“Yes, yes, she’s taking things in hand. Telephoning and such. She and Annabelle are always so good at organizing, just like their mother.” William set delicate cobalt and russet teacups on a tray, then reached for a brightly colored foil packet of Ceylon tea adorned with the Hammond’s emblem. Annabelle had developed the blend herself, and it had been her favorite.
Reg stifled the urge to rise and snatch the packet from William’s hand. “Would you mind if we had the Assam? Somehow I don’t think I …”
William seemed to see what he was holding for the first time. “Oh, of course. Quite right …” He stood for a moment, as though the interruption had caused him to lose his place in the ritual, then he exchanged the tea packet and went methodically on with his preparations. When the pot had been warmed with the hot water, he filled it and brought the tray to the table. Reg saw that his hands had stopped shaking.
Suspended between the ticking of the kitchen timer and the tocking of the grandfather clock in the hall, they waited for the tea to steep. Feeling no sense of discomfort in the silence, Reg looked round the familiar kitchen. Here since his childhood had hung William’s collection of framed Hammond’s advertisements, some of them going as far back as the 1880s, when a young man named John Hammond had left his Mincing Lane employer and made the unprecedented move of setting up as a tea merchant on the Isle of Dogs. He had been William’s great-grandfather.
“I always loved these.” Reg gestured towards the black and white drawings. “Especially the ones from the
“Yes. That was Annabelle’s favorite, the one with the little Chinamen.” While a pretty woman in late Victorian dress dozed in an armchair, a swarm of Chinese the size of pixies struggled to pull a canister of tea to the top of a table, where a teapot and cup sat waiting. “I’m afraid now it would be considered racist, but I’ve always thought the poster had great charm, and Annabelle made up stories about the little men—even named them, I believe. Their faces are so individual.” William stared at the drawing for a long moment, then said softly, “I’m afraid I’ve not taken it in yet, not really.”
“Have you seen the police?”
“The police? No. But Jo says … Jo says they told her we can’t bury … we’re not to arrange the funeral, because …” The kitchen timer dinged, and William lifted the teapot with apparent relief. He pushed his spectacles up on his nose and carefully poured a little milk into his cup before adding the tea.
And like her father, she had always insisted on bone china, arguing that the development of English china and the drinking of tea were so intertwined as to be inseparable. It had been an esthetic preference as well, because she felt the delicacy of the porcelain affected the taste of the tea, and because the perfection of the ritual mattered to her as much as the quality of the tea itself.
Forcing himself back to the present, Reg said, “I’m sure the police don’t mean to be insensitive,” although he didn’t like to think of the reasons they might need to keep Annabelle’s body. “You can understand that they have to be thorough about these things.” He took his cup and added a spoonful of sugar. Annabelle had nagged him into cutting down from two spoons to one, insisting that too much sugar blunted the taste of the tea. He added a second teaspoon and stirred.
“I don’t understand how something like this could happen,” William said slowly. “They say she was in the park.… But why would she have gone alone to the Mudchute at night? Surely Annabelle would never have been so foolish.…”
Surely not, thought Reg, but had any of them known Annabelle as well as they thought? And how could her death have been random, a grotesque coincidence unconnected with the events of the past few days? But beyond that, his mind closed in upon itself, refusing to follow the chain of probabilities to a possible conclusion.
Looking up, William met Reg’s gaze. He grimaced. “I’m so sorry, my dear boy. I didn’t mean to imply that you had been remiss in any way. This must be difficult enough for you as it is. Your plans …”
