“Get down, Sheba.” George Brent scolded the dog gently, then scrutinized them with alert blue eyes. “Janice Coppin sent you, did she? I’d not have credited her with that much sense.”
Brenda Hubbard gave an exasperated shake of her head. “Dad, that’s not a nice thing to say and you know it.” With a look at Gemma and Kincaid, she added apologetically, “Janice was at school with our Georgie, and Dad took against her over some silly thing that no one else even remembers.”
“Your mum remembered. And it wasn’t a silly thing to our Georgie—she stood him up for the Settlement Dance.” Having made his point to his daughter, George Brent held out his hand to Kincaid. His grip was strong, and the arms and shoulders revealed by his cotton vest still showed muscular definition.
Kincaid pulled over two more plastic patio chairs. “Do you mind if we sit down, Mr. Brent?”
“Oh, forgive my manners.” Brenda Hubbard sounded a bit flustered as she helped them arrange the chairs. “Can I get you something to drink? Tea? Or some orange squash?”
“Squash would be lovely,” said Gemma, as much to remove the distraction of bickering with his daughter from Mr. Brent as to quench a genuine thirst.
As Brenda disappeared into the kitchen, Kincaid began again. “Mr. Brent, we don’t want to upset you, but we need you to tell us about what happened this morning.”
“Whoever said I was upset?” Brent gave a dark glance towards the house. “Load of bollocks,” he added under his breath, but as he spoke he reached down and buried his fingers in the dog’s rough coat.
“It’s not every day you find a dead body, Mr. Brent,” Gemma said gently. “It would upset anyone.”
Brent looked away. Gemma saw the movement of his Adam’s apple as he swallowed, and the spasm clenching the hand still resting in the dog’s fur. “Beautiful. She was so beautiful. I thought she was sleeping, like a fairy princess.”
Returning with their drinks, Brenda served them without interrupting, then pulled another plastic chair into the shade and sat down.
“Why don’t you start from the beginning, Mr. Brent,” suggested Kincaid. “You took your dog to the park?”
“You’d had your breakfast, hadn’t you, Dad?” prompted Brenda. “You always take Sheba for her run after breakfast.”
“That’s right. Right round the park we go, every morning and every evening. Keeps us fit, doesn’t it, girl?” He stroked the dog’s head; the animal’s tail thumped.
“What time was this, Mr. Brent?”
“A bit later than usual, on account of helping Mrs. Singh next door with her telly. About half past eight, I’d say, and already hot as blazes.”
Gemma sipped her drink, then asked, “Did you take your usual route?”
“We always go the same way, don’t we, girl?” said Brent, and Sheba’s tail moved again in assent. “Up from the bottom of Stebondale Street, into the park at the Rope Walk, across and up the other side.” He shook his head. “Bloody construction mucking things about. Can’t hear yourself think.”
“That’s along East Ferry Road?” asked Kincaid.
“Farm Road, we always called it. There were still farms round about when I was a boy, though you’d not think it now. I remember when we lived in Glengall Road, before the bombings—”
“Mr. Brent,” Kincaid interrupted gently. “Tell us what happened next.”
George Brent took a handkerchief from his trouser pocket and rubbed it slowly across the polished dome of his head as he watched Sheba, now happily digging in a patch of the small flower bed at the edge of the patio. “You’re a right devil, aren’t you, girl?” he said softly, then met Kincaid’s eyes. “Most mornings I stop at the ASDA for a cuppa, meet my old mates, you know, though Harry Thurgar for one is getting a bit past it … but I was too late this morning, so we went on along the top.”
His gaze strayed again, back to the dog. “I let her off the lead—she’s always after rabbits, or what she thinks is rabbits. Then I heard her whining, and when I caught up to her …”
At the word “rabbits” Sheba sat back on her haunches and cocked her head expectantly, then moved to her master’s side. Her long, elegant profile made Gemma think of the paintings of dogs on Egyptian friezes. Hadn’t the Egyptians believed that dogs followed their masters to the underworld?
“Did you touch the body, Mr. Brent?” she asked.
“No, I … Well, maybe I did, just a bit, to see if …”
“But you didn’t move her?”
Brent shook his head. “All I could think then was to get help, I don’t know why. Ran to the ASDA, silly bugger; too old to run like I used to. Used the phone to ring 999.”
“You waited for the police?” asked Kincaid.
“Didn’t know they’d send Janice Coppin, did I?” Brent scowled and Sheba responded with a low humming in her throat. “Treated me like a child, or a dimwit. She’s no better than she should be, that woman, and her husband’s a no-account—”
“Dad, that’s enough,” said Brenda. “And Bill’s her ex-husband now, you know that.” She looked at Kincaid and Gemma. “If that’s all …”
“Just a couple of questions more, Mrs. Hubbard.” Kincaid turned back to her father. “Had you ever seen the woman before, Mr. Brent?”
“I … I’m not certain.” Mopping his head again with the handkerchief, George Brent seemed suddenly to age, as if his uncertainty weighed heavily.
“You don’t have to be sure.” Gemma smiled to put him at ease. “Just tell us where you think you might have seen her.”
Brent said hesitantly, “At the shops, just along the road. That hair, so lovely … but I never quite saw her face.”
“Recently, Mr. Brent?”
Gemma heard the hint of excitement in Kincaid’s deliberate drawl.
Brent shook his head. “No, I … My memory’s not what it used to be. I think it was nearer the spring, maybe Easter. I’m sorry,” he added, as if he’d seen the disappointment in their faces, but Gemma had the distinct feeling that the old man hadn’t told them everything he knew.
Kincaid rose. “You’ve been a great help, Mr. Brent. And we’re going to let you have your lunch now. There’s just one more thing. You said you walked Sheba yesterday evening—did you go the same way?”
“Have to put her on the lead to stop her, wouldn’t I? Like a clockwork dog round that path, she is.” Brent chuckled at his own wit.
“What time was this?”
“Nine o’clock news was just coming on. Hate to miss the news, but it’s too dark after.”
“And you’re sure the body wasn’t there?”
Brent bristled. “I’d have seen her, wouldn’t I, even in the dusk. I’m not bloody blind.”
“Of course not, Mr. Brent,” Kincaid reassured him as Gemma stood. “And we do appreciate your time.”
As they turned to go George Brent called after them, “You tell that Janice she’s a silly cow. Our Georgie would never have left her on her own with a pack of rotten kids.”
REG MORTIMER SELDOM DRANK. A SOCIAL pint occasionally, or a glass or two of wine with dinner, but urgings to more than that he usually fended off with a smile and an offhand remark about keeping fit. Reg could never bring himself to admit the truth—that it made him ill, revoltingly, nauseatingly, childishly ill.
His hand trembled as he lifted the glass to his lips—Jack Daniel’s because he found the sweetness of the Bourbon easier to stomach than the tangy bite of Scotch. Could one call this medicinal? The half glass he’d drunk had done nothing to still the panic fluttering beneath his breastbone. Nor had it helped him decide what he ought to do.
Turning, he glanced at the phone in the corner, then again at the thinning crowd in the bar. At lunchtime people came in the Henry Addington at Canary Wharf to see and be seen, though this being Saturday the men had traded their business suits for carefully pressed Levi’s and khakis, and in this heat the women wore shorts and bright sundresses. Beyond the windows in the pub’s curved marble fr
ont wall, the sun blazed, making a molten sheet of the water, muting even the reds and purples of the buildings at Heron Quays across the dock.
Lunchtime was easing into afternoon, and there was still no sign of Annabelle. It had been a thin chance, coming here, where they often met on a Saturday, but he had rung her flat until the phone seemed glued to his ear. Then he’d gone round and pounded on her door, and he’d done the same at the warehouse.
Not that Annabelle ever made a habit of instant availability—he sometimes thought she enjoyed putting him off, teasing him. But she always returned calls, and although he suspected she was still angry with him, he couldn’t imagine Annabelle missing a meeting as important as this morning’s for personal reasons.
Of course, he’d lost his temper last night—he’d be the first to admit it, if she would only give him a chance—but the fact that the party at Jo’s had turned into a fiasco hadn’t been his fault.
Despite the heat in the bar, Reg shivered. He thought of what he had revealed to Annabelle last night, spurred by jealousy, and of what he had kept from her. He had driven her away, and he couldn’t bear the thought of losing her. Not now, with so much at stake. But how could he repair the damage he’d done?
And why hadn’t Annabelle turned up this morning? As hard as he and Teresa had tried to smooth things over at breakfast, his father hadn’t been fooled for a minute. Sir Peter’s support was crucial—they all knew that—but what Annabelle and Teresa didn’t know was how desperately Reg needed things to work out the way they’d planned.
He’d phone Annabelle again. Surely she would answer—it had been an hour since he’d last rung, plenty of time for her to have returned home. Perhaps she had even been trying to ring him. Yet even as he stood, a bit unsteadily, a wave of dread coursed through him, as certain as the nausea that followed.
• • •
“THERE’S NO POINT SENDING SOMEONE ROUND the shops in Manchester Road until we get a photo.” Kincaid leaned against the corridor wall outside the incident room at Limehouse Police Station, sipping tepid tea from a polystyrene cup.
“I’ve sent one of the lads to pick up the prints,” said Gemma, adding, “Hope there’s one that will be palatable to the public.” Kincaid couldn’t tell if her grimace reflected the prospect of dealing with hysterical residents or the thought of the nasty liquid in her cup.
He nodded agreement. “The photos should be all right. Her face was remarkably well-preserved.” The afternoon having so far yielded no clues to the woman’s identity, the distribution of photographs to the inquiry team became the logical next step.
Gemma’s empty cup squeaked as she crumpled it. “Will you release a drawing to the media?”
During the course of the afternoon, they had set the routine of investigation in motion; the first round of house-to-house inquiries, concentrated on the supermarket and the streets immediately adjacent to the park; the intensive search for physical evidence, always a race against contamination of the crime scene; the checking of the victim’s description against the Police National Computer’s missing persons reports. But he’d delayed speaking to the media until he’d prepared a formal statement describing the dead woman and asking the public’s help in identifying her or reporting suspicious sightings in the area. “No, not yet. We’ll try the description first, and if that doesn’t produce results, we’ll have the police artist make a sketch.” Finishing his tea, he tossed his cup in the bin and pushed himself away from the wall. “I suppose I’d better face the lions.” He pulled up the knot on the tie he’d rescued from the boot of the car, then ran his fingers through his hair.
Gemma smiled. “You’re quite presentable. They’re waiting in the ante—”
The incident room door swung open and Janice Coppin came out. Although the passing hours had taken their toll on both starched hair and suit, they’d done little to temper the inspector’s prickliness, although Kincaid had found her to be competent and patient with her staff. “There you are,” she said as she saw them. “The duty officer’s just rung from downstairs. There’s a bloke at the window raising holy hell because they won’t let him register a missing person until the twenty-four-hour limit’s up.”
Kincaid heard the intake of Gemma’s breath as she said, “A match?”
Coppin shrugged. “His girlfriend didn’t come home last night. Her name’s Annabelle Hammond, lives just at the end of Island Gardens. And he says she has long, red hair.”
CHAPTER 4 By 1797, over 10,000 coasters and nearly 3,500 foreign-going vessels were coming up to London annually. The West India vessels contributed particularly to the river’s traffic jam.… In September 1793, [the West India Merchants] held a meeting in an attempt to resolve it, which was to lead in due course to the building of London’s first commercial docks.
Theo Barker, from Dockland
“Bloody poser,” Janice Coppin muttered, jerking her head towards the interview room, where she had sequestered the man who wished to make a missing persons report. “Ought to have his mobile phone surgically implanted in his ear.”
Gemma knew the type all too well. They indulged in the prolonged and very public use of their mobile phones in the trendier cafes and coffeehouses, and this disregard for both cost and manners apparently served as a badge of social status. “Do you think we should take this seriously, then?” she asked.
“Can’t see him as a practical joker,” Janice answered reluctantly. “And his distress seems genuine enough. It’s just that he fancies himself a bit.” With a dark look at Kincaid as he came through the door at the end of the corridor, she added in Gemma’s ear, “But I imagine you’re used to that.”
Before Gemma could come up with a retort, however, Kincaid joined them. “I postponed the media a bit longer, until we see what this chap has to say. Have you told him anything?”
Janice shook her head. “Just that someone will speak to him. And I sent one of the constables in with a cuppa.”
“Right. Then let’s not get the wind up with an abundance of police presence. Why don’t you run a check on—what’s his name, Inspector?”
“Reginald Mortimer.” Janice articulated each syllable distinctly, crinkling her nose as if she found it distasteful.
“Run a check on Mr. Mortimer, then, Inspector, while Gemma and I have a word with him.”
“Sir—”
Kincaid stopped, hand on the doorknob.
Janice hesitated, then shrugged. “Never mind.” As she turned away, Gemma saw her glance at her watch.
It was the time of day when domestic arrangements needed adjusting if you weren’t going to get home, and as Gemma followed Kincaid into the interview room, she wondered when she’d have a chance to check on Toby. She told herself, as she often did, that her frequent absences would only make her son stronger and more independent, but the argument never quite convinced her.
The interview room was larger than most, with a frosted-glass window on the corridor side, but it was still stuffy with the remainder of the day’s heat. It contained the usual laminate table in an unsightly orange and a half-dozen mismatched chairs of dubious heritage.
The man sitting on the far side of the table looked up at them and started to rise, his expression anxious. As Kincaid stepped forward with an introduction, Gemma studied Reginald Mortimer. Janice had been right. Mortimer wore sharply creased khaki trousers and the knit shirt with designer logo required of a yuppie. Thrown over the back of the chair was a nubby linen jacket; the most expensive of mobile phones peeped from the inside breast pocket.
Of slightly above average height and slender build, he had wide gray-blue eyes and shiny brown hair that flopped over his brow with a slight wave. She wondered if Kincaid would notice the man’s physical resemblance to him.
Reg Mortimer smiled as he shook Kincaid’s hand, and the likeness lessened. His features, she decided, were all just a bit too delicate, and he looked nearer her age than Kincaid’s. He smelled slightly of alcohol and nerves.
“I
’m sure this is all a mistake. You must think me a dreadful ass,” he said. His voice was pitched higher than she found pleasing, and no doubt it was his fruity, upper-class accent that had set Janice’s teeth on edge.
“Sergeant James,” Gemma said, pressing his damp palm with her own as she settled into a chair and took a pen and notebook from her bag. “Can we get you some more tea?”
“No, I’m fine, really.” Reg Mortimer shook his head and she saw his eyes dart towards the tape-recording equipment. “Look, I never meant to make such a fuss. I got a bit carried away in the heat of things, then when your sergeant chap on the front desk didn’t seem inclined to be cooperative …”
If he’d had a drink to steady his nerves, he didn’t appear to be drunk. Gemma heard no slurring in his speech, and his eyes tracked steadily as he looked at them.
“Don’t let the equipment put you off, Mr. Mortimer.” Kincaid waved a hand at the tape recorder as he sat down. “This is all quite unofficial—we just needed a quiet place to have a chat.” He smiled and pulled his chair a bit closer to the table, as if to emphasize the informality of the interview.
“Never been in a police station before.” Mortimer’s attempt at insouciance didn’t quite come off.
“They don’t rank high on the list of pleasant work environments, complete with mod cons. Now, Mr. Mortimer,” Kincaid continued, and Gemma felt tension rise at his change of tone. “Something must have worried you quite a bit to bring you here. Why don’t you tell us about it.”
Looking from Gemma to Kincaid, Reg Mortimer began hesitantly, “It’s my fiancée, Annabelle … Annabelle Hammond. She didn’t come home last night.”
“Do you and Miss Hammond live together, then?” Kincaid asked.
“No. No, we don’t.” Reg Mortimer’s answer seemed reluctant. “Annabelle has a flat just opposite the Island Gardens DLR Station. On Ferry Street.”
Kissed a Sad Goodbye Page 5
