“Give over, Sarah. You’ve got sauce all over the cooker.” The boy made another grab for the spoon but the girl snatched it back and turned with a howl.
“Mummy! I wanna stir!” Tomato sauce dripped from the spoon to the floor in patterns like blood spattering.
“All right, you two, that’s enough.” Jo Lowell removed the spoon from her daughter’s fist as she scooped her off the stool, then swiped the floor with a kitchen towel from the roll on the worktop.
The boy flushed to the roots of his red hair. “I was just trying to help. It’s not my fault she’s made a mess. You always—”
“Harry, please.” Jo Lowell’s exasperation made it clear that this was an oft-played scenario. “Would you take Sarah out into the garden for a few minutes?”
As if alerted by something in his mother’s voice, the boy turned and really looked at them for the first time. “But—”
“Harry.” Jo’s tone was firm.
With a last glance at them, he capitulated. “Okay, okay.” Taking his sister by the hand, he said as he led her towards the door, “Come on, Sarah. I’ll let you bat.”
Gemma smiled as the garden door banged after them. “A great sacrifice, bowling to your little sister.”
Jo shook her head. “Harry’s life seems to be full of trials these days. But you don’t want to hear about that. Please sit down.” She gestured towards the breakfast alcove to the left of the back door, then turned to the cooker. Steam billowed from a large pot behind the saucepan. “Let me just turn these things off.” As she adjusted the knobs, the gas flames dwindled to blue, then sputtered out. She turned and leaned against the cooker, arms folded across her chest. “Can I get you something?”
“No, we’re fine, thanks,” Kincaid said, studying Jo Lowell as he pulled out a chair for Gemma. A smudge of tomato sauce adorned her tee shirt, and her jeans were stained with splotches of paint; a cotton scarf held her dark auburn hair back in a careless ponytail. She wore no makeup and her skin was slightly freckled. He thought she looked a bit too thin, and there were dark shadows beneath her eyes, as if she hadn’t slept well. Although attractive, she bore little obvious resemblance to the dead woman in Mudchute Park. But then there was the boy’s hair.… He seated himself so that he could see out the large window into the garden. “We’d just like to ask you a few questions about your sister.”
“My sister?” Her surprise seemed so genuine that he wondered what she had been expecting.
“Her fiancé, Reginald Mortimer, has made a missing persons report. He said he’d rung you?”
Jo gave a dismissive wave of her hand. “Yes, he did, but I just assumed Annabelle was still narked with him and had made herself temporarily unavailable.”
“Then this has happened before?”
“Well, no, it’s just that last night …”
Before Jo’s hesitation could develop into real caution, Gemma interposed. “What happened last night?”
“They were here—Reg must have told you—and I think they had a bit of a row. That’s Annabelle’s way if she’s cross with you—she cuts you off for a bit.”
“Is that why they left? Because they’d had a row?”
“Why do you want to know?” asked Jo Lowell. “Look, I think you’d better tell me what’s going—”
“Have you any idea what the row was about?” Kincaid said, not yet willing to be deflected.
“No, I’m sorry, I don’t.” Shifting her stance against the cooker, Jo clasped her hands together.
“This was a dinner party?” prompted Gemma. “Celebrating anything in particular?”
Through the open door, they could hear Harry’s continuous grumbling and Sarah’s high, strident voice making the occasional response. Jo glanced out the window over the sink, then said, “No, it’s just that my husband and I are divorced, and this was my first attempt at entertaining on my own.”
“Must have put quite a damper on your party, your sister and her fiancé having a row,” Gemma said sympathetically.
“It was a bit uncomfortable,” Jo admitted, frowning.
“I understand they work together. It must be awkward there, as well, if they don’t get on.”
Jo shrugged. “I’d say they get along better than most—they’ve had long enough to work out their differences.”
“They’ve known each other a long time, then?” Kincaid asked.
“Since we were children. Our parents were friends. In fact, it was Father who encouraged Annabelle to take Reg on.”
“In the professional sense, you mean, not the personal?”
“Father’s always had dynastic ambitions for Annabelle, and Reg fits the bill quite nicely all round. A merger of the Hammonds with the Mortimers would almost make up for not having a son in the firm.”
“What’s so special about the Mortimers?” asked Gemma.
“Sir Peter—Reg’s father—is rather a big cheese in restaurants and hotels, that sort of thing. I’m quite fond of him, actually. Annabelle could do worse in the way of a father-in-law.” Frowning, Jo added, “What is this all about? Surely you’re not taking this missing persons thing seriously?”
“Mrs. Lowell, have you seen or heard from your sister since she left your house last night?” He knew he was slipping into policespeak, but, like the ceremonial and familiar language of funerals, it had its uses.
Jo stared at him. “No, but there’s nothing unusual about that. Sometimes we don’t talk for weeks. What—”
“Mrs. Lowell, I think you should sit down.”
She came slowly, unwillingly, to the table, slipping into a chair without taking her eyes from them. Her expression was anxious. “What’s happened? Is Annabelle all right?”
He looked out the window at the tableau formed by the two children on the green square of lawn. Sarah Lowell stood with her back to them, bat raised, and as her brother threw the ball the sun glinted from his hair.
If they were wrong, Jo Lowell would endure the trip to the morgue for nothing. And if they were right, he wished he could preserve for her this moment untouched by loss, bound by the sound of the children’s laughter on the evening air.
KINCAID HAD SENT GEMMA HOME AFTER their return from the morgue. They’d not make any further progress on the case tonight, and he’d only to tidy up the tag ends of the paperwork at Limehouse Station. Or so he’d insisted, but the truth of the matter was that he’d needed a bit of time on his own to sort out his impressions of the day.
Jo Lowell’s quiet identification of her sister’s body had been harder to take than tears. His condolences had sounded stiff and intrusive even to himself, and he’d had her driven home without attempting to question her further.
Now that they had put a name to the face, the investigation would move into the sifting of evidence and the tracing of every connection with Annabelle Hammond. The constable dispatched to the Greenwich Foot Tunnel had found no sign of the busker described by Reg Mortimer, but from the beginning Kincaid had had his doubts about the story’s authenticity. It was just too bloody convenient, and he’d begun to suspect that Reg Mortimer had a great capacity for inventiveness.
Having organized his makeshift desk as best he could, he said good night to the officers still on duty in the incident room and left the station through the side entrance. As he retrieved the Midget from the car park, he heard music and laughter pouring out of the pub next door. The image of Kit waiting alone in the flat squelched the temptation of a pint before it was fully formed, and he climbed in the car and started the engine. Tomorrow he’d pick up an unmarked Rover from the Yard, but tonight he would enjoy the rare treat of driving through the warm darkness with the top down.
He loved London at night, when the streets had emptied and the lights ran together in a kaleidoscopic blur. As he pulled out into West India Dock Road, he could see to his left the flashing beacon atop Canary Wharf’s Canada Tower. He wondered if Annabelle Hammond had seen it last night as she emerged from the Greenwich Tunnel, and who had been with her.…