No Mark upon Her

Chapter Seventeen

“I mean, look at rowing. There are extremely compelling reasons to stop during a race, and in almost every race I can remember I’ve thought to myself ‘If only I could stop rowing I would never want anything again. I would rest forever. I don’t care what the consequences are of my stopping. Nothing can be as bad as this.’ ” [Jake Cornelius]

—Mark de Rond

The Last Amateurs

“I want a bow,” said Charlotte.

“And you shall have one, lovey,” Gemma told her. They were sitting on the floor in Betty Howard’s colorful, crowded flat, picking through Betty’s stock of wide grosgrain ribbon.

“Blue.” Charlotte’s delicate little face was set in determination. This was serious business. For Gemma, not quite realizing what she was getting herself into, had promised her an Alice in Wonderland–themed party for her birthday on Saturday.

Fortunately, Betty had offered to make her a dress—or more accurately, a costume. Charlotte, entranced with the John Tenniel illustrations in Kit’s old edition of Alice, had spent hours pouring over the color plates in which Alice wore a yellow dress with a blue pinafore, and atop that, another starched white pinny.

Gemma had shown the book to Betty with some trepidation, but Betty had just laughed and said, “Sure I can make that, Gemma. Piece of cake for an old hand like me. You think I didn’t whip up things like that for my own girls?”

A seamstress since childhood, Betty had started in millinery at sixteen, then gone on to sew everything from clothes, to soft furnishings, to costumes for the Notting Hill Carnival. With her five girls grown and only her son, Gemma’s friend Wesley, still at home, she ran a thriving little business from her flat in Westbourne Park Road.

This afternoon Gemma had brought Charlotte for a final fitting. And a good thing it was the last, Gemma thought, because unless Charlotte was allowed to take the dress home, there was no way Gemma was getting her out of it without a tantrum. If Gemma had wished Charlotte would take more interest in girly things, she’d now been repaid in spades.

“What about this one?” Gemma asked, spying a piece of ribbon in a cornflower blue that exactly matched the blue pinafore. “Will that do, Betty?”

Betty eyed the length from her place at the sewing machine. “Should be long enough. Did you get a clip?”

Reaching for her handbag, Gemma pulled out the hairdresser’s clip she’d picked up at a chemist’s shop.

As Betty took the clip and the ribbon, she said to Charlotte, “You’ll have your Alice Bow in no time, little miss.”

Charlotte, who had picked up the book and was once more engrossed in studying the illustrations, looked up at Gemma. “I want yellow hair.”

“Well, that, lovey, is one thing you cannot have. And look.” Gemma took the book from her and turned to another of the Tenniel plates. “In this one, Alice has red hair, just like mine. So Alice can have hair any color she likes.”

Charlotte nodded in tentative agreement, but her brow was creased in a frown. “Not curly.”

“Why not curly?” Gemma twined a finger in the mop of Charlotte’s curls. “I’ll bet Alice wished she had hair like yours.”

“She did?”

“I’m sure she did.”

From the sewing machine, Betty grinned. “You don’t think Alice wished she had hair like mine?” Her kinky dark hair was going gray, and most days she tucked it up in a bright bandanna. Today she wore a scarf in the same yellow as Charlotte’s dress.

Charlotte giggled. “That’s silly.”

“Not to me, it isn’t,” said Betty with a smile. But when her eyes met Gemma’s, Gemma knew they were both thinking of the day when Charlotte might wish her skin was the same color as Alice’s.

Charlotte reached for Gemma’s bag and began to root inside. “I want a clip,” she said.

Gently, Gemma took the bag back. She had a surprise buried in its depths that she’d have to be more careful to keep from prying little hands and eyes.

A few weeks ago, she’d found an antique brown-glass pharmacy bottle in a stall at Portobello. She’d bought a fancy paper label for it, on which she had hand-lettered the legend DRINK ME. It was to be the centerpiece of the cake Wes was making for the party.

“There’s not another one,” she said. “You’ll have to wait for your bow. And you can’t wear that until Saturday, mind you. Don’t forget. Why don’t you go help Betty?” she added as a distraction.

Gemma watched Charlotte as she jumped up and padded over to the sewing machine in her stockinged feet. The idea of being separated from the child in just a few days’ time suddenly took her breath away. How was she going to bear it?

And yet, when she’d gone to the station that morning, she’d felt as if she were coming home. She’d realized how much she’d missed the camaraderie, the routine, and most of all, the intellectual challenge. Would there ever be any happy middle ground? she wondered.

Well, she would find out soon enough—if, that is, she got to start back at work on Monday. She’d had a word with Alia about doing a temporary child-minding stint—Plan B, in case Duncan got hung up in this case.

And it was looking increasingly tricky.

Especially after last night. His reaction when she’d told him about her encounter with Angus Craig worried her. Her husband—she was still trying that one on—was an even-tempered man, a man whose habit was to think things through before he acted. But the fact that he was slow to anger made the strength of it all the more powerful, and what she’d seen in his face last night had been cold fury.

She couldn’t downplay her experience with Craig—she was as certain as she’d ever been of anything that she’d been in real danger that night in Leyton. Nor could she have kept it from Kincaid. But now she was very much afraid that he was going to do something rash.

And with no part in the investigation, she felt helpless and frustrated at her lack of control.

Her hopes that she and Melody would come up with something useful that morning had come to naught, although Melody had said she’d keep looking through the files.

Gemma didn’t believe she’d been wrong about Craig’s pattern. But perhaps it had been overly optimistic to think that other female officers who’d been Craig’s victims might have reported the rape without naming the assailant.

“There you are, little missy,” said Betty. While Gemma had been musing, Betty had bunched the ribbon and stitched it into a bow on the machine, then handwhipped the bow to the clip. Now she fastened it in the cloud of Charlotte’s hair.

Charlotte, her face rapt, touched it with exploratory fingers, then ran to Gemma. “I wanna see.”

“Oh, my,” said Gemma, turning her in a twirl so that she could admire the full effect. “I’m not sure if you look more like Alice or a princess. Here, let’s have a look, shall we?” She was digging in her handbag for her compact mirror when she saw the message light flashing on her phone. How had she missed a call?

Her heart gave the little skip it always did when she was separated from the children or Duncan. But when she checked the message log, she saw that the call had been from Melody, and it had been followed by a text.

It said, “Urgent, boss. Must talk.”

Gemma looked up. “Betty, would you mind if Charlotte stayed for just a bit? Something’s come up.”

Kincaid pulled out of the Craigs’ gravel drive into the road that wound back through Hambleden. Dusk had settled over the rooftops, washing the hamlet in rose and gold. Lights were blinking on, making luminous pools of windows. Smoke spiraled up from chimneys.

It was such a cliché, Kincaid thought as he gazed at the village, trying to distance himself from the rage that was still causing his hands to shake. A place of perfection, with a monster dwelling at its heart.

Beauty and evil, nested one within the other.

Did the evil go unacknowledged in this place? he wondered. Or were others aware but powerless?

Reaching the Stag and Huntsman, he made a sudden swerve into the car park. He wasn’t going to pass up an opportunity to find out. Besides, if he didn’t check Craig’s alibi now, before his guv’nor learned of his visit to Craig, he might not have another chance.

He found a space for the Astra and locked it. Then, after a moment’s consideration, he turned off his phone and walked into the pub. He might as well gain himself a little time.

The Stag and Huntsman, he saw immediately, was a welcoming establishment, old-fashioned by nature rather than design, the sort of place one would want to go of an evening for a regular drink before dinner.

It was still quiet, and the clientele looked local and at ease. He hoped that, for once, Angus Craig would forgo his evening tipple.

Making his way to the snug, he took a seat at the bar and ordered a pint of Loddon Hoppit. According to the chalkboard behind the bar, it was a local beer, and Kincaid found the name irresistible.

The beer, when the barman brought it, was a shimmering red-amber, and Kincaid could smell the hops before he tasted it.

“That’s good ale,” he said to the barman, wiping the foam from his upper lip.

“Brewed just outside Reading,” said the barman. He was a lean man who didn’t look as if he overindulged in his own wares. “You’re not from around here, I take it?” he continued, knowing full well, Kincaid felt sure, that he was not.

Well, it would do as a conversation starter, and the tiny room was empty except for the two of them, a nice advantage. Kincaid decided to stick as close to the truth as possible.

“London.” He drank some more of the Loddon, reminding himself that he had to drive back to Henley, and that the beer was meant as window dressing. “Scotland Yard, actually,” he added, lowering his voice to a confidential tone. “I’m here about the rower who drowned the other day.”

He felt a stab of guilt at referring to Becca Meredith so impersonally. It now seemed to him as if he had known her, and her loss felt like the loss of a friend.

“Terrible thing, that.” The barman sounded genuinely sorry. “My mate’s wife is on the search and rescue team. They always take it hard. Can’t say I blame them.”

“No. Nor can I.” Kincaid thought of Kieran and Tavie, wondered how Kieran was coping.

“Well, it can’t be easy for you either, in your job. I guess you’ve been to the scene, down at the Mill?” There was a definite query at the end of the barman’s sentence. So the man did like a bit of a gossip—a quality that in Kincaid’s experience was necessary to a successful publican. “Hambleden is a bit off the beaten track.”

“I’ve been to see Assistant Commissioner Craig, to tell the truth,” Kincaid said. “A courtesy call. We are working on his home turf, after all.”

“Ah. I’m sure he appreciated that.”

It was a pleasant, noncommittal answer. But Kincaid had seen the telltale change of expression, the shifting of the bartender’s eyes away from his. This man knew Angus Craig for what he was.

“It was he who recommended you,” Kincaid went on. “The best beer, he said, and his local.” He took another sip of his pint. “Lucky man. He comes in most days, I take it?”

The barman wiped an already clean glass. “Most evenings.” He glanced at the clock above the door. “Usually about this time.”

Kincaid thought it would be just as well if he didn’t linger. He was trying to figure out how he could discreetly check Craig’s alibi when the barman added, “Missed him last night. He must have been away.”

“I believe he said something about a meeting in London . . . no, no.” Kincaid put on a perplexed frown. “He said he was away on Monday. That was it.”

“No, he was here. Although he came in a bit late. I remember because we were all talking about it next day—the thought of us all safe in the pub while that poor woman was washing away down the Thames.” The barman shook his head.

“Maybe he’d been fishing,” Kincaid suggested. “It would have been a fine day for it.”

The barman looked at him curiously. “Fishing? Whatever gave you that idea? Mr. Craig doesn’t fish. Hunting’s his cup of tea.”

“Ah, well,” said Kincaid, having ventured as far out on a limb as he could go without falling off. “Then the pub suits him to a T, wouldn’t you say?”

Giving him the perfunctory smile the lame comment deserved, the barman nodded. “He’s said the same himself. Many a time.”

Resigned to the fact that by this time the man must think him a toady, currying favor with Craig, as well as a bit of an idiot, Kincaid said, “Lovely house. I understand it’s been in Mrs. Craig’s family for a long time. Sorry I didn’t get to meet her.”

The barman’s face softened. “Nice lady, Mrs. Craig. Her family’s been in Hambleden for yonks, and Edie does more for people here than most.” He nodded towards the center of the village. “Matter of fact, I think she’s at the church, helping with the preparations for a wedding on Saturday.”

“Is that so? Maybe I’ll stop and pay my respects.” Kincaid gave an exaggerated glance at his watch. “Damn. Didn’t realize it was so late.” He drank a little more of his pint, then set the glass on the bar, still half full.

During his brief visit to the Stag and Huntsman, he’d presented himself as a nitwit, a stalker, and now a man who couldn’t hold his beer.

“Must dash,” he said, and made his less-than-dignified exit.

Kincaid left his car in the pub car park and walked through the village center. A chill wind eddied a drift of brown leaves along the street. He turned up the collar of his jacket, wishing he hadn’t left his overcoat in the Astra’s boot. The fine day was over.

He’d remembered seeing a signpost for the church as he drove through the village earlier. Like the church in Henley, it was called St. Mary the Virgin, but when he reached it, he saw that it was much less grand. The long, low building seemed more suited to human comfort than divine glorification.

As he reached the lych-gate, a woman stepped out into the church porch, then turned to lock the door behind her. In that moment, he’d seen her clearly in the porch light, and he stopped, surprised.

He wondered what he’d expected. It had not been this tall, slender woman, her graying hair cut in a short, stylish bob. She wore a swinging woolen skirt that just brushed the tops of her knee-high leather boots, an anorak, and, round her neck, a long green scarf that fell to the hem of her skirt. The scarf was a cheerful color that made him think of new leaves and green apples.

When she turned round again, the key in her hand, she saw him and stopped. “Can I help you?” she asked.

There was no fear in her voice, just gentle inquiry.

“Mrs. Craig?”

“Yes. I’m sorry, do I know you?”

He stepped forward into the light. “No. My name’s Duncan Kincaid. Detective superintendent, Scotland Yard.”

She walked towards him until she met him under the gate. “If you’re looking for my husband, I think you’ll find him at home.” She was still gracious, and perhaps slightly curious.

“No, actually, it’s you I wanted a word with,” he said with unexpected reluctance. “Is there somewhere we can talk?”

He saw the caution settle over her like a cloak, then she moved so that the shadow of the lych-gate fell across her face. “I’m sure this will suit well enough, Superintendent.”

“Mrs. Craig—” Kincaid suddenly found himself at a loss. No subterfuge seemed appropriate with this woman. He would simply ask what he needed to ask. “Do you know where your husband was late on Monday afternoon, from around four o’clock on?”

A second passed, then another. He heard the wind move in the trees, saw the light from the church porch catch the green of her scarf as she reached up to loop it round her throat. “He was at home,” she said, “with me. Then, he went to the pub, as he usually does.”

Had she been relieved at his question, or had he just imagined it? Perhaps it was just that Angus Craig’s outing to the pub was the best part of her day.

“Mrs. Craig. You’ll have heard about the police officer who drowned. Rebecca Meredith.”

“Yes. The rower. The news has been all over the village.”

“Did your husband mention that he knew her? Did he tell you—”

“Superintendent.” Her voice might have been a touch on his arm, the only plea she would allow herself. “Whatever it is that you feel you need to ask, you must remember that he’s my husband.” There was finality in her words.

She moved, and when the light caught her face, he thought he glimpsed a despair that was beyond his imagining. Then she had stepped past him. “I must get home. I’ve left Barney too long.”

“Barney?” he said, confused. Surely there wasn’t a child still at home.

“My dog. Angus doesn’t care for him in the house. Good night, Superintendent.”

“Goodnight, Mrs. Craig,” he echoed. And even though they were going the same way, he paid her the courtesy of letting her walk alone until she had vanished from his sight.

Gemma had rung Melody as soon as she left Betty’s flat. She was prepared to go straight to the station, but Melody had hesitated, then said, “Um, I’m not sure that’s a good idea, boss. Why don’t we meet for a drink? Say, the Duke of Wellington. I’ll be there before you.”

The pub, at the intersection of Portobello Road and Elgin Crescent, was one Gemma knew well—at least from the outside. A pair of jazz guitarists—session musicians—busked outside on fine Saturday afternoons and she’d often stopped to listen, smiling with pleasure and dropping a pound or two in the open guitar case.

But, she realized, she’d never actually been inside the establishment. And for Melody to be there before her, she must have already been nearby.

The building was Victorian, stuccoed in pale pink, and not terribly prepossessing. But when Gemma entered by the Portobello door, she found an air of cheerful bustle. She spied Melody immediately, seated at a small, high table at the very back of the room. Gemma made her way round the bar and joined her, slipping onto the high stool.

Melody handed her a glass. “I’ve ordered you a G and T. You’re going to need it.”

“What’s going on?” asked Gemma. “And what are you doing here?”

“When you didn’t answer your phone, I called the house and talked to Kit. He said you were at Betty’s. I was coming to find you.”

Melody looked strained and windblown, her dark hair mussed from the chill breeze that had come up with the dusk. It was unlike her not to have tidied up. She drank from her own glass, which was, Gemma saw, already half empty.

“Boss, I’ve found something. I kept at the files this afternoon. First, this.” Melody reached for her bag and handed Gemma a sheet of paper.

Gemma scanned a list of names.

“Six female police officers, in the last ten years,” said Melody. “There’s some variation in the stories, but they all fit the same general pattern. They were either single or their husbands or boyfriends or in one case, a girlfriend, were away. All had been out to a pub or a party, something work related. All said they were attacked when they returned home by an unknown intruder. None reported obvious signs of breaking and entering at their place of residence. None could identify their assailant.”

Gemma stared at her, then took a gulp of her drink while she scanned the list again. The gin burned her throat and she coughed. “Different divisions?” she asked when she could speak again.

“Yes. And most seem to correlate with Angus Craig’s postings at the time. The others had been to functions that might have been attended by any senior officer.”

“Bloody hell,” Gemma muttered. “I was right.”

“Oh, it gets better.” Melody shrugged. “Or worse, depending on your point of view. That’s as far as I’d got when I found this.” This time she handed Gemma a sheaf of papers. “From six months ago. It was in our records because of the rape.” She glanced round, but the other tables were filled with after-work drinkers absorbed in their own conversations, and the noise level in the pub was rising.

“Her name was Jenny Hart,” said Melody. “She was a DCI, Tower Hamlets. But she lived in Campden Street, right on the border between Holland Park and Kensington. Not too far from me, actually.”

“You said was. And lived. Past tense.” Gemma’s glass felt cold and damp in her hand.

Melody drank from hers until there were only ice cubes left. “Jenny Hart was divorced, forty years old, and from the photos in her file, an attractive blonde. She also had a reputation for liking to drink a bit, especially at the Churchill Arms, just down the street from her flat. Ever been there?”

Gemma shook her head. “I’ve passed it, though. It’s the place with all the flowers.” It looked the epitome of pubs, with its dark wood and mullioned windows, and the profusion of hanging baskets and window boxes that almost covered the exterior.

“Suffocatingly cozy. Every inch of the place is stuffed with tatty Churchill memorabilia. But the place is bigger than you’d think—it’s a conglomeration of small rooms that seem to ramble on forever.”

“As are you,” said Gemma pointedly. Her mouth felt dry. “Melody, what happened to Jenny Hart?”

Melody clinked her two remaining ice cubes, then met Gemma’s eyes. “On the first of May, Jenny Hart told some mates that she was going for a drink at the Churchill and that afterwards she was going to have an early night. It had been a rough week. They’d had a murdered child on her patch.

“When she didn’t show up for work on Monday, her colleagues were concerned. They rang her but didn’t get an answer. By Tuesday, her neighbors complained of the smell.”

Gemma realized the pub had filled with the odor of meat cooking in the kitchen. She swallowed against a sudden queasiness and the knowledge of what she knew was coming. “How?” she said simply.

“She was raped. And then she was manually strangled. According to the postmortem notes, the bruising on her throat was in accordance with thumb- and fingerprints. There was considerable damage to her flat. She must have put up quite a fight. But there were no signs of breaking and entering.”

Gemma took a breath. “And?”

“Our old friend Kate Ling did the postmortem, by the way. She was, of course, very thorough. There was tissue under Jenny’s fingernails. And there was semen in her vagina and smeared on her torn clothing. Her assailant couldn’t be bothered with condoms.

“I cross-checked the profiles. The DNA found on Jenny Hart matches the samples from the other female officers who reported they were raped, as well as Becca Meredith’s. The rape matches had been flagged by Project Sapphire, but there was never a suspect for comparison.”

Like Melody, Gemma finished her gin and tonic in one long gulp. “But Becca didn’t name him in her rape report, so there’s no proof that any of the DNA was Craig’s. We need some way to tie him directly to Jenny Hart.”

Nodding at the papers in Gemma’s hand, Melody said, “Take a look.”

Gemma flipped through copies of Jenny Hart’s postmortem results, the lab data, statements from her colleagues and neighbors. At the back was something that certainly hadn’t been included in the original file—a photo of Angus Craig, one of a group of men in evening dress, some of whom she recognized as other senior police officers.

“Commissioner’s Ball,” said Melody before Gemma could ask. “Last year. From the very useful files of the Chronicle. The thing is, according to the statements, one of the staff at the Churchill thought she remembered seeing Jenny talking to a man that night. But it was packed, and she only had a vague recollection. The closest she could come to a description was ‘middle-aged.’ Not very helpful if you had nothing to compare it to.”

Gemma straightened up so fast she bumped her knees against the small table, rocking it precariously. She steadied her glass. “Did you talk to her?”

“I went to the Churchill. According to the manager, the barmaid’s name is Rosamond. She’s been on holiday in France for the last few days, but she’s on shift tomorrow. Starting at lunch.”

Gemma’s head reeled. Could it possibly be that easy, if Angus Craig had been preying on women for years? But sometimes—sometimes if they were very, very lucky—it was. All it took was one sound witness statement, cause enough to request a DNA sample.

It wouldn’t matter if the other female officers still refused to testify against him. All they needed was Jenny Hart. And if the samples matched, there was no way in hell Angus Craig could bully his way out of a murder charge.