“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
.
G
EMMA 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 the 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?”
“What I saw on that video was not a disagreement between strangers,” she replied. “It was an argument between two people who cared enough about each other to be angry. You knew her. Why are you so determined to deny the obvious?”
Taking a last drag on the cigarette, he crushed it out in a small black and white Wedgwood ashtray. With his gaze on the clarinet, he pressed the keys without lifting it to his lips. She waited in silence, and at last his fingers stilled. He looked up at her. “Because whatever there was between Annabelle and me is no one else’s business.”
“It is now. This is a murder investigation.”
“I had nothing to do with her death. And what was between us had nothing to do with her death.”
“Then doesn’t it matter to you how she died?” Gemma demanded. “Someone killed Annabelle Hammond, and it’s my guess it was someone she knew and trusted.”
“Why? What makes you say that? Surely it was some … You said she was found in the park.… How was she …”
Although in her brief experience Gordon Finch had been sparing with words, it was the first time Gemma had seen him at a loss for them. “We’re not releasing the cause of death just yet, but I will tell you that there was little sign of a struggle, and that she does not appear to have been sexually assaulted.” She hesitated, then added, “And her body seemed to have been rather carefully … arranged.”
“Arranged?” He stared at her. “Arranged how?”
She didn’t know if the details would haunt him more
than the images conjured up by his imagination, but she knew she’d said too much already and would have to answer to Kincaid for going over the mark. Temporizing, she said, “As if her dignity mattered. She looked very … serene.”
“Annabelle, serene? That’s an oxymoron.” He stood again, lighting another cigarette.
“Why? What was she like, then?”
Frowning, he inhaled until the tip of the cigarette glowed orange-red. “She was … intense. Alive. More so than anyone I’d ever met.” He shook his head. “That sounds absolute rubbish.”
“No. Go on.”
He shifted restlessly. “That’s it. That’s all I can tell you.”
“But—”
“You don’t understand. I knew how she
was
with me, but nothing else. Nothing.” Going to the window, he pulled aside the lace panel and looked out. The sounds of the heavy equipment from the construction at the Mudchute DLR Station came clearly on the breeze.
When he didn’t continue, she said, “Were you …”
“Lovers?” The word carried an undertone of amusement. “Past tense. I broke things off with her months ago.”
“
You
broke it off with
her
?”
He spun round and took a step towards her. “Is that so hard to believe? Do you think I hadn’t any pride? I’d had enough of games.”
“What sort of games?”
“She came to listen to me play, just like you. And one night she came home with me.”
Gemma felt the flush creeping up her chest and throat. Is that what he’d thought the evening she’d stopped and spoken to him about his dog? She wondered if he’d been more encouraging with Annabelle—not that she’d had Annabelle’s motives, of course.… Or if perhaps Annabelle had liked the challenge.
“I should think you’d have been flattered,” she said, aiming at nonchalance as she perched herself gingerly on the arm of the old chair near the bed.
Its fabric was worn, but he’d covered it neatly with a woven purple rug, and for an instant she imagined Annabelle sitting there, framed by the contours of the chair, her hair glowing against the purple backdrop. Gemma smoothed the rug with her fingers, feeling as though she were infringing upon a ghost.
“Flattered?” With a derisive snort, he added, “By the attention of a woman who didn’t tell me her name for weeks? Who made it a point not to tell me where she lived or what she did?” He flicked ash from his cigarette end with a sharp tap of his fingertip.
“But you found out?”
“Only by accident. I’d just got off the train at Island Gardens one day. I looked down from the platform and saw her coming out of the Ferry Street flat. And once I knew her name, it didn’t take too long to make the connection with Hammond’s Teas.”
“You must have wondered why she was so secretive—what she was hiding.”
“The arrangement suited me well enough.”
“Did it?” Gemma shook her head. “I wouldn’t think the hole-and-corner bit suited you at all. Or that you’d like being treated as if she was ashamed of you.”
“All right,” he said sharply, and she knew her remark had stung. “I didn’t like it. But she said she was engaged to someone in the company, and there were reasons she couldn’t break it off.”
“What sort of reasons?”
“She wouldn’t say. I told you, she didn’t talk to me about herself. She only said that much because—” He stopped, scowling, and ground out his cigarette in the ashtray next to the first.
“Because you threatened to call it off,” Gemma finished for him. “Is that it?” When he didn’t answer, she said, “Is that what ended things between you?”
“No. I just … got tired of her, that’s all.” He jammed his hands in his pockets and stared out the window.
“When did you learn about your father’s connection with Annabelle?” asked Gemma, trying a different tack.
“I didn’t know there was a connection—and I doubt you do, either. You’re fishing, Sergeant.”
“We have a witness who saw them together as far back as last autumn. And your father left a message on her answering machine the night she died.”
“So?” Gordon challenged, but she thought his face had paled.
“When did you first see Annabelle?”
He lit another cigarette. “I don’t remember.”
“You said she came to listen to you play. You must remember what time of year it was,” Gemma insisted.
“Summer, then. It was hot.”