He sat down on one of the sturdier boxes, his chin in his hand, wondering if he’d made a dreadful mistake with the whole house idea, when there was a rap on the door.
Guiltily, he jumped up, as if he’d been caught slacking, then chided himself as he went to the door. He wasn’t expecting anyone, and besides, it was his house and he could sit on a bloody box if he liked.
But when he opened the door, he felt a flush of surprise and pleasure. It was Melody, carrier bag in hand.
“You’ll have to fix the bell, you know,” she said. “It doesn’t work.”
“Do come in, why don’t you?” he snapped back, instantly irritated. “I’ll add it to the list.”
Unperturbed, Melody followed him into the sitting room and surveyed his lack of progress. “Feeling a bit overwhelmed, I take it? I thought maybe you could use some help.”
“Sorry,” said Doug, abashed. “You’re right. I can’t quite figure out where to start.”
“This should help.” Melody opened the carrier bag and pulled out a bottle of champagne. It was, Doug saw, already chilled. And expensive. “And I thought you might not have glasses here yet,” she added as she removed two champagne flutes carefully wrapped in a tea towel.
Yet, thought Doug. Trust Melody to unthinkingly bring champagne that he could never afford, but try to be tactful about the fact that she knew he wouldn’t own champagne glasses.
“I thought we could toast to new beginnings,” she said, a little more tentatively. “New house, new boss.”
“Brilliant. Thanks.” Doug wasn’t sure how he felt about either of those things at the moment, but at least, thanks to his former girlfriend, he knew how to open a bottle of champagne properly. Taking bottle and glasses into the kitchen, he peeled back the foil, then used the tea towel to cover the cork as he eased it out.
There was a soft pop of escaping gas as the cork came free, then he tilted the pale gold liquid deftly into the glasses.
“You’ve missed your calling,” teased Melody as she accepted hers.
“Headwaiter? That’s a thought,” he said as he lifted his own glass. “Probably better pay and easier hours.”
“Cheers.” Melody clinked the lip of her glass against his. “And I hear you were a bit of a hero yesterday, so we should drink to that, too.”
“Me?”
“With the arrest and everything. I wish I’d been there,” Melody added on a wistful note.
“No, you don’t,” said Doug, more harshly than he intended. He couldn’t tell her how ashamed he felt, remembering how he’d stood there, frozen as a dummy, while Ross Abbott waved his gun at them. He should have been the one to tackle Abbott, and instead he’d let his guv’nor risk his life.
It didn’t bear thinking about.
“Sorry,” he said, again. “Cheers.” He tipped back half his glass, then sputtered as the bubbles went up his nose.
“Easy with that stuff.” Melody smiled, but he detected a hint of concern beneath it. “I’ll tell you what. The boxes can wait. Let’s have a look at the garden. Then I believe you owe me an uninterrupted lunch, Sergeant Cullen, with an Eton Mess for afters. We can make sock monkeys together.”
“Sock monkeys?” He looked at her as if she’d gone completely round the twist. Was this some sort of weird proposition?
“At the Jolly Gardeners,” Melody explained. “I saw the notice when we were there before. You can make sock puppets while you’re having Sunday lunch. They even provide the socks.” She finished her glass, her cheeks going slightly pink. “Where’s your sense of adventure, Dougie?”
Where was it, indeed? Doug thought his life had suddenly taken an unexpectedly surreal turn. But, then, what did he have to lose?
“Okay,” he said. “The boxes can wait. Sock monkeys. Why ever not?”
Freddie had mopped the mud and blood off the cottage floor. Yesterday’s storms had blown through and left the day washed sparkling clean, so he’d opened the windows to air the place out and turned on the central heating to take away the chilly damp that seemed to have settled into the bones of the cottage since Becca’s death.
He swept and tidied, and when he found the photo lying facedown on the carpet, he looked at it for a long moment, then put it away in a drawer. He didn’t want to think about Ross Abbott again, at least not until the trial.
He’d taken his revenge last night. It had been swift and sweet, and he felt no remorse.
He’d rung every one of the crew of their year’s Blue Boat and told them what Ross had done in the Boat Race. That would be enough. While Ross’s career might survive a murder trial, the power of the rowing grapevine would send his reputation up in flames.
A token, against Becca’s life, but fitting that Ross Abbott should lose the thing that mattered to him most.
Freddie, however, wasn’t at all sure what mattered to him anymore. It came to him, as he looked round the cottage, that he loved this place, and felt at home here in a way he never had in the Malthouse flat. Once the legal criteria had been met, he could sell the flat and move back into the cottage. Maybe he could make a Guy Fawkes bonfire of the Malthouse furnishings, he thought wryly.
Would he mind sharing this house with Becca’s ghost? he wondered. As he stood quietly, he realized he’d come to see that in spite of their flaws and their mistakes, they had loved each other. And in some odd, bittersweet way, it helped salve his grief. He would be all right here.
But although Becca’s generosity would leave him once more financially stable, he found he’d lost all interest in developing property or in moving in the circles where nothing one had was ever quite good enough.
What, then? Convincing people to invest money in one scheme or another was all he’d ever done. He had no real or useful skills.
Through the open window, he heard the sound of tires on tarmac. When he looked out, a battered Land Rover was stopping on the verge by the cottage.
It was Kieran’s car—he recognized it from yesterday—and tied on the roof rack was the canvas-covered but unmistakable slender shape of a single shell.
Freddie went out and met Kieran at the garden gate.
“I thought you might be here,” said Kieran, looking pleased, and Freddie realized it was the first time he’d seen him smile. It transformed his thin face, and Freddie knew he’d glimpsed the man Becca had known.
“Are you all right?” he asked. “How’s Finn?”
“Stitched, bandaged, and a bit groggy from the pain meds. But the vet says he’ll be okay. We just have to keep him from overdoing things until he heals. Tavie’s home keeping an eagle eye on him.”
The last was said with such easiness that Freddie thought Kieran might not be needing the boatshed as a place to live anytime soon. He felt glad for him, and a little envious.
“I’ve been cleaning up the shed,” Kieran went on, “seeing what’s salvageable. And I thought”—he nodded towards the roof rack—“as it survived by a miracle, it was time someone gave the boat a trial run.”
He walked round the Land Rover and pulled the canvas free. The rich mahogany hull of Becca’s boat shone in the sun, and Freddie felt his breath catch in his throat.
“Will you help me get her down?” asked Kieran. “I don’t think Becca’s neighbors will mind if we launch from their raft.”
Kieran pulled a pair of oars from the back of the Land Rover, then together they lifted the shell and carried it down to the water. The shell seemed weightless to Freddie, the wood warm as a woman’s skin.
“I’ve made some adjustments to the rigging,” Kieran said as they turned the boat over and set it gently in the water beside the small floating raft. Kieran placed an oar across the shell’s midsection to hold it steady, then looked up at Freddie. “You’d better take your shoes off. I’ve attached a pair of my trainers to the footboard. They should fit you well enough.”
Freddie stared at him. “You want me to take her out? But—”
“Who better?” said Kieran. “And I’d like your
opinion. I need to know if this whole idea was utterly daft.”
“But I haven’t rowed in . . .”
“Don’t worry. You won’t have forgotten how.”
Freddie looked at the shell, then at the Thames, gleaming back at him, still as a pond.
Wordlessly, he pulled off his shoes and stepped into the boat. Sliding his feet into the trainers, he found that they did indeed fit. He took the second oar from Kieran and fastened both in their gates, then moved the seat backwards and forwards a few inches, testing the action of the rollers.
Then Kieran gave him a push and he was out into the current and moving downstream. His hands fit the oar grips as if molded to them, and as the oars bit into the water at the catch, he felt the boat lift.
Muscle memory took over. Drive, release, drive, release, and he was at one with the boat and the boat was singing over the water.
Droplets slung from the rising oars spattered his face, the water a cold benediction. A bubble of joy rose in his chest, and he realized that not since he was a child had he rowed just for the pleasure of it.
And then he saw that there was one place his skills might be of use. He had the old barn right on the river, a place that could be put to better use than luxury flats. It would, in fact, make a perfect boat builder’s workshop.
He’d spent years talking investors into buying property. Why couldn’t he convince rowing enthusiasts to invest money in something much more useful—beautiful, one-of-a-kind boats. And in the builder who made them.
If Kieran would have him as a partner.
By early Sunday evening, the Notting Hill household was a beehive of activity, not all of it productive.
The boys were wound up over tomorrow’s return to school after half-term. Toby expressed this by imitating a human Ping-Pong ball, zooming round the house and sometimes literally bouncing off the walls.
Kit, who had hardly spoken a word to anyone since their return from Glastonbury, was suddenly voluble, rattling on about a biology project he hadn’t finished and spreading books and papers all over the kitchen table, although Kincaid couldn’t detect any actual work being done.
As for Gemma, ever since Kincaid had returned from the Yard, she’d been rushing round the house like a dervish, tidying, organizing, and making reams of complicated lists which she then tacked up on every available surface.
Charlotte, unsettled by the activity, clung to Gemma whenever possible and periodically burst into tears. They had told her about the coming change in routine as casually as possible, just saying that she and Duncan would have some special time together for a few hours every day while Gemma went to the police station and the boys were at school.
“You will remember that she doesn’t like Marmite?” said Gemma, sticking yet another list to the fridge door with a Quidditch-broom magnet. Aware that she was being talked about, Charlotte wrapped her arms round Gemma’s leg and whimpered. “Just butter on her toast in the morning,” Gemma went on, “and no marms in her orange juice.”
“Marms?” Duncan shook his head over that one. Then, exasperated, he said, “For heaven’s sake, Gemma, you’re not going on the QE2. And none of this is rocket science. I’m sure we’ll manage perfectly well.”
Gemma gave him a surprised glance, then suddenly looked so appalled that he was sure someone, somewhere, had made a critical mistake.
“Dinner,” she said. “With everything else, I completely forgot. We’ve nothing for dinner.”
“Pizza!” shouted Toby, and everyone else, including Kit, groaned.
“Not again,” said Kit. “I don’t think I can face another pizza.”
Kincaid grinned. “Never thought I’d hear that. The earth just rocked on its axis.” And, he thought, it was time that he started as he meant to go on. Opening the kitchen cupboard, he peered in. “There’s spaghetti and a jar of pasta sauce. Kit, the dogs need a run, if you can tear yourself away from your project. While you’re out, you can go to Tesco Express and pick up a salad and some Italian sausage.”
Kit rolled his eyes at the project comment, but said, “Okay. No prob.”
“Spag bol,” Toby chanted. “Spag bol, spag bol—”
“That sounds disgusting,” Gemma scolded him, although she looked relieved at having had the dinner issue taken out of her hands. “Say it properly. Spaghetti bolognese.” She gave it an exaggerated Italian emphasis.
“Sounds like eyeballs,” said Kit wickedly. “Eyeballs and worms, just in time for Halloween. Yum.”
Charlotte began to wail. “Don’t want eyeballs.”
But the boys were poking each other and dancing round the kitchen making scary noises, and that in turn made the dogs begin to bark.
“Enough!” said Kincaid, his level of tolerance breached. He hadn’t quite shouted, but for a moment, at least, the pandemonium stopped.
“Okay. Sorry, Dad.” Kit held out his hand. “But you have to gimme the cash, mon.”
This time it was Kincaid who rolled his eyes, but he pulled a note from his wallet and handed it over.
“I want sweeties,” chimed in Toby. “I want to go.”
“No. And no.” Kincaid was not going to hear any argument. “You get your books in your backpack for school in the morning.”
Kit called the dogs, and when Kincaid heard the sound of their nails clicking on the bare floor, he suddenly realized he’d forgotten all about Edie Craig’s dog. Barney.
Going into the hall, he fished in his jacket pocket until he found the crumpled piece of paper with the neighbor’s name on it. The files hadn’t revealed any close kin for either of the Craigs, but something would have to be done about the dog.
He’d take Charlotte to Hambleden, he decided, one day when the boys were at school. He’d talk to the barman at the pub again, and perhaps the vicar. And if no one in the village wanted Barney, perhaps Tavie would know someone who did.
It seemed the least he could do for Edie Craig, and he felt, once again, how badly he had failed her.
“Dad?” said Kit softly. He’d clipped on the dogs’ leads but had stopped at the door, watching him. “You okay?”
“I’m fine.” Kincaid smiled and tucked the paper back in his pocket, but this time he folded it neatly. “You’d better hurry or there’ll be riots below decks.”
He watched Kit and the dogs out the door, then went back into the kitchen, trying to remember where he’d seen an onion and some garlic for the spaghetti sauce. He would get the hang of this, he thought, with a little practice.
“The yellow bowl to the right of the sink,” said Gemma, and grinned at him.
“How did you—”
But before he got any further, her phone rang. He knew, even before she answered, what the call was.
While she retrieved the mobile from beneath Kit’s schoolwork, Kincaid shooed Toby from the room. “Go put your jammies out on the bed,” he said. “You can have the skull ones, for Halloween.”
Then he detached Charlotte from Gemma’s leg, hefting her onto his hip. “If you’re really, really good,” he whispered in her ear, “we’ll play airplane after dinner. Or maybe before,” he amended, thinking perhaps that flying a child upside down after spag bol was not the best idea.
“Before,” said Charlotte firmly, for entirely different reasons.
“Oh, hi, Mark, how are you?” Gemma was saying. She sounded pleased but a little uncertain.
Mark Lamb, Kincaid thought. Gemma’s boss, and his old police-college mate. They’d made Lamb emissary.
Gemma was listening, nodding, but her face had gone very still.
“I’ll read you a story after dinner, then,” Kincaid murmured to Charlotte.
“Alice?”
“Alice always.” He wondered how soon he would know the entire book by heart. “Always Alice.”
Charlotte giggled and buried her face against his shoulder.
“Right,” said Gemma into the phone. She was looking at him now, her brows lifted in surprise. “That’s too bad,” she
responded to the faint voice issuing from the mobile’s speaker. “But of course I’ll be glad to help out. Right. Lambeth. Tomorrow morning. First thing. Thanks, sir. I’ll see you, then.”
Gemma clicked off, then stood with the phone still in her hand, staring at it with a stunned expression.
Then she looked up at Kincaid, and the smile lit her face like a sunrise.
“I’ve got a new job,” she said.
Acknowledgments
Books are a little like children—it takes a village to make one, and my village spans the Atlantic.
Many thanks to all who have provided help, support, and encouragement on both sides of the Pond, but especially to:
The staff, crew, and members of Leander Club, Henley-on-Thames, particularly Kerry Smith, Mariam Lewis, Nick Aitchinson, Paul Budd, and Graham Hall, all of whom were unfailingly generous with their time, hospitality, and advice.
A very special thanks to Steve Williams, OBE, two-time Olympic gold medalist and former captain of Leander, who not only gave me insight into the life and mind of an elite rower but risked life and limb by taking me out on the Thames in a rowing shell. It was an experience I will never forget, and the book is much the better for it.
Ian Richardson is responsible for introducing me to Leander; Rosalie Stevens, for touring me around Barnes—a huge thanks to you both.
For assistance with K9 Search and Rescue, I owe much to Susannah Charleson for her patience in answering my questions in the early stages of the book. Daryl and Niki Toogood of Berkshire Search and Rescue (with treats and wags to Guinness and Scrumpy) gave invaluable help and advice—as well as letting me practice being a victim and handling a search dog. Hugs to you both.
And then there are the first-line readers and brainstorming crew, all deserving of medals: Kate Charles, Marcia Talley, Julie Gerber, Diane Hale, Tracy Ricketts, Barb Jungr, Steve Ullathorne, and especially Gigi Norwood, who should get a gold medal for her patience, support, and encouragement. You all made the book possible.
Laura Maestro’s map has brought Henley charmingly to life and added a special dimension to the book.
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