Kissed a sad goodbye - Deborah Crombie [53]
“The wedding?” Again Teresa gave them a surprised look, as if the question hadn’t occurred to her. “They’d not set a date. Not an official one, anyway.”
“And how long had they been engaged?”
Teresa frowned. “Coming up on two years, I think.”
“Not much reason to delay a wedding these days—both of them independent, with their families’ approval—”
“But they couldn’t have just an ordinary wedding. They had social obligations, and I doubt Annabelle wanted to spare the time from work just now to plan the sort of affair expected of them.” Teresa put forth this theory with great seriousness, as if determined to convince herself.
“Were you and Annabelle close?” asked Gemma. “Would she have confided in you if she’d got cold feet?”
“I … I don’t know.” Teresa lifted her chin defiantly. “Look, I don’t understand why you’re asking all these questions. Jo said that Annabelle was killed in the park, attacked by some pervert. What can that possibly have to do with us, or Hammond’s?”
“Annabelle was found in the park. We don’t know that she was killed there,” said Kincaid. “Can you tell us why she might have been wandering round the Mudchute alone, after dark? In her party clothes and high heels?”
“No, that’s daft. But …” Shadows from the slowly revolving ceiling fans flickered across Teresa’s face, and Kincaid saw the irises of her pale blue eyes dilate like speading ink. “You can’t think here.…” She folded her arms beneath her breasts and looked round as if seeing the warehouse for the first time.
“Did Annabelle tell you what she meant to do on Friday evening?” Kincaid asked.
“They were going to her sister’s. She and Reg. The party had been planned for weeks.”
“And she didn’t contact you later in the evening?”
“Why should she have rung me?” Teresa sounded baffled.
“What if she were worried about something?”
“Annabelle wasn’t the sort to worry,” Teresa replied sharply. “And she wasn’t in the habit of ringing me in the evenings, or of coming back here.”
“Would there have been anyone here on Friday night? Do you run a night shift?”
“We don’t make the tea, Superintendent. We blend and package it, and our production and shipping staff work five-day weeks. The equipment’s upstairs, if you’d like to see, but this is the heart of the business.” She gestured at the large table in the room’s center, and Kincaid sensed her relief at treading familiar ground.
One side of the table’s length held ranks of worn, tin tea caddies and plain foil bags; the other a neat row of rectangular, white porcelain dishes filled with mounds of loose tea, and another row of identical, white porcelain bowls. Gemma touched a finger to the tea in the last dish. “It smells good. What is all this?”
“The tasting table.” Teresa glanced at them and Kincaid thought they must have looked blank, for she frowned and continued, “We don’t sell just any tea. First it must be blended, and Hammond’s has been famous for its blends for a hundred and twenty-five years. We buy the tea at auction—mainly from India and Sri Lanka, but since the late seventies China has opened up to us again, and some tea is exported from Africa and even South America.”
“Sri Lanka—that used to be Ceylon?” Gemma moved round the table studying the tin caddies. “Some of these say Ceylon.”
“Teas from Sri Lanka are known as Ceylon teas in the trade. But in Sri Lanka alone there are over two thousand different tea gardens—those are the estates on which tea is grown—and each estate has a number of different pluckings, or harvests, a year, depending on its altitude. And the tea from each of those pluckings can vary in taste and quality.” Teresa lifted her hands, palms up, in a gesture that indicated the complications of the task.
Kincaid had never thought beyond a vague vision of India or China when he plopped a tea bag in his morning cup. “It’s exponential, then?” he asked.
“Theoretically, yes—in reality, no.” Teresa tucked a strand of straight blonde hair behind her ear and rubbed at the sweat