“Bean and Bell?” He couldn’t help grinning, although he knew it wouldn’t endear him to DC Bean. “Or Bell and Bean? Sounds like a music hall act.”
Bell smiled back. “I’m the song. He’s the dance.”
“Sod off, Bell,” began Bean, but his repartee was interrupted by DI Singla, off the phone and looking thunderous.
“We have an inquiry on, in case you hadn’t noticed. And at the moment it seems to be going nowhere. The house-to-house team checking Leander to Remenham has found nothing. Nor has the team I’ve had querying the narrowboats moored on the Bucks bank between Henley and Greenlands.”
“Not an unexpected result,” Kincaid said. “But—” His phone vibrated. When a quick glance at the screen showed the caller as Rashid Kaleem, he excused himself and took the call. “Rashid? What have you got?”
“Nothing one hundred percent definitive,” said Kaleem, in the precise Oxbridge accent that always seemed at odds with his rather rakish appearance. The accent, Kincaid thought, was a small but understandable vanity for a man who had grown up on a Bangladeshi council estate in Bethnal Green. “But,” Kaleem continued, “I don’t like it. Some of the head injuries appear to have been inflicted antemortem. She was definitely alive when she went into the drink—her lungs were filled with water. And river water, before you ask. No one drowned her in the bathtub.”
“So, no sudden death syndrome while rowing?” Kincaid asked, with a look at Cullen.
“No. And most athletes who die from sudden cardiac failure turn out to have an undiagnosed genetic defect. Rebecca Meredith was as fit as anyone I’ve ever seen.”
Kincaid knew Kaleem well enough to be certain there was more. “Both the drowning and the head injuries could have been the result of an accidental capsize. What’s the catch?”
“Scrapes of pink paint under her fingernails. Her nails were short and very well cared for, so I’d say it’s unlikely she was doing a bit of DIY and forgot to scrub up. And there was a bit of bruising on her knuckles, with what might possibly be some flakes of the same paint embedded in the skin. I take it the boat was not a lurid sort of bright peachy-pink, by the way. I’ve sent samples to the lab to see if they can match it.”
“I think I can guess,” Kincaid said. “You’ve just given a very good description of Leander pink.”
Kincaid clicked off and outlined Kaleem’s conclusions for the rest of the team. Turning to Cullen, he said, “Doug, you’re a rower. She had pink paint under her nails and bruising on her knuckles. Give me a scenario.”
Cullen looked a little pale. “Well, I suppose someone could have tipped her. If her oar had come loose . . . or if someone took it out of the oarlock, it wouldn’t have been that difficult, especially if she was taken by surprise. Then, when she tried to right the boat, they could have held it down with the oar.”
“And when she reached up,” Kincaid continued, “trying to right herself, she scrabbled at the oar. And then they—whoever this person was—bashed her knuckles with it.”
“Why couldn’t she have just kicked her feet out of the shoes and swum out from underneath?” asked Bell.
“If she’d taken a blow to the head, she might have been confused. And she could have breathed in water immediately, from the shock.”
“This hypothetical person who tipped the boat,” broke in Singla. “This is all conjecture, Superintendent.”
“Conjecture is enough to go on with at this point, Inspector.” Kincaid was grim, his levity with Bean and Bell a moment before forgotten. “I think we have a murder inquiry on our hands.”
He rang Denis Childs and apprised him of the developments.
There was a moment’s silence on the line, then Kincaid heard a distinct sigh. “I suppose we have no choice,” said Childs, not sounding particularly happy about it. “But I want you as SIO. I’ll go through channels with Thames Valley. And you’ll need more resources. I’ll organize some data-entry staff for you. What about the team there in Henley?”
“They’ll do for the moment. But sir—”
“Have you managed to place the ex-husband at the scene?”
“No, sir,” Kincaid said, more formally than was his wont. “I have not. And I think we should remember that for the last fourteen years, Rebecca Meredith’s life encompassed more than her ex-husband and her rowing. She was a police officer, and to have made DCI, she was clearly a good one. I’m going to pay a call on her station.”
Kincaid concentrated on the merging traffic on the M4 as he drove back into London, but he could feel Cullen’s curious glances. “Out with it,” he said when he had settled the Astra comfortably into the fast lane.
“What’s up with the guv’nor?” asked Cullen. “You seemed a bit, um, shirty.”
“He’s got a bee in his bonnet about Freddie Atterton. I think he’s a little premature, that’s all.”
“Did he quote the statistics?”
“Not yet. But I expect it will occur to him.” They all knew that the majority of murders were committed by someone closely related to the victim, and Kincaid was surprised that Childs hadn’t already pulled that out of his arsenal since he seemed so determined to put Freddie Atterton in the frame.
“You have to admit,” Doug said thoughtfully, “that what we’ve learned this morning ups the likelihood that the perpetrator was a rower—or at least knew something about boats. And they must have known Meredith’s routine. Freddie Atterton fits both parameters.”
“Possibly.” Knowing that Cullen was right on both counts, Kincaid wondered if he was just being stubborn in refusing to put Atterton on the top of his list. Maybe. He didn’t like being pushed. But he also knew how dangerous it was to jump to conclusions so early in a case, and he wasn’t going to let someone else’s agenda drive his investigation.
The CID room at West London Station fell quiet as they walked in. The duty sergeant on the front desk had phoned upstairs to announce them, and, as always in police stations, news seemed to travel instantaneously and telepathically. Kincaid had no doubt that every officer on the floor knew who they were and why they were there.
The superintendent’s office was at the rear of the room, divided from the general hubbub by a glass partition. Kincaid tapped on the door and through the half-open blinds saw a man rise from his desk to admit them.
Peter Gaskill shook their hands briskly. “Superintendent. Sergeant. Have a seat.” A tall man, his fine, neatly barbered brown hair had receded just enough to give him a patrician look. He wore an expensively cut navy blazer that Kincaid thought would have made him look right at home at Leander.
“A bad business,” Gaskill said, returning to his leather executive chair. He seemed even taller sitting down, and Kincaid wondered if he pumped the chair up to its full height for the intimidation factor. “To lose an officer under any circumstances, but murder . . .” He shook his head. “This is dreadful. Are you certain?”
“Chief Superintendent Childs rang you, then?” Kincaid asked, not feeling it necessary to restate what he knew Childs had already told the man.
“Yes, right away. He has every confidence in you, Superintendent.”
Kincaid’s hackles rose. First, Peter Gaskill had distanced himself by not using their names, and now he sounded downright patronizing. Who was he to think Kincaid needed a pat on the back?
He ignored the comment and smiled, refusing to give Gaskill the satisfaction of seeing he’d nettled him. “I appreciate that, Superintendent.” Gaskill could bloody well hold his breath waiting for the honorific—they were of the same rank. “And I’d appreciate anything you could tell us about DCI Meredith.”
“DCI Meredith was an exemplary officer. Well respected here in the division.”
“But was she liked?”
“Liked?” For the first time, Gaskill looked nonplussed. “Is that really relevant, Superintendent? Senior police officers are not in the business of being liked.”
It was Kincaid’s turn to be patronizing. “It’s relevant in any murder inquiry, as I’m sure you’re aware. I want to know how Rebecca Meredith got on with her colleagues. Were there any interdepartmental feuds or rivalries?”
Gaskill was staring at him now. “You can’t seriously be suggesting that Meredith’s death had anything to do with her work here in the division.”
“I don’t know.” Kincaid shrugged. “I don’t know anything at this point except that it appears that someone turned over Rebecca Meredith’s rowing shell and held her under until she drowned.”
