Kissed a Sad Goodbye

by Deborah Crombie

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

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

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

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

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

  “But Miss Edwina … won’t I see her?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  “What?”

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

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

  “Martin, don’t—”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  “Says?” Gemma glanced at him.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  “What?”

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

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

  “We can’t rule it out.”

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

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

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

  “You’ve been grilling Janice again.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  “I thought—”

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

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

  Kincaid called out and she whirled round, looking startled.

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

  “An Inspector Coppin rang me.…”

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

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

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

  “But why—”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  “Awkward?” Teresa stared at Kincaid.

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

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