LOOKED CHEERFULLY informal compared with the classic lines of Canary Wharf just to the north, across the middle section of West India Dock. The complex was low-rise, and its slanting roofs, red and purple siding, and white iron balconies made her think of Swiss chalets gone riot. Janice had told her it was one of the early Docklands projects, and that Lewis Finch had kept an office there since the completion of the first phase in the mid-eighties.

As they walked along the waterside, Kincaid said, “I’m curious about William Hammond and the Finches, since Hammond denies having anything against them. Do you suppose Jo misunderstood what her mother said?”

Gemma shrugged. “Maybe he’s just too polite to admit his class prejudices to us.”

“Snobbery hardly constitutes a feud, and Jo Lowell doesn’t seem the type to take it as such,” Kincaid murmured as he opened the door emblazoned with the “Finch, Ltd.” logo Gemma had seen on hoardings round the Island.

She breathed a sigh of relief as they entered the air-conditioned outer office. Outside, the sun glaring off the surface of the Dock had seemed to raise the temperature a good ten degrees.

When Kincaid had given their names, the rather harried-looking receptionist had smiled and led them into the left-hand office.

Gemma saw the view first—of the monumental Canada Tower across the Dock framed foursquare by the plate-glass window—then her attention was captured by the man who came towards them, hand outstretched.

She saw the resemblance at once—not so much in physical similarities, although those were evident, as in presence. Lewis Finch had about him the same sort of intensity that had first drawn her to Gordon, but in Lewis it had been translated into power.

“You’ve just caught me,” said Finch, firmly shaking Kincaid’s hand, then Gemma’s. “Sit down, please. Normally, I’m out on site this time of day, but the officer who phoned said this was urgent?” He was in shirtsleeves, his tie loosened slightly at the collar, but that did nothing to detract from the instant impression of the sort of effortless elegance that came with wealth and success. Whatever advantages this man had been given, thought Gemma, he had put them to superb use.

“What can I do for you, Superintendent?” Finch asked, settling into the chair on the other side of his desk.

“You’re aware of the death of Miss Annabelle Hammond?”

“I … Yes, I just learned of it this morning—I was away over the weekend. It’s a terrible loss,” he said, his voice heavy with regret, and Gemma suddenly realized that not once had Martin Lowell expressed any sorrow over his sister-in-law’s death.

“You knew Miss Hammond well?” Kincaid asked.

“I’m not sure anyone knew Annabelle well, Superintendent. She was a very self-contained person. But we’d been friends for the past year or more. We met at a neighborhood meeting.” The recollection made Finch smile.

“And you were … involved during the whole of that time?”

Finch studied Kincaid, and for the first time Gemma detected wariness in his manner. “If by that you mean did we have a sexual relationship, the answer is yes—when we both found it convenient. You have to understand that Annabelle was extremely independent.”

“Tell us about her,” said Gemma. “What was she like?”

When Lewis Finch looked at her, Gemma saw that his eyes were the same clear gray as his son’s. “Annabelle had a talent for getting what she wanted—sometimes ruthlessly so—and she had the rare gift of knowing exactly what that was, at least in the professional sense. She was also intelligent, courageous … impossibly self-absorbed, and in some ways surprisingly loyal.”

“A contradiction?” prompted Gemma.

Finch nodded. “Compellingly so.”

“Were you aware that she was engaged to be married?” asked Kincaid. “I don’t know that her relationship with you constitutes a display of loyalty.”

Finch frowned. “An odd sort of loyalty, perhaps. But in my experience, most people who stray outside a committed relationship justify their behavior by complaining about the injured partner. Annabelle never did that.”

“Mr. Finch,” said Gemma carefully, “were you aware that Annabelle also had a relationship with your son?”

Finch stared at her. “With Gordon? No, I was not.”

“Annabelle Hammond seems to have been fascinated by your family. Have you any idea why?”

“No. She never said anything to give me that impression.”

“And she didn’t tell you that she was aware of your connection with her father?”

“What are you talking about, Superintendent?” Finch’s voice was level, but Gemma felt the tension in the room rise.

“Annabelle knew that you and William Hammond had been evacuated together during the war.”

Finch blinked. “Yes, that’s true. But we’ve had very little contact since.”

“We believe that William Hammond may have warned Annabelle against you, and that she thought it was because of some sort of feud between you. Was there any basis to this?”

“Of course not. And I’m sure that if Annabelle had thought anything of the sort, she’d have spoken to me about it.” He thought for a moment. “I did get the impression from Annabelle that William might have been getting a bit … odd, since his wife’s death. Perhaps he’s started to imagine things?”

“He seemed quite competent when we spoke to him. He said you had used those wartime connections to better yourself, and hadn’t given credit where it was due.”

“Did he?”

“Is that not true?”

For a moment, Gemma thought Lewis wouldn’t answer; then he said very quietly, “Edwina Burne-Jones was a kind and generous woman who took a poor boy from the East End and treated him as if he were capable of accomplishing whatever he wished—but any gratitude I feel towards her is no one else’s business. Not William Hammond’s, and not yours, Superintendent. Now, is that all?”

“One more question, Mr. Finch. When did you last see Annabelle Hammond?”

“We had dinner together several weeks ago. I can’t give you an exact date,” he answered, watching Kincaid, and Gemma felt sure he knew what was coming. He was far too intelligent not to guess they’d heard Annabelle’s answering machine tape.

Kincaid appeared to deliberate for a moment before he said, “What you’ve told us seems to imply that your relationship with Annabelle was rather casual. And yet in the messages you left on her answering machine Friday night, you were quite clearly angry. Can you tell me why?”

“You’ve made an assumption, Superintendent. I never said our relationship was casual, only that it was irregular. Annabelle was sometimes difficult, but she was … unique. I’ve only known one other woman who approached life with such zest, and I—” He shook his head, and Gemma thought she saw a glint of moisture in his gray eyes. “I wasn’t angry on Friday night—I was concerned. Annabelle had left a message at my flat that sounded quite unlike her—something about breaking off her engagement. I wanted to know what had happened.”

“And did she ring you back?”

“No. I waited until after midnight, but I had a very early start the next morning for a meeting in Gloucestershire.”

“Have you anyone who can verify your movements on Friday night, Mr. Finch?”

“I live alone, Superintendent. There’s no one.” Lewis Finch met Gemma’s eyes. “No one at all.”

• • •

WHEN THEY ARRIVED BACK AT LIMEHOUSE Station, they found Janice Coppin sorting through reports in the incident room, looking as though she’d have liked never to see another piece of paper.

“Any luck with the house-to-house?” Kincaid asked, perching himself on the edge of the desk Janice had commandeered.

“Only in the negative sense,” Janice said with a gesture at the paperwork. “No one saw Annabelle Hammond anywhere that night. If she came home again her neighbors didn’t notice, and none of them had much to say about her in any respect. Her neighbors across the little garden, a young German couple, admitted they’d seen her playing croquet with a nice young man, but their English didn’t seem up to a description.”

“Have someone show them a photo of Reg Mortimer, although I think we can assume it was he.” With a glance at Gemma, Kincaid added, “If Gordon Finch is telling the truth, Annabelle never had him to her flat. And I don’t know that anyone would describe Finch as a ‘nice young man,’ even taking language deficiencies into consideration.”

“What about the pub, the Ferry House, where Mortimer says he waited for Annabelle?” asked Gemma.

“That’s the one positive,” said Janice. “From the description we gave him, the barkeep says he knows both Mortimer and Annabelle by sight, and that Mortimer came in alone around ten that evening. He ordered an orange juice, but it was a busy night and the barkeep can’t swear to anything after that.”

“But his impression was—” Kincaid prompted.

“His impression was that he stayed until last call.”

“Could he have killed Annabelle when she came out of the tunnel, dumped her body somewhere, then moved her after the pub closed?”

“Not likely, unless he killed her in her flat. I can’t see leaving a body anywhere outside in that vicinity. Too risky. But it seems Mortimer had good reason to be jealous.” Kincaid went on to fill Janice in on the afternoon’s interviews.

“A bit of a tomcat, wasn’t she?” mused Janice when he’d finished. “The question is, did Mortimer know what she was up to?”

“I’ve been trying to reach him all afternoon.” Kincaid had rung Hammond’s again from his mobile when they’d left Lewis Finch, but the receptionist said Mr. Mortimer hadn’t returned to the office; nor had there been any answer at Mortimer’s home number. “We know he came into the office this morning, so I doubt he’s scarpered. But he’s first on the list for tomorrow, and I’ve left messages for him to ring us.”

“Oh, that reminds me.” Janice dug among the papers on the desktop until she found a scribbled memo. “You had a message passed on from the Yard. Someone called Ian McClellan is trying to reach you. Says he’s in London and would like to meet with you tonight.”

“Ian McClellan?”

“Here’s the number he left. Is it a lead?”

“A lead?” Kincaid realized he must have sounded idiotic, and shook his head to clear it. He didn’t meet Gemma’s eyes. “No, it’s … personal,” he managed to say, tucking the memo in his pocket.

What the bloody hell was Ian McClellan doing back here now, and what the bloody hell did he want?

AT THE FLAT, KINCAID CHANGED INTO jeans and tee shirt, then tried ringing Kit in Cambridge. After putting him on hold for a moment, Laura Miller came back on the line and said rather apologetically that Kit didn’t want to come to the phone just then. Kincaid heard the concern in her voice, but merely thanked her and said he’d try again later.

Looking through the open balcony door as he rang off, he saw Sid perched on the railing, watching the birds in the Major’s garden with quivering interest. He went out and stroked the cat, finding a brief comfort in the fact that, unlike Kit, Sid always forgave him, no matter how badly he’d neglected him.

In the end, Kincaid chose familiar territory for his meeting with Ian McClellan: the Freemason’s Arms, just across Willow Road from the Heath. The summer sun had begun its long evening slant through the treetops, and Hampstead Heath was filled with Londoners escaping flats stuffy with the day’s heat. People strolled babies in pushchairs, played games of Frisbee and impromptu football, sailed boats on the Pond—and every glimpse of a boy with a dog reminded Kincaid of Kit.

When he reached the pub, he chose a table in the garden. He’d allowed time to get something to eat, but when the waitress brought his basket of chicken, he found he wasn’t hungry. Nursing his pint, he picked desultorily at the chips and thought about Ian McClellan.

Vic’s second husband, a political science fellow at Trinity College, had run off to the south of France the previous year with one of his graduate students. When Vic was murdered, McClellan had come back to England only briefly, and had refused to take Kit back to France with him. Although he admitted he’d long suspected Kit was really Kincaid’s child, McClellan was still the boy’s legal guardian, and he’d grudgingly acquiesced to Kincaid’s temporary arrangements for Kit. Nothing had been heard from him since. Until now.

Glancing up, Kincaid saw McClellan walking across the grass towards him, pint in hand. He looked tan, but thinner than Kincaid remembered; on closer inspection his neatly trimmed brown hair and beard had acquired a liberal peppering of gray. This was the first time Kincaid had seen him divested of his corduroy, leather-elbowed jacket, but even in a short-sleeved cotton shirt he had about him an unmistakable professorial air.

Kincaid stood up to greet him, determined to get this meeting off to a better start than their previous encounters.

There was a moment of awkwardness, then McClellan shook Kincaid’s hand firmly and sat down in the white garden chair. Having settled back and lifted his pint in mute salute, Ian broke the guarded silence. “I expect you’re wondering why I asked to see you.”

Kincaid nodded and sipped at his pint. “It was a surprise.”

“Yes, well … Among other things, I believe I owe you an apology,” Ian said slowly. “I’ve had time to think things through these last few months, and I can see now that my behavior was a bit … irrational. And irresponsible. The whole thing with Jennifer … and then Vic, and meeting you that way …” Sun glinted from Ian’s gold-framed glasses as he looked away for a moment. “Things didn’t work out with Jennifer when I went back to France. To be quite honest, I went right off the rails.” Shrugging, he added, “Not quite what she bargained for, a middle-aged man in the midst of a breakdown. She came back to England to finish her degree.”

“Is that why you came back? To be near her?” Kincaid asked.

Ian shook his head. “No. I’m not that foolish, although you might be surprised to hear it. But my sabbatical was up at the end of the summer, and the book had come to a dead halt, so there didn’t seem much point in staying.…”

Kincaid waited in silence.

“How is he? Kit. Is he … coping? What about school?”

Kincaid thought of those first weeks, when Laura had found Kit clutching Tess every morning, crying, terrified to leave the dog long enough to go to school—certain something would happen to her while he was away.

“He’s managed to finish out the term, at least. The school has tried to make things as normal as possible for him, under the circumstances.

“But that’s what’s on the surface—underneath, I don’t know. He has nightmares. He’s had difficulty eating, but that’s a bit better lately.” Kincaid paused, then added, “And he won’t talk about his mother. Not even to Hazel Cavendish, who could probably squeeze confidences out of a rock.”

“Is there any word on the trial?”

“The Crown Prosecution Service is still gathering evidence. There’s no date as yet.”

“And no resolution for Kit,” Ian murmured. “Is her killer—”

“On remand, enjoying Her Majesty’s hospitality. That’s something, at least.” Kincaid swatted at a late flying wasp that had landed on his glass. Dusk had settled on the garden with a cloak of cool air. The waitress came by, lighting the citronella candle on their table and bestowing a match-bright smile on them in the process. She wore a halter top and shorts no longer than her bar apron, and Kincaid noticed that Ian gave her an automatic smile. McClellan might have come to his senses over the latest affair, but old habits obviously died hard.

“There’s something else,” Kincaid said. “We’re neither of us Kit’s favorite people just now.”

“Neither of us? I know he has reason enough to be angry with me, but why you?”

Having plunged in, Kincaid had no option but to continue. “I told him I was sure I was his father. Last night, as a matter of fact.”

“You told him?” McClellan repeated, drawing his brows together. “You cautioned me not to speak to him about it. You said to give him time—”

“I thought I had. And we were facing making a change in his living arrangements—he can’t stay with the Millers indefinitely.”

Ian pushed his glasses up on his nose, a signal of agitation Kincaid remembered from their previous meetings. “How did he take it?”

Kincaid shoved his cold food to one side. “He doesn’t want to believe it. He feels betrayed. And now you’ve come back. Why are you here?”

“Eugenia’s been sending me threatening letters. I thought you should know.”

“Threatening what? To spread more misery about in the world?” After Vic’s death, Kincaid’s dealings with his former mother-in-law had been acrimonious in the extreme, and promised no improvement. Kit had run away rather than stay in her care, and Eugenia was not likely to forgive Kincaid his part in making other arrangements for the grandson she considered as property.

“She’s been a bit vague.” Ian’s smile held little humor. “First it was suing for grandparents’ right to visitation. Lately, she’s been leaning towards accusing me of legal abandonment and suing for custody herself.”

“Dear God,” Kincaid breathed, horrified at the thought.

“I don’t think she has a leg to stand on as far as custody goes, but she might have a case for visitation. I’ve had a word with my solicitor.”

The few chips Kincaid had eaten might have been lead in his stomach. “Kit ran away the last time he was forced to stay with her—that can’t be allowed to happen again.” Swallowing, he continued, “But there’s no point talking about Eugenia without knowing what exactly you mean to do about Kit.”

Ian studied his glass as he spoke. “The Grantchester house hasn’t sold. I thought I’d take it off the market for the time being, until I get myself sorted out.”

“You mean to live there?”

“For the time being. And I want Kit with me. I’ve a good deal of making up to do.”

Kincaid pondered this in silence, then said, “You know I’ve no legal say in any arrangements you make for Kit. But if you abandon him again, I swear I’ll do whatever it takes to ensure you never have another chance.”

Ian met his eyes without flinching. “I want what’s best for Kit, and I think it’s this.”

“What will you tell him about me?” Kincaid asked, his resentment rising.

“That it doesn’t matter who his biological father is—he’s still my son.”

“And where does that leave me, now that you’ve suddenly become the ideal parent?” Kincaid couldn’t keep the bitterness from his voice. He’d spent months trying to repair some of the damage McClellan had done, and now the bastard thought he could come back like the prodigal son.

“Look, Duncan.” Ian leaned forward, his elbows on the table, and Kincaid realized it was the first time he had used his Christian name. “I’m not trying to shut you out of Kit’s life. He needs both of us—”

“How would you know what he needs?” Kincaid’s control was dangerously close to breaking.

“I can’t make amends without starting somewhere, can I? And it doesn’t sound to me as if you’ve any call for making threats or accusations—you’ve made a proper cock-up of things yourself,” Ian added hotly.

They stared at each other, then Kincaid sat back. He took a deep breath. Getting at cross-purposes with McClellan would benefit no one. “All right. I’ll admit that. But I was here, and I want it understood that I’m not bowing out of Kit’s life now.”

Ian gave him a crooked smile. “I’d say the question just now is whether he wants much to do with either of us. I’m going up to Cambridge tomorrow. I’ll open the house, then fetch Kit from the Millers.”

“Give him some time to get used to the idea,” Kincaid countered. “A few days at least. He’s found some security where he is … and he may find going back to the cottage difficult.… You know he won’t leave the dog?”

“I’ll give him a few days, then,” Ian agreed, then grimaced. “And I suppose I can get used to the dog. Anything is possible.”

Watching him, Kincaid felt a tingle of suspicion. It wouldn’t do to take this latest declaration of intent entirely at face value. In his experience with Ian, anything was indeed possible.

• • •

WILLIAM HAMMOND WOKE SUDDENLY, HIS HEART hammering painfully in his chest. For a moment he wondered where he was, then the shapes in the dim room reasserted their familiarity. He lay in the high, old tester bed where he had slept with Isabel, his outstretched hand brushing against the hangings. She had loved the maize-colored satin, but the fabric was faded now, and stained.

The dressing table, there … the nightstand, there … and the pale oblongs on the right were the windows, admitting a faint light from Hyde Vale at the top of the lane. The curtains moved in the breeze and William pulled the duvet up to his chin, shivering.

In his dream it had been ripe summer, green and golden. He and Lewis stood knee-deep in the stream that ran through the bottom of the old pasture, picking watercress for Cook. They were laughing, their nut-brown faces turned up to the sun, but his feet and calves were cold as ice in the clear, running water.…

He had spent so many years forgetting, and yet it might have been yesterday, so real had the experience seemed for those few moments. Now the images began to dissolve, slipping away with the elusiveness of dreams, and William squeezed his eyes tight shut against the slow, leaking tears.

CHAPTER 10Another favorite haunt of Island children for their outdoor games was Island Gardens, a small park on the riverbank opposite Greenwich, created by the London County Council in 1895.

Eve Hostettler, from

Memories of Childhood

on the Isle of Dogs, 1870–1970

Gemma was awakened from a disjointed, early morning dream by Toby’s voice. Opening her eyes, she made out his small form standing beside her bed, silhouetted by the dim light from the garden windows.

“Mummy, I had a bad dream.”

“Did you, darling?” She sat up, pushing her hair from her face. The pale blue plush carousel horse her son clutched to his chest had lost most of its felt saddle, and its white mane and tail were worn away to stubble, but its black glass eyes were still bright and Toby loved it with fierce loyalty. “Did Horsey have a bad dream, too?” she asked, feeling the soft skin of her son’s neck for signs of fever. “Was it monsters again?”

Toby nodded vigorously, and she made a vow to stop reading him Where the Wild Things Are at bedtime. “Climb in with Mummy, then, lovey, and go back to sleep.” As she tucked him in between her body and the wall, she held her cheek to his for a moment and savored the sweet scent of him. He might look more like a little boy every day, but when he was warm and damp with sleep, he still smelled like a baby.

She lay quietly, listening as his breathing slowed with sleep. But she felt increasingly restless, aware of a nagging sense of disquiet, and after half an hour she slipped out of bed and went to the window. Opening the blinds, she stood for a while, watching the pale light creep across the garden and listening to the birds greet the day with revolting cheerfulness. Her head ached dully, a symptom she assessed as a mild hangover.

Last night, while waiting for Kincaid to ring after his meeting with Ian McClellan, she’d had a glass more than the two glasses of wine she normally considered her limit. But Duncan had not called, and at last she’d given up and crawled into bed, already regretting her overindulgence.

Surely Kincaid wasn’t still cross with her over the business with Gordon Finch, she thought as she moved from the window to her tiny cupboard of a kitchen, where she filled the kettle. It was unlike him to hold a grudge, either personal or professional, but since Vic’s death his moods and his temper had been unpredictable.

The kettle whistled as she finished grinding the handful of coffee beans she’d taken from the fridge, and as she poured the hot water into the cafetière, she thought about Annabelle Hammond. What secret had she possessed that had compelled others to accept life on her terms? It had been more than beauty, that much was becoming clear, and for an instant Gemma wished she could have known her—could have judged for herself whether she was saint or sinner.

AN HOUR LATER, AS SHE LISTENED to Toby singing happily over his cornflakes, she dressed carefully—camel trousers, a white cotton tee shirt under an olive linen blazer—determined today to present a professional front to the world, hot or not.

Although the morning had brought a small respite from yesterday’s temperatures, the humidity had risen with the thin covering of cloud that spilled across the sky like curdled milk. As she drove towards the East End, she felt the moisture clinging to her skin and wondered if sheer willpower could keep her from wilting before the day had even begun.

Kincaid was there before her, leaning against the Rover he’d parked across the street from Hammond’s. He smiled when he saw her and straightened, running a hand through his already wind-ruffled hair. “We might get some rain,” he said by way of a greeting when she’d parked the Escort and joined him. “A break in the heat.”

“Are you all right?” she asked, studying him. His good cheer seemed a bit manufactured, and he was not usually given to talking about the weather.

He looked back at her guilelessly, his eyes as blue today as the denim shirt he wore. “Why shouldn’t I be?”

“You didn’t ring. What did Ian—”

“I thought you’d be asleep.” He looked away, leaning down to brush dust from the car’s bonnet off his trousers. “And to be quite honest, I suppose I needed some time to sort things through.” Glancing up at her, he added, “McClellan says he’s here to stay. He’s moving back to the Cambridge house. And he wants Kit with him.”

“But …” Gemma tried to make sense of this. “After months of wanting nothing to do with him? Just like that? What did you say?”

“What could I say?” He gave her a lopsided smile. “You know the situation as well as I do.”

Gemma searched for a reply, but everything that came to mind seemed both trite and facile. Finally, she touched his arm. “I’m sorry things are difficult just now. If there’s anything I can do …”

“We could talk tonight, if the gods are willing.” He took her elbow, guiding her towards Hammond’s front door. “In the meantime, the guv’nor wants to see me midmorning, and I’d like to be able to tell him we’ve made some progress on this case. Let’s hope we find Reg Mortimer cooperative.”

The first thing Gemma noticed as they entered the warehouse was the distinct aroma of tea; the second was the low hum of activity that had been absent on Sunday. As Kincaid spoke to the receptionist at her desk near the door, Gemma cocked her head, trying to sort out the sounds. From upstairs came the grumble of machinery and the occasional thump, and from the open doors of the loading bays drifted the sound of a radio. The ringing of a telephone punctuated the faint murmur of voices, but the atmosphere seemed subdued.

A balding man in a crisp green apron moved about the tasting table. He must be Mac, the tea taster Teresa had mentioned, thought Gemma, but before she could speak to him, the receptionist directed them up the stairs and along the catwalk.

As they passed the open door of the first large office, they saw Teresa Robbins seated at one of the two desks, telephone held to her ear. She glanced up, startled, and lifted one hand in an awkward gesture that stopped short of a wave.

Reg Mortimer awaited them in the office next door, rising from a neat desk to greet them. He wore a pale pink shirt and coordinated tie, but the flattering shade did little for skin made sallow by exhaustion. Gemma was shocked by how much his appearance had changed since she’d seen him three days ago. Guilt? Or grief?

“You’ve been rather elusive, Mr. Mortimer,” Kincaid began as they sat down.

“Have I?” Mortimer smiled cordially enough. “There’s been a good deal to see to—and to clean up.” He ran the side of his hand across the polished surface of his desk. “Your lads don’t exactly tidy up after themselves.”

“Not part of their job description,” Kincaid said, giving the office an interested glance.

Gemma saw no evidence that the forensic team had left traces behind, but she found the room’s mixture of furnishings rather odd. The large, contemporary desk was of mirror-gloss ebony, the accompanying executive’s chair black leather, while the straight-backed wooden visitors’ chairs she and Kincaid occupied were likely older than Mortimer and had never been more than utilitarian. The chairs’ ambiance was echoed in the scarred, wooden filing cabinets flanking the open, uncurtained window behind the desk, and atop one of the cabinets, a black-enameled fan oscillated with a gentle whirring.

After the fan, Gemma almost expected a Bakelite, rotary-dial phone on the desk, but a glimpse of the state-of-the-art unit tucked away behind Reg’s Rolodex booted her swiftly back into the current decade.

As if he’d read her thoughts, Kincaid told Mortimer, “I see you’ve managed to update things a bit in the old building. Was this Annabelle’s office?”

“No. Annabelle shared the one next door. It’s been hard on Teresa, the last few days. The constant reminder … I don’t think I could bear …” Mortimer shook his head. “We’ve always been short of office space here—that’s one of the problems with this drafty old pile of brick. That and the damp,” he added absently, and Gemma had the impression he was talking on autopilot while his mind was somewhere else entirely.

“There are just a few things we’d like to go over with you, Mr. Mortimer,” Kincaid said. “Were you aware that Annabelle had left her shares in the company to Harry and Sarah Lowell, naming their father as trustee?”

Gemma pulled her notebook unobtrusively from her bag as she watched Mortimer’s response. Although he didn’t quite mask a grimace, he answered readily enough, and she thought he must have been prepared.

“I’d no idea until yesterday. Teresa and I are meeting with the solicitor this afternoon, to see if there is anything that can be done.”

“So you share Jo Lowell’s opinion that her ex-husband is likely to be difficult?”

“I’ve nothing against Martin Lowell personally. But we would be concerned at the idea of anyone without direct experience of the business controlling a large block of voting shares. I’m sure you can understand that,” Mortimer said smoothly.