No Mark upon Her

by Deborah Crombie

  Ross ignored him, his attention now focused on Freddie. “You’re a shit, Freddie Atterton. You were always a prick with your supercilious it’s all about the crew crap. That was fine for you, because you were better than the rest of us. Did you think I didn’t know you were sneering at me?” Ross bared his teeth in a smile. “I’ve wanted to hurt you for fifteen years, and now I’ll be more than happy to shoot you, too.”

  The gun steadied, leveled at Freddie.

  Kincaid tensed, calculating how fast he could reach Ross, praying Freddie would keep him focused a moment longer.

  But it was Kieran who spoke. “Why are you talking about Craig and this bastard’s wife? He killed Becca because she knew the truth about him.”

  Ross swung back towards Kieran, but Kieran seemed oblivious to the gun. “He cheated in the Boat Race,” he said. “Becca told me. He sabotaged another rower to get his position, and he lost Oxford the race. But his wife was Becca’s friend, and Becca promised her she wouldn’t tell.”

  “That bitch,” Ross shouted. The gun wobbled, then steadied again, this time aimed at Kieran. “That’s a lie, you—”

  But Freddie moved towards him, his voice cold with disgust. “So that’s what it was, Ross. Did you slip him laxatives? I always suspected, you know. It was just too convenient, that food poisoning, but I couldn’t just come out and accuse a crewmate, could I? It wouldn’t have been sporting, and we couldn’t have that.

  “But Becca—so Becca knew all along.” Freddie didn’t hide his satisfaction. “Becca used it against you in the end, didn’t she? When Chris refused to help her bring down Craig, she threatened to tell.

  “And that was the one thing you knew would ruin you utterly, wasn’t it, Ross, old buddy? You betrayed your boat, your crewmates. No one would touch you if they knew. You’d have been blackballed for life. You’ve been trading on that Blue for fifteen years, with all your deals and your sucking up to anyone it impressed, and she was going to take it all away from you. So you killed her, you sniveling little cow—”

  “Shut up.” Ross looked round wildly, then turned back to Freddie. “Just shut the fuck—”

  But Freddie came closer. “And you needed that next deal desperately, didn’t you, Ross? Everything was crumbling. Your credit card wasn’t declined by mistake in the bar, was it? You were the one drowning.”

  One look at Ross Abbott’s expression told Kincaid that if Freddie had meant to make Ross give up, the strategy had gone horribly wrong. Behind Freddie, he saw Doug’s white, frightened face, and he knew he had to stop this, whatever the cost.

  “Ross, we can work this—” he began, but Freddie seemed determined to throw petrol on the fire.

  “You don’t seriously think you’re going to kill all of us and walk away?” Freddie taunted him. “After what you’ve done?”

  “Just watch me,” said Ross, and pointed the gun at Freddie’s chest.

  There was a flurry of motion as Finn managed to free himself from Kieran’s grasp. A black blur, the dog launched himself at Ross.

  Ross spun and fired, more from surprise than intent, it seemed to Kincaid in a fraction of disjointed thought.

  The dog went down with a squeal of pain. Ross staggered back towards the door, as if shocked by the gun’s recoil, and Kieran sprang to his feet with a scream of rage and horror.

  Kincaid dived towards Ross, aiming for his gun arm, just as another figure hurtled through the front door, swinging a long stick.

  He, no—his brain registered, she—Tavie, it was Tavie, and it wasn’t a stick, it was an oar. The oar made a thwacking sound as it connected with Ross’s shoulder. The gun flew out of his hand, skittering across the floor and under a table.

  Kincaid plowed into Ross. He heard the grunt of pain and the whoosh of exhaled breath as Ross hit the floor beneath him. Then Kincaid had him pinned, and Freddie and Doug were piling onto him, grabbing for Ross’s thrashing arms and legs. Freddie got Ross by his thinning hair and smacked his head against the floor.

  “Stop! Both of you, stop! Just hold him,” Kincaid shouted, but Freddie, his face tight with fury, got in another good thump.

  Tavie stood over them like a small ninja, the oar raised to strike again, but the cracks on the head seemed to have stunned Ross momentarily.

  “Hold him,” grunted Kincaid, reaching for his belt. Ross had gone down on his stomach, and Kincaid meant to keep him that way. Handcuffs, he thought. Why did he never have bloody handcuffs?

  Then Tavie lowered the oar and reached in her pocket. “Here,” she said, sounding surprised. “It’s Tosh’s lead. I brought it by accident.” She handed him the supple length of leather.

  As Kincaid wrapped the lead round Ross’s wrists and yanked hard, Freddie said wonderingly, “That’s Becca’s old Oxford oar. Where did you—”

  “It was in a bin at the side of the porch. The first thing that came to—” Tavie stopped with a gasp as she glanced past him, then her voice rose in a wail of distress. “Oh, God! Finn!”

  It was then that Kincaid realized Kieran wasn’t with them. When he looked up, he saw Kieran on the floor in the middle of the room, cradling Finn in his lap.

  Kincaid couldn’t see any blood, but the dog was panting, the whites of his eyes showing. As Tavie knelt beside them, Kieran lifted a hand from the dog’s dark coat, and it came away bright red.

  “No,” whispered Kieran, looking up at Tavie imploringly. “Please, no. I can’t—I can’t tell how bad it is.”

  While Tavie ran her small, deft hands over the dog, talking quietly, Kincaid levered himself off Ross. Freddie held Ross’s shoulders down. Doug sat on Ross’s feet, his phone out, shouting for backup to hurry the hell up, for an ambulance, and for God’s sake a vet.

  Ross spat a stream of curses at them all and Freddie steadily and repeatedly told him to shut up or he’d bloody thump him again.

  They were all, Kincaid thought with a delayed sense of astonishment, okay.

  Except the dog.

  Finn, who had identified Becca’s killer. Finn, who had tried his best to protect them. Kincaid couldn’t bear the thought of Kieran, who had lost so much, losing him, too.

  Crossing the room, Kincaid scooped the gun from under the table. Then, keeping an eye on Ross and his captors, he knelt by Tavie and Kieran.

  She was using Kieran’s sweater as a compress, and the oatmeal-colored wool was soaked with blood. But it was the dog’s shoulder she was treating, not his head or chest.

  “Is he—”

  Looking up, Tavie brushed her hair back from her forehead with her free hand, leaving a red smear. “It’s messy, and I’m more used to treating people, but I think it’s just a flesh wound. I can see entry and exit through the shoulder, and the bullet seems to have missed bone and organs.”

  “Good boy,” whispered Kieran, and Finn’s tail thumped. Kieran’s voice was still shaky, but his hands were not, and he was assisting Tavie with steady confidence.

  “It’s all right,” said Kieran, more strongly, as if reassuring himself. But it was Tavie’s eyes he met. “Everything is going to be all right.”

  Chapter Twenty-five

  What is there in the universe more fascinating than running water and the possibility of moving over it? What better image of existence and possible triumph?

  —George Santayana

  The Lost Pilgrim

  Sunday lunchtime found Kincaid still finishing up reports in his office at the Yard. He’d sent Doug Cullen home mid-morning, a little sharply. Doug had been lingering, inventing tasks, looking more anxious and morose by the minute.

  “Go,” Kincaid had finally said. “Get on with your house-moving.”

  “You’ll need me to proof that for you,” Doug protested, nodding at the computer screen.

  “I’m perfectly capable of writing a proper report on my own, thank you.” Kincaid knew exactly what Doug was feeling, but drawing it out was not going to make it better.

  “We’ll have a pint next weekend,” he said. �
�And as soon as you’re settled, we’ll come for dinner, if you’re brave enough to have us, that is.”

  “Right,” said Doug. He stuck his hands in his pockets, fidgeting with his keys. “I’ll investigate the takeaway options in Putney.”

  “That will keep you busy if your new guv’nor doesn’t give you enough to do.”

  Doug gave the joke the weak smile it deserved.

  The moment stretched into the sort of awkward silence faced by men who could not find a graceful way to say good-bye.

  “I’ll be back,” Kincaid said at last. And then, “You’ll be all right.”

  “Right.” Doug nodded and pushed his glasses up on his nose. “Thanks. See you, then.” He’d ducked his head and slipped out the door.

  Cullen’s departure brought the reality home to Kincaid. He would not be back for two months unless they decided that Charlotte was ready to go into nursery school before then. His life was about to change in ways he couldn’t yet imagine, and he wasn’t sure how he felt about it.

  He lingered, gazing at the familiar walls of his office, thinking how many years this job had defined him, and wondering who he would be without it.

  And thinking about what had happened the previous afternoon, and how near any one of them might have come to tragedy.

  He’d spent the better part of Saturday evening interviewing Ross Abbott at Thames Valley headquarters.

  Once subdued and hauled off to the Thames Valley nick, Abbott had gone quiet and refused to say another word without representation.

  Studying Abbott in the custody suite, Kincaid had seen the mask come down, the man’s desperation and viciousness wiped away by the cool, plausible, and highly affronted City banker. But there was no hiding the calculation in Abbott’s eyes, and his story, when his slightly befuddled solicitor had finally arrived, had been a masterful work of invention.

  He had, he said, been deeply worried about his grieving friend, after Freddie’s irrational behavior earlier that afternoon at the Red Lion. Having not found Freddie at home, he’d gone to the cottage looking for him.

  Then, seeing a strange car out front and the cottage door standing slightly ajar, he’d suspected a burglar and had felt obliged to go in. He’d then been threatened by Kieran and his mad dog, and had tried to defend himself.

  As for the gun, he said he’d grabbed it from the drawer in Rebecca Meredith’s sideboard, when he’d been searching for something to defend himself against the lunatic with the dog.

  “And then you and your mate”—he gave a pointed look at Kincaid and Doug—“came barging in and failed to identify yourselves as police officers. I thought you were part of the gang.”

  “Gang?” Kincaid said. He’d looked down at his now definitely worse-for-wear Saturday clothes—muddy chinos, soggy button-down shirt and pullover—and thought wistfully of his soaked leather jacket, hanging up to dry in an anteroom. And Doug, with one earpiece of his glasses bent from the scuffle to subdue Abbott, his now-dry fair hair sticking up like a schoolboy who had just got out of bed, looked even more unlikely. “Gang?” Kincaid repeated, brows elevated as high as they would go. If Abbott could dramatize, he could do him one better. Not even Abbott’s solicitor could repress a smile.

  “I think perhaps you need your eyes examined, Mr. Abbott,” Kincaid continued. They had not actually identified themselves as police, so he stepped carefully over that one for the moment.

  “As for the gun, your wife has already told police that it was her illegally obtained firearm, and that you took it from the house without her knowledge. That, in my book, goes down as intent to harm.”

  He’d then reiterated, for the tape, what they knew about Becca Meredith’s visit to the Abbotts’ the previous Saturday, and why Abbott had then put in motion a plan to murder her.

  “Bollocks,” said Abbott. “Absolute bollocks. And you can’t prove a bit of it.”

  “Oh, I think we can. And we can prove you attacked Kieran Connolly. We’ve impounded your car, and a forensics team have taken your clothes from your house, as well as your single scull from Henley Rowing Club. I know you think you’re clever, Mr. Abbott, but there will be traces you missed. You will have left fiber at the scene of Becca Meredith’s murder, and perhaps petrol in the boat. Not to mention the fact that Kieran Connolly will identify you as the man he saw lying in wait in the spot where Meredith was killed.

  “As for what happened at the Remenham cottage, you have four very credible witnesses who will be happy to testify as to your actions and intent.”

  He spoke, however, with more conviction than he felt. A good defense barrister could get round trace evidence unless it was DNA—juries loved DNA—and he’d heard from Gemma that Chris Abbott was already denying everything she’d told Gemma and Melody, including possession of the gun.

  It would be a long and painstaking business to put together a case against Abbott that would stick, but at least the man would do no further damage.

  The medics who had arrived at the cottage along with the police had been surprised to find they had a canine rather than a human patient, but they were Tavie’s colleagues and had willingly loaded Finn, Tavie, and Kieran into the ambulance. Tavie had arranged for the vet who worked with the SAR team to meet them at her clinic.

  DC Imogen Bell had arrived with the local coppers and offered quite solicitously to give Freddie a lift home, although it had seemed to Kincaid that Freddie was suddenly much less in need of looking after.

  They had all been high on adrenaline the first few hours after Ross Abbott’s arrest. But now Kincaid felt more shaken than he liked to admit, and he kept wondering if he should have handled things differently. Had he let his anger over the Craigs’ deaths affect his judgment? He’d endangered his partner and three civilians. And yet, if he’d waited for tactical backup, he felt very sure that both Kieran Connolly and Finn would be dead.

  So why was the decision weighing on him so heavily?

  Maybe, he thought, maybe it was time he had a break.

  A shadow fell across his office. He looked up, startled, to find Chief Superintendent Childs standing in his doorway. Childs, for such a big man, always seemed to move soundlessly.

  Unlike yesterday at the Craigs’, Childs was perfectly turned out in his usual bespoke dark suit, his Remembrance Day poppy bright as a spot of blood in his lapel.

  “Sir,” said Kincaid, starting to stand.

  “No, stay as you are.” Childs waved Kincaid back into his chair. “But I won’t sit, if you don’t mind.” Kincaid’s visitor’s chairs were not made to fit Denis Childs.

  “Sir, what are you doing in on a Sunday?”

  “A meeting with the commissioner.” He studied Kincaid for a moment. “I suppose all’s well that ends well with the Meredith case. A good result.”

  Kincaid was not about to be patted on the back. “Ross Abbott would have had no motive to kill Becca Meredith if not for Angus Craig.”

  “I told the commissioner you’d say that.” Childs sighed. “He feels, however, that making public the ordeals of the female officers involved would only do them more harm. That is, if any of the women would agree to it, and I think it unlikely.”

  Kincaid stared at him. “You can’t mean to sweep Jenny Hart’s murder under the carpet as well.”

  “The DNA from the crime scene will be compared with Craig’s,” Childs said obliquely, and Kincaid took that to mean that the results of the comparison might conveniently fail to be released.

  “What about a DNA test on Chris Abbott’s youngest son?”

  Childs shook his head. “I doubt very much that his mother would agree to that. Or that a magistrate would grant a warrant against her wishes. And what exactly do you feel that would accomplish?

  “Even if DCI Abbott is found not to have been aware of her husband’s actions, or of his intentions, do you not think her life will be difficult enough without having the legitimacy of her child brought into question?” Childs went on. “Not to mention the damage done to
the child. Let it go, Duncan. Spend some time with your family, and when you come back, this will all seem much less complicated.”

  Meaning, Kincaid thought, that he had better be less difficult. It was a dismissal, and for an instant, he wondered if he would have an office to come back to.

  He stood so that he met Childs’s eyes directly. “Sir.”

  “Good man.” Childs brushed his lapel. “I must dash. Diane’s kept Sunday lunch waiting.” He started towards the door, then turned back, casually. “Oh, by the way, I heard this morning that the DCI heading one of the murder teams in Lambeth had a massive coronary yesterday. Poor chap. It’s touch and go at the moment, I think. But someone will have to fill his post for the time being, and Gemma’s name has been put forward as acting DCI. Would she be interested, do you think?”

  Temporary promotion? Heading a murder team?

  It smacked of a bribe, Kincaid thought. And yet Gemma was both capable and deserving. He couldn’t take the opportunity away from her, and certainly he could never tell her he thought the offer was a convenient sweetener designed to keep him quiet.

  “Sir,” he said. “That would be entirely up to her.”

  Doug Cullen stood in the middle of the sitting room of his new house in Putney, disconsolately surveying the boxes he and Melody had ferried over from the old flat the day before. He hadn’t thought he had much in the way of possessions, but the things seemed to have found a way of multiplying, and now he had no idea what to do with them.

  He’d scheduled a half day off work tomorrow to oversee the removal van bringing the rest of his bits and bobs. Not that that was likely to win him any points with his new guv’nor, but his lease on the old flat was up as of today and he’d had no choice.

  Perhaps having the bigger pieces of furniture would help, he thought, although really, there wasn’t much point in doing more than making a place to eat and sleep until he’d tackled the painting and decorating.