No Mark upon Her

and determination kept her fragile craft from the river’s dark grasp.

But fear was good. It made her strong and careful. She slipped the oars into the locks and tightened the gates. Then, with the bowside oar resting on the raft and the strokeside oar balanced flat on the water, she slipped her feet into the trainers attached to the footboard and closed the Velcro fasteners.

“I’ll wait for you,” offered Milo. “Help you put the boat up.”

Becca shook her head. “I can manage. I’ve got my key.” She felt the slight weight of the lanyard against her chest. “But, Milo . . .” She hesitated. “Thanks.”

“I’ll leave the lights on, then,” he said as she pushed away from the raft. “Have a good row.”

But she was moving now, letting the current take the shell out into the river’s center, and his words barely registered.

The world seemed to fall away as she settled into a warm-up rhythm, working the kinks out of her shoulders and the stiffness from her thighs. The wind bathed her face as it blew steadily downriver. Between the wind and the current, she would have the advantage—at least until she made the turn round Temple Island, and then she would have both wind and current against her as she rowed back upriver.

Her strokes grew longer, deeper, as she watched the arched golden lights of Henley Bridge recede in the distance. She was moving backwards, as rowers did, judging the river by instinct, and she might have been moving backwards in time as well. For an instant she was the girl who had seen an Olympic gold medal within her reach. The girl who had let it slip away.

Frowning, Becca pulled herself back into the present. She concentrated on her stroke, feeling the sweat beginning to form on the back of her neck, between her breasts. She was not that girl. That had been fourteen years ago, in a different world. Today she was a different person, connected to that young Rebecca only by muscle memory and the feel of the oars in her hands. Now she knew the cost of failure.

And she knew Milo was right. She was going to have to make a decision, and soon. Complete commitment to racing would mean taking leave from the job to train full-time. She could quit outright. Or she could take the leave of absence the Met had offered her.

But that would leave unfinished business.

The thought brought a surge of anger so intense that she instinctively drove the oars into the water, pushing her stroke up to racing rate. The riggers creaked as the boat took the strain. Water flew from the oars on the recovery, splashing droplets across her face.

She was moving now, listening to the whoosh and thunk as the oars went in, followed by an instant of absolute silence as they came out of the water and the boat plunged forward like a living thing. It was perfect rhythm, this, it was music. The boat was singing, and she was a part of it, lifting from the water like a bird.

Henley receded, a glowing dot in the distance. Now she could really see the sky, rose-gold on the horizon, fading to mauve. Clouds, still visible against the dark dome above, seemed to be flying, matching her stroke for stroke. A few cottages—hers somewhere among them—and clumps of trees on the Berkshire bank flew by in a dark blur.

Ten strokes. Her thighs were burning.

Ten more, focusing on the count, on getting her oars out of the water cleanly.

Ten more, shoulders on fire now.

And one more ten, with all the power she could summon, the boat leaping from the water, her throat searing as she took great gulps of air.

Then, a pale flash on her right, the ornamental folly on Temple Island. This shard of land midriver, once a part of Fawley Court, now served as the starting point for the Henley Royal Regatta. Once past the island she’d have to turn back, or she’d lose the last glimmer of light and would truly be rowing blind before she reached Leander again.

She eased up on the stroke, letting her lungs fill, easing her cramping muscles. As she passed the downriver tip of the island, she stabilized the boat, oars resting lightly on the surface of the water.

Suddenly, she realized that her earlier anger had passed and she was filled with a deep and calm certainty.

She would race. She would not let this last chance pass her by. And if it meant leaving the Met, she would leave, but she would not be fobbed off quietly with a token gold watch and more hollow promises. She would see justice done, whatever the means, for herself and the others like her.

The swift current was carrying her downstream, towards the lock and the weir. A flock of rooks rose with a clatter from the trees on the Buckinghamshire bank. As she watched them wheel in a dark ballet, Becca let the boat swing round. When the birds disappeared from her field of view, she was facing downriver. The wind felt fiercer now. It bit at the back of her neck, and when she took her first full stroke, the current’s resistance challenged her.

Rowing downriver, she’d stayed near the center, taking advantage of the swiftness of the current. Now, she eased in towards the Bucks side, where the current was less brutal, the upriver journey less arduous. Anyone who had ever rowed out of Leander knew every twist and turn and wind shadow along the Bucks bank, and most, like Becca, could row it in their dreams.

But the darkness seemed deeper, facing away from the faint illumination cast by the town, and the temperature was dropping rapidly. In her brief pause the sweat on her body had begun to chill.

Becca slid forward, squaring her oars, then put all the strength of shoulders and legs into the drive. She kept it up, stroke after stroke, counting to herself—the sculler’s litany—judging her progress by occasional quick glances at the shoreline.

She reached the upriver end of Temple Island, saw again the pale wedding-cake shape of the folly, and slowly, slowly, the dim shapes of familiar landmarks moved by. If before she had had the sensation of slipping backwards in time, now she felt suspended, as if only her own efforts could inch the clock forward.

She pulled harder, again and again, lost in the rhythm of the stroke. It was only in the instant of calm following a perfect drive that she heard the floundering splash. The boat creaked as she stopped, as if it were resisting the cessation of forward motion.

The sound had been close, and too loud for a diving bird. A large animal slipping in from the bank, perhaps?

She tasted salt, realized her nose was running from the cold and wind. Shifting her grip on her oars into one hand, she swiped at her lip with her other sleeve. The boat rocked slightly as she twisted to look upriver and she quickly grasped the oars in both hands again. Then she peered at the bank, but the shadows beneath the trees had deepened to impenetrable ink.

Shrugging, she rotated her oars, putting the sound down to her imagination. But as she slid up to the catch, she heard a cry. The voice was unmistakably human, oddly familiar, and she could have sworn it had called her name.

Chapter Two

In the single shell I found my instrument . . .

—Sara Hall

Drawn to the Rhythm

Freddie Atterton swiped his member’s tag over the scanner at the entrance to the Leander car park, then drummed his fingers on the steering wheel while he waited for the gate bar to rise. The Audi’s wipers swished, all but useless at moving the sheets of water streaming across the windscreen. Peering forward as the bar lifted, he eased out the clutch and felt the gravel shift under the car’s tires as he inched forward.

“Sodding rain,” he muttered as he pulled into the nearest available space. The car park was fast turning into a bog. He’d be lucky if he could get the car out again. Nor was there any way he was getting from the car to the