Kissed a Sad Goodbye

Gemma looked up from her notes. “Don’t you find it odd that your fiancée didn’t share something as important as the disposition of her assets with you?”

Mortimer tilted his chair back a bit and reangled the pen on his blotter. “Annabelle was rather obsessive about her privacy. And in any case, I’m sure it’s not something she thought would be necessary to discuss,” he added, his expression bleak.

“Perhaps she meant to wait until you were married, then sign them over to you,” Gemma suggested.

“Trying to predict what Annabelle might have done seems a particularly fruitless exercise.”

Spotting her opening, Gemma said, “Had Annabelle changed her mind about your engagement? Is that what your argument was about on Friday evening?”

Mortimer paled visibly. “What—what are you talking about? Of course she hadn’t changed her mind. I’ve told you—she wasn’t feeling well.”

“That’s funny,” Kincaid said, picking it up. “Jo Lowell says the two of you had a row, and that you waited for Annabelle in the lane, not even saying good night to your hostess. I don’t believe you’d have behaved so rudely unless you’d had a disagreement.”

Mortimer glanced from Kincaid to Gemma. “It sounds so utterly stupid now.” His eyes filled with tears and he brushed at them with the back of his hand. “And there’s no taking any of it back, the things we said.…”

“Everyone has stupid rows,” said Gemma, very deliberately not looking at Kincaid. “And if we’re lucky we get to make them up. Don’t let this grow out of proportion because you didn’t.”

A faint color rose in Reg’s cheeks. “All right,” he said after a moment. “Annabelle was furious because she thought Jo was flirting with me.… I told you it was idiotic.”

“Was Jo flirting with you?” Kincaid asked. “Was there something going on between you?”

“No, of course not. Annabelle was just very out of sorts.” Reg looked away, moving his shoulders in an embarrassed shrug. “Maybe I took a bit more notice of Jo than usual, just because Annabelle was being so bloody. And Jo seemed to be enjoying the attention, but that was all. It was silly, I know, but sometimes when you’ve known one another a long time, you seem to fall back into the way you behaved as children.”

“Have you any idea why Annabelle was out of sorts?”

“Not a glimmer. Except that things had been more stressful than usual here lately.” His gesture indicated the warehouse. “She’d been making changes that would have enormous impact on the future of the company—new products, new packaging, new marketing strategies. Now …” Reg slumped back in his chair with a shake of his head. “I don’t know how we’ll carry on without her.”

Gemma thought of the distinctive tins Annabelle had designed, of Teresa Robbins’s animation when she spoke of Annabelle’s plans for pushing Hammond’s into a new niche in the market, of the obvious grief and shock of the company’s employees. Could Hammond’s go on successfully, without Annabelle’s drive and vision? “Was there anyone within the company who stood to gain from her death?” she asked.

“Not that I can see,” Reg answered wearily. “Even Martin Lowell may find those shares more of a liability than an asset, without Annabelle behind them,” he added, and Gemma thought she heard a trace of satisfaction in his voice.

Kincaid studied him for a moment. “Are you sure it was Annabelle who was jealous that night, and not you?”

“What?” Mortimer’s hands, which had been idly rolling the pen back and forth, were suddenly still.

“It seems you’d have had good reason, Reg.” Kincaid sounded sympathetic. “Were you aware that she knew the busker she spoke to in the tunnel? And that she’d been having an affair with him?”

“What?” Mortimer said again. His throat moved as he swallowed convulsively. “That’s not possible. I … How could Annabelle possibly have known this chap, much less … A busker? You must be mistaken.”

Gemma thought of the photos from the Tatler she’d seen on Annabelle’s corkboard—Annabelle and Reg moving graciously from one society party to another, inhabiting a world that had no place for anyone outside its class or social set, unless the contact was made as an official act of charity.

She manufactured a smile. “He’s really quite good. I’d say the entertainment’s a bargain for a few coins tossed in a case.” Too late, she felt Kincaid’s swift, curious glance.

“But he’s not just your ordinary street musician, if that makes you feel any better,” offered Kincaid. “His name is Gordon Finch, and he’s Lewis Finch’s son.”

This time Mortimer simply stared.

“Do you know Lewis Finch?”

Mortimer seemed to make an effort to pull himself together. “Of course I know Lewis Finch. Everyone on the Island knows who Lewis Finch is.”

“Including Annabelle?”

“I … I suppose she did—she must have met him at some point.”

“Would it surprise you to learn that she knew the father as well as the son, in the biblical sense? We’re not sure which came first, the chicken or the egg, but it seems quite certain that she had an ongoing relationship with both of them while engaged to you.”

“No!” Reg Mortimer stood, sending his leather chair flying into one of the filing cabinets. “I don’t bloody believe it. I won’t believe it. Can’t you leave me something, for God’s sake?”

When they didn’t answer, he groped for the chair behind him, and sinking back into it, he covered his face with his hands.

• • •

“ALL RIGHT, IT’S JO LOWELL AGAIN,” Kincaid said as they climbed into the Rover. “I’m beginning to feel like a bloody yo-yo.” He’d just enough time for the run to Greenwich before his meeting with Chief Superintendent Childs. “Do you mind walking back through the tunnel?”

“Love to,” Gemma answered as they turned north into Manchester Road.

“Do I detect a smidgen of sarcasm?” As Kincaid looked to the left, he caught a glimpse of George Brent’s front garden, and George himself in a white string vest, deadheading the roses. He waved, but the old man was intent on his work and didn’t look up. “It’s a bit hard to believe that George Brent and Lewis Finch are of the same generation.”

“I suppose George must be a half a dozen years older.” Gemma rolled her window down, grimacing as a hot, gritty wind blasted into the car. “But you’re right. I can’t imagine Annabelle having a go at George.”

“Do you think Reg Mortimer knew?”

“About Annabelle and Lewis, or about Annabelle and Gordon?”

“Either. Both.”

“I don’t know. He seemed pretty cut-up.”

“In any case, I’ll guarantee you that his story about the row at the party is a load of bollocks.”

“You can’t underestimate the power of sibling rivalry. Think about Jo, feeling awkward giving a party for the first time on her own. She might easily have been tempted into a little flirtation with her sister’s boyfriend, and if that were the case, she wouldn’t be dying to admit it under any circumstances.”

“Very embarrassing. Not to mention it being a good reason for having had an all-out row with her sister,” Kincaid added, considering the scenario.

“Which she wouldn’t want to admit, either. But that doesn’t solve the problem of what happened after Annabelle and Reg left the party.”

They had reached the top of the Isle of Dogs peninsula, and he took Aspen Way to the right as it curved back towards the south and the approach to the Blackwall Tunnel.

As they entered the tunnel a draft of cooler air swirled into the car. Gemma leaned back against the headrest and closed her eyes.

Glancing at her, Kincaid said, “Were you just trying to get a rise out of Mortimer when you told him that Gordon Finch was good?”

For a moment, Gemma didn’t respond, then she opened her eyes and gave him a swift look he couldn’t read. “Not exactly. He was practicing when I arrived at his flat yesterday. But I’d heard him before, in Islington.”

“In Islington?” he said, surprised. “When?”

She shrugged. “It’s been a few months. But I wasn’t sure until yesterday that it was the same person.”

“I shouldn’t think Gordon Finch would be easy to mistake,” Kincaid said as the traffic slowed to a dead stop midtunnel. Although he’d learned he couldn’t always tell what made other men attractive to women, he sensed that Finch had a certain magnetism, and if the man had appealed to Annabelle … “The strong, silent type, is he?”

“Who? Finch?”

“Or maybe it was the dog that impressed you?”

“As a matter of fact, I remembered the dog,” Gemma answered equably. “It was seeing him again yesterday that clinched it.” She smiled, examining her fingertips, and he wondered who was taking the mickey from whom.

They rode the rest of the way to Greenwich in silence, but he couldn’t quite shake the feeling that Gemma was holding something out on him.

JO LOWELL ANSWERED HER DOOR BEFORE Kincaid had lifted his finger from the bell, and at the sight of them her face fell. “I was just on my way out. I’m late for a meeting with a client. The children were dreadful this morning—” She stopped. “Never mind. What can I do for you?”

She was dressed to go out, in crisp trousers and a white silk blouse. A dusting of makeup minimized her freckles, her dark auburn hair was pulled back with a gold slide, and she wore a pair of simple topaz earrings. For the first time Kincaid realized how attractive she could be.

“It won’t take a minute,” he apologized, and she stepped back, ushering them in with good grace.

“Is this all right?” she asked, indicating the dining room.

The vase of yellow sunflowers still stood on the table in the pleasant room, and as they sat, Kincaid thought of Annabelle here, perhaps laughing at something someone said.

“We’ll get right to the point, Mrs. Lowell. We’ve just had a chat with Reg Mortimer, and he admits that he and Annabelle had a row.”

Had he imagined the swiftly controlled spasm of tension in Jo Lowell’s mouth? “Are you sure your sister didn’t tell you what the row was about?”

“No … I … What did Reg say?”

“That Annabelle was angry because she thought you were flirting with him.”

For a moment, Jo stared, her mouth open; then she let out a peal of laughter. “Reg said I was flirting with him?”

“I take it you don’t agree?” Kincaid asked.

“In his dreams.” Jo subsided into slightly hysterical snickers. “I bloodied his nose once too often when we were kids, the little sod. I could kill him!” She clapped her hand over her mouth. “I didn’t mean—”

“I know you didn’t. But could Annabelle have thought there was something going on between you and Reg? He says she was really narked about something.”

“The bastard. It wasn’t Annabelle who was angry—not in the beginning. He was the one furious with her.”

“Why didn’t you tell us this before?” Kincaid edged the vase of sunflowers over a bit so that he could see her across the table.

Jo sat back, sliding her hands into her lap, but not before he’d seen how tightly they were clenched. He was suddenly aware of her perfume, a fresh, grassy scent, and of the rising and falling of her chest in the warm, still room. “You knew all the time what the row was about, didn’t you, Jo? Why didn’t you tell us? And why did Reg lie about it twice?”

He waited, sensing Gemma beside him, but knowing she wouldn’t break the tension, wouldn’t give Jo an out.

“I didn’t know, when you first asked me, that Annabelle was dead,” Jo whispered at last, without taking her eyes from her clenched hands. “And then I was ashamed.”

“You were ashamed?” Gemma prompted her gently. “Was it something you said?”

Jo shook her head, and the tears that had gathered on her lower lashes spilled over, streaking her cheeks. She didn’t lift a hand to wipe them away. “It was Harry. You have to understand: It was Martin who poisoned him against Annabelle. I daresay she deserved it, but she adored Harry from the moment he was born, and I think it broke her heart.”

Leaning forward, Gemma reached out as if to touch her. “Jo, start from the beginning. Tell us what happened.”

“I don’t want you to think badly of Annabelle.” Jo lifted a curled fist to her breast in a pleading gesture.

“We won’t,” Gemma promised, without taking her eyes from Jo’s, and Kincaid marveled, as he always did, at her ability to make an emotional link with a stranger.

Jo took a shaky breath and exhaled on a sigh, blinking back her tears. “It started when Sarah was a baby—before that, really. Martin and I had been having problems—I’d even thought about leaving him—and then Mummy got sick. And I got pregnant.” Looking away, she shook her head and continued softly, “It was a stupid thing to do, crazy even, but it was like I couldn’t help myself, I couldn’t fight this urge.… I even cheated on my birth control.” She looked back at them, her lips curving in a small smile. “It didn’t help things with Martin, and it didn’t keep Mummy from dying. But it gave me something to love, to fill the void.… Why am I telling you this? I’ve never said—”

Gemma touched her fingertips to Jo’s outstretched hand. Kincaid thought he might have disappeared as far as the two women were concerned. “I have a son the same age as your Sarah. I know what it’s like.”

After a moment, Jo nodded. “Martin had been jealous of Harry, but with Sarah he felt completely shut out, and he was more angry with me than ever. And Annabelle … When Mummy died, Annabelle hadn’t anything.…” The breath she took sounded almost like a sob. “They had an affair. Martin and Annabelle. Annabelle told me, after a few months. She said she couldn’t stand it anymore, knowing that she’d betrayed me and the children, and that Martin wanted to keep on. I filed for divorce.”

“Were you terribly angry with her?” Gemma asked it quietly.

“Of course I was angry. Furious. But she was my sister, and after a bit … I missed her.

“But Martin never forgave her; he swore she’d ruined his life, taken his children from him—as if he’d had nothing to do with it at all.” Her voice rose on an incredulous note.

“And Harry?”

“Martin told him it was Annabelle’s fault we weren’t a family anymore, that everything would have been wonderful if she hadn’t interfered. That was bad enough, but I thought that was all he’d told him. Until the night of the dinner party.” Jo looked round the room as if realizing where she was sitting. “Annabelle hadn’t been here often.… Things had been awkward between us, though we put up the best front we could for Father. But I thought it was time we mended things, so I invited them—Annabelle and Reg—and Mummy’s friend Rachel Pargeter who lives round the corner, and some clients who weren’t biased one way or the other.…”

When Jo lapsed into silence, Gemma said softly, “What happened?”

“It was a disaster. Oh, not at first. Harry was rude to her, but I sent him to play outside with Sarah, and we got through dinner with flying colors. Then Harry came into the kitchen as Annabelle and Reg were helping me clear up. Annabelle had never stopped trying to make things up with Harry, you see. They’d been so close, and I don’t think she really understood how deep the damage went. She touched him, called him a pet name, and he—lashed out at her. He said things … called her horrible names.…” Jo stopped. She’d gone pale under her tan.

“What sort of names?”

“Whore,” Jo said, so quietly that Kincaid had to lean forward to hear her. “Filthy tart. He said if she hadn’t … I’d no idea he even knew the words. Annabelle slapped him, and then Reg … started in on her.”

“Reg was angry at Annabelle?” Kincaid frowned. “Not at Harry?”

“Reg hadn’t known about Annabelle and Martin. He kept shouting at her, ‘Is it true? Is it true?’ and poor Harry was crying.… Then Annabelle stormed out and Reg followed her. I thought, the next day when he said she wouldn’t answer his calls, that she had bloody good reason not to.”

“And you didn’t think, when you found out she was dead, that Reg might have killed her?”

“No. I thought … not Reg. For all his faults, the three of us have been together since we were children. Reg would never have hurt her.”

“What about Martin? What if she went to see Martin after she left Reg in the tunnel?”

Jo’s eyes widened with shock, and for a moment the room was so hushed Kincaid could hear his pulse pounding in his ears. Then Jo breathed, “Oh, God. Not Martin.”

GEMMA STOOD BESIDE KINCAID IN THE lane as they watched Jo Lowell pull away in her small Fiat.

“Funny, Martin Lowell didn’t happen to mention the fact that he’d had an affair with his sister-in-law when we spoke to him,” Kincaid said, lifting his hand as Jo glanced back once before turning the corner into Hyde Vale.

“Or that he hated her. Although we might have guessed it.” Not relishing the prospect, Gemma added, “I’ll stop at the bank in Greenwich and speak to him again.”

“Let’s put it off until this afternoon. I think I’d like to be in on this one.” Kincaid looked at his watch. “But I’d better not keep the guv’nor waiting. I’ll ring you from the Yard.” Unlocking the Rover, he added, “Hop in. I’ll give you a lift to the town center on my way.”

Gemma hesitated. “I’d like to hear someone else’s account of that dinner party. Jo said her mum’s friend lived just round the corner. I think I’ll give her a try.”

“You don’t know which house.”

“I’m perfectly capable of knocking on doors,” Gemma retorted, waving him off.

She found Mrs. Rachel Pargeter on her second try, one house down from the corner on Hyde Vale. A tall woman in her sixties, with silver hair swept back in a neat twist, Rachel Pargeter wore a green canvas apron over her cotton blouse and trousers.

“Gardening gear,” she explained in a husky voice when Gemma had introduced herself. “Come through to the back, and I’ll just wash my hands.”

Gemma smiled with involuntary pleasure as the woman led her into a glassed-in room whose doors stood open to a flagstone terrace and a shady garden. “It’s lovely.”

“Coolest room in the house. I’ll just make us some tea—won’t take a moment.”

An enormous tabby cat lay on its back on the rattan sofa, all four paws in the air. It opened its eyes and blinked at Gemma, stretching sumptuously, and they had proceeded to the belly-scratching stage of acquaintance when Rachel Pargeter reappeared with a tray.

“Give over, Francis, you great beast,” she said in a tone of affectionate exasperation. Then to Gemma she added, “Just shove him off. It will only hurt his feelings for about thirty seconds—short-term memory loss can be a blessing.”

When Gemma had gently removed the feline and accepted a mug, Rachel Pargeter seated herself in the adjacent wicker rocker and studied her. “This is about Annabelle Hammond, I take it?”

“I understand you’ve been a friend of the family for some time.”

“Oh, donkeys’ years,” Rachel admitted. “Isabel befriended me when we first moved here, thirty years ago. That was a great loss—Isabel’s death. And now this.” She sipped at tea Gemma still found too hot to drink. “I always felt a bit sorry for Annabelle, but I never thought things would come to this.”

“You felt sorry for Annabelle?”

“I’ve always thought that exceptional beauty was as great an affliction as any physical handicap—perhaps more so. It is so difficult for the beautiful person, male or female, to develop a good character, isn’t it? The odds are stacked against them from the start.”

Gemma frowned. “How do you mean?”

“They are never required to earn the regard or affection of others through their behavior; rather, they come to expect it as their due. And they are forgiven almost anything, simply because of the way they look. Annabelle was more fortunate than others, because her mother kept her from being utterly spoiled.”

Francis chose that moment to leap into Rachel’s lap. The woman adroitly avoided spilling her tea, then stroked him as she continued, “The other tragic thing, in my experience, is that beautiful people so seldom have the security of knowing they are loved for themselves—who they are on the inside. But Isabel loved her daughter in spite of her beauty, not because of it, and she was scrupulously fair with the children.” She sighed. “William, of course, was a great trial to her, but she didn’t like to complain.”

“A trial? How?”

“Annabelle was the child of his dreams—this beautiful girl who grew up with a passion for tea that surpassed his own.”

“So he spoiled her terribly?”

“Oh, yes. And he placed on her the burden of perfection, which is a very difficult thing to live up to. It’s no wonder Annabelle went off the rails a bit when her mother died.”

“You knew about Annabelle and Martin Lowell?”

“I’m afraid so,” Rachel said, nodding sadly. “Jo confessed it to me. Poor thing, she had no one else to turn to—she certainly couldn’t tell her father what his precious Annabelle had done.” She gave Gemma a swift, intelligent glance. “And I suppose I’m betraying Jo’s confidence now. But all this has been rather weighing on me.…”

“Jo told us herself, so you’re hardly betraying a confidence,” Gemma reassured her. “What I don’t understand is how either of them could have fallen for Martin Lowell.”

Rachel Pargeter smiled. “I take it you haven’t seen Martin at his best. He can be quite charming—even I was smitten when they were first married and he asked my advice about the garden. He made me feel my opinion was the only one in the world that mattered. That intensity of his must have been awfully tempting to a girl used to playing second fiddle. Jo saw herself as Cathy to his Heathcliff.”

“And Annabelle?”

“I suspect that after Isabel died she just desperately wanted to feel loved, and she mistook Martin’s desire for that. I imagine she found out soon enough that Martin and love had no place in the same equation.”

“But to betray her own sister!” Gemma hadn’t realized until now how much the knowledge had upset her. She’d been able to justify to some extent Annabelle’s betrayal of Reg Mortimer with Gordon Finch, but not her affair with her own brother-in-law.

“Sibling rivalry has existed since Cain and Abel. I expect Annabelle wanted what she thought her sister had—contentment in her marriage, children—and she was used to taking what she wanted.”

“And Jo forgave her?”

“Eventually. But Harry didn’t.”

“It’s about the dinner party I came to see you,” said Gemma.

Rachel closed her eyes for a moment. “Oh, that was a terrible evening.”

“You heard the argument.”

“It’s a small house, and they were shouting. Not that I was surprised, mind you. I’d had an idea what was brewing. Harry stays with me sometimes, and I’d seen what his father was doing to him.” Rachel pushed the cat from her lap and set her empty cup on the table. “Martin’s infidelity I could forgive, but not using his son to satisfy his own need for revenge. I’m surprised someone hasn’t killed the bastard.”

“Tell me what they said in the kitchen that night.”

“I heard Harry first, shouting filthy words. Jo’s poor clients were mortified—I think they thought it was the telly at first. Then Jo, shouting at Harry … and Harry sobbing.”

“And Annabelle?”

Rachel looked away. “She was … pleading with Harry. Then Reg started in on her—I couldn’t make out all the words, but he was outraged. Annabelle shouted at him. Then the back door banged, twice. Neither of them came back into the dining room. Jo returned a few minutes later, trying to put a good face on it, but we excused ourselves as quickly as we could.”

“Did Reg and Annabelle seem all right at dinner?”

“Yes. A bit snappish, perhaps, but nothing out of the ordinary for a couple who knew one another well.”

“And there was no mention of anyone, or anything else, that might have set off an argument?”

“Not that I remember.” Frowning, Rachel added, “You’re not thinking that Reg could have had something to do with Annabelle’s death, I hope. He’s not a bad lad—used to play with my Jimmy when he came to visit Jo and Annabelle.”

“He was very angry with her.”

“I think he may have been more upset on Jo’s behalf than his own. That’s what he shouted at Annabelle. ‘How could you do that to your sister?’

“It is a shame that Annabelle hadn’t the chance to see what she could make of herself—to see if she could mend her flaws,” Rachel went on after a moment. “People always mourn the passing of exemplary souls, but I’m inclined to think they’ve done their bit and are ready to move on.”

“But Annabelle wasn’t.”

“She had the potential to love. I believe she loved her sister—in spite of what she did to her—and I know she loved Harry. The child’s rejection must have been a terrible blow, something she’d never experienced—and that pain might have been the flame necessary to forge her character,” finished Rachel. She smiled at Gemma and began to assemble their tea things on the tray. “But it’s facts you want, Sergeant, and I’ve given you nothing but idle speculation.”

“It’s been a great help to talk to someone who saw Annabelle clearly, Mrs. Pargeter.”

“Do you think that?” Rachel Pargeter paused, her hand on the sugar bowl. “I’m not sure I saw her clearly at all. A good part of what I’ve said may be complete rubbish, wishful thinking on my part. Because I loved her, too, you know—not least because she reminded me of her mother. And love is a dangerous thing.”

GEMMA HEARD THE MUSIC AS SOON as she stepped out of the lift in Island Gardens. It was Dixieland jazz, loud and rollicking and unmistakably live. She followed the sound round the side of the domed tunnel entrance, and when she turned the corner into the park proper, she saw the band beneath the plane tree that stood sentinel where the path met the river promenade.

The tree’s trunk perfectly bisected the view of the Royal Naval College across the river, and the five musicians stood in the shade of its branches. All were middle-aged, graying, and bearded, and with their soft hats and shirt-tails hanging over their mismatched shorts they looked like businessmen out for an afternoon’s lark. An occasional passerby tossed a coin in the open banjo case.

Gemma listened for a bit, unable to resist the toe-tapping rhythms, then wandered over to the refreshment kiosk and bought an Orangina. The park lay spread before her, so inviting that she decided to walk through it rather than go round by the road.

She took the path that cut straight through the center of the park, enjoying the clean fizziness of her drink, her steps still bouncing a bit with the music. Now they were playing a Benny Goodman tune she remembered her dad liking when she was a child, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on the name of it. She hummed along, following the tune, gazing absently at the mothers with babies in pushchairs and the couples stretched out on blankets on the grass.

In front of her, an old woman in a zimmer frame navigated the path with tortoiselike deliberation, and beyond her a man lay beside a dog—it took Gemma’s startled mind an instant to process the fact that the man was Gordon Finch, and the dog Sam. She stopped dead, staring, feeling as if she’d conjured him from her thoughts.

Gordon lay on his back, his eyes closed. He wore a tee shirt and jeans, his feet were bare, and a pair of boots rested neatly beside his clarinet case. Beneath his head, a folded jacket did duty as a pillow. The sun came out from behind the clouds, and the dappled light filtering through the leaves of the nearest plane tree played along his face and body.

Slowly, Gemma crossed the grass and stood over him. Sam lifted his head, and at the dog’s movement, Gordon opened his eyes and looked up at her. “What fair vision is this?” he asked, straight-faced.

“What are you doing here?” Gemma said.

“Not up to sparkling repartee today, are we?” He sat, lifting his arms above his head and cracking his intertwined knuckles in a stretch. “It’s a free park, i’nt it, lady? I could ask you the same. Join me?”

Gemma looked round as if a chair might materialize, then sank to her knees. “I need to talk to you.”

Gordon nodded in the direction of the musicians. “I’m waiting a turn at this pitch, so I’m all yours as long as the band plays.”

Although still mocking, he seemed more relaxed today than Gemma had seen him before.

“What is it?” he asked, looking at her more closely. “Are you all right?”

Surprised by his tone of concern, she stammered, “I … Yes, of course I’m all right, but—”

“Then sit down properly,” he ordered. “You look like a sprinter at the blocks.” She obeyed gingerly, but before she could cross her legs, Gordon laid a hand on her outstretched ankle. “And take your shoes off. You can’t sit in the grass with your shoes on.” He grasped her sandal by the heel and slid it free as Gemma jerked her foot back, protesting.

“I can’t sit here in the park barefoot with you. It’s not—What would—”

“What are you so afraid of, Sergeant?” He glanced up at her as he lifted her other foot and slipped the shoe off. “You can charge me with assaulting an officer, if it makes you feel better.”

“Don’t be absurd,” she retorted, but she didn’t retrieve her sandals.

Gordon wrapped his arms round his knees, regarding her impassively, while Sam got up and repositioned himself against Gordon’s hip with a sigh. “You said you wanted to grill me?”

“I didn’t mean—” Gemma bit off the rest of her protest. “All right,” she said, tucking her bare feet under her in a cross-legged position. “Did you know that Annabelle had an affair with her sister’s husband?”

The expression on his face told her he was taken aback. “No. I told you—she didn’t talk about herself. And I expect that’s the last thing she’d have told me.” He seemed to hesitate, then said, “Was it … Do you know when?”

“Some time ago. It broke up her sister’s marriage, and apparently he—Martin Lowell—blamed Annabelle.”

“That’s his name?” he asked, frowning. The upward slant of his brows echoed the sharp angle of his cheekbones. “She never mentioned him. But what has this to do with anything?”

“Her fiancé found out about her affair with Lowell on Friday night, at her sister’s party.”

“But if her sister’s already divorced, it must have been before Annabelle was engaged to him—what’s his name?”

“Reg Mortimer.”

“So why get his knickers in a twist?”

“Maybe he knew, or guessed, that there was someone else. And he thought that if she could betray her own sister, why not him? Then he saw her with you, in the tunnel.…”

“Are you saying you think he waited for her? That he killed her?”

“It’s a possibility, but so far the evidence doesn’t seem to support it. Did she tell you that she’d broken off her engagement?”

“No. Had she?”

“We don’t know. Your father says he rang her because she left him a message saying she’d called off her engagement, and that she sounded quite upset.”

“My father?” Gordon’s face was once again expressionless.

Gemma felt as if she were walking on eggshells, and fought against her inexplicable urge to protect him. “We’ve seen your father. He also told us that he and Annabelle Hammond had a long-standing relationship, and I’m having a hard time believing you weren’t aware of it.”

“I told you—my father and I aren’t close. Why should I have known?” He kept his voice even, but Gemma could see the tension in the muscles of his jaw.

“Apparently she was seen about with him often enough. This neighborhood is as insular as any village, and considering the way information travels in that sort of environment … I should think you’d have heard sooner rather than later.”

Gordon grimaced and looked away. After a moment, he said, “We lived here when I was a child. I started school here, just up the road. My father was already a presence in the neighborhood, gaining a reputation for trying to save the old buildings—that was pretty eccentric for those days, when most people didn’t believe that the Docks could really die. But they respected his success. Everywhere I went I was Lewis Finch’s son.

“Then, when I was eight, my mum decided we should move to the suburbs; that was her idea of success—bridge and cocktails—but my dad despised it. When they divorced, he came back to the Island for good.”

“You stayed with your mum?”

“Lewis sent me to boarding school. Education meant everything to him, and he was determined I should have the best. What he couldn’t accept was my not making use of what he provided for me—at least not in the way he’d had in mind.”

Gemma thought of her own father, a self-made man in a small way compared with Lewis Finch, but still proud of the success he’d made of his bakery. Had he dreamed that his daughters would follow in his footsteps? If so, they had both disappointed him.

“He wanted you to join the firm?” she guessed.

Gordon buried his fingertips in the thick ruff of fur at the back of Sam’s neck. “I lasted a year. Have you any idea what it’s like to live in the shadow of someone like my father?”

Gemma studied him. His gray eyes were deep-set under the winged brows, his hair stuck up on the crown of his head in unruly spikes, there were hollows under his cheekbones and creases at the corners of his mouth that bespoke hard years. “So you remade yourself as far from his image as you could get: a street musician, an unconventional activist—”

“I found out what happened to the people who could no longer afford to live in their old neighborhoods,” he protested.

“You could have gone anywhere. No one would have known who you were. But you came back to the Island.” She jabbed a finger at him. “Because you care about what happens here. You’re your father’s son, whether you like it or not. And I think that’s why Annabelle sought you out.”

“That’s rubbish,” Gordon said hotly. “She didn’t even know my name in the beginning.”

“I think she did. I think she was already seeing your father, and she became curious about you. So she came to listen to you play. Maybe that’s all she meant to do at first, and it turned into more than she bargained for.”

“But why? What could she possibly have wanted?”

“I don’t know.” Gemma plucked a blade of the soft grass under her hand. “But there is a connection between your families—your fathers were evacuated together during the war.”

He stared at her. “I’d no idea.”

“And you never heard that there was some sort of feud between your father and William Hammond?”

“No. And the idea’s absurd.”

“Annabelle’s sister Jo says their father warned them away from your father and his family.”

Gordon seemed about to reply, then stopped, his expression puzzled. “It is strange, now that you mention it. Annabelle was always asking questions about my family. I thought it was just ordinary curiosity until—”

“Until what?”

“Oh, it was nothing, really.” He scratched Sam’s ear for a moment. “One day I realized she wasn’t curious about other things—you know, who my mates were, what I did when I wasn’t with her, the usual female stuff.”

Gemma gathered from the swift glance he gave her that he meant to get her dander up, so she let the remark ride.

“I …” Frowning, Gordon looked out at the river. “How very odd. You’re sure my father knew Annabelle’s when they were young?”

“They’ve both confirmed it.”

“My father never talked about his childhood, and I certainly don’t remember him mentioning knowing William Hammond. My mother, though … she always told stories about life here before the war. They used to come here, to Island Gardens, on summer evenings, and watch the pleasure boats on the Thames. The boats were strung with colored lights, and music would drift from them over the water. Sometimes people would dance, and my mother always wished she were old enough to dance, too. But it never happened. Everything had changed, after the war.”

“Maybe that’s where you got your love of music, from your mum.”

He shrugged, his gaze still far away. “Maybe.”

The band had stopped playing, but now the music started again. First, a swingy beat, then the clarinet picked up the melody line with a hint of melancholy. Gordon reached out and, grasping her hand, pulled her to her feet.

“What—” she started to say, but he had placed his right hand in the small of her back, guiding her firmly.

“You mean they didn’t teach you to dance in police school?” he said in her ear.

“Of course not. This is …” She had been going to say “absurd,” but the grass felt cool and springy beneath her bare feet, and the weight of his hand on her back and the rhythm of the song seemed suddenly irresistible. “What is this?” she asked, fighting the temptation to close her eyes. “It seems so familiar, but I can’t quite …”

“Rodgers and Hart.” Pulling her a little closer, he hummed along with the melody. “ ‘Where or When,’ it’s called,” he added, with a trace of amusement in his voice.

The breeze lifted the hair on Gemma’s neck, and for a moment she felt herself floating, suspended between the music and his touch. “I’d not have picked you for a dancer,” she whispered.

“My secret ambition was to be Gene Kelly.…”

She felt his breath against her cheek, then she was aware only of the music and the harmony of their steps.

The last flourish of the clarinet caught them in mid-step. They came to an awkward halt, hands still clasped. Gemma felt the pulse beating in her throat, then the rising flush of embarrassment.

She stepped back, freeing her hand. A low rumble of thunder vibrated in the air as she fumbled into her shoes and scooped up her handbag. “I have to go,” she said, and turning from him, she walked away through the park without looking back.

IT WAS CHRISTMAS BEFORE LEWIS RETURNED to the Island for a visit. Evacuees had been streaming back into London for months, but the schools had closed at the beginning of the evacuation, and the returning children had no place to go. The government had not been responsive to appeals to reopen—the teachers had gone to the country with their charges, and many of the buildings had been taken over for civil defense.

“I’ll not have you running the streets like a wild thing, not when you have a chance at a proper education,” his mother had said firmly, and even though the government had launched a Christmas publicity campaign aimed at keeping children out of London—Keep them happy, keep them safe—she’d eventually given in to Lewis’s pleas for a holiday at home.

His months in the country had been touched only lightly by the war. With the advent of petrol rationing in late September, Edwina’s autos had been polished more often than driven, but to Lewis’s delight, John had begun teaching him how to maintain them. Gardening was less to his liking, but he and William helped plant a winter garden behind the Hall kitchen. Edwina acquired two Jersey cows from a neighboring farmer as a hedge against the rationing of milk and butter, and on the Downs were ever-increasing signs of preparation as the army practiced training maneuvers and set up searchlight battery units.

None of this had prepared Lewis for the sight of London. He sat with his face pressed to a gap in the shatterproof sticky-tape covering the window as his coach wound its slow way through streets empty of automobiles. People saved their petrol allotments for the weekends, managing as best they could on the overcrowded public transport. Sandbagged trenches, some painted in garish colors, scarred the public parks. The hurrying pedestrians were dressed all in somber grays and browns, as if they had adopted voluntary camouflage.

He walked from the bus stop to Stebondale Street, his footsteps growing slower as he climbed the last gentle rise. The street seemed meaner, dingier, than he remembered, and he felt a sudden uneasiness as his house came in sight. Would he find that things at home had changed, too? Going round the back, he entered the cluttered yard, then pushed open the kitchen door and peeked in. Familiar aromas assaulted him—cabbage and bacon and baking bread—and at the cooker, his mother stood with her back turned to him, her pink apron tied neatly at her waist. Pausing for a moment in her stirring, she tilted her head in that listening way he knew so well. “Lewis?” She turned, her thin face alight, and in a moment he was enveloped in a floury hug. “Let me look at you,” she exclaimed, holding him at arm’s length. “Oh, my, your brothers will hardly recognize you, you’ve grown so.”

At the sight of his startled face, she laughed. “I wanted it to be a surprise. Tommy and Edward have both managed a day’s leave for Christmas. They’ll be here tonight.”

Cath came in then, high heels clattering on the floorboards, and gave him a lipsticked smack on the cheek. Lewis stared at her in consternation. “What’s the film-star getup for?”

Cath tossed her head, but the motion didn’t disturb her hair’s smooth waves. “I’m a grown woman now, Lewis Finch, and you should treat me with some respect. I’m meeting someone, if you must know.”

“Not if your da sees you like that,” his mum said. “Lewis is right, Cathleen. Wipe that muck from your face before your father gets home—”

“But, Mummy, you know how long I had to queue to get this lipstick—”

“You should have known better, then, shouldn’t you, missy? And you’ll stay at home tonight with your brothers. I’ll not hear another word.”

“You should talk, anyway,” Cath said, abandoning the argument and pulling a face at Lewis. “Acting the toff like that.”

“What do you mean, toff?” he retorted, incensed.

“Just look at you.” She nodded at his pullover and trousers, castoffs of William’s, the trousers still a bit long. “And listen to you. You sound like that reader on the BBC, what’s his name, the one who talks like he has a pencil stuck up his nose.”

“I do not—”

“You do so, Lewis Finch, and don’t think I’m impressed one bit.”

“And what makes you think I care?” He stuck his tongue out.

Reaching out, Cath grabbed his earlobe between her thumb and forefinger and twisted.

He yelped and pinched back, his mum intervened, scolding them both, and it was as if he’d never been away. As the day faded they gossiped over cups of tea at the kitchen table until his dad arrived home from the shipyard, and shortly after that his brothers came in together, large and noisy, looking like men—and strangers—in their new uniforms.

That evening after tea, his dad took him for a stroll down to the river, their way lit only by moonlight on the melting snow. Although accustomed now to blackout in the country, Lewis had never seen the Island without light streaming from street lamps and headlamps and lace-curtained windows. It seemed a different city, an enchanted city, and he breathed deeply of the fresh air untainted by petrol fumes. In the still silence the occasional voice echoed oddly through the streets, and somewhere in the distance a bell chimed faintly for Christmas Eve services.

Lewis’s dad walked without speaking, his hands clasped behind his back, puffing on the pipe he held clenched in his teeth. He had never been a man much for words, but Lewis didn’t need them. He could sense his father’s contentment in his company and he felt a stirring of pride.

When they reached Island Gardens, they had to feel their way carefully through the darkness under the trees, but as they emerged onto the moonlit promenade the river stretched silver and gleaming before them. The smoke from his father’s pipe drifted out over the water like a fragrant cloud.

A barge passed by, lit only stern and prow by small, shaded lanterns. In the darkness and silence it seemed ghostly, primitive, a Viking longboat returned from the dead. Lewis shivered. Suddenly he felt a stab of homesickness as intense as those of his first few days at the Hall—and yet it was more than that. He wanted to freeze time, to hold everyone and everything unchanged, and the weight of his desire made it difficult to breathe.

“Da,” he said, forcing the words out. “Let me stay here. The war’s all bollocks anyway, everyone knows that. Nothing’s going to happen—there’s no reason I can’t come home.”

His father removed his pipe and sighed. “I wish it were so, Lewis. But the war’s waiting. Like a beast, it is, before it pounces on you. I can feel its breath. Your mother can, as well.”

Lewis had been away long enough to feel embarrassed by any reference to his Irish family’s clairvoyance—something he knew William and Edwina would think of as superstitious nonsense, so he countered with his ultimate authority. “But they’re saying in the newspaper and on the wireless—”

“It matters nought. They don’t want a panic on their hands, so it’s business as usual. But any fool can see the Germans won’t stop where they are. It’s only a matter of time, lad, and you’re better off out of it.” His dad tapped his pipe on the railing to empty it, then tucked it in the pocket of his coat. “Don’t you see, knowing you’re safe is the only thing gives your mum any peace. We can’t send your sister away, and your brothers have chosen their road—though before long I think it won’t be a matter of choice for anyone young and fit enough to fight.”

“I’ll go, too, if it lasts long enough,” said Lewis, smarting at always being thought a child.

“You know I’m not a religious man, lad—it’s your mum who thinks so highly of the Church—but I’ll say a prayer to all your mother’s saints that this war ends long before that.” He smiled down at Lewis. “And we’d best be getting back, or your mother will have Father Joseph out looking for us.”

It was as close to a joke as his father ever came, and an effective means of ending an argument. Lewis matched his dad’s steps, staying close beside him until they left the darkness of the park behind. They walked as briskly as the blackout allowed back to Stebondale Street, and the disappointment Lewis nursed became tinged ever so slightly with relief.

Even that disappointment was short-lived once they reached the house, for he was soon involved with the preparations for Christmas dinner. His family could have afforded few luxuries even had they been available, but his mother was adept at making do with little, and they sat down next day to a jolly table. Tommy and Edward had helped him make newspaper hats, and Cath had somehow procured a bit of colored tissue for homemade crackers. They’d filled them with bits of tinsel and mottoes concocted with much hilarity the previous evening. Lewis was even allowed a sip of Christmas gin, which inspired in him an affectionate glow and an unprecedented tolerance of his sister’s teasing.

On this occasion, his family’s gift seemed to have bypassed him altogether, for he had no premonition that this was the last time they would all be gathered together.

CHAPTER 11The great ships were brought into the Island to loom over back yards and gardens and the foreign sailors were set down in the dusty streets where the children played.

Eve Hostettler, from

Memories of Childhood

on the Isle of Dogs, 1870–1970

Kit had been working diligently on his obstacle course since lunchtime. The Millers’ back garden provided a level and shady area for his endeavors, and he had managed to persuade Laura and Colin to let him stay behind while they went into Cambridge for some shopping.

It was the dog show on the telly last night that had given him the idea. There had been the usual best-of-breed judgings, which he’d watched anxiously for dogs resembling Tess. When he saw the Norfolk terriers, with their shaggy brown coats and bright black eyes, he’d felt certain that Tess carried those genes somewhere in her ancestry.

But there had also been trials of agility and obedience open to all dogs, registered or not. He’d been particularly enchanted by the obstacle-course relay races, and the idea that Tess’s lack of pedigree could be overcome in such a contest had given him a fierce sense of mission. Tess was as smart as any dog—smarter, even—and now he’d seen a way to prove just how special she was.

He’d constructed the jumps from last winter’s leftover firewood—two logs for the supports, one for the cross-piece: just the right size for a small dog. Then he’d made a ramp from a piece of plywood and some milk crates he’d found in the garage, and a ring from an old tire rim. The only thing he hadn’t managed to figure out was the dispenser for the tennis ball at the far end of the course; the idea being that Tess would run the course, retrieve the ball from the dispenser, then bring it back to him at the starting point.

At first Tess had bounded after him excitedly, jumping at the end of the lead dangling from his pocket, but when she’d realized no walk or games were immediately forthcoming, she’d retired to a shady spot under the oak tree. There she lay with her head on her front paws, her tail thumping occasionally as she followed him with her eyes.

Kit kept up a singsong running commentary on his tasks as he worked. Although this monologue was addressed to Tess, he found it helped keep him from thinking, and thinking was something he’d done his best to avoid the last few days.

Since he’d refused yesterday to take Duncan’s phone call, Laura had been watching him with evident concern, but she hadn’t questioned him about it. He’d even caught Colin giving him the odd worried look, and being nicer than usual, which was worse. He didn’t want to talk to Colin, either—didn’t want to talk to anyone about what had happened, and especially not to Duncan.

But every so often he’d found himself pulling the dog-eared photo of Duncan in his scout’s uniform from his pocket. It was as if he couldn’t help himself, and even as he finished a last adjustment to the log jump, his fingers slid into his pocket just far enough to feel the photo’s edge, assuring him he hadn’t lost it. The image had become so clear in his mind that he really didn’t need to look at it anymore. It gave him the oddest feeling, like looking in a mirror that was ever so slightly warped—the hair a shade darker than his, the eyes a bit grayer, the nose a little less sharp.

But that wasn’t the image he wanted to see. He’d locked himself in the bathroom last night after Colin fell asleep, searching his face in the mirror, trying to find the resemblance to his mother that people were always going on about.

He gave a sharp shake of his head, pushing the thought aside as he knelt beside Tess. “Come on, girl,” he said as he took the dog’s lead from his pocket and snapped it onto her collar. “Let’s give this a try.” He checked his supply of treats, giving her one for good measure, then started her trotting towards the beginning of the course as he clucked encouragement. As they neared the first jump, he picked up speed, urging, “Come on, girl, you can do it! Jump!”

Tess sat down hard in front of the log, tilting her head to one side and staring at him as if he’d gone completely daft. The expression on her face was so comical that he couldn’t help laughing, but he was determined to go on nonetheless. Positioning himself on the far side of the log, he tightened the tension on the lead so that she couldn’t go round, then held up a dog biscuit. “All right, girl, you want the biscuit, you come and get it. Come on! Jump!” He whistled coaxingly, and after a few aborted attempts to go round the sides, Tess jumped effortlessly over the log.

Kit whooped with delight as he fed her the biscuit, then flopped flat on his back in the grass while Tess tried to lick his face, one of their favorite games.

Suddenly, he had the odd sensation that he was being watched. He sat up, holding his squirming dog by the collar, and looked round the garden. It took a moment to make out the man standing by the gate, in the deep shadow of the yew hedge. His heart gave a thump of fear, then he realized there was something familiar about the figure.

The man lifted a hand to the latch and stepped through the gate, and as he moved into the sunlight, Kit saw his face clearly. Swallowing against the constriction in his throat, he said tentatively, “Dad?”

• • •

“IT’S NOT IN THE BEST OF taste, is it?” Kincaid said to Gemma as he stared up at Reg Mortimer’s building.

His meeting with Chief Superintendent Childs had left him distinctly out of sorts. Childs had just fielded a call from Sir Peter Mortimer, demanding to know why the police were badgering his son rather than making progress in finding Annabelle Hammond’s murderer, and he had transferred his irritation to Kincaid with instructions to get somewhere bloody quick—and to go easy on Mortimer.

When Kincaid had suggested that the two things might not be synonymous, considering the fact that Mortimer had apparently lied to them from the beginning, Childs had warned him against making any allegations he couldn’t back up.

Gemma shaded her eyes against the glare as she examined the building’s little rounded balconies and portholes. Funnel-like structures rose from its top, while one side of the building cascaded downwards in a stepping-stone series of penthouse terraces. “I think it’s jolly. A child’s fantasy of living in an ocean liner, rather than a tree house. Looks a bit posh, though.”

As he watched her, he thought she seemed remarkably unwilted for having slogged about in the heat most of the day. She’d been waiting for him at Limehouse Station and had soon caught him up on what had happened in his absence.

After her visit with Jo Lowell’s neighbor, she’d rung Martin Lowell’s bank, only to be informed that he was away at a meeting for the afternoon. But she’d at least finagled his home address.

While waiting for Lowell to get home, they had decided to try Reg Mortimer’s flat, even though Mortimer hadn’t answered his phone.

Only in passing had she mentioned to Kincaid that she’d seen Gordon Finch again, and that Finch had claimed he hadn’t known of a connection between his family and Annabelle’s or of his father’s relationship with her.

It had been on the tip of his tongue to ask her why she hadn’t pressed Finch harder, but he’d bitten back his comment, realizing he didn’t trust his own motivations.

Following her now as she made her way round the building to the entrance, he wondered if the difficulty lay with him or with her. He was ordinarily comfortable with Gemma’s interviewing skills, so why was he letting the matter of Gordon Finch get his nose out of joint?

As she reached the main doors, Gemma looked back and smiled at him, and he was glad he’d resisted his earlier impulse to snap at her. “Care for a cruise, mate?”

“Just as long as the ship stays firmly on dry land,” he replied, holding the door for her.

Inside the building, a speedy lift whisked them up to the level of Reg Mortimer’s flat. Kincaid knocked on his door, then they waited in the hush of the corridor. Gemma stood inches from him, and he could smell the sweet and distinctive scent of her skin. After a moment, he knocked again, looking at her with a shrug. “Where do you suppose—”

He stopped as the click of the dead bolt came clearly through the door. “It seems we’re in luck, after all.”

The door swung open. Reg Mortimer had discarded his tie; his pink shirt was rumpled and the tail had come partially untucked. He shoved back the brown hair that had fallen over his forehead in an unruly wave and groaned. “What is it this time?” he demanded.

Kincaid smiled. “People are always so happy to see us—I think we must be more popular than the dentist.”

“At least the dentist doesn’t bother you at home,” Reg retorted. Then he stepped back reluctantly, adding, “I suppose you’d better come in.”

The door opened directly into a large sitting room and Kincaid looked round with interest. The place struck him as faintly tropical. Two white, cotton-covered sofas faced each other across a round sisal rug. Table and bookcases were of pale, clean-lined oak, and the windows were dressed only in white linen shades pulled to half-mast. Light from riverside windows flooded the space. The room’s color came from the lime and tangerine cushions tossed on the sofas and the contemporary paintings adorning the walls. The only immediate signs of human occupation were provided by a vase of wilted day lilies on the coffee table and a jumble of papers spread out on the gateleg table that stood half open against one wall.

“Nice flat,” Kincaid said admiringly, taking a seat on one of the white sofas. “Hiding out from work, are you?”

Reg sank down onto the edge of the opposite sofa. “I kept thinking that Annabelle was just away for a bit, on a buying trip, maybe … expecting her to walk through the door.… It still doesn’t seem real, somehow.” He glanced at Gemma, who had moved behind him and was surveying the paintings with her hands clasped behind her back, as if visiting a gallery. “Is that usual?” he went on. “What I mean is, you deal with this sort of thing all the time.… I’ve never experienced …”

“People find various ways of dealing with violent death. Perhaps that’s why you’ve been less than truthful with us, Mr. Mortimer.”

“What—what are you talking about?” Mortimer’s eyes widened, and in the bright light Kincaid saw the sudden dilation of his pupils. There was no doubt the man was frightened of something.

“Did you think that Jo Lowell wouldn’t tell us what really happened at that dinner party?” Kincaid asked, giving him a last chance.

“But I told you—”

“You can’t have imagined we wouldn’t check your story.”

“You thought Jo would protect her sister, didn’t you?” said Gemma, pulling up the chair that had sat in front of the gateleg table. “Was that the way it always was, Jo protecting Annabelle?”

“Yes—No—I mean … I can’t think anymore.”

“Then I’ll help you, shall I?” said Kincaid. “You didn’t know that Annabelle had had an affair with Martin Lowell until Harry blurted it out that night. But their affair happened before you and Annabelle became involved, so why were you so furious? Were you afraid she’d kept seeing him after she took up with you? Or was it because she hadn’t told you the truth?”

“She said it wasn’t anyone else’s business—” Abruptly realizing his admission, Mortimer stopped and looked from Kincaid to Gemma.

“You argued about it after you left Jo’s, didn’t you?” asked Gemma. “You must have wondered what else she hadn’t told you.”

For a moment, Mortimer tensed as if he might deny it. Then his shoulders sagged. “How could Annabelle have betrayed Jo and the children that way? And if she could do such a thing to Jo …”

“Then she could betray anyone,” Gemma finished for him. “Even you.”

“It was too humiliating—I couldn’t bear it. How could I tell you? And I didn’t see how it could possibly matter—”

“You can’t know what matters,” Kincaid interjected sharply. “An investigation fits together like a puzzle—you can’t know how your piece falls in with someone else’s.” He scowled at Mortimer and added, “Unless, of course, your piece is the only one that counts. Let’s say that Annabelle added insult to injury. You were enraged with her already, angrier than you had ever been. You accused her of sleeping with someone else—” A look at Mortimer’s stricken face told him he’d hit home, and he felt a pulse of excitement. “You demanded to know who it was. And she told you—didn’t she, Reg?”

Through the flat’s open windows came the hoot of a tug’s horn, then the amplified voice of the tour guide on the Thames Ferry, extolling the architectural features of the riverside buildings in an exaggerated Cockney accent.

Reg Mortimer gaped at Kincaid like a rabbit mesmerized by a car’s headlamps, his eyes wide and dilated, his breathing shallow. Then he clamped a hand over his mouth and bolted from the room.

A moment later they heard the sound of retching coming from the bathroom. Kincaid made a grimace of distaste.

“You certainly got a reaction,” Gemma said softly. “The guv’nor is going to love you.” She nodded towards the walls. “Have a look at those while we’ve got a moment.”

The toilet flushed, then water ran. Kincaid stood and went to examine the paintings he’d only glanced at from a distance. Two of them echoed the limes and tangerines of the sofa cushions in more muted tones. The images were surreal, a bit jarring, but fascinating. Silvers and golds were predominant in the third canvas, an abstract study of amoeba-like shapes. When Kincaid saw the signature, his eyes narrowed. He went back and looked more carefully at the first two paintings. Again, the artist’s name was one he recognized. If these canvases were original, he thought, they must have cost a pretty penny indeed.

Just as he moved to the gateleg table, he heard the water shut off in the bathroom. He only managed a swift look at the papers spread out on the tabletop before Mortimer came back into the room.

“I’m sorry,” Mortimer said. His face glistened with perspiration. “I think I must be ill. Since Annabelle … I can’t seem to keep anything down.”

“It’s very stressful, keeping things to yourself, Reg,” Gemma said softly. “Why don’t you tell us what Annabelle said that night?”

Reg sat down, clutching his middle protectively, then with a grimace he sat up straight and clasped his hands between his knees. “All right. She said she’d been trying to make up her mind to tell me for months. She’d fallen in love with someone else. She hadn’t known, until she met him, what it was like to feel that way about someone—and she’d realized that even if he wouldn’t have her, she could never be satisfied with less.

“And then she stopped, in the tunnel, with an astonished look on her face—you’d have thought she’d seen the Second Coming. She told me to go, but I said no, we had to talk, so she said she’d meet me at the Ferry House in half an hour, if I would just leave her for a bit. So I walked away, and it was just like I told you—when I looked back I saw her talking to the busker. But I’d no idea she even knew him, much less … Was it him she meant? Gordon Finch?”

“We can’t be certain, but Finch says he broke off their relationship several months ago, and in the tunnel that night she pleaded with him to resume things. He says he refused her.”

“Refused her? But why?”

Gemma didn’t answer his question. “Did Annabelle tell you she wanted to end your engagement?”

“Not in so many words, no. But I suppose that’s what she meant—I thought if I just gave her time to calm down, she’d change her mind.”

“Did you wait for her?”

“No. I just walked for a bit, and the more I thought, the more it seemed that she couldn’t really have meant those things she said. When I got to the pub I thought she’d be waiting to tell me it was all a mistake.”

“And when she didn’t come?”

“I’ve told you.” Mortimer drew a breath. “I rang her, then went to her flat, but she wasn’t there.”

Kincaid regarded him with irritation. They knew Mortimer had gone to the pub, had rung Annabelle from there, just as he said. Forensics had not yet found any evidence that Annabelle’s body had been moved in her car, Reg didn’t own an automobile, and Kincaid couldn’t come up with any believable scenario in which Reg had persuaded Annabelle to go with him to the park, then strangled her.

“Reg,” said Gemma thoughtfully, “you knew Annabelle better than anyone, except perhaps her family—you’d been friends since you were children. She was very upset—shattered, even. What do you think she might have done when she left the tunnel?”

“Do you think I haven’t asked myself that a thousand times?” Mortimer demanded. Then he frowned. “But … when she needed a refuge, she went to the warehouse.”

“HOLD UP A BIT.” GEMMA CLASPED Kincaid’s elbow to steady herself as she slipped off her sandal and rubbed at her heel.

“Blister?”

She grimaced. “From the bloody tunnel, I think. I’d give anything for a plaster.” After leaving Reg Mortimer’s, they had walked from Island Gardens through the foot tunnel to Greenwich once again, avoiding rush-hour automobile traffic in the Blackwall Tunnel, and Gemma heartily regretted having worn new shoes.

“Not much further now,” Kincaid said sympathetically. They’d reached the entrance to Martin Lowell’s block of flats, not far from Greenwich center and the riverfront. The buildings here were redbrick, dark as dried blood, and showing signs of shabbiness. Rubbish had accumulated in corners of the courtyard, and the few shrubs looked stunted and neglected. “That looks like the flat number, straight across the court. A far cry from Emerald Crescent, I’d say.”

Gemma slid her shoe back on and straightened up. “Right, then. Let’s pay a call on Prince Charming.”

Martin Lowell yanked the door open before Gemma had even rung the bell. “What the—”

“We’d like another word, Mr. Lowell,” said Kincaid.

“I thought we’d done all that already. Look, I’m meeting someone—”

“It seems you left out a few things when we talked yesterday. Why don’t we go inside, unless you prefer we tell your neighbors about your affair with your sister-in-law.”

A door had opened two flats along and a woman with curlers in her hair was watching them with unabashed inquisitiveness.

His eyes still locked with Kincaid’s, Lowell muttered, “Nosy bitch.” But he stepped back, calling out as he allowed them into the flat, “It’s all right, Mrs. Mulrooney, nothing to worry about.”

Gemma looked round, thinking of the one time she’d visited her ex-husband’s flat after they’d divorced. Apparently there were some men incapable of making a dwelling into a home on their own—Rob had been one, and it looked as though Martin Lowell was another. This flat looked clean, at least, which was more than she could have said for Rob’s, but that was its only saving grace. The walls were the color of old putty, unadorned in any manner, and the sofa and matching armchair of a worn and undistinguished brown corduroy.

The obvious focal point of the room was a large new telly on a laminated stand. There was little else to speak of, other than a stack of financial magazines on the cheap coffee table, lined up neatly beside the remote control. The heavy mustard-colored drapes were pulled three-quarters of the way against the late afternoon sun.

“Why didn’t you tell us it was your affair with Annabelle that broke up your marriage?” Kincaid asked, moving about the room as he spoke, touching the magazines, examining the television. He stopped by the sofa as if assessing its welcome, then continued with his wandering.

Martin watched Kincaid uneasily, but didn’t invite them to sit. “I didn’t see why I should. I hadn’t seen Annabelle in a couple of years.”

“Not since she broke things off with you, in fact?” Kincaid stopped his pacing to peer into the small kitchen.

“That’s right. Was it Jo who told you?”

“Does it matter?” asked Gemma. “Were you expecting her to shield you?”

He gave her a bitter smile. “I see you’ve bought the Hammond sisters’ story lock, stock, and barrel, and I’m the villain of the piece.”

“Is it not true, then?”

“That I slept with Annabelle? Oh, that’s true enough. But it would have been all right, if Annabelle hadn’t told Jo.”

Gemma stared at him in repelled fascination, wondering just how covering up an affair with your sister-in-law made it okay.

“I suppose Jo told you Annabelle was just trying to make amends? Set wrongs right, or some such righteous crap?” Martin continued. “The truth is, Annabelle liked to stir things. She discarded men like a snake sheds skin, and once she’d no use for you, she liked to amuse herself by shredding your life to bits.”

“Are you saying Annabelle broke things off with you before she told Jo?”

“She’d set her sights on Peter Mortimer’s son—more socially advantageous for a girl going places. I suppose she thought the match would benefit her new position as managing director.”

“Perhaps she genuinely cared for him,” suggested Gemma. “Or felt comfortable with him. They’d been friends since childhood, after all.”

“If you think Annabelle did anything without an ulterior motive, you’re as stupid as all the rest of the poor suckers she sank her fangs into,” Martin said dismissively. “I even feel a bit sorry for Reg Mortimer—but not sorry enough.”

“How can you be so bloody callous?” Gemma felt the telltale flush of anger staining her cheeks, but she didn’t care. “You slept with this woman. She was your wife’s sister. She loved your children. Don’t you feel anything for her?”

For a moment she thought he would snarl back at her, but instead, he said with unexpected tenderness, “You’ve no idea what it was like to love her.… And then to be discarded with no more remorse than if she’d given an old pair of shoes to the jumble. To lose your home, and your children.” He jabbed a finger at her. “If I were you, Sergeant, I’d look very carefully at anyone Annabelle came in contact with. Because I promise you there’ll be others like me. Others whose lives she destroyed without a backwards glance. Do you think Mortimer killed her?”

“I’m more interested in where you were last Friday night, Mr. Lowell,” said Gemma, keeping herself in check. “Because Annabelle had reason to search you out. She’d learned what sort of poison you’d been feeding your son. Did she come here to have it out with you?”

“I told you, I hadn’t seen her in years. There was a time … just afterwards … but she wouldn’t see me, wouldn’t take my calls.”

“There’s still the little matter of the shares,” said Kincaid. “Annabelle must have drawn up that will before anything happened between you. Did she tell you she’d never changed it, but that she meant to now? You could use the money, couldn’t you?” He gestured round the flat. “It must be hard, paying support for two kids, and all because of her. The temptation would be tremendous.”

Lowell stared at Kincaid, his face blank. “That’s daft. I told you I had no idea about the will. And I didn’t see Annabelle on Friday night.”

“Then you won’t mind telling us your movements.”

“That’s easy enough,” said Lowell, and Gemma thought she detected a hint of relief in his voice. “I was with someone all of Friday evening. I spent the night at her flat.”

“And she’ll vouch for you … this friend?” Kincaid raised an eyebrow. “Is she married?”

“Of course she’ll vouch for me. She just lives round the corner. And no, she’s not married, or I wouldn’t have spent the night with her, would I?” Lowell answered reasonably.

There was a soft tap at the door, then it opened a few inches and, as if on cue, a woman’s voice called, “Marty?”

“Your alibi, by any chance?” guessed Kincaid.

“You might as well speak to her now,” Martin said with a shrug as the woman pushed the door wider and stepped into the sitting room. “This is Brandy.”

Martin’s visitor couldn’t have been more than nineteen. Her bleached hair was curled in a mass of long, tight ringlets, she wore a mini so skimpy Gemma felt sure her knickers would show when she sat down, and her halter top exposed a pierced navel.

“Marty?” the girl said again, looking at them curiously. “I got worried when you didn’t come at six, like you said. You know you promised you’d set up my tanning lamp.”

The corner of Kincaid’s mouth twitched as he glanced at Gemma. He said, “Some guys have all the luck.”

“JANICE IS SENDING A CONSTABLE ROUND to take a formal statement from Martin Lowell’s girlfriend,” Kincaid said as he returned from using the phone and sank gratefully back into his chair on Hazel’s patio. “Too bloody bad we don’t have enough evidence to search his flat—or Reg Mortimer’s, for that matter,” he added, retrieving his beer from the flagstone.

Gemma sat beside him, her legs stretched out in front of her, a bottle of cold cider cradled on her chest. She’d changed from her trousers into shorts and tank top, and had pulled her hair up off her neck with a flower-patterned scrunchy.

Hazel had invited them to stay for tabouli and a green salad, insisting that it was too hot for a cooked meal, or for Gemma to attempt preparing anything in her flat’s tiny kitchen, and she’d sent them out to the patio with cool drinks while she finished putting things together.

The children were running in circles on the square of lawn, seemingly oblivious to the heat, their half-naked bodies lit in flashes by the long, low shafts of sunlight streaking through the trees.

Sipping her cider, Gemma said, “I think it’s generous of you to elevate Brandy to the status of girlfriend. Martin Lowell should be ashamed of himself—and so should you for ogling her.”

“I didn’t ogle.”

“You did so. But I suppose you should get some dispensation, as she might as well have been going about in her bra and knickers.”

“You’d have thought Lowell would be more discriminating, after Jo and Annabelle,” Kincaid said, hoping to redeem himself in the matter of Brandy. “But how does a thirty-something banker manage to pull half-naked teenaged birds, tasteful or not?”

“I thought surely Martin Lowell couldn’t be as bad as Jo made him sound, but he’s a forty-carat bastard if I’ve ever met one,” Gemma said with feeling.

Kincaid glanced at her, amused. “I rather got the impression you didn’t take to him.”

“You noticed?” She smiled and settled a bit further down in her chair. “The odd thing is, I can see why they were attracted to him. Jo and Annabelle, I mean, and even Brandy.”

“The Heathcliff-in-a-suit looks?”

“He made me feel like a butterfly pinned to a board. If you didn’t know what a rotter he was …” She took a contemplative sip of cider. “Or for some women, he might be appealing even if they did.”

“Including Annabelle?” Kincaid asked. The sun dropped behind the roof of the house next door, and the garden seemed instantly cooler.

“Mrs. Pargeter, Jo’s neighbor, said she thought that Annabelle was so devastated by her mother’s death that she grabbed the first thing that looked like love. But if that’s the case, I think she must have realized fairly quickly what Martin Lowell was really like.” Gemma scowled. “What I don’t understand is why she told Jo. In spite of what Lowell says, Annabelle hasn’t struck me as a righteous sort, or as someone who deliberately hurt people.”

“Lowell seemed to want to have his cake and eat it, too, so Jo need never have known—”

“But he might have threatened Annabelle, told her he’d confess to Jo if she tried to end things. I don’t think he’d have let her go easily, and maybe Annabelle saw telling Jo as the only option.”

It seemed to Kincaid that Gemma was going to great lengths to whitewash Annabelle Hammond’s behavior. “What about her affairs with Gordon and Lewis Finch? Surely she knew Mortimer would be hurt if he learned the truth about those.”

“I think she was searching for something she hadn’t found in Reg Mortimer. And she kept those relationships secret. Up to a point anyway. She only told Mortimer there was someone else under extreme provocation.”

“If Mortimer is telling the truth,” Kincaid agreed with some skepticism. “I still believe he’s holding out on us. Did you get a look at his papers?”

Nodding, Gemma stretched out her feet and wiggled toes unencumbered by sandals. “Looked like bills and bank statements, but I didn’t catch the details. Were those paintings as valuable as I thought?”

“If I remember what I read recently in the Times, I’d say twenty to thirty thousand pounds apiece.”

Gemma whistled through her teeth. “Crikey. How could he afford that?”

“Family money?” Kincaid finished his beer, upending the bottle to get the last drops. “His father’s on the Hammond’s board, but from what I’ve seen, none of the Hammonds have that sort of lolly.”

“Posh flat, expensive furniture, expensive paintings, expensive clothes … and a stack of bills and bank papers.” Gemma wrinkled her nose. “Financial overextension? But I can’t see how that would give Reg a reason to kill Annabelle. He had everything to lose and nothing to gain.”

“He might have thought she’d left him her shares. Or that he’d get her position.”

“A big risk, either way, but we should do a bit of digging into his affairs—as much as we can without getting up Sir Peter’s nose,” added Gemma.

“I’m not happy about the Finches, either—major or minor,” Kincaid said, glancing at her. “I find it very hard to swallow that neither of them learned about the other.”

“Reg Mortimer’s story seems to bear out what Gordon told us—that he was the one who rejected her. What if it was because he found out about Annabelle and his father?”

“That would give him a bloody good motive for killing her—”

“Maybe when he found out, two or three months ago. But why kill her now? When she wanted to mend things between them?”

“We only have his word for that,” Kincaid said, irritated by her defense of Finch. “For all we know, she told him it was his father she was in love with, and he snapped and killed her.”

Gemma glared at him. “According to Mortimer, Annabelle said that even if the man she loved wouldn’t have her, she wouldn’t be satisfied with less—if you weren’t being pigheaded you’d see that Mortimer’s statement supports Gordon Finch’s.”

Stung, he retorted, “And you weren’t being pigheaded when you compromised your safety by going to Gordon Finch’s flat on your own yesterday?”

“Are you still on about that? Give me credit for a bit of judgment, will you? I wouldn’t have gone if I hadn’t felt perfectly safe, and I got results, didn’t I?”

“Yes, but—”

“Since when do I need telling how to do my job?”

Kincaid realized this was escalating into a full-scale row. “Gemma, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

“Shhhh,” she said suddenly, holding out a restraining hand. “Listen.”

It took him a moment to realize that it was the silence she meant. He sat up and looked round. The children had been huddled together, giggling, the last time he’d looked, but now they were nowhere to be seen.

“Toby?” Gemma called, setting her drink on the table and starting to rise.

Kincaid stood. “I’ll go see what they’re up to, the little buggers.” It would give him a chance to cool off.

The children were not allowed to go out the garden gate alone—even though it was only a few steps from the gate to the front door of Gemma’s flat, they would be unsupervised on a busy street. Kincaid’s heart quickened at the thought, and it was with difficulty that he kept his pace unhurried as he crossed the lawn, peering into the pockets of deeper shadow. They were simply hiding, he told himself, and as he neared the gate he caught a pale flash of movement behind the mock orange hedge.

Whistling faintly, he walked on by, and was rewarded by the sound of a stifled giggle. He backed up a step and stood looking round, as if confused, then whirled about and reached through a gap in the hedge. “Got you!” His hands closed on damp skin and the children squealed with delight. Gently, he extricated them from the shrubbery, then scooped Toby up under one arm and Holly under the other. Their small bodies were sticky from the drippings of the iced lollies Hazel had given them after their tea. “All right, you two. You stay where we can see you, or you’ll have your baths early and up to bed.”

“One more hide-and-seek, please, Duncan, pretty please,” wheedled Holly, while Toby squirmed and wiggled in his grasp.

“Can’t catch me, can’t catch me,” the boy chanted.

Kincaid tightened his grip. “I just did, you wiggle-worm. I’ll tell you what. If you’re both very, very, very good, I’ll read you a story after your baths.”

“In my room or Toby’s room?” Holly demanded, always the one for details.

Kincaid stopped and made a show of thinking, the children still dangling from his arms. “If you promise to be little angels, I’ll read the story in Toby’s room. And I’ll carry you home, Holly. How about that?”

“A fireman’s carry?” Holly had recently discovered the joys of bouncing upside down over his shoulder.

“If you like.” He plopped them in front of Gemma and they darted away like minnows scattering in a pond.

His arms felt weightless now, and the impressions of the children’s bodies lingered like an afterimage on the retina. Suddenly, he felt a longing for Kit so intense that it took him by surprise. He sat down clumsily, as if his legs had turned to jelly.

“You should have scolded them,” Gemma said crossly.

“Gemma—”

“What is it?” She turned to look at him, as if alerted by something in his voice.

“I—” he began, but he couldn’t find the words to express the sense of loss he felt. Instead, he said, “I suppose it’s this business with Kit that has me out of sorts. If he won’t talk to me on the phone, I’m going to Cambridge to see him.” He realized he’d made the decision as he was speaking.

“I thought he didn’t want to see you.”

“Hazel said I needed to let him know my feelings hadn’t changed, no matter how he behaved. How can I do that if I can’t talk to him?” he asked, his frustration rising again.

Gemma sat up in the lawn chair, frowning. “That was before Ian complicated matters by waltzing back into Kit’s life. Maybe it would be less difficult for Kit now if you just let Ian get on with the job.”

“Just bow out? Just trust Ian’s judgment after everything we’ve been through? What’s to stop him from moving Kit back into the Grantchester cottage, then changing his mind again in a month or two?”

Shaking her head, Gemma said, “What option do you have?”

“I can still see him,” Kincaid said stubbornly, wondering why Gemma suddenly seemed to be at cross-purposes with him over everything.

“All right.” Gemma sighed and sank back into the curve of her chair. “Go tomorrow, then. I’ll cover for you. Just make sure you’ve placated the guv first, and if all hell breaks loose while you’re gone”—she gave him a pinched smile—“it’ll be on your wicket.”

THEY ATE IN THE GARDEN, BY the light of citronella candles lit to keep the flies away. Hazel’s tabouli combined the richness of feta cheese, Provençal olives, and ripe tomatoes with the freshness of lemon and mint, and Tim had opened a chilled bottle of Pinot Grigio to accompany the dish. The children entertained themselves on the flagstones with a dog-eared deck of playing cards they’d discovered in the kitchen junk drawer, allowing the adults to eat in peace.

As Kincaid glanced across the table at Gemma, she turned and laughed at something Tim had said. In the candlelight, she looked relaxed and happy, and suddenly the thought of Annabelle Hammond intruded. Had Annabelle enjoyed her last dinner party as much as this?

She had been among friends, or at least so she thought—her sister, her fiancé, her sister’s friends, and her adored nephew and niece—and then her pleasant evening had disintegrated into nightmare. First Harry Lowell, then Reg, then Gordon Finch—all male, and all, it seemed, turned against her in some way. Had Annabelle gone to someone else for solace—a woman, perhaps?

He thought suddenly of Teresa Robbins. They’d taken her at face value, the loyal and distressed employee, a trifle plain, a bit colorless; and yet she seemed to have settled quite competently into Annabelle’s job. What if Annabelle had gone to her, confiding something that Teresa was unwilling to reveal? She might be protecting Annabelle’s memory—or she might be protecting Reg Mortimer.

Or perhaps such speculation was just his way of salving his guilt at the thought of taking a morning off in the midst of a murder investigation. But he made a mental note to ask Gemma to have another word with her in the morning.

After dinner, he offered to do the washing up while Gemma gave the children their baths. Hazel and Tim had taken the opportunity to go for a walk in the cool of the evening, so he had the kitchen to himself. There was no dishwasher—refitting the kitchen was one of the luxuries Hazel and Tim had forgone when Hazel had quit her private practice to stay home with Holly—but Kincaid found the routine of soaping and rinsing relaxing.

As he filled the sink with lemon-scented suds and took a clean tea towel from the drawer, it abruptly occurred to him that this sort of life was what he wanted with Gemma, and that he had begun to take its eventuality for granted. But Gemma seemed to be pushing him away lately, and he didn’t know how to close the distance starting to yawn between them.

The kitchen door swung open with a thump and the children burst in, dressed in their pajamas, shouting, “Story, story!” Behind them came Gemma, tendrils of damp hair that had escaped from her ponytail curling round her face.

When he’d finished his task and read to the children, Gemma poured them both a glass of wine and they took their drinks outside and sat together for a few moments on the steps that led from her flat up into the Cavendishes’ garden.

He massaged her back where he knew she liked it best, between her shoulder blades, and when she leaned against him he wrapped an arm round her and brushed his lips against the nape of her neck. For a moment he felt her respond, pressing against him; then she pulled away.

“Toby’s been restless the last couple of nights,” she said, rising and finishing her wine. “Must be the remnants of his cold. And I didn’t sleep all that well myself last night.”

“I can take a hint,” he said lightly, standing and kissing her chastely on the cheek. “I’ll see you at Limehouse in the morning.”

But once at home in his own bed he tossed and turned, unable to get comfortable, especially when Sid settled himself heavily across his feet. At last he gave the cat a gentle boot and made a concentrated attempt to clear his mind of all its circular, nagging thoughts. As he drifted off to sleep, an image came to him with the bright lucidity of a dream.

Gemma stood in a sunlit field of barley, the light sparking from her hair as she laughed. Then as he watched, he realized it wasn’t Gemma he saw at all, but Annabelle Hammond.

AT A TINY TABLE WEDGED IN the pub’s back corner, Teresa sat across from Reg Mortimer.

When she’d finally got home after shutting things down at the warehouse for the day, she’d found a message from him on her answer phone, asking her to meet him at The Grapes in Limehouse, on Narrow Street. It was the first she’d heard from him since he’d left the solicitor’s office after lunch, and his voice held an odd note, pleading, almost. As the machine clicked off, she automatically ran a hand through her hair and straightened her blouse, then chided herself for thinking he’d asked to see her for any reason other than business.

But she’d not been able to stop herself from brushing her hair and putting on a bit of makeup before she ran out of the flat to catch the DLR at Crossharbour.

At Westferry Station she left the train and, jostled by homeward bound commuters, made her way down the concrete steps from the platform. Squinting against the low evening sun, she turned right into Limehouse Causeway, then walked along Narrow Street until she came to the pub. The establishment was one of the historic fixtures of Limehouse, catering now to the upwardly mobile, and she knew it only by reputation, as it was not the sort of place one went on one’s own for a bite of shepherd’s pie or fish and chips.

She entered tentatively, squeezing her way among the suit-and-tied clientele packed sardinelike in the long, narrow space, until she spotted Reg in the far corner. He waved to her, and when she reached the table he stood and gave her an unexpected kiss on the cheek. He looked slightly flushed; his hair fell untidily on his brow and he looked even more handsome than usual.

“Thanks awfully for coming,” he said as he seated her. “Have you been here before? The crowds will thin out in a bit, and the food’s brilliant. I thought you could use a good meal. But first I’ll get you something from the bar, shall I? There’s a nice summer ale, a bit citrusy.”

“Lovely,” Teresa managed, and as he turned away towards the bar she leaned forwards and sniffed surreptitiously at his drink. Unadulterated lemonade, as far as she could tell, and not surprising, as he didn’t ordinarily drink—yet she could have sworn he was tiddly. Frowning, she watched him chatting to the barman with the same feverish jollity.

He came back with her drink and a menu, and when he sat their knees touched unavoidably in the small space under the table. “I’d recommend the fish cakes,” he said, opening her menu for her. “I know they sound boringly pedestrian, but they’re divine. And I’m sure there’s some sort of historical precedent—Dickens ate them, or something. Did you know this is supposed to be the pub Dickens called the Six Jolly Fellowship Porters in Our Mutual Friend? He described the bar as ‘not much bigger than a hackney coach,’ and that’s still true enough. It had the veranda overlooking the river in those days, too, though I daresay it’s a bit sturdier now, and the wooden ladder that descended to the ships so the watermen could climb up to the bar is long gone. We’ll go outside afterwards and have a drink, if you like, and in the meantime you can just imagine the bowsprit of an anchored square-rigger poking through the window and the hearty fellows drinking their pints.” He nodded at the window above her head and raised his glass. “To bygone spirits.”

Their eyes met as he seemed to realize what he’d said, and in the uncomfortable silence that followed neither of them spoke the name that hovered between them. Normally adept at filling silences and putting others at their ease, Reg was the least likely person she knew to make such an awkward remark. And yet tonight he seemed to be possessed by a sort of reckless desperation.

Searching for a way to rescue them both, she closed the menu without looking at it and said, “What about you, Reg? Aren’t you having anything?”

“Just some soup, I think, to keep you company. Is it the fish cakes, then?”

When she nodded, he got up again and gave their order at the bar. “There’s a proper restaurant upstairs,” he told her as he returned. “But I’m glad they’ve left the pub a pub. There ought to be some immutable things in the world, don’t you think?”

“Reg, I—”

“I’m sorry I buggered off this afternoon after the solicitor. I shouldn’t have, leaving you on your own like that.”

“Oh, no.” She shook her head. “It was quite all right, really. It’s just that I was a bit worried about you, when you didn’t come back to the office.”

“As if you hadn’t enough to deal with.” He looked at her, his face still for the first time, and after a moment added, “I have been a washout these last few days, haven’t I? I just can’t seem to stick it.”

Teresa blinked, surprised by such a personal admission. He had been quite useless at the office, if she were to be brutal about it, seemingly unable to manage tasks that he could ordinarily do without batting an eye. But she’d no idea how she would cope if she were in his position, and she knew people reacted differently to grief. Her own response had been to buckle down to the job, because it was the concentration that kept her going.

In the end, she didn’t deny his failures, but said, “Reg, if there’s anything I can do to help—”

“You’ve been a peach as it is.” He reached out and touched his fingers to her cheek. Suddenly very aware of his legs against hers, and of her response, she flushed with embarrassment, but didn’t withdraw her knees. It was wicked of her to hope, even, that he found her attractive, but she’d discovered that knowing the wrongness of it didn’t make the feelings go away.

The waitress arrived with their order, relieving Teresa of the necessity of responding to his comment. Rather to her surprise, she discovered that, in spite of everything, she was ravenous. The fish cakes were as good as Reg had promised and she tucked into them with enthusiasm.

He watched her, smiling, while he toyed with his soup, and when she’d finished he said, “Good girl. Couldn’t have you wasting away to nothing—where would Hammond’s be without you?”

The fears she’d managed to hold at bay the past few days clutched at her. “Reg, what are we going to do? Already, I’m finding things I don’t know how to handle—I can’t guess what Annabelle would have done—”

“Use your own judgment. Annabelle trusted you—it’s time you trusted yourself.”

“But I haven’t the authority,” she protested. “And the business was precarious enough even with Annabelle in charge.”

“You know what we have to do—”

“We can’t. Not now—”

“Then we had bloody well better find a way!”

Shocked at the savagery of his tone, she stared at him, until he raised his hand and touched her cheek again. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap at you. Let’s not talk about it tonight. I meant you to have a break from it all.”

“Reg … There’s more wrong, isn’t there? It’s not just Annabelle dying—Though there couldn’t be anything worse … could there?”

“How could there possibly be anything worse?” He stood up abruptly. “Let’s go outside. I’ll get us another round.”

She stood and followed him out onto the veranda. The sky was mottled a soft rose with the remnants of the sunset, and on the south side of the river lights twinkled in the renovated warehouses of Rotherhithe.

They stepped to the railing, and when she looked to the east she saw the revolving beacon atop Canada Tower. She turned away, her back to the river. She desperately wanted to forget the Island, even for just a short time, imagine another life altogether. On a bench at the side of the veranda a couple sat intertwined, the woman half in the man’s lap, their faces inches apart, and Teresa felt a stab of envy. Why shouldn’t she, for once, be the object of someone’s desire? Why should she always be the one on the sidelines?

Beside her, Reg said, “I am sorry. It’s just that I don’t want to think tonight. Does that sound horribly callous of me, to wish I could be someone else for an hour or two?”

“No. I was thinking the same thing, but I was ashamed to admit it.”

“Were you?” His arm brushed against hers as he moved closer; she could feel the warmth of his body protecting her from the small breeze that moved the river air. She thought of the way he had held her, and of the feel of his hand against the small of her back, and she shivered.

“Cold?” He put his arm round her shoulders and pulled her closer. “Who would you be, then, Teresa? For an hour or two. What would you want to do?”

Glancing up at him, she gave a mute shake of her head. She shouldn’t even think it—how could she possibly say it?

“Tell me,” he urged, and she felt his breath against her cheek. She closed her eyes.

“With you. I’d want to be with you.” She felt as if she were falling into an abyss.

He bent his head and brushed his lips against her throat. “Like this?”

“I … Reg—” He had placed his hand on her back, beneath her short linen blouse, and whatever weak protest she’d been about to make died on her lips. He moved his hand, stroking the soft skin on her side, then ran his fingers under the edge of her bra beneath her breast.

She jerked away, whispering, “We can’t—not here—someone will see—”

“Then we’ll go. Don’t move. I’ll call us a taxi.”

In a few moments they were away, clutching at each other in the bouncing darkness of a black cab’s interior; and then they were spilling out onto the pavement in front of her building. She felt dizzy, although she’d hardly touched the second pint of ale, and arm in arm they walked to the lift and down the corridor to her flat, where she fumbled the key into the lock.

He had her blouse off by the time they’d crossed the sitting room, and she had one fleeting and dismissive thought of her balcony-usurping neighbor and her open blinds before they reached the bedroom and fell panting onto her bed.

In the end, it was disappointing, his erection dwindling away at the crucial moment. Groaning, he rolled away from her. “I’m so sorry, love. ‘Sorry’—that’s all I seem to be able to say to you.”

“It’s all right,” she said softly.

“No it’s not.” He turned back to her, propping himself on one elbow and cupping her breast with his other hand. “It’s not you, love. You have to know that. I wanted—”

“I know what you wanted. It’s all right.” She pulled his head down to her breast and held him, stroking his back, and she was suddenly filled with a fierce and unexpected tenderness. When he had drifted off to sleep, she slipped her numb shoulder free and lay beside him until the windows paled, wondering what she felt, and how she could begin to justify what she had done.

IN THE LONG SUMMER OF 1940, Lewis and William learned to identify planes. Edwina had managed to procure black silhouette cards from a friend in the Royal Observer Corps, and every free afternoon they bicycled up into the hills and found a spot where they could scan the sky, cards at the ready.

The approaching drone of an engine brought a rush of excitement, and they soon recognized some planes from the engine noise alone. Junkers 88, Heinkels, Messerschmitts, Wellingtons, Blenheims, Lancs—they wagered on their favorites. At first the German planes were only occasional raiders, and after the first few it didn’t occur to the boys to be afraid.

To them the war still seemed a distant and imaginary thing. They played “English and Germans” with the other children in the village streets, and in the dark evenings they sat round the kitchen radio with John and Cook, listening to Tommy Handley’s ITMA and “Appointment with Fear,” which made them feel much more frightened than the news broadcasts, and Lewis learned to imitate Lord Haw-Haw so well that he kept Cook in stitches.

But as the weeks passed, more and more airplanes passed overhead and the radio broadcasts became more dire. France fell and Italy entered the war; John Pebbles joined the Home Guard, drilling on the Downs with an old shotgun borrowed from the Hall’s gun room; Holland fell, then Belgium, and people began to say that on still nights you could hear a distant rumbling, the sound of the guns in France. Lewis got himself up in the small hours on several occasions and went out in the yard to listen, but all he ever heard was the hooting of the owl that lived in the barn and the shuffling noises made by the horses.

In June, when the evacuations began from Dunkirk, Winston Churchill, now prime minister, pledged over the wireless, “We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills, we shall never surrender,” and Lewis tried hard to imagine that there were people fighting, and that his brothers were somewhere among them. Inspired by Mr. Churchill’s valiant words, he and William had long discussions about how they would resist if they were invaded, and in a clearing in the woods they made a makeshift shelter from an old tent of Mr. Cuddy’s and some tinned goods they had begged off Cook.

Then, one night in late July, Lewis was awakened by the sound of an explosion. Struggling into his clothes in the darkness, he ran down the stairs and out into the stable yard. Sparks floated above the treetops in the direction of the village, winking out as he watched. Then there was another crack of sound, followed by a jet of flame shooting up above the trees, and Lewis heard the sound of shouting.

“What is it? Did you see?” William came banging out the kitchen door, still tucking his shirttail into his trousers, and after him came Edwina, and then Mr. Cuddy in a dressing gown over trousers and braces, his hair standing on end. John appeared last, jogging down the hill from his cottage, the shotgun in his hand glinting in the faint light.

“I heard engines before the explosion,” John told them. “There’s a plane down, and the sooner we get there the better. There’s some in the village that might do something daft.”

A meaningful glance passed between John and Edwina. “Terence Pawley?” she asked.

John nodded. “Among others.”

Lewis knew that Mr. Pawley’s son Neville had been reported missing in France last week and that Mr. Pawley had been ranting wildly about getting his hands on Germans.

“Right.” Edwina sighed. “Come on, you two. You’re old enough to make yourselves useful.”

“I’ll get the car—it’s quicker,” John said, and ran for the garage.

Mr. Cuddy tightened the belt on his dressing gown. “I’m coming with you.”

Edwina turned back to him and said, “No, you’d better stay here, Warren. I need you to organize relief, if it’s needed. The boys can act as runners.”

Then John brought the Bentley round and the three of them piled into it and they were off down the drive. The sky above the village had begun to glow faintly red, lighting the way, and Lewis thought suddenly of how long the journey from village to house had seemed to him the first night he had come here, when the way was unfamiliar. His stomach clenched with anxiety at the thought of what they might find. He knew Edwina had been tactful as well as practical with Mr. Cuddy. The villagers had learned that the tutor spoke German: with feelings running high, there had been some talk of his being a spy.

John drove as fast as the blackout would allow, and as they rocketed round the last corner flames sprang from a crater gouged in one side of the village green, and out of the flames rose a bent, black shape: the tail of a plane—no, two planes, charred and twisted together in an obscene embrace.

As they spilled out of the car and ran towards the gathered onlookers, the smell caught Lewis in the throat—the hot oiliness of burning fuel combined with the sickly sweetness of roasting meat.

“What’s happened?” he heard Edwina ask.

“A Wellington bomber,” a man said, and when he turned towards them Lewis saw that his face was streaked with soot and sweat. “Must have collided with the German plane. We couldn’t get anyone out.”

“Roasted,” said Terence Pawley beside him, with what sounded almost like glee. “The lot of them. Serves them right, bloody Huns.”

“Shut up, Terence.” The sooty-faced man turned towards him angrily. “There’s our boys dying in there as well.”

Lewis thought he heard a faint sound, an echo of a scream, and the smell threatened to rise up in his throat and choke him. He was able to make it to the edge of the green before he threw up his supper. And then he realized that he was crying, and that William was beside him, white-faced with distress.

“They must have known they were going to die, trapped like animals,” William said, but Lewis only straightened up mutely and wiped a shaking hand across his mouth.

They watched from a distance until the flames died and the wreckage took shape in the slow-spreading dawn. The German plane was revealed as a Junkers 88, and there were bits of both planes scattered all over the village. “A miracle,” everyone murmured, that none of the houses had been hit. As the day wore on, it became evident that the debris was not strictly mechanical—the postmistress fainted dead away upon finding a severed leg in her garden, and other grisly bits of human remains continued to turn up for days afterwards. The younger children hunted for souvenirs with great enthusiasm, but for Lewis and William the war had abruptly ceased to be a game.

As the hot days of August wore on, the raids into London became more frequent. And although life went on much as before, Lewis woke often in the night from dreams of fire that left him heartsick with fear.

On Saturday, the 7th of September, a few minutes before four o’clock in the afternoon, the boys were bicycling up Holmbury Hill when they heard the drone of engines overhead. Both stopped and glanced up—checking almost automatically now to see whether they were fighters or bombers—to find the sky filled with German planes. Hundreds of them—heavy, pregnant bombers surrounded by squads of smaller fighters—swept in majestic, inexorable order across the sky towards London.

When the last plane had disappeared into the distance, they turned and cycled back to the Hall as if the winds of hell were behind them. They found everyone, even Edwina, gathered round the kitchen wireless, and there they waited for news. The reports were garbled, inconclusive, but as the hours passed, Lewis’s dread grew into a terrible sense of certainty.

Towards evening, Cook brewed them another pot of tea, and making up some bread to go with it, she insisted that they must eat something. But that week the cat had got into the ration of butter, reducing them to putting drippings on their bread, and for Lewis what had been meant as a comfort was an unbearably sharp reminder of home. Pushing his plate aside, he ran blindly out of the kitchen.

He sought refuge in the barn. Over the months he had come to find the sounds and scents of the animals comforting, and eventually he settled down on one of the bales of hay near Zeus’s stall and drifted into an exhausted sleep.

He woke in darkness, disoriented, to the sound of William’s voice and a hand on his shoulder, shaking him.

“Lewis, wake up. It’s the East End. They’ve said on the wireless. The Germans have bombed the Docks.”

“What?” He sat up, his mouth dry.

“John’s been up Leith Hill. You can see it from there, now it’s dark.”

“See what?” Lewis said again, stupidly, his brain refusing to take in the words.

“The fires. The East End is on fire, Lewis. London’s burning.”

CHAPTER 12The Docks were easily identifiable from the air and were attacked more than any other civilian target. Nearly 1,000 high explosive bombs and thousands of incendiaries were dropped.… At the same time large areas of residential Dockland were devastated. During the whole of the blitz, 30,000 people were killed. Slightly more than half of these casualties were in London and a high proportion of these were in Dockland.

Paul Calvocoressi, from Dockland

“What was it you wanted to talk to me about?” Teresa Robbins asked as she moved to the table set up against the back wall of her office. The long trestle had been placed under the windows, and held cups, teapot, and electric kettle, as well as the bowls and tins Gemma had begun to associate with the paraphernalia of tea-tasting. “I’ll just make us a cuppa, shall I?” she added, glancing at Gemma over her shoulder.

“Just a few routine questions,” Gemma answered, nodding assent to the tea. She watched Teresa fill the kettle from a bottle of spring water; it seemed to her that the woman’s fingers trembled slightly, belying the composure of her face.

Having seen Kincaid off on his way to Cambridge at Limehouse Police Station, Gemma had arrived at Hammond’s shortly after opening time, intent on interviewing Teresa again.

Unlike Mortimer’s, the office Teresa and Annabelle had shared was large enough to accommodate two desks facing one another yet still leave a comfortable aisle down the center of the room. Nor did it suffer from the executive pretensions that gave Reg’s office such an odd air of incongruity. The desks were of workmanlike oak and looked both comfortable and well-used—except that Annabelle’s had been cleared of everything except blotter and generic office accouterments.

Wooden tea chests stamped in either red or black ink were stacked about, and a simple bookcase held a collection of novelty teapots. The room smelled of tea and, beneath that, an elusive fragrance that Gemma couldn’t quite identify.

Seating herself in the chair nearest Teresa’s desk, Gemma studied her as she poured boiling water into a simple white pot, stirred it once, then set a small timer. “I didn’t realize it was so scientific,” Gemma said, nodding at the timer.

“What?” Teresa looked blank. “Oh, the timer.” She turned and leaned against the table while she waited for the tea to steep. “That’s one of the first things you learn, especially in tasting. If the brewing time isn’t consistent, you can’t compare the strengths of the teas. William insists on five minutes, but you can almost stand your spoon up in it. I’m afraid I’m a bit of a wimp, so I stick at four and a half.”

“What are we having?” Gemma had not seen a label on the bag from which Teresa had spooned the tea.

“An English breakfast blend, mostly Assam—that’s a strong, black, Indian tea,” Teresa explained. “I usually switch to the Ceylons in the afternoon. They’re a bit lighter, more flowery.” The timer beeped and she poured a little milk into the two teacups she’d warmed with water from the kettle, then poured tea into the cups through a fine mesh strainer. She brought Gemma one cup, along with a spoon and sugar bowl, and sat down at her desk with her own. “It’s a habit I learned from Annabelle, and Annabelle from William.” The glance she gave Annabelle’s vacant desk seemed almost involuntary, and she hastily gazed back at her cup.

“Are you the one who cleared Annabelle’s desk?” asked Gemma, tasting her tea. It had a malty richness to it, and she thought it better than any she had ever drunk.

“I’ve shoveled everything into the drawers for now,” Teresa admitted. “It’s just that I couldn’t bear looking at her things. Silly of me, I suppose. It’s not as if I don’t think about her every minute anyway.” She looked up and her pale blue eyes met Gemma’s. “I know you’ll think I’m daft, but sometimes I can almost feel her in the room. And I keep thinking I can smell her perfume.”

Gemma remembered the barely perceptible odor she had noticed a moment ago. “A sort of woodsy, citrusy scent?”

“You can smell it, too? She had it specially made. It had bergamot in it—that’s what’s used in Earl Grey blends. She always said it was more suited to perfumes than tea.”

“I doubt we’re dealing with a ghost here,” Gemma assured her. “Strong scents tend to linger on things—it’s just that in other circumstances you’d probably not notice.”

“Yes, I suppose you’re right,” Teresa agreed, but she didn’t sound convinced. She looked almost pretty today, in a soft blue summer dress, her fair hair pulled back with a matching blue hair slide. But she would always have paled in comparison with Annabelle, no matter the effort she made. Gemma wondered how much she had minded.

Gemma drank more of her tea, making a vow to buy some of it at the first opportunity. “Is Reg Mortimer not in this morning?” she asked.

Teresa flushed. “No, he wasn’t feeling well. This has all been dreadful for him.… Reg was devoted to Annabelle.”

“But was Annabelle devoted to him?”

“What … what do you mean? Of course she was—”

“Then why was she unfaithful to her fiancé on more than one occasion?”

Teresa’s hand froze on the delicate handle of her teacup. “What?”

“Didn’t she confide in you? I thought she might have.”

“Confide what? What are you talking about?”

“Did you know that Annabelle had an affair with Martin Lowell? That’s what broke up his marriage to Jo. Reg only learned about it the night Annabelle died.”

“Martin Lowell? That can’t be true—there must be some mistake,” Teresa breathed.

“No mistake. Harry Lowell brought it up at Jo’s dinner party. Reg was livid. He’s admitted it now, but not until we played ring-around-the-roses a few times.”

“It can’t be true,” Teresa said again, her eyes enormous in her pinched face. “Why would Annabelle do such a thing?”

“I thought perhaps you could tell me.”

“She did take her mother’s death very hard,” Teresa said slowly. “Or it seemed so to me, but I’d only worked for her a few months and didn’t know her very well.” Bitterly, she added, “Although it seems I didn’t know her much better after five years, did I? Annabelle always made it such a point to stress honesty in business dealings—but it seems that didn’t apply to her personal life.” She looked up from her teacup. “You said there was someone else?”

“Plural. It seems that Annabelle had a relationship with a man called Lewis Finch, and with his son, Gordon.”

“Lewis Finch? The Lewis Finch?” Teresa repeated. “Are you sure?”

“Do you know him?”

“No, I … Only by reputation,” said Teresa, but she sounded uncertain.

“Were you aware that William Hammond disliked Finch?”

“But everyone admires Lewis Finch,” protested Teresa. “He’s done so much for the Island—I know Annabelle thought he was brilliant.”

“Did Annabelle talk about him to you?”

“Not in a personal way, but I knew she’d met him.”

“And his son, Gordon? Did she ever talk about him?”

“No, never. I didn’t even know Lewis Finch had a son.”

Gemma wondered if Annabelle had kept her own counsel out of necessity or if she’d enjoyed having secrets. She said, “Annabelle spoke to Gordon Finch the night she died—he was the busker Reg Mortimer saw in the tunnel. This was just after she’d told Reg she was in love with someone else, and after they’d had a huge row over her affair with Martin Lowell. You can see this puts things in rather a bad light for Reg.”

Teresa started to rise, then closed her eyes and sat down again, looking quite white and ill. “I’ve been a bloody fool.”

“Why? What’s happened?” Gemma asked quickly.

Teresa opened her eyes and stared at Gemma as if realizing what she’d said. “It’s personal.… Reg never said—it’s nothing to do with your investigation.”

“Teresa, if this has something to do with Reg, you’re better off telling us now. You could make yourself an accessory if you’re protecting him out of some mistaken sense of loyalty.”

“No, I don’t know anything, honestly. It’s just …” She hesitated, then said in a rush, “Have you ever done something so stupid that you think you must have taken leave of your senses?”

Involuntarily, Gemma thought of dancing with Gordon Finch in the park. Had Teresa been as susceptible to Reg? “Why don’t you tell me about it?” she said gently.

“No, I …”

Teresa jumped as the phone rang, and after a glance at Gemma fumbled it off the hook. She listened, murmuring an occasional reply, then gently returned the phone to its cradle.

“That was Mr. Hammond. He’s requesting a meeting of the board tomorrow morning, at Martin Lowell’s insistence.”

“And this means—”

“They’ll decide who’s going to take over Annabelle’s job as managing director.”

“Is it between you and Reg, then?” asked Gemma.

“Unless William decides to take over again himself. Or they could bring someone in from outside.” Teresa reached for a stack of papers, put them back, and looked about distractedly. “I’ve the financial reports to prepare.…”

Gemma leaned forward. “Teresa, you need to tell me what’s happened between you and Reg. You can’t judge what bearing it has on our investigation.”

Teresa shook her head firmly, but Gemma saw that the fair skin on her throat had suffused with color. “No, I can’t. I won’t. I’ve just been a silly cow, because I wanted to think I could offer some comfort—” She swallowed and her hands moved over the papers again. “But it wasn’t comfort he wanted. He wanted to get back at Annabelle, make it even, because he found out what she’d done. And I just happened to be convenient.”

“Teresa, did you sleep with Reg? Is that what you’re saying? If he confided in you—”

Teresa smiled. “Apparently, he hasn’t told me half as much as he’s told you. I can’t help you.” She rose. “I’ve the data to prepare for the financial reports, and it looks as though I’ll be putting together the marketing reports as well, since Reg has made himself scarce.”

Knowing she’d get no further at the moment, Gemma took a card from her handbag and placed it on Teresa’s desk. “You ring me if you want to talk, or if you think of anything you haven’t told me. Anytime, day or night, all right?”

When Teresa nodded, Gemma took her leave, but stood for a moment on the catwalk, looking down at the main floor of the warehouse. She thought about the relationships among the people who had come together in this building, bound by a web of concealments and half-truths that had just become exponentially more complicated. Because she knew something now she hadn’t known half an hour ago.

If her instincts served her right, Teresa Robbins was in love with Reg Mortimer, and Reg had taken full advantage of the fact. But to what purpose?

• • •

AS REG TIED HIS TIE IN his dressing table mirror, he thought of Annabelle, of how he had liked to watch her when she was getting ready to go out. She had made up her face with such concentration, like an artist putting the finishing touches on a painting, but the end result had been almost invisible—she had simply been more beautiful.

She had been as self-absorbed as a grooming cat, and at the time he had found it amusing. But that detachment had carried over into other aspects of their relationship, and he wondered now how he had found it acceptable. Even in bed she had always seemed somehow removed from him, as if there were some part of her he could never reach. Had she been that way with the others, too?

The thought made him feel physically ill, and the sweat broke out again on his forehead. This morning when he left Teresa’s, he’d meant to go straight into work after coming home to shower and dress. But by the time he reached his building, he’d felt so unwell he collapsed on the sofa until the spasms in his stomach had subsided.

Everything in his life seemed to be crumbling beneath him, and it was all he could do to keep panic at bay. He couldn’t ask his parents for help—his father had bailed him out of difficulties once too often, and last year had cut him off altogether, making it clear he wouldn’t soften his position.

But if he could only find some way to hold off his creditors for a while longer … and if he could convince William to support his nomination as managing director to the members of the board, he might have some hope of survival.

And then there was Teresa. She at least believed in him, and he wondered how he could have failed to appreciate the virtues of such steady loyalty until now.

His phone rang, startling him. He crossed to the bedside table and picked it up.

It was Fiona, the Hammond’s receptionist, telling him that Miss Robbins had asked her to inform him that Mr. Hammond had called a meeting of the board for ten o’clock tomorrow morning. When, his heart sinking, he asked why Teresa hadn’t rung him herself, Fiona replied awkwardly, “I’m sure I don’t know, sir,” and rang off.

Reg let the phone fall back into the cradle. Whatever the bloody hell had happened now, he wasn’t sure he had the bottle to face it.

IN THE AFTERNOON OF THE SECOND day of the bombings, Edwina found Lewis in his room in the barn, packing his bits of belongings into the old, battered suitcase. He straightened and faced her defiantly, expecting to be chastised for his disobedience, because when he’d begged permission that morning to go to London, she’d refused him.

But instead she sat down gracefully on the room’s only chair, looking at him with such understanding that he was forced to turn away and stare out the window at the sparrows nesting under the eaves in the barn.

“Lewis, you must not do this,” she said quietly. “I know how desperately worried you are, but the only thing you can do for your family is to stay where they can reach you.”

“But—what if … I can’t bear not knowing—”

“We don’t know how long the bombing will go on, and this is why they sent you away, to keep you safe. How would your mother feel if you went to London and were hurt or killed, and all this year had been for nought?”

He shook his head wordlessly, but found some unexpected comfort in the thought of his mother’s anger.

“The East End is in chaos,” Edwina continued. “You know that—you’ve been listening to the reports on the wireless. And William’s parents confirmed what we’ve heard—they managed to ring through from Greenwich to tell us that the Hammond’s warehouse was not badly damaged. It’s quite possible that your family has been relocated, and in that case you’d not be able to find them. The only sensible thing to do is wait. I’m sure we’ll hear something soon.” He heard the chair legs creak as Edwina stood, then felt the light touch of her hand on his shoulder. “Promise me you won’t do anything rash.”

After a moment, he managed to nod and say, “All right,” but he still couldn’t bring himself to look at her.

“You’re a sensible boy, Lewis,” Edwina said, giving his shoulder a brief squeeze. “I knew I could count on you.”

Lewis heard her go down the stairs, her booted steps as quick and precise as she was in everything, but he didn’t feel sensible at all. In his heart he knew he’d failed his family, left them to an unknown fate that he should have suffered with them, and that his safe and sensible retreat marked him as an outsider and a coward.

THE HOUSE ON STEBONDALE STREET WAS was hit by an incendiary bomb on the third night of the Blitz, but this Lewis didn’t learn until almost a week later, when he received a note in the post. The paper was much blotched and stained, but the neatly looped, convent-school handwriting was instantly recognizable as his mother’s.Dear Lewis,The house is gone but we are all right. The third night the bombers came a fire bomb hit right on top of the house but we had gone round to the McNeills in Chapel House Street and went down their Anderson shelter when the alarm sounded. So it was lucky for us wasn’t it? They have given us a flat in Islington for now with two other families; it’s not very clean but at least we have a place to lay our heads. I will write more soon remember I love you.Your loving mother

Lewis had gone every day to wait for the post at the bottom of the drive, and now he stood, staring at the tattered paper, until the tears blurred his vision and splashed onto the page. He knew that William and Edwina and Mr. Cuddy and even Cook were watching him anxiously from the house, as they had every day, but he couldn’t seem to move.

After a bit, William came down to him, but Lewis found he couldn’t speak, either. He was forced to hand William the letter to read for himself.

William read, squinting at the unfamiliar script, his lips moving silently. Then he looked up, a grin spreading across his face, and whooped and pounded Lewis on the back, shouting, “Hooray! Bloody hooray!” and after that it was all right.

IT WAS MIDMORNING BEFORE KINCAID STARTED for Cambridge, after having made a stop at the Yard. He concentrated on negotiating London traffic until he reached the M11, then he popped a jazz piano tape Gemma had given him into the Rover’s tape deck and settled into the right-hand lane, determined to make good time.

The music was improvisational, the drifting notes of the piano sometimes as ethereal as wind in the grass, or as liquid as running water. After a bit, in the sort of free association often brought on by long-distance driving, the music seemed to combine his thoughts of Kit with memories of the long days of his own boyhood.

He’d spent his summer hols running wild with all the freedom of a child growing up in the country, packing his lunch in the mornings and setting out to roam, on foot or on his bike. Sometimes he’d gone with friends, and sometimes alone, if he could manage to ditch his little sister. He’d climbed trees and swum in the canals and taught himself to fish with absorbed and infinite patience.

Of course, there must have been wet days, and boring days; in retrospect, however, they were all idyllic, filled with the heady tonic of adventure. But what had made his confidence possible, he realized now, was the knowledge that when he returned home in the evenings, his mum and dad would be home from the shop, supper would be cooking, and Miranda would be wanting him to play Monopoly or catch.

His foundation had seemed unshakable; it had never occurred to him that it could collapse as easily as a house of cards.

It was almost lunchtime when he pulled into the Millers’ drive and stopped the engine. Laura Miller had been Vic’s secretary at the university English Faculty, and a good friend as well. Her son, Colin, had been at school with Kit, although the Millers lived in Comberton, a hamlet a few miles from Grantchester. Laura’s willingness to take Kit in for the past few months had provided the boy a haven of familiarity while the school term lasted.

To Kincaid’s surprise, Laura answered his ring herself. “I thought you’d be at work,” he said, kissing her cheek.

“It’s summer hols for me, too,” she said as she let him in. She wore white shorts with a bright madras cotton blouse, and her fair skin was faintly flushed from the heat. “Come back to the kitchen. It’s cooler there.”

The house was a comfortable, suburban semidetached, filled with the trail of discarded shoes and sports equipment that marked habitation by boys. “Colin’s gone quite football-mad this summer—I don’t know what’s got into him,” Laura said as she cleared a kitchen chair of a ball and a pair of dirty socks. “Sit down and I’ll get you something cold to drink. Ginger cordial?”

When he nodded assent, she went on, “I’ve been trying to ring you this morning.” Handing him a glass filled with milky liquid and a few ice cubes, she sat down at the table. “What’s going on, Duncan? Kit came back from London doing a perfect impersonation of the sphinx—and then yesterday Ian McClellan showed up here and said he’s back in Cambridge for good. It was just this morning I finally got Kit to tell me that Ian intends to take him back to the Grantchester cottage.”

“Ian’s seen Kit, then?”

“He didn’t stay long. That’s all Kit’s been willing to say about it, he won’t talk about you at all, and he refuses to leave the house. I’m really quite worried about him.”

“I told Kit I was his dad,” Kincaid confessed reluctantly. “The night before Ian rang me up in London.”

“Oh, dear.” Laura looked aghast. “No wonder he came back in a royal funk.”

“I knew it might take a bit of getting used to, but I rather thought he liked me.… I suppose I’d even hoped he might be pleased.”

Laura shook her head. “You were Kit’s escape from his old life, someone unconnected except for those last few weeks, a friend.”

“But a father, surely—”

“I don’t think you understand, Duncan. To Kit, parents are the last people you can count on. They run away and leave you. Or die. I don’t think anything could have frightened him more.”

Kincaid stared at her, wondering how he could not have seen it. “Oh, Christ. I didn’t realize … How can I possibly sort things out with him after this?”

Frowning, Laura said, “I don’t know. I suppose you can try to reassure him that things between you won’t change.” She nodded towards the patio door. “He’s at the bottom of the garden.”

ABANDONED GARDENING TOOLS AND A SCATTERING of empty plastic pots near the house told him that Laura had been working in the perennial beds, which got full sun before several old oaks turned the bottom of the garden into a shady retreat. He whistled for Tess, who came up to greet him, tail wagging, but he didn’t see Kit until he’d rounded the first tree.

Kit sat with his back to the trunk, arms wrapped round his knees, regarding Kincaid with an expression of sullen wariness.

“Hullo, sport.” Kincaid squatted and scratched Tess behind the ears. “Where’s Colin?”

For a long moment Kit didn’t answer, then he said grudgingly, “Next door. He went to borrow some nails.”

In the grass, Kincaid saw what looked like the beginnings of a rudimentary platform at the end of a series of small trestles made with logs. “What’s it for?” he asked, nodding at the platform.

“Tess.” At the sound of her name, the dog left Kincaid and sat expectantly at Kit’s knee.

Kincaid squinted at the pieces of plywood. “Okay. But what’s it for?”

“It’s an obstacle course,” Kit said impatiently. “There’s supposed to be a ramp, and a dispenser for tennis balls, but we can’t figure out how to make the dispenser work.”

“I could probably come up with something,” Kincaid offered.

Kit shook his head. “It’s our project, Colin’s and mine. And besides, you haven’t the time.”

Kincaid ignored the dig. “I thought maybe we could get some sandwiches in Cambridge, take out a punt.”

“Punting’s stupid,” Kit said, looking away. “And Laura’s making beefburgers. I don’t want to go out.”

“Okay.” Kincaid sat down in the grass. “Maybe we could just talk, then.”

“I don’t want to talk, either.” Kit pressed his lips together and wrapped his arms tighter round his knees.

“How about if I talk, and you listen?” Kincaid suggested. “You don’t have to say anything.”

When Kit didn’t answer, he went on, picking his words carefully. “I’m sorry about what I said the other night. But it doesn’t change anything between us. It’s just a fact, like having blue eyes, or blonde hair. It doesn’t mean I’m not your friend, or that I’d have done anything differently if there weren’t that connection between us. It’s just extra, like icing on the cake.” When he paused, Kit blinked, but still didn’t look at him.

“I’m not going to stop being your friend, no matter what. You can still visit me in London, just like before, if it’s all right with Ian—”

“I’m not going back there! Not to the cottage.” Kit jumped up and turned his back on Kincaid, then kicked at the tree, but not before Kincaid had seen his eyes fill with tears. “You can’t make me!”

“Kit, I didn’t come here to make you do anything. But you can talk to me about it. Tell me why you don’t want to go back.”

Kit shook his head, but this time the gesture seemed anguished rather than stubborn.

“Is it because of your mum?” Kincaid asked very gently, praying that for once he had said the right thing.

“I can’t—” Kit’s voice broke and Kincaid could see the effort he was making to continue. “She’s not—”

When he didn’t go on, Kincaid thought furiously for a moment, then said, “Kit, do you remember when you ran away from your grandparents, and I found you at the cottage? You were asleep in your bedroom, you and Tess. And you felt safe there, didn’t you?”

After what seemed a very long while, Kit nodded.

“It wasn’t such a bad feeling, was it?” Slowly, knowing he was treading on very unsure ground, Kincaid added, “It might be a good thing, even, to remember some of the times with your mum—”

“I want to stay here, with Laura,” Kit said, turning to face him. For the first time, this seemed a plea rather than a refusal to consider alternatives.

But it was a desire Kincaid had no power to grant. He temporized, carefully. “Well, perhaps you could just go over for a visit, have a look round, see how things feel. Have you seen Nathan lately?”

“No.” Kit dug the toe of his trainer into the grass. “Not since I finished the fish project I was doing for school last month.”

“You could pay Nathan a visit. I’ll bet he’d like to see Tess.”

Kit shrugged, frowning, but didn’t reject the idea.

“I could even take you, if you like,” Kincaid offered, looking away, trying to impart an impression of nonchalance.

Kit shook his head, but slowly, as if he might be thinking about what to do. “I suppose I could ride my bike.” He looked up and met Kincaid’s eyes for the first time. “Would he be there … my dad?”

Kincaid sat down on the old garden chair the boys had been using as a carpenter’s bench. “I don’t know. How did you leave things with him?”

“He said he had a lot of things to do this week at the college, and getting the house ready, but he’d come this weekend and move my stuff—” Kit’s voice rose at the last and he clenched his hands, looking round as if the thought made him want to bolt in panic.

“Whoa. That’s ages from now,” Kincaid said soothingly. “You can only do things one day at a time, sport. Sometimes life is so bloody that’s the only way you can get through it. But the good bit about living one day at a time is that when nice things happen, you enjoy them more than people who are always thinking about the past or the future.”

Kit frowned at him, looking unconvinced, but to Kincaid’s relief, his hands and shoulders had relaxed.

The odor of grilling meat reached them, and from the kitchen Kincaid heard the murmur of voices. Knowing his time was running out, he said, “What if you go over on your own this afternoon, just for a bit of a recce, then you give me ring and we’ll talk about it. What do you say?”

The kitchen door opened and Colin came out to the edge of the patio and waved. “Mum says will you stay and have beefburgers?” he called out.

Kincaid cupped his hands and yelled, “Wouldn’t miss it!” then turned back to Kit. “Is it a deal, then?” He held out his hand, palm up, an invitation for their customary high five.

Kit looked towards the patio, where Colin was making a face and a hurry-up gesture, then at Kincaid. He shrugged. “Okay,” he said at last. “I suppose it can’t hurt just to have a look.” With a slap of his palm against Kincaid’s, he turned and darted off towards the house, followed by a furiously barking Tess.

Kincaid watched them go, his relief at making a bit of progress marred by the awareness that he’d just done his best to give his son into the care of a man he neither liked nor trusted.

AFTER RETURNING FROM HAMMOND’S, GEMMA SPENT the remainder of the morning at Limehouse, sifting through the accumulated reports and the logs of telephone and house-to-house inquiries. When Janice returned at lunchtime, they called out for some sandwiches and coffee, clearing a space to eat on one of the desks in the incident room so that they could compare notes.

“Did we get Martin Lowell’s girlfriend’s statement?” Gemma asked.

“It’s here somewhere.” Janice dabbed at the bread crumbs that had fallen on the papers nearest at hand, then reshuffled them until she found the relevant copy. “Brandy Bannister, aged nineteen, resident of—”

Washing down a bite of her tuna on brown bread with a sip of tepid coffee, Gemma snorted dangerously, precipitating a fit of coughing. “Brandy Bannister?” she sputtered when she had recovered sufficiently. “Suits her. You could almost feel sorry for her if she weren’t such a nit.”

“That bad?”

When Gemma nodded, mouth full, Janice continued, “It is a bit unfortunate. You always wonder what parents could have been thinking.” She looked back at the report. “At any rate, Brandy says she was with Martin Lowell from eight o’clock on, when they had dinner at the Trafalgar Tavern. They left the tavern about eleven and went directly to her flat, where they gave one another full body massages”—Janice raised an eyebrow—“and she says she’s sure she’d have known if he’d left at any time during the night.”

“Full body massages? Not the kind that would pass a licensing board.”

“Like that, was it? Do you think she’s a reliable alibi, or would she lie to protect him?”

“I think she’s too witless to carry off anything more complicated than saying she’s sure he stayed the entire night when she actually slept like a log—and if Martin killed Annabelle he’d have needed a bigger fabrication than that.”

Janice glanced at the statement again. “How so?”

“Annabelle would’ve had to contact him in the missing two hours, between the time both Mortimer and Gordon Finch say they saw her last: around ten, and before midnight, when the pathologist estimates she died.” Frowning, Gemma took another bite of tuna sandwich. “Let’s send someone round the Trafalgar—see if we can confirm they were there and stayed until eleven.”

“It’s a big place, lots of traffic. But suppose we can confirm it, what’s to say Martin didn’t go directly back to his flat and find Annabelle waiting for him?”

“I guarantee you Martin Lowell didn’t take Brandy out for a nice evening of intellectual stimulation and kiss her good night at her door.”

“Well, what if he stopped off at his flat for condoms or something, found Annabelle waiting for him, and killed her there? Then he went on to Brandy’s flat for a good time, got up in the wee hours and went back to his flat, stuffed Annabelle’s body in the boot of his car, and dumped her in the park,” Janice suggested.

“I suppose it’s possible. But he’d have to carry her body across the open courtyard of his building—not a very safe prospect even in the middle of the night. And he has a very nosy neighbor. We might send a PC to have a word.” Gemma finished her coffee and tossed the cup in the rubbish bin.

“What about Teresa Robbins? Anything new on Mortimer from her?”

“Only what we should have guessed from the beginning—she’s quite besotted with him, or at least she was until she learned Reg hadn’t told her what he knew about Annabelle’s affairs.”

“That would give Teresa a motive,” mused Janice. “What if Annabelle went to see Teresa that night—she was that upset, wanted a friend to talk to—”

“And Teresa decided to kill her so she could have Mortimer for herself? Why not let nature take its course? It doesn’t sound as though Reg and Annabelle were likely to have patched things up.”

“She could have helped Mortimer, though, if he killed Annabelle.” Janice poked distastefully at the remains of her tomato on white. “And he’s still the best fit for it, in my opinion.”

“Except for the fact that if he killed her elsewhere, he’d no way of moving her. And I can’t imagine how he’d have convinced her to go to the Mudchute when she was alive.”

“Maybe he followed her, saw her meeting someone else?” Janice met Gemma’s eyes.

“Gordon Finch?” they said at the same time.

Then Janice shook her head. “But why would she meet him in the park? It’s the same problem as with Mortimer, and Finch doesn’t own a car, either. His landlady didn’t provide him an alibi, by the way. Says she has no idea when, or if, he came home that night, and she’s not sure she’d have noticed if he’d had a visitor.”

The strength of Gemma’s disappointment surprised her. She hadn’t realized until that moment how much she’d hoped that someone would provide him an unshakable alibi for the time of Annabelle’s murder. “I wonder,” she said slowly. “If we assume it was Gordon she meant when she told Reg she was in love with someone else … why did Annabelle call Lewis Finch?”

“When Gordon turned her down, she took the next available number?” Janice offered.

“I don’t believe that. Not when she’d just told Reg she wouldn’t settle for anything less than the real thing. Maybe she wanted a shoulder to cry on—”

“Lewis Finch? Not bloody likely! Don’t make the mistake of underestimating Lewis,” warned Janice. “And don’t be lulled by his well-barbered looks and Savile Row suits into thinking money’s made him soft. The man’s a shark, and he’s bloody relentless when he’s after something.” Janice scowled. “Which reminds me—I’ve been doing a bit of inquiring. With the idea of a connection between the Finches and the Hammonds, I remembered I’d heard a rumor or two that made me curious, so I stood the head of the Neighborhood Association a few pints.

“It seems that for the past several years, Finch, Ltd. has shown an extremely active interest in buying the Hammond’s warehouse. The company has developed several similar riverfront properties, and Hammond’s occupies a prime location, one of the last holdouts in what’s now almost entirely a residential or mixed residential/commercial area.”

“But nothing came of it?”

“No. Apparently, William Hammond refused to sell, and he still maintains a controlling interest in the firm, even though Annabelle had taken over as managing director. What’s odd is that Finch has apparently passed up a couple of similar properties in the last year.” Janice swirled the remains of the coffee in her cup, grimaced at it, then set it down and lit a cigarette. “This is just the sort of project that Gordon would actively protest.”

“Why?” Gemma brushed the last crumbs from her blouse and settled into a more comfortable position in the hard plastic chair.

“You have to understand what happened here. The last of the Docks closed in the late seventies, and by the early eighties the Island was a rotting wasteland. I know because I watched it happen as I grew up, and by the time I finished school the prospects were bugger all.” Janice shook her head. “But there are those who criticize any development on the Island—they hate the yuppie in-comers and the disintegration of the old neighborhoods, they’re angry because there’s less and less housing available to the working-class people who made the Island what it is—”

“And that’s how Gordon Finch feels?” Gemma asked.

“The paradox is that without the development, the Island would have become a massive slum in the last ten or fifteen years, and I think he’s reasonable enough to see that. But there are problems and conflicts of interest that could be handled more sensitively.” Janice sighed and tapped ash into the tin ashtray on the desk. “The irony is that both Gordon and Lewis Finch want to preserve the Island, and their aims aren’t necessarily incompatible. I see both sides every day, and there are concerns that need addressing. You can’t have the sort of massive redevelopment we’ve undergone on the Island without mistakes and excesses—but I’m no dinosaur: I’d not see things go back to the way they were.”

Gemma doodled on the page of her open notebook as her mind sorted details. “If Lewis Finch has been aggressively pursuing Hammond’s property, why didn’t he mention it when we saw him? He admitted to the affair with Annabelle readily enough.”

“My mate knew about that, too.”

“Did he?” said Gemma, thinking that she was finding it more and more difficult to believe that Gordon hadn’t. “Did he know about Gordon and Annabelle, then?”

“No, that one was a proper shocker.”

Slowly, Gemma said, “What if Annabelle’s interest in Gordon and his family had to do with the possible sale of the Hammond’s property, rather than rebellion against her father’s strictures? Remember, Gordon said she sought him out.”

“Surely Gordon Finch couldn’t have slept with the woman for months without finding out what she was up to—and that’s assuming he wasn’t already aware of his father’s interest in the property. My mate in the Neighborhood Association is the world’s worst gossip, and if he knew …”

Gemma was beginning to feel she’d been played for a fool all round. Snapping her notebook closed, she stood up. “I’m going to have another word with him.”

“Gordon? What about Lewis?”

“I want the truth from Gordon before I tackle his father. I’ll ring you in a bit.” Ignoring the thought of the friction it had caused with Kincaid the last time she’d paid Gordon a visit, she gave Janice a farewell wave and took off.

LEAVING HER CAR IN THE LIMEHOUSE car park, Gemma walked the short distance down West India Dock Road and caught the DLR at Westferry Station. She’d had a sudden desire to see the Island from the elevated train, and the thought of her car’s metamorphosis into a traveling oven in the afternoon heat made the prospect seem even more inviting. Clouds had begun to build as the day wore on, as they had yesterday, but a storm had yet to break the heat’s grip on the city.

As the train slid into the Canary Wharf Station, Gemma looked up at the soaring glass arch of the terminal and thought about the Island. The architecture of the terminal echoed the great Victorian railway stations in boldly modern terms, as perhaps Canary Wharf itself expressed the same optimism and opportunism that had driven the Victorians who conceived the great docks.

The pneumatic doors closed with a sigh and the train moved on, crossing the middle section of the West India Docks. Office buildings and expensive flats filled the waterfront spaces once occupied by the warehouses, while sailboats and Windsurfers vied with the ghosts of the great ships that had unloaded their cargoes here.

If progress was inevitable, it seemed that Lewis Finch had done what he could to save the buildings themselves, adapting them to new uses, while Gordon strove to preserve the unique social structure of the Island, and to her it seemed a shame that father and son were unable to reach a compromise.

The train made a sharp left after the main section of the West India Docks, stopping at South Quay Station, where the damage from the IRA bomb that had exploded in the car park was still visible; then it turned right again to parallel the north-south Millwall Dock. To her right was the London Arena, followed on the left by Teresa Robbins’s building and the ASDA Superstore. Beyond that were the high banks of Mudchute Park and the hoardings that hid the construction at Mudchute Station.

After Mudchute the train seemed to spring into the open, crossing the expanse of Millwall Park on the old Millwall viaduct. She caught a glimpse of East Ferry Road, and of the bowling green nestled in the walls of the Dockland Settlement, then they were crossing over Manchester Road and pulling into Island Gardens Station.

As she left the train she stood for a moment on the elevated platform, looking down at Annabelle’s flat and just to the left, where she knew the entrance to the foot tunnel lay hidden by the trees of Island Gardens. She had a sense of imprinting the geography of place and players on her mind, a framework for the pattern of events that had led to Annabelle Hammond’s death—then she ran down the circular stairs and set out to look for Gordon Finch.

She tried the park first, and next the tunnel, but the spot under the plane tree was empty, and the guitar player had taken up the pitch in the tunnel again, prompting Gemma to wonder how he could possibly scrape together a living from busking. Tossing a few coins of condolence into his case, she turned away and climbed back up into the sunlight.

When she emerged from the tunnel, she turned left into Ferry Street at Annabelle’s flat and followed it until it made a sharp right angle at the Ferry House pub—the route Reg Mortimer said he had taken the night of Annabelle’s death. At Manchester Road, Ferry Street became East Ferry Road, and a short walk brought her to Gordon Finch’s flat. How easily, thought Gemma, Annabelle could have left the tunnel and gone either to the pub or the flat, and she wondered suddenly where Lewis Finch lived. Gordon had said that his father had moved back to the Island—perhaps near his office? She made a mental note to check the address when she got back to the station.

Today, no sound of the clarinet came from the flat’s open windows. Gemma crossed the road and knocked at the blue door, telling herself that he might be busking at South Ken today, or even in Islington.

But after a moment, the door opened and Gordon stared at her groggily. “Gemma?”

“Did I wake you?” she asked. His hair stood even more on end than usual, and one side of his face bore faint crease marks, as if from prolonged contact with a wrinkled sheet.

He shook his head as if to clear it, said, “I suppose you did,” then added, “I sat in on a recording session last night; didn’t finish until dawn.” He yawned. “If you’ve come to interrogate me, you’d better come in. Just let me put on some coffee.” There was a click of toenails as Sam came down the stairs, and after a questioning look at his master, he went out into the small side garden and efficiently did his business.

When the dog had finished, Gemma followed them both up the stairs. The flat looked very much as she’d seen it before, except that the narrow bed was unmade. Sam stretched out beside it with a sigh and closed his eyes.

“He’s getting too old for such late nights,” said Gordon, giving up his attempt to straighten the covers. “Though you’d have thought he slept just as much at the studio.” He squatted to rub the dog’s ears. “I suppose he doesn’t care for his routine being disrupted.” Standing again, he gestured at the small table. “Make yourself at home, why don’t you,” he said, but Gemma couldn’t detect any evident sarcasm. As he disappeared into the bathroom, he added, “I won’t be a minute.”

When he returned a few moments later, his hair had been smoothed down and his shirt buttoned the remainder of the way.

He put water on to boil and took a cafetière and a bag of ground coffee from the cupboard in the small kitchen. As he spooned out the coffee, he gave Gemma a questioning look, but she shook her head. “No thanks. I just had some at the station, unspeakable as it was. You’d think it was a deliberate attempt to poison us.”

Hearing herself sound idiotic, she quelled any further impulse to babble by asking, “What were you recording?”

“Some mates of mine in a rock band wanted a clarinet solo on one of their tracks.”

“Do you do much studio work?” she said, her natural curiosity providing her an easy avenue.

Gordon shrugged as he poured the hot water over the coffee. “I never turn down an offer—makes a break from busking.”

“I wouldn’t have thought that many bands used clarinets.”

“I play anything—jazz, classical, even backing for adverts; I’m not a bloody music snob. It works both ways, you know.” He glanced up at her as he poured coffee into one of the two mugs he seemed to own. “The rock guys who think classical is rubbish are just as stupid as the classical blokes who think rock is rubbish.”

Blowing across the top of his cup, he took an experimental sip, then sat down opposite her, his eyes now clear and focused. “So, Sergeant, what is it you want from me today?”

“The truth.”

He raised an eyebrow. “I thought we’d done that.”

Gemma plunged in. “You must have known your father was interested in buying the Hammond’s warehouse and developing the property. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Hammond’s? You mean Annabelle’s business? Why should I have known that?” he answered reasonably. “I haven’t seen my father in—”

“It was common enough knowledge that your mate in the Neighborhood Association knew about it. You expect me to believe he neglected to mention it to you? And that’s assuming you hadn’t heard it already from someone else.”

Gordon stared at her, his face expressionless. “My father buys properties all the time—it’s what he does. Why should anyone have bothered to mention one he hadn’t managed to acquire? You’re giving significance to things after the fact that hadn’t any before, Sergeant.”

She stared back at him, regrouping. “All right, let’s try it from the other direction. All those questions you said Annabelle asked you about your family—were some of them about your father’s business?”

“They might have been, I suppose, but I’d not have thought anything of it—people tend to be curious about him.”

“And you never wondered, when she sought you out and seduced you, if she might have had some ulterior motive?”

“Are you saying she needed one?” His eyes met hers in a challenge.

Gemma felt the color rising in her face. “I think that once you learned who Annabelle was, you’d have made sure you heard anything that had to do with Hammond’s, and especially if your father happened to be involved. What I don’t understand is why you’re lying about it.”

When he didn’t answer, she continued, “I think you knew about your father and Annabelle. I think you knew about your father’s interest in her business. And I think you’ve lied to me from the beginning about your feelings for Annabelle. She was in love with you. That’s what she told you that night, wasn’t it?”

Gordon’s knuckles whitened on his coffee mug. His voice dangerously calm, he said, “You know fuck-all about it. Nothing was about love with Annabelle. It was about power. I’m not stupid, Gemma, and I was only willing to be used for so long—”

“You broke things off with her because you found out she was sleeping with your father. You loved her. You never stopped loving her. But you wouldn’t forgive her.”

“Forgive her?” Gordon shoved back his chair and shook a cigarette from the packet on the counter, then lit it with an angry strike of a match. “Why should I even have believed her? And what difference would it have made if I had? Can you imagine what an aboveboard relationship with Annabelle Hammond would have meant? Do you think I’d have let myself be vetted by her family to see if I passed muster? That I’d have put on a coat and tie and gone to work as her flunkey in the family firm?”

Gemma stood up so quickly that her chair rocked and teetered. “You lied to me. And I put myself on the line for you!”

“Is that what this is about? You and your professional credibility?” His face was inches from hers. “That’s bollocks. I’ve been interviewed by the police before, and they didn’t dance with me in the park, or come alone to my flat. You want me to be honest with you, Gemma, then you be honest with me. You tell me this isn’t about you and me.”

“I … You …” Gemma couldn’t look away from him, and to her dismay she felt herself trembling.

“You can’t, can you?” He was almost shouting now, and he plunged his unfinished cigarette into his barely touched coffee. Sam opened his eyes and looked up at them, his brow furrowed. “Don’t accuse me of holding out on you when you won’t admit that.”

“All right, goddamn it,” Gemma said, her own voice rising. “It’s not about my credibility. It’s not about the job. It’s about whatever this is between us—”

Gordon grabbed her roughly by the shoulders. He stared down at her, and the pressure of his fingertips seemed to burn her bare skin.

In an instant of appalling clarity, Gemma saw that his fair eyelashes were darker at the roots, that he had a small indented scar at the inner edge of his brow from chicken pox, and that he had a crease in his lower lip. She smelled toothpaste and coffee and cigarettes on his breath, and the strong odor of his skin that came from sleeping. Her eyes strayed to the rumpled bed and she saw Annabelle, her perfect body naked, her red hair spread out beneath him … and then she saw herself there, with him—

A phone rang, shrill and nearby. Gemma jumped, heart pounding. She jerked herself free from his hands. It took her a moment to realize that the phone was hers, tucked into the pocket of her handbag.

“Answer it then, why don’t you?” Gordon was breathing hard.

“I—” Gemma took another step back, groping for her bag. “No … I—I’ve got to go.” Her fingers closed on the strap of the handbag. She turned and ran down the stairs as if the devil himself were after her.

“TURKEY,” SAID COOK. “WE’RE GOING TO have the biggest turkey you’ve ever seen—just let that Mr. Hitler think he can spoil our Christmas,” she added indignantly, wiping the tip of her red nose on her apron.

“And mince pie?” prompted Lewis. He sat at the kitchen table, feet tucked round the chair legs, laboring over an essay for Mr. Cuddy on the historical basis of Italy’s war against Greece.

Although he was no longer awed by the Hall—he ran carelessly up and down the stairs to the first-floor schoolroom where he and William had their lessons with Mr. Cuddy, and he now knocked on the door of Edwina’s drawing room without hesitation—he’d taken to doing his lessons in the kitchen. It was always warm and filled with good smells, and he’d learned he could make the occasional response to Cook’s chatter without really paying attention.

“Don’t you tell a soul about my mince pies,” cautioned Cook. “Why, just the other day I heard that Mavis Cole trying to bribe the grocer for a few sultanas. If word got out, we’d have half the village here begging for a taste.”

Fruit of any kind—fresh, dried, or candied—had become extremely rare, but Cook had a few jars of last Christmas’s mince tucked away in the pantry and meant to make the most of it. Lewis suspected that in spite of her admonition, she’d already dropped a careful hint or two in the village, and was very much looking forward to being besieged with requests. And if he suspected as well that Cook had a soft spot for him, he had no qualms about taking advantage. “That’s because your pies are the best,” he said, looking up from his paper.

“You’re a flatterer, Lewis Finch; you mind yourself,” said Cook, fanning herself, but her face turned just a shade ruddier and Lewis knew she was pleased. “Now what about them onions for your mum? Shall we pack them up nice with some of my marrow and ginger jam?”

“Yes, please. And some of the greengages?” Lewis gave her his best smile.

There had been no question of Lewis’s going home for Christmas this year. Although the attack on Coventry on the 14th of November had marked the beginning of a decrease in raids on London, the bombs were still falling. And even had it been safe, there was not really anyplace for him to go. The damage to the Stebondale Street house had been irreparable; his parents had been finally resettled in a tiny, one-room flat in Millwall, a few blocks from the Mudchute.

The food shortages were even more evident in London than in the country, and he and Cook had conspired to send a few much-prized things, including onions from the Hall’s kitchen garden. His mum had written that she’d seen a lone onion on a cushion in a greengrocer’s window, priced at 6d, and that the sight of it had made her weep with longing.

His mother wrote often, full of news of fires tamed and rescues carried out in the course of her new duties as a volunteer ARP warden. After the chaos of the first few nights of bombing, she’d been determined to make herself useful and had gone about it with her usual practicality. And besides, she’d confessed to Lewis in a letter written on a late night watch, it helped take her mind off worrying about his brothers, who had been posted together to a cruiser in the North Atlantic—and about Cath, who had taken to going to the cinema and staying the night in a public shelter if the warning sounded while she was out.

“Greengages it is,” Cook agreed, twinkling. “Your mum and dad will think Father Christmas came in the post.”

John came in then, his arms full of faggots for the stove, and as he and Cook talked about the business of the day, Lewis went back to his essay. In the past year he had discovered, to his surprise, that he rather liked schoolwork. Mr. Cuddy even made history interesting, and he had determined that the children should understand the war in what he called an “historical context.” They had put an enormous map up on the wall in the schoolroom, and kept track of the campaigns in Europe and the Mediterranean with pushpins and colored pencils. This made the names of places mean something to Lewis, but every once in a while a glance would remind him how close their little part of England was to Occupied France, and he would shiver. He tried not to think about what would happen if Hitler decided to send his armies across the Channel. At least for now he seemed to be busy elsewhere, though in a dream Lewis had seen Hitler’s mind as a great red eye, turning this way and that, and the image had haunted him ever since.

William banged through the door from the corridor, bringing Lewis back to his unfinished essay with a start. “I’ve finished mine,” William taunted him with a grin. “Race you to the shops. Edwina wants a newspaper before they close, and she said I could get some glue for my model.”

“Right,” said Lewis, letting his chewed pencil bounce onto his paper, and they jostled one another out the door and into the courtyard.

A sun the color of blood was setting against a translucent sky etched by the black skeletal silhouettes of trees, the air smelled of frost and wood smoke, and the last of the leaves swirled suddenly on the courtyard cobbles as if stirred by an invisible hand. Lewis stopped, seized by a sensation he couldn’t quite put a name to, but it reminded him of the way he’d felt when he’d watched one of the great ships steam into the docks at home.

Then the moment passed as William shouted for him to hurry, and he pounded off down the drive.

A WEEK LATER, LEWIS WAS CROSSING the courtyard after finishing up his midday chores in the barn when he looked up and saw his mother standing in the kitchen doorway. He stopped and blinked, believing for a moment that his eyes were playing tricks, but it was his mum in her old bottle-green coat and the plum-colored felt hat she kept for “best,” and she smiled and held out her arms to him.

He ran then, skidding across the drizzle-slick cobbles as he reached her and was enveloped in a fierce hug. To his amazement, he found that his face was on a level with hers, or perhaps a bit higher.

“Lewis Finch, I swear you’ve grown a foot.” She held him off so that she could study him. But although she was still smiling, there was something not quite right about her voice, a quaveriness. Up close, he saw that her pale skin had the faint blue cast of fresh milk, and there was a puffiness round about her eyes.

“You said you weren’t coming to visit,” he said, ignoring the tiny prickle of fear. “Did you get my present? Is that why you’ve come? Where’s Da?” Then a sound from the kitchen drew his attention, and he looked past his mother into the room. Cook sat at the table, her apron drawn up over her face, and he suddenly knew it was a sob he’d heard, for he could see her shoulders shaking.

He looked back at his mother, stepping away. “What is it? What’s happened?”

“We’ll go for a walk—somewhere we can talk,” she said, slipping her arm through his, but she didn’t meet his eyes, and from the kitchen he heard Cook sob again.

He led her blindly, out through the gate in the back of the yard, across the blackening stubble in the pasture, to the old stone wall that marked the lip of the valley. Below them, the trees marched down the slope and up the other side, their branches as gray today as the mist that shrouded them, like wraiths standing in a sea of russet leaves.

“We had a telegram,” his mother began in a careful, level voice. “A supply convoy and its naval escort were attacked in the North Atlantic—”

“Is it Tommy? Or Edward?” Lewis interrupted, the knowledge of what was coming squeezing the air from his lungs. He heard a faint buzzing in his ears, and unbidden, the names of the German battleships he’d read in the newspapers flashed before him: the Scharnhorst, the Gneisenau, the Admiral Scheer.

His mother didn’t answer. When Lewis dared look at her, he saw that she was staring down into the valley, her face still except for a tiny tic at the corner of her mouth.

“No.” Lewis tried to shout it, but the mist seemed to catch the word, dampening it in cotton-wool fingers.

“Your brothers were born ten months apart,” his mother said slowly. “And from the very first they always wanted to be together.” She turned to him at last, touching his cheek with her cold fingertips. “Oh, Lewis … I’m afraid that’s all the comfort we have.”

WHEN GEMMA HAD FIRST MOVED INTO the Cavendishes’ garage flat, which had only a tiny shower, Hazel had given her carte blanche use of the bathtub in the house. She’d seldom found time to take advantage of the offer, but tonight, after the children had been bathed and got ready for bed, she’d brought over a towel, a dressing gown, and a handful of CDs and locked herself in the bathroom.

Hazel kept a small CD player on the shelf above the tub, insisting that music not only kept the children calm in the bath, but restored her own sanity, and at the moment Gemma felt in dire need of a little restorative treatment. She started the water, added lavender bath gel, lit the candles Hazel kept ready, then hesitated over the choice of music. In the end, she chose Jim Brickman over Loreena McKennitt, and as the unaccompanied notes of the piano filled the room, she slipped out of her clothes and dimmed the lights.

The bathroom was large enough to have existed as a dressing room in a previous incarnation, but Hazel had managed to make it serene and cozy at the same time. A stained-glass lamp produced multiple reflections in the mahogany dressing table’s time-speckled triple mirrors; the walls had been sponged a soft, periwinkle blue with a border of seashells; and a bookcase held volumes for perusing while soaking in the clawfoot tub.

But the books didn’t tempt Gemma for once, and the room did little to calm her troubled thoughts. She sank down into the foaming water, willing herself into the music as if she could absorb the clean simplicity of it.

Involuntarily, however, she looked down at her body, half submerged in the water, and touched her bare shoulders as if Gordon Finch’s fingertips might have left a tactile impression on her skin. Even remembering the sensation made her shiver, then flush with shame. She’d tried telling herself that nothing had actually happened between them that afternoon, but she knew she’d teetered on the very edge of temptation—and that if she had fallen she would have compromised both her career and her relationship with Duncan irrevocably.

As much as she wanted to believe Gordon innocent, he was a suspect in a murder investigation, and her behavior had been rash and dangerous. The fact that she suspected something similar had happened to Duncan on a case they’d worked last year didn’t make her feel any better, and he’d at least not been involved with her at the time.

She closed her eyes and eased herself further down into the water, wishing she could wash away what had happened. But she knew that no amount of guilt or regret could alter the connection that existed between her and Gordon Finch—a connection she somehow had never doubted was mutual, a connection so powerful it had made her contemplate throwing away everything that made her who she was.

The thought frightened her so much she felt tears well behind her closed eyelids. She blinked them angrily away. Were her commitments to the job and to Duncan flimsy fabrications that would crumble under the slightest pressure?

Could it be that she didn’t know herself at all?

CHAPTER 13The trade and industry which had first brought work and workers to the Island in the nineteenth century was now in terminal decline. One by one, in the 1970s the remaining factories closed their gates and moved away; rumours that the Docks too might close, proved to be all too true. The last ships came and went.

Eve Hostettler, from

Memories of Childhood

on the Isle of Dogs, 1870–1970

Teresa Robbins dressed carefully in her best pale blue suit and white lawn blouse, even putting on tights, although it took the help of a bit of talcum powder to get them up in the morning’s sticky heat. At least the sky was solidly overcast, she thought, and there was hope the weather might break by the end of the day.

She painstakingly applied her makeup, and at the last minute used a bit of spray to set her hair—all the while feeling as if she were the condemned going to face the guillotine. Sharply, she reminded herself that it was unlikely anything that happened to her today could be worse than the things she had endured in the past week.

She had thought her grief for Annabelle more than she could bear, until Annabelle had been revealed to her as a liar and a cheat; she had thought she and Reg might find some comfort in one another, until she’d learned that he had used her for the most unconscionable sort of revenge.

Yesterday she’d steeled herself to face him, but he hadn’t come in at all, and she’d gone home exhausted after a day spent preparing ever more dire financial predictions for this morning’s meeting.

As she walked down Saunders Ness from Island Gardens Station, she wondered if she could bring herself to work for Reg if they made him managing director, or if she wanted to go on at Hammond’s at all if they brought someone in from outside.

Then she’d stepped into the building and smelled the familiar combination of scents—motor oil and dust overlaid by the rich perfume of the teas—and she wondered how she could possibly bear even the thought of leaving.

William arrived first, looking stern but rather frail; then Sir Peter, dapper and cheery; then Jo; and finally, Martin Lowell, whom Teresa had never met. She stared at him curiously, but couldn’t read the expression on his darkly handsome features.

Reg did not arrive until they were assembled in Teresa and Annabelle’s office, and in spite of everything that had happened between them, Teresa couldn’t help feeling a spasm of concern. He looked exhausted, possibly even ill. As he took his seat in one of the chairs gathered in a semicircle round the desks, he closed his eyes.

William called the meeting to order, and as Teresa read her reports she was conscious of Martin Lowell’s gaze on her.

When she’d finished, there was a moment’s silence. After a glance at William, who nodded, Sir Peter looked round at them and said, “There are obviously many issues that need addressing, but today our primary concern is to decide who will be in charge of the day-to-day operations of the firm. As great as is our loss, we must think of the future of Hammond’s—”

“If there is any future to think of,” Martin Lowell interrupted impatiently. When he knew he had their attention, he went on, “It’s obvious that this firm is facing a financial crisis, and as my children now have a considerable interest, thanks to Annabelle’s generosity, I intend to do whatever I can to resolve this.” He smiled, and they all stared at him as if mesmerized—even Peter Mortimer, whom Teresa had seldom seen lose command of a situation.

Jo was first to recover. “Look here, Martin. You can’t just start in as if you owned the bloody—”

“You have as much at stake as anyone, Jo—your own financial security as well as the children’s. Surely, you’re not willing to see that frittered away through mismanagement—”

“Just a minute, Martin,” broke in Sir Peter. “No one’s suggesting—”

“I’m suggesting that you cannot even begin to consider as the new managing director of this firm someone who has proved himself incompetent.” Martin looked directly at Reg, who paled even further.

“Wait a minute.” Reg pointed an unsteady finger in Martin’s direction. “You’ve no right to—”

“And what’s more, how can you possibly consider giving Annabelle’s job to someone who is accused of murdering her?”

“You bastard! No one’s accused me of anything. If anyone should be suspected of murdering Annabelle, it’s you. Everything that happened that night started with you and the things you told Harry. It was you Annabelle was furious with—” Reg lunged at him.

William and Sir Peter started to their feet, but Jo was already up and shouting, “Stop it, both of you! You’re like two jealous dogs fighting over a bone, and she’s dead, goddamn it! Just leave it alone—”

“That’s enough, all of you.” The others turned to look at Sir Peter. Martin had stayed in his seat, but his color was high; Reg was white and shaking with fury; tears streaked Jo’s face. “This is difficult enough for everyone without indulging in this sort of histrionics,” Sir Peter continued, loudly and firmly. “And Martin, I don’t believe making unfounded allegations about my son benefits anyone.”

Lowell nodded but didn’t apologize. Reg had opened his mouth as if he meant to defend himself, when his father cut him off. “Reg, you and Teresa are both under consideration for this position. You may vote your shares now, but you’re aware your percentages are too insignificant to affect the outcome—”

“Then why bother?” Reg’s face was still pinched with anger.

“As you wish,” Sir Peter said smoothly. “But in that case, I think it would be best if you both left the room until we can come to a decision. Why don’t you wait for us in your office.”

Teresa stood up, catching sight of the grief and shock etched on William’s face as she did so. A wave of weakness invaded her knees, and she suddenly realized how desperately she wanted out of the room, away from emotions so raw they seemed to rip the air.

Straightening her spine, she crossed the office with deliberate steps; at the door she turned and waited for Reg.

He took one last look round the room, as if defying anyone else to speak, then he turned and joined her.

They walked down the catwalk to his office in silence, and as he shut the door behind them, he said, “It’s a bloody farce—may the best man win and all that. I’m fucked without this job, well and truly fucked—did you know that, darling Teresa?”

“I don’t want—I never meant to take anything from you,” she said hotly, angry tears smarting behind her eyelids. “You—”

“Then why wouldn’t you talk to me? You had bloody Fiona ring me to tell me they meant to crucify me—”

“That had nothing to do with this. It was you—you lied to me about what happened with you and Annabelle that last night. You were furious with her because you found out what she’d done with those other men—and then with me.… You used me to pay her back, didn’t you? Even though she was dead.”

Reg stared at her blankly. “What are you talking about?”

“You … you made love to me because you knew Annabelle cheated on you, and I was the first thing that came along after …”

“That’s daft, Teresa. It never even crossed my mind. I wanted you. I wanted someone who wouldn’t turn away—but you did.” Moving a step closer, he said, “You believe them, too, don’t you? You think I killed her.”

“No, I—”

Reg grabbed her, his thumbs digging painfully into the soft flesh of her arms. “Don’t bloody lie, Teresa. I can see it on your face. You—”

The door swung open and Jo exclaimed, “What the—”

Slowly, Reg let Teresa go. “What’s the verdict, then?” he demanded. “Banishment from the kingdom?”

“Reg, I’m sorry.” Jo shook her head. “We’re asking Teresa to step in as acting director.”

He gave a strangled laugh that was almost a sob. “Not you, too, Jo?”

“I’m sorry,” Jo repeated. “It’s not because I think you murdered Annabelle—I don’t believe that. But I think it’s the best thing for the company. You’re out of control, Reg. You need—”

“All you Hammonds can go to hell, so just shut up, Jo. Don’t you dare tell me what I need.” He turned away from her, back to Teresa, and his eyes were bright with tears. “They’re right, you know. If anyone can salvage what Annabelle sowed, it’s you—but don’t say I didn’t warn you about the consequences of throwing your lot in with the Hammonds. They’ve a bloody talent for betrayal.”

JANICE LOOKED UP FROM HER DESK at Kincaid and Gemma conferring in the corridor. There was a tension between them this morning, subtle but evident if one was aware of the signs. If Gemma was trying to juggle the personal and the professional, as Janice now strongly suspected, she didn’t envy her the task—although she supposed that even if Kincaid was a bit of a prat sometimes, he was not bad as far as men went.

Of course, everyone’s frustration level was running high—it had been six days since they’d found Annabelle Hammond’s body, and they weren’t much further forward. So far, forensics had not turned up anything of significance in either Annabelle’s flat or her car, and they were still processing the samples from the warehouse.

Kincaid had had another meeting with his chief superintendent that morning, and Janice knew the brass was pressuring him to come up with something. She still had her money on Mortimer—he was the obvious suspect with the clearest motive—but they’d not been able to put together enough evidence to justify searching his flat. It was too bad—

Her phone rang. She picked it up quickly, reaching for a cigarette. A distressed female voice asked for Sergeant James, and cupping her hand over the mouthpiece, Janice called out, “Gemma! Phone.”

Coming into the office, Gemma took the receiver and sat on the edge of the desk, listening. “Right,” she said. “We’ll try the flat first. We’re on our way.” She passed the phone back. “That was Teresa Robbins. She says Reg Mortimer left Hammond’s after the board meeting this morning, and he seemed so upset and irrational she’s worried for his safety.”

REG MORTIMER ANSWERED THE DOOR ON the first ring, holding it open for them without speaking. Kincaid thought his face looked blotchy, as if he’d been weeping, and as they followed him into the sitting room he wiped the back of his hand across his nose.

“Teresa rang us,” said Gemma. “She was concerned about you.”

“How magnanimous of her.” He stood with his back to them, looking out the window at the river, gray under the scudding clouds.

In the few days since they had last seen it, the flat seemed to Kincaid to have acquired an aura of neglect. A fine coating of dust lay on the furniture, in the kitchen he could see dirty dishes piled in the sink, and the warm room held the faint smell of spoiled food.

Nor had Mortimer fared well. His clothes looked wilted, his skin was sallow, and his once-shiny chestnut hair seemed lank and lifeless.

When he didn’t face them again, Gemma said to his back, “Can you tell us what happened at the meeting this morning, Mr. Mortimer?”

“They made Teresa managing director, with encouragement from Martin Lowell. You’d think he might have displayed a bit of solidarity, the two of us having been through the same war, so to speak.”

“Surely she’s capable—”

“Of course she’s capable,” Mortimer said impatiently. “And deserving. It’s not that.”

“Then what’s the problem? You worked happily enough for Annabelle—why not Teresa?”

“No.” Mortimer’s voice sharpened as he turned round at last. “You don’t understand. I needed that promotion. There’s a big jump in salary. With Annabelle gone, it was the only way I could keep the vultures at bay a bit longer—that, and the hope that in that position, I could’ve salvaged the deal—” He broke off abruptly.

“What vultures?” Kincaid asked.

Reg stretched his lips in a smile. “I’m afraid I got in a bit over my head.”

Kincaid nodded towards the canvases on the walls. “The paintings?”

“Very perceptive,” Reg acknowledged. “Yes, among other things. Managing cash flow has never been my strong suit, and I was counting on a rather large sum that never … materialized.”

“I think you had better sit down and tell us about this deal.” Kincaid gestured towards the sofa.

Reg Mortimer came round and slumped onto the white cotton cushions, putting his head in his hands as if his exhaustion had finally overwhelmed him. “I suppose it doesn’t matter now. Nothing does, much,” he said through his splayed fingers. Then he dropped his hands to his lap and looked up at Kincaid and Gemma.

“It was a commission—a sort of finder’s fee, I suppose you might call it. We came to the conclusion quite some time ago—Annabelle and Teresa and I—that the only way to keep Hammond’s solvent was to sell the physical plant and use the proceeds to move the business downriver into more modern and cost-efficient premises.

“I knew a chap—a developer—who would pay any price for the property … if Annabelle could be persuaded to go against her father’s wishes. So I brought them together.”

“Hence the commission,” Kincaid said, thinking aloud. “Paid only if the sale was completed?”

Mortimer nodded. “But that wasn’t the only catch. The deal was only feasible if we could get a majority of the shareholders to vote against William, and the only way Annabelle would agree to move against her father was if she were convinced that the warehouse itself would be saved as an integral part of the development. She thought it might mollify William, make him feel that Hammond’s still had its place in posterity.”

“This developer …,” said Gemma. “It was Lewis Finch, wasn’t it?”

As Mortimer nodded again, Kincaid frowned. “You said, ‘If Annabelle were convinced.’ Was that not the plan, then—to incorporate the existing building into the new structure? I thought Lewis Finch had a reputation for doing just that.”

“He does. But he didn’t intend it in this case. Something about ‘structural flaws in the warehouse.’ But Lewis and I agreed not to tell Annabelle, hoping she wouldn’t insist on having a preservation clause written into the contract.”

“What did you think would happen when Annabelle found out?” Gemma sounded incensed. “You were engaged to be married, and you were colluding against her.”

“I was desperate. And I suppose I thought that once the deal had gone through, it wouldn’t matter so much—that perhaps William would have come to see reason.”

Kincaid thought he’d begun to see where this was leading. “And then you learned that Annabelle was no stranger to lies and betrayals. What happened that night, after you found out about Annabelle and Martin Lowell?”

“We were arguing when we left Jo’s. One thing led to another. I said that if she would do such a thing to her own sister, and if she’d kept that from me, what else had she done?”

“Go on.”

“I don’t know what got into me that night. I’ve always hated jealousy—thought it was uncivilized. But she’d been pushing me away for months, refusing to talk about our wedding, making excuses not to stay with me … and suddenly it all seemed to make sense. I accused her of … things. Whatever came into my head. And then I thought of Lewis Finch, and of all those ‘business’ meetings she’d claimed they’d had. I accused her of sleeping with him. I said … I said Lowell was right, she was no better than a whore, sleeping with Finch to get what she wanted.”

“What happened then?” Gemma asked softly.

“She laughed. She stood there and laughed at me. She said I didn’t know the half of it … that it had cost her his son, and that she’d only learned too late what it meant to really love someone. I yelled at her, said it had cost her more than that—served her bloody right, too—and then I told her what Lewis meant to do. The instant those words left my mouth, I knew I’d gone too far—queered everything—and I said I hadn’t meant it. We had an appointment with my father the next morning, to put the plan to him, and we were supposed to have talked to Jo after the party that night. I thought we could smooth it over, somehow, go on with things.… But she went very quiet, like she was listening to something … then she laughed again. ‘The gods have given me a sign, Reg. So sod off,’ she told me. I argued—begged her, even—until finally she said she’d meet me at the pub.”

“And you walked away,” said Gemma.

“Yes. And the terrible irony is that I didn’t know—I never knew, until you told me—that Lewis Finch’s son was the busker in the tunnel.”

LEWIS FIRST SAW IRENE BURNE-JONES ON a July evening in 1942, when Edwina sent him in the pony trap to fetch her from the station. Irene was actually her second cousin, Edwina told him, her husband’s brother’s granddaughter, but always one for simplifying, Edwina merely referred to the girl as her niece. Her family’s house in Kilburn had taken a direct hit from a stray bomb, and Irene would be staying with them while her parents sorted things out.

This information Lewis absorbed with some trepidation. William was away, having been allowed to visit his parents for a few weeks now that the bombing had lessened considerably, and as Lewis missed his company he thought it might be nice to have someone about for the short term—but on the other hand, he wasn’t sure he could imagine a girl fitting in with their usual summer routine of walks and bathing and fruit-picking. His intimate knowledge of girls was based on his sister, and Cath had never shown the least inclination to do the sorts of things boys did.

He had hardly recognized his sister when he’d gone home to the Island for a visit in April, his first in more than two years. Cath had got a job in a shell-making factory, and she looked an alien creature when she came home in her bright-colored overall and turban; then within a few minutes she was gone again in a cloud of scent and the click of high heels. Whenever her name was mentioned, Lewis saw a look pass between his parents, and once or twice when he walked into the room, he’d had the feeling he’d interrupted a discussion.

But Lewis had been much more interested in roaming the neighborhood, trying to adjust to the sight of piles of rubble, or cleared, weed-covered lots where his house and the homes of his mates had stood. It had made him feel quite odd and hollow, and at the end of a week he’d felt a secret bit of relief at the thought of returning to Surrey.

A snort from Zeus brought his attention back to the road, and he tightened up the reins automatically, clucking to the horse soothingly. John Pebbles had taught him that, and the memory reminded him, as did so many things, of how much he missed his friend.

In the spring of 1941, John, against the pleas of both his wife and Edwina, had joined up, and was now serving as a sergeant with the 8th Army in North Africa. Lewis had taken over many of his jobs by default. The care of the horses had become solely his responsibility, as William was rather frightened of them, and as William was not mechanically inclined, Lewis maintained the seldom-used automobiles. But he and William tended the garden and chopped firewood together, and they helped Edwina with other tasks round the house and the estate to the best of their ability, as there was no one else.

To Lewis, it seemed as if the war had gone on forever. He could hardly recall the days before rationing, and even the enormous portions of meat Cook had fed him when he first arrived at the Hall were now a dim memory. They were still luckier than some, he supposed, with their garden, and in the winter of ’41 Edwina had bought pigs and chickens, so that they had at least an unlimited supply of fresh eggs and the occasional rasher of bacon. Of course, the feeding and care of the animals had fallen on Lewis’s head as well, but he didn’t really mind except for the slaughtering of the pigs, with whom he was inclined to make friends.

Did girls like pigs? he thought, and then he wondered what on earth he would say to her on the ride back from the station. A glance at the angle of the sun told him that it was later than he’d thought, and he clucked again at Zeus to hurry him up. Edwina would have his hide if he daydreamed along until he was late.

• • •

SHE STOOD ON THE PLATFORM BESIDE an enormous suitcase. Lewis looked up and down to be sure, but there was no one else, and he breathed an inward sigh of relief. The girl looked about his own age, and seemed quite ordinary and not as frightening as he’d expected. She wore a red and white gingham dress with socks and sandals, and had hair the color of old pennies pulled back in a neat plait, but the best thing was that when she saw him looking at her uncertainly, she smiled and waved.