Kissed a Sad Goodbye

troubled thoughts. She sank down into the foaming water, willing herself into the music as if she could absorb the clean simplicity of it.
    Involuntarily, however, she looked down at her body, half submerged in the water, and touched her bare shoulders as if Gordon Finch’s fingertips might have left a tactile impression on her skin. Even remembering the sensation made her shiver, then flush with shame. She’d tried telling herself that nothing had actually happened between them that afternoon, but she knew she’d teetered on the very edge of temptation—and that if she had fallen she would have compromised both her career and her relationship with Duncan irrevocably.
    As much as she wanted to believe Gordon innocent, he was a suspect in a murder investigation, and her behavior had been rash and dangerous. The fact that she suspected something similar had happened to Duncan on a case they’d worked last year didn’t make her feel any better, and he’d at least not been involved with her at the time.
    She closed her eyes and eased herself further down into the water, wishing she could wash away what had happened. But she knew that no amount of guilt or regret could alter the connection that existed between her and Gordon Finch—a connection she somehow had never doubted was mutual, a connection so powerful it had made her contemplate throwing away everything that made her who she was.
    The thought frightened her so much she felt tears well behind her closed eyelids. She blinked them angrily away. Were her commitments to the job and to Duncan flimsy fabrications that would crumble under the slightest pressure?
    Could it be that she didn’t know herself at all?
     

CHAPTER 13
     
The trade and industry which had first brought work and workers to the Island in the nineteenth century, was now in terminal decline. One by one, in the 1970s the remaining factories closed their gates and moved away; rumours that the Docks too might close, proved to be all too true. The last ships came and went.
Eve Hostettler, from
Memories of Childhood
on the Isle of Dogs. 1870-1970
     
     
     
    Teresa Robbins dressed carefully in her best pale blue suit and white lawn blouse, even putting on tights, although it took the help of a bit of talcum powder to get them up in the morning’s sticky heat. At least the sky was solidly overcast, she thought, and there was hope the weather might break by the end of the day.
    She painstakingly applied her makeup, and at the last minute used a bit of spray to set her hair—all the while feeling as if she were the condemned going to face the guillotine. Sharply, she reminded herself that it was unlikely anything that happened to her today could be worse than the things she had endured in the past week.
    She had thought her grief for Annabelle more than she could bear, until Annabelle had been revealed to her as a liar and a cheat; she had thought she and Reg might find some comfort in one another, until she’d learned that he had used her for the most unconscionable sort of revenge.
    Yesterday she’d steeled herself to face him, but he hadn’t come in at all, and she’d gone home exhausted after a day spent preparing ever more dire financial predictions for this morning’s meeting.
    As she walked down Saunders Ness from Island Gardens Station, she wondered if she could bring herself to work for Reg if they made him managing director, or if she wanted to go on at Hammond’s at all if they brought someone in from outside.
    Then she’d stepped into the building and smelled the familiar combination of scents—motor oil and dust overlaid by the rich perfume of the teas—and she wondered how she could possibly bear even the thought of leaving.
    William arrived first, looking stern but rather frail; then Sir Peter, dapper and cheery; then Jo; and finally, Martin Lowell, whom Teresa had never met. She stared at him curiously, but couldn’t read the expression on his darkly handsome features.
    Reg did not arrive until they were assembled in Teresa and Annabelle’s office, and in spite of everything that had happened between them, Teresa couldn’t help feeling a spasm of concern. He looked exhausted, possibly even ill. As he took his seat in one of the chairs gathered in a semicircle round the desks, he closed his eyes.
    William called the meeting to order, and as Teresa read her reports she was conscious of Martin Lowell’s gaze on her.
    When she’d finished, there was a moment’s