“I … I was washing up a bit before the pudding. Annabelle had been helping clear the table. Then she came in and said she wasn’t feeling well, that she’d made her excuses to the other guests and Reg was waiting for her in the lane. She left through the garden.”
“But you didn’t believe she was ill?”
“It was so awkward, and so sudden. And Reg didn’t even tell me good night.” Jo managed a smile. “I’ve seldom seen his manners fail him.”
“You didn’t think it odd that your sister didn’t tell you what was wrong?” asked Gemma.
Jo hesitated a moment. “Annabelle didn’t always confide in me. Even when we were children. Still, I thought she’d ring the next day.…”
“But you were close, weren’t you?” Gemma pressed. “I could tell from the photographs she kept that she was a very devoted aunt—much better than I am with
“Annabelle loved the children. She’d have liked babies of her own, I think, but the company always came first.”
“Was Annabelle partial to Harry?” Gemma remembered the discrepancy in the number of photos of the children.
“Oh, no, I wouldn’t say ‘partial.’ ” Jo pleated the hem of her khaki shorts between her fingers. “It’s just that once she became managing director, she hadn’t as much time for them. Harry took it rather hard. He’s very—” She paused, head cocked as she listened. “I think I hear Sarah. I’d better—”
“Just one more—” Marveling at the acuity of maternal ears, Kincaid stopped as Sarah’s plaintive voice came through the open window. He hadn’t heard a thing until now. “Just one more question, Mrs. Lowell. Do you know a man called Gordon Finch?”
“Finch?” Jo repeated, clearly distracted by her daughter’s calls for her. “Not Lewis Finch?”
“What do you know about Lewis Finch?”
“Only that he and Father don’t get on. It’s not at all like Father, really.”
“Do you know the cause of the friction?” Kincaid asked.
“I remember Mummy saying she thought it had something to do with the time Father spent in Surrey during the war.”
“Your father was evacuated?”
“His mother was sure Greenwich would be bombed—they lived just next door. Father still does.” She gestured towards the uphill side of the lane. “So his parents sent him to his godmother’s. She was extremely eccentric—you know, the sort of woman who wore trousers when women didn’t wear trousers.” Jo smiled. “Father adored her. He often talked about her when we were children. Annabelle always loved hearing stories about the family.”
“Did Annabelle know that your father disapproved of Lewis Finch?”
“Oh, yes. He never made a secret of it. Is Gordon Finch some relation to Lewis?”
“His son. And it seems as though your sister was well-acquainted with them both. Gordon Finch was the busker she spoke to in the tunnel that night.”
“Lewis Finch’s son—a busker?” Jo frowned. “How odd.”
“You don’t think it odd that Annabelle defied your father’s wishes about the Finches?” asked Gemma.
Jo shook her head. “Not if you knew my sister. Annabelle was almost as obsessive about the family and the business as Father, but she had a perverse streak. She loved to meddle in things.”
CHAPTER 9
Childhood on the Isle of Dogs, 1870–1970
“Annabelle can’t have left voting shares to Martin Lowell.” Reg Mortimer stared at Teresa as if she had suddenly lost her mind.
She stood in the doorway of his office, a sheet of scribbled notes in her hand. The phone call from the solicitor had come just after lunch, but Teresa had sat for a while after hanging up, trying to absorb the news. “The solicitor wouldn’t mistake something like that, Reg. And she didn’t exactly leave the shares to him—he’s just the trustee for the children.”
“Harry Lowell is ten years old, for God’s sake.” Reg pushed his chair back until it banged against the file cabinet. “Lowell can do anything he wants until Harry reaches his majority, and by that time Hammond’s may have gone to the wolves.”
Teresa closed the door. “You’re overreacting, Reg, surely. Why wouldn’t Lowell want the company to do well, for his children’s sake?”
Reg pulled at the knot of his tie as if it were choking him. “You don’t know what he’s like. Or how he felt about—” He shook his head.
“About what, Reg?”
