Finishing the piece, he drank from the bottle of water he’d bought at the refreshment kiosk a few yards away. He stood with his back to the spreading plane tree at the far end of Island Gardens. Behind him, just the other side of the tree, ran the river promenade. People strolled by at the undemanding pace dictated by the hot summer day, pausing occasionally to rest on the benches or gaze at the bright glint of the Thames. Directly across the river, the twin white domes of the Royal Naval College irresistibly drew the eye, echoed by the round dome of the Greenwich end of the foot tunnel.
Between the Naval College and the tunnel rose the tall masts of the
A voyage around the world would present an easy solution to his own present predicament, but Gordon knew even as the thought flitted through his mind that he was too well-rooted here, in the place where he’d spent his childhood, and that running away would solve nothing in the end.
Squatting, he sloshed a bit of water into the bowl he always carried for Sam. “Thirsty, mate?” The dog raised his head, then lumbered to his feet with an air that spoke more of duty than desire. After a few obliging laps of water, he circled twice on the patch of bare earth he’d chosen as his bed and settled himself again, nose on his front paws. Sam’s movements were visibly slower these days, but it was hot, after all, and the heat made everyone lethargic. Still, Gordon had made up his mind not to take the dog down into the tunnel anymore—the seeping dampness couldn’t be good for the animal’s joints.
Not that he wanted to play in the tunnel anyway, after what had happened last night. Of course, he’d known he would see her—it was inevitable, living and working in such close proximity. Yet he had stayed on the Island, playing in the park, in the tunnel, beneath the shadow of the cranes on Glengall Bridge, tempting fate. Even today, as good as this pitch was, there were places he might have done better. Maybe he should pack up and try South Ken, or Hampstead High Street, or Islington again.
He knelt, hands on the clarinet as he prepared to break it apart, and before his eyes flashed an image of Annabelle’s face, white and furious. Last night, anger had stripped her of the cool veneer of detachment she’d maintained even when he’d told her he wanted no more to do with her. He’d thought that, perhaps for the first time, he’d had a glimpse of who she really was, what she really felt, but still he’d not been willing to believe her. Now, doubt gripped him and he wondered if he had been blinded by pride.
What if he’d misjudged her? What if he had been wrong?
JANICE COPPIN’S HEART HAD JUMPED WITH a peculiar mixture of dread and excitement when the phone rang. Getting called out on the job was always difficult on the weekends—with Bill gone, she had to send the children to the center, and at ten pounds per child, per day, she sometimes wondered if she’d be better off on the dole. Not that Bill had been worth much as far as looking after the kids went—or good for much of anything at all, for that matter, the big lout, except dropping his trousers and getting her pregnant. She should have listened to her mum.
Her daughter, Christine, came in and sat on the edge of her bed, watching her with the intensity Janice always found a bit unsettling. The eldest of her three children, Christine was an awkward girl who took her responsibilities seriously, as if perpetually making up for having been conceived among the bushes in the Mudchute with Bill’s leather jacket for a bed. Her chubby body stubbornly refused to acknowledge the onset of puberty and her straight brown hair looked as if it had been cut using a bowl as a guide, but she seemed as yet oblivious to these deficiencies.
“What is it this time, Mummy?” she asked, pushing her spectacles up on her short nose.
Working one foot into a new pair of tights, Janice glanced at her daughter. A suspicious death, the duty sergeant had said, and as her guv was away for the weekend, the case would be hers. But she answered, “Don’t know yet, love”: she tried not to discuss cases she thought would upset the children. “Shit!” she added as she stood and the tights laddered. Last pair; they’d have to do. It was her day for the hairdresser’s, so it meant going at least another week without a cut or color. And it was too hot for her wool suit. She’d have to wear it anyway, no matter if she stank like a stevedore at the end of the day—it was the most professional-looking thing she had, and if this was going to be her big day she was bloody well going to look like it.
“Will you be home before the center closes?” Christine ignored her swearing, though the boys would have jumped on her because she was always on at them about it. “The boys won’t want to go to Granny’s.”
“Tough on them, then,” Janice replied impatiently, and sighed. She slid her feet into her new navy shoes and put on her jacket. Already she could feel the wool scratching through the thin fabric of her blouse. “Chris, you know I’ll be home as soon as I can. I’ll ring the center, okay? When I see how it’s going.”
Christine nodded, her eyes solemn behind the spectacle lenses.
“You collect the boys from next door and take them along to the center—tell them I said to mind or else.” She grabbed keys and handbag from the chest of drawers on the way out of the room. Glancing back, she saw the unmade bed, the pile of dirty laundry she hadn’t found the time to wash; thought of the dishes waiting in the kitchen sink and the littered sitting room.
Outside the door of the flat, she gave Christine a quick hug, then stood watching her as she ran next door. Across the street her neighbor washed his car, his bulging gut stretching his thin cotton vest. His trousers rode so low that when he bent over half his arse was exposed. Janice turned away, feeling slightly nauseated, knowing he’d smile and whistle if he saw her looking.
She hesitated, debating whether to walk across Glengall Bridge. It was the most direct route—taking the car meant driving right round the dock, but on the other hand arriving at a crime scene on foot wouldn’t do much to establish her authority.
A few moments later she pulled her Vauxhall up beside the assembled pandas in the car park of the ASDA Superstore. DC Miller came to meet her, his spotty face pale—on closer inspection, he looked decidedly green about the gills.
“Tell me this is a joke,” she instructed him. “Manufactured by that old fart George Brent just to ruin my Saturday morning.”
Miller blanched a bit further. “No, ma’am. There’s a body.” He pointed at the slope leading to the park. “Just up there.”
