No Mark Upon Her

“Well, what do you like?”
    “That’s the trouble.” He shrugged. “I don’t know. I hate my flat. It’s bare and depressing. And I hate my parents’ house. Dark, stuffy, and full of my mum’s knickknacks. Nothing was ever meant to be touched.”
    “There should be a happy medium somewhere.” Melody turned slowly in a circle as she considered the rooms. She wondered what she would choose for herself if she wiped the slate bare of the hand-me-downs from her mum, the things that just “didn’t suit anymore” in her parents’ Kensington town house. “I’d start by finding some things you like and not worrying about whether they go together,” she said. “There’s a great auction room in Chelsea, near the power station in Lot’s Road. You could have a look, see what tickles your fancy.”
    Good God, had she really said tickles your fancy ? What was wrong with her today?
    But Doug seemed oblivious to any innuendo. He nodded and said, as if it were a novel idea, “I suppose I could.”
    “It’ll come right. You’ll see.” Melody felt suddenly claustrophobic, even in the empty rooms. “I think you’ve done brilliantly, Doug. I love the house. But I’d better be getting back to Notting Hill.”
    “I promised you lunch,” he said.
    “Oh. So you did.” She wondered if she could get through lunch without putting her foot farther into her mouth. “What did you have in mind?”
    He grinned. “Something very appropriate, I think. Now that I know your deep, dark secret. It’s called the Jolly Gardeners.”
    S hrugging off Tavie’s hand, Kieran popped the latch on Finn’s crate and hooked the lead to the dog’s collar. “I know who she is,” he said to Tavie, keeping his back turned. He hadn’t trusted his face or his voice, not since he’d heard Tavie say her name, dropping it so casually, like a stone tossed into the river.
    It had taken a moment for the full weight of it to sink into his mind. Rebecca. Rebecca Meredith. He never thought of her as anything but Becca.
    Nor did he automatically connect her with the last name Meredith, although of course he knew it, as any rower would. But Rebecca Meredith was a stranger to him, a woman who wore suits and went off to London on weekday mornings, worked in an office in a police station, left polystyrene coffee cups littered on a desk he’d never seen. A woman who had once been married to this man, Atterton. He knew now why Atterton’s face had seemed familiar. He’d seen a younger version in a few old photos, collecting dust at the back of a bookcase in Becca’s sitting room.
    Rebecca Meredith was not the woman who rowed as easily as most people breathe, who laughed as she pushed damp hair from her eyes and lifted a boat to her hip, or pulled the sheet up over a bare shoulder gilded by lamplight.
    “Becca,” he whispered. Please let it not be Becca . But he knew all too well that she took the scull out at dusk, and that the best he could hope was that there was some completely rational explanation for her disappearance. He was letting his mind play games, and that was a dangerous indulgence.
    Finn pushed against him and licked his chin. He knew it was time to go to work, didn’t understand Kieran’s hesitation. “Good boy,” Kieran said, and stepped back so that Finn could jump down.
    The dogs greeted each other with sniffs and wagging tails, but their attention came quickly back to their handlers. Tavie was watching him with an expression of concern that bordered on apprehension, so he forced a smile.
    “You look like shit,” Tavie said. The smile hadn’t fooled her for a second.
    “You’re always one for the compliments.” His stab at their usual banter sounded false even to him. “I’m okay, really.” He nodded towards the bag she’d taken from her kit in the truck. “Let’s get on with it. What have you got for the dogs?”
    “I raided the laundry hamper when we cleared the cottage to make sure she wasn’t there. It was a treasure trove—socks or undies for every team. But let’s get over the fence first.” Tavie led the way through the gate, with Tosh crabbing sideways and stepping on her boots in her eagerness. Finn seemed unusually subdued, and Kieran knew the dog was picking up on his mood.
    When they were clear of the fence, with only the muddy expanse of meadow between them and the river path, Tavie stopped. She and Kieran unclipped both dogs’ leads, then, slipping on gloves, she opened the bag—bags,