“How far is it to the house?” asked Irene when they’d ridden in silence for a bit.
“A couple of miles. It will take us about three-quarters of an hour.” Lewis suddenly remembered how great the distances had seemed to him when he’d first come to the country, and how he hadn’t been able to imagine a stretch of road without a house or shop in sight.
“It’s not at all like Kilburn,” Irene said, and some quality in her voice made him look more closely at her, wondering if underneath that cheerful exterior she might be just a little bit frightened.
“No, but you’ll like it,” he said. “I promise.”
LEWIS AND IRENE BECAME FAST FRIENDS so swiftly that the first few weeks after William’s return were a bit awkward. William had come back rather full of himself, having spent his holiday immersed in his family’s business. When Irene remained unimpressed with the importance of Hammond’s Teas, William very politely tried to make it clear to her that she wasn’t included in Lewis’s and his schemes. But Irene always affected not to notice: she tagged along anyway, and after a bit William gave up in exasperation. He soon seemed to forget that he’d ever tried to leave her out.
In August, Mr. Cuddy returned from his long holiday on the Cornish coast, and they were busy with schoolwork again. If Mr. Cuddy and the boys had got into a bit of a rut with their studies, Irene soon woke them up. She was fascinated by Mr. Cuddy’s geographical mapping of the war, and always had a question or an argument.
They had a special interest in the campaign in North Africa, and Irene followed the exploits of Montgomery’s 8th Army against Rommel with as much partisan fervor as the boys, even though she’d never met John Pebbles. As the days shortened into autumn, they spent long afternoons before the schoolroom fire with cups of cocoa, discussing the war and their futures.
“It’s going to be over before we’re old enough to join,” complained Lewis one day when the rain beating against the windows kept them from going outside. “North Africa’s only the beginning. With the Yanks in it now, Europe’s bound to be next. Old Hitler won’t be able to stand up to the combined forces.”
“Yes, but I remember when everyone said the war would be over in weeks.” William stretched out on the rug and propped his chin on his hands, staring into the fire, and Lewis thought that he couldn’t imagine William fighting anyone, even if things did stretch out that long.
“Do you ever think about losing?” asked Irene. With Edwina’s cooperation, she had taken happily to wearing trousers like the boys, and sat cross-legged on the floor with her back against the old armchair. “Everyone talks as though there’s no question we’ll win, eventually. But what if we don’t?”
“Don’t be silly,” retorted William. “Of course we’ll win, so there’s no point thinking about it.”
But Lewis had thought about it. Lots of things he’d thought could never happen—his house being bombed, his two brothers dying—had happened, so he had to consider the possibility that they could lose this war.
“Of course, I hope it will end soon,” said Irene, studying the flames. “But if it doesn’t, I’m going to join up when I’m old enough and I’m going to be a general.”
“You’re positively daft,” said William. “Girls can’t be generals.”
“I don’t see why not.” Irene’s chin went up the way it did when she was going to be stubborn. “I like planning maneuvers and things.”
“But that’s just playing at it,” Lewis said, trying to be reasonable. “If it was real, you’d have to deal with wounded, and intelligence reports, and oh, all sorts of things. And you’d have to tell people what to do all the time.”
“So?” Irene stuck her tongue out at him. “I could do any of those things just as well as you.”
Mr. Cuddy looked up from the book he was reading. “Don’t squabble. I think Irene’s perfectly capable of telling people what to do. In fact,” he continued, warming to his subject, “has it ever occurred to you that we might have won the war by this time if all the generals were women? Think about Artemis, the hunter goddess.”
Lewis and William looked at each other and rolled their eyes. Now she’d got old Cuddy started on one of his tears, and they’d get the entire Greek mythology if they weren’t careful.
“And what about Boadicea—the ancient British warrior queen who led her forces against the Romans. That’s a bit closer to home.” Mr. Cuddy smiled at Irene. “And she had red hair.”
“I’ll bet people told her she couldn’t be a general, either,” Irene said, tossing her head with irritating smugness.
But Lewis was willing to let the matter drop for the sake of peace, because he had a feeling that if they kept on at her, Mr. Cuddy would get really cross.
Their tutor had seemed different since he came back from his long Cornish holiday, but Lewis had not quite been able to put his finger on what it was. At first he’d thought that maybe Mr. Cuddy didn’t like Irene, but that didn’t seem to be it, as he was much less likely to snap at her than at William and him. But something had changed, and the small, nagging worry this caused Lewis was the only thing to mar his contentment.
AS KINCAID PULLED THE CAR INTO a shady spot across from Gordon Finch’s flat, Gemma saw Gordon walking down East Ferry Road from the direction of Mudchute Station, clarinet case in his hand, Sam at his side. They waited until he had almost reached his flat, then got out of the car and crossed the road to intercept him.
“We’d like a word, Mr. Finch, if you don’t mind,” Kincaid said, showing his warrant card as if Gordon might have forgotten who they were.
“And if I do?” Gordon said easily, but his eyes flicked towards Gemma. He wore his military gear again today, and looked disreputable beside Kincaid, who wore khakis and a blue chambray shirt, his collar unbuttoned beneath the knot of his tie.
“We can have a chat somewhere less comfortable.”
Gemma felt the tension mount between the two men, then Gordon shrugged without speaking and led them up the stairs to his flat. Once inside, he looked at Gemma and threw down a challenge. “You know your way round, I think.” The physical presence of the two men, so close together in the small room and radiating dislike, made her feel she’d got caught in the middle of a pissing contest.
She held her ground. “We want to know exactly what Annabelle said to you in the tunnel. Word for word.”
“I’ve told you—”
“A very small piece—that she wanted to mend things between you. What you didn’t say was that Annabelle had just found out that your father had lied to her, betrayed her, just as she meant to betray her own father.”
“My father doesn’t lie,” Gordon said sharply.
“Then why did he tell Annabelle he would preserve the Hammond’s warehouse if she sold it to him, when all along he meant to tear it down?”
“Tear it down?” he repeated, frowning.
“She didn’t tell you? She must have been terribly angry with him.”
“She said …” He looked down as if surprised at the clarinet case he continued to hold in his right hand, then he knelt and set it carefully by the music stand. “She said something about loyalties that no longer mattered. I’d heard rumors, back in the spring, about Lewis’s interest in the warehouse, and that they’d been seen together a good bit. But when I asked her about it, she denied either a business interest or an affair.” He looked up and met Gemma’s eyes. “So I followed her. She spent the night at his flat. When I confronted her with it, she never even tried to justify herself. She said I wouldn’t understand.… And then she let me walk away.”