Kissed a Sad Goodbye

Teresa put her keys in the lock. “I suppose it’s possible.” She pulled open the large door and stepped back, but Kincaid motioned her to go first.

It took a moment for Kincaid’s eyes to adjust to the dim interior, which was streaked by sunlight slanting in from the high south and west windows. Then Teresa flipped a switch by the door and electric light chased the shadows from the corners.

The room was large, comprising the first two floors of the building. To the right was an industrial lift serving the upper floors; to the left were offices reached by a catwalk that looked down on the main floor. Halfway along the left-hand wall Kincaid saw the loading bays which he guessed must give access to lorries.

But these features he took in gradually, for first to draw his eyes were the chests. Ceiling-high stacks of square, steel-bound, silver-edged wooden chests filled the room. All bore exotic-looking stamps, in red or black ink, and those nearest him read, Produce of India, Darjeeling, followed by a series of numbers. The air in the warehouse was earthy and sharp with the unmistakable smell of tea.

Teresa had stepped a few feet into the room, looking carefully round her. “Everything looks just the way I left it on Friday.”

“When did you last see Miss Hammond?” Kincaid asked.

“Annabelle left about half past five, I think. I was finishing up the accounts and just said ‘Cheerio.’ You know how it is. I didn’t think I wouldn’t see her—” Teresa swallowed hard.

“You worked late?” Gemma gave her a sympathetic smile.

“I usually do. Especially on Friday, so as to be caught up for the week.”

“You said you did the accounts—you do the bookkeeping for the business?” Kincaid asked, wondering if Annabelle Hammond would have confided in her employee. But then she had been engaged to an employee, after all, and he supposed you couldn’t get more democratic than that.

“I’m the chief financial officer.” Teresa smiled shyly. “That sounds a bit glorified for what I actually do. I handle the accounts and the financial planning, but it’s a small business, and we all tend to have a hand in everything.”

“I understand that Annabelle and Reginald Mortimer were engaged. Did that make working together awkward for them? Or for you?”

“Awkward?” Teresa stared at Kincaid.

“Surely they had some conflict over things at work?”

“Sometimes men can be a bit sensitive about their authority,” Gemma added with a glance at Kincaid. “You know the sort of thing.”

Teresa shook her head vehemently. “Not Reg and Annabelle. They agreed about things, they wanted the same things for the company. And Reg … Reg worshiped Annabelle.”

Kincaid thought he detected a hint of wistfulness in Teresa’s voice. Had it been difficult for her, always on the outside, looking in? “When was the wedding to be?” he asked.

“The wedding?” Again Teresa gave them a surprised look, as if the question hadn’t occurred to her. “They’d not set a date. Not an official one, anyway.”

“And how long had they been engaged?”

Teresa frowned. “Coming up on two years, I think.”

“Not much reason to delay a wedding these days—both of them independent, with their families’ approval —”

“But they couldn’t have just an ordinary wedding. They had social obligations, and I doubt Annabelle wanted to spare the time from work just now to plan the sort of affair expected of them.” Teresa put forth this theory with great seriousness, as if determined to convince herself.

“Were you and Annabelle close?” asked Gemma. “Would she have confided in you if she’d got cold feet?”

“I … I don’t know.” Teresa lifted her chin defiantly. “Look, I don’t understand why you’re asking all these questions. Jo said that Annabelle was killed in the park, attacked by some pervert. What can that possibly have to do with us, or Hammond’s?”

“Annabelle was found in the park. We don’t know that she was killed there,” said Kincaid. “Can you tell us why she might have been wandering round the Mudchute alone, after dark? In her party clothes and high heels?”

“No, that’s daft. But …” Shadows from the slowly revolving ceiling fans flickered across Teresa’s face, and Kincaid saw the irises of her pale blue eyes dilate like speading ink. “You can’t think here.…” She folded her arms beneath her breasts and looked round as if seeing the warehouse for the first time.

“Did Annabelle tell you what she meant to do on Friday evening?” Kincaid asked.

“They were going to her sister’s. She and Reg. The party had been planned for weeks.”

“And she didn’t contact you later in the evening?”

“Why should she have rung me?” Teresa sounded baffled.

“What if she were worried about something?”

“Annabelle wasn’t the sort to worry,” Teresa replied sharply. “And she wasn’t in the habit of ringing me in the evenings, or of coming back here.”

“Would there have been anyone here on Friday night? Do you run a night shift?”

“We don’t make the tea, Superintendent. We blend and package it, and our production and shipping staff work five-day weeks. The equipment’s upstairs, if you’d like to see, but this is the heart of the business.” She gestured at the large table in the room’s center,