No Mark upon Her

by Deborah Crombie

  When he’d rung Cullen from his mobile, Doug had offered to take the train straightaway, but Kincaid told him to wait until morning. “Let me talk to this guy, Kieran, and see what happened. I told Singla I wanted the first interview.”

  “Yesterday he seemed a bit off to me, that Kieran bloke.” Doug’s voice crackled as the mobile signal faded in and out. “You’d have thought that boat was the Holy Grail, the way he was fussing over it. Maybe he killed Becca Meredith, then tried to blow himself up.”

  “I can’t see him trying to burn his dog to death,” Kincaid said. He’d dealt with suicides who had shot their dogs, but not something like this. But if the relationship between man and dog was as close as it seemed, he supposed Kieran could have sedated the dog and set the blaze as some sort of ritual funeral pyre.

  He thought it much more likely, however, that someone had thrown a Molotov cocktail through Kieran Connolly’s window. “Nor do we have any idea why Connolly would have murdered Becca Meredith,” he went on.

  “He was a rower,” Doug said. “He’d have known how to capsize her.”

  “True enough.” Kincaid was driving down Remenham Hill, with the lights of Henley ahead. “But that’s means without motive, which doesn’t do us much good. I’m almost there. I’ll ring you when I know more.” He disconnected and was soon across the bridge and through the town center. Checking the address Singla had given him, he pulled the car up in West Street, not far from the fire station.

  Warm light shone through the leaded windows of the little terraced house. As he knocked, the murmur of voices from inside was immediately drowned out by a chorus of barking.

  “Tosh, Finn, easy,” a woman commanded, and Kincaid recognized the team leader’s voice from the previous day. The barking stopped and the door swung open.

  “Superintendent Kincaid, isn’t it?” Tavie Larssen looked surprised. “I thought it would be DI Singla.”

  When Kincaid had met her yesterday, she’d been wearing a dark SAR uniform. Tonight she was in her paramedic’s uniform, which was black as well. The severe, dark clothing suited her, he thought, giving some authority to her small frame and delicate features.

  “He sent me. May I come in?”

  “Oh, of course.” She stepped back and grabbed a black Labrador retriever by the collar. Connolly’s dog—what was his name? “Sorry, Finn’s not used to the house protocol,” said Tavie, answering his unspoken question.

  She opened a tin on the table by the door, looked the Lab in the eyes, and said, “Sit.” The dog plopped his rear onto the floor immediately and was joined by the German shepherd, who sat as well. They snapped up the two dog biscuits Tavie fished from the tin with an alacrity that made Kincaid fear for her fingers. “Good dogs,” she said. “Go lie down.”

  They did.

  No longer distracted by the dogs, Kincaid focused on Kieran Connolly, who sat across the room. Connolly’s forehead was bandaged, his face still smudged with soot and blood, his brown T-shirt and carpenter’s trousers splashed with darker brown splotches. He started to rise, but Kincaid waved him back. “No need to get up.”

  “Here.” Tavie gestured Kincaid towards the sofa. “I’ll just make some tea, shall I?” she said, a little uncertainly.

  “That would be brilliant.”

  “Right.” She smiled at him, then glanced at Connolly with a slight frown before stepping into the adjoining kitchen.

  Through the doorway, Kincaid could see a cream-colored enamel range, and on the room’s two high, wide ledges, an antique mirror and a few pretty china plates. In the center of the kitchen, a vase of bright autumn foliage and berries stood on a plain wooden table.

  Tavie filled an old kettle and set it on the range, then began placing mugs on a tray.

  Turning his attention to the sitting room, Kincaid thought that it was just as simple and appealing as the kitchen. There was a wooden chair painted in light blues and greens, adorned with a red throw, a stack of books on the floor beside it. A small table held a globe, and wide ledges like the ones in the kitchen displayed a few unframed portraits in oil. Sisal carpeting covered the floor, and a gas fire burned in an iron fireplace with a tile surround. Tosh, the German shepherd, had curled up on a floral hooked rug before the fire. Beside her, dog toys spilled from a woven basket.

  It was very much a single woman’s house, Kincaid thought, and it reminded him of the tiny garage flat that Gemma had lived in before they’d moved into the Notting Hill house together.

  Kieran Connolly, squeezed into the small upholstered armchair, looked as awkward as the proverbial bull in the china shop, and just as unhappy. Finn had settled at his master’s feet.

  Kincaid sat carefully on the sofa, suddenly aware of his own long legs. “How are you feeling?” he asked Connolly, who shrugged.

  “I’ll live.” He reached up as if to touch the wound, then dropped his hand. “Tavie says I’m going to look like Harry Potter.”

  “That might not be a bad thing.” Kincaid smiled, hoping to put him at ease. “Can you tell me what happened tonight?”

  Tavie came back into the room, bearing a tray with a teapot and mugs decorated in an alternating pattern of blue-and-white hearts and stars. A fanciful touch for a serious woman, Kincaid thought.

  “I was—I was having a bit of a rest,” Connolly said. The glance he gave Tavie told Kincaid there was some shared meaning to this. “On the camp bed in my shed. I repair boats, and I live in the shop. There’s just the one room.”

  Kincaid took a cup from Tavie, nodded yes to milk and shook no to sugar. She poured Kieran’s without asking—black, with two spoonfuls—and sat on the edge of the painted chair. “Go on,” Kincaid prompted Kieran.

  “There was a crash. Glass breaking. Then flames shooting up. For a minute I thought—” Kieran wrapped both hands round his mug. The tea sloshed. He was trembling. “It was like Iraq . . .” He held the mug to his lips, sipped, swallowed, and this seemed to steady him. “But then I saw the bottle burning. What was left of it. It was a wine bottle—I could tell because the label stayed in one piece. So did the neck, with the burning rag stuffed in it.

  “Finn was barking like mad and pushing at me. I knew I had to get him out. We reached the door. Then there was this—this sort of sucking whoosh. I knew what it was—the air goes just before an explosion. I grabbed Finn by the collar and dived for the lawn.”

  Kieran closed his eyes for a moment, then drank the rest of his tea as if suddenly very thirsty. “The next thing I remember is Tavie telling me to get up.”

  “Something like that,” she agreed drily, but she looked pale. “I thought you were bloody dead.” Refilling Kieran’s mug, she said, “Good thing your neighbors didn’t dither calling 999. But still, you must have been out for several minutes. That’s quite a blow. You need to get an X-ray—”

  He gave her a look that clearly meant this was one argument she was not going to win. “I’m fine. Just a little shaky.”

  Kincaid held his mug out for a refill as well, although after the pot of tea at home with Gemma, he was about ready to swim in the stuff. “Kieran, do you have any idea why someone would have done this to you?”

  “I— It’s crazy. You’ll think I’m mad.”

  “No, I won’t.” Kincaid leaned forward, resting his cup on his knee. “Why don’t you tell me.”

  Kieran looked up, met Kincaid’s eyes, assessing him. Whatever he saw there seemed to swing the balance in Kincaid’s favor. “I saw something. On Monday evening, before Becca went out on the river. And on Sunday, the same time.”

  “What do you mean, you saw something?” asked Tavie. “You didn’t tell me.”

  “I didn’t have a chance.” He looked back to Kincaid. “I was running. Since the days have got shorter, I’ve been rowing in the mornings and running in the evenings. You know where we found the Filippi?”

  Kincaid nodded. “Yes. And you were upset. You said that Becca Meredith wouldn’t have capsized on a calm evening. That she was too good
a rower.”

  “No one believed me.” Kieran’s face was set in a scowl.

  “We did, actually,” Kincaid reassured him. “And I believe you now. Is that where you saw something? Where we found the boat?”

  “No. But that’s not where she went in the water.”

  Kincaid sat forward, his pulse quickening. “How do you know?”

  “Because I know where she did go in.”

  “What?” said Tavie. “Kieran, what are you—”

  The German shepherd, who had been lying quietly by the hearth, raised her head and barked, punctuation to her mistress’s alarm.

  “Okay, okay.” Kincaid held up his hand like a traffic cop. “Let’s all take it easy. Kieran, why don’t you back up and start from the beginning.”

  Kieran shifted in his chair and shot another uneasy glance at Tavie. “Look, I know it sounds as if I was some sort of a stalker, but it wasn’t like that. When I first met Becca, last summer, I was rowing in the evenings—I told Tavie that. But now I’ve been taking my shell out at first light. Then, in the evenings, I’d run the river path about the time I knew Becca would be rowing. That made it easy for us to . . . to meet up afterwards.”

  Tavie shifted on the edge of her chair. When Kincaid glanced at her, the expression on her delicate face was one of disapproval. And, Kincaid thought, possibly hurt.

  “Sometimes I’d go to the cottage, after she’d taken the shell back to Leander.” Kieran threw that out like a challenge, as if her unspoken response had irritated him. Then, he sighed. “But mostly, I just liked to watch her row. It was—beautiful—you can’t imagine.”

  “I wish I’d seen her,” said Kincaid, and he did.

  Kieran nodded, an acknowledgment. “I was never as good as that, nowhere near, but I could tell when she was doing something wrong, getting into a bad pattern. I suppose I was sort of an unofficial coach. But—this last weekend, she was—different.” He hesitated, looking uncomfortable again.

  “Would you like to speak to me on your own?” Kincaid asked, wondering if the problem lay with Tavie.

  Kieran hesitated, then said, “No. No, I want Tavie to stay. It’s just that—how things were with Becca and me . . . When I try to explain it, it sounds—weird. But it didn’t seem that way. What we did together was something that was just between us.”

  “Okay. I get that,” Kincaid reassured him. “So what was odd about last weekend?”

  “I didn’t see her on the river on Friday evening. Or on Saturday morning, which was usually her biggest training day. So I went to the cottage. Just to make sure she was all right, you know, not ill or anything. The Nissan wasn’t in the drive. I thought she wasn’t home, so I was surprised when she came out.”

  Kieran’s frown drew down the corner of his bandage. “But she was—I don’t know—tense. Preoccupied. Not”—his lips tightened—“pleased to see me. She said she’d taken the train home the night before, and she’d never done that, not once in the time I’d known her.

  “And then, when I offered to run her into London to pick up the car, she was—short with me. She said she had things to do.”

  “Did she say what?”

  “No. I just left. What else could I do?” Kieran shrugged. “I saw her out on Sunday evening, rowing, but she didn’t speak to me. I thought—I thought maybe I’d done something wrong, something to upset her, but I couldn’t imagine what. Then, on Monday, I must have been a bit early for my run, or she was a bit late going out from Leander, because I missed her altogether.”

  His face twisted with grief. “If I’d just been there . . .” He rubbed a hand across his mouth. “I might have stopped him.”

  “Stopped who, Kieran? You said you saw something. Are you saying you saw someone?”

  Kieran nodded. “I thought he was a fisherman. On the Bucks bank, between Temple Island and the last meadow. The woods are heavy there, but there’s a little green hollow between the path and the bank. He was there on Sunday when Becca was rowing, then again on Monday evening, the same time. When I thought about it afterwards, I realized he wasn’t actually fishing, although he had some gear. It was more like he was—waiting.

  “So, this afternoon, I went to look. There was a footprint in the mud, and the edge of the bank looked churned up, as if there’d been a struggle. Becca would have been rowing close to shore there, going upriver, and as late as she was, it would have been almost completely dark . . . She wouldn’t have seen someone until she was right on top of them.”

  “How deep is the river there?” Kincaid asked.

  “Not very. A few feet, maybe, that close to the bank.”

  “So you think this—fisherman—could have waded in and capsized her?”

  “He’d have to have known how.”

  “Ah.” Kincaid sat back in his chair, feeling the weight of what had happened to Becca Meredith. Kieran’s story made sense, put together with what they had already learned. “I think perhaps he did. You see, we found evidence, both on the body and the shell. It looks as if she was held under the boat with her own oar.”

  “Oh, God.” Kieran’s face grew almost as white as the gauze on his forehead. “I thought—I thought I was just being paranoid.” His eyes filled. “Why? Why would someone do that to her?”

  “I was hoping you might tell me.”

  Shaking his head, Kieran said, “I can’t imagine. Becca was—she could be sharp with people, you know? She had to be tough, with her job, and rowers in general aren’t the most patient sort. But she’d never deliberately hurt someone.”

  “What about her competition? Would someone have wanted to put her out of the running that badly?”

  “Oh, no.” Kieran sounded horrified. “Not the girls at Leander. I know them—they’re great. I’ve worked on their boats. And besides, I don’t think anyone really knew how serious Becca was or how good she was. That’s one reason she rowed in the evenings, and on Saturdays she stayed downriver, away from the crew’s normal training course. She didn’t want people clocking her.”

  “Milo Jachym knew.”

  “You’ve talked to Milo?” Kieran looked surprised, then nodded, thinking about it. “Yeah, Milo knew. But he’d coached her, and they were friends. He’s a good guy.”

  Kincaid reserved judgment. Milo seemed like a nice bloke, and had appeared genuinely grieved about Becca’s death as well as concerned about Freddie. But how many more chances would Milo have to get one of his own female crew an Olympic slot? Not to mention that Becca would have trusted him if he’d called to her from the bank—and he would certainly have known how to capsize a rower.

  Tavie, who’d been sitting on the edge of her chair, making an obvious effort not to interrupt, stood up and went to her dining table. Shuffling through a stack of papers, she said, “Kieran, this place—you mean upstream from Temple Island, right?”

  “Yeah, it’s—”

  Tavie held up a sheet of paper. “I know exactly where it is. The team on that sector had a minor alert there. It’s in the log.”

  “What do you mean, a minor alert?” Kincaid asked.

  “The dogs showed some interest, but seemed confused and moved on. We log any alert—sometimes they’ll form a pattern that will help us locate a victim. But this was isolated.”

  Kincaid frowned. “Could the dogs have picked up Becca’s scent there, even though she was never on shore?”

  “It’s possible. And he—Kieran’s fisherman—may have had it on his clothes or gear.”

  “They picked up her scent from the Filippi,” Kieran said, “and it was in the water.”

  “Right.” Kincaid thought of the times he’d watched Geordie, their cocker spaniel, run in the park, ears flying, nose to the ground, and he’d envied the rich sensory world that was beyond his perception. “Can I make copies of your log and your maps? I’ll have someone return the originals to you as soon as possible.”

  When Tavie nodded, he turned back to Kieran. “You saw this fisherman from the opposite bank. Would you
recognize him?”

  “It was almost dark both days, and he wore a hat that shadowed his face. The only thing I’d be willing to swear to was that it was a man.”

  “Not a tall woman?”

  Kieran thought for a moment. “No. The body shape was wrong. Too wide in the shoulders. And something about the way he stood—with his legs apart.”

  “Okay, we’ll go with that. But that leaves us with another big question. If we assume that the same person attacked you, how did he know who you were and where you lived? Could he have recognized you and been afraid you’d recognized him?”

  “I—I don’t know. I run almost every day, and I suppose people round here know who I am, but—there’s something more. This afternoon, when I found the hollow, I could have sworn someone was watching me. Eyes between the shoulder blades. You know the feeling.”

  “You think he saw you there?”

  “I thought I was imagining things. But I suppose it’s possible . . .” A slight shudder ran through Kieran’s body. Finn lifted his head and Kieran reached down to stroke the dog, as if comforting them both.

  “Could he have followed you today?” Kincaid asked.

  “I think I’d have seen someone crossing the meadow behind me, even in the dusk.” Kieran paused, thinking it through. “But he’d have known the footpath crosses the Marlow Road. If he got back to the road by a shorter way and picked up a car, he could have seen me as I came back into Henley . . .”

  “You and Finn are not exactly unnoticeable,” Kincaid agreed. “What about before the fire tonight? Did you hear anything, see anything?”

  Eyes wide, Kieran said, “I’d forgotten. There was a splash. Finn heard it, too, I think. It might have been an oar.”

  “So you think your arsonist came by boat?”

  “It is an island. And if he’d docked farther up or down, he’d have walked through my neighbors’ gardens to get to my place, then had to go back again. The properties are very small. He’d have taken a huge risk of being seen.” Kieran’s face hardened. “My guess is he threw the damned bottle from a boat and hoped for the best. Bastard.”