No Mark Upon Her

of them.
    Once out of the car park, he pulled onto the main road and turned immediately left into Remenham Lane. As he drove north, he could see the clouds building again in the western sky.
    The redbrick cottage, surrounded by an overgrown garden, was set between the lane and the river. It had been Freddie’s job to keep the grounds, which he had done with regularity if not much talent. Becca had simply let things go until the place had begun to resemble Sleeping Beauty’s briar thicket.
    Her battered black Nissan 4×4 sat in the drive. Becca had no interest in cars either, except as a means to pull a boat. If the Nissan wasn’t mud-spattered, it was only because the rain had washed it off. Her trailer had been pulled up on the patch of lawn beside the drive, and the Filippi was not on it.
    Just as Freddie opened the Audi’s door, thunder clapped and the sky opened up. He sprinted for the cottage, sliding into the porch as if he’d just made a wicket and shaking the water from his hair.
    No lights showed through the stained glass in the door. The bell didn’t work—he’d never managed to fix it—so he banged on the wood surround with his fist.
    “Becca. Becca! Answer the bloody door.”
    When there was no response, he fumbled for his keys and put the heavy door key in the lock.
    “Becca, I’m coming in,” he called as he swung the door open.
    The cottage was cold and silent.
    Her handbag sat on the bench below the coat rack, where she always dropped it when she came in from work. A gray suit jacket had been tossed carelessly beside it, but otherwise, the sitting room looked undisturbed. Her yellow rowing fleece was missing from the coat hook, as was her pink Leander hat.
    He called out again, glancing quickly into the kitchen and dining room. A stack of unopened mail sat on the buffet, a rinsed cup and plate in the sink, and on the worktop a bag of cat food for the neighbor’s cat she sometimes fed.
    The cottage felt, in some way he couldn’t explain, profoundly empty of human presence. But he climbed the stairs and looked into the bedroom and the bathroom. The bed was made, the skirt that matched the jacket he’d seen downstairs lay across the chair, along with a white blouse and a tangled pair of tights.
    The bath was dry, but the air held the faintest trace of Dolce & Gabbana’s Light Blue cologne, one of Becca’s few vanities.
    He opened the door to the spare room that had once been his office, whistling in surprise when he saw the weights and the ergometer. She was serious about training, then. Really serious.
    So what the hell had she gone and done?
    Clattering back down the stairs, he grabbed a spare anorak from the coat hook and went out into the garden, ducking his head against the driving rain. Becca’s neighbor’s lawn had the river frontage, but he checked it just in case she’d pulled the boat up there. Seeing nothing but upturned garden furniture, he ran back to the cottage and pulled his phone out with cold and fumbling fingers. Thunder rumbled and shook the cottage.
    Becca wouldn’t thank him for ringing her boss, Superintendent Peter Gaskill, but he couldn’t think what else to do next. He didn’t know Gaskill well, as Becca had been assigned to his team a short time before the divorce, but he’d met the man at police functions and the occasional dinner party.
    Freddie’s call was shunted through by the department’s secretary. When Gaskill picked up, Freddie identified himself, then said, “Look, Peter, sorry to bother you. But I’ve been trying to reach Becca since yesterday, and I’m a bit worried. I wondered if perhaps there’d been an emergency at work . . .” It sounded unlikely even as he said it. He explained about the boat, adding that Becca didn’t seem to have been home since the previous evening, and that her car was still in the drive.
    “We had a staff meeting this morning, an important one,” Gaskill said. “She didn’t show or return my calls, and I’ve never known her to miss a meeting. You’re certain she’s not at home?”
    “I’m in the cottage now.”
    There was silence on the other end of the line, as if Gaskill was deliberating. Then he said, “So what you’re telling me is that Becca went out on the river last night, in the dark, alone in a racing shell, and that neither she nor the boat have been seen since.”
    Hearing it stated so baldly, Freddie felt chilled to the bone. Any arguments about her competency died on his lips.