Kissed a Sad Goodbye

hotel.
    After carefully backing up in the narrow road, he entered the drive and bumped slowly along it. As he rounded a curve, the building came into view—massive, redbrick, late Victorian Gothic, and although it was most impressive, he could see why the structure was no longer used as a private house.
    Behind the hotel and to the right, the land dropped away down the hillside; to the left the elevation rose slightly, and among the trees he caught a glimpse of a chimney and a red-tiled roof that he assumed must belong to the cottage Madeleine had mentioned.
    He left the Rover in the car park in front of the house and walked up the small, graveled lane that led into the woods. As he neared the cottage, he heard voices—no, it was only one voice, he decided as he came closer, rising and falling, then pausing before beginning again.
    Another few yards brought him to a clearing in which stood a redbrick cottage surrounded by a low-walled garden. On a sunny patch of lawn he saw a woman, her back to him, pacing and speaking to herself. She wore trousers and a pale blue cotton shirt, and her slender figure was almost boyish, an impression furthered by the short cropping of her auburn hair. She reached the end of her circuit and turned, then came to a surprised halt as she looked up and saw him standing at the bottom of her garden. As her face came into the sunlight, he saw that she was considerably older than he’d first thought, well past middle age, perhaps.
    “Hullo,” he called. “I didn’t mean to startle you. I’m looking for someone called Burne-Jones.”
    Coming forward, she rested her hands on the rusting, wrought-iron gate and examined him. “My name is Burne-Jones. What can I do for you?” Her face was pleasant and open, and her eyes, although on close inspection surrounded by a network of fine lines, were a bright and inquisitive blue.
    Kincaid slipped his warrant card from his jacket and presented it. “My name’s Kincaid, with Scotland Yard. I’ve some questions about the house”—he gestured back towards the way he had come—“and the people who stayed here during the war.”
    “The war?” She frowned and took the card from his hand, scanning it carefully before handing it back. “What could you possibly—” Pausing, she looked back at the cottage, then seemed to come to a decision. “Right. Come in, Superintendent. I was about to make coffee.
    “It’s just that I’ve a deadline,” she explained, looking back over her shoulder as he followed her into the house. “When I’m a bit stuck on something, I work it out in the garden.”
    As they entered the front room of the cottage, he saw that the worktable set against the front window held a computer monitor and keyboard, and that a good portion of the pleasant room was filled with well-stuffed bookcases. “Are you a writer, Miss Burne-Jones?” he asked, taking in the comfort of the room, with its squashy, chintz furniture, worn Aubusson carpet, and robin’s-egg-blue walls. A large, new television and VCR were positioned to one side of the fireplace.
    “A freelance political journalist. And you can dispense with the awkwardness—I’m Irene. Just have a seat and I’ll be back in a moment,” she added as she disappeared through a door he thought must lead to the kitchen. But instead of sitting, he had a look at the bookcases.
    Irene Burne-Jones’s taste in reading matter was wide-ranging, with a concentration in British history and political biography, and he gathered from the number of volumes on him that she had a particular fondness for Winston Churchill.
    He had removed William Manchester’s The Last Lion and was thumbing through it when Irene reentered with a tray. “Sorry,” she said as she pushed a stack of obviously unread newspapers aside to make room for the tray on the coffee table. “Things tend to accumulate when I’m finish-mg up an article. Do you like books, Mr. Kincaid?” She glanced at him as she poured coffee into mugs.
    “Second nature. My parents own a bookshop,” he answered, returning the volume to its spot and taking a seat in the armchair.
    “I’m not sure I’d have liked that,” Irene replied. “Taking books for granted, that is. My parents weren’t great readers, so I found books a revelation.” She added a dash of cream to her coffee and sat back, regarding him curiously. “Now, tell me how I can help you.”
    “Did your family own the Hall during the war, Miss Burne—Irene?” he