No Mark Upon Her

plot.
    “It’s supposed to be eclectic,” he’d said, defending himself.
    “Was she pretty?” Becca had replied.
    When Freddie’s phone started to ring again, he realized he’d left it in the sitting room. He suddenly wondered if it might be someone calling to tell him it was all a mistake, that the body they’d found wasn’t Becca after all. Who was this guy who had identified her, anyway? This rower.
    He pulled himself up and stumbled back into the sitting room, his heart racing, but by the time he got there, the ringing had stopped. He looked at the long list of missed calls—all unfamiliar numbers—and then saw that there was one message. His pulse skipped. What if—
    But when he played it back, a female voice identified herself as a reporter from the London Chronicle , and wondered if he would be willing to give them a quote about his ex-wife.
    Freddie sank onto the sofa, his phone dangling in his hand.
    It was true, then. It had to be true. And he realized what he was going to have to do that day.
    The phone rang once more, the vibration running through his fingers like a shock. He dropped the phone, made a scoop at it, and fumbled it up again. If it was that reporter, he was going to tell her to sod off.
    But the name on the caller ID was familiar, and Freddie nearly sobbed with relief as he answered. “Ross?”
    “Oh, shit, mate,” said Ross Abbott. “Chris heard at work. She wanted me to tell you—I wanted to tell you—we’re so sorry. Is there anything I can do?”
    Freddie looked at the two dark blue Oxford oars mounted on the wall in the sitting room. They had rowed together, twice, he and Ross Abbott, and they’d been friends since they were spotty boys in the same public school. He clutched at the lifeline of the familiar.
    “Ross, I have to—I have to go to the morgue today. To identify her. Will you go with me?”
    K incaid had not slept well, in spite of the luxury of his canopy bed. He realized it had been months since he’d spent the night away from Gemma, and he missed the quiet rhythm of her breathing, her warmth as her body touched his in the night. Not that they’d spent many nights in the last two months without Charlotte crawling in between them in the wee hours of the morning, but he found he missed that, too.
    Lately, Charlotte had taken to snuggling with her back against Gemma and her head on his shoulder, her curly hair tickling his nose. When she drifted off to sleep again, whoever was most awake would pick her up and tuck her back into her own bed, but he always did it with a bit of reluctance. He’d missed that stage with Kit. And Toby, so busy when awake, had always slept as if someone had flipped his Off switch.
    When light began to filter through the crack in the heavy bedroom curtains, he got up, showered, and dressed in his wedding finery. Not for the first time, he was glad he’d worn an ordinary suit for Winnie’s blessing, rather than morning getup. He’d look a right prat trying to conduct an investigation in that.
    Eager to get to the incident room at the police station, he rang Cullen and crushed his partner’s hopes of the full-monty breakfast in the hotel dining room. “There’s a nice café—Maison Blanc, I think—on the way to the station,” Kincaid said. “We can pick up coffee and pastries, and you can fill me in on your research as we walk.”
    A few minutes later, they met in the hotel reception area. Stepping outside, they were greeted with watery sunshine and air that felt almost balmy. Kincaid looked up at the clouds creeping across the sky and frowned. “I don’t trust this weather. But, for the time being, it will make things easier for the forensics team at the boat.” He started up Market Place at a good clip. “So, what did you find on Mr. Atterton?” he asked.
    Cullen pushed his glasses up on his nose, then clasped his hands behind his back as he walked, settling into lecturing mode. “Frederick Thomas Atterton, after his father, Thomas, a well-respected banker in the City. Grew up in Sonning-on-Thames, a village just east of Reading. Real Kenneth Grahame country, according to Melody.”
    “Melody?”
    “There was only so much I could do with just a phone.” Cullen shrugged, a little apologetically. “Had to enlist some help. Anyway, Atterton went to Bedford School, where he began to show a talent for rowing, then Oriel College, Oxford, where he took an undistinguished degree in biology. He seems to have done