Kissed a Sad Goodbye

by Deborah Crombie

  Had he? Since Vic’s death he had tried to convince himself of it, but now his nagging doubts leapt out like reaching shadows. “What matters now is Kit,” he said, pushing the thoughts aside. “How can I salvage the mess I’ve made of things?”

  Hazel gave him a searching look. “The important thing is not to give up on him. Make him see that you aren’t going to reject him, no matter how he behaves.” Frowning, she thought for a moment, then added, “I’d say he’s testing you—and protecting himself. If he drives you away now, he doesn’t have to worry that you’ll run off and leave him the first time he’s not perfect.”

  “Like Ian did.”

  “Yes. If you have to break a promise, make it up to him in some way, as soon as you can. It’s the only way he’ll learn to trust you. And Duncan—be patient with him.”

  “That doesn’t seem to be my strong suit these days.” Suddenly, a wave of exhaustion swept through him, as if the adrenaline that had carried him through his row with Kit had drained away. With an effort, he finished his lemonade and stood, looking out across the garden. Gemma’s windows were still dark.

  “You’re not going to wait?” Hazel asked. “I’ve a quiche in the fridge, and some white wine chilled.”

  He hesitated, then shook his head. “I think I need some time on my own tonight. But thanks, Hazel. Will you tell Gemma I came by?”

  “Of course.” Hazel got up and gave him a brief hug. “I’d better see if I can make up to Holly with a half hour of Winnie the Pooh.”

  If only it were that easy, he thought as he let himself out the garden gate and unlocked the Rover. But he and Kit had no comforting rituals to mend the rifts between them.

  As the car’s interior lights came on, he noticed that the center console contained only some peppermints and pocket change. Surely Kit had dropped his old photo there, the one his mum had sent of an eleven-year-old Duncan in scouting uniform, sporting a toothy grin.

  When a quick search between the seats and on the floor yielded nothing, he remembered leaving Kit alone in the car for a moment at the station, while he fetched his bag from the boot.

  If Kit had changed his mind and taken the photo with him, perhaps there was hope he might come to terms with the idea of their relationship. Kincaid felt his throat tighten with unexpected hope.

  A BIT OF SALAD WITH THE first tomato and cucumber from his vegetable plot, peas, two potatoes roasted in their jackets, and two lovely chops from the butcher along Manchester Road. George Brent surveyed this bounty with pleasure and a certain anticipation, for it was the first time he’d prepared supper for Mrs. Singh.

  He was quite proud of his developing culinary skills, as the wife had done most of the cooking in the more than forty years they’d had together. Never too late to learn, his old dad had been fond of saying.

  It was never too late for some other things, either, he thought with a sly smile. A clean shirt after his bath, a liberal splash of aftershave on his newly shaven neck and jaw—he was undoubtedly as irresistible as one of those young studs on the telly, although when he’d been that age he’d have thought it daft to bathe more than once a week.

  When he was a lad, before the war, the Saturday bath had been an occasion. They’d heated water for the big, old tin tub in the scullery, and they’d each had their bit of Sunlight soap. And on fine days, they’d taken their bit of soap down to the river. The water had been clean, then, and the great ships had been as familiar to them as the furniture in their parlors.

  The thought of the war reminded him that he’d meant to listen to that program on the wireless again, the one about the Blitz he’d heard on Radio Four the other evening. The events of the previous day had driven it from his mind—that and his daughter Brenda’s fussing, which had only served to remind him of the dead girl every time he turned round. He’d even seen her face in his dreams.

  In an effort to put it out of his mind, George imagined Mrs. Singh on the other side of the small table, her knees touching his under the cloth. And the little table did look inviting with two places set on the oilcloth and the jug of bright flowers he’d picked from the garden—a perfect setting for a bit of romance.

  As he peeked at the potatoes in the oven and turned the chops over in the pan, the doorbell rang. He glanced at the clock. Mrs. Singh was early, but he liked promptness in a woman. Wiping his hand on the tea towel, he went into the hall.

  Janice Coppin stood in his open doorway. “Hullo, George. Surprised to see me?”

  “What do you want?” He scowled at her, but she smiled back at him, unfazed.

  “Just a word. Can I come in?”

  “I’m expecting someone.”

  “It won’t take long.”

  “All right, then,” he said grudgingly, and led the way back to the kitchen, where he turned off the fire under the pan.

  “A lady friend?” inquired Janice, taking in the jug of flowers and the carefully laid plates as she sat in one of the kitchen chairs. “George Brent, you old goat.”

  “None of your business, miss,” he growled, but he could’ve sworn he heard admiration in her tone. She wore shorts and a tee shirt rather than her stiff police-lady suit, and looked, George decided, altogether more human.

  “It’s about the dead woman, George,” she said. “The one you found in—”

  “I know which one. How many dead women do you think I’ve run across lately?”

  “Then you remember the sergeant who came to see you?”

  He glared at Janice, not bothering to answer. He’d liked the kind-voiced policewoman, a nice-looking lass with her pretty red hair—but that brought to mind the other one, lying so still in the grass.…

  “Sergeant James said you didn’t seem quite sure about where you’d seen the dead woman, George. I thought you might have remembered something else.”

  George didn’t like to admit how much it had been bothering him, especially to Janice Coppin. “I’m not senile, you know,” he said, but he heard the hesitation in his voice.

  “No, of course you’re not,” Janice agreed. “And I’ve not given you credit, have I? For noticing things, and remembering things.”

  “Would you like a cuppa, lass?” he asked, thinking that maybe Janice Coppin wasn’t so bad after all.

  “That’d be lovely.”

  He put the kettle on, and opened the package of Hobnobs he’d bought specially for Mrs. Singh.

  When he’d given Janice her tea and biscuit, she said, “I’ve been thinking, George, that if you didn’t want to say where you’d seen the woman, maybe it was because she was with someone you knew, and you didn’t want to get anyone in trouble. But if we’re to catch her killer, we have to know everything we can about her.”

  George met her eyes, then looked away, fidgeting with the tea towel he’d used to wipe the sloshed tea from her saucer. “You’re an Islander, lass. You know what it’s like, though you won’t remember the best days, before the war.”

  “My mum says she knew everyone when she was a girl, all the neighbors—”

  “Hard to get into trouble in those days,” George agreed with a smile. “Someone would rat on you for certain. We played in the street on fine days, hoops and marbles, not like the things kids do today.”

  Closing his eyes, he could see it all as clearly as if it were yesterday. “The girls had tops with colored paper stuck on them and they looked so lovely when they spun.… And we all played cricket together, girls and boys, while the grown-ups stood round chatting.…” He opened his eyes and found Janice watching him intently. “I knew him then. Just a little lad, and I was already in my teens. Who’d have thought things would turn out the way they did?”

  “What things?”

  “The war, his family …” George sighed and shook his head. “But he came back, and I’ve always admired him for that. He never forgot where he came from or what he owed. And he always had a kind word for me and a pint at the pub.”

  Janice held her teacup motionless, balanced in both han
ds. “Who, George?”

  “Lewis Finch,” he admitted reluctantly.

  “You saw Annabelle Hammond with Lewis Finch?”

  “Was that her name? Like Hammond’s Teas?”

  “Exactly. It’s her family’s business, and she was in charge of it. Where did you see them?”

  George pleated the tea towel. “Once coming out of the Indian restaurant just down the road. He was holding her arm, friendly-like, and she was laughing. You couldn’t help but notice her. Once in the Waterman’s Arms. And another time, in his Mercedes. The windows were tinted but you could still tell it was her.”

  “Recently?” asked Janice.

  “In the pub, a month or so ago. That time outside the restaurant, I’m not certain, except that it was nippy that day. In the autumn, maybe.”

  “And the time in the car?”

  “It was just a glimpse, one day when I was taking Sheba for her run. It doesn’t mean anything, that he knew her.”

  “No. But we’ll have to have a word with him, just the same,” said Janice, and George thought she didn’t sound any happier at the prospect than he’d felt in telling her what he’d seen.

  She finished her tea and stood up. “Thanks, George. I’d better let you tend to your supper.”

  With a regretful thought for his potatoes—likely cooked to a crisp—and cold chops, George saw her to the door.

  From the walk she turned back and gave him a cheeky grin. “By the way, George—I’m sorry about the Settlement Dance. Tell your Georgie that for me one of these days, would you?”

  GORDON FINCH STOOD AT THE WINDOW of his first-floor flat, looking out across East Ferry Road. A breath of cool air stirred the lace curtains. The street lamps had come on, and across the road in Millwall Park the bowlers had given up their game and retired to the pub.

  All so normal, all so ordinary. For a moment he held on to the thought that he would turn and life would go on uninterrupted. Annabelle would be standing naked at his kitchen sink, brushing her teeth, holding the mass of her hair back with the other hand to keep it dry. She would lean forward, the angle of the light creating a hollow in the small of her back, highlighting the curve of her hip, then as she straightened the shadows would shift, playing over her skin like a lover’s hands.

  From the beginning she’d shed her clothes whenever she walked into his flat, throwing her expensive suits casually over a chair. Sometimes on colder days she slipped on a silk kimono he’d found at a street market. Captivated by the rich colors of the old silk, he’d bought it on impulse. It was the only gift he had given her, hanging ready from a peg on the back of the bathroom door.

  He saw the gold and russet folds of the robe fall open, revealing a slice of creamy skin as Annabelle sat at his small table, eating Indian take-away with a plastic fork. The candles he’d stuck in saucers guttered and smoked between them. Laughing, she’d called him a barbarian, but when he challenged her to invite him to her flat for a proper dinner, she refused.

  She’d come to him for months before he learned her name, and even then she’d never talked about herself in the ordinary sense. It was only by chance that he’d seen her come out of the Ferry Street flat one day and learned that she lived just down the road—a few blocks and another world away.

  Not that he’d needed confirmation that Annabelle Hammond was everything he despised, one of the privileged who take without considering those they trample in the process. Why had he thought he might be the undamaged exception?

  Once, straddling him on his narrow bed, she’d held his clarinet between her breasts and asked him if he’d give it up for her. “Don’t be daft,” he’d said, but for a moment the abyss of obsession had opened before him. What might he have done for her, he wondered now, if he hadn’t discovered her betrayal?

  CHAPTER 8 The Island population had reached its peak of around 21,000 in 1900.… The green fields had been replaced by docks, warehouses, factories and streets of terraced houses. In this predominantly working-class community, young people found a job, married and set up home not far from their parents.

  Eve Hostettler, from

  Memories of Childhood

  on the Isle of Dogs, 1870–1970

  In the mid-eighties, Lewis Finch had chosen to live with a view of Millwall Dock rather than a view of the river; in fact, his housing estate had been one of the pioneering Docklands developments, low-rise and less than exorbitantly expensive. Although he’d had many opportunities since to sell at a profit and move into one of his own newer, more glamourous riverside developments, he liked the small scale of the place, liked knowing his neighbors, and he’d found himself loath to make a change.

  Nor did he care much for travel, and having arrived home from a weekend conference late the previous evening, he’d begun his Monday morning routine with a particular sense of relief.

  Shower, shave, dress, then repair with a pot of coffee, a rack of toast, and a stack of newspapers to his tiny dockside balcony.

  As he buttered his toast, he gazed out at the sun-pearled, early morning mist on the water. To the north, across the Outer Dock, he could see Glengall Bridge; to the northwest, the towers of Canary Wharf rose in the distance, barely visible in the haze; to the east were the DLR and the high ground of the Mudchute.

  It was his small kingdom—the Island—and if he hadn’t quite managed to re-create the past, at least he’d come to terms with his failures over the years, and with himself.

  Or so he’d thought, until Friday night.

  The things that had happened with Annabelle had exposed long-buried wounds, and his reaction had shocked him so deeply that he’d spent the weekend trying to regain his balance.

  Today, he’d attempt to repair the damage, or at least control it. But it was too early yet to ring Annabelle at the office, so he would read the papers and drink his coffee, and try not to consider the prospect of his life without Annabelle in it.

  He began with the Financial Times, as always, then the Telegraph, and last, the Daily Post—his daily prescription for taking the world’s pulse.

  The headline jumped out at him from the front page of the tabloid. WOMAN FOUND MURDERED IN MUD-CHUTE PARK IDENTIFIED. He read on, at first with the sort of uneasy curiosity engendered by the mention of violence on one’s own doorstop—then with unbelieving horror.

  It couldn’t be. He read it again, tracing the words with his finger as if he were a child, willing it not to be true.

  At last, he lowered the newspaper with shaking hands, his vision blurred. What had he done?

  Years of hatred had spilled in a moment of fury—then he had let her walk away, white-hot with her own anger. And he feared she’d gone straight to his son.

  LOOKING IN THE OPEN DOOR OF Janice Coppin’s dimly lit office, Gemma saw a television on a portable stand flickering bluely in one corner. “You wanted to see me?”

  Janice sat on the edge of her desk, sorting through a pile of videotapes. “Did the guv’nor reach you?” she asked, looking up. The room smelled of stale cigarette ends and Gemma saw that the tin ashtray on the desk was near to overflowing, although she didn’t remember ever seeing Janice smoke.

  “On my mobile,” Gemma replied. She’d awakened to find Toby fractious and feverish, not a good omen for a Monday morning. By the time she’d got him settled in front of the telly at Hazel’s, she was running late, and Kincaid had rung her to say he’d keep the appointment he’d made with Annabelle Hammond’s solicitor on his own. She’d not had a chance to ask why he hadn’t stayed last night, and he hadn’t offered an explanation.

  Coming farther into the room, Gemma peered at the juddering black and white image on the telly screen, her interest quickening. “What have you got?”

  “The security-camera video from the foot tunnel. I spent the morning in their office, watching the footage from all the cameras on the time-lapse VCR. Once we’d isolated this camera, they made me a copy.”

  Gemma noticed her creased blouse and flattened hair. “What time did
you come in?”

  “Crack of dawn, it feels like. But worth it.” Janice put down the videos she was holding and picked up the remote. “Watch.”

  It was an odd perspective, with pedestrians moving in both directions in the foreground while the tunnel receded in the distance. Then Gemma saw what someone had momentarily blocked—Gordon Finch, standing against the curving tunnel wall, his clarinet case and his dog at his feet. Then the tape jumped jerkily to the next recorded segment, reminding Gemma a bit of an old silent film.

  Now a woman stood in front of Gordon, her back to the camera, but Gemma recognized her sleek, black jacket and short skirt, and even in monochrome the wavy fall of her hair was unmistakable. It was Annabelle Hammond.

  From her body movements, she seemed to be speaking, but Gordon didn’t respond. Annabelle reached out, touching his arm in a gesture of entreaty. Only then did he look at her and shake his head. For a moment, Annabelle stood there, hand still on his arm. Then she shoved past him and walked away down the tunnel, anger visible in every stride.

  The tape jumped again. Gordon Finch slowly broke apart his clarinet and knelt to put it in its case. Still squatting, he leaned back against the white-tiled wall of the tunnel, his eyes closed, one hand resting on the dog’s head.

  Then again, the now-familiar jerk and pause, and the frame showed nothing but moving pedestrians and an unoccupied segment of white-tiled wall. Janice stopped the tape.

  Gemma realized she’d been holding her breath. “That’s all?”

  “There’s no sign of either of them after that, on any of the cameras,” Janice replied as she rewound the video. “But there’s no doubt, is there, that it’s Annabelle Hammond?”

  “So he lied to us.”

  “It’s certainly obvious he knew her.” Janice slid off her desk and switched on the overhead light, then went round to her chair, brushing a speck from her trousers as she sat down.