No Mark upon Her

Chapter Twenty-three

Sight begins to go. Darkness envelops me until I can only vaguely sense the dark hull next to us.

The finish line comes.

Then there is nothing. Inky blackness. My eyes have rolled back into my head. My chest heaves, frantically pulling oxygen into my gaping mouth, but I am out of it, collapsed and aware of nothing. [James Livingston]

—David and James Livingston

Blood Over Water

“So, what else do you know about Chris Abbott?” Gemma asked Melody as they crossed the Thames at Hammersmith Bridge.

It had taken them more than half an hour to make a graceful exit from the house. Gemma had insisted that everyone else stay as long as they liked, but even as she gave her parents over-elaborate instructions, she’d felt increasingly worried about Melody’s news.

While Gemma was dealing with the domestic front, Melody had made phone calls and done some research online. Gemma knew better than to ask her sources.

Now, as they drove towards Barnes in Gemma’s Escort, heavy clouds had darkened what had begun as a beautiful day, and the Thames looked gray as slate. She beeped her horn impatiently when the driver ahead slowed and almost made her miss the green light at the bridge end.

Melody gave her a startled glance, but said, “Chris Abbott, DCI, Vice. Works out of West End Central. A career officer out of university like Becca Meredith, both of them highfliers with their Oxford educations.

“Married, husband works in investment banking. Two kids, both boys, and both down for Eton.”

Gemma whistled. “On a cop’s salary? Let’s hope the husband has a better income. When did she report the rape?”

“A little more than five years ago. She was a sergeant then, so she’s had two promotions in a very short time. Rewards, do you think, for keeping her mouth shut?”

Gemma had been a sergeant five years ago as well. Would her life have taken the same path as Chris Abbott’s if she’d been less lucky the night Angus Craig had driven her home? No matter how often she went over it, she couldn’t be sure what she’d have done. Would she have risked her career and the security of her child in an attempt to see Craig prosecuted?

“Were there particulars in the rape report?” she asked. If Abbott had had a husband and children at home, it seemed likely that Craig’s usual method of courteously offering his victim a lift would have failed with her, as it had with Gemma.

“There was a dinner at a hotel in the West End, after a staffing conference,” Melody continued. “Abbott said she was walking to the tube when she was pulled into an alley and assaulted.”

Gemma frowned. “Then my guess would be that Craig had a room in the hotel. And convinced her to come up for a friendly nightcap, after the conference, when everyone had had a few post-meeting drinks. I wonder, though, about the promotions . . .” Gemma negotiated a roundabout as they entered the outskirts of the very comfortable suburb of Barnes. “Were they a reward, or could Abbott have decided to make the best of a bad deal and indulge in a spot of blackmail? A two-way street.”

“If Craig and Abbott had reached a stalemate,” Melody continued thoughtfully, “maybe he took out his frustration with her by choosing more and more powerful female officers as victims. Substitutes, if you will. A dangerous game.”

“Fatal, in the end,” agreed Gemma. “Although I doubt that was how he thought it would play out.”

They were running along the river now, passing Barnes railway bridge. It was, Gemma realized, the last major landmark on the Boat Race course. Had Abbott been drawn to this village because she was a rower?

“It’s White Hart Lane,” Melody directed. “On your left, then the address is down near the far end.”

The street was narrow, lined with a mixture of expensive-looking shops and boutiques and charming terraced houses. And cars, which all seemed to be monstrously large SUVs. “Yummy-mummy territory, all right,” Gemma muttered as she looked for a parking space. She’d passed the address Melody had given her by a good distance when she saw a car pull out. She put on her signal and maneuvered the Escort into the spot.

“Top marks on the parallel parking,” teased Melody as Gemma killed the engine, but even as she spoke, she was tucking her dark hair behind one ear and checking the contents of her handbag, signs that she was keyed up. “Do we know what we’re going to say?” she asked.

“We’ll wing it,” said Gemma. “It’s your show.”

A moment after Gemma rang the bell, there was a twitch at the wooden blinds of the neat terraced house. Then a thin blond woman opened the door. She wore tight designer jeans and an expensive-looking top, but the polished effect was marred by her harried frown and unfriendly gaze.

“Can I help you?” she snapped.

“DCI Abbott?” asked Melody. She showed her warrant card. “DC Talbot, Notting Hill. And this is DI James. If we could just have a quick word?”

No amount of neatly applied makeup could conceal the terror that washed over Chris Abbott’s face at the sight of their warrant cards. “What’s happened? My boys—are they all right? My husband—oh, God, Ross—”

“Your sons are fine,” Melody hastened to reassure her. “And your husband. But we do need to speak to you. If we could come in?”

Abbott slumped and touched the doorjamb for an instant’s support, as if the relief had hit her almost as hard as the panic.

Then she dropped her hand and stared at them suspiciously, the copper in her taking over as she seemed to notice their casual clothes and obvious lack of official presence. And she was, Gemma guessed, taking into account the fact that she outranked them.

The curious glance from a neighbor jogging by seemed to decide Abbott. She shrugged and said, “All right. I can give you five minutes. I have to pick up my sons. That’s why I was worried. They’re at a friend’s, and you never know what could happen.”

It was just a bit more explanation than necessary, a sign of nerves, Gemma thought. And, she thought, a detective chief inspector should certainly have known better.

They stepped inside at Abbott’s grudging gesture, and Gemma looked round with interest.

The house would fetch a high price, even post-recession, because of the area and the amenities. But it was still small, and the sitting room seemed overstuffed with large leather furniture and a coffee table the size of a boulder. A media center, anchored by a flat-panel television that rivaled the sofa in scale, took up an entire wall.

And although the shelving on the media center was packed with DVDs, there were no books in sight. Nor was there any of the childish detritus that littered Gemma and Duncan’s house, although at a second glance she realized that one of the cubbyholes in the entertainment center held a toy basket.

Still, the place seemed sterile somehow, as if it never saw the ordinary flow of family life.

But the wall opposite the media center held evidence of the children—framed family photos. Mum, dad, and the two small boys, all looking unnaturally neat, all with the kind of frozen smiles that made one’s jaws ache.

In most of them, Chris Abbott looked tense, and she held the boys’ shoulders in what looked like a restraining grip. Abbott’s husband, a tall man with thinning hair and a heavy face that fell just short of handsome, rested his arm on his wife’s shoulders in a gesture that seemed to Gemma more possessive than protective.

As for the two children, the older boy was dark-haired and resembled his father, while the smaller son was gingery-fair.

The dark blue Oxford oar mounted above the photos seemed disproportionately large, as if it were intended to dwarf the family.

Melody, who was not easily intimidated by rank, money, or pretentious furniture, smiled and gestured at the photos. “Nice family. And I see your husband was an Oxford Blue,” she added, nodding at the oar. “You must be very proud. Do you mind if we sit?”

“I do, actually. I told you I didn’t have much time. Why don’t you tell me exactly what it is that you want?” Abbott gave a quick glance at the front door.

“I take it your husband’s not at home?” asked Melody.

“No. He had to go out.” Abbott frowned at them. “Not that it’s any of your business. Aren’t you a bit off your patch, detectives? And on a Saturday afternoon?” She’d taken the lead, another error, thought Gemma, that spoke of nerves.

“This couldn’t wait,” said Melody.

Abbott cast another anxious glance towards the door, and Gemma wondered if she was expecting her husband—and if that was worrying her as much as their presence.

Abbott switched her gaze to Gemma. “Are you the silent partner, then, DI—it was James, wasn’t it?”

Gemma had no doubt that Abbott remembered her name. She was fishing, wondering what a DI was doing at her door. Mistake number three, in Gemma’s book.

Melody answered her. “I’m with the Sapphire unit, Detective Abbott. Your name has come up in the course of our inquiries. DI James is pursuing a linked matter.”

“Sapphire? Linked?” It was a moment before Abbott controlled the panic on her face. “I’m not working on anything related to a Sapphire investigation.”

Melody gave Gemma the slightest nod, but it was signal enough.

“DCI Abbott,” said Gemma, “I believe you were an old friend of Rebecca Meredith’s?”

“Becca? Oh, yes. We were friends at uni, and we were at police college together. I still can’t believe she’s gone.” The regret sounded rehearsed, as if she had been prepared for the question, but she didn’t say the most obvious thing—that she had seen Becca Meredith just a few days before she died.

Putting on her most sympathetic expression, Gemma said, “Then it must have been a great comfort that you saw her so recently.”

Abbott’s eyes widened with an involuntary ripple of shock, making it clear she hadn’t expected them to know that particular bit of information. “I—yes,” she said, then went on in a rush. “Yes, yes, it was. Last Friday. Becca rang and asked me to come to her station. She said she’d run across some information she thought might be helpful to a Vice investigation.”

“But that was just a pretext, wasn’t it?” asked Melody. She pulled some papers from her bag—papers Gemma suspected had nothing to do with the investigation—but it was an effective tactic. “DCI Abbott,” Melody continued, scanning a page as if her memory needed refreshing, “five years ago, you filed a sexual assault report after a police function in the West End. And although you said you couldn’t name your assailant, you had a rape test done, and the results of that test went on file.

“A year ago, the same thing happened to Becca Meredith. When it occurred to her that other female police officers might have been victims as well, she started searching through the records. She found several officers who had reported rapes by unknown assailants. But only one of them happened to be a woman she knew, and an old friend. You.”

Melody paused for a beat, to let it sink in. Then she said, “And she knew that you knew who your assailant was, as did she.”

Abbott was shaking her head before Melody finished. “That’s absolute bollocks. I’ve no idea what you’re talking about. I think it’s time you—”

“DCI Abbott. Please don’t take us for fools.” Gemma’s words stopped Abbott in mid-protest. When Gemma had her full attention, she went on. “It was Angus Craig. You and Becca Meredith were both raped by Deputy Assistant Commissioner Craig, who then threatened you in order to procure your silence. Don’t waste our time by denying it.”

Abbott’s prominent collarbones rose sharply with the intake of her breath. “You can’t prove that. And he’s dead. I heard he was dead.”

Abbott hadn’t denied it. Masking the rush of exhilaration that came with knowing she and Melody had been right, Gemma said levelly, “That hasn’t yet been confirmed. But what matters to me is that we have his DNA, and that it will match your semen sample and Becca Meredith’s sample. And it will match DCI Jenny Hart’s.”

She was stretching the truth a bit, but they would have Craig’s DNA soon enough, and she wanted answers from Abbott now.

“Jenny?” Abbott’s voice was a whisper. “What are you talking about? Jenny was murdered—oh, God. You don’t mean he killed Jenny?”

“Becca didn’t know about Craig’s connection to Jenny Hart, did she?” asked Gemma. “She missed that one because the case was in the database as an unsolved murder, not as an unsolved rape. If she’d known about Jenny Hart, she wouldn’t have needed you.

“And that was what she wanted from you, wasn’t it, Chris?” Gemma leaned forward, intent, trying to make a connection with this woman who seemed to have built a fortress round any emotion other than fear. “She wanted you to file a rape charge against Angus Craig.”

Abbott shook her head, as if she meant to deny it, but when she saw their faces, her shoulders sagged. “Okay, okay,” she said. “That lead Becca said she had—when I got to the station, it was useless. But then she wanted to go for drinks. Becca wanting to do the jolly old-girl thing was odd enough, but Becca the Abstemious wanting to go out for a tipple—that was a real red flag. I went because I wanted to know what she was up to.

“She suggested a pub on Holland Park Avenue. Not too far away, but out of her station’s orbit. She waited until we’d both had a few drinks before she told me what she really wanted.”

Abbott raised a finger to her mouth and nibbled at the quick. Her nails were bitten as well. “Bitch,” she said. “I told her to bugger off. I told her that all happened five years ago, and I’ve moved on. I’ve worked hard to get where I am now.” The words spilled out as if she couldn’t stop them. “We’ve got two kids in school, and I’m up for another promotion. Why should I have risked everything so that Angus Craig would get a slap on the wrist—if even that.

“Look at you, both of you. You know how the system works. You know it would all have been for nothing.”

Suddenly, her anger seemed to drain away. Shivering, she rubbed at her bare arms and sank down on the arm of the sofa. “But I didn’t—I didn’t know about Jenny.”

“Did you know her well?” asked Melody.

“We were on a command course together at Bramshill a few years ago. I liked her. We met up for a drink every now and then. She was funny, and sharp, and never condescending. And she liked being single.” With a strangled laugh, Chris added, “Sometimes I used to wish I had her life.”

“And you never told Jenny what Angus Craig did to you?”

Chris shook her head, vehemently. “God, no. I never told anyone. I only made the report that night because one of the constables in my division found me crying and bleeding outside the hotel, and I had to say something. It was the best I could do under the circumstances. Oh—” She caught her breath as realization struck. “Oh, God. If I’d told Jenny, she’d never have gone with him—is that what happened? I know she was killed in her flat. Did she—did she invite him up for a drink?”

“What about Becca, Chris?” said Gemma. “You’d been friends since university. Did she not count? If you’d told her, she’d never have accepted a lift home from Craig the night he raped her. And now she’s dead, too.”

“Why should I have told Becca? She wasn’t exactly the shoulder you’d pick to cry on. And besides, I’d never have dreamed she’d be as stupid as I was. Always in control of everything, Becca.”

Gemma wondered what lay at the root of Abbott’s bitterness, a bitterness so corrosive she couldn’t find a kind word to say about her murdered friend. “So, last Friday night,” she said, “what did Becca do when you told her you wouldn’t cooperate?”

“She was livid. But then Becca always expected that what she wanted should come first.”

Gemma had a sudden hunch. She threw it out like bread on the water, to see what it might fetch. “Is that why she came back on Saturday? To try again to convince you?”

Abbott’s face closed like a shutter. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, come on, Chris.” Gemma knew now that she’d been right, and she wasn’t going to be fobbed off. “Do you want us to ask the neighbors? This is a small street, and I’ve no doubt that everyone knows everyone else’s business.

“Becca left her car in the city on Friday night after she met you. When she came back into London to pick it up on Saturday afternoon, she drove here, didn’t she?” Gemma glanced at the window, as if assessing the neighbors. “How many people do you think will remember her car? And Becca? She wasn’t exactly a woman you’d easily overlook. Did you argue at the door?”

After a long moment, Abbott gave a shrug that was meant to be nonchalant, and Gemma was certain she’d decided it wasn’t worth risking a house-to-house and being shown a liar. “So what if she did? She tried to bully us, if you want to know. Ross told her to sod off. She was always a bitch to him, so I’d say it was no better than she deserved.”

As if she realized how venomous she’d sounded, Abbott rubbed a hand across her face and said, “Look. I don’t mean I’m not sorry Becca’s dead. I was devastated when I heard. We both were. But it’s nothing to do with us, and I can’t see why you’ve come to me with this in the first place.” She stood. “With Craig dead, none of it matters anymore. And I’ve had enough.”

As if the assertion of Craig’s death had given her courage, she said, “I told you, I’ve got to pick up my kids. Your time’s up.”

Gemma’s glance at Melody told her they’d had the same thought. “DCI Abbott,” she said, “how did you know Angus Craig was dead?”

“Mrs. Craig’s dog?” said Kincaid, staring at Imogen Bell. “Bloody hell. I’d forgotten all about the dog. It must have got out somehow during the fire.”

DC Bell looked confused. “During the fire? The neighbor says he found the dog—it’s a little whippet—running loose around midnight. He rang Mrs. Craig but she didn’t answer, and he said he didn’t want to disturb them by going over so late. He thought he’d just keep the dog until morning and ring Mrs. Craig first thing. But then the smoke and the fire brigade woke him in the night and he was frantic about the Craigs. He’s been trying to speak to someone ever since—”

“Barney,” interrupted Kincaid. “The dog. The dog is a he, and his name is Barney.” He didn’t know why he felt so relieved that Edie Craig’s dog had survived. But why had the dog been out two hours before the fire? “Midnight? The neighbor said midnight?”

“Yes, sir. I’m sure of it,” answered Bell.

Kincaid turned to the fire investigator. “Owen, if Craig set the fire before midnight, could it have taken until two to become fully involved?”

Owen Morris shook his head. “I’d say very unlikely. There was a flash at the point of origin, and from the amount of accelerant poured round the house, I’d think the surrounding rooms went up pretty quickly. Fire’s a funny thing, though. It can play tricks on you. It’s possible it smoldered for a bit. We’ll know more when things cool off.”

“Still . . .” Kincaid let the sentence trail off, not sure he wanted to verbalize the unwelcome scenario that had come to him.

What if Edie Craig had suspected violence was brewing? Angus Craig had made no bones about hating the dog—perhaps she’d feared Barney would be a target. But surely if she’d realized just how bad it was, she’d have got out herself . . . or would she?

She was a woman, Kincaid suspected, who’d spent the better part of her married life trying to limit the damage her husband caused. But had she known, before Denis Childs’s visit last night, just how much havoc Craig had wreaked, how many lives he’d destroyed? And if not, could she now have lived with the truth?

She had been a gentle woman and possessed of unexpected grace. He hoped she had not guessed what was coming.

“Sir,” said Bell, “the neighbor. He’s still waiting at the gate. Should I—”

Kincaid shook himself back to the present. “Get his name and address. Ask him if he wouldn’t mind keeping the dog until we track down any friends or relatives of Mrs. Craig. And DC Bell, when the SOCOs get here, I want them to check Craig’s car for any trace evidence that matches the scene of Becca Meredith’s murder. If there’s any outerwear left undamaged in the house, I want that checked, too.”

Bell gaped at him. “You don’t think—” she began, then she collected herself and nodded. “Yes, sir. I’ll just speak to Mr. Wilson—that’s the neighbor.” She left them and walked towards the gate, but not without an uncertain backwards glance.

The timing of the fire wasn’t the only thing bothering Kincaid. Turning to Owen Morris, he said, “Can you tell if the same accelerant was used here as in Kieran Connolly’s boatshed?”

“It seems to have been common petrol in both cases.” Morris gave Kincaid a speculative frown. “And even if forensics can narrow it down to the refiner, it may not get you anywhere. You think Craig had something to do with Rebecca Meredith’s murder and with the boatshed?” The question was rhetorical, as Morris looked back at the smoldering house and added, “That would explain why he decided to go out with a bang.”

Except, Kincaid thought, that it didn’t. He could believe that seeing no way out, Craig had burned his wife’s beautiful house as a last act of viciousness. But they still had no proof that Craig had been connected with Becca Meredith’s murder or with the attack on Kieran. “We don’t—” he began when his phone rang.

When Kieran had managed to wrestle both dogs up Market Place and back into Tavie’s house, he found her gone. She’d left him a note on the little chalkboard in the kitchen, saying she’d gone out to the shops and would pick up something for their dinner.

“Go lie down, both of you,” Kieran told the dogs. Looking chastened, they did as they were bid. But Finn was still panting and trembling, and Kieran’s heart was still racing from the shock of seeing his friendly, easygoing dog become suddenly unhinged. When he pulled out his phone to ring Superintendent Kincaid, he realized his hands were shaking, the way they had in Iraq when his unit had seen action.

Closing his eyes, he took a breath, and when Kincaid answered, he made an effort to give him a clear description of what had happened. “It wasn’t Freddie,” he said. “Both dogs spent a couple of hours with him yesterday, and they were fine. It was the other guy. I’ve never seen Finn do anything like that. I thought he’d take the guy’s head off.”

“You’re sure you didn’t recognize this man?” Kincaid had asked.

“No. Never seen him before,” Kieran had said. But now his mind was beginning to play little tricks on him, little fragments of memory flaring like ghosts, just on the edge of perception.

He shook his head, but that made him dizzy.

Tea. Tea would help, he thought. But when he went to put the kettle on, he found himself getting dog biscuits instead. Fighting the spinning in his head, he took the biscuits into the sitting room and knelt by the dogs, praising them as he gave them their treats. He’d shouted at Finn, and Finn had only been trying to—

Kieran sat back so hard it made the room rock. Protect him. Finn had been trying to protect him.

But why would Finn—wait. Kieran reached out, touched the dog’s black coat, now warm from the fire, as if the contact could give him an answer.

Something familiar . . . There had been something familiar . . . The image tickled the edge of his subconscious, then suddenly the fuzzy outline became clearer . . .

The man on the riverbank, in the dusk . . . Was that where Kieran had seen Freddie’s friend? But Finn wouldn’t have recognized someone seen at a distance as a threat . . .

“Oh, Jesus,” Kieran whispered as realization hit him.

It hadn’t been sight, it had been smell that Finn recognized. That was what had terrified him.

When Kieran and Finn had found the spot where Becca was killed, he had been there, close enough for Finn to scent him.

And then, when he had rowed right up to the shed with his petrol bomb, Kieran remembered, Finn had lifted his head, nostrils flaring, a moment before the bottle crashed through the window. Both the window and the door of the shed had been open to clear solvent fumes.

It hadn’t been the sound of voices that had alerted Finn that night. The wind had been blowing downriver. Finn had caught the bastard’s scent.

And tonight—tonight Finn had associated that scent with Kieran’s fear on the riverbank and with the terror of the fire.

His hand still unsteady, Kieran lifted his phone again.

Then he stopped, his fingers going lax on the keypad. There was something more.

He closed his eyes and tried to bring back the man’s face, first glimpsed in that instant when he’d walked out of the Red Lion after Freddie.

But what Kieran saw against the blackness of his eyelids was not the scene outside the Red Lion, but a photograph. And in that photograph, he saw a younger version of that likeness amid a group of faces, all in a frame on a shelf in Becca’s cottage . . . a photo of a Boat Race crew.

“He’s a bit bonkers, don’t you think?” said Cullen when Kincaid had told him about Kieran’s call.

“Maybe not as much as you’d think.” Kincaid was already dialing Freddie Atterton’s number. After a few rings, the call went to voice mail. Kincaid swore, but didn’t leave a message. Disconnecting, he turned to Cullen. “We’ll try the flat.”

After a brief word with Owen Morris and DC Bell, they were on their way back to Henley.

“So, is this a case of what the dog did in the night or what the dog didn’t do in the night?” asked Cullen as they turned into the Marlow Road at Hambleden Mill.

Kincaid was not in the mood for flippancy. “We may never know why Edie Craig’s dog was loose two hours before the fire. But if Kieran Connolly says his dog was panicked, I believe him. I also believe someone tried to kill Connolly, and I’m not convinced it was Angus Craig.”

“If Peter Gaskill and his cronies were Craig’s alibi for the attack on Connolly, I’m not sure I’d give the alibi too much credence,” argued Doug. “And it seems rather obvious that Craig liked to burn things up.”

“Does it?” Kincaid braked hard behind a car with hire-car plates going miles below the limit. “Anybody can buy a tin of petrol. And I’d swear Craig didn’t know about the attack on Kieran. The bastard was too self-obsessed to be that good an actor.”

“What about Becca Meredith?”

“I’m still not certain we can fit him for it. The bartender at the pub in Hambleden had no reason to lie about the time Craig came in that evening. And Craig’s motive is still questionable, unless Becca found out about Jenny Hart, and I don’t think she did.”

“Then—”

“Damned if I know. But I’d feel a whole lot better if I had Freddie Atterton in my sight.”

When Freddie buzzed them into the Malthouse and opened the door of his flat, Kincaid’s relief swiftly turned to anger. “Where the hell were you?” he said, pushing past Freddie without giving him a chance to invite them in. “Why the hell didn’t you answer your phone?”

“I just didn’t pick up,” said Freddie, looking puzzled. “I was on long distance with Becca’s mother, making arrangements to meet her at the airport—”

Kincaid waved him into silence. “Okay. But before that. You were at the Red Lion with another man—who was he?”

“What? How did you—”

“Kieran Connolly rang me.”

“Oh, yeah, Kieran.” Freddie frowned. “I saw Kieran, all right. What was up with that? His dog, the lovely black Lab—he went absolutely bonkers. I thought he was going to take Ross down in the street. And then the other one, the Alsatian, went just as mad. I thought they were trained search dogs, not attack dogs.”

“They are search dogs, and they’re very well socialized,” Kincaid said, frowning. “Which makes it even odder that Finn would go after your mate like that. Your friend—Ross. Tell me about him.”

“I did. Remember? He’s my mate who took me to the mortuary. We’re old friends from Oxford.”

That was right. Kincaid remembered Freddie saying something about a university friend who had taken him to make the formal identification of Becca’s body. “Kieran said you and your friend seemed to be arguing when he first saw you. Why?”

“Ross kept asking me what I knew about Angus Craig. I told him the guy stood me up for a meeting, and I thought he was a right prick.

“But Ross had had more than a few drinks, and he gets . . . stroppy. He said he couldn’t believe Becca never told me about Craig. He said”—Freddie stopped, color flushing his face—“he said he’d never realized I was blind and stupid.

“He was always a bit of a shit, Ross, and to tell the truth I never thought he deserved to be in the bloody boat. But to say something like that—he can’t have been suggesting Becca had an affair with Craig. I don’t believe it.”

“What did you tell him?” asked Kincaid, his mind racing.

“Nothing. Kieran showed up with the dogs just then and all hell broke loose. And after that, Ross took off like the hounds of hell were after him. Can’t say I blame him, but—”

“Why was your friend so interested in Angus Craig?” Kincaid broke in.

“I’ve no idea. I didn’t even know he knew him. But I suppose it would make sense that Chris did.”

“Chris?”

“Ross’s wife. She’s a DCI with the Met, like Becca, though they worked in different divisions.”

“Chris?” said Doug, his voice rising. “What’s her last name?”

Freddie took a startled step back. “Abbott. It’s Abbott. What of it?”

Waving his hands in agitation, Doug turned to Kincaid. “That’s who Becca saw, that last day. Remember, at Charlotte’s party, I said I’d got her name from Sergeant Patterson? The old friend who came into the station—it was Chris Abbott.”

Kincaid stared at him. A female police officer, a female police officer who knew Angus Craig—and hadn’t Freddie also told him, after he’d been to the mortuary, that his friend’s wife was a cop?

Bloody hell. He’d been so focused on Angus Craig—and on proving Denis Childs wrong about Freddie—that he’d walked right over a bloody land mine and hadn’t seen it. He was the one who’d been blind and stupid.

“Christ,” he said. “She—this Chris Abbott—has to have been one of the victims. But did Becca find out that day, or did she already know? Something happ—”

“Victims?” Freddie broke in. “What the hell are you talking about? Victims of what?” He looked from Kincaid to Cullen, but it was Kincaid who answered.

There was no longer any need to protect Freddie from Craig or vice versa. Freddie would have to know the truth and it might as well be now. “Look,” Kincaid said. “Why don’t we sit down.”

“I’m tired of being told to sit,” Freddie retorted. He was less fragile today, edgy, rocking on the balls of his feet, and the look he gave them was challenging. “Say whatever it is you’ve got to say.”

“Okay, then,” Kincaid agreed, although he was still reluctant. “A year ago, Becca reported a sexual assault. She didn’t identify her assailant. She did, however, tell her superior officer, Peter Gaskill, what had happened.

“Deputy Assistant Commissioner Craig had offered her a lift home after a Met function in London. He asked to come in to use the toilet. He then assaulted her.

“Afterwards, he threatened her. He told her he’d make sure she lost her job, and her credibility, if she told anyone what had happened.”

Any doubts Kincaid might have harbored about Freddie’s knowledge disappeared in that moment.

Shock made Freddie’s features sharp, as if the skin had fallen away from his bones.

Then the rage flooded in, suffusing his face, and Kincaid remembered that this was a man who had been strong enough—and bloody-minded enough—to earn the oars mounted on the sitting room wall.

As had his friend, Kincaid realized, with dawning horror. Becca’s killer had known how to drown a rower and had been strong enough to do it. Kieran’s attacker had rowed near enough to the boatshed to throw a bomb through the window, then disappeared, a feat that had required speed and accuracy in a boat. Had it—

“I’ll kill him,” said Freddie. “That bastard Craig. She wouldn’t have stood for it, Becca wouldn’t. He killed her, didn’t he, to shut her up. And you—” He turned on Kincaid, his hands balled into fists. “You knew all along, didn’t you? You’ve been protecting him. You’re just as bad as—”

“Freddie, shut up and listen to me.” Kincaid had to restrain himself from shaking him. “I haven’t been protecting Craig. I’ve been trying to find proof that he killed Becca and attacked Kieran Connolly, but I don’t think he did.

“And now he’s dead. He killed himself, and his wife, last night.”

“What?” Freddie stood, his hands still raised, looking like a boxer reeling from a knockout blow. “But why—what—”

“We found out something else about Craig,” Kincaid said. “Something that had nothing to do with Becca. Something he knew he couldn’t cover up.”

“Then—if it wasn’t Craig—who killed Becca?” Freddie’s handsome face contorted as he bit back a sob. “Why would someone else kill her?”

Kincaid thought of the man Kieran had seen on the riverbank and of big, friendly Finn, suddenly frightened into a frenzy by the sight of a man in the street.

And he went back to Freddie’s friend Ross Abbott, the rower, the Oxford Blue—a rower whose wife had known Becca and Angus Craig. But why, if Craig had raped Chris Abbott, would her husband kill Becca, not Craig? And why was Ross Abbott so frantic now to learn what Freddie knew about Craig?

Kincaid shook his head. He didn’t have all the pieces, but he felt the violence building, the hair on the back of his neck rising in atavistic anticipation. This wasn’t over.

And if Ross Abbott was their killer, he’d targeted Kieran once. After that afternoon’s encounter with Kieran and Finn, he would be even more certain that Kieran posed a threat.

“Freddie,” he said. “Your friend Ross Abbott—where is he now?”