Kissed a Sad Goodbye

by Deborah Crombie

  That Gordon had known Annabelle came as no surprise to Gemma, but she had not been prepared for the emotional intensity of the eerily silent scene, or for the oddness of seeing Annabelle Hammond come to life. “But did he follow her?” she asked.

  “It didn’t look as though they were making an assignation,” said Janice. “She wanted him to do something, and he seemed to be refusing.”

  Gemma sat slowly down in the visitor’s chair, smoothing her skirt beneath her thighs. She’d pulled the coolest item she could find from her wardrobe this morning—a short, loose, Indian cotton dress. “Maybe she wanted him to meet her, and after she left he changed his mind.”

  “But she was the one who was angry. Why would he kill her?”

  “We don’t know what they were arguing about. Or what he might have been building up to,” Gemma countered.

  “Even if he met her later, it doesn’t mean he killed her. And what about Mortimer? He says he saw them together—what proof do we have that Mortimer didn’t wait for her?” Janice’s blunt face was set in a stubborn scowl.

  Gemma studied her. “You’re defending him, aren’t you? Gordon Finch, I mean. Why?”

  “I’m not,” Janice said hotly. Then she shrugged and looked embarrassed. “It’s just that I’d admired what he stood for—you know, the Robin Hood sort of thing. Rich man’s son comes back to his roots and supports the working classes. Probably all a load of bollocks, and it’s not as if his father hasn’t done his part for the Island. And speaking of the father,” Janice added, “I’ve come up with something.”

  Gemma thought she detected reluctance. “He cheated on his income tax,” she joked, but Janice didn’t smile. “All right,” said Gemma. “Out with it, then.”

  “You were right about George Brent. I went back to see him last night, and it wasn’t too difficult to get him to ‘remember’ where he’d seen Annabelle Hammond.”

  “With Lewis Finch?”

  “More than once. Coming out of a restaurant sometime in the autumn, then again fairly recently. And he described their behavior as ‘friendly-like.’ ”

  “So it was Lewis Finch on Annabelle’s answering machine,” Gemma mused aloud. “And we have evidence that she had some sort of relationship with his son as well.” She nodded at the videotape.

  “I think we can take for granted that Annabelle Hammond could lift a finger and have any man she wanted—but doesn’t it seem a bit odd that she chose both the Finches?”

  “Coincidence?” Gemma ventured, but she didn’t believe it. “And at this point, we don’t know that she had sex with either of them. Maybe her relationship with Lewis Finch was strictly business, and with Gordon …”

  “Music lessons?” Janice gave her a skeptical look. “All right, let’s just say she slept with them both. Why keep up her engagement to Reg Mortimer, if she was so inclined to sample other merchandise?”

  “Men do it often enough. But if Mortimer knew, it gives him a hell of a motive for killing her.” Gemma thought for a moment, then said decisively, “We’d better get all our ducks in a row before we pursue this any further. The guv will want to see Lewis Finch when he gets back from the solicitor’s.”

  “And in the meantime, I suppose we’d better have Gordon brought in again.” With a grimace, Janice reached for the phone.

  “Wait.” The request had been unpremeditated, and Janice’s startled expression prompted Gemma to back it up. “I know it’s not exactly protocol, but it’s obvious he doesn’t respond well to authority. He’ll just be shouting for his solicitor. Let me go and have a word with him.” She glanced at her watch. “It’s only half-nine. I doubt buskers leave for work very early.”

  Janice stared at her, her hand still poised over the phone; then, with a sigh, she leaned back in her chair. “On your head be it, then.”

  L EWIS DID NOT MEET E DWINA B URNE -J ONES that day. After he had finished a breakfast in which the rashers of bacon seemed endless, John had taken him back to the stables and allowed him to help polish the autos. This Lewis had done with reverence, rubbing at the merest smudge on the Bentley until its black paint shone like glass. For the rest of his life he would associate the scent of automobile wax with comfort; for those industrious hours spent with John, listening to his stories and receiving the occasional word of praise, held homesickness at bay as nothing else could.

  In the afternoon, John officially introduced him to the horses, showing him how to fill their water troughs and mangers and how to sweep the soiled straw from their stalls, and promising that when Lewis felt a bit more comfortable, he would teach him how to use the curry comb and brush.

  There was no further sign of the elegant William Hammond, and by the time Lewis fell into bed after supper, he had almost forgotten about him.

  Sunday, September 3rd, dawned clear and mild. Lewis woke to a chorus of birdsong floating in through his open window. Not liking to think what his mother would have said about his consorting with Methodists, he’d refused John’s invitation to attend chapel, and so found himself at a loose end after breakfast.

  Cook, seeing a pair of idle hands, set him to work at the kitchen table peeling carrots and potatoes for Sunday dinner.

  It was there, in the warm steaminess of the kitchen at eleven o’clock in the morning, that he heard Prime Minister Chamberlain announce over the wireless that Britain had declared war on Germany.

  Cook sat down, fanning herself and clucking with dismay. “Oh, Lord, who’d have thought it, after the last one? All the young men will go—such a terrible waste.” She shook her head. “I lost both my brothers in the Great War. Just boys they were, too young to die in the trenches.”

  At the sight of Lewis’s face, she reached out and pressed her damp, red hand against his. “Oh, dearie, I am sorry. You told me you had brothers, didn’t you?”

  Lewis nodded, but the constriction in his throat kept him from speaking. What he hadn’t told her was that his brothers meant to sign up the very second that war was declared, and had sworn him to secrecy. His mum would be inconsolable when she found out what they’d done.

  “Well, mayhap it’s a tempest in a teapot, and nothing will come of it,” Cook said comfortingly. “And speaking of tea, I think a nice cuppa would brighten us up a bit,” she added, heaving herself to her feet. Watching her ample backside as she bustled about the cooker with kettle and teapot, Lewis tried to come to terms with the fact of war. In spite of the weeks of preparing for the blackout, the talk of shelters, the antiaircraft balloons that floated above London like escapees from a child giant’s birthday party, he hadn’t really believed in it. He hadn’t thought his evacuation would mean more than a week or two away in the country, and now it looked as though he was here to stay.

  The door to the hall swung open and William Hammond came in. He was dressed as he had been yesterday, in school blazer and tie, but his hair had sprung up from its neat combing as if unable to contain itself. “I say, have you heard? Isn’t it tremendously exciting?”

  Cook turned from the kettle with an admonishing shake of her head. “You don’t know what you’re saying, Master William. If your mother heard you—”

  “Mummy’s had hysterics all over the parlor. Father’s administered the smelling salts and sent her upstairs for a lie-down,” William volunteered. “And Aunt Edwina wants to see everyone in half an hour, in the drawing room. I think she’s going to make a speech. I’m to tell all the staff.” With that, William charged out as energetically as he had entered, and Lewis was left to wait with Cook.

  They gathered in the kitchen—John Pebbles and his wife, Mary, a delicate woman with soft brown hair; Kitty, the parlormaid, a girl not much older than Lewis; Owens, the Welsh butler with the singsong voice; Lewis; and Cook. As they waited, they muttered and exclaimed among themselves, yet when the bell summoned them they trooped to the front of the house in silence.

  Lewis found himself last as they entered the drawing room, but that gave him a moment to take in his surroundings. After
the smokey dimness of the kitchen and the polished, dark woodwork of the hall and staircase, the white-plastered room seemed garden-bright. A chintz-covered sofa faced the fireplace, flanked by needlepoint chairs displaying a profusion of roses. A side table held a large vase of late summer flowers, and a painting over the mantel carried on the soft reds and blues. Lewis drew his eyes from the oddly dressed children in the painting to the slender man who stood turned away from them, one elbow on the mantel as he gazed out the window.

  Then the figure turned, and Lewis saw that it was not a man at all, but a tall woman in riding breeches and coat, with the shortest bobbed hair he had ever seen. Her face was sharp and browned to the color of oak, and she had blue eyes that stood out bright as cornflowers against her dark skin.

  “You will all have heard the news,” she said, lifting a packet of cigarettes from the mantel and lighting one with a silver lighter. “It seems I was wrong in believing it wouldn’t come to war, but I hope that will not be the case when I say I don’t think this can last long.” Edwina Burne-Jones spoke with such conviction that for a moment Lewis felt his fear lift. “But in the meantime, we must take the necessary precautions. We will rigorously enforce the blackout. Owens, Kitty, from now on that will be your responsibility.”

  “Ma’am,” Owens acknowledged calmly, but Kitty looked terrified.

  Edwina drew on her cigarette, then continued as she exhaled. “Everyone should make sure that their gas masks are in working order. And if we have warning of a raid, the cellar should do as a shelter.” She fixed Lewis with her startling blue eyes. “You’re the boy from London?”

  Lewis could only nod. Then John’s elbow jabbed him sharply in the ribs and he managed to croak out, “Yes, ma’am. Lewis Finch.”

  “It looks as though you may be with us for a while, Lewis. Is there anything you need?”

  Blushing crimson to the roots of his hair, Lewis stammered, “Ma’am. I lost my postcard—the one they gave us to send home.”

  The skin round the corners of Edwina’s eyes crinkled up as she smiled. “I think we can arrange something for you,” she said, going to the secretary near the window and removing a sheet of paper, an envelope, and a stamp, which she handed to Lewis. Under his fingers, the paper felt smooth as rose petals.

  She studied Lewis, narrowing her remarkable eyes against a veil of smoke. “I understand from the billeting officer that your school class will meet at the Institute until room can be made for you in the village school. Lessons will start as usual tomorrow morning.” Pausing, she raked the others with a swift glance, then added, “I want your position here to be clear, Lewis. You are a guest, not a servant. You may help John with his tasks if you wish—he is certainly shorthanded since that infernal boy ran off to join up—but you are not obligated to do so. Do you understand me?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Lewis said, although he was not at all sure that he did. How could he be a guest in a place so grand he’d never set foot in its like before?

  What he did know was that from that moment on he would attempt to walk on water if Edwina Burne-Jones asked it of him.

  GEMMA TOOK THE FIRST PARKING SPACE she came to on East Ferry Road. To her right lay the green playing fields of Millwall Park, spanned by the old brick aqueduct that now carried the red and blue trains of the DLR. To her left, across the street, was a terrace of simple, prewar houses, some painted and stuccoed, some still sporting their original brown brick. According to Janice’s instructions, Gordon Finch lived just a few doors further along.

  She started to roll her window up, then shook her head and reversed the crank. There was hardly anything worth stealing, after all, among the odds and ends of papers and food wrappers that littered the car’s interior, and ten minutes with the windows closed would turn the Escort into an oven.

  As she walked slowly up the street, checking the numbers on the houses opposite, she wondered what had prompted her to take this interview on her own, knowing it was against procedure, knowing that Kincaid would likely have her head for it.

  She’d already stretched the limits of truthfulness by not telling Kincaid that she’d met Gordon Finch before—if you could call their brief encounter “meeting”—and the longer she put it off, the more awkward an admission would become.

  But then she knew nothing more about Finch than that he had busked in Islington for a time, so what did it matter, really?

  Somehow that argument didn’t make her feel any better. Shrugging, she promised herself a compromise. She would tell Kincaid, the first chance she had to drop it casually into the conversation. And if she thought it necessary after she’d spoken to Finch, she’d send someone round to bring him in to the station.

  Reaching the entrance to Millwall Park, she detoured long enough to peek through the wrought-iron fence at the deserted bowling green and the substantial-looking Dockland Settlement House behind it. She guessed this would be the center of working-class social life on the Island, and that Gordon Finch might be a regular here, but she had difficulty imagining him socializing even in the service of political aims.

  Retracing her steps and continuing up the street, she’d only gone a few yards when she heard the light notes of the clarinet. She followed the sound across the street to the brown-brick house at the end of the terrace. The music came from the open upstairs window, and as she stood listening, she thought she recognized the Mozart piece she’d heard Gordon play once on the Liverpool Road.

  There were two glossy, deep blue doors on the side of the house, and the one nearest the rear bore the number Janice had given her. He must have the upstairs flat, Gemma thought. She knocked sharply and heard the dog bark once in response. It was only when the music stopped that she realized she had no idea what she meant to say.

  The door swung open without warning and Gordon Finch stared at her, looking none too pleased. His feet were bare, and he wore nothing but a thin cotton vest above his jeans. Sunlight glinted from the gold earring in his left ear and the reddish stubble on his chin.

  “If it isn’t the lady copper,” he said with a look that took in her dress and bare legs.

  Gemma was suddenly very aware of the fact that she was wearing only bra and knickers under the thin cotton dress. She felt both unprepared and unprofessional, and wondered why it was that tights gave one a sense of invincibility.

  “I’d never have picked you for a snoop. Is this a social call, or are you just doing your job?” His tone made it clear what he thought of her choice of profession.

  She collected herself enough to pull her identification from her handbag and flip it open. “I’d like to ask you a few questions, if you don’t mind, Mr. Finch,” she said, determined to regain her authority.

  Gordon Finch ducked his head in a mock bow and gestured towards the stairs. “Be my guest.” He stepped back to let her by, and when Gemma brushed past she was close enough to feel the warmth of his breath. The sound of her sandals thumping on the threadbare steps seemed unnaturally loud as he padded silently up behind her.

  When she reached the top of the stairs, she went straight through the open door without waiting. Her momentum carried her into the center of the room and gave her an instant to take stock.

  Gordon Finch’s dog, Sam, lay on a round cushion near the open window. “Hullo, boy,” she said. “Remember me?”

  Lifting his head, the dog regarded Gemma, then returned his head to his paws with a sigh. She obviously had not made a lasting impression.

  The single, large room was obviously used as a bedsit. To the back was a kitchen alcove with a small pine table and two chairs, to the front a single bed with a cotton spread in bars of bright reds and purples.

  “Does it get your seal of approval?” Gordon Finch said behind her, and when Gemma turned round, he added, “What did you expect? Beer cans and rubbish?”

  A bookcase held a CD player but no television, and a music stand was positioned in front of the window. His clarinet rested half out of the open case on the floor, and on t
he stand pages of sheet music fluttered gently, as if sighing. The flat was tidy and, even though sparsely furnished, looked comfortable.

  “Look, Mr. Finch, I’m not here to—”

  “Mr. Finch?” he parroted, mocking her again. “Why didn’t you say anything yesterday at the station?” He stood with his back against the door, arms crossed.

  “Pardon?”

  “You know what I mean. You’d have thought you didn’t know me from Adam.”

  Gemma glared back at him. “Are you saying I do? We spoke once, as far as I remember, and I might as well have been a leper. Now I’m supposed to have claimed you as a long-lost cousin?” She’d come here to give him a break, and he’d immediately put her on the defensive. Angrily, she added, “And you lied to us.”

  “About what?” He stepped towards her. As Gemma instinctively stepped back, it flashed through her mind that maybe this visit hadn’t been such a wise idea after all. But he merely picked up the packet of cigarettes on the table beside the bed and tapped one free.

  “You told us you didn’t know Annabelle Hammond, and that you didn’t speak to her that night,” she said as Gordon lit the cigarette with a match. The smell of smoke filled the room, sharp and pungent.

  “So?” His offhand delivery might have been more effective if he’d met her eyes. He extinguished the match with a sharp flick of his hand.

  She shook her head in exasperation. “We have the video surveillance tapes. I’ve seen them. Annabelle did stop and speak to you.”

  With the cigarette dangling from his lips, he stooped and lifted the clarinet from its case. “That doesn’t prove anything.”

  But she’d seen the instant’s freeze before he’d masked his reaction with movement. “It proves that you saw her shortly before she died, and that you had a disagreement.”

  Still holding his instrument, he sat down on the edge of the bed. “It wouldn’t be the first time a complete stranger found my playing offensive. Or my looks. Does that make me a suspect?”