“And Jo forgave 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.”
“But Annabelle wasn’t.”
“She had the potential to love. I believe she loved her sister—in spite of what she did to her—and I know she loved Harry. The child’s rejection must have been a terrible blow, something she’d never experienced—and that pain might have been the flame necessary to forge her character,” finished Rachel. She smiled at Gemma and began to assemble their tea things on the tray. “But it’s facts you want, Sergeant, and I’ve given you nothing but idle speculation.”
“It’s been a great help to talk to someone who saw Annabelle clearly, Mrs. Pargeter.”
“Do you think that?” Rachel Pargeter paused, her hand on the sugar bowl. “I’m not sure I saw her clearly at all. A good part of what I’ve said may be complete rubbish, wishful thinking on my part. Because I loved her, too, you know—not least because she reminded me of her mother. And love is a dangerous thing.”
G
EMMA HEARD THE MUSIC AS SOON
as she stepped out of the lift in Island Gardens. It was Dixieland jazz, loud and rollicking and unmistakably live. She followed the sound round the side of the domed tunnel entrance, and when she turned the corner into the park proper, she saw the band beneath the plane tree that stood sentinel where the path met the river promenade.
The tree’s trunk perfectly bisected the view of the Royal Naval College across the river, and the five musicians
stood in the shade of its branches. All were middle-aged, graying, and bearded, and with their soft hats and shirt-tails hanging over their mismatched shorts they looked like businessmen out for an afternoon’s lark. An occasional passerby tossed a coin in the open banjo case.
Gemma listened for a bit, unable to resist the toe-tapping rhythms, then wandered over to the refreshment kiosk and bought an Orangina. The park lay spread before her, so inviting that she decided to walk through it rather than go round by the road.
She took the path that cut straight through the center of the park, enjoying the clean fizziness of her drink, her steps still bouncing a bit with the music. Now they were playing a Benny Goodman tune she remembered her dad liking when she was a child, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on the name of it. She hummed along, following the tune, gazing absently at the mothers with babies in pushchairs and the couples stretched out on blankets on the grass.
In front of her, an old woman in a zimmer frame navigated the path with tortoiselike deliberation, and beyond her a man lay beside a dog—it took Gemma’s startled mind an instant to process the fact that the man was Gordon Finch, and the dog Sam. She stopped dead, staring, feeling as if she’d conjured him from her thoughts.
Gordon lay on his back, his eyes closed. He wore a tee shirt and jeans, his feet were bare, and a pair of boots rested neatly beside his clarinet case. Beneath his head, a folded jacket did duty as a pillow. The sun came out from behind the clouds, and the dappled light filtering through the leaves of the nearest plane tree played along his face and body.
Slowly, Gemma crossed the grass and stood over him. Sam lifted his head, and at the dog’s movement, Gordon opened his eyes and looked up at her. “What fair vision is this?” he asked, straight-faced.
“What are you doing here?” Gemma said.
“Not up to sparkling repartee today, are we?” He sat,
lifting his arms above his head and cracking his intertwined knuckles in a stretch. “It’s a free park, i’nt it, lady? I could ask you the same. Join me?”
Gemma looked round as if a chair might materialize, then sank to her knees. “I need to talk to you.”
Gordon nodded in the direction of the musicians. “I’m waiting a turn at this pitch, so I’m all yours as long as the band plays.”
Although still mocking, he seemed more relaxed today than Gemma had seen him before.
“What is it?” he asked, looking at her more closely. “Are you all right?”
Surprised by his tone of concern, she stammered, “I … Yes, of course I’m all right, but—”
“Then sit down properly,” he ordered. “You look like a sprinter at the blocks.” She obeyed gingerly, but before she could cross her legs, Gordon laid a hand on her outstretched ankle. “And take your shoes off. You can’t sit in the grass with your shoes on.” He grasped her sandal by the heel and slid it free as Gemma jerked her foot back, protesting.
“I can’t sit here in the park barefoot with you. It’s not—What would—”
“What are you so afraid of, Sergeant?” He glanced up at her as he lifted her other foot and slipped the shoe off. “You can charge me with assaulting an officer, if it makes you feel better.”
“Don’t be absurd,” she retorted, but she didn’t retrieve her sandals.
Gordon wrapped his arms round his knees, regarding her impassively, while Sam got up and repositioned himself against Gordon’s hip with a sigh. “You said you wanted to grill me?”
“I didn’t mean—” Gemma bit off the rest of her protest. “All right,” she said, tucking her bare feet under her in a cross-legged position. “Did you know that Annabelle had an affair with her sister’s husband?”
The expression on his face told her he was taken aback.
“No. I told you—she didn’t talk about herself. And I expect that’s the last thing she’d have told me.” He seemed to hesitate, then said, “Was it … Do you know when?”
“Some time ago. It broke up her sister’s marriage, and apparently he—Martin Lowell—blamed Annabelle.”
“That’s his name?” he asked, frowning. The upward slant of his brows echoed the sharp angle of his cheekbones. “She never mentioned him. But what has this to do with anything?”
“Her fiancé found out about her affair with Lowell on Friday night, at her sister’s party.”
“But if her sister’s already divorced, it must have been before Annabelle was engaged to him—what’s his name?”
“Reg Mortimer.”
“So why get his knickers in a twist?”
“Maybe he knew, or guessed, that there was someone else. And he thought that if she could betray her own sister, why not him? Then he saw her with you, in the tunnel.…”
“Are you saying you think he waited for her? That he killed her?”
“It’s a possibility, but so far the evidence doesn’t seem to support it. Did she tell you that she’d broken off her engagement?”
“No. Had she?”
“We don’t know. Your father says he rang her because she left him a message saying she’d called off her engagement, and that she sounded quite upset.”
“My father?” Gordon’s face was once again expressionless.
Gemma felt as if she were walking on eggshells, and fought against her inexplicable urge to protect him. “We’ve seen your father. He also told us that he and Annabelle Hammond had a long-standing relationship, and I’m having a hard time believing you weren’t aware of it.”
“I told you—my father and I aren’t close. Why should I have known?” He kept his voice even, but Gemma could see the tension in the muscles of his jaw.
“Apparently she was seen about with him often enough.
This neighborhood is as insular as any village, and considering the way information travels in that sort of environment … I should think you’d have heard sooner rather than later.”
Gordon grimaced and looked away. After a moment, he said, “We lived here when I was a child. I started school here, just up the road. My father was already a presence in the neighborhood, gaining a reputation for trying to save the old buildings—that was pretty eccentric for those days, when most people didn’t believe that the Docks could really die. But they respected his success. Everywhere I went I was Lewis Finch’s son.
“Then, when I was eight, my mum decided we should move to the suburbs; that was her idea of success—bridge and cocktails—but my dad despised it. When they divorced, he came back to the Island for good.”
“You stayed with your mum?”
“Lewis sent me to boarding school. Education meant everything to him, and he was determined I should have the best. What he couldn’t accept was my not making use of what he provided for me—at least not in the way he’d had in mind.”
Gemma thought of her own father, a self-made man in a small way compared with Lewis Finch, but still proud of the success he’d made of his bakery. Had he dreamed that his daughters would follow in his footsteps? If so, they had both disappointed him.
“He wanted you to join the firm?” she guessed.
Gordon buried his fingertips in the thick ruff of fur at the back of Sam’s neck. “I lasted a year. Have you any idea what it’s like to live in the shadow of someone like my father?”
Gemma studied him. His gray eyes were deep-set under the winged brows, his hair stuck up on the crown of his head in unruly spikes, there were hollows under his cheekbones and creases at the corners of his mouth that bespoke hard years. “So you remade yourself as far from his image as you could get: a street musician, an unconventional activist—”
“I found out what happened to the people who could no longer afford to live in their old neighborhoods,” he protested.
“You could have gone anywhere. No one would have known who you were. But you came back to the Island.” She jabbed a finger at him. “Because you care about what happens here. You’re your father’s son, whether you like it or not. And I think that’s why Annabelle sought you out.”
“That’s rubbish,” Gordon said hotly. “She didn’t even know my name in the beginning.”
“I think she did. I think she was already seeing your father, and she became curious about you. So she came to listen to you play. Maybe that’s all she meant to do at first, and it turned into more than she bargained for.”
“But why? What could she possibly have wanted?”
“I don’t know.” Gemma plucked a blade of the soft grass under her hand. “But there is a connection between your families—your fathers were evacuated together during the war.”
He stared at her. “I’d no idea.”
“And you never heard that there was some sort of feud between your father and William Hammond?”
“No. And the idea’s absurd.”
“Annabelle’s sister Jo says their father warned them away from your father and his family.”
Gordon seemed about to reply, then stopped, his expression puzzled. “It is strange, now that you mention it. Annabelle was always asking questions about my family. I thought it was just ordinary curiosity until—”
“Until what?”
“Oh, it was nothing, really.” He scratched Sam’s ear for a moment. “One day I realized she wasn’t curious about other things—you know, who my mates were, what I did when I wasn’t with her, the usual female stuff.”
Gemma gathered from the swift glance he gave her that he meant to get her dander up, so she let the remark ride.
“I …” Frowning, Gordon looked out at the river.
“How very odd. You’re sure my father knew Annabelle’s when they were young?”
“They’ve both confirmed it.”
“My father never talked about his childhood, and I certainly don’t remember him mentioning knowing William Hammond. My mother, though … she always told stories about life here before the war. They used to come here, to Island Gardens, on summer evenings, and watch the pleasure boats on the Thames. The boats were strung with colored lights, and music would drift from them over the water. Sometimes people would dance, and my mother always wished she were old enough to dance, too. But it never happened. Everything had changed, after the war.”
“Maybe that’s where you got your love of music, from your mum.”
He shrugged, his gaze still far away. “Maybe.”
The band had stopped playing, but now the music started again. First, a swingy beat, then the clarinet picked up the melody line with a hint of melancholy. Gordon reached out and, grasping her hand, pulled her to her feet.
“What—” she started to say, but he had placed his right hand in the small of her back, guiding her firmly.
“You mean they didn’t teach you to dance in police school?” he said in her ear.
“Of course not. This is …” She had been going to say “absurd,” but the grass felt cool and springy beneath her bare feet, and the weight of his hand on her back and the rhythm of the song seemed suddenly irresistible. “What is this?” she asked, fighting the temptation to close her eyes. “It seems so familiar, but I can’t quite …”