“Seems logical,” said Gemma, impressed. “And you’re very knowledgeable.”
“Bit of a local history buff in my spare time. I’m Tony, by the way.” He thrust a hand over the bar and Gemma shook it.
“Gemma.”
“All the Hundreds are obsolete now, but the Stewardship of the Chiltern Hundreds is still a nominal office under the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the holding of which is the only reason one is allowed to resign from the House of Commons. A bit of jiggery-pokery, really, and probably the only reason the office still exists.” He smiled at her, showing strong, even, white teeth. “There, I’ve probably told you more than you ever wanted to know. Get you a refill?”
Gemma glanced at her almost-empty glass, deciding she’d drunk as much as she ought if she wanted to keep a clear head. “Better not, thanks.”
“You here on business? We don’t let the rooms much this time of year. November in these hills is not exactly a drawing point for holiday-makers.”
“Quite,” said Gemma, remembering the fine drizzle under the darkness of the trees. Tony straightened glassware and kept an attentive eye on her at the same time, willing to talk if she wanted, but not pushing her. His self-assured friendliness made her wonder if he might be the pub’s owner or manager, but in any case he was certainly a likely repository for local gossip.
“I’m here about that drowning this morning, actually. Police business.”
Tony stared at her, taking in, she felt sure, the curling ginger hair drawn back with a clip, the casual barley-colored pullover and navy slacks. “You’re a copper? Well, I’ll be.” He shook his head, his wavy hair not disturbed a whit by his incredulity. “Best-looking one I’ve seen, if you don’t mind my saying so.”
Gemma smiled, accepting the compliment in the same good humor as it was given. “Did you know him, the man that drowned?”
This time Tony tut-tutted as he shook his head. “What a shame. Oh, everyone around here knew Connor. Doubt there’s a pub between here and London where he hadn’t put his head in once or twice. Or a racetrack. A real Jack the Lad, that one.”
“Well liked, was he?” asked Gemma, fighting her prejudice toward a man on such good terms with pints and horses. Only after she’d married Rob had she discovered that he considered flirting and gambling as inalienable rights.
“Connor was a friendly sort of bloke, always had a word and a pat on the back for you. Good for business, too. After he’d had a couple of pints he’d buy rounds for everybody in the place.” Tony leaned forward against the bar, his face animated. “And what a tragedy for the family, after the other.”
“What other? Whose family?” Gemma asked, wondering if she’d missed a reference to another drowning in the reports she’d read.
“Sorry.” Tony smiled. “It is a bit confusing, I’m sure. Connor’s wife Julia’s family, the Ashertons. Been here for donkey’s years. Connor was upstart Irish, second generation, I think, but all the same…”
“What happened to the Ashertons?” Gemma encouraged him, interested.
“I was just a couple of years out of school, back from trying it out in London.” His white teeth flashed as he smiled. “Decided the big city wasn’t nearly as glamorous as I’d thought. It was just about this time of year, as a matter of fact, and wet. Seemed like it had rained for months on end.” Tony paused and pulled a half-pint mug from the rack, lifting it toward Gemma. “Mind if I join you?”
She shook her head, smiling. “Of course not.” He was enjoying himself thoroughly now, and the longer she let him string out the story, the more detail she’d get.
He pulled a half-pint of Guinness from the tap and sipped it, then wiped the creamy foam from his upper lip before continuing. “What was his name, now? Julia’s little brother. It’s been twenty years, or close to it.” He ran his fingers lightly over his hair, as if the admission of time passing made him conscious of his age. “Matthew, that was it. Matthew Asherton. All of twelve years old and some sort of musical prodigy, walking home from school one day with his sister, and drowned. Just like that.”
The image of her own son clutched unbidden at Gemma’s heart-Toby half-grown, his blond hair darkened, his face and body maturing from little-boy chubbiness, snatched away. She swallowed and said, “How terrible. For all of them, but especially Julia. First her brother and now her husband. How did the little boy drown?”
“I’m not sure anyone ever really knew. One of those freak things that happen sometimes.” He shrugged and drank down half his Guinness. “Quite a hush-hush at the time. Nobody talked about it except in whispers, and it’s still not mentioned to the family, I suppose.”
A draft of cold air stirred Gemma’s hair and swirled around her ankles as the outer door opened. She turned and watched a foursome come in and settle at a corner table, waving a familiar greeting to Tony. “Reservations in half an hour, Tony,” one of the men called. “Same as usual, okay?”
“It’ll be picking up a bit now,” Tony remarked to Gemma as he began mixing their drinks. “Restaurant usually fills up on a Friday night-all the locals out for their weekly bit of fun, minus the kiddies.” Gemma laughed, and when the air blew cool again against her back she didn’t turn in anticipation.
Light fingers brushed her shoulder as Kincaid slid onto the barstool beside her. “Gemma. Propping up the bar without me, I see.”
“Oh, hullo, guv.” She felt the pulse jump in her throat, even though she’d been expecting him.
“And chatting up the locals, I see. Lucky bloke.” He grinned at Tony. “I’ll have a pint of… Brakspear, isn’t it, that’s brewed at Henley?”
“My boss,” Gemma said in explanation to Tony. “Tony, this is Superintendent Duncan Kincaid.”
“Nice to meet you, I’m sure.” Tony gave Gemma a surprised glance as he put a hand out to Kincaid.
Gemma studied Kincaid critically. Tall and slender, brown hair slightly untidy, tie askew and tweed jacket beaded with rain-she supposed he didn’t look like most people’s idea of a proper Scotland Yard superintendent. And he was too young, of course. Superintendents should definitely be older and weightier.
“Tell all,” Kincaid said, when he’d got his pint and Tony had busied himself serving drinks to the customers in the corner.
Gemma knew that he relied on her to digest information and spit the pertinent bits back out to him, and she rarely had to use her notes. “I’ve been over Thames Valley’s reports.” She nodded toward the rooms above their heads. “Had them waiting for me when I got in, very efficient.” Closing her eyes for a moment, she marshaled her thoughts. “They had a call at seven-oh-five this morning from a Perry Smith, lockkeeper at Hambleden Lock. He’d found a body caught in his sluicegate. Thames Valley called in a rescue squad to fish the body out, and they identified him from his wallet as Connor Swann, resident of Henley-on-Thames. The lockkeeper, however, once he’d recovered from the shock a bit, recognized Connor Swann as the son-in-law of the Ashertons, who live a couple of miles up the road from Hambleden. He said the family often walked there.”
“On the lock?” Kincaid asked, surprised.
“Apparently it’s part of a scenic walk.” Gemma frowned and picked up the thread of her story where she’d left off. “The local police surgeon was called in to examine the body. He found considerable bruising around the throat. Also, the body was very cold, but rigor had only just begun-”
“But you’d expect the cold water to retard rigor,” Kincaid interrupted.
Gemma shook her head impatiently. “Usually in drowning cases rigor sets in very quickly. So he thinks it likely that the victim may have been strangled before he went in the water.”
“Our police surgeon makes a bloody lot of assumptions, don’t you think?” Kincaid snagged a bag of onion-flavored crisps from a display and counted out the proper coins to Tony. “We’ll see what the postmortem has to say.”
“Nasty things,” said Gemma, eyeing the crisps distastefully.
Mouth full, Kinc
aid answered, “I know, but I’m starved. What about the interviews with the family?”
She finished the last of her drink before answering, taking a moment to shift mental gears. “Let’s see… they took statements from the in-laws as well as the wife. Yesterday evening, Sir Gerald Asherton conducted an opera at the Coliseum in London. Dame Caroline Stowe was home in bed, reading. And Julia Swann, the wife, was attending a gallery opening in Henley. None of them reported having words with Connor or having any reason to think he might be worried or upset.”
“Of course they didn’t.” Kincaid pulled a face. “And none of this means a thing without some estimate of time of death.”
“You met the family, didn’t you, this afternoon? What are they like?”
Kincaid made a noise that sounded suspiciously like “hummmph.” “Interesting. Might be better if I let you form your own impressions, though. We’ll interview them again tomorrow.” He sighed and sipped his pint. “Not that I’ll hold my breath waiting for a revelation. None of them can imagine why anyone would want to kill Connor Swann. So we have no motive, no suspect, and we’re not even sure it’s murder.” Raising his glass, he made her a mock toast. “I can’t wait.”
A good night’s sleep had imbued Kincaid with a little more enthusiasm for the case. “The lock first,” he said to Gemma over breakfast in the Chequer’s dining room. “I can’t get much further along with this until I see it for myself. Then I want to have a look at Connor Swann’s body.” He gulped his coffee and squinted at her, adding, “How do you manage to look fresh and cheerful so early in the morning?” She wore a blazer the bright russet color of autumn leaves, her face glowed, and even her hair seemed to crackle with a life of its own.
“Sorry.” She smiled at him, but Kincaid thought her sympathy was tinged with pity. “I can’t help it. Something to do with genes, I expect. Or being brought up a baker’s daughter. We rose early at my house.”
“Ugh.” He’d slept heavily, aided by one pint too many the night before, and it had taken him a second cup of coffee just to feel marginally alert.
“You’ll get over it,” Gemma said, laughing, and they finished their breakfast in companionable silence.
They drove through the quiet village of Fingest in the early morning light and took the lane leading south, toward the Thames. Leaving Gemma’s Escort in the carpark a half mile from the river, they crossed the road to the pedestrian path. A chill wind blew into their faces as they started downhill, and when Kincaid’s shoulder accidentally bumped against Gemma’s, he felt her warmth even through his jacket.
Their path crossed the road running parallel to the river, then threaded its way between buildings and overgrown shrubbery. Not until they emerged from a fenced passage did they see the spread of the river. Leaden water reflected leaden sky, and just before them a concrete walkway zigzagged its way across the water. “Sure this is the right place?” Kincaid asked. “I don’t see anything that looks like a lock.”
“I can see boats on the far side, past that bank. There must be a channel.”
“All right. Lead on, then.” He gave a mock-gallant little bow and stepped aside.
They ventured out onto the walkway single-file, unable to walk abreast without brushing the tubular metal railing which provided some measure of safety.
Halfway out they reached the weir. Gemma stopped and Kincaid came to a halt behind her. Looking down at the torrent thundering beneath the walkway, she shivered and pulled the lapels of her jacket together. “Sometimes we forget the power of water. And the peaceful old Thames can be quite a monster, can’t it?”
“River’s high from the rain,” Kincaid said, raising his voice over the roar. He could feel the vibration from the force of the water through the soles of his feet. Grasping the railing until the cold of the metal made his hands ache, he leaned over, watching the flood until he began to lose his equilibrium. “Bloody hell. If you intended to push someone in, this would be the place to do it.” Glancing at Gemma, he saw that she looked cold and a little pinched, the dusting of freckles standing out against her pale skin. He placed a hand lightly on her shoulder. “Let’s get across. It’ll be warmer under the trees.”
They walked quickly, heads down against the wind, eager for shelter. The walkway ran on another hundred yards or so past the weir, paralleling the bank, then turned abruptly to the left and vanished into the trees.
The respite proved brief, the belt of trees narrow, but it allowed them to catch their breaths before they came out into the open again and saw the lock before them. Yellow scene-of-crime tape had been stretched along the concrete aprons on either side of the lock, but not across the sluicegates themselves. To their right stood a sturdy red-brick house. The French-paned windows were symmetrical, one on either side of the door, but the one nearest them sported such a thatch of untrimmed green creeper that it looked like a shaggy-browed eye.
As Kincaid put a hand on the tape and bent to duck under it, a man came out the door of the house, dodging under stray twigs of creeper, and shouted at them. “Sir, you’re not to go past the tape. Police orders.”
Kincaid straightened up and waited, studying the man as he came toward them. Short and stocky, with gray hair bristle-cut, he wore a polo shirt bearing the Thames River Authority insignia, and carried a steaming mug in one hand. “What was the lockkeeper’s name?” Kincaid said softly in Gemma’s ear.
Gemma closed her eyes for a second. “Perry Smith, I think.”
“One and the same, if I’m not mistaken.” He pulled his warrant card from his pocket and extended it as the man reached them. “Are you Perry Smith, by any chance?”
The lockkeeper took the card with his free hand and studied it suspiciously, then scrutinized Kincaid and Gemma as if hoping they might be impostors. He nodded once, brusquely. “I’ve already told the police everything I know.”
“This is Sergeant James,” Kincaid continued in the same conversational tone, “and you’re just the fellow we wanted to see.”
“All I’m concerned with is keeping this lock operating properly, Superintendent, without police interference. Yesterday they made me keep the sluicegates closed while they picked about with their tweezers and little bags. Backed river traffic up for a mile,” he said, and his annoyance seemed to grow. “Bloody twits, I tell you.” He included Gemma in his scowl and made no apology for his language. “Didn’t it occur to them what would happen, or how long it would take to clear up the mess?”
“Mr. Smith,” Kincaid said soothingly, “I have no intention of interfering with your lock. I only want to ask you a few questions”-he held up a hand as Smith opened his mouth-“which I’m aware you’ve already answered, but I’d prefer to hear your story directly from you, not secondhand. Sometimes things get muddled along the way.”
Smith’s brow relaxed a fraction and he took a sip from his mug. The heavy muscles in his upper arm stood out as he raised it, straining against the sleeve-band of his knit shirt. “Muddled wouldn’t be the half of it, if those jackasses yesterday set any example.” Although he seemed unaware of the cold, he looked at Gemma as if seeing her properly for the first time, huddled partly in the shelter of Kincaid’s body with her jacket collar held closed around her throat. “I suppose we could go inside, miss, out of the wind,” he said, a bit less belligerently.
Gemma smiled gratefully at him. “Thank you. I’m afraid I didn’t dress for the river.”
Smith turned back to Kincaid as they moved toward the house. “When are they going to take this bloody tape down, that’s what I’d like to know.”
“You’ll have to ask Thames Valley. Though if the forensics team has finished, I shouldn’t think it would be long.” Kincaid paused as they reached the door, looking at the concrete aprons surrounding the lock and the grassy path leading upriver on the opposite side. “Doubt they will have had much luck.”
The floor of the hall was covered in sisal matting and lined with well-used-looking rubber boots, the walls hung with worki
ng gear-oilskin jackets and hats, bright yellow slickers, coils of rope. Smith led them through a door on the left into a sitting room as workaday as the hall.
The room was warm, if spartan, and Kincaid saw Gemma let go of her collar and take out her notebook. Smith stood by the window, still sipping from his mug, keeping an eye on the river. “Tell us how you found the body, Mr. Smith.”
“I came out just after sunup, same as always, have my first cuppa and make sure everything’s shipshape for the day. Traffic starts early, some days, though not so much now as in the summer. Sure enough, upstream there was a boat waiting for me to operate the lock.”
“Can’t they work it themselves?” asked Gemma.
He was already shaking his head. “Oh, the mechanism’s simple enough, but if you’re too impatient to let the lock fill and drain properly you can make a balls-up of it.”
“Then what happened?” prompted Kincaid.
“I can see you don’t know much about locks,” he said, looking at them with the sort of pity usually reserved for someone who hasn’t learned to tie their shoelaces.
Kincaid refrained from saying that he had grown up in western Cheshire and understood locks perfectly well.
“The lock is kept empty when it’s not in operation, so first I open the sluices in the head gate to fill the lock. Then when I open the head gate for the boat to enter, up pops a body.” Smith sipped from his cup, then added disgustedly, “Silly woman on the boat started squealing like a pig going to slaughter, you’ve never heard such a racket. I came in here and dialed nine-nine-nine, just to get some relief from the noise.” The corners of Smith’s eyes crinkled in what might have been a smile. “Rescue people fished him out and tried to resuscitate the poor blighter, though if you ask me, anybody with a particle of sense could see he’d been dead for hours.”
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