No Mark upon Her

“It’s not a boat,” said Kieran, his voice trembling. “I told them before. It’s a Filippi. A racing shell.”

Kincaid gazed at the sleek lines of the shell. The Filippi was white, with a fine blue line running its length, and it seemed impossibly long and slender, like a sliver of light. A little water was still pooled beneath the seat and runners. “Sort of like calling a Thoroughbred a pony?” he suggested quietly.

Kieran nodded, and some of the tension seemed to go out of his shoulders.

A light nylon rope stretched from one of the shell’s riggers to a sturdy sapling near the bank. One oar lay nearby.

“We had to turn it over,” said Scott, coming to stand beside them. “The boat. To make sure she wasn’t”—he glanced uneasily at Kieran—“there wasn’t anyone trapped underneath. But we didn’t want to pull it out of the water until the police had seen it.”

“And the other oar? Was it missing when you found the boat?” Kincaid asked, resisting the temptation to examine the underside of the hull. He’d better leave it for forensics.

“Yeah,” said Scott, “it was missing, and I had to unfasten that one in order to flip the bloody thing. Got soaked.”

“How easy is it to flip a single shell like this?”

It was Cullen who answered. “Happens all the time. You catch a crab—”

“Not to her, it didn’t,” Kieran said, his voice fierce. “Not on a calm evening, not here.” He looked at Kincaid for the first time since they had reached the bank. “You don’t understand. She was an elite rower. Not some amateur out for a Sunday paddle.”

“You knew her,” Kincaid said with sudden realization. Behind him, Tavie shifted uncomfortably.

“Everyone knew her,” Kieran went on. “Rowers, I mean. She was—she could have been—one of the best in the world. And she trained on the reach every day.”

Kincaid gazed out at the Thames, its surface a silvery shimmer. Scattered lights had begun to twinkle in the dusk, but they were distant, and this spot felt as isolated as the moon. Mist rose from the water like wraiths.

“So,” he said slowly, “what if she fell ill? Fainted, even? There’d have been no one to help her.”

“Sudden death.” The reply, unexpectedly, was Cullen’s. “It happens to rowers sometimes. It’s called sudden death.”

As they trudged back across the meadows, Kincaid realized he’d forgotten how long light lingered in the sky once one was out of the city. But while shreds of violet stained the deep blue canopy above, the ground beneath their feet was nigh on invisible, and much stumbling and swearing accompanied the progress of all the police officers.

The dog handlers, however, seemed to be as sure-footed as their canine companions and periodically stopped to wait for the others.

There was no possibility of getting forensics to the scene until first light. The uniformed officers had set about trying to get the boat out of the water when Kieran had motioned them back. Taking off his boots, he’d slipped into the river and lifted the shell onto the bank as gently as if it were a child. Climbing out, he’d laid the single oar beside the shell and stood for a moment, his expression unfathomable in the gloom.

When the constables had finished cordoning off the small clearing with scene-of-crime tape, they had all gone out the way they’d come in, single file. DI Singla had another team of officers waiting at the cars; they would be led back to guard the scene overnight.

“I want to talk to the coach at Leander Club,” Kincaid said quietly to Cullen, when they’d crossed the single- plank bridge into the first meadow, and he thought he could see the shapes of the cars in the distance. “Wasn’t he the last person to have seen her?”

“The ex-husband reported her missing,” said Singla, from behind them.

“Him, too. But first the coach, I think. And we’ll need somewhere to stay—”

“All in hand.” Cullen sounded pleased with himself. “I rang the Red Lion on the way down. It’s just across the river from Leander.”

Kincaid glanced at him and saw only the glint of his glasses in the darkness. “How did you get here so quickly anyway? Levitate?”

Cullen’s reply came reluctantly. “Um, Melody gave me a lift.”

“What were you doing with Melody?” Kincaid asked, surprised.

“Buying her lunch. In Putney.” Cullen had begun to sound a bit defensive. “She came round to have a look at the house.”

“Ah.” Kincaid processed this. He’d been aware of Doug’s venture into homeownership, but as far as he knew, Doug and Melody barely tolerated each other. This, however, was not the time or place to inquire further. “Well, good. It’s official, then, the house?”

“As of this morning.”

Kincaid patted him on the shoulder, a little clumsily as his right foot twisted in a hollow. “We’ll have a drink on it later.”

He grimaced as he took another step, but it had less to do with the twinge in his ankle and more with the thought of staying here in Henley, leaving Gemma home alone with the children. This was not what they’d planned for this week.

As if sensing his train of thought, Cullen said very softly as they approached the cars, “Guv, I know you’ve got leave coming up. This case—do you think there’s anything to it?”

And Kincaid could have sworn there was a note of hope in his voice.

“You’ve been here before, I take it?” Kincaid asked.

Cullen had directed him over the Henley Bridge, then into the first turning. There was a dark mass of a building on his left, a gated car park on his right, and no obvious place to put the car.

They had left DI Singla to begin setting up an incident room at Henley Police Station, Cullen murmuring, “He’s a bit taciturn, wouldn’t you say?”

“No more than you or I would be under the circumstances, I suspect,” Kincaid had answered. “Would you want a Met officer dead on your patch?”

Cullen had shaken his head. “I wouldn’t be jumping for joy over the prospect, no.”

Now Cullen said, “Pull up to the dead end. The field beyond is where they put up the regatta enclosures, but it won’t be in use now. The club’s on the left.”

When Kincaid had duly parked and climbed out of the Astra, he saw that the building had appeared dark because it was flanked by a high brick wall, a visual moat. Above the wall, he saw red-tiled gables atop white- framed panels of pebbledash, and on the upper floors light glinted from a multitude of windows. There was an arched doorway in the wall that opened onto an inner courtyard.

Kincaid touched his fingers to the brick as they passed through. “A chastity belt for an Edwardian dowager?” he suggested.

“It’s Leander,” Doug protested, as if Kincaid had just insulted the holy of holies. “And it’s not dowdy. The building was completely refurbished in the late nineties.”

That didn’t make it an architectural gem, Kincaid thought, but he kept his opinion to himself. “So you rowed here?”

“Oh, no.” Doug sounded shocked. “I mean, I never rowed from Leander, as a member. But I rowed in regattas here in Henley, when I was at school.” The casually mentioned school had been, in Doug’s case, Eton—a fact that he rarely admitted in police environs.

“And at university?” Kincaid asked.

“No.” Doug shook his head as they reached glass doors sheltered by a fluted iron canopy. “Wasn’t good enough. Too big for a cox, too small for a really powerful oarsman.”

Kincaid opened the door, and they stepped into a lobby that was more elegant than the building’s exterior. The decor centered round a glass-topped coffee table with a sculpted bronze hippo as its base.

Lights still burned in a glass-fronted but very business-like office area on the lobby’s right. A young woman sitting at one of the desks saw them, stood, and came out, looking at them inquiringly. She wore a pale pink blouse and a navy skirt, and Kincaid was suddenly aware that he had been tromping across rain-sodden fields in the clothes he’d been wearing since he’d begun the day playing with the children—he certainly didn’t look the most reputable of policemen.