“Can I help you?” she said.
He ran his fingers through his hair, pulled his warrant card case from his pocket, and smiled. “Duncan Kincaid. Detective superintendent, Scotland Yard. And this is Sergeant Cullen. There was an incident today—”
“Becca?” the young woman said. She lifted her hand, her fingers brushing her collarbone in an instinctive gesture of shock. “Is she all right? The police were here, and the people with the dogs, but no one’s told us anything.”
“I’d like to speak to the coach who saw her going out on the river yesterday,” Kincaid said, avoiding the question as gently as he could. Rumors would be flying around, but he wanted to break the news first to the people Rebecca Meredith had known best. “Mr.—”
“Jachym. Milo Jachym,” Cullen contributed. He didn’t have to consult his notes.
“I—I think he’s in the Member’s Bar,” the young woman said. “I’ll take you up.” She started towards a flight of stairs that appeared to lead up to a mezzanine, then turned back. “I’m Lily Meyberg, by the way, the house manager.” She held out a slender hand, and when Kincaid took it, he felt the calluses on her palms and the strength of her grip. A rower? he wondered. And if so, possibly more than a casual acquaintance of the victim?
He followed her, noticing as he passed a glass-fronted case displaying mugs and teacups decorated with the dancing pink hippos that seemed to be the Leander mascot, along with caps and ties in the infamous Leander cerise.
As he climbed, he saw that the walls of the stairwell were lined with photos of groups of muscular men and women in rowing singlets, sporting gaudy medals.
“Redgrave, Pinsent, Williams, Foster, Cracknell . . .” Doug’s whisper was reverent, and he looked as if he was resisting the temptation to touch the photos as he passed. These, Kincaid knew, were the gold-medal winners, rowing’s gods.
At the top of the stairs they reached a reception area, but the desk and the dining room beyond were empty. Back to the right, however, Kincaid heard the murmur of voices and the clink of china and cutlery.
He peered round the corner into another dining area—a pleasant, casual room with a bar at its end that must overlook the building’s front. The few diners at the white-clothed tables looked up at him curiously, implements frozen. As he turned back to reception, he sensed the tension of whispers beginning to build behind him.
“I’ll take you back,” Lily was saying. She led them not through the dining room that he had seen, but along a corridor that ran parallel to it, towards the front of the building.
“It seems there’s not much custom tonight,” he said. In spite of the sparseness of diners, delicious odors were wafting from somewhere nearby, and Kincaid realized he was starving. Their breakfast in Glastonbury that morning seemed a world away. They’d meant to have a late lunch once they reached home, so he had missed the meal altogether.
“It’s usually quiet on a Tuesday night, unless we have a function on,” said Lily. “But the chef has the crew to cook for, three meals a day, so it’s always busy in the kitchen.”
“That’s a job,” said Cullen, sounding impressed.
Lily gave him a quick smile. “They do eat a good bit.”
As they reached the end of the corridor, two young men carrying kit bags came out of a door marked CREW. They made Kincaid, who was a bit over six feet, feel suddenly dwarfed. Like the diners, the young men glanced curiously at the newcomers, giving them the slightest of nods.
“Rowers in training need about six thousand calories a day,” Lily added, glancing back at the oarsmen as they disappeared round the corner. As Kincaid tried to calculate what six thousand calories meant in terms of portions, he saw that they had reached a T-junction of sorts, with the bar he’d seen at the end of the dining room to the left, a small service area straight ahead, and to the right, a smaller, more intimate bar, its walls covered with rowing memorabilia and anchored by a large flat-screen television.
A petite blonde in the service kitchen was making coffee. She wore the same pale pink blouse and navy skirt as Lily, and Kincaid surmised it must be the Leander staff uniform.
“Milo?” asked Lily, and the pretty blonde nodded towards the small bar.
“He’s been ringing the police, but he can’t find out any—” The blonde stopped at Lily’s fractional head shake, and her eyes widened as she looked at Kincaid and Cullen.
“I’ll take them in,” said Lily, and they followed her into the bar.
A small, balding man sat alone, an empty coffee cup on the table before him. He stood when he saw them, his lined face apprehensive.
“Mr. Jachym?” Kincaid asked before Lily could introduce him. “If we could have a word. We’re from the police.”
Lily left them then, but he was sure that anything they said could be heard from the service kitchen on the other side of the bar. The news would be all over the club in no time.
“I’ve been trying—”
“I know,” Kincaid interrupted. “Mr. Jachym, I understand you were the last person to see Rebecca Meredith?”
“I—” Jachym swallowed visibly. “As far as I know, yes. I told the other policeman, the Asian one.”
“You were Rebecca Meredith’s coach?”
“Not officially, no. Although I was once, many years ago. Please, what’s happened?”
“Mr. Jachym, sit down,” said Kincaid. Milo Jachym, who didn’t appear to be a man accustomed to taking orders, sat.
“May we?” Kincaid asked, and at Jachym’s nod, he and Cullen pulled up the nearest chairs. “Rebecca Meredith’s body was found this afternoon, below Hambleden Weir,” he said, knowing it was best to get it over quickly.
Jachym stared at them. “You’re certain?”
“One of the SAR team identified her. But we’ll need an official ID. Do you know who would be her next of kin?”
“Oh, God.” Jachym made a convulsive movement towards his empty coffee cup, but didn’t touch it. “No one’s told Freddie? He’s been frantic.”
“Freddie?” Kincaid asked, although he remembered the name from the initial missing persons report.
“Freddie Atterton. Becca’s ex-husband.”
“He was the one who reported her missing?”
“I—we—he came to me, this morning. He was worried about her, and I realized I hadn’t seen her shell on the rack in the yard. Look—can you tell me what happened?”
Cullen responded. “The SAR team found her Filippi caught on the Buckinghamshire bank, not far below Temple Island. It was overturned, and one oar was missing.”
“But—if she went in the water there, surely she could have swum to shore. Not that she’d have willingly left the boat . . .” Milo Jachym shook his head and scrubbed impatiently at the graying stubble on his chin. “I’ve been in this sport long enough to know that any rower can have an accident. But I never thought Becca—Freddie was right. I should have stopped her.”
“He didn’t want her to go out?”
“No. I was the one who told him she was training and he was furious. He thought it was foolish.”
“And was it?”
“No. At least I didn’t think so. She was a gold-medal contender when I first worked with her, after she finished university. But she was reckless. Age seemed to have tempered her a bit. I told her last night, before she went out, that I thought she had a chance if she was serious.”
“A chance?” Kincaid asked. “A chance at what?”
Jachym looked at him as if he were mentally deficient. “The Olympics, of course. In the women’s single scull.”
Kincaid stared back. Bloody hell, he thought. When Rebecca Meredith had been described as an “elite rower,” he’d assumed she rowed in the occasional local regatta.
But an Olympic contender
No wonder the brass had wanted their own man on the scene. The press were going to have a feeding frenzy.
And he was not going to get home anytime soon.
