No Mark Upon Her

along behind him, he pushed through into a small clearing right on the river’s edge.
    Tavie stood with two uniformed constables and a man and a woman who wore dark Thames Valley Search and Rescue uniforms. Tosh, her German shepherd, was nosing greetings with a springer spaniel and a golden retriever, both of whom wore the distinctive orange SAR vests.
    Kieran, with Finn, had gone straight to the water’s edge.
    Tavie motioned to Kincaid. “Superintendent, this is Scott and Sarah. And Bumps and Meg,” she added, giving the spaniel and the retriever affectionate pats. “They found the boat.”
    DI Singla was murmuring to the uniformed officers, but Kincaid looked at Kieran, who had knelt, his body obscuring the object of his attention. Kieran had dropped Finn’s lead, but the dog sat beside him, watching his master with what Kincaid could have sworn was a furrowed brow.
    Walking over, Kincaid hunkered down until his shoulder was almost touching Kieran’s.
    “It’s not a boat ,” said Kieran, his voice trembling. “I told them before. It’s a Filippi. A racing shell.”
    Kincaid gazed at the sleek lines of the shell. The Filippi was white, with a fine blue line running its length, and it seemed impossibly long and slender, like a sliver of light. A little water was still pooled beneath the seat and runners. “Sort of like calling a Thoroughbred a pony ?” he suggested quietly.
    Kieran nodded, and some of the tension seemed to go out of his shoulders.
    A light nylon rope stretched from one of the shell’s riggers to a sturdy sapling near the bank. One oar lay nearby.
    “We had to turn it over,” said Scott, coming to stand beside them. “The boat. To make sure she wasn’t”—he glanced uneasily at Kieran—“there wasn’t anyone trapped underneath. But we didn’t want to pull it out of the water until the police had seen it.”
    “And the other oar? Was it missing when you found the boat?” Kincaid asked, resisting the temptation to examine the underside of the hull. He’d better leave it for forensics.
    “Yeah,” said Scott, “it was missing, and I had to unfasten that one in order to flip the bloody thing. Got soaked.”
    “How easy is it to flip a single shell like this?”
    It was Cullen who answered. “Happens all the time. You catch a crab—”
    “Not to her, it didn’t,” Kieran said, his voice fierce. “Not on a calm evening, not here.” He looked at Kincaid for the first time since they had reached the bank. “You don’t understand. She was an elite rower. Not some amateur out for a Sunday paddle.”
    “You knew her,” Kincaid said with sudden realization. Behind him, Tavie shifted uncomfortably.
    “Everyone knew her,” Kieran went on. “Rowers, I mean. She was—she could have been—one of the best in the world. And she trained on the reach every day.”
    Kincaid gazed out at the Thames, its surface a silvery shimmer. Scattered lights had begun to twinkle in the dusk, but they were distant, and this spot felt as isolated as the moon. Mist rose from the water like wraiths.
    “So,” he said slowly, “what if she fell ill? Fainted, even? There’d have been no one to help her.”
    “Sudden death.” The reply, unexpectedly, was Cullen’s. “It happens to rowers sometimes. It’s called sudden death .”
    A s they trudged back across the meadows, Kincaid realized he’d forgotten how long light lingered in the sky once one was out of the city. But while shreds of violet stained the deep blue canopy above, the ground beneath their feet was nigh on invisible, and much stumbling and swearing accompanied the progress of all the police officers.
    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