No Mark Upon Her

idea who this officer was, or why she was in your station?”
    “No. I was interviewing stroppy teenagers most of the afternoon.” Bisik gave a little smirk, as if pleased at a recollection. “Blond bird, about the guv’nor’s age. Not bad looking. I wouldn’t have minded taking her out for a drink.” He took a drag on the cigarette, his guilt apparently forgotten for the moment. “But I wasn’t introduced. I just heard enough of the chitchat in passing to get the impression that they went back a while. You know, ‘How’s your Uncle George, then?’ That sort of thing. And Becca was actually smiling. Now that, I would say, was unusual.
    “Maybe they went out for drinks,” he added, looking surprised at the idea. “I suppose the guv did have a social life, although we never saw any evidence of it.”
    “So who would know who this woman was?”
    “Kelly—Sergeant Patterson—maybe. She was in CID that afternoon. But she’s in Dulwich, or Plumstead, or somewhere. Always confuse those two. And probably the super, since this bird was on our patch.”
    Doug thought it would probably be a very good idea to try other avenues before he asked Superintendent Gaskill for that information. “Do you have Sergeant Patterson’s mobile number?”
    “Yeah.” Bisik put out the fag and pulled out his phone, then fished in his jacket pocket until he came up with a crumpled Ladbrokes slip. Helpfully, Doug handed him a pen.
    Bisik scrolled down the phone’s screen, then scribbled a number on the slip and handed it across. “Good luck getting her to answer, mate. I’ve been trying her since yesterday.”
    I t had taken Kincaid longer to get away from Henley than he’d hoped. When he and Cullen had separated after their rather late lunch, he’d gone back to the incident room. He’d briefed DI Singla and the rest of team on their interview with Freddie Atterton, leaving out only Atterton’s last revelation.
    Then he’d made a second statement to the few hardy members of the press—mostly sportswriters hoping for a juicy biopic tidbit—still camping outside the police station.
    He had not called Chief Superintendent Childs, and that was weighing on him.
    But passing Hambleden Mill on his drive to the village had brought home the fact that Angus Craig lived within a vigorous walk’s distance of the place where Rebecca Meredith’s body had been found. And although Craig might not have walked quite so easily to the spot on the Bucks bank where they thought Becca had actually been murdered, he could certainly have got there quickly and easily in a car.
    He slowed as he reached the village of Hambleden. The church, the pub, the redbrick, rose-rambled cottages—all were picture-postcard perfect.
    And the house, when he found it, just outside the village and set back on a long drive, was imposing enough to make a mere detective superintendent think twice about knocking unannounced at the grand door.
    Kincaid might have been tempted to call the place a great pile of brick if it hadn’t blended so gracefully into the landscape. The fact that he couldn’t pinpoint the house’s architectural origins made him think it had been added on to over the years with more than usual skill.
    The sweeping lawns of the grounds were immaculate. The warm brick and red tile roof of the house merged into the autumnal blaze of the trees on the hill beyond as if painted against a backdrop.
    It was lovely, a place to cherish, and a place meant to impress.
    And it was all very grand, even for a deputy assistant commissioner in the Met. Maybe, Kincaid thought charitably, the wife had money.
    Stopping the Astra in the drive, he wondered exactly what he was going to say to Angus Craig, then decided it might be better if he didn’t think too much about it.
    Climbing out of the Astra, he closed the door with the softest of clicks, straightened his tie, and crunched across the gravel drive. He’d just have to make it up as he went along.
    The bell was a brass gryphon, and when he pressed it, he heard a clang from deep within the house, then the faint yip of a dog.
    He waited, shifting his weight a bit. After the drama of the doorbell, he wouldn’t have been surprised to be greeted by a butler in a starched shirt and morning suit, but it was Angus Craig himself who answered the door.
    Craig looked as Kincaid remembered, although he might have put a few pounds on an already sturdy frame since Kincaid had last seen him. His thinning sandy hair