The door to Annabelle’s flat faced on the side street, a bit of pavement running down to the water. A bronze plaque set into a concrete base informed Kincaid that this was Johnson’s Drawdock, and was the site of the old ferry to Greenwich. He turned and looked across Ferry Street, his eye caught by the bright red and blue cars of the Docklands Light Railway thundering across the old Millwall viaduct into Island Gardens Station, almost directly across the street.
Crime scene tape fluttered across the flat’s entrance alcove, where Gemma stood chatting with the uniformed constable left to keep an eye on things. “The lads were a wee bit impatient with the lock,” the constable was saying as Kincaid joined them. “So I’m to hang about until we get it sorted.”
“Go get yourself a cuppa,” said Gemma. “Or even a bite of lunch?” she added with an interrogatory glance at Kincaid.
Kincaid nodded. “I expect we’ll be here a few minutes. Time enough for a quick break if you’d like.”
“Right, sir. Cheers.” He gave them a wave as he started across the street towards the park.
Kincaid raised an eyebrow as he looked at what was left of the lock on Annabelle Hammond’s door. “I think ‘brutal’ might be a bit more descriptive.”
“Inconsiderate of her not to have left us with a key,” Gemma said as she pushed the door wide and Kincaid followed her in.
He glanced at her, concerned. Gemma seldom indulged in sarcasm, but when she did it was her way of whistling in the dark. The door swung closed behind them and suddenly the silent vacuum of the airless hall seemed louder than a symphony. “Good soundproofing,” he commented as he switched on the lights and scooped up the post scattered on the floor. After flipping quickly through the letters, he put them on a side table. “Nothing too interesting, but we’ll go through it later.”
“No revealing letters addressed to herself?”
“No such luck. Just bills, from the look of them.” He glanced from Gemma to the closed doors lining the T-shaped corridor. “Eenie meenie?”
Gemma considered, then pointed to the door at the other end of the T’s short arm. “That one.”
“Right.” The sand-colored Berber felt soft under his feet as he walked down the hall. “No expense spared on the carpet,” he commented.
“No expense spared anywhere, I should think,” said Gemma, close behind him. “A flat in this building must have cost a pretty penny.”
Opening the door, he found that they had chosen the sitting room. They stood on the threshold, staring. It was a large room, done in simple, spare furniture, the color scheme one of neutral sands and oatmeals. On its far side, French windows looked out over an enclosed garden, and it was the greenery framed in the glass panes that provided the room’s focal point.
“It’s beautiful,” murmured Gemma, moving into the room. “Restful. She must have loved the garden.”
From a small, flagged patio, steps led down to a walled oasis. A white wooden table and chairs stood under the trees at one end, a few pots of impatiens provided splashes of color, and on the lush rectangle of lawn, a croquet set had been abandoned, as if someone had been called away midgame.
The waiting garden gave Kincaid a stronger sense of life interrupted than he’d felt standing over Annabelle Hammond’s body in the morgue.
Turning away, he examined the room curiously. The SOCOs had been a bit more delicate in here, it seemed, and had left little evidence of their presence other than the thin dusting of fingerprint powder. There was a fireplace on the left-hand wall, fitted with gas logs and framed on either side by custom-built shelves filled with books. What people chose to read never failed to fascinate him, and he crossed the room to take a closer look.
There were a number of hardcover best-sellers, and a handful of titles that he recognized as being novels about successful women overcoming obstacles. None showed a particularly adventurous or introspective turn of mind, and all were tucked neatly between brass or alabaster bookends, with the spines arranged according to height rather than by content or author. It seemed as though Annabelle Hammond had been as tidy in her reading habits as she was in her housekeeping, and had reserved her passions for things other than books.
“Anything interesting?” asked Gemma as she came to stand beside him.
“Interesting by its absence, maybe. And obsessively neat.”
“So I noticed.” Gemma gestured towards the coffee table, where a few upscale design magazines were precisely stacked. “There’s no sign of anything in progress—no half-read books or magazines, no newspapers left open, no basket of knitting or needlework.” Turning back to the shelves, she touched the CDs stacked beside the stereo system. “She liked music, though, and her taste was a bit more eclectic. There’s jazz and classical here, as well as pop.”
His hands in his pockets, Kincaid resumed his wandering about the room, stopping to peer in the small kitchen alcove at the back. It was as neat and neutral as the sitting room, with a few expensive appliances that looked unused. The refrigerator contained a pint of milk, some orange juice, butter, a bottle of wine, and some olives. It reminded Kincaid of his own.
“She must have eaten all her meals out, or had take-away,” he said. Gemma didn’t answer, and when he stepped back into the sitting room, he saw that she was still standing before the bookshelves, staring at the single photograph in its ornate brass frame.
It was of Annabelle, alone. She stood in a meadow, wearing a barley-colored dress. She was laughing into the camera, and her hair shimmered like molten gold in the sun.
“You know,” Gemma said slowly, “I don’t think this room is about being peaceful at all. I think it’s about not competing with Annabelle.” She turned to him. “It’s a stage. Can you imagine how she would have stood out in here, against this neutral background? You wouldn’t have been able to take your eyes from her—not that I imagine that was easy to do under any circumstances.”
One could see bone structure in the dead, but not the shape of a smile, or the sparkle in a glance, and the photograph gave animation to the face they had experienced as beautifully formed but without personality. Kincaid lifted it for a closer look. “She was truly lovely. And you might be right.”
“I wonder who took the photo,” Gemma said as he returned it to the shelf. “I’d say that either she felt a connection with that person, or she was a marvelous actress.”
“There’s a sense of mischief, of daring, even, in this photo that’s not evident here.” Kincaid gestured round the room. “I don’t think this was where she lived—emotionally, I mean.”
“So where did Annabelle Hammond express herself?” Gemma mused. “Let’s have a look at the rest of the flat.”
In the bedroom, Annabelle had incorporated soft, sea blues into the sand-colored scheme, but it was as tidy as the sitting room. No clothing lay draped over chairs or dropped hurriedly on the floor, but a look in the wardrobe caused Gemma to whistle through her teeth. “We can certainly guess where she spent a good deal of her money,” she said, fingering the fabrics.
Kincaid glanced into the adjoining bath. Towels were draped over the radiator, a silk dressing gown hung from a hook on the back of the door. “I’ve a feeling she made the bed as soon as she got out of it. She might have even dried the bath.”
Next they tried the middle door in the hallway. The room was a small office with a built-in desk, filing cabinets, and work area. A printer stood on the desk, alongside a lead and connector. “She must have kept her computer at the office,” Kincaid said as he opened drawers, poking about for anything that looked interesting.
“Look at this.” Gemma stood before a corkboard that had been mounted on the wall. “Seems Annabelle had a personal life, after all.” Gently, she lifted layers and shifted drawing pins.
There were photographs, many of which Kincaid recognized as Jo Lowell and her children. In one Annabelle sat in a garden, a red-haired baby in her lap, an older couple standing behind her. The man was tall and silver-haired, the woman
had a faded beauty that might once have equaled Annabelle’s. “Her parents?” Kincaid guessed, touching the photo. “And her nephew, Harry?”
“The children’s christening invitations are here, too,” Gemma said. “But there’s something odd. Look. There are several pictures of little Sarah as a baby, then nothing. It looks as though Annabelle was a most devoted aunt, yet there are no recent photos of either of the children.”
Kincaid sifted carefully through the items. There were birthday cards and restaurant menus, bits of ribbon, a dried rose, a postcard of a Rossetti angel that bore a remarkable resemblance to Annabelle, and a flyer for a musical program in Island Gardens. He caught a glimpse of a red-haired child, but on closer inspection the photo bore the subtle signs of age. The child was Annabelle herself, he felt sure, a sunburned sprite with a mop of red-gold curls and a butter-wouldn’t-melt expression. On one side stood a thin boy with Reg Mortimer’s recognizable, guileless smile; on the other, Jo Lowell frowned into the camera. “The Three Musketeers, it seems,” he said softly. But Gemma was right—in the last few years, her niece and nephew seemed to have disappeared from Annabelle’s life.
“Look at this one.” Gemma handed him a page torn from the Tatler. The full-lengh photo showed a grown-up Reg and Annabelle in the full splendor of black tie and ball gown. Arms clasped, both smiled into the camera’s eye. “A gilded couple.”
He glanced at Gemma. “What is it, love? Not envious of their social accomplishments, are you?”
She shook her head. “It’s just that she seemed more than ordinarily alive—charmed, even. How could someone snuff out such beauty?”
“Perhaps she was killed because she was beautiful, not in spite of it,” Kincaid suggested. “I think such beauty could inspire a dangerous jealousy.”
“Reg Mortimer doesn’t strike me as the type to fly into a jealous rage, but I suppose anything is possible.” Moving to the desk, Gemma reached for the answering machine beside the telephone. “Let’s see if Mortimer rang as often as he says he did.” She hit play, and after a moment they heard Mortimer’s voice.
“Annabelle, it’s Reg. I’m at the Ferry House.” There was a pause, then he added, “Look, do come.” A beep ended the message, followed by another beep beginning the next. “All right, I deserve to be punished. But enough is enough, don’t you think? I’ll apologize on bended knee.”
After that there were two calls without messages. “Mortimer again?” Kincaid speculated, but before Gemma could respond, a new message began.
“Annabelle? Where are you? Ring me at home.” A man’s voice, deeper than Mortimer’s, used to giving commands. Another beep, and the same voice said, “Annabelle, where the bloody hell are you? It’s Lewis. Ring me back.”
There were several more calls without messages, then a woman’s voice saying, “Annabelle, it’s half past nine. I know you can’t have forgotten—we’re waiting for you,” and again, “Annabelle, where are you? We’ve finished breakfast. We can’t stall Sir Peter any longer. Please ring me at home.”
The last caller he recognized as Jo Lowell, sounding relaxed and a little amused. “Annabelle, Reg says you’ve abandoned him and he’s worked himself into a real tizzy over it. Do put him out of his misery. Ring me when you get in.”
Kincaid looked at Gemma and raised an eyebrow. “I’d say Reg and Annabelle did have a row, from the sound of that.”
“Yes, but it supports his statement that he waited at the pub.”
“Maybe,” Kincaid answered with some skepticism. “Would Sir Peter be Reg Mortimer’s father, do you suppose? And who is Lewis?”
His phone rang. While he extricated it from his pocket with one hand, with the other he brushed the backs of his fingers against Gemma’s cheek, feeling a sudden swelling of desire at the nearness of her. He touched her lips with his fingertips, heard the quick intake of her breath. The flat was empty, after all.…
“Kincaid,” he said impatiently into the phone.
“It’s Janice Coppin here, sir. I think I’ve found our busker.”
JANICE MET THEM AS THEY CAME into Limehouse Station from the car park. Her nod to Gemma held the slightest suggestion of a wink as she said, “I’ve put him in the interview room to cool his heels. He’s not too happy about helping us with our inquiries.”
“Have you told him anything?” Kincaid asked.
“No. Just confirmed where he was night before last, though he didn’t like to admit it. Told him we had a dozen witnesses willing to swear he was in that tunnel.”
“Is that where you found him? In the tunnel?”
“In the park. Island Gardens. From the description I guessed who he was, and he has a few regular pitches on the Island. He’s one of our local activists—you know, does his part to keep the yuppies at bay.” Her sidelong glance at Kincaid as she spoke made it clear she was pleased enough with herself to risk sending him up. “The ironic thing is that he’s Lewis Finch’s son.”
“Lewis Finch?” Kincaid repeated, and Gemma thought of the message on Annabelle Hammond’s answering machine. “Who’s he when he’s at home?”
“Our legendary Lewis, the saint of the East End, according to some. He’s responsible for redeveloping and restoring many of the old warehouses and factories on the Island.”
Gemma heard skepticism in Janice’s voice. “Is that not a good thing?”
Shrugging, Janice said, “I can see the dissenters’ point. Once most of these places are tarted up, none of us who grew up here on the Island can afford to live in them.” She nodded towards the interview room. “You can see where the son gets his looks, if not his views. According to rumor, Lewis Finch is quite the ladies’ man.”
Was it possible that Annabelle Hammond had been one of his conquests? wondered Gemma as they entered the interview room.
Then, as Kincaid said, “Why don’t you begin the questioning, Janice,” Gemma stopped dead on the threshold.
The man stood in the center of the room, facing them, hands jammed in the pockets of his army-issue trousers. The sleeves had been cut out of his camouflage jacket, revealing the muscular definition of his suntanned arms. Since she had last seen him, his fair hair had grown out a bit and he’d added a gold earring in his left ear.
“You’ve no right to keep me here like this,” he said, and she remembered how unexpected she had found his educated voice. “Either let me leave or I’m calling my solic—” He saw her, and faltered.
His surprise, thought Gemma, must have been greater than hers, because she realized now that at some level she’d made the connection between Reg Mortimer’s description and this man.
For a few months, he had played his clarinet in front of the Sainsbury’s on the Liverpool Road, until he had become a regular if enigmatic part of her life. Although he had seldom spoken or smiled, she’d been drawn to him in a way she could not explain. But when she’d at last ventured to speak to him, he’d answered so brusquely that she’d felt a fool, and shortly after that he’d vanished from the area. She had not seen him since.
Sitting down, Janice Coppin switched on the tape recorder and gave the date, then addressed the busker. “Your name, please, for the record.”
Without taking his eyes from Gemma, he said, “It’s Finch. Gordon Finch.”
CHAPTER 6 Bounded on three sides by the river Thames, and communications hindered (in those days) by the swing bridges at the entrances to the working docks, [the Island] had (and still has) a special feeling of isolation, which separates it from the rest of East London.
Eve Hostettler, from Memories of
Childhood on the Isle of Dogs, 1870–1970
“Sit down, Mr. Finch.” Janice Coppin positioned her chair squarely in the center of the interview table; after a moment, Gordon Finch sank reluctantly into the chair on the other side. Kincaid and Gemma sat on either side of Janice and a bit back, so that Janice became the natural focus of attention.
Gemma was glad Kincaid had given Janice the lead, for it gave her a chance to
study the busker, who hadn’t met her eyes again. It had been some time since she’d seen him, and she thought perhaps he’d lost weight. Surely the planes and angles of his face seemed more pronounced. His short cap of fair hair stood up in tufts where he had run his fingers through it, and darker stubble shadowed his chin.
“I want my solicitor,” he said. “You’ve no right to hold me here without my solicitor present.” How many street musicians, wondered Gemma, had a solicitor at their beck and call?
“You are free to ring your solicitor, Mr. Finch,” Janice countered. “But you understand that we are not charging you with anything—we merely want your help in answering a few questions.”
“What sort of questions?” Finch said warily, not sounding reassured.
Janice lined up her notebook at a right angle to the table’s edge. “You’re aware, of course, that busking is in direct violation of—”
“Oh, come off it, Inspector. It’s Sunday afternoon, the best day of the week, and most likely you’ve made me lose my pitch. If you mean to slap me with a fine for busking, do it. Otherwise let me go back to work before all the punters pack up their pushchairs and their picnics and go home.” He moved his chair back, as if to rise.
Kincaid clasped his hands over his knee and smiled, making it clear he had no intention of terminating the interview. “Are you an observant man, Mr. Finch? It seems to me that your particular line of work would provide you with a unique opportunity to witness the vagaries of human nature, as well as its more ordinary comings and goings.”
“Vagaries?” Gordon Finch stared at him, and Gemma chalked one up to Kincaid. “What the bleedin’ hell is that supposed to mean?”
Kincaid grinned. “I don’t believe you suffer from the constraints of the verbally challenged, Mr. Finch, but I’ll tell you exactly what I mean. You’re the ideal witness. You observe everything, but people don’t see you. How many people who pass you could say later what clothes you wore? Or what piece you played?”
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