No Mark Upon Her

overnight.
    “I want to talk to the coach at Leander Club,” Kincaid said quietly to Cullen, when they’d crossed the single-plank bridge into the first meadow, and he thought he could see the shapes of the cars in the distance. “Wasn’t he the last person to have seen her?”
    “The ex-husband reported her missing,” said Singla, from behind them.
    “Him, too. But first the coach, I think. And we’ll need somewhere to stay—”
    “All in hand.” Cullen sounded pleased with himself. “I rang the Red Lion on the way down. It’s just across the river from Leander.”
    Kincaid glanced at him and saw only the glint of his glasses in the darkness. “How did you get here so quickly anyway? Levitate?”
    Cullen’s reply came reluctantly. “Um, Melody gave me a lift.”
    “What were you doing with Melody?” Kincaid asked, surprised.
    “Buying her lunch. In Putney.” Cullen had begun to sound a bit defensive. “She came round to have a look at the house.”
    “Ah.” Kincaid processed this. He’d been aware of Doug’s venture into homeownership, but as far as he knew, Doug and Melody barely tolerated each other. This, however, was not the time or place to inquire further. “Well, good. It’s official, then, the house?”
    “As of this morning.”
    Kincaid patted him on the shoulder, a little clumsily as his right foot twisted in a hollow. “We’ll have a drink on it later.”
    He grimaced as he took another step, but it had less to do with the twinge in his ankle and more with the thought of staying here in Henley, leaving Gemma home alone with the children. This was not what they’d planned for this week.
    As if sensing his train of thought, Cullen said very softly as they approached the cars, “Guv, I know you’ve got leave coming up. This case—do you think there’s anything to it?”
    And Kincaid could have sworn there was a note of hope in his voice.
    “Y ou’ve been here before, I take it?” Kincaid asked.
    Cullen had directed him over the Henley Bridge, then into the first turning. There was a dark mass of a building on his left, a gated car park on his right, and no obvious place to put the car.
    They had left DI Singla to begin setting up an incident room at Henley Police Station, Cullen murmuring, “He’s a bit taciturn, wouldn’t you say?”
    “No more than you or I would be under the circumstances, I suspect,” Kincaid had answered. “Would you want a Met officer dead on your patch?”
    Cullen had shaken his head. “I wouldn’t be jumping for joy over the prospect, no.”
    Now Cullen said, “Pull up to the dead end. The field beyond is where they put up the regatta enclosures, but it won’t be in use now. The club’s on the left.”
    When Kincaid had duly parked and climbed out of the Astra, he saw that the building had appeared dark because it was flanked by a high brick wall, a visual moat. Above the wall, he saw red-tiled gables atop white-framed panels of pebbledash, and on the upper floors light glinted from a multitude of windows. There was an arched doorway in the wall that opened onto an inner courtyard.
    Kincaid touched his fingers to the brick as they passed through. “A chastity belt for an Edwardian dowager?” he suggested.
    “It’s Leander ,” Doug protested, as if Kincaid had just insulted the holy of holies. “And it’s not dowdy. The building was completely refurbished in the late nineties.”
    That didn’t make it an architectural gem, Kincaid thought, but he kept his opinion to himself. “So you rowed here?”
    “Oh, no.” Doug sounded shocked. “I mean, I never rowed from Leander, as a member. But I rowed in regattas here in Henley, when I was at school.” The casually mentioned school had been, in Doug’s case, Eton—a fact that he rarely admitted in police environs.
    “And at university?” Kincaid asked.
    “No.” Doug shook his head as they reached glass doors sheltered by a fluted iron canopy. “Wasn’t good enough. Too big for a cox, too small for a really powerful oarsman.”
    Kincaid opened the door, and they stepped into a lobby that was more elegant than the building’s exterior. The decor centered round a glass-topped coffee table with a sculpted bronze hippo as its base.
    Lights still burned in a glass-fronted but very business-like office area on the lobby’s right. A young woman sitting at one of the desks saw them, stood, and came out, looking at them inquiringly. She wore a pale pink blouse and a navy skirt,