Gordon stared at her, his face expressionless. “My father buys properties all the time—it’s what he does. Why should anyone have bothered to mention one he hadn’t managed to acquire? You’re giving significance to things after the fact that hadn’t any before, Sergeant.”
She stared back at him, regrouping. “All right, let’s try it from the other direction. All those questions you said Annabelle asked you about your family—were some of them about your father’s business?”
“They might have been, I suppose, but I’d not have thought anything of it—people tend to be curious about him.”
“And you never wondered, when she sought you out and seduced you, if she might have had some ulterior motive?”
“Are you saying she needed one?” His eyes met hers in a challenge.
Gemma felt the color rising in her face. “I think that once you learned who Annabelle was, you’d have made sure you heard anything that had to do with Hammond’s, and especially if your father happened to be involved. What I don’t understand is why you’re lying about it.”
When he didn’t answer, she continued, “I think you knew about your father and Annabelle. I think you knew about your father’s interest in her business. And I think you’ve lied to me from the beginning about your feelings for Annabelle. She was in love with you. That’s what she told you that night, wasn’t it?”
Gordon’s knuckles whitened on his coffee mug. His voice dangerously calm, he said, “You know fuck-all about it. Nothing was about love with Annabelle. It was about power. I’m not stupid, Gemma, and I was only willing to be used for so long—”
“You broke things off with her because you found out she was sleeping with your father. You loved her. You never stopped loving her. But you wouldn’t forgive her.”
“Forgive her?” Gordon shoved back his chair and shook a cigarette from the packet on the counter, then lit it with an angry strike of a match. “Why should I even have believed her? And what difference would it have made if I had? Can you imagine what an aboveboard relationship with Annabelle Hammond would have meant? Do you think I’d have let myself be vetted by her family to see if I passed muster? That I’d have put on a coat and tie and gone to work as her flunkey in the family firm?”
Gemma stood up so quickly that her chair rocked and teetered. “You lied to me. And I put myself on the line for you!”
“Is that what this is about? You and your professional credibility?” His face was inches from hers. “That’s bollocks. I’ve been interviewed by the police before, and they didn’t dance with me in the park, or come alone to my flat. You want me to be honest with you, Gemma, then you be honest with me. You tell me this isn’t about you and me.”
“I … You …” Gemma couldn’t look away from him, and to her dismay she felt herself trembling.
“You can’t, can you?” He was almost shouting now, and he plunged his unfinished cigarette into his barely touched coffee. Sam opened his eyes and looked up at them, his brow furrowed. “Don’t accuse me of holding out on you when you won’t admit that.”
“All right, goddamn it,” Gemma said, her own voice rising. “It’s not about my credibility. It’s not about the job. It’s about whatever this is between us—”
Gordon grabbed her roughly by the shoulders. He stared down at her, and the pressure of his fingertips seemed to burn her bare skin.
In an instant of appalling clarity, Gemma saw that his fair eyelashes were darker at the roots, that he had a small indented scar at the inner edge of his brow from chicken pox, and that he had a crease in his lower lip. She smelled toothpaste and coffee and cigarettes on his breath, and the strong odor of his skin that came from sleeping. Her eyes strayed to the rumpled bed and she saw Annabelle, her perfect body naked, her red hair spread out beneath him … and then she saw herself there, with him—
A phone rang, shrill and nearby. Gemma jumped, heart pounding. She jerked herself free from his hands. It took her a moment to realize that the phone was hers, tucked into the pocket of her handbag.
“Answer it then, why don’t you?” Gordon was breathing hard.
“I—” Gemma took another step back, groping for her bag. “No … I—I’ve got to go.” Her fingers closed on the strap of the handbag. She turned and ran down the stairs as if the devil himself were after her.
“TURKEY,” SAID COOK. “WE’RE GOING TO have the biggest turkey you’ve ever seen—just let that Mr. Hitler think he can spoil our Christmas,” she added indignantly, wiping the tip of her red nose on her apron.
“And mince pie?” prompted Lewis. He sat at the kitchen table, feet tucked round the chair legs, laboring over an essay for Mr. Cuddy on the historical basis of Italy’s war against Greece.
Although he was no longer awed by the Hall—he ran carelessly up and down the stairs to the first-floor schoolroom where he and William had their lessons with Mr. Cuddy, and he now knocked on the door of Edwina’s drawing room without hesitation—he’d taken to doing his lessons in the kitchen. It was always warm and filled with good smells, and he’d learned he could make the occasional response to Cook’s chatter without really paying attention.
“Don’t you tell a soul about my mince pies,” cautioned Cook. “Why, just the other day I heard that Mavis Cole trying to bribe the grocer for a few sultanas. If word got out, we’d have half the village here begging for a taste.”
Fruit of any kind—fresh, dried, or candied—had become extremely rare, but Cook had a few jars of last Christmas’s mince tucked away in the pantry and meant to make the most of it. Lewis suspected that in spite of her admonition, she’d already dropped a careful hint or two in the village, and was very much looking forward to being besieged with requests. And if he suspected as well that Cook had a soft spot for him, he had no qualms about taking advantage. “That’s because your pies are the best,” he said, looking up from his paper.
“You’re a flatterer, Lewis Finch; you mind yourself,” said Cook, fanning herself, but her face turned just a shade ruddier and Lewis knew she was pleased. “Now what about them onions for your mum? Shall we pack them up nice with some of my marrow and ginger jam?”
“Yes, please. And some of the greengages?” Lewis gave her his best smile.
There had been no question of Lewis’s going home for Christmas this year. Although the attack on Coventry on the 14th of November had marked the beginning of a decrease in raids on London, the bombs were still falling. And even had it been safe, there was not really anyplace for him to go. The damage to the Stebondale Street house had been irreparable; his parents had been finally resettled in a tiny, one-room flat in Millwall, a few blocks from the Mudchute.
The food shortages were even more evident in London than in the country, and he and Cook had conspired to send a few much-prized things, including onions from the Hall’s kitchen garden. His mum had written that she’d seen a lone onion on a cushion in a greengrocer’s window, priced at 6d, and that the sight of it had made her weep with longing.
His mother wrote often, full of news of fires tamed and rescues carried out in the course of her new duties as a volunteer ARP warden. After the chaos of the first few nights of bombing, she’d been determined to make herself useful and had gone about it with her usual practicality. And besides, she’d confessed to Lewis in a letter written on a late night watch, it helped take her mind off worrying about his brothers, who had been posted together to a cruiser in the North Atlantic—and about Cath, who had taken to going to the cinema and staying the night in a public shelter if the warning sounded while she was out.