No Mark upon Her

Disappointed, Doug asked, “Anything else unusual about that day? She left her car in London and took the train back to Henley, which apparently she didn’t normally do.”

Bisik drank some more of his pint with maddening deliberation. “We were working on that knifing case and getting nowhere,” he said slowly. “Kids saw their mate get stuck in the gut but none of them will testify. Can’t say I blame them, honestly. They’d just be asking for the same thing to happen to them. But Becca was seriously pissed off. Can’t think of—oh, wait.” He beamed at Doug. “This Vice copper came in from another division. She and Becca were chatting in Becca’s office.”

“She?”

“Yeah. Seems like they knew each other. Old girls’ palaver.”

“Do you have any idea who this officer was, or why she was in your station?”

“No. I was interviewing stroppy teenagers most of the afternoon.” Bisik gave a little smirk, as if pleased at a recollection. “Blond bird, about the guv’nor’s age. Not bad looking. I wouldn’t have minded taking her out for a drink.” He took a drag on the cigarette, his guilt apparently forgotten for the moment. “But I wasn’t introduced. I just heard enough of the chitchat in passing to get the impression that they went back a while. You know, ‘How’s your Uncle George, then?’ That sort of thing. And Becca was actually smiling. Now that, I would say, was unusual.

“Maybe they went out for drinks,” he added, looking surprised at the idea. “I suppose the guv did have a social life, although we never saw any evidence of it.”

“So who would know who this woman was?”

“Kelly—Sergeant Patterson—maybe. She was in CID that afternoon. But she’s in Dulwich, or Plumstead, or somewhere. Always confuse those two. And probably the super, since this bird was on our patch.”

Doug thought it would probably be a very good idea to try other avenues before he asked Superintendent Gaskill for that information. “Do you have Sergeant Patterson’s mobile number?”

“Yeah.” Bisik put out the fag and pulled out his phone, then fished in his jacket pocket until he came up with a crumpled Ladbrokes slip. Helpfully, Doug handed him a pen.

Bisik scrolled down the phone’s screen, then scribbled a number on the slip and handed it across. “Good luck getting her to answer, mate. I’ve been trying her since yesterday.”

It had taken Kincaid longer to get away from Henley than he’d hoped. When he and Cullen had separated after their rather late lunch, he’d gone back to the incident room. He’d briefed DI Singla and the rest of team on their interview with Freddie Atterton, leaving out only Atterton’s last revelation.

Then he’d made a second statement to the few hardy members of the press—mostly sportswriters hoping for a juicy biopic tidbit—still camping outside the police station.

He had not called Chief Superintendent Childs, and that was weighing on him.

But passing Hambleden Mill on his drive to the village had brought home the fact that Angus Craig lived within a vigorous walk’s distance of the place where Rebecca Meredith’s body had been found. And although Craig might not have walked quite so easily to the spot on the Bucks bank where they thought Becca had actually been murdered, he could certainly have got there quickly and easily in a car.

He slowed as he reached the village of Hambleden. The church, the pub, the redbrick, rose-rambled cottages—all were picture-postcard perfect.

And the house, when he found it, just outside the village and set back on a long drive, was imposing enough to make a mere detective superintendent think twice about knocking unannounced at the grand door.

Kincaid might have been tempted to call the place a great pile of brick if it hadn’t blended so gracefully into the landscape. The fact that he couldn’t pinpoint the house’s architectural origins made him think it had been added on to over the years with more than usual skill.

The sweeping lawns of the grounds were immaculate. The warm brick and red tile roof of the house merged into the autumnal blaze of the trees on the hill beyond as if painted against a backdrop.

It was lovely, a place to cherish, and a place meant to impress.

And it was all very grand, even for a deputy assistant commissioner in the Met. Maybe, Kincaid thought charitably, the wife had money.

Stopping the Astra in the drive, he wondered exactly what he was going to say to Angus Craig, then decided it might be better if he didn’t think too much about it.

Climbing out of the Astra, he closed the door with the softest of clicks, straightened his tie, and crunched across the gravel drive. He’d just have to make it up as he went along.

The bell was a brass gryphon, and when he pressed it, he heard a clang from deep within the house, then the faint yip of a dog.

He waited, shifting his weight a bit. After the drama of the doorbell, he wouldn’t have been surprised to be greeted by a butler in a starched shirt and morning suit, but it was Angus Craig himself who answered the door.

Craig looked as Kincaid remembered, although he might have put a few pounds on an already sturdy frame since Kincaid had last seen him. His thinning sandy hair was combed back from his broad, florid face, which bore the annoyed scowl of a man interrupted while doing something important. He wore golfing clothes and was still in studded shoes.

Afraid that the sight of the Astra might make Craig take him for a double-glazing salesman, Kincaid took the initiative. “Assistant Commissioner Craig? I’m Superintendent Duncan Kincaid, with the Yard. I doubt you remember me, but I’ve been on one or two of your command courses at Bramshill.”

The scowl was quickly replaced by a falsely jovial smile, and Kincaid realized that Angus Craig not only knew who he was but why he was there.

“Superintendent Kincaid, yes, I remember you. I hear you’re doing a good job on the Meredith investigation.”

“Thank you, sir. I wondered if I might have a word?”

“Of course,” Craig said, but he looked less than pleased. “Come in. We can talk in my study. I was just changing my shoes.”

As Kincaid followed him inside, Craig cast a glance at the Astra before closing the door. “I should think the Yard could provide an officer of your rank with a little better class of vehicle.”

“It’s my personal car, sir.” Kincaid felt surprisingly defensive on the Astra’s behalf.

Raising a sandy brow, Craig made no apology for the insulting comment. His shoes clicked on the wide- planked oak floors as he walked away, and Kincaid wondered how Craig’s wife must feel about the man’s disregard for the fine fabric of the house. Craig stopped at a bench in the hall, changing his golf shoes for leather slippers while Kincaid waited.

The interior of the house was not as ostentatious as Kincaid had expected. Walls and woodwork were painted a soft white. The furniture and flower arrangements were simple, if expensive looking, and a tasteful series of charcoal nudes, both male and female, adorned one wall. From somewhere in the back of the house, he heard a dog’s high-pitched barking.

Craig set the golf shoes to one side of the bench and stood up. “Damn that dog. The wife’s. He does that whenever she’s out.” He nodded towards a room across the hall. “This way, Superintendent.”

Following him through the doorway, Kincaid saw that while the room was as beautifully proportioned as the rest of the house, it was marred by an overlarge desk.

Wide windows gave a view of the front lawns, and in spite of the unseasonable warmth of the day, a small fire burned in a beautifully curved iron grate.

Two wingback leather chairs sat at an angle before the fire, forming an inviting conversation nook. But Craig chose to sit behind his massive desk, leaving Kincaid in the awkward position of having to pull up a small armless chair.

It was the same sort of intimidation tactic practiced by Peter Gaskill and it would have made Kincaid dislike Craig even if he’d known nothing else about him.

Dark bookcases displayed golfing trophies, interspersed with leather-bound copies of classics that Kincaid suspected had never been read. A console table between the windows held a bottle of eighteen-year-old Glenlivet and two cut-crystal tumblers on a tray, but Craig made no move to offer Kincaid a drink.

Kincaid settled back as comfortably as he could in the small chair, brushed an imaginary speck of lint from his lapel, and looked round the room. He wasn’t about to give Craig the satisfaction of displaying a reaction to his