incongruous perched on his massive moon-shaped face that she had to bite her lip to stifle a giggle. Fortunately, he took them off and dangled them daintily from thumb and forefinger. “Sit down, Sergeant. What have you and Kincaid been up to the past few days—tiddlywinks? I’ve had a prod from the assistant commissioner, wanting to know why we haven’t produced the expected brilliant results. Apparently Sir Gerald Asherton has put quite a flea in his ear.”
“It’s only been four days, sir,” Gemma said, stung. “And the pathologist only got round to the PM yesterday. Anyway,” she added hurriedly, before Childs could trot out his dreaded maxim—
“Any hard evidence?”
“No, sir, not yet.”
Childs folded his hands across his belly and Gemma marveled, as she always did, that for all his bulk the man radiated such physical magnetism. As far as she knew, he was happily married and used his appeal for nothing more sinister than keeping the typists working to order.
“All the teams are out just now—we’ve had a regular rash of homicides. But as badly as I need the two of you, I don’t think we want to let the AC down, do you, Sergeant? It’s always in our best interest to keep the powers- that-be happy.” He smiled at her, his teeth blindingly white against his olive skin. “Will you pass that along to Superintendent Kincaid when you talk to him?”
“Yes, sir,” Gemma answered, and, taking that as dismissal, beat a hasty and grateful retreat.
* * *
When Gemma returned to Kincaid’s office, bars of sunlight slanted into the room. They looked solid enough to touch, the quality of the light almost viscous. Not quite trusting the phenomenon, she went to the window and peered through the blinds. The sky was indeed clear and as blue as it ever managed with the city smog. She looked from the window to the paperwork, lying haphazardly where she’d left it. The angle of the light across the desk revealed streaks of dust and several perfect fingerprints—smiling, Gemma walked over and wiped them away with a tissue. Remove the evidence—that was the first rule. Then she grabbed her bag from the coat stand and made for the lift before anyone could stop her.
She cut through St. James Park, walking quickly, taking in great breaths of the cool, clear air. The English have an instinct for sunshine, however brief its duration, she thought, like a radar early-warning system. The park was busy with others who had heeded the signal, some walking as quickly as she was, obviously on their way somewhere, others strolling or sitting on benches, and all looking oddly out of place in their business clothes. The trees, which in the past few days’ drizzle had looked drab as old washing, showed remnants of red and gold in the sunlight, and pansies and late chrysanthemums made a brave showing in the beds.
She came out into the Mall, and by the time she’d made her way along St. James Street to Piccadilly she could feel her heart beating and warmth in her face. But it was only a few more blocks along Albemarle Street, and her head felt clear for the first time that day.
Although she had timed it accurately, arriving a few minutes early, Tommy Godwin was there before her. He waved at her, looking as at home in the hotel’s squashy armchair as he might in his own parlor. She made her way over to him, suddenly aware of her windblown hair and pink cheeks, and of her unfashionably sensible low-heeled shoes.
“Do have a seat, my dear. You look as if you’ve been exerting yourself unnecessarily. I’ve ordered for you—I hope you don’t mind. Stuffy and old-fashioned as it is”—he nodded at the room, with its wood-paneled walls and crackling fire—“they do a proper tea here.”
“Mr. Godwin, this is not a social occasion,” Gemma said as severely as she could while sinking into the depths of her chair. “Where have you been? I’ve been trying to reach you all day.”
“I paid a visit to my sister in Clapham this morning. A gruesome but regular family necessity, one which I fear most of us are subject to—unless one has had the good fortune to come into the world via test tube, and even that has ramifications that don’t bear thinking of.”
Gemma tried to straighten her back against the chair’s soft cushion. “Please don’t take me round the mulberry bush, Mr. Godwin. I need some answers from you—”
“Can’t we have tea first?” he asked plaintively. “And call me Tommy, please.” Leaning toward her confidentially, he said, “This hotel was the model for Agatha Christie’s
Curious in spite of her best intentions, Gemma looked round the room. Some of the little old ladies seated nearby might have been Miss Marple’s clones. The faded prints of their dresses (covered by sensibly wooly cardigans), harmonized with the faded blues and violets of their hair rinses, and their shoes—Gemma’s comfortable flats weren’t even in the same realm of sensibleness as their stout brogues.
What an odd place to appeal to Tommy Godwin, she thought, studying him covertly. She pegged today’s navy jacket as cashmere, his shirt was immaculate pale gray broadcloth, his trousers charcoal and his silk tie a discreetly rich navy and red paisley.
As if reading her mind, he said, “It’s the prewar aura I can’t resist. The Golden Age of British manners— vanished now, much to our loss. I was born during the Blitz, but even during my childhood there were still traces of gentility in English life. Ah, here’s our tea,” he said as the waiter brought a tray to their table. “I’ve ordered Assam to go with the sandwiches—I hope that’s all right—and a pot of Keemun later with the pastries.”
Tea in Gemma’s family had run to Tetley’s Finest teabags, stewed in a tin pot. Not liking to admit that she had never tasted either, she pounced on his previous remark. “You only think that time must have been perfect because you didn’t live it. I imagine the generation between the wars saw Edwardian England as the Golden Age, and probably the Edwardians felt the same way about the Victorians.”
“A good point, my dear,” he said seriously as he poured tea into her cup, “but there was one great difference— the First World War. They had looked into the mouth of hell, and they knew how fragile our hold on civilization really is.” The waiter returned, placing a three-tiered tray on their small table. Finger sandwiches filled the bottom tray, scones the middle, and pastries the top, the crowning touch. “Have a sandwich, my dear,” said Tommy. “The salmon on brown bread is particularly nice.”
He sipped his tea and continued his lecture, a cucumber sandwich poised in his fingers. “It’s fashionable these days to pooh-pooh the Golden Age crime novel as trivial and unrealistic, but that was not the case at all. It was their stand against chaos. The conflicts were intimate, rather than global, and justice, order and retribution always prevailed. They desperately needed that reassurance. Did you know that Britain lost nearly a third of its young men between 1914 and 1918? Yet that war didn’t physically threaten us in the same way as the next—it stayed safely on
