“I always wanted to stay here.” Cullen looked round with obvious delight as they entered the building.
There was a small, cozy bar on the right, and on the left a more formal restaurant, with starched white tablecloths and linen. Ahead, tasteful antique furniture and wood floors gleamed in the lamplit reception area. Near the desk stood an imposingly hooded cane chair, and Kincaid immediately thought it would make a perfect hiding nook for a child.
“I used to beg my parents to come and stay here whenever I had a race in Henley when I was at school,” Cullen continued, “but they never did.”
Kincaid looked at his partner in surprise. “They never came to watch you row?”
“Not that I can remember,” answered Doug, but his tone was a bit too casual, and Kincaid suspected he’d trodden on sensitive territory. “My dad was busy, and I was never likely to win,” Doug added, shrugging. “And what I really wanted was to be allowed to have a drink in the bar, and pigs were more likely to fly.”
“Well, the drink in the bar can be remedied, at least,” Kincaid said, dropping his voice as the young woman at the desk looked up and smiled at them in welcome. “I’m not sure we can do anything about the flying pigs.”
When they had settled into their respective rooms—Kincaid’s with a four-poster that he would certainly have preferred to share with Gemma—they eschewed the formal dining room and met in the aptly named Snug Bar for drinks and dinner. This, tucked behind the small bar they had seen by the entrance, had dark wood-paneled walls and dark leather furniture, relieved by softly lit bookcases and oil portraits of bewigged men. A fire burned cheerily in the grate.
“An Englishman’s dream,” Kincaid murmured as they chose a low table near the fire. He realized that the dining room at Leander, with its cane-backed furniture, had given him the same teasing impression as this place. There was a hint of the colonial, the cane furniture a reminder of the last vestiges of empire. And there was a very definite sense that generations of entitlement had stamped their imprint on this rich market town on the Thames. The atmosphere would raise his liberal father’s hackles.
But Kincaid was not about to turn up his nose at the steak and mushroom pie, an Englishman’s dream of a dinner, nor at the bottle of Benvulin single malt that he’d spied behind the bar.
When they’d ordered and brought back their drinks, he raised his glass to Doug. “Cheers, mate. To long-delayed pleasures. And to the trials and tribulations of homeownership.”
Looking pleased, Cullen raised his glass, sipped, and promptly turned pink. “Nice whisky,” he said, wiping at his watering eyes. “Bit stout.”
“Sip,” Kincaid suggested. “But first add the tiniest bit of water. Remember your whisky-tasting lessons.”
He took another sip himself, closing his eyes and savoring the heathery-honey-buttery layers of the scotch. Was the trip to Scotland that had introduced him to Benvulin really the last time he and Gemma had been away together without the children? And on that trip they’d been involved in a very distressing case, not on holiday.
This definitely needed to be remedied. Having married Gemma three times, he thought that he should at least be able to give her a honeymoon. Maybe he’d bring her back to the Red Lion, once she was settled into her job again and they could make arrangements for the children.
Their food arrived, and both he and Doug tucked in with the silent single-mindedness of the truly ravenous. When the last bites had been scraped off the plates, Kincaid finished the coffee he’d ordered to chase the whiskies and signed the bill to his room.
“You go enjoy your four-poster,” he told Doug. “Dream of Charles I, but before you do that, see what you can find out about Freddie Atterton for me.” He knew Cullen had come straight to Henley without his laptop, but he had confidence in his partner’s resourcefulness.
He, on the other hand, was regretting a bit too much food as well as the second scotch he’d had during dinner. Now he felt that what he needed was a walk and some fresh air.
After parting company with Doug in the lobby, he left the hotel, hesitating for a moment as he took his bearings from what he remembered of his previous visits to Henley. Unlike Doug, whose recollections of the town seemed a schoolboy’s idyll, his were uncomfortable, pricked with flashes of things better not done and roads not taken.
He thought of the woman they had found in the river and of the neon yellow jacket that had not kept her safe. Had she liked her life here?
Death had erased all character from Rebecca Meredith’s face. He could only form an impression from the glimpses of her he’d seen in the few photos on the shelves in her cottage—and from the emotion he’d seen on the faces of those who had known her.
What had happened to her last night on the river, this strong and competent woman?
Crossing the street, he walked to the middle of the bridge and gazed downstream. The Thames looked dark, fathomless, and he couldn’t imagine going out alone, at dusk, in a fragile slip of a boat.
On the far side of the bridge, a light blinked off in Leander. What were they feeling at the club, he wondered, with the loss of one of their own? How would they react to this evidence of their own mortality?
Tomorrow he would talk to them—friends, crewmates, coaches. And he would need to speak to Becca’s boss and her colleagues at the Met.
For a moment, he paled at the prospect. He felt stained by others’ grief, as if it had steeped into his skin like old tea. He had never, in his more than twenty years of police work, become inured to watching people absorb the shock of death.
He’d hated it as a uniformed plod, as Freddie Atterton had so unflatteringly described the constable. He hated it perhaps even more now.
But then his curiosity took hold, as it always did. He wanted to know who this woman had been, who had liked her, loved her, hated her. He wanted to know how she had died. And if someone was responsible for her death, he wanted to see justice done. This was what kept him in the job.
Walking back to the signal, he stood, watching the green crossing light blink. The Angel on the Bridge beckoned on the upstream side of the bridge, but he wasn’t tempted by the pub. It was the walk up Thames Side that threatened to seduce him.
Was the gallery still there? Might one of Julia Swann’s paintings be displayed in the window? And her flat, a bit farther down, where he had once spent a night—did she still live there?
But no. He shook his head. It was better not to know. He was a married—make that much-married—man now, and the past was best left in the past, without regrets.
And it was time to call his boss.
He was turning back towards the hotel when something caught his eye—a glimpse of a man walking down Hart Street and turning the corner by the pub. Then the Angel blocked the figure from view, but the image had registered.
A tall man, his gait a bit unsteady, a black dog at his side. Even in jeans and jacket rather than the dark uniform, he was instantly recognizable as the SAR handler who’d insisted on going with them to the boat. Kieran. Kieran Connolly.
His behavior had been a bit odd that afternoon, Kincaid thought, and added an interview with Connolly to his mental to-do list.
Shrugging, he returned to the hotel, but he still didn’t feel quite ready to go up to his room. He sat on the iron bench under the hotel’s portico and rang his chief superintendent at home, giving Childs a report on the events of the day.
When he’d related his interview with Atterton, Childs was silent for a moment, as was his usual way. Then, he said, “It would certainly be convenient if it turned out to be the ex-husband.”
“Convenient?”
“Well, you know. Domestic tragedy. Nothing to do with us. Quickly wrapped up.”
Kincaid had to admit he was intrigued by the relationship between Atterton and his ex-wife. It seemed an oddly amicable divorce, and he’d sensed that Freddie Atterton’s grief was real, as was Milo Jachym’s.
Not that he hadn’t known murderers who gri
eved for their victims, and murderers who could project emotion as convincingly as the most skilled actor. Things were always so much more complicated than they appeared on the surface.
But here . . . there was something else at play, some undercurrent running through this case that he couldn’t pinpoint. He would just have to wait and see what developed.
In the meantime, Childs’s offhand comment made him feel profoundly uneasy. “Sir, why would we think it had something to do with us?”
“Duncan, you know as well as I do what happens whenever a police officer of any rank dies under suspicious circumstances.” Childs’s tone was unusually impatient. “You can expect our fevered friends from the media on your doorstep by tomorrow morning. DCI Meredith’s life, and her career, will be put under the microscope.” Childs paused, and Kincaid could imagine him steepling his fingers in his familiar Buddha pose. “Of course,” Childs went on, “the best result would be that you find Meredith’s death an unfortunate accident. Ring me in the morning.” With that, Chief Superintendent Childs hung up.
And without, Kincaid realized, answering his question.
He sat on, under the portico, gazing at the phone in his hand, replaying the conversation in his head. Surely he had misinterpreted what he’d heard. Because he could have sworn that his guv’nor had just suggested that he fix the outcome of an investigation.
Chapter Eight
It is an annual four-and-a-quarter rowing race from Putney to Mortlake on the river Thames between two of the most prestigious universities in the world, Oxford and Cambridge. The competitors train twice a day, six days a week, striving to achieve their goal of representing their universities. Everything else in their lives becomes secondary. It is not done for money but for honour and the hope of victory. There is no second place, as second is last. They call it simply The Boat Race
.
—David and James Livingston
Blood Over Water
The persistently ringing phone pricked at Freddie’s consciousness. He wanted to swat the sound away, but his brain didn’t seem willing to connect with his body. It was only when the noise stopped that he managed to open one eye. He was lying on his back, but what he saw was not his bedroom ceiling.
He squinched his eye shut again while he tried to place the image. Arched ceiling. White. Black beams. Recognition dawned. His sitting room.
With mounting panic, he opened both eyes and lifted his head. Pain shot through his skull, but before he closed his eyes again, he’d seen that he was lying on his sofa, and that he was still wearing his dress shirt and trousers, although not his shoes or—he felt his collar—his tie. His phone lay on the coffee table, beside an empty bottle of Balvenie. There were two glasses. A recollection flickered. Milo. He’d had a few drinks with Milo. But what—
The phone started to ring again, as if his thoughts had triggered it, and he groaned. “Just shut it,” he tried to say, but his voice came out in a croak. He grabbed for the phone and the motion brought on a wave of nausea, and with it, memory.
Becca. Oh, God. The pieces clicked together in his fuzzy brain. Milo had brought him home and poured him scotch after scotch. They’d stopped at the off-license on the way back from the cottage, after the Scotland Yard man had told him he couldn’t take Becca’s bottle of Balvenie. Because it wasn’t his. Because it might be evidence. Because Becca was dead.
Freddie lurched to his feet and staggered to the bathroom. He fell to his knees, his forehead resting on the cool seat of the toilet, and vomited until there was nothing left to come up.
When the heaving finally stopped, he lifted his head and sat with his back against the wall, cataloging what he saw, as if that could block out knowledge. Gray-stained plank floor. Gray walls. Glass shower. White porcelain sink. The freestanding tub, its body wrapped in black, riveted metal. And above it all, glimpsed when he painfully raised his eyes, the crystal chandelier.
When he’d bought this flat after the divorce, he’d hired an interior designer from London, hoping, he supposed, that Becca would somehow be impressed with his new lifestyle.
When she’d come to see the flat, she’d gazed at the chandelier, then given him the look. The look that meant she thought he had utterly lost the plot.
“It’s supposed to be eclectic,” he’d said, defending himself.
“Was she pretty?” Becca had replied.
When Freddie’s phone started to ring again, he realized he’d left it in the sitting room. He suddenly wondered if it might be someone calling to tell him it was all a mistake, that the body they’d found wasn’t Becca after all. Who was this guy who had identified her, anyway? This rower.
He pulled himself up and stumbled back into the sitting room, his heart racing, but by the time he got there, the ringing had stopped. He looked at the long list of missed calls—all unfamiliar numbers—and then saw that there was one message. His pulse skipped. What if—
But when he played it back, a female voice identified herself as a reporter from the London Chronicle, and wondered if he would be willing to give them a quote about his ex-wife.
Freddie sank onto the sofa, his phone dangling in his hand.
It was true, then. It had to be true. And he realized what he was going to have to do that day.
The phone rang once more, the vibration running through his fingers like a shock. He dropped the phone, made a scoop at it, and fumbled it up again. If it was that reporter, he was going to tell her to sod off.
But the name on the caller ID was familiar, and Freddie nearly sobbed with relief as he answered. “Ross?”
“Oh, shit, mate,” said Ross Abbott. “Chris heard at work. She wanted me to tell you—I wanted to tell you—we’re so sorry. Is there anything I can do?”
Freddie looked at the two dark blue Oxford oars mounted on the wall in the sitting room. They had rowed together, twice, he and Ross Abbott, and they’d been friends since they were spotty boys in the same public school. He clutched at the lifeline of the familiar.
“Ross, I have to—I have to go to the morgue today. To identify her. Will you go with me?”
Kincaid had not slept well, in spite of the luxury of his canopy bed. He realized it had been months since he’d spent the night away from Gemma, and he missed the quiet rhythm of her breathing, her warmth as her body touched his in the night. Not that they’d spent many nights in the last two months without Charlotte crawling in between them in the wee hours of the morning, but he found he missed that, too.
Lately, Charlotte had taken to snuggling with her back against Gemma and her head on his shoulder, her curly hair tickling his nose. When she drifted off to sleep again, whoever was most awake would pick her up and tuck her back into her own bed, but he always did it with a bit of reluctance. He’d missed that stage with Kit. And Toby, so busy when awake, had always slept as if someone had flipped his Off switch.
When light began to filter through the crack in the heavy bedroom curtains, he got up, showered, and dressed in his wedding finery. Not for the first time, he was glad he’d worn an ordinary suit for Winnie’s blessing, rather than morning getup. He’d look a right prat trying to conduct an investigation in that.
Eager to get to the incident room at the police station, he rang Cullen and crushed his partner’s hopes of the full-monty breakfast in the hotel dining room. “There’s a nice café—Maison Blanc, I think—on the way to the station,” Kincaid said. “We can pick up coffee and pastries, and you can fill me in on your research as we walk.”
A few minutes later, they met in the hotel reception area. Stepping outside, they were greeted with watery sunshine and air that felt almost balmy. Kincaid looked up at the clouds creeping across the sky and frowned. “I don’t trust this weather. But, for the time being, it will make things easier for the forensics team at the boat.” He started up Market Place at a good clip. “So, what did you find on Mr. Atterton?” he asked.
Cullen pushed his glasses up on his nose, then clasped his hands behind his back
as he walked, settling into lecturing mode. “Frederick Thomas Atterton, after his father, Thomas, a well-respected banker in the City. Grew up in Sonning-on-Thames, a village just east of Reading. Real Kenneth Grahame country, according to Melody.”
“Melody?”
“There was only so much I could do with just a phone.” Cullen shrugged, a little apologetically. “Had to enlist some help. Anyway, Atterton went to Bedford School, where he began to show a talent for rowing, then Oriel College, Oxford, where he took an undistinguished degree in biology. He seems to have done better at rowing, however, as he twice made the Blue Boat, although neither crew won.
“He met Rebecca Meredith at Oxford,” Cullen continued. “She distinguished herself rowing varsity for her college, St. Catherine’s, then for the university. She studied criminal justice.”
“She kept her maiden name, then,” Kincaid said. They’d reached Maison Blanc, and as they entered the café they were buffeted by the aromas of fresh coffee and baking bread. After perusing the muffins and pastries, they ordered at the counter. Kincaid chose cappuccino and an almond croissant, his usual fare from the Maison Blanc in Holland Park Road on the mornings when he took the tube from Holland Park and hadn’t time for breakfast at home.
Had he gravitated towards the café here because he was homesick? he wondered.
“That’s just thoroughly wet,” he said aloud, and both Cullen and the cashier looked at him in surprise. “Don’t take any notice of me,” he told the cashier, giving her his best smile along with the correct change and an extra pound for the tip jar.
“Have a great day,” the girl replied, beaming at him.
“And that’s criminal,” Cullen muttered as they carried their breakfast back into the street.
“You’re just jealous.” Kincaid grinned. “Go on, then. Where were we? Maiden name?”
Doug took a sip of his coffee, winced. “Oh, right. That’s how she was known as a rower, so I suppose she wanted to go on that way. Although I’m not sure I’d have wanted to keep that reputation. ”
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