Kissed a Sad Goodbye (44 page)

“What do you suppose he means to do?” whispered Lewis worriedly
.

“Hold us hostage.” Irene gave him a quick glance, then released his arm. “But I don’t care. It’s worth it.”

“Irene—”

“It’ll be all right; we’ll talk later. You’d best go see what Edwina wants.” Then she slipped ahead of him through the kitchen door and went to help Cook with the scones for tea
.

In the corridor, Lewis straightened his collar and smoothed his hair before tapping on Edwina’s door. Edwina seldom asked to see him on his own and his pulse gave a moment’s anxious jump, but there was no way she could know about what had just happened in the barn. He took a breath and went in
.

Edwina stood before the open window, staring out and smoking, and the first thing Lewis noticed was that the cigarette in her right hand had an inch of ash on its end. As he watched, the ash fell to the carpet and shattered, but she didn’t seem to notice
.

It was then that he saw the yellowed slip of paper she held in her left hand, half crumpled in her fist. His first thought was that it was John Pebbles, or Mr. Cuddy, killed in action—but for that she’d certainly have called the others in as well
.

Then she raised her head and met his eyes, and he knew
.

“I
SUPPOSE IT WAS A TERRIBLE
irony,” Irene said. “His parents survived so much, then to be killed in the first wave of the V1s. If I remember correctly, they were just coming out of the corner shop, such an ordinary thing, on a June day much like this one.…” She shook her head and lit another Dunhill.

“Lewis refused to let William come to the funeral, or me, but Edwina insisted on going with him. He would never speak about it afterwards, or about his parents. Except once.”

Kincaid waited in silence as she smoked for a bit, and in the clear light he could see the deep creases running from her nose to the corners of her mouth—laugh lines, his
mother had always called them, but he thought Irene’s face expressed a multitude of joys
and
griefs.

“He said if he’d been there, it might not have happened,” she went on at last. “He might have heard the rocket in time.”

“And you blamed yourself for his guilt, because you wanted him to stay,” Kincaid said. He knew about guilt, about the relentless game of
what if
the mind could play.

“Yes. And I tried to comfort him.” For a moment, Irene seemed lost in the memory, then her blue eyes met his. “But nothing could have prepared us for what happened afterwards. You see, Edwina and Freddie Haliburton, our tutor, were killed in an accident very shortly after Lewis’s parents died.” She ground out her half smoked cigarette in the ashtray. “Edwina’s death … it was just too much grief—for all of us, but particularly for Lewis, who had lost both his brothers early in the war, as well as his parents. He left after Edwina’s funeral. There was nothing I could do to persuade him to stay.”

“It must have been hard for you.”

“I went back to my family in Kilburn, bombs and all, but we made it through the last of the war without incident.”

“And William Hammond?”

“William went home to Greenwich. I had the occasional letter, then they dwindled to Christmas cards.”

“And you never heard from Lewis?”

Irene’s smile was self-mocking. “I had fantasies for years that he would find me again someday. Then in the sixties his name began appearing in the papers, and I did some research. He must have lied about his age, because he did a brief stint in the army at the end of the war. Then when he was demobbed at the end of 1945, he joined a rebuilding crew and worked his way up in the construction business. There were great opportunities after the war for those with the brains and the talent to take advantage, and Lewis Finch had both.”

“But you never contacted him?”

“No. I toyed with the idea, of course, but I’d learned he was married. I’ve never been much of a masochist,” she added with a smile.

Kincaid thought for a moment. “William Hammond’s older daughter told us that he had warned her and Annabelle against Lewis Finch. Have you any idea why?”

“I can’t imagine,” said Irene, but Kincaid thought he detected a note of doubt in her voice. She rose, and going to her desk, she idly straightened the papers on its surface. “Although I suppose there was some tension between them that summer.”

“Was William jealous of you and Lewis?”

Irene frowned. “I’m not sure William even noticed what was happening between Lewis and me. He had concerns of his own.” Kincaid waited for her to continue. Softly, she said, “I promised myself I’d never become one of those old biddies who drone on about their youth. But we led an idyllic life in the year and a half we had together, William and Lewis and I, in spite of the hardships of the war. Then Freddie Haliburton came, and everything changed.” Turning, she met Kincaid’s eyes again. “He had a talent for digging out weaknesses and making lives miserable that I’ve seldom seen since.”

“You said he died?” Kincaid asked.

“Yes. It’s a wonder he wasn’t killed when his fighter crashed in the war, if he flew with the same disregard for the laws of nature he demonstrated when he got behind the wheel of a car. He went up to London every few weeks to drink himself senseless in the officers’ club, and I suspect to do other things that I didn’t understand at the time.” She shook her head. “I can’t say I’ve met many truly wicked people in my life, but Freddie … Freddie was the serpent in the garden of Eden.”

L
EWIS STARED OUT THE SCHOOLROOM WINDOW
at the rain-washed July morning and tried not to think of other July
mornings.… The July he and William had learned to spot planes … summer hikes with Mr. Cuddy on the Downs, imagining themselves to be Roman soldiers … teaching Irene to ride Edwina’s hunter. There were so many closed roads in his mind now … places he could no longer bear to go … and always the one that teased at the edge of thought. Home. His mum, and his dad …

He turned back to the five pages of Latin translation Freddie had assigned him before their regular class time began, as punishment for some transgression, but really because he knew how much Lewis hated it. And hated him
.

The door opened and Lewis tensed. He never knew now when the ruler might smack down across his knuckles, or the cruel fingers pinch his earlobe until the blood came
.

“What a good boy you are,” said Freddie behind him, and Lewis heard the rasping of his breath. The same fire that had destroyed half of Freddie Haliburton’s face had seared the delicate tissues of his lungs, and Lewis found himself wishing more and more often that the burning plane had left nothing behind but scraps of charred flesh. The thought made him shudder
.

Freddie said, “Cold?” and moved a step closer. Then Lewis felt Freddie’s hand settle on his shoulder, and he steeled himself for the pain
.

But the pain didn’t come, only a gentle stroking of his shoulder—and somehow this was far worse. “Don’t.” He wrenched himself free, his feet tangling in the chair legs as he tried to scramble away; then he turned and, stumbling, faced his tormentor. “Don’t touch me,” he said huskily, panting against the nausea that threatened to overwhelm him
.

“You wound me, Lewis. I might even think you find me distasteful,” Freddie said in his most dangerous drawl. “I’ll wager you don’t say that to Irene when she touches you. It’s quite unfair, don’t you think, that her fair face should render her your favor?”

“You leave Irene out of this,” said Lewis, not understanding everything Freddie had said, but hearing the threat
.

“Oh, but you’re the one who won’t leave Irene alone, Lewis. I’ve seen the way you look at her. I’ve even seen the way you touch her when you think no one’s looking. And sometimes I do wonder what Edwina would think if she knew …” He smiled and Lewis backed up another step
.

“You don’t seriously think she would approve, do you, boy? You can’t seriously think Edwina would consider a trumped-up barrow boy good enough for her own niece? Because you’ll never be good enough. You’ll never be anything but slum rubbish, no matter how much education you have, no matter how hard you try to speak like a gentleman—” He leaned forward and hissed, “You will never
be
one. You do understand that, Lewis?”

Lewis stared at the drop of spittle that had collected at the corner of Freddie’s ruined mouth, hoping desperately that if he kept his mind on some small and disgusting detail, the words would bounce away harmlessly, like hail against the slates
.

“Answer me, boy.” The ruler appeared in Freddie’s hand as if by magic
.

Then came the sound of voices in the hall, and a moment later William and Irene burst in, laughter dying on their lips as they took in the faces before them
.

“Aren’t we eager this morning,” drawled Freddie, making a quick recovery, while Lewis slipped back into his chair and bent over his copybook
.

Freddie started them on drills, but the atmosphere in the schoolroom was more uneasy than usual, and Lewis found it impossible to meet Irene’s eyes
.

By midmorning they were sweating from the heat, and Freddie had begun the restless pacing that Lewis had learned meant trouble was brewing
.

After a bit, Freddie stopped behind William and looked over his shoulder until William began to fidget. Then he said, conversationally, “Have you seen the papers this morning, William? They’re reporting a successful bombing run last night over Germany, a score of direct hits. Of
course”—he paused—“it’s too bad some of those targets happened to be in heavily populated areas.”

William went white, then pressed his lips together, refusing to be baited. They all knew his views on civilian bombings. It was a subject he and Lewis had avoided by mutual consent after a few charged discussions
.

William had argued that any civilian deaths were unconscionable, whatever the victim’s nationality, and that Lewis should feel the same because of what had happened to his parents—while to Lewis it seemed just the opposite, and he couldn’t understand how William could condone restraint against the Germans after what they had done to London
.

“Women, children …,” Freddie clucked sympathetically, and turned on his heel, pacing again. “Of course, there were pilots shot down, too, and that is rather a shame, wouldn’t you agree?” He stopped near his desk and studied William. “Or perhaps you wouldn’t agree with that, dear Will? Perhaps your sympathies lie elsewhere?” Reaching into his desk, he pulled out a twine-wrapped bundle and brought it over, dropping it on the table before them. “I do think you could spend your time in the attic a bit more profitably.”

William reached out a hand as if to snatch the bundle, but Freddie tapped him on the knuckles with the ruler and drawled, “I imagine Lewis and Irene would like to see what you’ve been doing.” He jerked at the twine, and leaflets spilled out across the tabletop
.

Lewis stared curiously, then with growing horror as he realized what they were—pacifist tracts, with a crudely drawn cartoon showing a leering RAF pilot deliberately strafing a fleeing German child
.

“I … they sent them to me, this group in London,” protested William. “I hadn’t given them out to anyone.” He reached for them again, but once more Freddie interceded, gathering them back into a bundle
.

“I’ll keep these for you,” Freddie said kindly. “Just in
case Edwina or any of her friends at the War Office should want to see them.”

Eyes on William, Lewis said, “How could you do such a thing?” He stood up, past caring if it made Freddie angry. “I think they’re … they’re disgusting.”

“I didn’t mean—” William began, but Lewis had pushed back his chair and started for the door. “Lewis, wait!” William shouted after him
.

Lewis glanced back, once, before slamming the schoolroom door shut behind him, and the expressions on their faces stayed burned into his memory—Irene, her brow furrowed with concern, her lips shaping his name; William, his eyes dark with fright; and Freddie, the good half of his face stretched into a grimace of satisfaction
.

H
E KNEW HIS FATHER’S HABITS
. L
EWIS
would leave his office midafternoon to check round the building sites—he never trusted anyone else to get things right; that was one of the things that had made working with him impossible. And so Gordon waited near the gunmetal-gray Mercedes in the Heron Quays car park, smoking, watching the sky darken as heavy banks of clouds moved in from the west. The stifling air smelled faintly sulphurous.

Gordon had given up trying to prepare what he would say. His mind was blank, suspended between fragmented thoughts of Annabelle and a recurring memory of his father lifting him from the waves when he was a child. When he saw Lewis come round the end of the building, he ground out his cigarette with the heel of his boot and moved to intercept him.

“Dad.”

Lewis looked up, hand on the Mercedes’s door. “Gordon! What are you doing here?”

“I need to speak to you.”

“We can go back in the office—”

“No, here. I want to know what happened the night Annabelle died. She came to see you, didn’t she?”

“I never knew until that night that there was something between you. I’d not have kept on seeing her—”

“You couldn’t let me have one thing you hadn’t stamped as yours, could you? You always had—”

“No, it wasn’t like that,” Lewis said tiredly, and Gordon saw lines in his father’s face he hadn’t noticed before. “I never meant to hurt you—I never meant to hurt Annabelle—”

“Then why did you plan to cheat her?”

“How did you know about that?” Lewis said quietly.

“You’re a fucking hypocrite, Lewis Finch. After you spent years drumming the importance of integrity into me, it turns out you’re no better than all the rest. Annabelle told me that night what you’d done—”