“Oh, donkeys’ years,” Rachel admitted. “Isabel befriended me when we first moved here, thirty years ago. That was a great loss—Isabel’s death. And now this.” She sipped at tea Gemma still found too hot to drink. “I always felt a bit sorry for Annabelle, but I never thought things would come to this.”
“You felt sorry for Annabelle?”
“I’ve always thought that exceptional beauty was as great an affliction as any physical handicap—perhaps more so. It is so difficult for the beautiful person, male or female, to develop a good character, isn’t it? The odds are stacked against them from the start.”
Gemma frowned. “How do you mean?”
“They are never required to earn the regard or affection of others through their behavior; rather, they come to expect it as their due. And they are forgiven almost anything, simply because of the way they look. Annabelle was more fortunate than others, because her mother kept her from being utterly spoiled.”
Francis chose that moment to leap into Rachel’s lap. The woman adroitly avoided spilling her tea, then stroked him as she continued, “The other tragic thing, in my experience, is that beautiful people so seldom have the security of knowing they are loved for themselves—who they are on the inside. But Isabel loved her daughter in spite of her beauty, not because of it, and she was scrupulously fair with the children.” She sighed. “William, of course, was a great trial to her, but she didn’t like to complain.”
“A trial? How?”
“Annabelle was the child of his dreams—this beautiful girl who grew up with a passion for tea that surpassed his own.”
“So he spoiled her terribly?”
“Oh, yes. And he placed on her the burden of perfection, which is a very difficult thing to live up to. It’s no wonder Annabelle went off the rails a bit when her mother died.”
“You knew about Annabelle and Martin Lowell?”
“I’m afraid so,” Rachel said, nodding sadly. “Jo confessed it to me. Poor thing, she had no one else to turn to—she certainly couldn’t tell her father what his precious Annabelle had done.” She gave Gemma a swift, intelligent glance. “And I suppose I’m betraying Jo’s confidence now. But all this has been rather weighing on me.…”
“Jo told us herself, so you’re hardly betraying a confidence,” Gemma reassured her. “What I don’t understand is how either of them could have fallen for Martin Lowell.”
Rachel Pargeter smiled. “I take it you haven’t seen Martin at his best. He can be quite charming—even I was smitten when they were first married and he asked my advice about the garden. He made me feel my opinion was the only one in the world that mattered. That intensity of his must have been awfully tempting to a girl used to playing second fiddle. Jo saw herself as Cathy to his Heathcliff.”
“And Annabelle?”
“I suspect that after Isabel died she just desperately wanted to feel loved, and she mistook Martin’s desire for that. I imagine she found out soon enough that Martin and love had no place in the same equation.”
“But to betray her own sister!” Gemma hadn’t realized until now how much the knowledge had upset her. She’d been able to justify to some extent Annabelle’s betrayal of Reg Mortimer with Gordon Finch, but not her affair with her own brother-in-law.
“Sibling rivalry has existed since Cain and Abel. I expect Annabelle wanted what she thought her sister had—contentment in her marriage, children—and she was used to taking what she wanted.”
“And Jo forgave her?”
“Eventually. But Harry didn’t.”
“It’s about the dinner party I came to see you,” said Gemma.
Rachel closed her eyes for a moment. “Oh, that was a terrible evening.”
“You heard the argument.”
“It’s a small house, and they were shouting. Not that I was surprised, mind you. I’d had an idea what was brewing. Harry stays with me sometimes, and I’d seen what his father was doing to him.” Rachel pushed the cat from her lap and set her empty cup on the table. “Martin’s infidelity I could forgive, but not using his son to satisfy his own need for revenge. I’m surprised someone hasn’t killed the bastard.”
“Tell me what they said in the kitchen that night.”
“I heard Harry first, shouting filthy words. Jo’s poor clients were mortified—I think they thought it was the telly at first. Then Jo, shouting at Harry … and Harry sobbing.”
“And Annabelle?”
Rachel looked away. “She was … pleading with Harry. Then Reg started in on her—I couldn’t make out all the words, but he was outraged. Annabelle shouted at him. Then the back door banged, twice. Neither of them came back into the dining room. Jo returned a few minutes later, trying to put a good face on it, but we excused ourselves as quickly as we could.”
“Did Reg and Annabelle seem all right at dinner?”
“Yes. A bit snappish, perhaps, but nothing out of the ordinary for a couple who knew one another well.”
“And there was no mention of anyone, or anything else, that might have set off an argument?”
“Not that I remember.” Frowning, Rachel added, “You’re not thinking that Reg could have had something to do with Annabelle’s death, I hope. He’s not a bad lad—used to play with my Jimmy when he came to visit Jo and Annabelle.”
“He was very angry with her.”
“I think he may have been more upset on Jo’s behalf than his own. That’s what he shouted at Annabelle. ‘How could you do that to your sister?’
“It is a shame that Annabelle hadn’t the chance to see what she could make of herself—to see if she could mend her flaws,” Rachel went on after a moment. “People always mourn the passing of exemplary souls, but I’m inclined to think they’ve done their bit and are ready to move on.”
“But Annabelle wasn’t.”
“She had the potential to love. I believe she loved her sister—in spite of what she did to her—and I know she loved Harry. The child’s rejection must have been a terrible blow, something she’d never experienced—and that pain might have been the flame necessary to forge her character,” finished Rachel. She smiled at Gemma and began to assemble their tea things on the tray. “But it’s facts you want, Sergeant, and I’ve given you nothing but idle speculation.”
“It’s been a great help to talk to someone who saw Annabelle clearly, Mrs. Pargeter.”
“Do you think that?” Rachel Pargeter paused, her hand on the sugar bowl. “I’m not sure I saw her clearly at all. A good part of what I’ve said may be complete rubbish, wishful thinking on my part. Because I loved her, too, you know—not least because she reminded me of her mother. And love is a dangerous thing.”
GEMMA HEARD THE MUSIC AS SOON as she stepped out of the lift in Island Gardens. It was Dixieland jazz, loud and rollicking and unmistakably live. She followed the sound round the side of the domed tunnel entrance, and when she turned the corner into the park proper, she saw the band beneath the plane tree that stood sentinel where the path met the river promenade.
The tree’s trunk perfectly bisected the view of the Royal Naval College across the river, and the five musicians stood in the shade of its branches. All were middle-aged, graying, and bearded, and with their soft hats and shirt-tails hanging over their mismatched shorts they looked like businessmen out for an afternoon’s lark. An occasional passerby tossed a coin in the open banjo case.
Gemma listened for a bit, unable to resist the toe-tapping rhythms, then wandered over to the refreshment kiosk and bought an Orangina. The park lay spread before her, so inviting that she decided to walk through it rather than go round by the road.
She took the path that cut straight through the center of the park, enjoying the clean fizziness of her drink, her steps still bouncing a bit with the music. Now they were playing a Benny Goodman tune she remembered her dad liking when she was a child, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on the name of it. She hummed along, following the tune, gazing absently at the mothers with babies in pushchairs and the couples stretched out on blankets on the grass.