Gemma stared at her father as if he’d just spoken in a foreign tongue.
Her mum looked just as surprised, but recovered more quickly. “Well, that we could, Ern. That’s a good idea. If it’s all right with Gemma, of course.”
“There’s nothing I’d like better.” She gave her mum, then her dad, a kiss on the cheek, and she could have sworn she saw her father’s lips twitch in a smile. “You’re sure you’ll be all right? You know Toby can be—”
“Stop fussing,” said Vi. “We’re his grandparents, in case you’ve forgotten. We’ve looked after him since he was a tot. Just mind you take—”
“Boss.” Melody stood in the hall, her phone still clasped in her hand. “Sorry to interrupt, but I think you should see this.”
When Gemma joined her, Melody showed her the photo she’d pulled up on the phone’s screen. A young blond woman in rowing gear smiled into the camera. The caption read “Christine Hunt; St. Catherine’s College.”
“I should have done my research,” said Melody. “Chris Abbott, nee Hunt. I should have seen the rowing connection.”
Gemma frowned. “Why would you have looked for it?”
“Because,” said Melody, “that’s my job. I should have checked for any previous link between Becca Meredith and any of the women who showed up in the Sapphire files. I let myself get distracted by the Hart case. I thought we’d hit eureka.”
“We all did. And we don’t know that this Chris Abbott has anything to do with Becca Meredith’s death.”
“So.” Melody lowered her voice. “Are you going to let Duncan know we’re going to see her?”
Gemma debated only for a moment. “No. He’d tell us not to go.”
Kieran had spent most of Saturday at the boatshed, armed with plywood to cover the broken windows, a broom, and industrial size rubbish bags.
After his talk with Freddie Atterton the day before, he’d felt oddly heartened. He could at least make a stab at clearing up. Then he could assess the extent of the damage. Maybe, just maybe, he could put himself, and his business, back together again.
In the meantime, he feared he was becoming frighteningly domestic. Tavie had ended up working a double rota last night, filling in for a crewmate who’d called in sick at the last minute. She’d come home early in the morning, exhausted and reeking of smoke. She said she’d been called to a fire scene in Hambleden—a retired police commissioner’s house, no less—but the fire had been too far advanced for the medics to get in.
“I’m so glad you were here, Kieran,” she’d said, collapsing into one of the dining chairs while Tosh tried to lick her soot-stained face. “I’d have been calling in every favor I had to get someone to see to Tosh.”
He knew she had an arrangement with a neighboring teenager who came in to look after the dog during the day, but she had no backup for a short-notice night rota.
“And besides,” she added, smiling at him, “it’s nice to see a friendly face. No recriminations.”
He looked at her, puzzled. “Why should there be?”
“There. You see?” She shook her head. “You’ve no idea what I’m talking about. You don’t seem to think a woman should know her place.”
“Tavie, if it weren’t for you, I’d be—”
“Oh, shut up.” She waved away his gratitude. “You can cook, can’t you? Eggs and toast? And tea?”
Nodding, he said, “Yeah, although no one ever said it was gourmet.”
“I don’t care. Make me some. That’s a proper repayment. I’m going to get in the bath.”
He’d set to it as she trudged up the stairs. He even whistled a little, tunelessly, pleased that he’d already worked out where things were in the tidy kitchen, and that he’d picked up essentials at the shops the previous afternoon.
When he’d served two plates and filled the teapot, he glanced at the dogs, lying side by side in the kitchen doorway, watching him intently. “Don’t even think about it, mates,” he said, and then, erring on the side of caution, he stuck the plates in the warming oven. Tosh, he trusted. Finn, he wasn’t so sure about.
Going to the bottom of the stairs, he called Tavie. When she didn’t answer, he trotted up, thinking she hadn’t heard him over the sound of the taps or maybe the hairdryer.
Just as he reached the top landing, Tavie walked out of the bathroom, naked except for a towel wrapped loosely round her waist. Her fair hair was dark from the damp and stood up in spikes where she’d toweled it.
“I just—” He swallowed. “Sorry. I didn’t—breakfast is ready.”
“Right. I’m just coming.”
“Okay. Good.” He turned and nearly slid back down the stairs, but not before he’d seen the blush travel down her throat to her chest and then to the swell of her small breasts.
She came down a moment later, clad in a sweatshirt and baggy tracksuit bottoms. They ate, and if Tavie felt awkward she didn’t show it. Kieran mostly kept his eyes on his plate and tried not to think about the slender body beneath the concealing clothes.
“I’ll take the dogs for a good run, why don’t I?” he’d said when they were finished. Tavie, who had cleaned her plate with astonishing speed, was nodding over her second cup of tea.
“Good idea.”
“You go to bed. I mean, get some rest.” He could have slapped himself for sounding like an idiot. “Afterwards, I’m going to see what I can do at the shed. I’ll take them with me.”
Tavie opened sleepy blue eyes. “Don’t stay after dark. Remember what the superintendent said.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said cheekily.
“Oh, shut up,” she’d told him again, and staggered upstairs to bed, but he’d seen a hint of a smile.
The picture of Tavie in her towel had stayed with him as he swept and hammered through the afternoon. He’d felt guilty for being aroused, as if he were betraying Becca, and weird about thinking of Tavie in that way. But Tavie hadn’t seemed to mind—in fact, it occurred to him that she could easily have put on a dressing gown if she’d been worried about her modesty. Surely she hadn’t meant for him to—no. He scolded himself for being stupid.
And as for Becca—he couldn’t let himself go there, not yet. He couldn’t separate the memories of lying with her, touching her, from the image of her face below the weir. When he tried, it made him feel sick and disoriented.
Shaking his head, he tipped the last scoop of rubbish from the dustpan into the big bin he kept in his work area. The bin was, miraculously, undamaged. He’d cleared up a good deal of the mess, but ferrying the bags across to the mainland and disposing of them would be a job for another day. At least he’d got the windows covered and could shut up the shop and his tools. But it was getting late, and he didn’t want Tavie to worry.
Locking up, he greeted the dogs, who’d lain in a warm hollow in the grass, waiting patiently for him while they watched the comings and goings on the river.
As he looked round, he realized why it had seemed as though the afternoon was fading unexpectedly fast. The clouds had come in, heavy in the west, bringing an early dusk. Kieran shuddered, dreading the onset of bad weather.
But to his relief, he realized that his head felt clear. Maybe this one was not going to be bad.
He rowed across with the dogs and tied up the skiff, then walked along the path, turning up his collar against the wind. The dogs frisked beside him, rambunctious with the cold, so when he reached Mill Meadows, he pulled a couple of tennis balls from the pocket of his anorak and let the dogs off lead for a few minutes of happy ball chasing.
He hadn’t dared ask Tavie if she’d changed her mind about taking him off the SAR team, and only now did he realize how much he would miss it. And Finn—Finn, like Tosh, was born to work, and it would be cruel to deprive him. That, thought Kieran, was an argument that might sway Tavie in his favor.
Clipping the dogs on their leads again, he walked faster, wondering if Tavie was up, eager now to get back to the little crooked house.
As he reached the narrower confines of Thames Side, a few pedestrians crossed to the other side of the street to avoid the dogs. It amused Kieran a little—for all their size, Finn and Tosh were big softies—but he might have done the same himself, before he’d had Finn.
He’d crossed the Henley end of the bridge and turned up Market Place when he saw Freddie Atterton come out of the Red Lion. He picked up his pace, meaning to speak to Atterton, to tell him he’d made some progress with the shed, when he realized Freddie wasn’t alone.
Another man had come out of the hotel with him, and they appeared to be, if not arguing, at least having a
