The dog handlers, however, seemed to be as sure-footed as their canine companions and periodically stopped to wait for the others.
There was no possibility of getting forensics to the scene until first light. The uniformed officers had set about trying to get the boat out of the water when Kieran had motioned them back. Taking off his boots, he’d slipped into the river and lifted the shell onto the bank as gently as if it were a child. Climbing out, he’d laid the single oar beside the shell and stood for a moment, his expression unfathomable in the gloom.
When the constables had finished cordoning off the small clearing with scene-of-crime tape, they had all gone out the way they’d come in, single file. DI Singla had another team of officers waiting at the cars; they would be led back to guard the scene overnight.
“I want to talk to the coach at Leander Club,” Kincaid said quietly to Cullen, when they’d crossed the single-plank bridge into the first meadow, and he thought he could see the shapes of the cars in the distance. “Wasn’t he the last person to have seen her?”
“The ex-husband reported her missing,” said Singla, from behind them.
“Him, too. But first the coach, I think. And we’ll need somewhere to stay—”
“All in hand.” Cullen sounded pleased with himself. “I rang the Red Lion on the way down. It’s just across the river from Leander.”
Kincaid glanced at him and saw only the glint of his glasses in the darkness. “How did you get here so quickly anyway? Levitate?”
Cullen’s reply came reluctantly. “Um, Melody gave me a lift.”
“What were you doing with Melody?” Kincaid asked, surprised.
“Buying her lunch. In Putney.” Cullen had begun to sound a bit defensive. “She came round to have a look at the house.”
“Ah.” Kincaid processed this. He’d been aware of Doug’s venture into homeownership, but as far as he knew, Doug and Melody barely tolerated each other. This, however, was not the time or place to inquire further. “Well, good. It’s official, then, the house?”
“As of this morning.”
Kincaid patted him on the shoulder, a little clumsily as his right foot twisted in a hollow. “We’ll have a drink on it later.”
He grimaced as he took another step, but it had less to do with the twinge in his ankle and more with the thought of staying here in Henley, leaving Gemma home alone with the children. This was not what they’d planned for this week.
As if sensing his train of thought, Cullen said very softly as they approached the cars, “Guv, I know you’ve got leave coming up. This case—do you think there’s anything to it?”
And Kincaid could have sworn there was a note of hope in his voice.
“You’ve been here before, I take it?” Kincaid asked.
Cullen had directed him over the Henley Bridge, then into the first turning. There was a dark mass of a building on his left, a gated car park on his right, and no obvious place to put the car.
They had left DI Singla to begin setting up an incident room at Henley Police Station, Cullen murmuring, “He’s a bit taciturn, wouldn’t you say?”
“No more than you or I would be under the circumstances, I suspect,” Kincaid had answered. “Would you want a Met officer dead on your patch?”
Cullen had shaken his head. “I wouldn’t be jumping for joy over the prospect, no.”
Now Cullen said, “Pull up to the dead end. The field beyond is where they put up the regatta enclosures, but it won’t be in use now. The club’s on the left.”
When Kincaid had duly parked and climbed out of the Astra, he saw that the building had appeared dark because it was flanked by a high brick wall, a visual moat. Above the wall, he saw red-tiled gables atop white-framed panels of pebbledash, and on the upper floors light glinted from a multitude of windows. There was an arched doorway in the wall that opened onto an inner courtyard.
Kincaid touched his fingers to the brick as they passed through. “A chastity belt for an Edwardian dowager?” he suggested.
“It’s Leander,” Doug protested, as if Kincaid had just insulted the holy of holies. “And it’s not dowdy. The building was completely refurbished in the late nineties.”
That didn’t make it an architectural gem, Kincaid thought, but he kept his opinion to himself. “So you rowed here?”
“Oh, no.” Doug sounded shocked. “I mean, I never rowed from Leander, as a member. But I rowed in regattas here in Henley, when I was at school.” The casually mentioned school had been, in Doug’s case, Eton—a fact that he rarely admitted in police environs.
“And at university?” Kincaid asked.
“No.” Doug shook his head as they reached glass doors sheltered by a fluted iron canopy. “Wasn’t good enough. Too big for a cox, too small for a really powerful oarsman.”
Kincaid opened the door, and they stepped into a lobby that was more elegant than the building’s exterior. The decor centered round a glass-topped coffee table with a sculpted bronze hippo as its base.
Lights still burned in a glass-fronted but very business-like office area on the lobby’s right. A young woman sitting at one of the desks saw them, stood, and came out, looking at them inquiringly. She wore a pale pink blouse and a navy skirt, and Kincaid was suddenly aware that he had been tromping across rain-sodden fields in the clothes he’d been wearing since he’d begun the day playing with the children—he certainly didn’t look the most reputable of policemen.
“Can I help you?” she said.
He ran his fingers through his hair, pulled his warrant card case from his pocket, and smiled. “Duncan Kincaid. Detective superintendent, Scotland Yard. And this is Sergeant Cullen. There was an incident today—”
“Becca?” the young woman said. She lifted her hand, her fingers brushing her collarbone in an instinctive gesture of shock. “Is she all right? The police were here, and the people with the dogs, but no one’s told us anything.”
“I’d like to speak to the coach who saw her going out on the river yesterday,” Kincaid said, avoiding the question as gently as he could. Rumors would be flying around, but he wanted to break the news first to the people Rebecca Meredith had known best. “Mr.—”
“Jachym. Milo Jachym,” Cullen contributed. He didn’t have to consult his notes.
“I—I think he’s in the Member’s Bar,” the young woman said. “I’ll take you up.” She started towards a flight of stairs that appeared to lead up to a mezzanine, then turned back. “I’m Lily Meyberg, by the way, the house manager.” She held out a slender hand, and when Kincaid took it, he felt the calluses on her palms and the strength of her grip. A rower? he wondered. And if so, possibly more than a casual acquaintance of the victim?
He followed her, noticing as he passed a glass-fronted case displaying mugs and teacups decorated with the dancing pink hippos that seemed to be the Leander mascot, along with caps and ties in the infamous Leander cerise.
As he climbed, he saw that the walls of the stairwell were lined with photos of groups of muscular men and women in rowing singlets, sporting gaudy medals.
“Redgrave, Pinsent, Williams, Foster, Cracknell . . .” Doug’s whisper was reverent, and he looked as if he was resisting the temptation to touch the photos as he passed. These, Kincaid knew, were the gold-medal winners, rowing’s gods.
At the top of the stairs they reached a reception area, but the desk and the dining room beyond were empty. Back to the right, however, Kincaid heard the murmur of voices and the clink of china and cutlery.
He peered round the corner into another dining area—a pleasant, casual room with a bar at its end that must overlook the building’s front. The few diners at the white-clothed tables looked up at him curiously, implements frozen. As he turned back to reception, he sensed the tension of whispers beginning to build behind him.
“I’ll take you back,” Lily was saying. She led them not through the dining room that he had seen, but along a corridor that ran parallel to it, towards the front of the bui
lding.
“It seems there’s not much custom tonight,” he said. In spite of the sparseness of diners, delicious odors were wafting from somewhere nearby, and Kincaid realized he was starving. Their breakfast in Glastonbury that morning seemed a world away. They’d meant to have a late lunch once they reached home, so he had missed the meal altogether.
“It’s usually quiet on a Tuesday night, unless we have a function on,” said Lily. “But the chef has the crew to cook for, three meals a day, so it’s always busy in the kitchen.”
“That’s a job,” said Cullen, sounding impressed.
Lily gave him a quick smile. “They do eat a good bit.”
As they reached the end of the corridor, two young men carrying kit bags came out of a door marked CREW. They made Kincaid, who was a bit over six feet, feel suddenly dwarfed. Like the diners, the young men glanced curiously at the newcomers, giving them the slightest of nods.
“Rowers in training need about six thousand calories a day,” Lily added, glancing back at the oarsmen as they disappeared round the corner. As Kincaid tried to calculate what six thousand calories meant in terms of portions, he saw that they had reached a T-junction of sorts, with the bar he’d seen at the end of the dining room to the left, a small service area straight ahead, and to the right, a smaller, more intimate bar, its walls covered with rowing memorabilia and anchored by a large flat-screen television.
A petite blonde in the service kitchen was making coffee. She wore the same pale pink blouse and navy skirt as Lily, and Kincaid surmised it must be the Leander staff uniform.
“Milo?” asked Lily, and the pretty blonde nodded towards the small bar.
“He’s been ringing the police, but he can’t find out any—” The blonde stopped at Lily’s fractional head shake, and her eyes widened as she looked at Kincaid and Cullen.
“I’ll take them in,” said Lily, and they followed her into the bar.
A small, balding man sat alone, an empty coffee cup on the table before him. He stood when he saw them, his lined face apprehensive.
“Mr. Jachym?” Kincaid asked before Lily could introduce him. “If we could have a word. We’re from the police.”
Lily left them then, but he was sure that anything they said could be heard from the service kitchen on the other side of the bar. The news would be all over the club in no time.
“I’ve been trying—”
“I know,” Kincaid interrupted. “Mr. Jachym, I understand you were the last person to see Rebecca Meredith?”
“I—” Jachym swallowed visibly. “As far as I know, yes. I told the other policeman, the Asian one.”
“You were Rebecca Meredith’s coach?”
“Not officially, no. Although I was once, many years ago. Please, what’s happened?”
“Mr. Jachym, sit down,” said Kincaid. Milo Jachym, who didn’t appear to be a man accustomed to taking orders, sat.
“May we?” Kincaid asked, and at Jachym’s nod, he and Cullen pulled up the nearest chairs. “Rebecca Meredith’s body was found this afternoon, below Hambleden Weir,” he said, knowing it was best to get it over quickly.
Jachym stared at them. “You’re certain?”
“One of the SAR team identified her. But we’ll need an official ID. Do you know who would be her next of kin?”
“Oh, God.” Jachym made a convulsive movement towards his empty coffee cup, but didn’t touch it. “No one’s told Freddie? He’s been frantic.”
“Freddie?” Kincaid asked, although he remembered the name from the initial missing persons report.
“Freddie Atterton. Becca’s ex-husband.”
“He was the one who reported her missing?”
“I—we—he came to me, this morning. He was worried about her, and I realized I hadn’t seen her shell on the rack in the yard. Look—can you tell me what happened?”
Cullen responded. “The SAR team found her Filippi caught on the Buckinghamshire bank, not far below Temple Island. It was overturned, and one oar was missing.”
“But—if she went in the water there, surely she could have swum to shore. Not that she’d have willingly left the boat . . .” Milo Jachym shook his head and scrubbed impatiently at the graying stubble on his chin. “I’ve been in this sport long enough to know that any rower can have an accident. But I never thought Becca—Freddie was right. I should have stopped her.”
“He didn’t want her to go out?”
“No. I was the one who told him she was training and he was furious. He thought it was foolish.”
“And was it?”
“No. At least I didn’t think so. She was a gold-medal contender when I first worked with her, after she finished university. But she was reckless. Age seemed to have tempered her a bit. I told her last night, before she went out, that I thought she had a chance if she was serious.”
“A chance?” Kincaid asked. “A chance at what?”
Jachym looked at him as if he were mentally deficient. “The Olympics, of course. In the women’s single scull.”
Kincaid stared back. Bloody hell, he thought. When Rebecca Meredith had been described as an “elite rower,” he’d assumed she rowed in the occasional local regatta.
But an Olympic contender and a senior officer in the Met?
No wonder the brass had wanted their own man on the scene. The press were going to have a feeding frenzy.
And he was not going to get home anytime soon.
Chapter Six
You make your own success in the single scull. You win or lose by your own toughness. You alone are responsible for the outcome of the race. The sheer, unadulterated pleasure of winning a single sculling race, regardless of the level, from novice to elite, is enough to keep you training for another three years.
—Brad Alan Lewis
Assault on Lake Casitas
“Wait,” Kincaid said. “Back up a bit. You’re telling me that Rebecca Meredith was training for the Olympics? But she wasn’t a member of the Leander crew.”
“Didn’t have to be,” Milo answered. “Becca was a member of the club. She could represent Leander in a race. But even that wasn’t necessary. Anyone can compete in an Olympic trial.”
Cullen frowned for a moment, then his face cleared. “Brad Lewis.”
Milo Jachym was already nodding in agreement. Kincaid felt as if he were playing table tennis without the ball. “What are you talking about?”
“Brad Alan Lewis,” Cullen explained. “He won gold in double sculls at the Los Angeles Olympics in 1984. And he did it from completely outside the system, and with next to no financial backing.”
“And Becca is—was”—Milo’s lips tightened in a spasm of distress—“not dissimilar in character. Stubborn. Obsessive. Determined to do things her way. And like Lewis, she knew it was her last opportunity.”
“But you said her ex-husband was furious when he found out she was training. Why, if she really did have a chance at something that big?”
“I— He was concerned about her safety, I assumed, because she was going out so late. But it was the only way she could row every day.”
“Unless,” Kincaid said thoughtfully, “she quit the job. And that—”
The phone in his pocket vibrated once, then again—an incoming call. Irritating as the interruption was, he couldn’t afford to let it go.
He didn’t recognize the number on the display, but he knew DI Singla’s voice immediately. “Superintendent, there’s a man at Rebecca Meredith’s cottage,” said Singla. “He’s threatening the constable I put on watch there. Do you want me to have him picked up? He says he’s her husband.”
“You are an absolute dear.” Gemma stretched her legs out under the kitchen table and raised her glass to Melody in salute. Melody had not only arrived with a very nice bottle of Sauvignon Blanc, but had picked up pizza, dripping with olive oil and garlic, from Sugo’s, Gemma’s favorite Italian bistro at Notting Hill Gate.
“Good thing I left the car at the flat,” Melody said, po
uring herself another generous measure. “And if I come across any vampires on the walk home, they’ll take one whiff of me and run the other way.” She blew out a breath, as if testing her theory.
Melody lived in a mansion block on Kensington Park Road, and declared that the half-mile walk between her flat and Duncan and Gemma’s house in St. John’s Gardens provided just the right amount of exercise after an overindulgence in food and drink.
“Do you suppose garlic has a calming effect on children, too?” Gemma asked. “I think they’re probably related to vampires.”
By the time they’d reached home, Toby had been overexcited, and Charlotte even more clingy and fretful. While Toby had refused to sit still, dancing around the table with his slice of pizza, teasing the dogs, the cat, and Charlotte, Charlotte had agreed to eat her supper only if held in Gemma’s lap. Kit, unusually unsociable, had grabbed half a pizza and disappeared upstairs, plate in one hand and phone in the other.
“I can do the washing-up,” offered Melody. “Dab hand in the kitchen.”
Gemma considered. “You know, I’ve never actually seen you cook. But you get top votes for deliveryperson.”
“I can cook,” Melody protested, grinning. “Um, cheese, biscuits, wine . . .” She furrowed her brow, then shrugged. “Well, maybe not so much. But I really can wield a mean Fairy Liquid.” She started to stand, but Gemma waved her back into her chair.
“It’s only pizza boxes. Easily done when the kids are in bed.” Knowing bedtime would be an ordeal and wanting to enjoy her visit with Melody, Gemma had bribed the little ones with the promise of a video in the sitting room. Once she’d convinced Toby that he really did not need to watch Peter Pan for the hundredth time, she’d settled them down with The Lion King and breathed a huge sigh of relief.
Now she could hear Toby singing along tunelessly.
“The West End in his future, for certain,” said Melody, and they both giggled.
“Only if he can swashbuckle,” Gemma said, meditating on Toby’s possibly brilliant career. “But maybe, if I’m lucky, he’ll put Charlotte to sleep, and not just future audiences.”
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