No Mark Upon Her

whiskies and signed the bill to his room.
    “You go enjoy your four-poster,” he told Doug. “Dream of Charles I, but before you do that, see what you can find out about Freddie Atterton for me.” He knew Cullen had come straight to Henley without his laptop, but he had confidence in his partner’s resourcefulness.
    He, on the other hand, was regretting a bit too much food as well as the second scotch he’d had during dinner. Now he felt that what he needed was a walk and some fresh air.
    After parting company with Doug in the lobby, he left the hotel, hesitating for a moment as he took his bearings from what he remembered of his previous visits to Henley. Unlike Doug, whose recollections of the town seemed a schoolboy’s idyll, his were uncomfortable, pricked with flashes of things better not done and roads not taken.
    He thought of the woman they had found in the river and of the neon yellow jacket that had not kept her safe. Had she liked her life here?
    Death had erased all character from Rebecca Meredith’s face. He could only form an impression from the glimpses of her he’d seen in the few photos on the shelves in her cottage—and from the emotion he’d seen on the faces of those who had known her.
    What had happened to her last night on the river, this strong and competent woman?
    Crossing the street, he walked to the middle of the bridge and gazed downstream. The Thames looked dark, fathomless, and he couldn’t imagine going out alone, at dusk, in a fragile slip of a boat.
    On the far side of the bridge, a light blinked off in Leander. What were they feeling at the club, he wondered, with the loss of one of their own? How would they react to this evidence of their own mortality?
    Tomorrow he would talk to them—friends, crewmates, coaches. And he would need to speak to Becca’s boss and her colleagues at the Met.
    For a moment, he paled at the prospect. He felt stained by others’ grief, as if it had steeped into his skin like old tea. He had never, in his more than twenty years of police work, become inured to watching people absorb the shock of death.
    He’d hated it as a uniformed plod, as Freddie Atterton had so unflatteringly described the constable. He hated it perhaps even more now.
    But then his curiosity took hold, as it always did. He wanted to know who this woman had been, who had liked her, loved her, hated her. He wanted to know how she had died. And if someone was responsible for her death, he wanted to see justice done. This was what kept him in the job.
    Walking back to the signal, he stood, watching the green crossing light blink. The Angel on the Bridge beckoned on the upstream side of the bridge, but he wasn’t tempted by the pub. It was the walk up Thames Side that threatened to seduce him.
    Was the gallery still there? Might one of Julia Swann’s paintings be displayed in the window? And her flat, a bit farther down, where he had once spent a night—did she still live there?
    But no. He shook his head. It was better not to know. He was a married—make that much-married—man now, and the past was best left in the past, without regrets.
    And it was time to call his boss.
    He was turning back towards the hotel when something caught his eye—a glimpse of a man walking down Hart Street and turning the corner by the pub. Then the Angel blocked the figure from view, but the image had registered.
    A tall man, his gait a bit unsteady, a black dog at his side. Even in jeans and jacket rather than the dark uniform, he was instantly recognizable as the SAR handler who’d insisted on going with them to the boat. Kieran. Kieran Connolly.
    His behavior had been a bit odd that afternoon, Kincaid thought, and added an interview with Connolly to his mental to-do list.
    Shrugging, he returned to the hotel, but he still didn’t feel quite ready to go up to his room. He sat on the iron bench under the hotel’s portico and rang his chief superintendent at home, giving Childs a report on the events of the day.
    When he’d related his interview with Atterton, Childs was silent for a moment, as was his usual way. Then, he said, “It would certainly be convenient if it turned out to be the ex-husband.”
    “Convenient?”
    “Well, you know. Domestic tragedy. Nothing to do with us. Quickly wrapped up.”
    Kincaid had to admit he was intrigued by the relationship between Atterton and his ex-wife. It seemed an oddly amicable divorce, and he’d sensed that Freddie Atterton’s grief was