No Mark Upon Her

Finn heard it, too, I think. It might have been an oar.”
    “So you think your arsonist came by boat?”
    “It is an island. And if he’d docked farther up or down, he’d have walked through my neighbors’ gardens to get to my place, then had to go back again. The properties are very small. He’d have taken a huge risk of being seen.” Kieran’s face hardened. “My guess is he threw the damned bottle from a boat and hoped for the best. Bastard.”
    Kincaid thought of the myriad of boats moored up and down both sides of Henley Bridge and gave an inner groan. Someone could easily have taken a skiff from one of the boat hire firms. Uniform branch would have their work cut out for them, trying to trace a temporarily missing boat.
    He stood. There were many things to set in motion. “The arson team will get started on your shed at first light, Kieran. We’ll see what they turn up. In the meantime, I certainly think it best if you stay here.
    “Tavie, I’m going to send a uniformed officer for the map and the log. I want someone guarding that spot until I can get the SOCOs there in the morning.”
    Kieran pushed himself up out of the chair, although he wobbled a bit. Both the dogs jumped up as well, panting gently in anticipation of a new activity.
    “Thank you,” Kieran said simply.
    “I’m the one should be thanking you. Both of you.” He included Tavie with a brief smile, then turned back to Kieran. “But there’s one thing I don’t understand. Why didn’t you tell us yesterday, when we found the Filippi, that you had a relationship with Rebecca Meredith?”
    “I—I just—I suppose all I could think was to do what she wanted. And she didn’t want anyone to know about us.”
    “Why? You were both single adults.”
    “I used to believe it was because she was ashamed of me.” Kieran looked down at his blood- and soot-spattered clothes. “Even at the best of times, I’m not exactly the guy you introduce at office parties or take to your family’s Christmas dinner.”
    “Would her ex-husband have minded that she was seeing someone?”
    Kieran considered. “I don’t think so. At least, they seemed to be friends. But she said—one time when we’d had as much of a row as you could have with Becca, because she would just shut you out—she said that she couldn’t be seen to have a—a relationship with anyone.”
    From the way Kieran colored and glanced at Tavie, Kincaid suspected that those weren’t the exact words Becca had used. “Why not?” he asked.
    “She said she couldn’t risk it being used as ammunition against her.”

Chapter Thirteen

Single scullers were an odd lot, even in the peculiar world of rowing. They were both revered and distrusted by other rowers—revered because sculling was a higher form of rowing art, much harder to learn than the “sweep” rowing done at colleges .
—Daniel J. Boyne
The Red Rose Crew: A True Story of Women, Winning, and the Water

    T he pain seared through his legs, his arms, his shoulders, his chest. He thought he would do anything to make it stop. Die, even.
    But some small part of his brain, hazy from oxygen deprivation, told him he couldn’t. Couldn’t stop, couldn’t die. Not yet.
    Water, freezing dirty water from the tidal Thames, lapped over his feet, then began to spill over the sides of the boat. But it might have been treacle, for all the progress the eight was making through it.
    The boat felt as though it were made of cement, every stroke of the oars seemed a ponderous effort. Someone had given out, given up, and the rest were pulling a deadweight. Who the hell was it? Anger surged through him, but his lips were too cold to give it voice.
    From bow and stroke, he heard the hoarse curses of other men too exhausted to shout. Then, “Move it! Move the fucking boat, you bastards!” screamed the cox, the only one of them with enough energy left to make himself heard. “Bowside, bowside, watch your oars! We’re going to . . .”
    Too late. Their oars clashed and tangled with the oars of the other boat. There was a crack, a sharp pain in his chest—the handle of his oar hitting him with crushing force—then the oar was torn from his hands.
    “No!” he shouted. “No!” They’d never recover from this. He had to—
    But the icy water washed over his mouth, his face. The boat was going down, and he couldn’t breathe . . .
    Freddie woke, sweating, thrashing, gasping, his sheets twined round him like ropes.
    “Shit. Oh,