“Lewis,” she’d whispered, sitting on the edge of his bed and shaking his shoulder. “I want to talk to you.”
He’d awakened instantly. “What are you doing here? You shouldn’t—”
“It’ll be all right—they’re all asleep.” She settled herself more comfortably against his hip as he struggled to prop himself up on his elbows. “Listen, you mustn’t mind about William. You know he doesn’t mean any harm—”
“That’s no excuse,” said Lewis, his anger rushing back. “Where does he think that sort of rubbish comes from? Straight from the Germans, that’s where. And when our men are dying—it could be John next, or Mr. Cuddy—”
“He’s only thinking about innocent people being killed, and he doesn’t understand how you feel about your parents, not really. He thinks you can be logical about something like that—”
“Logical? What does he bloody know about anything?” And to his shame, Lewis began to cry—the hiccuping, wrenching sobs he’d never let out, even at his parents’ funeral. Irene sat quite still, her hand on his shoulder, silent and concerned, and when he could manage, he said, “I know it’s stupid, but I keep thinking if I’d only been with them, I might have saved them somehow—”
“Lewis, you’d have been killed, too, you know that. That’s the last thing your mum and dad would have wanted.” She pulled back his blanket and slid into bed beside him, wrapping her arms round him.
“Irene—”
“I want to be with you, Lewis. We could be bombed, too—the rockets fall short of their targets all the time—and I don’t want to die not knowing what it’s like.”
She kissed him, pressing her body against his, and for a long moment he let go—then he pulled away, panting. “We can’t; what would Edwina—”
“It doesn’t matter,” she whispered, her mouth against his ear. “Nothing matters but us. Now. I want to be everything to you—mother, sister, lover—and I want you to need me more than you’ve ever needed anyone.”
He felt her trembling against him, and when he kissed her she tasted of tears. She was right—no one had ever loved him like this. Nothing mattered but this. And then sensation washed his mind clean of any thought at all.
LEWIS WOKE, AS HE USUALLY DID, when the first hint of dawn lightened the oblong of his window. Irene still lay beside him, her chest rising and falling gently as she slept. When he woke her, she sat up groggily and smiled at him.
“I suppose I’d better get back before anyone stirs,” she said, yawning and snuggling back down under the covers.
“You’d better hurry,” he urged. “You know how early Cook gets up sometimes.” As tempted as he was by her warm body against his, he felt suddenly uneasy, and he pushed her out of his bed with a hasty kiss.
From his window, he watched her cross the yard in the faint gray light, and for an instant he could have sworn he saw a curtain twitch at one of the upstairs windows.
ALTHOUGH LEWIS HAD KEPT HIS ROOM above the stable, he had for several years shared a bathroom on the second floor with William.
That evening, after tea, he’d finished his bath and had just stepped from the tub when he heard the door open behind him. William, come to patch things up at last, he thought as he reached for his towel, but when he glanced up at the mirror he saw nothing but the fog from his bath. “It’s taken you long enough,” he said, determined to make light of it, for they had been avoiding one another all day.
Then he heard hoarse breathing close by, and arms went round him, pinning him hard with his knees against the cast-iron tub.
“Hasn’t it?” said Freddie, and Lewis felt him fumbling against him, and then came a searing pain.
For an instant, he didn’t understand what was happening. Then, as Freddie thrust against him, he began to struggle with all the strength of his rage and humiliation. Freddie tightened his grasp, hissing, “You’ll do what I want, boy. I saw her leave this morning—I know what you’ve been—”
The door opened and Lewis wrenched himself round, but he couldn’t free himself from Freddie’s grip.
William stood in the doorway.
And Freddie smiled. “You know all about it, don’t you, William? You learned it at school. And if you know what’s good for you … and your little cause … you’ll bugger off … now.”
William stood frozen, white-faced with shock, his hand raised, his lips parted in protest.
Then he met Lewis’s eyes—and turned away. The door clicked shut behind him.
GORDON STOOD OUTSIDE THE CALL BOX at Mudchute Station, staring at the smudged card he’d found in his trouser pocket. Gemma had given it to him the first time she’d come to his flat—it seemed ages ago, not a mere five days—and she’d scribbled her mobile number on the back.
He’d already provided the police with enough information to damn his father—would he make things even worse by ringing her now? But as he turned away, he saw again Lewis’s face as he had sped off in the car, and an urgency that made his stomach feel hollow drove him back to the phone.
When Gemma answered, he said without preamble, “Lewis didn’t kill Annabelle.”
“Gordon?”
“All the time I thought he’d killed her, he was thinking the same about me. And when he realized it wasn’t me, he said—it didn’t make sense.…”
“Go on,” said Gemma, her voice tense.
“He said …” Gordon paused, struggling to remember the exact words. “He said he should have known … and then something about not letting him get away with it again. Then he drove off.… He looked … I’m afraid he’ll do something crazy.…”
“Gordon?”
He didn’t answer. Without warning, the pieces had come together in a way he hadn’t thought possible, and he felt a surge of anger so intense it left him shaking.
“Gordon?”
Realizing he was still holding the receiver to his ear, he said, “I have to go,” and aimed the phone at the cradle as he turned away.
He reached his flat in minutes and took the stairs three at a time, startling Sam into a volley of barking when he burst through the door. “It’s all right, boy,” he said automatically. But he knew nothing was all right unless he could make it so.
Dropping to his knees, he dug under the bed until his fingers touched the smooth wood of the box stored there, a gift from his father on his twenty-first birthday, one of the few possessions he had carted from place to place over the years. He slid it free and clicked up the latches.
“It’s a goddamned antique,” he muttered to Sam. A sentimental memento—he’d never dreamed of shooting anyone with it. But his father’s Webley Mark IV lay snug in its red felt cradle, clean and oiled, and beside it was an unopened box of .38 cartridges.
KINCAID HAD DRIVEN BACK FROM SURREY slowly, thinking about Irene Burne-Jones and the things she had told him. He doubted Irene had ever loved anyone the way she’d loved Lewis Finch, and he’d found he hadn’t the heart to suggest to her that Lewis might have murdered Annabelle Hammond.
Knowing something now of Lewis Finch’s history, he tried to imagine that Annabelle’s rejection of Lewis that night had been the loss that had tipped him into despair, driving him to murder. But for the first time he had doubts, and he still didn’t understand what had made Lewis so determined to take William Hammond’s property from him.