No Mark upon Her

“Who’s going to leave Kit on the road, Mummy?” said Toby, and she realized there had been a sudden cessation of the teasing and giggling in the backseat.

“I want Kit,” chimed in Charlotte, sounding apprehensive. “Where’s Kit?”

“And you’ll have him soon enough, lovey,” Gemma reassured her. “We’re just going to pick him up in a bit, and have a nice drive.”

“We’re already having a drive.” This from Toby, as always the logician.

“Well, a different drive. You’ll see.”

“What about Daddy, then? Is he going to walk?”

Gemma had never insisted that Toby call Duncan Dad, but lately he’d been copying Kit and she certainly hadn’t discouraged it. Toby’s dad had run out on them when Toby was a tiny infant, and Duncan had been a part of their lives as long as Toby could remember, so it seemed only natural for him. It had been harder, she supposed, for Kit, who had not known that Duncan was his father until his mother died three years ago.

At the moment, however, she could think of other, more appropriate monikers for her newly wedded husband, but she kept them to herself. “He’s going to stay with the new car.”

“I want to ride in the new car,” said Toby, happy to go back to the grievance that had occupied him for the first part of the return journey. “Why did Kit get to?”

“Because I needed you to be my navigator. And now I need you to watch for the motorway signs. Junction 10.”

Toby was quite proud of his ability to read the numbers on the motorway signs, and he settled back contentedly enough to watch for their exit, counting to himself in a singsong.

By the time Gemma reached the junction, however, there was no sound from the back at all, and when she glanced round she saw that both children had fallen asleep. Just brilliant, she thought. They’d wake up when she stopped for Kit, then they’d be fractious the rest of the way to London.

And poor Kit. He was bound to be disappointed, not only deprived of time alone with his dad but having to be collected by the roadside like an inconvenient parcel.

Leaving the motorway, she concentrated on remembering Kincaid’s brief directions, but it was easy enough to follow the road signs towards Henley. By the time she reached Wargrave, the dual carriageway had shrunk to a narrow road that dipped and turned though high banks of hedges and avenues of golden trees. A pub, St. George and the Dragon, flashed by on her left, and beside it she glimpsed the river and the bright colors of moored narrowboats. As the village vanished behind her, she felt she was sinking inexorably into the heart of the countryside, and she had an uneasy sense of deja vu.

Before she could pursue the thought, she was turning into the Henley Road, the river before her.

Crossing the bridge, she only glimpsed the river, the view broken by the railings so that it looked like a juddery old film. Then she was across it, and the town center flashed by her; the pretty flower-bedecked pub by the bridge, the square of the church tower, a blur of shops and restaurants, the bulk of the town hall sitting astride the top of the square as if asserting its proprietary rights.

She turned right as she left the town behind, and was soon running along another narrow, leafy road cloaked in autumnal colors, her sense of prickly familiarity increasing.

She slowed at the signpost for Hambleden, as Kincaid had directed, then braked sharply as she rounded the next bend. The police cars were clustered on the verges, positioned at odd angles as if they had been scooped willy-nilly from the narrow lane and dropped. Their blue lights strobed like distress signals aimed at the lowering gray sky.

This time she had no doubt she’d reached the crime scene. The green Astra sat among the Thames Valley Police patrol cars, as plain as a female peacock against the bright blue and yellow Battenburg livery of the official vehicles.

Kit was leaning against the Astra, hands in the pockets of his anorak, his downcast face brightening when he saw her.

Gemma lowered her window and showed her identification to the uniformed constable on the scene, then eased her Escort onto the verge as close to the Astra as she could. The children hadn’t stirred, so she slipped quietly out of the car, holding her finger to her lips as she walked towards Kit.

“I don’t want to wake them if I can help it,” she said. Then, glancing at the Astra, she grinned at Kit. “It is a bit hideous, isn’t it?”

“A bit?” He shook his head in disgust, but his face relaxed into what might almost have been a smile.

“Will you watch the little ones while I find your dad and see what’s going on?” she asked.

“He wouldn’t let me go with him,” said Kit, but he sounded more resigned than sullen. He pointed towards a narrow passageway that ran between the redbrick houses nearest the formation of police cars. “It’s through there. The river’s just the other side but you can’t see it from here.”

Gemma gave his arm a pat. “I’ll be as quick as I can.” She glanced once more at the children, still sleeping soundly. “Kit, if they wake, make sure to keep them in the car,” she added.

She followed Kit’s directions, ducking into the graveled passageway. After a moment, she rounded a bend and saw the Thames spread before her, wide and still except where the water cascaded over the weir.

From the near bank, a metal-railed concrete walkway zigzagged across the water, traversing the river, then the weir, until it reached the lock on the far side, and as Gemma gazed across it, she realized at last why the drive from Henley had seemed so familiar.

She had been here before.

There had been a body in this place, in this lock, a case that had led to secrets in the heart of the Chiltern Hills—a case that had propelled her and Duncan from a comfortable relationship as working partners into something much more complicated, something that had terrified her.

And there had been a woman involved, Julia Swann, an enigmatic artist whose relationship with Duncan had been, Gemma suspected, more than professional.

But that had been a long time ago. And water under the bridge, Gemma told herself, appreciating the irony as she stepped out onto the narrow walkway. She moved quickly, keeping her eyes off the roiling water as she reached the weir. As the walkway twisted, she realized she could see people clustered on the far bank, beyond the lock.

There were uniformed officers on the path on either side of the lock, discouraging the groups of curious bystanders who were beginning to gather. A child pointed, and as Gemma followed his gesture, she saw two dogs in orange SAR vests, a German shepherd and a black Labrador retriever, and their handlers, a man and a woman in black uniforms. She couldn’t read the insignia on the handlers’ jackets, but assumed they were volunteer search and rescue. The woman stood, the German shepherd sitting beside her, but the man sat with his head in his hands, the Labrador nudging at his arm.

A few yards from them, Kincaid was instantly recognizable, hands shoved in the pockets of his jacket in a posture reminiscent of Kit’s, his hair ruffled by the gusty wind blowing down the river. Beside him stood a small Asian man in an ill-fitting buff-colored overcoat that screamed copper—he might as well have been wearing a uniform.

Two white-suited crime-scene techs worked in the lee of the tangle of trees and brush at the water’s edge below the lock, one snapping away with a camera at something on the ground. As Gemma drew nearer, she saw that there was a man kneeling between them, obscuring the object of their interest.

He wore jeans and a scruffy leather jacket, and his blue-black hair was gelled into spikes—all in odd contrast to the medical bag beside him—and she recognized him, too. Rashid Kaleem, the Home Office pathologist they had worked with on the case involving Charlotte’s parents.

Looking up, Kincaid caught sight of her. He lifted a hand in greeting, then said something to the overcoated man, who turned and gave her a brief glance. Gemma realized she must look as scruffy as Rashid. She wore jeans as well; her hair was pulled up in a haphazard ponytail, and, unprepared for the torrential rain in Glastonbury, she’d borrowed an old Barbour from Winnie. But then she hadn’t expected to be making an appearance at a murder inquiry.

When she reached the towpath, both men came to meet her.

“Gemma, this is Inspector Singla,” Kincaid said.

She held out her hand. “Gemma James.”