Kissed a Sad Goodbye

by Deborah Crombie

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

  “Did he meet her afterwards?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  “But you didn’t believe she was ill?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  “What do you know about Lewis Finch?”

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

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

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

  “Your father was evacuated?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  Eve Hostettler, from Memories of

  Childhood on the Isle of Dogs, 1870–1970

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

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

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

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

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

  “About what, Reg?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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