No Mark Upon Her

Essex. “I’m Patterson. Kelly Patterson, Becca’s sergeant.” Her light blue eyes were red-rimmed, her nose pink, as if she’d been crying.
    “Kincaid,” he agreed, nodding. “And this is Sergeant Cullen.”
    “Bryan says it’s official, then, about Becca. A murder inquiry.”
    “News travels fast.”
    She gave him a crooked smile. “Bry’s a wizard with a text. We call him magic fingers. She—” Patterson’s lips tightened for a moment, then she went on. “It drove Becca crazy. And she said I was worse. She threatened to bin both our phones.”
    “But she didn’t.”
    “No. Although I’d not have put it past her, if she was annoyed enough. Look.” Patterson fixed him with a pale blue stare, then glanced at Cullen as if to make certain he was paying attention. “I know you’re not supposed to speak ill of the dead and all that crap, but I’m going to say it anyway. Becca could be a right bitch.
    “But she was an honest bitch, and if she said something, or told you to do something, there was usually a good reason for it. Look,” she said again, glancing at the door of the station and then up towards the windows before she continued. “If anyone asks, I never talked to you. I’ve a four-year-old and a six-year-old at home, and I don’t need to be sticking my nose in. But Becca deserved better than this. And if His Highness upstairs didn’t tell you about Angus Craig, he’s bloody well lying.”
    W hen Kincaid had tried to get more out of Kelly Patterson, she’d shaken her head, and like her partner, had quickly put a closed door between them.
    “Angus Craig?” said Doug when they’d reached the Astra. “Would that be Deputy Assistant Commissioner Angus Craig?”
    Kincaid started the car but let it idle for a moment while he thought. “Retired, as of a few months ago, if I remember correctly.”
    “Do you know him?”
    “Not personally, really, although I’ve met him. He’s given talks at some training courses I’ve been on, and I’ve spoken to him at a couple of leaving parties. He’s one of those hail-fellow-well-met types. A bit too jolly. Edging on pompous.” Frowning, Kincaid checked his mirrors and eased into traffic. “But I’ve no idea what the hell he has to do with Rebecca Meredith.”
    Cullen already had his phone out and was tapping in queries. By the time Kincaid had looped round into Holland Park Road, Cullen’s hand froze on the phone.
    “Bugger.” He looked over at Kincaid, his eyes wide. “Angus Craig lives in Hambleden.”

Chapter Ten

Each year a Boat Race crew, and perhaps even the whole initial squad as well, would develop its own distinctive style and character, different from year to year, sometimes as a group, sometimes dominated by the presence of one or two strong personalities . . .
—Daniel Topolski
Boat Race: The Oxford Revival

    T he face above the carefully arranged white sheet on the mortuary trolley looked nothing like Becca.
    Oh, it had her features, all right—the straight nose with the faint dusting of freckles across the bridge from days spent rowing in the sun, the dark, level brows, the tiny pinprick of a mole near her right ear, the slightly square chin.
    But Freddie had never seen Becca’s face still or composed. She was always in motion—even in sleep, her brow had been creased, as if she were working out a knotty problem, or replaying a training session, and her lips and eyelids had moved in sequence with her dreams.
    Someone had taken the trouble to comb her hair, and it fell back in gentle waves that she’d never have tolerated in life. Freddie clenched his hand, resisting the impulse to smooth it, or to touch the fan of the dark eyelashes that, under the harsh overhead lighting, cast a shadow on her cheeks.
    He nodded to the mortuary attendant. “That’s her. That’s Becca.”
    “That would be Rebecca Meredith, sir?” the young man said, and Freddie found himself inordinately distracted by the ring in the man’s nose.
    He looked away. “Yes. Yes, that’s her.”
    “I’m sorry for your loss, sir.” The condolence was rote. “If you could just sign here?” The attendant handed Freddie a clipboard with all the ceremony of a delivery boy requesting a signature for a parcel.
    And that was that.
    Freddie walked out into the fresh air of the hospital car park, which felt warm by comparison, to find Ross Abbott waiting. Ross had left the engine idling in his late-model white BMW, a shout-out to the world that he