mouth, looking inordinately pleased with herself.
“Okay, just the once,” said Tavie, making an effort to sound firm. She tossed the ball into the kitchen and Tosh scrambled after it. Shrill squeaks signaled a successful retrieval. But the dog seemed to sense her mistress’s mood because when she returned with the ball, she went back to her place by the fire, squeaking her treasure but not begging for another throw.
But the play session reminded Tavie that she’d had to reward Finn that afternoon, after they’d made the find, taking his ball from Kieran’s pocket and giving the Lab a good romp and much praise. The first and foremost rule of search and rescue was that the handler must reward the dog after a find, and show just as much enthusiasm for a deceased find as a live one. The dogs must feel they had done their jobs well, no matter the outcome.
But Kieran . . . Kieran had stood, white and speechless, as she radioed Control.
Kieran had not looked after his own dog.
And Kieran had lied. Kieran had known the victim, and he hadn’t admitted it to her.
“Bastard,” she said again, but she knew it was just as much her fault as his. She’d thought he was ready for anything a search might bring. She’d thought, in her self-satisfied righteousness, that by training Kieran and bringing him into the team she’d given him purpose, and a cure-all for whatever demons drove him. Worst of all, she’d thought she knew him. And that she could trust him.
But she could see now that he’d lied to her from the call-out, or at least from the briefing at Leander when he’d learned the victim’s name.
Making another circuit round the room, she glanced at the reports stacked and carefully restacked on her small dining table. She’d debriefed the team and written up the log. There was nothing more she could do tonight, and she was on early rota at work tomorrow. She should heat up the single portion of vegetable curry she’d bought from Cook, the shop near the police station, and have an early night.
She had every reason to stay in. It was turning cold, and the sitting room in her higgledy-piggledy house near the fire station was as welcoming as she could make it. She’d bought the little two-up, two-down terraced house after the divorce. It might have been a comedown from the suburban life she’d led with Beatty, but it was what she’d been able to afford, and it had given her a fresh start. Then, when she’d been assigned to the fast-response car out of Henley Fire Station, which meant she only had to walk across the street to work, she’d begun to think that the house was a charm, and that the rest of her life would fall just as neatly into place.
Looking round the cozy room, with its hand-painted furniture and crewel-worked rugs, the windows curtained in cheery red and white, the mantel and picture rail adorned with carefully placed treasures, she thought of the woman whose house she had searched that day. A woman who, like her, had dealt with trauma on a daily basis. But Rebecca Meredith seemed to have felt no need to insulate herself from the stress of her job by making her home a place of solace.
Rebecca Meredith must have found that solace—if she had found it at all—on the river. Or through something else, Tavie thought. Not food, not alcohol, if she’d been a serious rower. Sex, then?
But that thought made Tavie’s face feel hot. The one thing she’d left out of her report was the dogs’ response to the panties she’d chosen as a scent article. And Kieran hadn’t given her a chance to talk to him about it.
It had been fully dark by the time they’d returned to their cars after looking at Rebecca Meredith’s boat. While Tavie had been speaking to the Scotland Yard detective, Kieran had cadged a ride with Scott and disappeared, leaving Tavie to ask Sarah for a lift back to her own car below Remenham. When she got there, Kieran’s old Land Rover had been gone, and he hadn’t appeared for the team debriefing in the Leander Club car park.
Although Tavie hadn’t wanted to field questions from curious club members or from the ex-husband, if he was still around, she’d drawn the meeting out, hoping that Kieran might turn up. While the other team members laughed and chatted, stowed gear, and played with the dogs, she’d waited, until at last she stood alone in the car park, feeling idiotic.
She’d rung him then, and again when she got home. After the third try, she stopped leaving messages.
“Damn him,” she said now, but her anger was becoming steadily more tinged with worry.
The house suddenly felt stuffy rather than comforting. She took one more turn round the room, then bent and switched off the fire. Tosh sat up, the ball still in her mouth, a bit of dribble hanging from her lower lip. As soon as Tavie turned in the direction of the coat hook, the dog was on her feet, dancing in anticipation and making Tavie trip.
“Okay, okay,” Tavie told her as she reached for her jacket. “You can come. We’ll go for a little walk.”
And if that little walk just happened to take them to Mill Meadows, she’d have her chat with Kieran if she had to shout at him across the Thames.
Chapter Seven
—Rory Ross with Tim Foster
Milo had turned up just as he’d promised, and in Kincaid’s view it seemed a timely intervention. Milo moved awkwardly to clasp Freddie’s hand, but Freddie seemed too shocked to respond.
“I’m sorry, Freddie. Really sorry,” Milo said. “I still can’t believe it. If only I’d—” He caught Kincaid’s glance and stopped.
“What am I going to do?” Freddie looked up, but his gaze was unfocused. Kincaid wasn’t sure he had heard Milo at all.
Cullen had brought a tea towel to mop up the spilled whisky, and then mugs of tea, but he’d been very careful to set Freddie’s cup on the side table rather than handing it to him. The smell of the spilled whisky still lingered, but Milo didn’t comment on it.
“I’ll do anything I can to help, Freddie,” Milo went on. “You know that. So will everyone at the club. What sort of arrangements will you be making?”
“I— Oh, God, I hadn’t thought.” Freddie looked ill. “Becca hated funerals. She said once after a particularly awful one that she wanted to be cremated with as little fuss as possible. But”—he stopped and looked at Kincaid —“you’ll be needing to keep her . . .” His face twisted. “Body.”
“There will be an inquest in a few days,” Kincaid said. “You’ll have to wait to make any funeral arrangements until after the coroner’s ruling. It’s rout—”
Milo broke in. “But surely—there’s no question about what happened. Becca’s death was an accident.”
Instead of answering, Kincaid turned to Freddie. “Do you know anyone who might have wanted to harm your ex-wife, Mr. Atterton?”
“Hurt Becca?” Freddie stared at him. “Why would anyone want to hurt her? She may have been hard to get on with sometimes, but to think someone would deliberately— That’s daft.”
Kincaid glanced round the cottage. The decor might be spare, but it was expensive, and the cottage itself must be worth a pretty penny. “Let’s look at it another way, Mr. Atterton. Who stands to gain from your wife’s death?”
Freddie Atterton appeared utterly baffled. “Gain?”
“Did she have a will?”
“When we were married, yes. I’ve no idea if she changed it.”
“And if she didn’t?”
“Then—” Freddie pushed his hair back with a shaking hand. “Then I suppose everything comes to me.”
