sort out his impressions of the day.
Jo Lowell’s quiet identification of her sister’s body had been harder to take than tears. His condolences had sounded stiff and intrusive even to himself, and he’d had her driven home without attempting to question her further.
Now that they had put a name to the face, the investigation would move into the sifting of evidence and the tracing of every connection with Annabelle Hammond. The constable dispatched to the Greenwich Foot Tunnel had found no sign of the busker described by Reg Mortimer, but from the beginning Kincaid had had his doubts about the story’s authenticity. It was just too bloody convenient, and he’d begun to suspect that Reg Mortimer had a great capacity for inventiveness.
Having organized his makeshift desk as best he could, he said good night to the officers still on duty in the incident room and left the station through the side entrance. As he retrieved the Midget from the car park, he heard music and laughter pouring out of the pub next door. The image of Kit waiting alone in the flat squelched the temptation of a pint before it was fully formed, and he climbed in the car and started the engine. Tomorrow he’d pick up an unmarked Rover from the Yard, but tonight he would enjoy the rare treat of driving through the warm darkness with the top down.
He loved London at night, when the streets had emptied and the lights ran together in a kaleidoscopic blur. As he pulled out into West India Dock Road, he could see to his left the flashing beacon atop Canary Wharf’s Canada Tower. He wondered if Annabelle Hammond had seen it last night as she emerged from the Greenwich Tunnel, and who had been with her.…
Of course, they couldn’t overlook the possibility that Annabelle had been killed by a stranger, perhaps an attempted rape gone wrong; she might simply have been in the wrong place at the wrong time. But his instincts told him that there was more to it than that. He guessed Annabelle Hammond had been the sort of woman who aroused strong emotions, and that it was this quality in her that had led to her death.
The drive from Limehouse to Hampstead took him half as long as during the day, and when he reached Carlingford Road he found a parking space near his flat, a miraculous feat at this time of night. The windows of the Major’s basement rooms were dark, so he entered the building and climbed the stairs to his own flat.
Carefully, he slid his key into the lock and eased open the door. His sitting room was in semidarkness, lit only by the small lamp on the kitchen island and the soundless, flickering images on the telly. Kit lay on the sofa in jeans and tee shirt, sound asleep, one arm outstretched, Sid curled up on his chest. The cat opened green eyes and blinked at Kincaid; the boy didn’t stir.
As Kincaid stood watching, he had the same odd sensation in his chest that he’d experienced the last time he’d seen Kit sleeping—the day he’d found the boy hiding in the Grantchester cottage after his mother’s death.
Turning away, he discovered on the kitchen island a covered plate of sandwiches, a glass of milk, and a note in Kit’s small, neat hand.
This missive was signed with a large calligraphic K and embellished with birdlike squiggles.
Kincaid found a light blanket in the linen cupboard and covered Kit as far as the cat. Then he put the sandwiches and milk in the fridge, quietly poured himself a finger of twelve-year-old Macallan, and carried the note and his drink across the room to the armchair. There he sat for a long time, motionless except for the occasional lifting of his glass, watching the gentle rise and fall of Kit’s breathing.
AFTER SHE HAD PUT THE CHILDREN to bed, Jo slipped next door and let herself into her father’s house with her key. He had taken Sir Peter and Helena to dinner at the Savoy, but he would be home soon and she had steeled herself to break the news to him then.
She hadn’t been able to bring herself to speak to the children, not yet, although she knew she’d have to face it in the morning. They’d gone to bed without a fuss, a signal that they sensed something was wrong, but they hadn’t asked. Nor had they questioned her unexplained absence when the police had driven her to the morgue, though Harry had made a token complaint about being sent to the neighbors’ for a while.
Standing in the hallway, she listened to the sounds of the empty house. The grandfather clock ticked; the floor creaked; from the kitchen came the low hum of the fridge and the intermittent drip of the tap. She had grown up in this house, and to her it seemed a living, breathing entity, as familiar as her own body. It had its own unique smell, and she closed her eyes as she tried to pick out the individual components. Was there the faintest hint of tea rose still, four years after her mother’s death? It had been her mother’s scent, and the house had been filled with the garden’s roses from spring to frost. Did odors linger like ghosts, invisible, yet there for those able to perceive them?
She gazed up at the portrait of her mother on the landing. The beaded lace veil and headdress Isabel Hammond wore in the portrait hid most of her red-gold hair, but the eyes that looked down at her were Annabelle’s.
The only blessing Jo could see in her sister’s death was that her mother had not had to endure it. Although her mother had seen Annabelle more clearly than most, she had loved her fiercely nonetheless. As Jo loved her own children, despite their faults—and she found her mind could not fasten on the thought of their deaths, at any age.
Moving into the dining room, she encountered her father’s essence; the muskiness of his shaving soap, overlaid with the sharpness of glue and the slight spiciness of balsa. He had always been good with his hands, and when her mother’s ill health, and then his own, had compelled him to turn the day-to-day running of the business over to Annabelle, he’d begun building scale models of tea clippers. Since childhood he’d been fascinated by the intricacy and precision of the ships that had first brought tea to Britain.
The dining room table served as his workbench, and he’d not only given up any pretense of using the room for its original function, he’d built special illuminated shelves to hold his creations.
Jo picked up the half-completed model in her hands, running her fingers over the curve of the hull, searching for imperfections. Would his bits and pieces of wood be enough to compensate for the loss of a daughter he had valued above all else?
He still lived on income from his interest in the firm—as did she, to some extent. The money from her shares supplemented her own business, allowing her to work from home, and to be there for the children. Would Hammond’s provide security for any of them, with Annabelle gone?
Jo shook her head and went to the drinks cabinet. No point thinking that far ahead, yet. There was this evening to get through first; tomorrow she would think about the next thing. She’d learned that when her mother died. And that there was no harm in the occasional numbing drink. Pouring some of her father’s treasured Courvoisier into a snifter, she carried it to the sitting room and sank into the armchair by the empty fireplace. The windows stood
