Chapter One
From the train window Duncan Kincaid could see the piles
of debris in the back gardens and on the occasional
common. Lumber, dead branches and twigs, crushed cardboard
boxes and the odd bit of broken furniture-- anything
portable served as fair game for Guy Fawkes bonfires. He
rubbed ineffectually at the grimy window-pane with his
jacket cuff, hoping for a better view of one particularly
splendid monument to British abandon, then sat back in his
seat with a sigh. The fine drizzle in the air, combined
with British Rail's standard of cleanliness, reduced
visibility to a few hundred yards.
The train slowed as it approached High Wycombe. Kincaid
stood and stretched, then collected his overcoat and bag
from the rack. He'd gone straight to St. Marleybone from
the Yard, grabbing the emergency kit he kept in his
office -- clean shirt, toiletries, razor, only the
necessities needed for an unexpected summons. And most
were more welcome than this, a political request from the
AC to aid an old school chum in a delicate situation.
Kincaid grimaced. Give him an unidentified body in a field
any day.
He swayed as the train lurched to a halt. Bending down to
peer through the window, he scanned the station carpark
for a glimpse of his escort. The unmarked panda car, its
shape unmistakable even in the increasing rain, was pulled
up next to the platform, its parking lights on, a gray
plume of exhaust escaping from its tailpipe.
It looked like the cavalry had been called out to welcome
Scotland Yard's fair-haired boy.
"Jack Makepeace. Sergeant, I should say. Thames Valley
CID." Makepeace smiled, yellowed teeth showing under the
sandy bristle of mustache. "Nice to meet you, sir." He
engulfed Kincaid's hand for an instant in a beefy paw,
then took Kincaid's case and swung it into the panda's
boot. "Climb in, and we can talk as we go."
The car's interior smelled of stale cigarettes and wet
wool. Kincaid cracked his window, then shifted a bit in
his seat so that he could see his companion. A fringe of
hair the same color as the mustache, freckles extending
from face into shiny scalp, a heavy nose with the
disproportionate look that comes of having been smashed --
all in all not a prepossessing face, but the pale blue
eyes were shrewd, and the voice unexpectedly soft for a
man of his bulk.
Makepeace drove competently on the rain-slick streets,
snaking his way south and west until they crossed the M40
and left the last terraced houses behind. He glanced at
Kincaid, ready to divert some of his attention from the
road.
"Tell me about it, then," Kincaid said.
"What do you know?"
"Not much, and I'd just as soon you start from scratch, if
you don't mind."
Makepeace looked at him, opened his mouth as if to ask a
question, then closed it again. After a moment he
said, "Okay. Daybreak this morning the Hambleden
lockkeeper, one Perry Smith, opens the sluicegate to fill
the lock for an early traveler, and a body rushes through
it into the lock. Gave him a terrible shock, as you can
imagine. He called Marlow -- they sent a panda car and the
medics." He paused as he downshifted into an intersection,
then concentrated on overtaking an ancient Morris Minor
that was creeping its way up the gradient. "They fished
him out, then when it became obvious that the poor chappie
was not going to spew up the canal and open his eyes, they
called us."
The windscreen wiper squeaked against dry glass and
Kincaid realized that the rain had stopped. Freshly plowed
fields rose on either side of the narrow road. The bare,
chalky soil was a pale brown, and against it, the black
dots of foraging rooks looked like pepper on toast. Away
to the west, a cap of beech trees crowned a hill. "How'd
you identify him?"
"Wallet in the poor sod's back pocket. Connor Swann, aged
thirty-five, brown hair, blue eyes, height about six feet,
weight around twelve stone. Lived in Henley, just a few
miles upstream."
"Sounds like your lads could have handled it easily
enough," said Kincaid, not bothering to conceal his
annoyance. He considered the prospect of spending his
Friday evening tramping around the Chiltern Hundreds, damp
as a Guy Fawkes bonfire, instead of meeting Gemma for an
after-work pint at the pub down Wilfred Street. "Bloke has
a few drinks, goes for a stroll on the sluicegate, falls
in. Bingo."
Makepeace was already shaking his head. "Ah, but that's
not the whole story, Mr. Kincaid. Someone left a very nice
set of prints on either side of his throat." He lifted
both hands from the wheel for an instant in an eloquently
graphic gesture. "It looks like he was strangled, Mr.
Kincaid."
Kincaid shrugged. "A reasonable assumption, I would think.
But I don't quite see why that merits Scotland Yard's
intervention."
"It's not the how, Mr. Kincaid, but the who. It seems that
the late Mr. Swann was the son-in-law of Sir Gerald
Asherton, the conductor, and Dame Caroline Stowe, who I
believe is a singer of some repute." Seeing Kincaid's
blank expression, he continued, "Are you not an opera
buff, Mr. Kincaid?"
"Are you?" Kincaid asked before he could clamp down his
involuntary surprise, knowing he shouldn't have judged the
man's cultural taste by his physical characteristics.
"I have some recordings, and I watch it on the telly, but
I've never been to a performance."
The wide sloping fields had given way to heavily wooded
hills, and now, as the road climbed, the trees encroached
upon it.
"We're coming into the Chiltern Hills," said
Makepeace. "Sir Gerald and Dame Caroline live just a bit
farther on, near Fingest. The house is called "Badger's
End,' though you wouldn't think it to look at it." He
negotiated a hairpin bend, and then they were running
downhill again, beside a rocky stream ...
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