“Either. Both.”
“I don’t know. He seemed pretty cut-up.”
“In any case, I’ll guarantee you that his story about the row at the party is a load of bollocks.”
“You can’t underestimate the power of sibling rivalry. Think about Jo, feeling awkward giving a party for the first time on her own. She might easily have been tempted into a little flirtation with her sister’s boyfriend, and if that were the case, she wouldn’t be dying to admit it under any circumstances.”
“Very embarrassing. Not to mention it being a good reason for having had an all-out row with her sister,” Kincaid added, considering the scenario.
“Which she wouldn’t want to admit, either. But that doesn’t solve the problem of what happened after Annabelle and Reg left the party.”
They had reached the top of the Isle of Dogs peninsula, and he took Aspen Way to the right as it curved back towards the south and the approach to the Blackwall Tunnel.
As they entered the tunnel a draft of cooler air swirled into the car. Gemma leaned back against the headrest and closed her eyes.
Glancing at her, Kincaid said, “Were you just trying to get a rise out of Mortimer when you told him that Gordon Finch was good?”
For a moment, Gemma didn’t respond, then she opened her eyes and gave him a swift look he couldn’t read. “Not exactly. He was practicing when I arrived at his flat yesterday. But I’d heard him before, in Islington.”
“In Islington?” he said, surprised. “When?”
She shrugged. “It’s been a few months. But I wasn’t sure until yesterday that it was the same person.”
“I shouldn’t think Gordon Finch would be easy to mistake,” Kincaid said as the traffic slowed to a dead stop midtunnel. Although he’d learned he couldn’t always tell what made other men attractive to women, he sensed that Finch had a certain magnetism, and if the man had appealed to Annabelle … “The strong, silent type, is he?”
“Who? Finch?”
“Or maybe it was the dog that impressed you?”
“As a matter of fact, I remembered the dog,” Gemma answered equably. “It was seeing him again yesterday that clinched it.” She smiled, examining her fingertips, and he wondered who was taking the mickey from whom.
They rode the rest of the way to Greenwich in silence, but he couldn’t quite shake the feeling that Gemma was holding something out on him.
JO LOWELL ANSWERED HER DOOR BEFORE Kincaid had lifted his finger from the bell, and at the sight of them her face fell. “I was just on my way out. I’m late for a meeting with a client. The children were dreadful this morning—” She stopped. “Never mind. What can I do for you?”
She was dressed to go out, in crisp trousers and a white silk blouse. A dusting of makeup minimized her freckles, her dark auburn hair was pulled back with a gold slide, and she wore a pair of simple topaz earrings. For the first time Kincaid realized how attractive she could be.
“It won’t take a minute,” he apologized, and she stepped back, ushering them in with good grace.
“Is this all right?” she asked, indicating the dining room.
The vase of yellow sunflowers still stood on the table in the pleasant room, and as they sat, Kincaid thought of Annabelle here, perhaps laughing at something someone said.
“We’ll get right to the point, Mrs. Lowell. We’ve just had a chat with Reg Mortimer, and he admits that he and Annabelle had a row.”
Had he imagined the swiftly controlled spasm of tension in Jo Lowell’s mouth? “Are you sure your sister didn’t tell you what the row was about?”
“No … I … What did Reg say?”
“That Annabelle was angry because she thought you were flirting with him.”
For a moment, Jo stared, her mouth open; then she let out a peal of laughter. “Reg said I was flirting with him?”
“I take it you don’t agree?” Kincaid asked.
“In his dreams.” Jo subsided into slightly hysterical snickers. “I bloodied his nose once too often when we were kids, the little sod. I could kill him!” She clapped her hand over her mouth. “I didn’t mean—”
“I know you didn’t. But could Annabelle have thought there was something going on between you and Reg? He says she was really narked about something.”
“The bastard. It wasn’t Annabelle who was angry—not in the beginning. He was the one furious with her.”
“Why didn’t you tell us this before?” Kincaid edged the vase of sunflowers over a bit so that he could see her across the table.
Jo sat back, sliding her hands into her lap, but not before he’d seen how tightly they were clenched. He was suddenly aware of her perfume, a fresh, grassy scent, and of the rising and falling of her chest in the warm, still room. “You knew all the time what the row was about, didn’t you, Jo? Why didn’t you tell us? And why did Reg lie about it twice?”
He waited, sensing Gemma beside him, but knowing she wouldn’t break the tension, wouldn’t give Jo an out.
“I didn’t know, when you first asked me, that Annabelle was dead,” Jo whispered at last, without taking her eyes from her clenched hands. “And then I was ashamed.”
“You were ashamed?” Gemma prompted her gently. “Was it something you said?”
Jo shook her head, and the tears that had gathered on her lower lashes spilled over, streaking her cheeks. She didn’t lift a hand to wipe them away. “It was Harry. You have to understand: It was Martin who poisoned him against Annabelle. I daresay she deserved it, but she adored Harry from the moment he was born, and I think it broke her heart.”
Leaning forward, Gemma reached out as if to touch her. “Jo, start from the beginning. Tell us what happened.”
“I don’t want you to think badly of Annabelle.” Jo lifted a curled fist to her breast in a pleading gesture.
“We won’t,” Gemma promised, without taking her eyes from Jo’s, and Kincaid marveled, as he always did, at her ability to make an emotional link with a stranger.
Jo took a shaky breath and exhaled on a sigh, blinking back her tears. “It started when Sarah was a baby—before that, really. Martin and I had been having problems—I’d even thought about leaving him—and then Mummy got sick. And I got pregnant.” Looking away, she shook her head and continued softly, “It was a stupid thing to do, crazy even, but it was like I couldn’t help myself, I couldn’t fight this urge.… I even cheated on my birth control.” She looked back at them, her lips curving in a small smile. “It didn’t help things with Martin, and it didn’t keep Mummy from dying. But it gave me something to love, to fill the void.… Why am I telling you this? I’ve never said—”
Gemma touched her fingertips to Jo’s outstretched hand. Kincaid thought he might have disappeared as far as the two women were concerned. “I have a son the same age as your Sarah. I know what it’s like.”
After a moment, Jo nodded. “Martin had been jealous of Harry, but with Sarah he felt completely shut out, and he was more angry with me than ever. And Annabelle … When Mummy died, Annabelle hadn’t anything.…” The breath she took sounded almost like a sob. “They had an affair. Martin and Annabelle. Annabelle told me, after a few months. She said she couldn’t stand it anymore, knowing that she’d betrayed me and the children, and that Martin wanted to keep on. I filed for divorce.”
“Were you terribly angry with her?” Gemma asked it quietly.
“Of course I was angry. Furious. But she was my sister, and after a bit … I missed her.
“But Martin never forgave her; he swore she’d ruined his life, taken his children from him—as if he’d had nothing to do with it at all.” Her voice rose on an incredulous note.
“And Harry?”
“Martin told him it was Annabelle’s fault we weren’t a family anymore, that everything would have been wonderful if she hadn’t interfered. That was bad enough, but I thought that was all he’d told him. Until the night of the dinner party.” Jo looked round the room as if realizing where she was sitting. “Annabelle ha
dn’t been here often.… Things had been awkward between us, though we put up the best front we could for Father. But I thought it was time we mended things, so I invited them—Annabelle and Reg—and Mummy’s friend Rachel Pargeter who lives round the corner, and some clients who weren’t biased one way or the other.…”
When Jo lapsed into silence, Gemma said softly, “What happened?”
“It was a disaster. Oh, not at first. Harry was rude to her, but I sent him to play outside with Sarah, and we got through dinner with flying colors. Then Harry came into the kitchen as Annabelle and Reg were helping me clear up. Annabelle had never stopped trying to make things up with Harry, you see. They’d been so close, and I don’t think she really understood how deep the damage went. She touched him, called him a pet name, and he—lashed out at her. He said things … called her horrible names.…” Jo stopped. She’d gone pale under her tan.
“What sort of names?”
“Whore,” Jo said, so quietly that Kincaid had to lean forward to hear her. “Filthy tart. He said if she hadn’t … I’d no idea he even knew the words. Annabelle slapped him, and then Reg … started in on her.”
“Reg was angry at Annabelle?” Kincaid frowned. “Not at Harry?”
“Reg hadn’t known about Annabelle and Martin. He kept shouting at her, ‘Is it true? Is it true?’ and poor Harry was crying.… Then Annabelle stormed out and Reg followed her. I thought, the next day when he said she wouldn’t answer his calls, that she had bloody good reason not to.”
“And you didn’t think, when you found out she was dead, that Reg might have killed her?”
“No. I thought … not Reg. For all his faults, the three of us have been together since we were children. Reg would never have hurt her.”
“What about Martin? What if she went to see Martin after she left Reg in the tunnel?”
Jo’s eyes widened with shock, and for a moment the room was so hushed Kincaid could hear his pulse pounding in his ears. Then Jo breathed, “Oh, God. Not Martin.”
GEMMA STOOD BESIDE KINCAID IN THE lane as they watched Jo Lowell pull away in her small Fiat.
“Funny, Martin Lowell didn’t happen to mention the fact that he’d had an affair with his sister-in-law when we spoke to him,” Kincaid said, lifting his hand as Jo glanced back once before turning the corner into Hyde Vale.
“Or that he hated her. Although we might have guessed it.” Not relishing the prospect, Gemma added, “I’ll stop at the bank in Greenwich and speak to him again.”
“Let’s put it off until this afternoon. I think I’d like to be in on this one.” Kincaid looked at his watch. “But I’d better not keep the guv’nor waiting. I’ll ring you from the Yard.” Unlocking the Rover, he added, “Hop in. I’ll give you a lift to the town center on my way.”
Gemma hesitated. “I’d like to hear someone else’s account of that dinner party. Jo said her mum’s friend lived just round the corner. I think I’ll give her a try.”
“You don’t know which house.”
“I’m perfectly capable of knocking on doors,” Gemma retorted, waving him off.
She found Mrs. Rachel Pargeter on her second try, one house down from the corner on Hyde Vale. A tall woman in her sixties, with silver hair swept back in a neat twist, Rachel Pargeter wore a green canvas apron over her cotton blouse and trousers.
“Gardening gear,” she explained in a husky voice when Gemma had introduced herself. “Come through to the back, and I’ll just wash my hands.”
Gemma smiled with involuntary pleasure as the woman led her into a glassed-in room whose doors stood open to a flagstone terrace and a shady garden. “It’s lovely.”
“Coolest room in the house. I’ll just make us some tea—won’t take a moment.”
An enormous tabby cat lay on its back on the rattan sofa, all four paws in the air. It opened its eyes and blinked at Gemma, stretching sumptuously, and they had proceeded to the belly-scratching stage of acquaintance when Rachel Pargeter reappeared with a tray.
“Give over, Francis, you great beast,” she said in a tone of affectionate exasperation. Then to Gemma she added, “Just shove him off. It will only hurt his feelings for about thirty seconds—short-term memory loss can be a blessing.”
When Gemma had gently removed the feline and accepted a mug, Rachel Pargeter seated herself in the adjacent wicker rocker and studied her. “This is about Annabelle Hammond, I take it?”
“I understand you’ve been a friend of the family for some time.”
“Oh, donkeys’ years,” Rachel admitted. “Isabel befriended me when we first moved here, thirty years ago. That was a great loss—Isabel’s death. And now this.” She sipped at tea Gemma still found too hot to drink. “I always felt a bit sorry for Annabelle, but I never thought things would come to this.”
“You felt sorry for Annabelle?”
“I’ve always thought that exceptional beauty was as great an affliction as any physical handicap—perhaps more so. It is so difficult for the beautiful person, male or female, to develop a good character, isn’t it? The odds are stacked against them from the start.”
Gemma frowned. “How do you mean?”
“They are never required to earn the regard or affection of others through their behavior; rather, they come to expect it as their due. And they are forgiven almost anything, simply because of the way they look. Annabelle was more fortunate than others, because her mother kept her from being utterly spoiled.”
Francis chose that moment to leap into Rachel’s lap. The woman adroitly avoided spilling her tea, then stroked him as she continued, “The other tragic thing, in my experience, is that beautiful people so seldom have the security of knowing they are loved for themselves—who they are on the inside. But Isabel loved her daughter in spite of her beauty, not because of it, and she was scrupulously fair with the children.” She sighed. “William, of course, was a great trial to her, but she didn’t like to complain.”
“A trial? How?”
“Annabelle was the child of his dreams—this beautiful girl who grew up with a passion for tea that surpassed his own.”
“So he spoiled her terribly?”
“Oh, yes. And he placed on her the burden of perfection, which is a very difficult thing to live up to. It’s no wonder Annabelle went off the rails a bit when her mother died.”
“You knew about Annabelle and Martin Lowell?”
“I’m afraid so,” Rachel said, nodding sadly. “Jo confessed it to me. Poor thing, she had no one else to turn to—she certainly couldn’t tell her father what his precious Annabelle had done.” She gave Gemma a swift, intelligent glance. “And I suppose I’m betraying Jo’s confidence now. But all this has been rather weighing on me.…”
“Jo told us herself, so you’re hardly betraying a confidence,” Gemma reassured her. “What I don’t understand is how either of them could have fallen for Martin Lowell.”
Rachel Pargeter smiled. “I take it you haven’t seen Martin at his best. He can be quite charming—even I was smitten when they were first married and he asked my advice about the garden. He made me feel my opinion was the only one in the world that mattered. That intensity of his must have been awfully tempting to a girl used to playing second fiddle. Jo saw herself as Cathy to his Heathcliff.”
“And Annabelle?”
“I suspect that after Isabel died she just desperately wanted to feel loved, and she mistook Martin’s desire for that. I imagine she found out soon enough that Martin and love had no place in the same equation.”
“But to betray her own sister!” Gemma hadn’t realized until now how much the knowledge had upset her. She’d been able to justify to some extent Annabelle’s betrayal of Reg Mortimer with Gordon Finch, but not her affair with her own brother-in-law.
“Sibling rivalry has existed since Cain and Abel. I expect Annabelle wanted what she thought her sister had—contentment in her marriage, children—and she was used to taking what she wanted.”
“And Jo fo
rgave her?”
“Eventually. But Harry didn’t.”
“It’s about the dinner party I came to see you,” said Gemma.
Rachel closed her eyes for a moment. “Oh, that was a terrible evening.”
“You heard the argument.”
“It’s a small house, and they were shouting. Not that I was surprised, mind you. I’d had an idea what was brewing. Harry stays with me sometimes, and I’d seen what his father was doing to him.” Rachel pushed the cat from her lap and set her empty cup on the table. “Martin’s infidelity I could forgive, but not using his son to satisfy his own need for revenge. I’m surprised someone hasn’t killed the bastard.”
“Tell me what they said in the kitchen that night.”
“I heard Harry first, shouting filthy words. Jo’s poor clients were mortified—I think they thought it was the telly at first. Then Jo, shouting at Harry … and Harry sobbing.”
“And Annabelle?”
Rachel looked away. “She was … pleading with Harry. Then Reg started in on her—I couldn’t make out all the words, but he was outraged. Annabelle shouted at him. Then the back door banged, twice. Neither of them came back into the dining room. Jo returned a few minutes later, trying to put a good face on it, but we excused ourselves as quickly as we could.”
“Did Reg and Annabelle seem all right at dinner?”
“Yes. A bit snappish, perhaps, but nothing out of the ordinary for a couple who knew one another well.”
“And there was no mention of anyone, or anything else, that might have set off an argument?”
“Not that I remember.” Frowning, Rachel added, “You’re not thinking that Reg could have had something to do with Annabelle’s death, I hope. He’s not a bad lad—used to play with my Jimmy when he came to visit Jo and Annabelle.”
“He was very angry with her.”
“I think he may have been more upset on Jo’s behalf than his own. That’s what he shouted at Annabelle. ‘How could you do that to your sister?’
“It is a shame that Annabelle hadn’t the chance to see what she could make of herself—to see if she could mend her flaws,” Rachel went on after a moment. “People always mourn the passing of exemplary souls, but I’m inclined to think they’ve done their bit and are ready to move on.”
Kissed a Sad Goodbye Page 22
