Kissed a Sad Goodbye полностью

Following Lewis’s gaze in his mirror, the driver said, “That’s the north Surrey Downs, lad. Old earth, that is. Feet have walked that way since the Dark Ages.”

Lewis did not find the thought comforting.

After a bit they turned off to the left into a lane no wider than the coach. The lane dipped down between thick hedges, curving and turning, and at every bend Lewis gasped in terror and squeezed his eyes shut. Surely they would crash into the hedge, or meet something coming the other way, but the driver seemed unconcerned and eventually Lewis relaxed a little.

Then the hedges disappeared, and a triangular bit of grass appeared. A few houses were clustered round it, and a ways up the hill on the opposite side rose the steeple of a church. The coach continued past the green and into another narrow lane, but this one had houses either side, and it came to a dead end at a long, low building that bore the legend: Women’s Institute.

They had arrived.

•        •        •

“KIT SHOULD BE BACK AT THE flat by now.” Kincaid disconnected the mobile phone as he negotiated the entrance to the Blackwall Tunnel.

He’d left the top down on the Midget, and Gemma held back the strands of hair that had blown loose from her hair grip with one hand while she turned the pages of the map book with the other. “I’m sure he’s fine,” she reassured him without looking up. “The Major will keep an eye on him.” She traced a spot on the A to Z page with her finger. “I think I’ve found the street, but it doesn’t look like much on the map. It’s just above the old center of Greenwich.”

“Right. I think I can get that far.”

They were on their way to interview Annabelle Hammond’s sister, having been given her address by Reg Mortimer.

“Did you find anything on Mortimer?” Gemma asked as they emerged from the tunnel into the evening sunlight. She’d been arranging for a car to run Mortimer home while Kincaid had a word with Janice Coppin.

“Sod all, at least in the system. Not even a traffic ticket, as it seems our Mr. Mortimer doesn’t drive.” He squinted as he turned west into Trafalgar Road and the low sun blinded him. “What did you think of his story?”

“Holes you could drive a lorry through,” Gemma responded. “If Annabelle Hammond left her sister’s party because she felt ill, why would Mortimer have left her on her own in the tunnel?”

“And why not go back when he saw her talking to the busker? Unless … he invented the busker so he wouldn’t seem to be the last person to have seen her alive,” Kincaid mused.

“In that case, why call attention to himself by reporting her missing?”

Kincaid shrugged. “We don’t know for sure that it is her. We’re way ahead of ourselves.” Glancing to his left, he saw the beginning of Greenwich Park, its manicured lawns rising up the slope of the hill that housed the Old Royal Observatory. He remembered how crushed he’d been when he’d learned that Greenwich Mean Time was now measured from Deptford. A little bit of childhood romance had died at that moment. “We’ll have to bring the boys here,” he said, pointing. “Tour the Cutty Sark, visit the Observatory. Kit would be interested, don’t you think? And there’s a tea kiosk.”

“For the bottomless stomach,” Gemma said, smiling. “You’ll turn left just ahead, pass the police station, and turn right on Circus Street, then turn left again on Prior.”

He followed her directions, winding ever upwards until they came to the tiny unpaved lane with the rather grandiose name of Emerald Crescent. It turned out to be more of a Z than a crescent, a narrow, twisty alley flanked by hedges, back gardens, and a few large, old homes. Just past the final sharp zag to the left they found the address they’d been given for Jo Lowell, Annabelle’s sister.

Square and symmetrical, with charcoal brickwork and white trim, the house was separated from the lane only by the iron railings that marked the basement entrance. Through the window to the left of the front door they could see a vase of sunflowers on a table.