Kissed a Sad Goodbye

by Deborah Crombie

  “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 acce
pt 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.

  I T WAS C HRISTMAS BEFORE L EWIS 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 w
anted 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.