Kissed a sad goodbye - Deborah Crombie [117]
“I’ve shoveled everything into the drawers for now,” Teresa admitted. “It’s just that I couldn’t bear looking at her things. Silly of me, I suppose. It’s not as if I don’t think about her every minute anyway.” She looked up and her pale blue eyes met Gemma’s. “I know you’ll think I’m daft, but sometimes I can almost feel her in the room. And I keep thinking I can smell her perfume.”
Gemma remembered the barely perceptible odor she had noticed a moment ago. “A sort of woodsy, citrusy scent?”
“You can smell it, too? She had it specially made. It had bergamot in it—that’s what’s used in Earl Grey blends. She always said it was more suited to perfumes than tea.”
“I doubt we’re dealing with a ghost here,” Gemma assured her. “Strong scents tend to linger on things—it’s just that in other circumstances you’d probably not notice.”
“Yes, I suppose you’re right,” Teresa agreed, but she didn’t sound convinced. She looked almost pretty today, in a soft blue summer dress, her fair hair pulled back with a matching blue hair slide. But she would always have paled in comparison with Annabelle, no matter the effort she made. Gemma wondered how much she had minded.
Gemma drank more of her tea, making a vow to buy some of it at the first opportunity. “Is Reg Mortimer not in this morning?” she asked.
Teresa flushed. “No, he wasn’t feeling well. This has all been dreadful for him.… Reg was devoted to Annabelle.”
“But was Annabelle devoted to him?”
“What … what do you mean? Of course she was—”
“Then why was she unfaithful to her fiancé on more than one occasion?”
Teresa’s hand froze on the delicate handle of her teacup. “What?”
“Didn’t she confide in you? I thought she might have.”
“Confide what? What are you talking about?”
“Did you know that Annabelle had an affair with Martin Lowell? That’s what broke up his marriage to Jo. Reg only learned about it the night Annabelle died.”
“Martin Lowell? That can’t be true—there must be some mistake,” Teresa breathed.
“No mistake. Harry Lowell brought it up at Jo’s dinner party. Reg was livid. He’s admitted it now, but not until we played ring-around-the-roses a few times.”
“It can’t be true,” Teresa said again, her eyes enormous in her pinched face. “Why would Annabelle do such a thing?”
“I thought perhaps you could tell me.”
“She did take her mother’s death very hard,” Teresa said slowly. “Or it seemed so to me, but I’d only worked for her a few months and didn’t know her very well.” Bitterly, she added, “Although it seems I didn’t know her much better after five years, did I? Annabelle always made it such a point to stress honesty in business dealings—but it seems that didn’t apply to her personal life.” She looked up from her teacup. “You said there was someone else?”
“Plural. It seems that Annabelle had a relationship with a man called Lewis Finch, and with his son, Gordon.”
“Lewis Finch? The Lewis Finch?” Teresa repeated. “Are you sure?”
“Do you know him?”
“No, I … Only by reputation,” said Teresa, but she sounded uncertain.
“Were you aware that William Hammond disliked Finch?”
“But everyone admires Lewis Finch,” protested Teresa. “He’s done so much for the Island—I know Annabelle thought he was brilliant.”
“Did Annabelle talk about him to you?”
“Not in a personal way, but I knew she’d met him.”
“And his son, Gordon? Did she ever talk about him?”
“No, never. I didn’t even know Lewis Finch had a son.”
Gemma wondered if Annabelle had kept her own counsel out of necessity or if she’d enjoyed having secrets. She said, “Annabelle spoke to Gordon Finch the night she died—he was the busker Reg Mortimer saw in the tunnel. This was just after she’d told Reg she was in love with someone else, and after they’d had a huge row over her affair with Martin Lowell. You can see this puts things in rather a bad light for Reg.”
Teresa started to rise, then closed her eyes and sat down again, looking quite white and ill. “I’ve been a bloody fool.”
“Why? What’s happened?” Gemma asked quickly.
Teresa opened her eyes and stared at Gemma as if realizing what she’d said.