Kissed a Sad Goodbye

go against her father’s wishes. So I brought them together.”

“Hence the commission,” Kincaid said, thinking aloud. “Paid only if the sale was completed?”

Mortimer nodded. “But that wasn’t the only catch. The deal was only feasible if we could get a majority of the shareholders to vote against William, and the only way Annabelle would agree to move against her father was if she were convinced that the warehouse itself would be saved as an integral part of the development. She thought it might mollify William, make him feel that Hammond’s still had its place in posterity.”

“This developer …,” said Gemma. “It was Lewis Finch, wasn’t it?”

As Mortimer nodded again, Kincaid frowned. “You said, ‘If Annabelle were convinced.’ Was that not the plan, then—to incorporate the existing building into the new structure? I thought Lewis Finch had a reputation for doing just that.”

“He does. But he didn’t intend it in this case. Something about ‘structural flaws in the warehouse.’ But Lewis and I agreed not to tell Annabelle, hoping she wouldn’t insist on having a preservation clause written into the contract.”

“What did you think would happen when Annabelle found out?” Gemma sounded incensed. “You were engaged to be married, and you were colluding against her.”

“I was desperate. And I suppose I thought that once the deal had gone through, it wouldn’t matter so much— that perhaps William would have come to see reason.”

Kincaid thought he’d begun to see where this was leading. “And then you learned that Annabelle was no stranger to lies and betrayals. What happened that night, after you found out about Annabelle and Martin Lowell?”

“We were arguing when we left Jo’s. One thing led to another. I said that if she would do such a thing to her own sister, and if she’d kept that from me, what else had she done?”

“Go on.”

“I don’t know what got into me that night. I’ve always hated jealousy—thought it was uncivilized. But she’d been pushing me away for months, refusing to talk about our wedding, making excuses not to stay with me … and suddenly it all seemed to make sense. I accused her of … things. Whatever came into my head. And then I thought of Lewis Finch, and of all those ‘business’ meetings she’d claimed they’d had. I accused her of sleeping with him. I said … I said Lowell was right, she was no better than a whore, sleeping with Finch to get what she wanted.”

“What happened then?” Gemma asked softly.

“She laughed. She stood there and laughed at me. She said I didn’t know the half of it … that it had cost her his son, and that she’d only learned too late what it meant to really love someone. I yelled at her, said it had cost her more than that—served her bloody right, too—and then I told her what Lewis meant to do. The instant those words left my mouth, I knew I’d gone too far—queered everything—and I said I hadn’t meant it. We had an appointment with my father the next morning, to put the plan to him, and we were supposed to have talked to Jo after the party that night. I thought we could smooth it over, somehow, go on with things.… But she went very quiet, like she was listening to something … then she laughed again. ‘The gods have given me a sign, Reg. So sod off,’ she told me. I argued—begged her, even—until finally she said she’d meet me at the pub.”

“And you walked away,” said Gemma.

“Yes. And the terrible irony is that I didn’t know—I never knew, until you told me—that Lewis Finch’s son was the busker in the tunnel.”

LEWIS FIRST SAW IRENE BURNE-JONES ON a July evening in 1942, when Edwina sent him in the pony trap to fetch her from the station. Irene was actually her second cousin, Edwina told him, her husband’s brother’s granddaughter, but always one for simplifying, Edwina merely referred to the girl as her niece. Her family’s house in Kilburn had taken a direct hit from a stray bomb, and Irene would be staying with them while her parents sorted things out.

This information Lewis absorbed with some trepidation. William was away, having been allowed to visit his parents for a few weeks now that the bombing had lessened considerably, and as Lewis missed his company he thought it might be nice to have someone about for the short term—but on the other hand, he wasn’t sure he could imagine a girl fitting in with their usual summer routine of walks and bathing and fruit-picking. His intimate knowledge of girls was based on his sister, and Cath had never shown the least inclination to do the sorts of things boys did.

He had hardly recognized his sister when he’d gone home to the Island for a visit in April, his first in more than two years. Cath had got a job in a shell-making factory, and she looked an alien creature when she came home in her bright-colored overall and turban; then within a few minutes she was gone again in a cloud of scent and the click of high heels. Whenever her name was mentioned, Lewis saw a look pass between his parents, and once or twice when he walked into the room, he’d had the feeling he’d interrupted a discussion.

But Lewis had been much more interested in roaming the neighborhood, trying to adjust to the sight of piles of rubble, or cleared, weed-covered lots where his house and the homes of his mates had stood. It had made him feel quite odd and hollow, and at the end of a week he’d felt a secret bit of relief at the thought of returning to Surrey.

A snort from Zeus brought his attention back to the road, and he tightened up the reins automatically, clucking to the horse soothingly. John Pebbles had taught him that, and the memory reminded him, as did so many things, of how much he missed his friend.

In the spring of 1941, John, against the pleas of both his wife and Edwina, had joined up, and was now serving as a sergeant with the 8th Army in North Africa. Lewis had taken over many of his jobs by default. The care of the horses had become solely his responsibility, as William was rather frightened of them, and as William was not mechanically inclined, Lewis maintained the seldom-used automobiles. But he and William tended the garden and chopped firewood together, and they helped Edwina with other tasks round the house and the estate to the best of their ability, as there was no one else.

To Lewis, it seemed as if the war had gone on forever. He could hardly recall the days before rationing, and even the enormous portions of meat Cook had fed him when he first arrived at the Hall were now a dim memory. They were still luckier than some, he supposed, with their garden, and in the winter of ’41 Edwina had bought pigs and chickens, so that they had at least an unlimited supply of fresh eggs and the occasional rasher of bacon. Of course, the feeding and care of the animals had fallen on Lewis’s head as well, but he didn’t really mind except for the slaughtering of the pigs, with whom he was inclined to make friends.