No Mark Upon Her

and Kincaid was suddenly aware that he had been tromping across rain-sodden fields in the clothes he’d been wearing since he’d begun the day playing with the children—he certainly didn’t look the most reputable of policemen.
    “Can I help you?” she said.
    He ran his fingers through his hair, pulled his warrant card case from his pocket, and smiled. “Duncan Kincaid. Detective superintendent, Scotland Yard. And this is Sergeant Cullen. There was an incident today—”
    “Becca?” the young woman said. She lifted her hand, her fingers brushing her collarbone in an instinctive gesture of shock. “Is she all right? The police were here, and the people with the dogs, but no one’s told us anything.”
    “I’d like to speak to the coach who saw her going out on the river yesterday,” Kincaid said, avoiding the question as gently as he could. Rumors would be flying around, but he wanted to break the news first to the people Rebecca Meredith had known best. “Mr.—”
    “Jachym. Milo Jachym,” Cullen contributed. He didn’t have to consult his notes.
    “I—I think he’s in the Member’s Bar,” the young woman said. “I’ll take you up.” She started towards a flight of stairs that appeared to lead up to a mezzanine, then turned back. “I’m Lily Meyberg, by the way, the house manager.” She held out a slender hand, and when Kincaid took it, he felt the calluses on her palms and the strength of her grip. A rower? he wondered. And if so, possibly more than a casual acquaintance of the victim?
    He followed her, noticing as he passed a glass-fronted case displaying mugs and teacups decorated with the dancing pink hippos that seemed to be the Leander mascot, along with caps and ties in the infamous Leander cerise.
    As he climbed, he saw that the walls of the stairwell were lined with photos of groups of muscular men and women in rowing singlets, sporting gaudy medals.
    “Redgrave, Pinsent, Williams, Foster, Cracknell . . .” Doug’s whisper was reverent, and he looked as if he was resisting the temptation to touch the photos as he passed. These, Kincaid knew, were the gold-medal winners, rowing’s gods.
    At the top of the stairs they reached a reception area, but the desk and the dining room beyond were empty. Back to the right, however, Kincaid heard the murmur of voices and the clink of china and cutlery.
    He peered round the corner into another dining area—a pleasant, casual room with a bar at its end that must overlook the building’s front. The few diners at the white-clothed tables looked up at him curiously, implements frozen. As he turned back to reception, he sensed the tension of whispers beginning to build behind him.
    “I’ll take you back,” Lily was saying. She led them not through the dining room that he had seen, but along a corridor that ran parallel to it, towards the front of the building.
    “It seems there’s not much custom tonight,” he said. In spite of the sparseness of diners, delicious odors were wafting from somewhere nearby, and Kincaid realized he was starving. Their breakfast in Glastonbury that morning seemed a world away. They’d meant to have a late lunch once they reached home, so he had missed the meal altogether.
    “It’s usually quiet on a Tuesday night, unless we have a function on,” said Lily. “But the chef has the crew to cook for, three meals a day, so it’s always busy in the kitchen.”
    “That’s a job,” said Cullen, sounding impressed.
    Lily gave him a quick smile. “They do eat a good bit.”
    As they reached the end of the corridor, two young men carrying kit bags came out of a door marked CREW . They made Kincaid, who was a bit over six feet, feel suddenly dwarfed. Like the diners, the young men glanced curiously at the newcomers, giving them the slightest of nods.
    “Rowers in training need about six thousand calories a day,” Lily added, glancing back at the oarsmen as they disappeared round the corner. As Kincaid tried to calculate what six thousand calories meant in terms of portions, he saw that they had reached a T-junction of sorts, with the bar he’d seen at the end of the dining room to the left, a small service area straight ahead, and to the right, a smaller, more intimate bar, its walls covered with rowing memorabilia and anchored by a large flat-screen television.
    A petite blonde in the service kitchen was making coffee. She wore the same pale pink blouse and navy skirt as Lily, and Kincaid surmised it