Kissed a Sad Goodbye

“John’s been up Leith Hill. You can see it from there, now it’s dark.”

“See what?” Lewis said again, stupidly, his brain refusing to take in the words.

“The fires. The East End is on fire, Lewis. London’s burning.”

CHAPTER 12The Docks were easily identifiable from the air and were attacked more than any other civilian target. Nearly 1,000 high explosive bombs and thousands of incendiaries were dropped.… At the same time large areas of residential Dockland were devastated. During the whole of the blitz, 30,000 people were killed. Slightly more than half of these casualties were in London and a high proportion of these were in Dockland.

      Paul Calvocoressi, from       Dockland

“What was it you wanted to talk to me about?” Teresa Robbins asked as she moved to the table set up against the back wall of her office. The long trestle had been placed under the windows, and held cups, teapot, and electric kettle, as well as the bowls and tins Gemma had begun to associate with the paraphernalia of tea-tasting. “I’ll just make us a cuppa, shall I?” she added, glancing at Gemma over her shoulder.

“Just a few routine questions,” Gemma answered, nodding assent to the tea. She watched Teresa fill the kettle from a bottle of spring water; it seemed to her that the woman’s fingers trembled slightly, belying the composure of her face.

Having seen Kincaid off on his way to Cambridge at Limehouse Police Station, Gemma had arrived at Hammond’s shortly after opening time, intent on interviewing Teresa again.

Unlike Mortimer’s, the office Teresa and Annabelle had shared was large enough to accommodate two desks facing one another yet still leave a comfortable aisle down the center of the room. Nor did it suffer from the executive pretensions that gave Reg’s office such an odd air of incongruity. The desks were of workmanlike oak and looked both comfortable and well-used—except that Annabelle’s had been cleared of everything except blotter and generic office accouterments.

Wooden tea chests stamped in either red or black ink were stacked about, and a simple bookcase held a collection of novelty teapots. The room smelled of tea and, beneath that, an elusive fragrance that Gemma couldn’t quite identify.

Seating herself in the chair nearest Teresa’s desk, Gemma studied her as she poured boiling water into a simple white pot, stirred it once, then set a small timer. “I didn’t realize it was so scientific,” Gemma said, nodding at the timer.

“What?” Teresa looked blank. “Oh, the timer.” She turned and leaned against the table while she waited for the tea to steep. “That’s one of the first things you learn, especially in tasting. If the brewing time isn’t consistent, you can’t compare the strengths of the teas. William insists on five minutes, but you can almost stand your spoon up in it. I’m afraid I’m a bit of a wimp, so I stick at four and a half.”

“What are we having?” Gemma had not seen a label on the bag from which Teresa had spooned the tea.

“An English breakfast blend, mostly Assam—that’s a strong, black, Indian tea,” Teresa explained. “I usually switch to the Ceylons in the afternoon. They’re a bit lighter, more flowery.” The timer beeped and she poured a little milk into the two teacups she’d warmed with water from the kettle, then poured tea into the cups through a fine mesh strainer. She brought Gemma one cup, along with a spoon and sugar bowl, and sat down at her desk with her own. “It’s a habit I learned from Annabelle, and Annabelle from William.” The glance she gave Annabelle’s vacant desk seemed almost involuntary, and she hastily gazed back at her cup.

“Are you the one who cleared Annabelle’s desk?” asked Gemma, tasting her tea. It had a malty richness to it, and she thought it better than any she had ever drunk.

“I’ve shoveled everything into the drawers for now,” Teresa admitted. “It’s just that I couldn’t bear looking at her things. Silly of me, I suppose. It’s not as if I don’t think about her every minute anyway.” She looked up and her pale blue eyes met Gemma’s. “I know you’ll think I’m daft, but sometimes I can almost feel her in the room. And I keep thinking I can smell her perfume.”

Gemma remembered the barely perceptible odor she had noticed a moment ago. “A sort of woodsy, citrusy scent?”

“You can smell it, too? She had it specially made. It had bergamot in it—that’s what’s used in Earl Grey blends. She always said it was more suited to perfumes than tea.”

“I doubt we’re dealing with a ghost here,” Gemma assured her. “Strong scents tend to linger on things—it’s just that in other circumstances you’d probably not notice.”

“Yes, I suppose you’re right,” Teresa agreed, but she didn’t sound convinced. She looked almost pretty today, in a soft blue summer dress, her fair hair pulled back with a matching blue hair slide. But she would always have paled in comparison with Annabelle, no matter the effort she made. Gemma wondered how much she had minded.

Gemma drank more of her tea, making a vow to buy some of it at the first opportunity. “Is Reg Mortimer not in this morning?” she asked.

Teresa flushed. “No, he wasn’t feeling well. This has all been dreadful for him.… Reg was devoted to Annabelle.”

“But was Annabelle devoted to him?”

“What … what do you mean? Of course she was—”

“Then why was she unfaithful to her fiance on more than one occasion?”

Teresa’s hand froze on the delicate handle of her teacup. “What?”

“Didn’t she confide in you? I thought she might have.”

“Confide what? What are you talking about?”

“Did you know that Annabelle had an affair with Martin Lowell? That’s what broke up his marriage to Jo. Reg only learned about it the night Annabelle died.”

“Martin Lowell? That can’t be true—there must be some mistake,” Teresa breathed.

“No mistake. Harry Lowell brought it up at Jo’s dinner party. Reg was livid. He’s admitted it now, but not until