No Mark Upon Her

real, as was Milo Jachym’s.
    Not that he hadn’t known murderers who grieved for their victims, and murderers who could project emotion as convincingly as the most skilled actor. Things were always so much more complicated than they appeared on the surface.
    But here . . . there was something else at play, some undercurrent running through this case that he couldn’t pinpoint. He would just have to wait and see what developed.
    In the meantime, Childs’s offhand comment made him feel profoundly uneasy. “Sir, why would we think it had something to do with us?”
    “Duncan, you know as well as I do what happens whenever a police officer of any rank dies under suspicious circumstances.” Childs’s tone was unusually impatient. “You can expect our fevered friends from the media on your doorstep by tomorrow morning. DCI Meredith’s life, and her career, will be put under the microscope.” Childs paused, and Kincaid could imagine him steepling his fingers in his familiar Buddha pose. “Of course,” Childs went on, “the best result would be that you find Meredith’s death an unfortunate accident. Ring me in the morning.” With that, Chief Superintendent Childs hung up.
    And without, Kincaid realized, answering his question.
    He sat on, under the portico, gazing at the phone in his hand, replaying the conversation in his head. Surely he had misinterpreted what he’d heard. Because he could have sworn that his guv’nor had just suggested that he fix the outcome of an investigation.

Chapter Eight

It is an annual four-and-a-quarter rowing race from Putney to Mortlake on the river Thames between two of the most prestigious universities in the world, Oxford and Cambridge. The competitors train twice a day, six days a week, striving to achieve their goal of representing their universities. Everything else in their lives becomes secondary. It is not done for money but for honour and the hope of victory. There is no second place, as second is last. They call it simply The Boat Race .
—David and James Livingston
Blood Over Water

    T he persistently ringing phone pricked at Freddie’s consciousness. He wanted to swat the sound away, but his brain didn’t seem willing to connect with his body. It was only when the noise stopped that he managed to open one eye. He was lying on his back, but what he saw was not his bedroom ceiling.
    He squinched his eye shut again while he tried to place the image. Arched ceiling. White. Black beams. Recognition dawned. His sitting room.
    With mounting panic, he opened both eyes and lifted his head. Pain shot through his skull, but before he closed his eyes again, he’d seen that he was lying on his sofa, and that he was still wearing his dress shirt and trousers, although not his shoes or—he felt his collar—his tie. His phone lay on the coffee table, beside an empty bottle of Balvenie. There were two glasses. A recollection flickered. Milo. He’d had a few drinks with Milo. But what—
    The phone started to ring again, as if his thoughts had triggered it, and he groaned. “Just shut it,” he tried to say, but his voice came out in a croak. He grabbed for the phone and the motion brought on a wave of nausea, and with it, memory.
    Becca. Oh, God. The pieces clicked together in his fuzzy brain. Milo had brought him home and poured him scotch after scotch. They’d stopped at the off-license on the way back from the cottage, after the Scotland Yard man had told him he couldn’t take Becca’s bottle of Balvenie. Because it wasn’t his. Because it might be evidence. Because Becca was dead.
    Freddie lurched to his feet and staggered to the bathroom. He fell to his knees, his forehead resting on the cool seat of the toilet, and vomited until there was nothing left to come up.
    When the heaving finally stopped, he lifted his head and sat with his back against the wall, cataloging what he saw, as if that could block out knowledge. Gray-stained plank floor. Gray walls. Glass shower. White porcelain sink. The freestanding tub, its body wrapped in black, riveted metal. And above it all, glimpsed when he painfully raised his eyes, the crystal chandelier.
    When he’d bought this flat after the divorce, he’d hired an interior designer from London, hoping, he supposed, that Becca would somehow be impressed with his new lifestyle.
    When she’d come to see the flat, she’d gazed at the chandelier, then given him the look . The look that meant she thought he had utterly lost the