Kissed a Sad Goodbye

the incident room so that they could compare notes.
    “Did we get Martin Lowell’s girlfriend’s statement?” Gemma asked.
    “It’s here somewhere.” Janice dabbed at the bread crumbs that had fallen on the papers nearest at hand, then reshuffled them until she found the relevant copy. “Brandy Bannister, aged nineteen, resident of—”
    Washing down a bite of her tuna on brown bread with a sip of tepid coffee, Gemma snorted dangerously, precipitating a fit of coughing. “Brandy Bannister?” she sputtered when she had recovered sufficiently. “Suits her. You could almost feel sorry for her if she weren’t such a nit.”
    “That bad?”
    When Gemma nodded, mouth full, Janice continued, “It is a bit unfortunate. You always wonder what parents could have been thinking.” She looked back at the report. “At any rate, Brandy says she was with Martin Lowell from eight o’clock on, when they had dinner at the Trafalgar Tavern. They left the tavern about eleven and went directly to her flat, where they gave one another full body massages”—Janice raised an eyebrow— “and she says she’s sore she’d have known if he’d left at any time during the night.”
    “Full body massages? Not the kind that would pass a licensing board.”
    “Like that, was it? Do you think she’s a reliable alibi, or would she lie to protect him?”
    “I think she’s too witless to carry off anything more complicated than saying she’s sure he stayed the entire night when she actually slept like a log—and if Martin killed Annabelle he’d have needed a bigger fabrication than that.”
    Janice glanced at the statement again. “How so?”
    “Annabelle would’ve had to contact him in the missing two hours, between the time both Mortimer and Gordon Finch say they saw her last: around ten, and before midnight, when the pathologist estimates she died.” Frowning, Gemma took another bite of tuna sandwich. “Let’s send someone round the Trafalgar—see if we can confirm they were there and stayed until eleven.”
    “It’s a big place, lots of traffic. But suppose we can confirm it, what’s to say Martin didn’t go directly back to his flat and find Annabelle waiting for him?”
    “I guarantee you Martin Lowell didn’t take Brandy out for a nice evening of intellectual stimulation and kiss her good night at her door.”
    “Well, what if he stopped off at his flat for condoms or something, found Annabelle waiting for him, and killed her there? Then he went on to Brandy’s flat for a good time, got up in the wee hours and went back to his flat, stuffed Annabelle’s body in the boot of his car, and dumped her in the park,” Janice suggested.
    “I suppose it’s possible. But he’d have to carry her body across the open courtyard of his building—not a very safe prospect even in the middle of the night. And he has a very nosy neighbor. We might send a PC to have a word.” Gemma finished her coffee and tossed the cup in the rubbish bin.
    “What about Teresa Robbins? Anything new on Mortimer from her?”
    “Only what we should have guessed from the beginning— she’s quite besotted with him, or at least she was until she learned Reg hadn’t told her what he knew about Annabelle’s affairs.”
    “That would give Teresa a motive,” mused Janice. “What if Annabelle went to see Teresa that night—she was that upset, wanted a friend to talk to—”
    “And Teresa decided to kill her so she could have Mortimer for herself? Why not let nature take its course? It doesn’t sound as though Reg and Annabelle were likely to have patched things up.”
    “She could have helped Mortimer, though, if he killed Annabelle.” Janice poked distastefully at the remains of her tomato on white. “And he’s still the best fit for it, in my opinion.”
    “Except for the fact that if he killed her elsewhere, he’d no way of moving her. And I can’t imagine how he’d have convinced her to go to the Mudchute when she was alive.”
    “Maybe he followed her, saw her meeting someone else?” Janice met Gemma’s eyes.
    “Gordon Finch?” they said at the same time.
    Then Janice shook her head. “But why would she meet him in the park? It’s the same problem as with Mortimer, and Finch doesn’t own a car, either. His landlady didn’t provide him an alibi, by the way. Says she has no idea when, or if, he came home that night, and she’s not sure she’d have noticed if he’d had a visitor.”
    The strength of