Kissed a Sad Goodbye

by Deborah Crombie

  He lifted the gun. Before Gemma or Kincaid could react, Lewis shouted, “William, no!” and lunged towards him.

  But William Hammond touched the barrel of the revolver to his temple and pulled the trigger.

  CHAPTER 16 There is a growing movement determined to bring the river back to life.

  George Nicholson, from Dockland

  “He loved her,” Gemma said slowly. She sat in Janice’s office at Limehouse Station, drinking revolting coffee from the machine. “Annabelle was the child of his dreams, the one who would carry on for him, fulfill his ambitions. How hard it must have been for her, living up to that.”

  Janice said, “And he couldn’t bear for her to destroy his image of her—”

  “Or his own image. William Hammond spent fifty years living a lie so thoroughly that he even convinced himself.”

  A week had passed, and they were still sorting out the details of the case. Lewis Finch had made a detailed statement, as had Gordon, and it seemed to Gemma that their shared loss might go a long way towards healing the rift between them.

  “And Lewis?” said Janice. “He was responsible for Edwina Burne-Jones’s and the tutor’s deaths as well. Will he be prosecuted?”

  “Unlikely, I should think. There’s no evidence, except for Lewis’s own statement, and I doubt the Crown Prosecution Service would waste their time.” Softly, Gemma added, “I have a feeling Lewis Finch has paid enough.”

  Janice nodded. “I was wrong about Reg Mortimer,” she said wryly, making a face as she sipped at her coffee. “And it seems I was wrong about George Brent, too. He did know something. When I told him what happened, he remembered that the night Annabelle was killed, he’d stepped outside sometime after midnight to see his lady friend home. He saw a car come slowly up Seyssel Street and turn right into Manchester Road, and he knew the driver’s face—although he’d never actually met him, he’d seen him many times over the years.”

  “William Hammond?”

  “He must have had his car at the warehouse when Annabelle arrived unexpectedly, and that’s the way he would have gone, taking Annabelle’s body to the park. What I don’t understand is why he didn’t turn himself in when he realized he’d killed her.”

  “I suppose even then he couldn’t face the truth of what he’d done to Annabelle—or to Edwina. But it destroyed him.” Gemma thought of the way he had left his daughter’s body, so lovingly arranged … and she thought of Jo Lowell, bereft now of mother, sister, and father, burdened with the terrible knowledge of what her father had done. But she thought Jo, like Annabelle, had taken her strength from their mother, and that she would be all right.

  “There’s one good thing to come out of this, maybe,” Janice said a bit hesitantly. When Gemma looked at her, she went on with a little smile, “George Brent’s son’s been round to see me. He was an old beau, before I met Bill.”

  “And?” asked Gemma, grinning.

  “We have a proper dinner date. Tonight. He’s a nice enough bloke,” Janice added, defensively.

  “I’m sure he is,” said Gemma, and surprised Janice by giving her a quick hug before collecting her things and saying goodbye.

  • • •

  DURING LAST FRIDAY’S STORM, LIGHTNING HAD struck the DLR tracks, but the damage had been repaired and Gemma had taken the tube and then the train out to Limehouse.

  The storm had brought a week of clear skies and mild weather as well, and as Gemma boarded the DLR at Westferry, she looked forward to her walk home alone from the Angel tube stop. All week she had been plagued by a sort of melancholy that not even the thought of tomorrow’s piano lesson had relieved, and although she knew she was indulging it, she couldn’t seem to shake it off.

  She had tried to put Gordon Finch from her mind—it had been an impossible relationship from the beginning, she knew that. But still she had this nagging sense of opportunities missed, of doors not opened, and when she emerged from the Angel and saw that the music shop across Pentonville Road was still open, she went in.

  She browsed for a bit, looking over simple arrangements that she thought she might be able to learn to play, but in the end she bought what she knew she had come in for—the sheet music for Rodgers and Hart’s “Where or When.” Tomorrow, she’d ask Wendy if she could work towards learning it.

  Tucking the music a bit guiltily into her bag as she left the shop, she walked back to the Liverpool Road, past the Sainsbury’s where she’d first seen Gordon, turning into Richmond Avenue for the last few blocks before she reached Thornhill Gardens.

  Suddenly, she stopped, listening, thinking at first she was imagining the notes of the clarinet, faint on the clear air. Then she saw him, sitting on a swing in the empty school yard, clarinet in hand. He stood and came towards her.

  “I took a chance,” he said.

  “But how—”

  “I used to watch the way you walked home. I wanted to know about you.”

  “But you—” She shook her head. He had never seemed to notice her at all.

  “I’ve seen your son, too. How old is he?”

  “He’s three,” said Gemma, bemused. “His name’s Toby. Gordon, about your dad—how is he?”

  “He’s gone to Surrey—something about laying ghosts. But that’s not why I wanted to see you,” he added quickly. “I think we have some unfinished business, you and I … and …” He looked away, rubbing his fingers absently over the keys of the clarinet. “And it seems to me that the past has done enough damage, that we shouldn’t let what’s happened chart our course.”

  Gemma met his eyes then, and what she saw there made her throat tighten with emotion. Gordon Finch would never say he was lonely, would never admit to needing anyone, and she knew the effort it must have taken him to come here.

  But she also saw something else. He had put before her the choice she’d never expected to have the option of making. Reaching up, she kissed him on the lips, then stepped back and looked at him. “I can’t,” she said. “I’m sorry.” And before she could change her mind, she turned and walked away.

  THERE WAS NO ANSWER WHEN TERESA rang Reg Mortimer’s bell, but when she tried the door it swung open.

  “Reg?” she called softly as she stepped inside and looked round. The sitting room was a maze of cardboard boxes, some sealed, some still standing open, and the bare walls made the flat feel even more abandoned.

  She had called out again when she saw him, sitting in a chair on the little round balcony, huddled into a shapeless old cardigan even though it was quite warm.

  When she went out to him, he said, “I will miss the view,” as if continuing a conversation.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To my parents’ for a bit. Until I can find a job, get back on my feet. The removal men come tomorrow.”

  “I want to talk to you.” She moved between him and the river, so that he had to look at her. “About Hammond’s.”

  “Teresa, I—”

  “No, listen to me. I thought about leaving, too. I didn’t know if I could go on, with everything that’s happened.… But there’s Jo to consider now. She needs me. And I … I don’t think I can do it without you,” she finished hurriedly. How could she say things any more clearly and still retain a shred of pride?

  Reg looked past her, frowning. “I’ve told you, you don’t give yourself enough credit, Teresa. You’ll be fine.”

  “All right, I’ll give myself credit,” she said on a rush of anger. “I may be fine, but you’re not. You’re—you’re a mess, Reg. Look at you.”

  He seemed to take her command seriously, picking at his shabby cardigan, but when he looked up and met her eyes for the first time, she saw a trace of amusement in his. “I was cold.”

  “You know what I meant.”

  “The funny thing is, I was so afraid of failure, afraid of losing Annabelle. And now that there’s nothing to fear, it’s rather peaceful. I’m not sure I want to put myself in jeopardy again.”

  “I’m not Annabelle
,” Teresa said softly, and for the first time, she was glad.

  “No.” He said it with a sort of wonder that made Teresa’s pulse spring with hope. “You’re not.”

  BRAVING THE FRIDAY AFTERNOON TRAFFIC ON his way back from Cambridge, Kincaid fought to hold the Midget on course as a lorry roared past him on the motorway and the little car shook and rattled in its tailwind. He really must do something about the damned old thing, he thought, swearing. But he had promised Kit he’d keep it, and he was learning not to take such promises lightly.

  Ian had rung him earlier in the week, asking him to come to Cambridge at the earliest opportunity. Since Ian had brought Kit back to the Grantchester cottage, the boy had been silent and unresponsive, spending all his time down by the river with the dog.

  That was where Kincaid had found him, stretched out on his stomach on the damp bank under the chestnut trees, making holes in the mud with a stick.

  “I used to do that,” Kincaid said, sitting down beside him and scratching Tess behind the ears. “The water will bubble up in them, after a bit.”

  Kit gave him a sideways glance and went back to his digging. “I didn’t think you’d come.”

  “I said I would.” Kincaid took a stick and poked a hole himself. “Do you want to come to London next weekend? I’ve a few days off.”

  “Are they really off?”

  “Yes. I promise.” He would make sure of it, even if it meant tossing his phone and pager in the nearest bin.

  “I might,” said Kit, but he dug a little harder.

  “What’s up with you and Ian?” Kincaid asked casually, reaching for a flat stone and skimming it across the water. “He’s worried about you.”

  Kit pushed himself up to his knees and sat back, staring at the river. After a moment, he said, “I asked him if you were really my dad, and he said he thought you might be—but that it didn’t matter. He says he and I are family, and he wants us to be together.”

  Kincaid waited as Kit snapped his stick into pieces and fed them to the current.

  When the last piece of wood had lodged in the roots of a chestnut tree, Kit said, “But he left last time.”

  “I think,” Kincaid said slowly, “that Ian needs to be with you just now. He’s done some things he knows were wrong, and this is his way of trying to make it up. You could help him.”

  Kit gave him a surprised glance. “Me?”

  “I think so. And I know he misses your mum, and he needs someone to share that with.”

  Sitting back, Kit wrapped one arm round his knees and absently petted the dog with his free hand, but it seemed to Kincaid that there was a receptive quality to the boy’s silence.

  After a bit, Kincaid said, “Hungry?” and Kit looked up and smiled.

  “Starving.”

  Kincaid took him to tea at The Orchard, and they spent an easy hour under the apple trees with the wasps while Kit worked his way through the menu.

  When it was time to go, Kincaid walked him back to the cottage and said, “I’ll ring you about next weekend.” Then he offered his hand for their customary high five, and it seemed to him that his son left his palm in his just an instant longer than usual.

  HE FOUND THAT GEMMA HAD LEFT him a note on her door, and another on the Cavendishes’, directing him to the sitting room. Bemused, he followed the trail and found her sitting at Hazel’s upright piano. She wore a crinkly, white cotton dress that ended just above her bare ankles, and she’d pulled her hair back loosely at the nape of her neck with a seashell slide.

  “Where are Hazel and Tim and the kids?” he asked, pulling a chair up beside her.

  “They went to the pictures. A Friday night treat.”

  “You didn’t want to go?”

  “I thought I’d be here when you got back. How was it with Kit?”

  “All right,” he said, suddenly realizing that perhaps, at least for the time being, it was. “What’s this?” he added, noticing the piano primer standing open on the music rack.

  Gemma poised her hands over the keys, then tentatively touched middle C. “I’ve started lessons.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked, surprised. “I’d no idea you wanted to play.”

  “I thought you might laugh. And … I know it’s silly, but I wanted something in my life that was just mine.”

  “I don’t understand,” he said, baffled.

  “I know.” Gemma turned to him. “I’ve been thinking about Annabelle Hammond.”

  “What has Annabelle to do with this?”

  “She lived by other people’s expectations—because she was so beautiful, everyone in her life had their idea of who she was, what they wanted her to be. And what seems tragic to me is that she finally made different choices, her own choices, about what mattered to her—but she never got to see where they might have led. Or who she might have become.”

  Kincaid still didn’t understand, but he saw the fear that had been hovering at the back of his mind for what it was. “Gemma, if this is about Gordon Finch—if you want—”

  “No. This isn’t about Gordon … or only a little bit. It’s me. I don’t know what I want.… I only know that I’m in the process of becoming, and I want to see where it takes me, who I might be. I love you, Duncan. I do know that.”

  “Well, that’s something, anyway,” he said, trying to make light of the chasm yawning before him.

  But Gemma regarded him with perfect gravity. “It’s all we ever have, really. Isn’t it?” she said.

  LEWIS SAT FACING IRENE IN THE rusting iron chairs of the cottage’s rose garden. Their knees touched, and she held his hand in both of hers lightly.

  It had been John Pebbles’s cottage once, and John had tended these fragrant roses with as much care as Irene evidently did now. It was fitting, Lewis thought, that Irene should be here, and that he had come back at last.

  He had told her everything, and she had listened without comment. Now she looked up at him, and in the clear afternoon light he could see the tracing of fine lines in her fair skin. Her eyes were as blue as he remembered, and she looked the way he’d imagined she would, as if she’d grown into herself.

  “Why didn’t you tell me, Lewis?”

  “I couldn’t. I suppose I was just as guilty as William in that sense. I couldn’t bear you knowing I wasn’t what you thought.”

  “How were you to know what I thought?” she said sharply. “Or what we might have made of our lives if you had told me? Who were you to decide that it was better for me to spend my life alone than to share the burden of your guilt?”

  “I—”

  “Never mind,” Irene said with a sigh. “We are who we are now, and that path’s not worth following. But it seems to me that Freddie Haliburton has ruined enough lives. And that you underestimated my capacity for forgiveness. Let it go now, Lewis. It’s time.”

  He met her eyes, and he knew he had found the only absolution that mattered.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Winner of the Macavity for Best Novel of 1997 for Dreaming of the Bones, Deborah Crombie received international acclaim for her first four mysteries, as well as nominations for the Edgar and the Agatha Awards. She grew up in Dallas, Texas, and later lived in Edinburgh and in Chester, England. She travels to Great Britain yearly to research her books. She now lives in a small north Texas town with her husband, daughter, cocker spaniel, and four cats, and is at work on the seventh book in the Duncan Kincaid/Gemma James series, which includes All Shall Be Well, A Share in Death, Leave the Grave Green, Mourn Not Your Dead, and the award-winning Dreaming of the Bones.

  If you enjoyed Deborah Crombie’s Kissed a Sad Goodbye, the sixth in the Duncan Kincaid/Gemma James series, you won’t want to miss any of her superb novels. Look for them at your favorite bookseller.

  And turn the page for an exciting preview of Deborah Crombie’s next novel, A Finer End, available in hardcover from Bantam Books.

  A

  FINER

  END

  BY

>   DEBORAH CROMBIE

  CHAPTER 1

  The shadows crept into Jack Montfort’s small office, filling the corners with a comfortable dimness. He’d come to look forward to his time alone at the day’s end—he told himself he got more done without phones ringing and the occasional client calling in, but perhaps, he thought wryly, it was merely that he had little enough reason to go home.

  Standing at his window, he gazed down at the pedestrians hurrying down either side of Magdalene Street, and wondered idly where they were all scurrying off to so urgently on a Wednesday evening. Across the street, the Abbey gates had shut at five, and as he watched, the guard let the last few stragglers out from the grounds. The March day had been bright with a biting wind, and Jack imagined that anyone who’d been enticed by the sun into wandering round the Abbot’s fish pond would be chilled to the bone. Now the remaining buttresses of the great church would be silhouetted against the clear rose of the eastern sky, a fitting reward for those who had braved the cold.

  He’d counted himself lucky to get the two-room office suite with its first-floor view over the Market Square and the Abbey gate. It was a prime spot, and the restrictions involved in renovating a listed building hadn’t daunted him. His years in London had given him experience enough in working round constraints, and he’d managed to update the rooms to his satisfaction without going over his budget. He’d hired a secretary to preside over his new reception area, and begun the slow task of building an architectural practice.

  And if a small voice still occasionally whispered, “Why bother?” he did his best to ignore it and get on with things the best way he knew how, although he’d learned in the last few years that plans were ephemeral blueprints. Even as a child, he’d had his life mapped out: university with first class honors, a successful career as an architect … wife … family. What he hadn’t bargained for was life’s refusal to cooperate. Now they were all gone—him mum, his dad … Emily. At forty, he was back in Glastonbury. It was a move he’d have found inconceivable twenty years earlier, but here he was, alone in his parents’ old house on Ashwell Lane, besieged by memories.