Kissed a Sad Goodbye (45 page)

“You wouldn’t understand. It wasn’t about Annabelle. It wasn’t even about the business, except as a means to an end.”

“And what end was that?”

“I wanted to take something from him, something he loved as much as I loved Irene, and Edwina, and he always cared more for the business and his bloody family name than he did people. But it’s nothing to do with you—”

“Do you mean William Hammond? Did you kill Annabelle to get back at William Hammond?” Gordon was shouting, past caring if anyone heard.

“What?” Lewis sounded utterly baffled. “What are you talking about?”

“When she came to see you, she told you the deal was off, didn’t she? And she told you she loved me—she said she meant to prove she loved me—and you killed her!”

“You think
I
killed Annabelle?” Lewis spoke slowly, as if trying to get it clear in his own head, and for the first time Gordon felt doubt. “But I thought you … When she left that night I thought it was you she was going to see.… I was afraid …”

Gordon stared at his father. “Are you saying that all this time you thought it was
me?”
His throat tightened with a wave of relief he wasn’t sure he could allow himself to feel.
“And I thought … they said it was someone who loved her, someone who laid her body out so carefully, and I couldn’t believe that you’d killed her and just left her.…”

“Laid her body out?”

“They said she looked serene.…” Gordon saw that his father was no longer listening.

“I should have seen it from the beginning,” Lewis said softly, his gaze still far away. A gust swirled dust and rubbish round their ankles, and in the west lightning arced from cloud to cloud.

“Seen what?”

Lewis yanked open the door of the Mercedes. “This time I’m not going to let him get away with it.”

“What are you talking about? Let who get away with it?” As Gordon reached for his father, the slamming car door brushed the tips of his fingers. “Dad!”

But Lewis was already reversing out of the parking space, and the spinning tires threw grit into Gordon’s eyes as the car accelerated away.

“We could use a bit of rain, old girl,” said George Brent. He was on his knees in the vegetable patch in his back garden, with Sheba sitting beside him, watching him as if he might turn up something tasty. “Marrows are getting to be as scrawny as I am, in this blasted heat.”

Sheba lifted her sleek black muzzle, sniffing the air, and George straightened his back a bit as he sniffed, too. His nose wasn’t what it used to be, but he could smell rain, and the sky to the west looked thunderous. “Rheumatism’s playing up—that’s a good sign,” he added as he stood and worked the stiffness from his joints. “Maybe we’d best pick them ripe tomatoes, just in case.” He was proud of his tomatoes—he started them early in the spring, on the kitchen windowsill, and bragged on them to the neighbors whenever the opportunity arose. Reaching for the basket he’d left on the grass, he bent to the task and had it half filled when he heard a whistle and a shout from the house.

“Dad. What are you doing out here in the garden with a storm coming on, you stubborn old goat?”

“Eh, lad, come and give me a hand,” called George,
beaming at the sight of his only son, who had been out on his merchant ship these past two weeks.

A large, good-natured man with dark, curling hair just beginning to recede, George Brent, Jr. was never called anything other than “Georgie.” He strode across the small square of lawn and thumped his dad on the shoulder, then took the basket. “These will make a proper feast with the sausages I’ve brought for tea, and I’ve put the kettle on.”

“Good lad.”

When they had settled at the small, oilclothed table with their sausages, fried bread, tomatoes, and steaming cups of tea, George proceeded to tell his son about the events that had taken place in his absence. He could talk now about finding the body without getting a lump in his throat, and in every telling the red-haired young woman grew more and more beautiful. “Like an angel, she was,” he said now, wiping up the last of his tomato with a bit of bread, and thinking of Lewis Finch with a twinge of guilt. He couldn’t quite bring himself to tell Georgie what he had confessed to Janice Coppin.

A crack of thunder rattled the crockery on the shelves and Sheba yipped. “This one’s going to be a corker,” George said, but as he poured them another cuppa, he wished he could bring the image that had been nagging at him into focus. A face seen at the wrong time and in the wrong place, it hovered at the very edge of his consciousness. He gave up, shaking his head in disgust, and proceeded to inform his son that perhaps that Janice wasn’t so bad after all.

A
S DROPS OF RAIN SPATTERED AGAINST
the windscreen, Lewis put the wipers on
delay
and switched on the headlamps. He drove blindly, instinctively south, besieged by the memories he had kept buried for so long. He had thought he owned them, that he could use the knowledge of the past to fuel his hatred and yet remain unscathed.
But he’d been wrong; he saw that now. And he saw, too late, that Annabelle had reminded him of Irene—

I
RENE HAD COME TO HIM THAT
night, in his room over the stable
.

“Lewis,” she’d whispered, sitting on the edge of his bed and shaking his shoulder. “I want to talk to you.”

He’d awakened instantly. “What are you doing here? You shouldn’t—”

“It’ll be all right—they’re all asleep.” She settled herself more comfortably against his hip as he struggled to prop himself up on his elbows. “Listen, you mustn’t mind about William. You know he doesn’t mean any harm—”

“That’s no excuse,” said Lewis, his anger rushing back. “Where does he think that sort of rubbish comes from? Straight from the Germans, that’s where. And when our men are dying—it could be John next, or Mr. Cuddy—”

“He’s only thinking about innocent people being killed, and he doesn’t understand how you feel about your parents, not really. He thinks you can be logical about something like that—”

“Logical? What does he bloody know about anything?” And to his shame, Lewis began to cry—the hiccuping, wrenching sobs he’d never let out, even at his parents’ funeral. Irene sat quite still, her hand on his shoulder, silent and concerned, and when he could manage, he said, “I know it’s stupid, but I keep thinking if I’d only been with them, I might have saved them somehow—”

“Lewis, you’d have been killed, too, you know that. That’s the last thing your mum and dad would have wanted.” She pulled back his blanket and slid into bed beside him, wrapping her arms round him
.

“Irene—”

“I want to be with you, Lewis. We could be bombed, too—the rockets fall short of their targets all the time—and I don’t want to die not knowing what it’s like.”

She kissed him, pressing her body against his, and for a long moment he let go—then he pulled away, panting. “We can’t; what would Edwina—”

“It doesn’t matter,” she whispered, her mouth against his ear. “Nothing matters but us. Now. I want to be everything to you—mother, sister, lover—and I want you to need me more than you’ve ever needed anyone.”

He felt her trembling against him, and when he kissed her she tasted of tears. She was right—no one had ever loved him like this. Nothing mattered but this. And then sensation washed his mind clean of any thought at all
.

L
EWIS WOKE, AS HE USUALLY DID
, when the first hint of dawn lightened the oblong of his window. Irene still lay beside him, her chest rising and falling gently as she slept. When he woke her, she sat up groggily and smiled at him
.

“I suppose I’d better get back before anyone stirs,” she said, yawning and snuggling back down under the covers
.

“You’d better hurry,” he urged. “You know how early Cook gets up sometimes.” As tempted as he was by her warm body against his, he felt suddenly uneasy, and he pushed her out of his bed with a hasty kiss
.

From his window, he watched her cross the yard in the faint gray light, and for an instant he could have sworn he saw a curtain twitch at one of the upstairs windows
.

A
LTHOUGH
L
EWIS HAD KEPT HIS ROOM
above the stable, he had for several years shared a bathroom on the second floor with William
.

That evening, after tea, he’d finished his bath and had just stepped from the tub when he heard the door open behind him
. William, come to patch things up at last,
he thought as he reached for his towel, but when he glanced up at the mirror he saw nothing but the fog from his bath. “It’s taken you long enough,” he said, determined to make light of it, for they had been avoiding one another all day
.

Then he heard hoarse breathing close by, and arms went round him, pinning him hard with his knees against the cast-iron tub
.

“Hasn’t it?” said Freddie, and Lewis felt him fumbling against him, and then came a searing pain
.

For an instant, he didn’t understand what was happening. Then, as Freddie thrust against him, he began to struggle with all the strength of his rage and humiliation. Freddie tightened his grasp, hissing, “You’ll do what I want, boy. I saw her leave this morning—I know what you’ve been—”

The door opened and Lewis wrenched himself round, but he couldn’t free himself from Freddie’s grip
.

William stood in the doorway
.

And Freddie smiled. “You know all about it, don’t you, William? You learned it at school. And if you know what’s good for you … and your little cause … you’ll bugger off … now.”

William stood frozen, white-faced with shock, his hand raised, his lips parted in protest
.

Then he met Lewis’s eyes—and turned away. The door clicked shut behind him
.

G
ORDON STOOD OUTSIDE THE CALL BOX
at Mudchute Station, staring at the smudged card he’d found in his trouser pocket. Gemma had given it to him the first time she’d come to his flat—it seemed ages ago, not a mere five days—and she’d scribbled her mobile number on the back.

He’d already provided the police with enough information to damn his father—would he make things even worse by ringing her now? But as he turned away, he saw again Lewis’s face as he had sped off in the car, and an urgency that made his stomach feel hollow drove him back to the phone.

When Gemma answered, he said without preamble, “Lewis didn’t kill Annabelle.”

“Gordon?”

“All the time I thought he’d killed her, he was thinking the same about me. And when he realized it wasn’t me, he said—it didn’t make sense.…”

“Go on,” said Gemma, her voice tense.

“He said …” Gordon paused, struggling to remember the exact words. “He said he should have known … and then something about not letting him get away with it again. Then he drove off.… He looked … I’m afraid he’ll do something crazy.…”

“Gordon?”

He didn’t answer. Without warning, the pieces had come together in a way he hadn’t thought possible, and he felt a surge of anger so intense it left him shaking.

“Gordon?”

Realizing he was still holding the receiver to his ear, he said, “I have to go,” and aimed the phone at the cradle as he turned away.

He reached his flat in minutes and took the stairs three at a time, startling Sam into a volley of barking when he burst through the door. “It’s all right, boy,” he said automatically. But he knew nothing was all right unless he could make it so.

Dropping to his knees, he dug under the bed until his fingers touched the smooth wood of the box stored there, a gift from his father on his twenty-first birthday, one of the few possessions he had carted from place to place over the years. He slid it free and clicked up the latches.

“It’s a goddamned antique,” he muttered to Sam. A sentimental memento—he’d never dreamed of shooting anyone with it. But his father’s Webley Mark IV lay snug in its red felt cradle, clean and oiled, and beside it was an unopened box of .38 cartridges.

K
INCAID HAD DRIVEN BACK FROM
S
URREY
slowly, thinking about Irene Burne-Jones and the things she had told him. He doubted Irene had ever loved anyone the way she’d loved Lewis Finch, and he’d found he hadn’t the heart to
suggest to her that Lewis might have murdered Annabelle Hammond.

Knowing something now of Lewis Finch’s history, he tried to imagine that Annabelle’s rejection of Lewis that night had been the loss that had tipped him into despair, driving him to murder. But for the first time he had doubts, and he still didn’t understand what had made Lewis so determined to take William Hammond’s property from him.

He was still mulling it over when he pulled into the car park at Limehouse Station and saw Gemma coming out the door. She wore a black, sleeveless dress that just brushed the tops of her knees, but his pleasure at the sight of her faded when he saw her distracted frown. When he called out to her, she looked his way and came to intercept him. “What’s going on?” he asked.

“Gordon Finch just rang me. He said he was sure his father didn’t kill Annabelle—and then he hung up.”

“Was he ringing from his flat?”

“Probably a call box. He doesn’t have a phone.”

“We’ll try the flat first. Get in.”

She came round the car, and as she buckled herself in, he asked, “Is that all he said?”

“No. Duncan, they were protecting each other—Gordon and Lewis—but neither of them knew it. When Lewis realized Gordon hadn’t killed her, he said he should have known, and that he wasn’t going to ‘let him get away with it again.’ ”