Kissed a Sad Goodbye

was crying.… Then Annabelle stormed out and Reg followed her. I thought, the next day when he said she wouldn’t answer his calls, that she had bloody good reason not to.”

“And you didn’t think, when you found out she was dead, that Reg might have killed her?”

“No. I thought … not Reg. For all his faults, the three of us have been together since we were children. Reg would never have hurt her.”

“What about Martin? What if she went to see Martin after she left Reg in the tunnel?”

Jo’s eyes widened with shock, and for a moment the room was so hushed Kincaid could hear his pulse pounding in his ears. Then Jo breathed, “Oh, God. Not Martin.”

GEMMA STOOD BESIDE KINCAID IN THE lane as they watched Jo Lowell pull away in her small Fiat.

“Funny, Martin Lowell didn’t happen to mention the fact that he’d had an affair with his sister-in-law when we spoke to him,” Kincaid said, lifting his hand as Jo glanced back once before turning the corner into Hyde Vale.

“Or that he hated her. Although we might have guessed it.” Not relishing the prospect, Gemma added, “I’ll stop at the bank in Greenwich and speak to him again.”

“Let’s put it off until this afternoon. I think I’d like to be in on this one.” Kincaid looked at his watch. “But I’d better not keep the guv’nor waiting. I’ll ring you from the Yard.” Unlocking the Rover, he added, “Hop in. I’ll give you a lift to the town center on my way.”

Gemma hesitated. “I’d like to hear someone else’s account of that dinner party. Jo said her mum’s friend lived just round the corner. I think I’ll give her a try.”

“You don’t know which house.”

“I’m perfectly capable of knocking on doors,” Gemma retorted, waving him off.

She found Mrs. Rachel Pargeter on her second try, one house down from the corner on Hyde Vale. A tall woman in her sixties, with silver hair swept back in a neat twist, Rachel Pargeter wore a green canvas apron over her cotton blouse and trousers.

“Gardening gear,” she explained in a husky voice when Gemma had introduced herself. “Come through to the back, and I’ll just wash my hands.”

Gemma smiled with involuntary pleasure as the woman led her into a glassed-in room whose doors stood open to a flagstone terrace and a shady garden. “It’s lovely.”

“Coolest room in the house. I’ll just make us some tea—won’t take a moment.”

An enormous tabby cat lay on its back on the rattan sofa, all four paws in the air. It opened its eyes and blinked at Gemma, stretching sumptuously, and they had proceeded to the belly-scratching stage of acquaintance when Rachel Pargeter reappeared with a tray.

“Give over, Francis, you great beast,” she said in a tone of affectionate exasperation. Then to Gemma she added, “Just shove him off. It will only hurt his feelings for about thirty seconds—short-term memory loss can be a blessing.”

When Gemma had gently removed the feline and accepted a mug, Rachel Pargeter seated herself in the adjacent wicker rocker and studied her. “This is about Annabelle Hammond, I take it?”

“I understand you’ve been a friend of the family for some time.”

“Oh, donkeys’ years,” Rachel admitted. “Isabel befriended me when we first moved here, thirty years ago. That was a great loss—Isabel’s death. And now this.” She sipped at tea Gemma still found too hot to drink. “I always felt a bit sorry for Annabelle, but I never thought things would come to this.”

“You felt sorry for Annabelle?”

“I’ve always thought that exceptional beauty was as great an affliction as any physical handicap—perhaps more so. It is so difficult for the beautiful person, male or female, to develop a good character, isn’t it? The odds are stacked against them from the start.”

Gemma frowned. “How do you mean?”

“They are never required to earn the regard or affection of others through their behavior; rather, they come to expect it as their due. And they are forgiven almost anything, simply because of the way they look. Annabelle was more fortunate than others, because her mother kept her from being utterly spoiled.”

Francis chose that moment to leap into Rachel’s lap. The woman adroitly avoided spilling her tea, then stroked him as she continued, “The other tragic thing, in my experience, is that beautiful people so seldom have the security of knowing they are loved for themselves—who they are on the inside. But Isabel loved her daughter in spite of her beauty, not because of it, and she was scrupulously fair with the children.” She sighed. “William, of course, was a great trial to her, but she didn’t like to complain.”

“A trial? How?”

“Annabelle was the child of his dreams—this beautiful girl who grew up with a passion for tea that surpassed his own.”

“So he spoiled her terribly?”

“Oh, yes. And he placed on her the burden of perfection, which is a very difficult thing to live up to. It’s no wonder Annabelle went off the rails a bit when her mother died.”

“You knew about Annabelle and Martin Lowell?”

“I’m afraid so,” Rachel said, nodding sadly. “Jo confessed it to me. Poor thing, she had no one else to turn to— she certainly couldn’t tell her father what his precious Annabelle had done.” She gave Gemma a swift, intelligent glance. “And I suppose I’m betraying Jo’s confidence now. But all this has been rather weighing on me.…”

“Jo told us herself, so you’re hardly betraying a confidence,” Gemma reassured her. “What I don’t understand is how either of them could have fallen for Martin Lowell.”

Rachel Pargeter smiled. “I take it you haven’t seen Martin at his best. He can be quite charming—even I was