Kissed a Sad Goodbye

bloody hell are you? It’s Lewis. Ring me back.”

There were several more calls without messages, then a woman’s voice saying, “Annabelle, it’s half past nine. I know you can’t have forgotten—we’re waiting for you,” and again, “Annabelle, where are you? We’ve finished breakfast. We can’t stall Sir Peter any longer. Please ring me at home.”

The last caller he recognized as Jo Lowell, sounding relaxed and a little amused. “Annabelle, Reg says you’ve abandoned him and he’s worked himself into a real tizzy over it. Do put him out of his misery. Ring me when you get in.”

Kincaid looked at Gemma and raised an eyebrow. “I’d say Reg and Annabelle did have a row, from the sound of that.”

“Yes, but it supports his statement that he waited at the pub.”

“Maybe,” Kincaid answered with some skepticism. “Would Sir Peter be Reg Mortimer’s father, do you suppose? And who is Lewis?”

His phone rang. While he extricated it from his pocket with one hand, with the other he brushed the backs of his fingers against Gemma’s cheek, feeling a sudden swelling of desire at the nearness of her. He touched her lips with his fingertips, heard the quick intake of her breath. The flat was empty, after all.…

“Kincaid,” he said impatiently into the phone.

“It’s Janice Coppin here, sir. I think I’ve found our busker.”

JANICE MET THEM AS THEY CAME into Limehouse Station from the car park. Her nod to Gemma held the slightest suggestion of a wink as she said, “I’ve put him in the interview room to cool his heels. He’s not too happy about helping us with our inquiries.”

“Have you told him anything?” Kincaid asked.

“No. Just confirmed where he was night before last, though he didn’t like to admit it. Told him we had a dozen witnesses willing to swear he was in that tunnel.”

“Is that where you found him? In the tunnel?”

“In the park. Island Gardens. From the description I guessed who he was, and he has a few regular pitches on the Island. He’s one of our local activists—you know, does his part to keep the yuppies at bay.” Her sidelong glance at Kincaid as she spoke made it clear she was pleased enough with herself to risk sending him up. “The ironic thing is that he’s Lewis Finch’s son.”

“Lewis Finch?” Kincaid repeated, and Gemma thought of the message on Annabelle Hammond’s answering machine. “Who’s he when he’s at home?”

“Our legendary Lewis, the saint of the East End, according to some. He’s responsible for redeveloping and restoring many of the old warehouses and factories on the Island.”

Gemma heard skepticism in Janice’s voice. “Is that not a good thing?”

Shrugging, Janice said, “I can see the dissenters’ point. Once most of these places are tarted up, none of us who grew up here on the Island can afford to live in them.” She nodded towards the interview room. “You can see where the son gets his looks, if not his views. According to rumor, Lewis Finch is quite the ladies’ man.”

Was it possible that Annabelle Hammond had been one of his conquests? wondered Gemma as they entered the interview room.

Then, as Kincaid said, “Why don’t you begin the questioning, Janice,” Gemma stopped dead on the threshold.

The man stood in the center of the room, facing them, hands jammed in the pockets of his army-issue trousers. The sleeves had been cut out of his camouflage jacket, revealing the muscular definition of his suntanned arms. Since she had last seen him, his fair hair had grown out a bit and he’d added a gold earring in his left ear.

“You’ve no right to keep me here like this,” he said, and she remembered how unexpected she had found his educated voice. “Either let me leave or I’m calling my solic—” He saw her, and faltered.

His surprise, thought Gemma, must have been greater than hers, because she realized now that at some level she’d made the connection between Reg Mortimer’s description and this man.

For a few months, he had played his clarinet in front of the Sainsbury’s on the Liverpool Road, until he had become a regular if enigmatic part of her life. Although he had seldom spoken or smiled, she’d been drawn to him in a way she could not explain. But when she’d at last ventured to speak to him, he’d answered so brusquely that she’d felt a fool, and shortly after that he’d vanished from the area. She had not seen him since.

Sitting down, Janice Coppin switched on the tape recorder and gave the date, then addressed the busker. “Your name, please, for the record.”

Without taking his eyes from Gemma, he said, “It’s Finch. Gordon Finch.”

CHAPTER 6Bounded on three sides by the river Thames, and communications hindered (in those days) by the swing bridges at the entrances to the working docks, [the Island] had (and still has) a special feeling of isolation, which separates it from the rest of East London.

      Eve Hostettler, from Memories of

      Childhood on the Isle of Dogs, 1870–1970

“Sit down, Mr. Finch.” Janice Coppin positioned her chair squarely in the center of the interview table; after a moment, Gordon Finch sank reluctantly into the chair on the other side. Kincaid and Gemma sat on either side of Janice and a bit back, so that Janice became the natural focus of attention.

Gemma was glad Kincaid had given Janice the lead, for it gave her a chance to study the busker, who hadn’t met her eyes again. It had been some time since she’d seen him, and she thought perhaps he’d lost weight. Surely the planes and angles of his face seemed more pronounced. His short cap of fair hair stood up in tufts where he had run his fingers through it, and darker stubble shadowed his chin.

“I want my solicitor,” he said. “You’ve no right to hold me here without my solicitor present.” How many street musicians, wondered Gemma, had a solicitor at their beck and call?

“You are free to ring your solicitor, Mr. Finch,” Janice countered. “But you understand that we are not charging you with anything—we merely want your help in answering a few questions.”