Free No Mark Upon Her by Deborah Crombie Page A

the roadside like an inconvenient parcel.
    Leaving the motorway, she concentrated on remembering Kincaid’s brief directions, but it was easy enough to follow the road signs towards Henley. By the time she reached Wargrave, the dual carriageway had shrunk to a narrow road that dipped and turned though high banks of hedges and avenues of golden trees. A pub, St. George and the Dragon, flashed by on her left, and beside it she glimpsed the river and the bright colors of moored narrowboats. As the village vanished behind her, she felt she was sinking inexorably into the heart of the countryside, and she had an uneasy sense of déjà vu.
    Before she could pursue the thought, she was turning into the Henley Road, the river before her.
    Crossing the bridge, she only glimpsed the river, the view broken by the railings so that it looked like a juddery old film. Then she was across it, and the town center flashed by her; the pretty flower-bedecked pub by the bridge, the square of the church tower, a blur of shops and restaurants, the bulk of the town hall sitting astride the top of the square as if asserting its proprietary rights.
    She turned right as she left the town behind, and was soon running along another narrow, leafy road cloaked in autumnal colors, her sense of prickly familiarity increasing.
    She slowed at the signpost for Hambleden, as Kincaid had directed, then braked sharply as she rounded the next bend. The police cars were clustered on the verges, positioned at odd angles as if they had been scooped willy-nilly from the narrow lane and dropped. Their blue lights strobed like distress signals aimed at the lowering gray sky.
    This time she had no doubt she’d reached the crime scene. The green Astra sat among the Thames Valley Police patrol cars, as plain as a female peacock against the bright blue and yellow Battenburg livery of the official vehicles.
    Kit was leaning against the Astra, hands in the pockets of his anorak, his downcast face brightening when he saw her.
    Gemma lowered her window and showed her identification to the uniformed constable on the scene, then eased her Escort onto the verge as close to the Astra as she could. The children hadn’t stirred, so she slipped quietly out of the car, holding her finger to her lips as she walked towards Kit.
    “I don’t want to wake them if I can help it,” she said. Then, glancing at the Astra, she grinned at Kit. “It is a bit hideous, isn’t it?”
    “A bit?” He shook his head in disgust, but his face relaxed into what might almost have been a smile.
    “Will you watch the little ones while I find your dad and see what’s going on?” she asked.
    “He wouldn’t let me go with him,” said Kit, but he sounded more resigned than sullen. He pointed towards a narrow passageway that ran between the redbrick houses nearest the formation of police cars. “It’s through there. The river’s just the other side but you can’t see it from here.”
    Gemma gave his arm a pat. “I’ll be as quick as I can.” She glanced once more at the children, still sleeping soundly. “Kit, if they wake, make sure to keep them in the car,” she added.
    She followed Kit’s directions, ducking into the graveled passageway. After a moment, she rounded a bend and saw the Thames spread before her, wide and still except where the water cascaded over the weir.
    From the near bank, a metal-railed concrete walkway zigzagged across the water, traversing the river, then the weir, until it reached the lock on the far side, and as Gemma gazed across it, she realized at last why the drive from Henley had seemed so familiar.
    She had been here before.
    There had been a body in this place, in this lock, a case that had led to secrets in the heart of the Chiltern Hills—a case that had propelled her and Duncan from a comfortable relationship as working partners into something much more complicated, something that had terrified her.
    And there had been a woman involved, Julia Swann, an