Black River
JOSS STIRLING

One More Chapter

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First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2020

Copyright © Joss Stirling 2020

Cover design by Lucy Bennett © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2020

Cover photograph © Nature Photographers Ltd/Alamy Stock Photo

Joss Stirling asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008422585

Ebook Edition © October 2020 ISBN: 9780008422578

Version: 2020-09-16

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

About the Author

Also by Joss Stirling

About the Publisher

To my friends in my real book club based in my home city of Oxford. Thank you for the years of food, wine and conversation, and a wide range of book choices that have stretched my reading habits. There have been some mountain tops – and some boggy reads – but they’ve always been fun. We’ve not yet taken it as far as a swim in the Cherwell, but maybe one day …

Chapter 1

Jess

I don’t know what your book club is like, but mine is the sort that ends up with me stranded naked in the river with a dead man and a murderer on the loose.

Or maybe that is just me?

How did this happen? I suppose you could say it started when Cory told me it would be a great idea for me to join her group.

‘Just a few of us mums – our night away from the husband slash partner and the kids. Bring-and-share supper. Lots to drink. Lots of gossip. A bit of discussion about the book – eventually.’

‘And if I don’t qualify as a mum?’ I watched Cory push her three-year-old in the swing in the back garden of her Summertown house in north Oxford. It was a minute patch of lawn edged with lots of planters that Cory confessed to restocking each year as she suffered from an incurable case of black finger. Nothing survived in her care over winter. My hopes weren’t high for her scented geraniums. We were both sipping our evening glass of white, a congratulations for getting through another shitty day.

‘God, Jessica, you don’t need kids to come along! In fact, you’d be our exotic alternative, the one living the life innocent of NCT classes or PTA politics. I bet you don’t even know what a traybake is – or pelvic floor exercises?’

That was when I realised that reproducing brought with it almost as many acronyms and codewords as the army. Then again, from what I’d seen, maybe parenthood was a bit like entering enemy territory and you needed some discipline to get through?

I still wasn’t sure I wanted to enter this contested area that appeared to belong to professional mothers. What did I have in common with them? I didn’t have kids, a husband (or ex-husband), a house or career prospects. On the other hand, almost all the women I knew were in this life stage, what choice did I have if I didn’t want to embarrass myself angling for friendships with those years younger than me? ‘But you do talk about the books you read?’

‘Oh yes. Most of us went to uni. Except for Jasmine. She opted for modelling and has ended up earning more than the rest of us put together.’

I wasn’t sure I was destined to like Jasmine and told Cory so.

Cory drained her glass and handed it to me to hold so she could launch Leah more vigorously. ‘We all agreed to hate the bitch naturally, but she’s so sweet we couldn’t keep it up. She’ll win you round too.’ Leah squealed as the swing hit the point where it made the frame judder; Cory slacked off a little. ‘The point is, Jess, we all have dormant brain cells that need stimulating at a minimum once a month. Stave off Alzheimer’s. You can never start too soon.’

‘Well, that’s an optimistic outlook, Cory.’

She ignored my dry tone. ‘Believe me, you can only get so far on Disney Princesses and the Marvel Universe.’ Cory had Leah and Benji, a boy of five who currently wanted to be Spider-Man when he grew up, so considered herself the expert in both topics. ‘I really think you’ll like it. Adult conversation and culture.’

Standing by the swing set with the munchkin trying to launch herself into space, I discovered that I’d do anything to please Cory. Even risk an evening of book talk with fecund thirty-somethings. And as real friends do, I agreed to join the book club to keep Cory company. That was why I was now hiding in the bushes without a stitch on trying to work out how I could get home without anyone seeing.

Conclusion? It was not possible and I had the horrible creeping feeling that things were going to get much worse.

Cory said she’d come back once she’d caught up with the dog that had run off with my rolled-up clothes. I’d hoped at least for knickers and bra, but the bundle had kept together surprisingly well in the big jaws of a flat-coated Retriever. I suppose the name was a bit of a clue, though I was not sure what the owner was going to do with his mutt’s offering of a Primark polka dot sundress and scanty panties.

She still hadn’t returned. I shivered. My head was swimming with too much white wine – and my body from the real dip it had just taken. Our summer book club meeting – a picnic by the swimming spot called Parson’s Pleasure, in University Parks, it’ll be fun! Our chosen good read, Wild Swim, a trendy book by the improbably named Jago Jackson. This travelogue-cum-social-commentary featured him leaping up each day from his lodgings in an Oxford college to discover another hidden treasure in the upper reaches of the Thames, ranging from Port Meadow to Cheese Wharf. Even the swimming places around Oxford sounded like something served in the Senior Common Room. Parson’s Pleasure was the oldest spot, famous for its male nude bathing and featured in Oxford folklore, until it was officially shut in 1991. Closure was just a challenge to people like me. Parson’s Pleasure lay on a bend in the Cherwell where the water dithered for a while under the overhanging willows and washed against the punt rollers that allowed the flat bottomed boats to progress upstream. By day, it felt a place for Brideshead Revisited student picnics with college scarves, champagne and teddy bears. At night, the black waters enticed you to join the desperate and the drunken who had ended their days here.

Jago had now adopted it as his own place for a daily dip. Cory’s ex, Brendan, made the documentary that accompanied the book – another reason for us all to come down hard on it. Jago only stopped in his praise of swimming to make acerbic comments about the various new tribes now living in his city, of which Yummy Mummies were, of course, one. His pen did not spare the people who dared to enjoy the same places as him and introduced such abominations as kale smoothies and oat-milk cappuccinos to staid Oxford cafés. My book club friends howled at his caricature of them, calling out his thinly veiled disdain for their life choices.

‘Hey, Jago!’ Cory had roared at the picnic, waving a celery stick like a machete, ‘I may drive an Audi, job-share and have an au pair, but I also have a degree in international development, get paid a pittance at DfID to go on project assessment visits to Syrian refugee camps, and you still dismiss me?’ Cory was a civil servant working part-time for the Department for International Development in London.

‘I don’t think he means you,’ said Jasmine. She absolutely was the epitome of the term ‘yummy’: coffee-coloured hair, big dark eyes, svelte figure. Where her little boy Reuben came from, I’d no idea, but I was voting ‘stork’ because there was no way that midriff ever housed a baby.

‘You mean I’m not young, attractive and still sexy?’ asked Cory, ready to rumble even though her wine intake had been modest as befits our designated driver.

To be honest, Cory wasn’t really the poster girl for the Yummy Mummies, more the Over-Stretch-Marked Mums.

‘No! What I mean is that Jago hasn’t bothered to talk to a real woman,’ said Jasmine, deftly avoiding a fight. ‘All the fellow wild swimmers he interviews about the life are either hoary old men or eccentric lady artist types. The sort who have long grey hair, an allotment and make pots.’

‘Or smoke pot,’ added Frances, our one-liner expert. An acerbic forty-something with family back in Hong Kong, she now ran the HR department in a law firm – another part-time job-share mum burning the scented candle at both ends.

‘And we wouldn’t know anything about that,’ I said archly.

Their faces were blank.

‘You mean, you don’t?’

‘Not since college,’ said Frances.

‘Not even then,’ said Cory.

Jasmine kept silent.

Right. OK.

‘So Jago doesn’t like empowered women,’ I said, hoping to deflect the conversation from drug taking.

‘Exactly!’ said Cory.

‘Then I say we should claim the riverbank here as our own. We can’t let media darlings like him steal our identity as women.’ I’d had my fill of media darlings when living with my ex, Michael, TV’s favourite psychologist. ‘We have a right to the same water Jago swims in. Parson’s Pleasure is not just for naked dons!’

‘Actually, there’s a traditional spot on the river for women, called Dame’s Delight,’ said Jasmine helpfully, pointing upstream.

‘I want to be a Parson not a Dame.’ Maybe there’s something wrong with that statement? ‘Whatever: I’m going in!’

‘But you can’t!’ protested Jasmine. ‘The park’s about to close. Even if you swim out, your stuff will be stuck on inside the railings.’

‘Just watch me.’

‘Oh God, I don’t want anything to do with this. Jess is going to do one of her crazy things.’ Frances was already gathering up her blanket and picnic bag. This was my third book club and she already had my number. ‘I’ve got to get back to pay the babysitter. No time to be arrested for public indecency.’

The others decamped with her, leaving just Cory and me.

‘Jess, this isn’t a good idea,’ said Cory plaintively.

None of my ideas are good. ‘I’m committed now. I’m like Eddie the Eagle having left the top of the High Jump at the whatever Olympics.’ I rolled up my underwear in my polka dot dress and put it at the bottom of a tree. If I’d thought about that a little more, I would’ve realised that wasn’t a good place because you know who else liked tree-trunks …? I pushed my way through the undergrowth – not so funny, naked – and kicked off my sandals before entering the icy water.

Ah, Jago, now I understood why you bother to get up for this. It felt sensual and might’ve been the closest I’d come to orgasm for a while now. I waded in past my lady bits and squeaked when the water reached my waist.

‘You go, girl!’ crowed Cory, clearly having decided that, as no policemen rushed up to arrest me, it was safe to be supportive.

‘Join me! The water’s lovely!’ I did breaststroke out into the middle of the Cherwell and lay on my back, bosoms saying a perky hello to the unscandalised sky as the current drifted south towards the punt rollers and the next bend in the river. This is the life. I might have messed everything else up but at least I still had the ability to live free and easy under the apple boughs. A wild child wild swimming.

Barking and a scream from the bank broke into my reverie.

‘Nooo! Give that back!’ wailed Cory, running off after the aforementioned Retriever retrieving my clothes. ‘I’ll get them for you, Jess!’ That was the last I saw of her. When I scrambled out, I saw that she hadn’t even thought to leave me the picnic blanket. From skinny-dipping to starkers in the shrubbery.

Welcome to my life.

It’s hard to estimate how long you’ve been waiting when you are alone in a park with no clothes, no watch, no phone.

Even a little while was too long.

Someone was bound to come along soon. A park keeper to check the public hadn’t planned on any overnight camping. A last minute jogger. Another dog walker. A creepy guy in a mac …

Oh hell, I needed something to cover up the bare minimum.

Bare minimum? God, I was even cracking jokes to myself about myself. Focus.

I spotted a punt tangled in the bushes that overhung the river. It must’ve got loose from the Cherwell boathouse upstream where you could rent them. Thinking optimistically, it might contain a tarpaulin, or a couple of cushions.

I could swim over there, check it out and then be back before Cory returned. Or huddle in it and call across the water to her.

Good plan.

I launched into the water and swam across. I couldn’t get into the boat at this angle, not without someone to haul me onboard, so I went to the bank. Somehow climbing out here made me feel even more naked.

Think beach in the south of France, I told myself. You’re surrounded by lots of Chloes and Jean-Pauls, all buff and naked. But I couldn’t help picturing grandads with rolled-up trouser legs and handkerchief hats, eyes goggling, as I climbed out. Admittedly, this was all a bit Carry-on Camping with the dog running off with my stuff like that.

A chill breeze blew away any humour. I was cold and miserable now, and the situation was giving me the creeps. I was just asking for some pervert to attack me, standing exposed like this. I had to cover up. I gave a trailing rope a tug to bring the boat a little closer. I hoped for a tarpaulin. Instead, I found another naked body.

But this one was dead – and not by natural causes.

My heartbeat went into overdrive. I really shouldn’t be here – weaponless, no clothes, and a murderer nearby.

Then the bushes on the opposite bank rustled and a man pushed his way through, coming towards me.

I screamed.

Chapter 2

Leo

No police officer welcomed this kind of call. It came through late evening on a rare day off.

‘Hello?’ Holding the phone in the crook of his shoulder, Leo wiped a hand on his gardening jeans. They were in the middle of a scorching summer, and he’d been repainting the Japanese-style bridge over the pond in his garden in the cool of the evening.

‘Detective Inspector George?’

‘Yes?’

‘Please hold for Superintendent Thaxted.’

His heart sank. He quickly reviewed all the things he might have done to warrant a call this late. He was not on duty, his paperwork was up to date and performance reviews done. He couldn’t imagine what had brought this upon him. While waiting, he shook a handful of pellets for the Koi carp, drawing it out of the shadows. The carp had come with the house when Leo moved in six years ago and he had nicknamed the fish Goldemort, giant survivor of what once had been a shoal. Charitably, he had put its solo presence down to depredations by a heron; but, as a detective in CID, he had to harbour doubts as to whether he was giving sanctuary to a killer.

‘Leo?’ Superintendent Thaxted’s voice was as forthright as ever. Leo held the phone slightly away from his ear.

‘Ma’am?’ Best not to assume this was for a bollocking, though the formidable Head of the Local Police Area was known to prefer to do her reprimands one-to-one just before Monday arrived. Clearing the decks, she called it, like she was a frigate setting up the guns to blast them all out of the water.

‘Sorry to disturb you on your day off, but we’ve got a situation.’

Ah, so not a telling off. Leo felt slightly less guilty. ‘No problem, Superintendent.’

‘A body’s been found by the river in University Parks.’

‘I see.’ Where is she going with this? A body in the river was hardly news. Suicides, drunken revellers, cyclists missing the path: he’d unfortunately seen it all. The Cherwell, which flowed into the Thames in Oxford, looked the epitome of a gentle English river, passing through meadows, willow banks and colleges, but the police could tell you that any stretch of water had the potential to be a killer. ‘How can I help?’

‘I’m going outside protocol because I need someone I can trust to head up the investigation.’

Alarm bells began ringing. This sounded like politics: the police officer’s nightmare.

‘I see.’

‘There are two reasons I’m calling you. First, initial reports are that the victim is well known in the university.’

Leo swore silently. Getting involved with the Oxford elite is like dancing on an ants’ nest covered in honey. ‘And the second reason?’

‘We have a witness who needs sensitive handling; I’d prefer that you, rather than the duty officer, do that interview.’

‘Who’s on call?’ Leo tried to remember who was on this weekend.

‘Harry Boston. I’ve told him already that I want a more senior officer to head the operation and am sending you to take over. He’s to stand by and preserve the scene until you arrive.’

Oh, Harry would love that. It was well known at the nick that DS Boston was under a cloud with the top brass for his treatment of students arrested in a demo the previous month. Word was that he’d been a little too handsy with a girl and complaints have been made.

‘Any more details, ma’am?’ She was being very cagey.

‘Boston’s initial report is that it looks like murder, not suicide.’

That was why she was keeping the details brief: she wanted a clean investigation with no assumptions. Leo was already in the house, picking up his keys. ‘Which entrance, ma’am?’

‘You’ll be met at the gate near Linacre College. And, Leo?’

‘Yes, ma’am?’ Putting the phone on speaker, he changed into dark trousers and grabbed a shirt from the clean laundry pile.

‘Get this right. If the initial identification is right, Thames Valley Police doesn’t want to bring the wrath of the university down on our heads. It would be career-ending stuff. And I’m not talking just about Sergeant Boston.’

And there was the ballsy threat. At least he knew it really was the Super he was talking to.

‘Yes, ma’am.’ Passing the back of the sofa, as a final thought, he snagged a jacket he’d discarded earlier. ‘I’m on it.’

Sergeant Trevor Kent, a uniform Leo knew well from Kidlington HQ, was on the watch for him. He was an older man, approaching retirement, but could be relied on to get the details right. Blue and white tape already blocked the cycle path to Marston and entrance to the park. Getting out of his car, Leo nodded to him.

‘Trevor.’

‘Sir.’ Kent came to attention. All the uniformed officers did this with him. Leo had never developed a knack for setting junior officers at their ease so had to settle for wary respect in all his dealings. It didn’t help that in his very first case in Oxford, Leo had torn a strip off an old-timer who mishandled evidence. He couldn’t abide any sloppiness; that could lead to the guilty being acquitted.

‘I take it that you’ve got someone on the other end of this path, Trevor?’ This corner of the park intersected with one of the main cycle routes between the city centre and one of Oxford’s urban villages, Marston.

‘Yes, sir. Constable Kennedy is at the Marston end.’

‘Good. Any trouble?’

‘No, sir. The park was closing when the body was called in, so it was already empty of visitors. I don’t know much but Sergeant Boston told me that we’ve got the person who found the body on the bank, the witness who called it in and a park keeper who did the final sweep for members of the public. They’re all waiting for you in there.’ He gestured to the black gates that would normally be padlocked by now. Orange light from the streetlamp barely made an impact on the darkness beyond. The leaves rustled as the breeze picked up, and branches tossed against the silver sky. Leo remembered something on the forecast about a storm approaching, which was the last thing he needed for preserving the evidence. They would have to work fast. He took a flashlight out of the boot of his car.

‘Is SOCO here yet?’ He couldn’t see any sign of their van.

‘Heading in from Kidlington. Should be here any minute. The ambulance went in a few minutes ago – not that they’re needed. Too late for our victim.’ Trevor’s radio crackled and Leo could hear Harry Boston demanding an update.

‘Sir, DI George has just arrived,’ said Kent. Leo switched on the torch and began walking away. ‘Coming your way now.’

Sergeant Boston’s response was along the lines of ‘about bloody time’ but Leo couldn’t stomach beginning a murder enquiry in a showdown with Harry about insubordination. He’d not yet got over Leo leapfrogging him to be made inspector. He’d closed his eyes to the fact that it was not Leo’s fault, but his own.

In contrast to the sports fields in the centre, this corner of the park was so densely planted that you couldn’t see what lay around the bend. If anyone was going to ambush another person, thought Leo, this would be a great spot to pick: only a short stretch to dump the body in the river and an exit that gave you a choice of directions: south down St Cross Road, east along South Parks Road, or you could even disappear into the warren of buildings in the university science area and make your escape along the alleyway past the Museum of Natural History. That was if the attack happened here and not upstream.

But Trevor had said the victim was on the bank and not in the river. If a murderer had attacked someone on the bank, then he would’ve done better to tip the body into the water. There it stood a good chance of not surfacing for a few days, weeks even. Maybe they’d been disturbed in their attack?

An attack in a twilit park: was it a sexual crime? Leo hoped he wasn’t about to face some poor woman who’d had her life cut short in the worst way.

Chapter 3

Jess

I was fuming. The note of disbelief in the policeman’s voice was unmistakable.

‘Miss Bridges, if you would explain what happened one more time?’

The officer was a bear of a man with a face only a mother would love – a Tyson Fury gone to seed – and I was standing before him, clutching to my chest and nether parts double spreads from the Oxford Mail that I’d fished out of a bin. He’d been summoned by a passing jogger who had seen me on the other side of the river and given me the fright of my life when he pushed through the bushes to offer help. Together we’d brought the boat over to the bank of the river inside the park, as that was nearest the road. I think I had some muddled thought that paramedics might be able to do something, even though the man in the punt was clearly dead. You’ll have to forgive me for that impulse; I was in shock, I think. The runner, a man in his late thirties, somehow familiar but don’t ask me where from, was now sitting on a bench a few feet away, dripping wet but not seemingly bothered by his state. He also was looking at me incredulously. Or was it … lasciviously?

‘As I told you, Officer … er …?’

‘Sergeant Boston.’ The policeman was not even bothering to keep his eyes on my face.

‘I’d been in the river. Swimming. For fun. A Retriever stole my clothes, my friend went after it but didn’t come back, so I decided to swim over to the punt to see if I could find an alternative – cushions or something.’

He looked down at the newspaper. Unfortunately, my boobs were currently wrapped in a headline that claimed: ‘Oxford named “wokest” place in the country’. I think a few of its citizens might’ve missed the trend.

‘This is my alternative. The local rag. You couldn’t possibly call for something for me to wear, could you?’

‘The ambulance will be here momentarily.’ Did he get off on being pompous? I thought probably ‘yes’. ‘They’ll give you a blanket. You admit to swimming naked?’

He seemed to be missing the point. ‘You do realise there’s a dead body in that boat?’

‘Yes, I do. But swimming naked is a public order offence.’

‘So, under public order law, it’s OK to murder someone and dump their body but not to skinny dip? There seems to be something a little wrong with that line up of priorities.’ Shut up, Jess!

He lifted a brow. ‘Did you murder someone, Miss Bridges?’

‘No!’

‘So how do you know he was murdered?’ We both knew how I was aware it was a he. The victim was lying on his back. I could report that death was not kind to genitalia.

‘The head wound was a bit of a giveaway, don’t you think?’ Half of the man’s head had been knocked in by what on TV cop shows they call blunt force trauma.

‘Did you touch the body?’

I nodded. Stupidly, in my first shock, I’d felt for a pulse. ‘Just the wrist and neck. To see if I should try CPR.’

He rolled his eyes. ‘Did you move him at all?’

‘No, only the boat.’ We’d swum over, tied it up to a tree and then the jogger had called the police on the phone he’d thankfully remembered to leave with his shoes on the bank. What he had made of a naked woman gibbering about a dead man, I had no idea. His eyes had barely left me since.

The flashing lights heralded the arrival of the promised ambulance. Dusk had fallen. The few stars that you could see with the full moon were beginning to spray the sky like a body glitter. Had Cory given up on me? Or would she see the lights and make her way over to this side of the park if she was allowed in? I’d call her on a borrowed phone but realised I’d no idea of her number. The incompetence of the digital age.

The policeman closed his notebook. ‘Stay here, Miss Bridges. I’ll just show the ambulance where to go.’

Sergeant Boston strode off to welcome the cavalry. But would someone please get me some sodding clothes? I resolved I was not going to talk to anyone until they provided me with something better than newsprint.

I looked over at the jogger. He smiled and adjusted his shorts.

Oh great. Lascivious, it was.

I turned my eyes pointedly away.

Chapter 4

Leo

Leo found Harry thanks to the blue lights of the ambulance. That had been parked to one side with its headlamps illuminating a stretch of bank. The river ran black under the willows and alders. Paramedics were huddled around what Leo assumed had to be the punt containing the victim. Harry was standing at the edge of a lawn running down to the riverbank. In the further distance, three figures waited, each sitting separately on a bench.

‘Harry.’ Leo raised a hand to his sergeant.

Harry turned, but with some reluctance in his stance. ‘Leo. Really, there was no need for you to come on your weekend off. I had it under control.’

‘That wasn’t why the Super called me in.’

‘You could’ve told her I was up to the job.’

He could’ve but he hadn’t. ‘Ours is not to reason why, Harry …’

Harry sniffed at that. He was not a fan of women in authority. According to those that went drinking with him, he suspected all of them of getting their promotions thanks to gender bias. He was not that keen on the new breed of university educated types like Leo either, displacing those who ‘learned the hard way’ on the beat.

‘As per orders,’ said Harry, ‘I haven’t fully questioned the witness who found the body, but I did do an interview with the park keeper, Bill Bethwin. Is that all right?’ He said this in a tone that implied it had better be.

Leo really wasn’t interested in a fight. He just wanted to get on with this before the storm hit. The fretful trees were already making it hard to hear his report. ‘Fine. What did Mr Bethwin have to say?’

‘Apart from the jogger, who called it in, and the witness who found the body, there were no other members of the public in the park when Bethwin did his final check. He thinks it’s likely that the punt drifted here from upstream, rather than came from one of the hire places near Magdalen Bridge.’

‘What makes him say that?’ Leo had his own ideas but he was interested in what an experienced groundsman might say.

‘No pole. Hard to punt without one so if it moves it will be with the stream, not against.’

‘Unless the killer punted it here and dumped the pole in the bushes? We’ll need to mount a search for it.’ Leo glanced up: it was already dark with an almost full moon that was playing hide-and-seek with the clouds. ‘At first light. Can you call that in?’

‘Already done. We’ll sweep the meadows on both sides of the river between here and the boathouses – there’s the hire place as well as a couple of college ones.’

Grappling for authority with Harry was like trying to catch a bar of soap in a bath. ‘OK. Let’s concentrate on getting the body processed before the weather changes. The Super said the victim is well known?’

‘Yes, the witness thinks he recognises him.’ Leo’s ears pricked up: connection was always worth a closer look. ‘He reckons it’s the bursar from Linton College, Dr Kingston.’

Linton College was just upriver from the park, sharing a long boundary on the north. ‘Has anything been moved?’

‘Unfortunately, yeah. The woman who found the punt moved it to this side of the river with the help of the Good Samaritan who went to her aid. Swam across towing it, can you believe it? To get help, or so she claims.’

Leo gave him a sharp look. ‘I thought you hadn’t spoken to her?’

‘I got this much out of her before I got my orders to stand down.’ And Harry was clearly furious about that. ‘The girl’s a liability, messing with evidence, prancing about buck naked. The victim is starkers too.’

‘Do you think she’s involved, with the killing? Some sexual encounter that went wrong?’

‘God knows, I haven’t been able to ask her, have I?’ Headlights appeared behind them, casting Harry’s craggy face into dissatisfied lines. ‘Thank Christ, SOCO are here. They took their own sweet time, didn’t they?’ And without waiting to ask if Leo had finished with his questions, Harry strode away to greet the scene of crime officers who’d just driven into the park.

Leo knew he was going to have to do something about Harry’s attitude, but not now. First, he wanted a look at the body; then he needed to talk to the witnesses, particularly the one who found him. The wild swimmer.

Chapter 5

Jess

From my soggy vantage point on the bench, I could see that Sergeant Boston was now briefing a newcomer who had walked in from the gate. After a brief discussion, another vehicle arrived and the new man walked down to the punt, something draped over his arm. Was he another policeman maybe? They wouldn’t let the press in to view the body, would they? He had to be official. Mr Tall-and-too-dark-to-see-if-he’s-handsome talked to the paramedics, shone a torch into the punt for a thorough examination, then stepped back. Switching the torch off, he approached me with – yes, thank God! – a jacket.

‘Miss, I thought you might need something to wear?’

Not meeting his eyes, I grabbed it from him and draped it over my shoulders. It was a lovely soft linen that smelled faintly of wood fires. As he was a tall man, it hit me around the mid-thigh. ‘Thanks. Newspaper was not a fashion statement.’

‘I’ll see if the paramedics have some scrubs you can borrow. This might take a while. I’ll be back in a moment.’

Thankfully the ambulance came stocked with spares, and I was able to face the world without a blush. It wasn’t nakedness that bothered me but being naked when other people weren’t.

The scene of crime officers were now clustered around the boat with Sergeant Boston and Mr Tall-and-dark, finally getting to the important part of the evening’s story. Not bloody skinny dipping. I lay back on my bench and closed my eyes, wishing it all away.

I’d found a dead body once before. That time hadn’t been a coincidence as I’d been looking for the man in question, not knowing someone else had got to him first and killed him. And what a can of worms that had opened. This time should be much more straightforward as I had no idea who the victim was or why he met his end here, presumably sometime while we in the book club were discussing Jago Jackson on our picnic blanket on the other side of the river. Trees on the edge of the water had prevented us from seeing anything so, other than being the one to discover him, I was going to be a piss-poor witness. Hopefully the police would see that and let me go. Cory must be worried.

There was a tap on my shoulder. I opened my eyes reluctantly, half expecting the aroused jogger, but instead found that the nice policeman was back.

‘I’ve just got a message from the gate. There’s a woman who claims she knows you. She says her name is Cory Reynolds.’

‘Cory? Great. Can I go home with her?’ I glanced over but there were too many vehicles now to see her.

The policeman had the sensitivity to pull a long face. I could now attest from close up that he was indeed good-looking in an overworked kind of way, straight dark hair, short at the sides and longer on top. Long-sleeved white shirt with a moss green tie completed the look. He was definitely the most smartly dressed person on this crime scene, hitting the note of classy gentleman rather than rumpled policeman, a modern-day Mr Knightley come to take your statement. ‘Sorry, but I can’t clear that yet. But she says she has your … um …’

‘Panties?’ I suggest. ‘Bra?’

He looked away. Great: I’d managed to embarrass him. ‘Yes. A dog apparently dropped them and made off with half a dress. I think Mrs Reynolds has the other half.’

I can just imagine the game of tug-o’-war that Cory had played. At least she persevered.

‘I live with her – as a lodger – friend – not partner –’ I’m rubbish at not spilling the beans to the authorities ‘– and she drove me here. She’s got kids. I don’t think she can stay any later.’ I’m hoping the nice officer will say that they’ll follow up at home tomorrow but I’m not so lucky.

‘Then how about I tell her we’ll drop you back in a squad car? Do you want your …?’

‘Yes, I want my underwear. I’m not an exhibitionist!’ He doesn’t have to say anything but we both look at the sodden remains of my newspaper. ‘Not normally. God, wasn’t anyone here ever taken with the urge to skinny dip?’

‘When I was eighteen. Scottish loch. Bitten to death. Learned my lesson,’ said the policeman, without cracking a smile.

‘That would do it.’

I went behind a bush to reorder my clothes, hoping no one was getting an eyeful. With the jacket draped over my shoulders, I pulled up my blue panties and matching bra. Mum would be proud. I hadn’t been run over by the proverbial bus and undressed in hospital, but this was close. My underwear had been on unexpected parade to various law enforcement officers, Cory and a dog, and I’d managed a matching pair. Point to me. I wriggled back into the scrubs and stood up.

The jogger was standing right next to me.

‘Jesus!’

‘Not looking, I promise.’ He held up his hands, but I was not convinced. ‘You disappeared and I just wanted to check you were OK. You’ve had a shock. We weren’t introduced earlier.’

And if I had my way, we’d never be introduced. ‘I’m fine, thanks.’ I had to wonder if he had anything to do with the body, being the only other person on hand at the time. The sooner I got clear of him the better.

‘Good. You’re made of sterner stuff than most then. I’m Jago Jackson, by the way.’

I stood up straight, hand clasped to forehead. ‘You’re kidding me!’ It was reassuring to find he was someone well known, less sinister somehow.

‘You know me?’ He sounded chuffed.

‘We were only trashing – sorry, critiquing your book this evening. That’s how I got into this mess. Decided to try out the wild swimming thing for myself. This is totally your fault.’

‘You didn’t like it?’ He was talking about the book, not the swimming, but I decided deliberately to misunderstand him. This guy’s ego had been stroked enough.

‘Loved it – until the part with the dead guy in a boat. That kinda killed the buzz for me.’

‘Yeah, I’m sorry about that.’ Hardly Jago’s fault but he had obviously decided to claim responsibility for all Thames Valley aquatic experiences. ‘I hate that your first wild swim was spoiled.’ I didn’t say it was my first but I let him run with that assumption. ‘You know, if you want, I could introduce you to some other great swimming spots? Ones that don’t make it into the book – that I’ve kept to myself.’

‘Er …’ How many ways are there to say no?

‘Don’t answer now but think about it. You might want someone to talk over this experience – someone who understands – who was here.’

What was it about meeting someone naked that made them think you might want to prolong the encounter?

‘Mr Jackson …’

‘Call me Jago.’

I wanted to laugh – I couldn’t take the name seriously – seems too Polo-and-Pimms to me – but that would be so inappropriate with a murdered man just a few metres away. His accent, I noticed, was trying for London rather than royal enclosure. ‘Jago then. Thanks for the invitation, but …’

He placed a card in my scrubs’ top pocket. ‘Call me. I’m easy to find as I’m a fellow at Linton College. I like the tattoo.’

I’d got a panther on my butt to match my sort-of-boyfriend Drew’s. And, just like that, I was suddenly very sad and a little bit grateful that the Jagos of this world would flirt with me. My honey was yodelling with a yoga guru (she happened to be female and gorgeous – I checked), tying himself up in knots for her, and I was left wrapped up like old-fashioned fish-and-chips in yesterday’s newspaper. But someone fancied that. I patted the card.

‘Actually, thanks, Jago. I’ll call you. Maybe. Really did enjoy the book.’ That’s not a lie. I had enjoyed arguing in my head with the author. That was a kind of enjoyment, right?

‘Great. You never did tell me your name.’

‘No, I didn’t.’ I smiled enigmatically and impressed myself by my restraint.

He laughed and turned away. ‘OK then. Surprise me later.’

Wait, he was leaving?

‘They’re letting you go?’

‘Yes. I gave my statement. Not much more to say than I saw you in, you know …’ He waved to the riverbank. ‘And called them. Unfortunately, you were right: he is dead. They confirmed it.’

‘You doubted me?’

‘I thought you might’ve been a bit hysterical – maybe a victim of an assault or something? Something he did to you?’ He gave me a searching look.

True. I hadn’t been very coherent. He had come to the rescue, called the police, and helped me wrap the paper around myself, a process I thought he’d enjoyed a little too much. I suppose it was only logical to think I might’ve had a hand in the body ending up in the punt: a sexual encounter that had gone wrong would’ve been my assumption in his place.

‘No assault, thank God. He was dead already when I found him and I had nothing to do with it. Maybe they’ll let me go too.’ I looked around for the helpful police officer.

‘Goodbye for now, mystery lady. I really hope you call.’ He shook out his legs, stretched so his abs were on display, and resumed his much neglected jog, leaving by the southern gate controlled by the police. He’d have to run all the way round the outside perimeter of the park to get back to his college, not much fun in damp clothes.

It made sense, I suppose, that a wild swimming expert would live near here, one of Oxford’s premier wild swimming spots. He probably said as much in his book but my local geography wasn’t that good. I might’ve missed the clues.

A white tent had been set up over the boat for the forensic team to work undisturbed. They were too busy to be bothered by my questions so I turned to look for someone else.

… And walked directly into the tall, dark form of the jacket-offering policeman. But something must’ve changed since we’d last spoken because he was now shaking his head at me. Usually people took a few minutes of talking to me before they reached that stage.

‘Miss Jessica Bridges? My colleague got your name correctly?’

‘Yes?’

‘Same Jessica Bridges as the one involved in the Jacob West case?’

I nodded warily and hugged my arms to myself. Someone must’ve run my name through a computer.

‘So you’ve discovered another body. You really mustn’t let this become a habit.’

Chapter 6

Jess

‘It’s hardly a habit.’ I squeezed the bridge of my nose in a vain attempt to make life return to something more normal.

Normal? Jess, when was your life ever normal? When your father bullied you? When you ran away from home as a teenager to escape his abuse? When he plagued you with unwanted gifts and messages to win you back? When you got employed by a fantasist? I could go on.

‘I’m Inspector George, Thames Valley CID.’ He gestured me to take a seat on my bench again as he got out his notebook. ‘Do you know how many people find dead bodies more than once in their life? Aside from policemen and fire officers?’

I held up my hand. ‘Bet I can beat you there – I worked for an undertaker’s until recently. Dead bodies were a daily occurrence.’

‘I meant by accident.’ I was amusing him, I could tell as his eyes held a glint even if his lips didn’t curve. I expect the little detail that I had reported the murder while naked had also flagged up the incident in the control room by now. I didn’t begrudge him his humour. Usually a victim stumbling out of the bushes in my condition meant something unspeakable had happened to her; to be that way because of some overzealous pet and an impulse to wild swim provided him with some deserved light relief. I lived to serve.

‘Then I think you know the drill by now, Miss Bridges.’

‘Jessica, or just Jess, please.’

He still didn’t crack a smile. Inspector George was a tough crowd. ‘Miss Bridges, can you run through once more what happened here tonight?’

Finally, after the fourth repeat, bored out of my tiny little skull by the very few facts that I had, I was allowed home in a squad car. I was told that it would be helpful if I remained contactable for any follow-up questions. How there could possibly be any was hard for me to see but I agreed cheerily. Anything to persuade him to let me go. He could’ve asked for me to pledge my firstborn child and I would probably have said yes.

When I got back in at midnight, Cory was waiting in the kitchen. She had a bottle of wine in one hand and a box of camomile tea in the other. The tea made me think of Drew. He believed in the power of herbal.

‘Oh, on a night like tonight: has to be wine!’ I slumped down in the unforgiving wooden chair. ‘What a mess!’

‘They wouldn’t let me inside the taped-off area or tell me what you found. All they would allow was for me to hand over the clothes I’d rescued.’ Cory passed me a generous serving and helped herself to a similar amount.

Of course, they wouldn’t. They didn’t want the media swarming the place. ‘I found a dead body.’

‘Wow.’

‘Yeah. I was looking for something to wrap myself in and came across a very deceased man.’

‘Natural causes or had he had an accident?’

‘Option three, I’d say. Very unnatural causes.’

‘As in murder?’

I nodded.

‘Jess, I have to say my life has become a lot more interesting since you moved in. Don’t leave.’

I got up and we met in a hug on her side of the table. ‘Thanks.’

Cory Reynolds, my saviour in Oxford, had taken me under her wing three months ago. My boyfriend had, quite understandably, decided that he needed some space. From me. Just for a few months, Jess. I totally love you but I need to get my head together.

Didn’t we all?

We’re not splitting up. Not at all. Drew told me it wasn’t about me (riiight) but him. He was no longer sure that life in his dad’s undertaking firm was where he wanted to put his creative energies. In fact, I’d even helped him come to this realisation, living in the moment as I do. (Yay, me). He’d never had a year off so Ron (Drew’s dad) had agreed that time away to investigate if he wanted to become a yoga teacher would be time well spent. Drew talked about juggling undertaking with yoga instruction, which created some fascinating visuals in my head of whirling coffins and chakra symbols.

‘If he comes back to the business,’ Ron told me after Drew’s announcement, ‘then Glenda and I will know he really wants it for himself.’

And I supposed Drew’s fleeing for the hills had been nothing to do with my total cock-up of Councillor James Cavendish’s funeral. Jess, how could you send the wrong body? Quite easily as it had turned out. Or my arrest during the Extinction Rebellion sit-in on the Strand (I hadn’t even meant to be there but just got carried away – literally in the case of the policemen who hefted me off the tarmac). On a normal march, Drew would have been sitting beside me but we were on duty at a service held in St Clement Danes Church in sober black suits. Apparently it wasn’t right for the funeral directors to get sidetracked.

My life was one big sidetrack. I thought Drew knew that about me?

You can have too much of a good thing, he had told me kindly as he went off to the Austrian Tyrol to train as a yoga teacher. Think of it as a fast – Lent for our relationship. A hiatus for us both will do us good and remind us why we are together.

A ‘hiatus’. Is that what they were calling it now?

And, anyway, who learned yoga in the land of yodelling and lederhosen?

More people than you’d think, he’d explained patiently as he kissed me goodbye at Heathrow.

That left me in the awkward position of being the sole occupant in the flat above the London-based family firm, Payne and Bullock, independent funeral directors. Glenda assured me I could stay, but maybe I should step back from helping out on the front desk? (I refer you to the wrong body debacle.) I should concentrate on my private investigator business. Like that was going so well. Ron said he liked seeing my cheery face around the place and I wasn’t to worry that Drew’s cousin, who was moving in to deputise for him, had to stay with them in Windsor rather than on the premises. Even I got that hint. So I moved out and took a spare room in Cory’s house – a change of scene will do you good. Give Oxford a go, said Ron. I’d been alerted to that possibility via one of their neighbours (yes, I know, Ron and Glenda were gently managing me). Cory’s husband had just upped and left for his old school sweetheart. Dumped wife needed the money and was happy for the arrangement to be a little fuzzy – or what the Inland Revenue might call ‘a totally illegal cash-in-hand arrangement’. If anyone asked, I was a friend.

From fake friend I became a real friend.

Cory patted my back. ‘You OK?’

‘A bit shocked but I didn’t know him so …’ Not like when I found Jacob and wondered for a while if Michael might’ve killed him.

My eyes went to the under-the-cupboard flip-down TV screen and speak of the devil … Michael was frozen mid-pontification. I pushed Cory gently away and pointed.

‘So, he’s back?’

‘Your Michael?’

‘Not mine for well over a year now.’

‘I saw this on catch-up while I was waiting for you. I thought I’d see what he was like.’

‘And?’

‘He’s a bit of a dish, isn’t he? Such a shame about the spinal injury, but somehow that only makes him more interesting.’ Seeing my expression, she turned the screen off and it folded obediently away, hiding from view the chiselled jaw and auburn locks of my former partner. His looks were the best part of him, the Michael Fassbender of Oxford’s Psychology Department. No, actually, it was the sex, then the good looks, then at the very bottom of the list, his character.

I slapped my forehead. ‘I forgot the important bit!’

‘Hmm?’ She was getting the kids’ bowls out for breakfast, ready on the side for her early-morning wake-up call. Life carried on despite murder.

‘I met Jago Jackson.’

‘You’re kidding?’

‘That’s exactly what I said when he introduced himself.’ I quickly explained the whole screaming to a passing jogger thing and our subsequent conversation. I played down the creep factor and decided maybe he was just being understandably intrigued by my Botticelli figure arising out of the Cherwell.

‘I’m putting this on our WhatsApp group.’ Cory grabbed her phone from the charging station.

‘Isn’t it a bit late?’

‘They’ll see it first thing. They’d never forgive me if they see it all on the news first and I haven’t tipped them off.’ She typed out a quick summary of my post-book club adventures and even took a quick snap of me in my scrubs. ‘Do you think he’d come and talk to us?’

‘I thought you all hated his book?’

‘Not hated. Loved to hate,’ she amended. ‘Don’t worry: we’ll be really nice to him.’

‘I’m not sure if I’m even seeing him again. Drew and I are still a couple. I think.’

‘Exactly! You think but you don’t know. I’m not saying sleep with Jago but he said he’d show you a good time.’

‘He said he’d show me his secret ponds.’

‘Same thing.’

I wasn’t not sure it is. ‘Cory …’

She topped up my wine. How had I emptied my glass so quickly? ‘Jessica, did your boyfriend not say he needed space to work out what he wanted?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then use the space to work out what you want.’

‘I want Drew.’

‘Do you? Do you really?’

I thought I did. I felt happy when I was with him. We were a team. Bonnie and Clyde. No, not Bonnie and Clyde – they went down in a hail of bullets. Mulder and Scully? Why aren’t there more male and female partnerships to cite? ‘Yes, really.’

‘Then you won’t leap into bed with Jago – or try water acrobatics with him. You’ll just have a few fun dates and be confirmed in the feeling that Drew is the one for you.’

That sounded so reasonable but … ‘You just want to meet a semi-celebrity.’

‘Yes.’

‘You’re not even hiding it?’

‘No. Have another drink.’

I woke up to find it was Monday and I was supposed to be working. I did have a business that I was growing from a very modest beginning: a private investigation agency specialising in a lost-and-found persons service. It just about covered some of my overheads. I also had a part-time job as an office temp because I was realistic about the chances of making a go of finding missing persons as a full-time occupation. I was actually surprisingly good at working out where people hid once they vanished from their old lives. My method was a mix of research into their private lives (thank you, social media), psychology training, and gut instinct. Once you’d done this a few times, you saw patterns emerging. People were never really random in how they chose to disappear. If they chose to that is. I was also quite good at spotting the more sinister cases and persuading my clients to go to the police.

I had a deal with my clients. When the runaway was an adult, I promised when I found them to pass on news that they were safe and well, and offer a conduit for messages, but I wouldn’t give away the location without the permission of the runaway. With minors, I asked for a contact in social services to act as intermediary. I knew from my own experience that you could never be too careful. My father had been good at acting the perfect parent to authority figures while being a complete bastard to Mum and me. His manipulation skills and use of terror tactics such as mysterious injuries to my pets or damage to belongings had made my teenage years a nightmare.

The work that I was waking up to today was of the office temp kind, rather than investigating. That had gone quiet over the summer but I expected it to kick off again when people realised their loved one wasn’t coming back from that camping trip, holiday with friends, time at the other parent’s, or what other lame excuse they’d been given. With a sigh – I hate you, Cory, and your wine supply – I tumbled out of bed and practically crawled into the bathroom. I stepped gratefully into the shower. I’d had one last night, but I didn’t yet feel clean of the river. I closed my eyes in the stream of water, and couldn’t stop recalling the face I’d seen yesterday. White male of about forty, maybe fifty. Close cut hair. Not in the best physical condition but not overweight either. Tan lines where he once wore shorts – too much pale skin for Speedos. Patches of dark body hair. A complete stranger to me.

I was only half an hour late when I managed to get to work. I was doing a few weeks of filling in while the PA to one of the partners at my book club friend Frances’ law firm, Renfrew and Jakowitz, was on holiday. Frances had put in a good word for me and I got the job without sacrificing the cut to the agency who normally placed me.

I slid into my chair outside Grace MacDonald’s office and hoped she hadn’t noticed my tardiness.

‘Jessica?’

Oh hell. ‘Yes?’

‘Can you come in here a minute?’

I went to the entrance of her private office. Only the juniors got to sit in open plan; all the partners had their own dens.

‘Shut the door, please.’

Shit. That was it – I was fired.

‘I’m sorry—’

‘Are you all right?’ Her enquiry cut across my lame apology.

‘Yes?’ I didn’t sound very sure about it.

‘Frances told me.’ Mrs MacDonald wrinkled her freckled forehead. She was an extravagantly red person – red hair, red freckles, and even dressed in maroon suits in an ‘eff-off’ to the universe.

Thank you, book club grapevine.

‘It did come as rather a shock.’

‘Thank you for coming in, but we’d pay you for time missed under these circumstances.’

‘That’s very kind. Other than being a bit tired—’ and hung over ‘—I’m really fine. In fact, I prefer to keep busy.’

‘Good. At least he wasn’t someone you knew.’

I nodded but I’d like to know who he was, just so I could put a living face to the dead one I’d seen. I’d also like to know who killed him and why.

But it was none of my business.

I could, though, do a little poking about if I got a name from the police or press. No harm done. Just a little shaking of the social media tree to see what dropped out.

Chapter 7

Leo

Leo sent a request down to records for a list of like crimes from the database before getting up to stretch. Looking around him, he noted that the incident room was humming with activity as the murder enquiry got under way. In these days of mobile policing, it was never the same station used for an enquiry, just where there was space for the team in the district. This time room had been found at the Kidlington HQ as the brass wanted to keep a close eye on proceedings. Great: the senior officers would be breathing down his neck. Just what he needed.

He brushed his fingers over his desk plant, checking the soil for dampness. It was fine for now. The bonsai, one of the first things he’d carried in from his car on top of a pile of files, was his sign to the team that he considered they had moved in and he expected it to be for some duration.

Leo would have been efficient in any case, even without the eyes of his bosses on him. He had already made sure his officers were fully briefed as they came on duty, the murder board with its timeline set up, and the search teams combing the rain-washed banks of the Cherwell, park and surrounding roads. Superintendent Thaxted had come in early for a full rundown of the situation and offered to inform the head of Kenneth Kingston’s college once the family had been told. That grim duty Leo had already performed with Sergeant Boston at one in the morning – a bleak memory to add to the many bad nights he’d had as a policeman.

An email came into his inbox. Forensics weren’t happy. The storm had blown through Oxford as forecast so that made trace evidence unlikely, and the body had been touched by Jess Bridges in her attempt to give first aid. A fuck-up but there was little anyone could do against Good Samaritans and nature. It was now midday and Leo hadn’t slept, but he counted himself fortunate that he’d had the chance to go home and change mid-morning. Having flirted a few years ago with becoming the cliché of the policeman with a terrible diet and alcohol problem, he’d made sure he spent ten minutes over a late breakfast, granola and fruit, washed down with green tea. He only had to look around the office to see the health problems that could be his in the near future if now, in his mid-thirties, he slipped back into bad habits.

Leo’s colleagues, at least the ones like Harry, considered him a ‘wuss with fancy habits’. His defence? He wanted to live. He wasn’t telling them that he’d only just survived his teens, thanks to some poor choices and worse parenting. Instead, he let his charge to conviction rate speak for itself – and the fact that he didn’t get breathless if pursuing an offender. Everyone got mocked for something in CID. Some of the older ones probably thought him homosexual because they couldn’t imagine a straight man acting as he did, taking care over his appearance and diet. Harry had even insinuated it to his face a couple of times, expecting Leo to be insulted. His expectations had not been met.

Not that it mattered, but he wasn’t gay, as his reaction to the witness last night had made plain. He couldn’t carry on a conversation with Jessica Bridges, ‘small, blonde and built’ as Harry so helpfully put it in his verbal report to the squad, while she clutched the Oxford Mail to her chest. She needed more than mail; she needed a full set of armour to stop unprofessional thoughts edging into his questioning. So he’d left her to get dressed in scrubs before embarking on an interview. It was as well that he’d done so because it had given him time to look her up and discover this hadn’t been her first time as a witness in a murder enquiry. The mishandling of the Jacob West case by the Met had been enjoyed by all rival police forces eager to see the big boys fall. It had been fresh in Leo’s mind as he’d actually met one of the victims, the psychologist Michael Harrison, at Hendon training college a few months ago. Superintendent Thaxted would not want her division to repeat any of those errors.

Stifling yawns, Leo assumed the noon report. The boss would want another update for the lunchtime newscycle.

‘Come in, Leo. I hope you got some rest?’ Superintendent Claire Thaxted was a slim woman with ash blonde hair well cut in a bob around a long, slightly gaunt face. She did triathlons for fun, which said everything you needed to know about her. Leo had gone running with her when they were on a senior officers’ course and he’d had to pull out his best game to keep up.

‘Not yet, ma’am. We’ve not had much luck with our searches this morning thanks to the storm that hit in the night. SOCO aren’t getting much from the riverbanks. Fortunately, we were able to lift the punt off the river before the rain. They’re going over that now but it looks like a college boat, available to everyone at Linton to hire, including conference visitors. DNA swabs will be basically useless unless we’re very lucky. I’m pulling like crimes but it’s too early to generate a list of suspects.’

‘And the victim? What have we found out about him?’

‘Kenneth Kingston. Forty-two. Former city financial wizard who took a job as bursar at Linton with resulting pay cut so he could spend more time with his young family. Worked four days out of five to do his share of childcare. Universally liked and admired.’

She tapped the blotter on her desk with her reading glasses case. ‘Evidently not, as someone murdered him.’

Leo disagreed, as often people killed the ones they loved, but he left that thought unspoken. ‘His wife couldn’t think of anyone who held anything against him – not at work, not in his old employment, not in his private life. We’ll check that but, from the early enquiries we’ve made, he’s something of a local hero, volunteering for the local food bank in his spare time.’

‘Spare time? That must be nice.’ Thaxted got up and walked to her window which had the view of the gardens of the neighbouring estate. ‘The family?’

‘I left a victim support officer with them and have a constable on the door to keep the press away. Mrs Kingston appears to be alibied – at home with the children, putting them to bed.’

‘And did Mrs Kingston have any idea why her husband was found naked in a punt?’

‘No. They’d had a normal day – church, lunch with friends, a walk in Shotover country park and then he got a call. That wasn’t unusual and she didn’t ask for details. He just said it was some problem with the crew that’s filming at Linton College this summer. He didn’t think he’d be long.’

‘His phone?’

‘Not yet recovered.’

‘You’re going to the college, I assume?’

‘Yes, ma’am. That’s my next stop.’

‘Tread carefully. The Master of the college is Norman Wiseman, former head of the Police Complaints Authority. I’ve rung him already to tell him about Kingston. He was audibly shocked and says you can expect full cooperation from all his staff.’

Her concerns that this must be handled sensitively made even more sense. ‘I’ll do my best.’

‘I need better than best, Leo. I need perfect.’

It was rather a relief to find Harry hadn’t yet made it in so Leo didn’t have to tell him that he was taking DS Suyin Wong with him to the college. She was a highly competent young officer who had been tipped for the fast track; in fact, Leo could sense her nipping at his heels as they shared many of the same strengths. He could trust her not to put a foot wrong at Linton.

He brought her up to date as she drove down the Banbury Road. The houses got progressively larger and more expensive the closer they were to the centre of Oxford. Many of the Victorian mansions had become colleges, institutes or private schools. Their gardens were beautifully kept, croquet lawn standard, with lush borders bobbing with summer flowers. Perhaps they were too perfect, mused Leo, too much money spent on immaculate presentation, suggesting a professional team of gardeners, rather than the old style don taking a breather from his studies to deadhead his roses. Oxford was losing some of its charm to the influx of serious money.

‘Saintly man ends up naked and dead: the papers are going to love that,’ Suyin said acerbically when he’d finished profiling the victim for her.

‘So far there’s no hint of anything sexual in the crime.’

‘But you have to go there, don’t you, considering?’

‘Let’s just go there with an open mind, sergeant.’

‘Yes, sir.’ She turned into the residential street leading to the castle-like entranceway to the college. The Oxford undergraduates were away for the summer and had been replaced by flocks of language learners and conference goers. Linton was experiencing a different summer from the usual, as they had attracted a film company and were currently pretending to be living in the 1920s. The vintage Rolls Royce parked on the forecourt, women in flapper dresses and men in Oxford bags and blazers, made the illusion almost complete, if it weren’t for the scaffolding holding the lights. They parked on a side road rather than risk getting entangled in that business.

‘One of our witnesses is from this college, isn’t he?’ said Suyin.

‘Yes, a don and a celebrity author. He’s near the top of the list of people we want to talk to, but first I think we should tackle the porters and Dr Kingston’s office.’

‘Which one do you want to do, sir?’

‘I’ll do the porters. Let’s get the key for the office from them. We need his mobile.’

‘You think they already know he’s dead?’

Leo glanced at her, surprised she’d even had to ask. ‘Suyin, this is an Oxford college, and the university is a very small world. Everyone knows everything within five minutes of it happening.’

They entered into the lodge under the archway. A man who had the unmistakable bearing of a head porter, which Leo thought of as Mein Host crossed with Rottweiler, came to greet them. His stomach was straining against his mustard waistcoat under his black jacket. He was not in costume, but he might as well have been as porters had not updated their image since the nineteenth century.

‘Can I help you?’

Leo held out his badge. ‘DI George, DS Wong. Do you know why we are here, sir?’

‘I do, Inspector. It’s about poor Dr Kingston. I’ve been instructed by the Master to make sure the college offers every assistance. I’m the Head Porter, Robert Field.’

That made things a little smoother. ‘Mr Field, my colleague would like to see Dr Kingston’s rooms in college and I have some questions for the porter on duty last night.’

‘That would be me.’

‘Is that right?’ Leo hadn’t expected the top man to pull the Sunday night shift.

‘They were filming.’

Now it made sense. He didn’t seem the sort to risk leaving such important matters to an underling.

Field cleared his throat. ‘I had a cameo.’

Crystal clear.

He turned quickly away from Leo. It was too frivolous a topic to be dwelt on when a member of college had just been murdered. ‘Bernard, please take the young lady up to Dr Kingston’s rooms.’

‘Right away, sir.’ Another porter came forward and selected a key from a hook on the wall.

‘Is that the only key?’ Leo asked.

‘Dr Kingston had a set, of course. And the cleaners,’ said Field.

‘So no.’ Leo gave the nod to his sergeant and Suyin followed the porter out and across the quad, leaving him with Mr Field.

‘Is there a place we can talk in private?’ he asked. Outside a bus delivered a new batch of extras to the forecourt. They spilled like streamers from a party popper when the front door opened. A lighting crew, an older man with a young red-headed assistant, set up a bank of lights near the Rolls. A couple of sound technicians, one male, one female, rigged some microphones. ‘What’s the film?’

The Head Porter frowned. ‘We’re not to say.’

‘Right.’

‘To protect the stars.’

‘Understandable.’ Leo was guessing an Agatha Christie – the period felt about right.

‘Very big names. They won’t want any association with any of this.’

His attitude was irritating but Leo remembered his lecture on sensitive handling. ‘Then we’ll try and be in and out of here as quickly as possible then.’

The porter jingled the keys at his belt a little nervously. ‘Inspector George, there is something I wanted to ask you. Your men are already in the boathouse and the film makers want that for a scene they planned to shoot today.’

The forensic team feared a far more dramatic scene had already played out there last night. From the early results on the blood splatter marks, they believed they’d found the site of the murder before the body was set adrift in the punt.

That made Leo wonder: why bother pushing it out in the punt rather than just leaving it there? He’d have to puzzle that one out later as he had more immediate questions that needed answering.

Mr Field was still speaking. ‘They’d got it all rigged but I’ve had to put them off. When will they be able to get back in there again?’

‘I’m afraid that depends on what we find but I can assure you that everything will be done as speedily as possible without prejudicing any evidence that might be there.’

‘Of course.’

‘I think it is safe to tell them that it won’t be today.’

‘Lad, pass on the bad news, will you?’ This comment was lobbed to the scrawny young man, most junior of the porters, who had the frightened-rabbit look of someone terrified of his superiors.

‘Yes, Mr Field. Right away, Mr Field.’ He picked up the phone.

As the head porter led Leo to his office, Leo saw the junior porter smirk at his back. He revised his opinion that the lad was a rabbit, more a sly fox. There was something not quite right about the young man’s attitude in the wake of a murder, just a slightly off note. Maybe the porters, with their access to all areas, would be worth a closer look as suspects?

‘Mr Field, did you see Dr Kingston last night?’ Leo asked, getting back to more immediate business.

‘Not personally.’ Mr Field offered Leo a chair but he indicated he preferred to stand. Even with all the windows open, the porter’s office felt airless. ‘I knew he was around. His bike was chained up in its usual place.’

‘If you could show me that next?’

‘Of course.’

‘Any idea why he was here?’

‘None. Everything seemed to be running smoothly and I was here if there were any college related enquiries.’

‘But if you were involved in a scene, maybe someone thought they shouldn’t bother you?’

He rubbed his chin. ‘That’s possible, I suppose.’

‘Who else was here?’

‘Simon – that’s the lad on duty now. He didn’t see Dr Kingston, I’ve already asked him. But he did admit that he was very busy, so Dr Kingston could’ve walked in without Simon noticing. We don’t have a formal signing in process for college staff, only visitors.’

‘May I see that list?’

‘Of course, but you’ll want the film crew’s records as well, which we don’t keep.’

‘I’ll ask them myself, don’t worry about that. Mr Field, you’ll understand I have to ask difficult questions as part of my duties.’ This was the right button to push with this man.

‘I understand.’

‘Was there any suggestion, no matter how slight, that Dr Kingston was involved with anyone, anyone he might arrange to meet here to go on an evening punting expedition?’

Mr Field went to the wrong part of the question. ‘None of the punts were signed out last night.’

‘But one was taken?’

‘Well, yes. Students have been known to copy the key to the padlocks. It isn’t unheard of.’

‘But you still have the master key?’

‘Yes, and it remains in the lodge.’

‘Hanging behind the counter?’

‘Yes.’

‘So if, say, a porter was distracted, it would be simple to take it and return it without anyone noticing?’

‘Not simple, but possible.’ Mr Field adjusted a pile of letters on his desk, ill at ease.

‘Do you have CCTV in the lodge?’

‘Of course.’

‘I’d be grateful if you’d give this to us so we can check what was going on last night.’

‘It only covers the front door and the desk.’

‘That’s better than nothing. Mr Field, about Dr Kingston and his … er … friendships.’

The porter puffed up. ‘Dr Kingston was a happily married man. There was never anything like that about him!’

Whereas there was about other staff members? They’d check this through many conversations with staff and academics over the next few days.

‘Was he particularly friendly, would you say, with Dr Jackson?’

‘Dr Jackson?’

‘Jago Jackson. He was there when the body was found.’

‘Oh. I didn’t know that. I wondered why we hadn’t seen him yet this morning. What a shock for him.’

‘Were they friends?’

‘Dr Jackson and Dr Kingston?’ Mr Field scrunched his forehead in thought. ‘Nodding acquaintances only, I’d say. They move in different circles – the academic fellows and staff.’

‘Would you mind showing me to Dr Jackson’s rooms? I have some follow-up questions.’

Pleased to have something he could do without holes being picked in his procedures, Field got to his feet. ‘Not at all. Follow me.’

Chapter 8

Michael

It’s not every day you get sent a baby bird through the post. A dead one.

Michael Harrison had been a little suspicious as he took delivery from the DHL driver but persuaded himself that it might be a book to review – the dimensions were correct and it was about the right weight. Instead, he found inside a wooden box – the kind cigars came in at Duty Free – and a baby bird nestled in white tissue paper. Deceased, of course, eyes blind before opening, scrawny wings ragged with black feathers, obscene pink, grasping feet trying vainly to hang on to life. It was easy to imagine how it had fallen from the nest in the merciless way that nature has of wasting so many of her offspring, favouring just the few to survive. His admirer could have scooped it up off the pavement anywhere in the last few days to wrap up for him.

Or killed it themselves?

A maggot crawled out of its beak. Michael considered himself tough, but even he flinched in shock and threw the box away from him as if it were radioactive.

In a way, it was – broadcasting a fallout of hatred from some madman who thrived on spreading his brand of twisted hatred to those he probably didn’t even know.

Michael felt a little better now. Over the shock, thanks to a stiff talking to and an even stiffer drink. As a psychologist, he knew that such things didn’t come out of the blue. Only two days ago, he’d gone head-to-head on a discussion programme about the causes of social violence. His leftie opponent, Anushka Kapoor, had been one of those short-haired female warrior types with an ethnic background that made her a popular sign-up for BBC panels. She thought violent crime could be mitigated by reduction of violence in video games and on screen. That had led him to make some acerbic comments about those who take their violence from their bedrooms out into the real world, the ones who approach games to feed their existing propensity for violence. They watered the seed that was already there. He laid the moral responsibility for their acts squarely on their shoulders. That no doubt had annoyed a few haters, prompting today’s offering in the post.

He went through his list of possibles from his social media crazy file. He’d lay good money on it being this joker:

Duckweed58 @Radsor16893 Aug 9

Replying to @DrTypeM

Harrison, you’re a fucking fraud. You deserve to die.

Duckweed58 @Radsor16893 Aug 9

Replying to @DrTypeM

Your woman is going to suffer. I will spend a very long time explaining to her what a fuckup you are. She will pay for it. Then I’ll come for you and kill you like a dog.

He poured himself a second Scotch and continued scrolling through the comments left on his recent Twitter posts. This made messages 250 and 251 from the same critic. He could be called Michael’s most persistent admirer.

He was not impressed by the invective coming his way from Duckweed58, whoever he was. Or she, he supposed, but the tone sounded masculine to him and women still made up the minority of trolls online, thanks to their lower propensity to narcissism.

Michael glanced through the other messages in the thread. Duckweed was not the only one to write to him and there were many more contributions like this sent since his return to the TV but he was beginning to feel that Duckweed needed flagging with the authorities. Michael really wasn’t happy that the man had his home address. How had he got that? Michael didn’t advertise it and was ex-directory. He supposed the creep could’ve followed him home – that was easy enough to do and he hadn’t been very vigilant recently. Oxford didn’t feel a threatening kind of place. Not a very comfortable thought, though.

It would be as well to have this on file somewhere so no one could ask why he hadn’t reported it.

He swirled the Scotch, enjoying the rattle of the ice in the cut-glass tumbler. His wife Emma had bought a set for him as a Christmas present – a his and hers – so they could drink together and compare notes on their days. Taken by cancer, she hadn’t lived long enough to enjoy very many sessions. Jessica, of course, had broken one within a few months of them living together, leaving Michael with a solitary ‘his’ glass. There was probably a metaphor of widowerhood in there somewhere.

Michael had never used to feel physically at risk but his recent experience had changed his mind on that. He should probably report this bottom feeder. He would. In the morning. Duckweed could keep swimming in his invective for a little longer.

As for the ‘she’ encompassed in his ravings? Who did he mean? He couldn’t mean Anushka Kapoor? They were only connected by virtue of the fact they’d been on the same programme. Michael decided that he would mention something when he next saw her. At the end of the programme, she’d predicted that the trolls would be coming out from under their bridges for him. It was annoying she was right.

The only other ‘she’ that had been linked to him in public recently was Jessica. Should he warn her too?

Hey, Jessica. It’s me, your not-so-fondly missed ex-partner. I thought I should let you know of an unspecified threat, from an unspecified source, about an unspecified grievance. And it might not be for you in the first place.

Great.

He’d tell the police that she could be a target and let them decide.

Glass emptied, he put the Scotch back into the cabinet and locked it. Michael left a wry observation on the day’s news on Twitter, letting his opinion prove overnight and gather the yeast bubbles of other people’s reactions. He used to have to go into secure wards to find examples of deviant behaviour. Now they were screaming at him on a daily basis, rage unfiltered, freak flag flying. He sometimes wished he had Anushka’s optimism that we could make it better, but someone like Duckweed? He was already on the reject pile and knew it. That was why he was so angry.

Michael pitied him. A little. Duckweed was even bad at being an inadequate.

His inbox pinged. A message from his publisher. The one good thing about the events of last year was the fame it brought and the subsequent boost in sales for his book about psychopathic crime.

Michael,

Great news. Type M for Murder is shortlisted at the Frankfurt Book Fair for the European Non-Fiction award. The organisers want to know if you can come to Frankfurt on 17th October for the ceremony. They will cover the cost of your travel, plus a companion, should you wish to bring someone to help out.

He had to grit his teeth. He didn’t need a nurse.

Your German publisher will arrange a dinner and make sure you meet the key media contacts while you’re there. Let me know if you can attend. I’ll be there too, of course.

Best wishes

Petra

He’d go, there was no question, but he didn’t want to appear too eager. He typed his reply but scheduled it to be sent after lunch the following day.

Petra

October is a particularly busy time but I will see if I can fit it in between speaking engagements. Luckily it is a Saturday so I’m hopeful it will be possible. I’ll confirm if I will bring a plus one with me nearer the time.

Regards

Michael

Chapter 9

Jess

‘Let me get this right: you go skinny dipping and find yourself in the middle of a murder hunt?’ Drew’s voice was lovely and warm, amused rather than shocked. ‘Only you, Jess, only you.’

I hugged the phone to me. It was my lunch hour at the law firm and I was pleased I’d made the decision to call him.

‘It could’ve happened to anyone, Drew.’

‘You tell yourself that, sweetheart, if it makes you feel better.’ There was a sound at his end. ‘What’s that?’ He wasn’t talking to me, but someone in the room with him. ‘My friend, Jessica. She’s fallen into another situation.’

He said it like he’d discussed my habit of stumbling over trouble with Nel already. And why wasn’t he calling me his girlfriend, or partner even? We’d been living together for almost a year, after all.

‘Nel says “hi” and hopes it all works out.’

I didn’t want to say ‘hi’ back to Nel Addison, the gorgeous instructor with legs like a giraffe and bum like a peach (she wore orangey pink leggings in the promo video so I couldn’t help the comparison). ‘Thanks. Give her a cobra pose from me.’ So I could spit venom in her eye.

Drew chuckled. ‘I will.’

‘So how’s it going? The training?’

‘Good, Jess, so good. I’m feeling more centred than I’ve ever been before. Do you know what deep peace feels like?’ Of course I didn’t. ‘I really think there’s something in this for me.’

He didn’t mean to, but I was translating that into the subtext that I knocked him off-kilter, made his life too chaotic and fed him spiritual Big Macs. My slightly edgy undertaker, lover of bands Killing Joke and Metallica, tattooed so that every limb told a story, on a vegan kick for the last few months, had been destined to find Yoga. I’d have to let him work this out.

‘I’m glad.’ I was trying to be.

‘The pace of life here is so restful. The views are incredible – mountains, alpine meadows …’ Peach bums, bendy giraffe legs, apple breasts … ‘I think it can teach everyone something, even the most sceptical eventually see the benefit. I’ve got so much I want to teach you. Hey, I tell you what: you can be my first student!’

Well, that sounded hopeful.

‘If you sign up for my evening class, that is.’

That didn’t. He was saying it like a joke but was it really? Was that the only way I’d get to see him?

‘So you’re serious about this?’

‘Very. I’ll need to look for somewhere with a studio space so I can take students at home, like Nel does here. She thinks if I keep up the training I’ll be able to qualify as a trainer myself – keep spreading best practice.’

As long as that was the only thing he was spreading of hers. ‘And what about your job at Payne and Bullock, Drew? What will your mum and dad say?’

‘I’m thinking of going down to part-time, until the yoga takes off. I won’t be leaving them in the lurch.’

I imagined Drew sitting in a rocket in a Buddha pose zipping off into space. It really didn’t sound as if there was any room for me onboard, did it?

I wasn’t one to beat around the bush. Tact was not my middle name. ‘Drew, be truthful: do you see me as part of this new venture of yours?’

‘Do you want to be? I thought you liked your missing persons work?’

‘I do. I wasn’t saying I wanted to join you in yoga teaching. I meant, us. Together.’

There was silence. ‘Don’t you want to live with me if I teach yoga?’

‘It’s nothing to do with the yoga. It’s whether I fit in with your new life. I’m not exactly a soothing presence, am I?’

‘I’m learning these techniques so I can be calm with you.’

Oh my God. I’d driven some men to drink with my ADHD impulses; this was the first who had been driven to yoga.

‘Are we still together? Officially?’

‘You know I don’t care much for labels.’

But I found that I did. I very much wanted to know that I still had a label around my neck saying, ‘If found, send back to Drew’, and vice versa.

‘I mean, if you wanted to date someone else, or I did, would we be free to do so?’

‘We’re on hiatus, Jess. You’re free to do whatever you like.’

So that was what it meant! The sneaky bastard split up with me and didn’t even tell me! He’d crept up behind and snipped off the label so I no longer had anyone to claim me.

I didn’t know if I was infuriated or hurt – probably both. Whatever the storm of feelings raining inside, the result was that my voice choked. ‘And when you come back? What happens then?’

‘We’ll pick up where we left off, if you want that.’

‘Do you?’ I could hear Nel calling again in the background and I lost what little control I had. ‘Are you sleeping with her, Drew? Is this about her?’

‘Jesus, Jess, do you have to be so suspicious?’

Yes, I did. But I found myself apologising. ‘Sorry.’

‘Look, I love you. Nothing changes that.’

But he didn’t say whether he had slept with her or not. And I feared that Drew had the capacity to love a lot of people.

‘I know you need reassurances – that’s your character – but you mustn’t worry so much about stuff. I’ve got to go. Next session starts in five and I need to focus.’

‘And I need you,’ I whispered, tears of frustration forming. Why did my relationships always go like this?

‘What’s that?’

Have some dignity, Jessica. ‘Nothing. Speak later.’

‘Yes. We’ll talk this out. There’s really nothing to worry about. Love you.’

I ended the call for the first time without reciprocating. I couldn’t be a bloody parrot. Love you, love you too. Not when someone else clearly didn’t.

What do I do? Get on a plane and drag him back from Austria kicking and screaming? That was my preferred option but I knew it was a doomed one. Go and join him to remind him what I can offer that Nel can’t? Like an untoned body and chaotic lifestyle? I’d be better off staying far away so he could romanticise me.

What did that leave? Have such an awesome good time to report back on our next call that he was the one who began to worry that I might be moving on without him? I might have fallen into my old habit of making my partner too sure of my devotion to him, leaping on his texts and calls, never playing hard to get. I never learned, did I? I needed him to need me.

Michael used to do this thing where he would schedule replies to messages so it looked like he dealt with them much later. He explained it added to his professional cool. I sorely lacked a bit of personal life cool.

So I messaged Jago. Not a date, I stressed, but a dip.

Jago didn’t play the professionally tepid. He replied immediately. Send me your address and I’ll pick you up 6.30 tomorrow for the first part of your magical mystery tour. Bring your costume – or not, as you prefer ;)

I wouldn’t normally send a man my address on a first date but I comforted myself that Jago was a public figure, not some scuzzy guy met through Tinder. The first thought I’d had in the bushes that he was the attacker had to be way off target. He was famous – sort of.

I went with impulse. When did I not?

6.30 it is, I replied, sending details of how to find me.

Summertown? Very nice. I’ll be driving a white Nissan Leaf.

An electric vehicle – that seemed to fit very well with the public image. OK. Sounds fun.

And I even can promise everyone you meet will be alive. Jago

Maybe not in the best taste but that reminded me. I did a search for updates on the Parks Murder, as the press were calling it. The victim was still being referred to as ‘the unidentified male’ and the police were appealing for anyone to come forward who had any information to help with their enquiries.

I trawled through the most popular message boards where people appealed for information about family members who had gone missing, just in case I could spot anyone resembling what I remembered of the body. It was odd how quickly details blur. Pointless. I was not even remembering what the needle looked like in my haystack.

‘Jess, do you have my tickets for the trip to Paris?’ called Grace.

I’d been following the holidaying PA’s system and had these printed off. Grace preferred that to an e-ticket. ‘On my desk. You’re catching the seven-thirty flight.’ I glanced up at the clock. ‘In fact, hadn’t you better be going?’

Grace whirled out of her office like a matador’s cape, snatched up the file, and headed for the door. ‘Thank you, Jess. Good work. See you the day after tomorrow!’

With her gone, I no longer had to pretend to be doing her tasks. I’d got all that squared away already – except for that presentation for next week, but I had all day tomorrow to worry about that. With a quick look around the open plan to check no one was monitoring me, I tapped open my personal email to check for messages.

There was a new one from my website.

Dear Ms Bridges,

I am a neighbour of Glenda Payne and an old friend of Cory – in fact, I’m the one who put you in touch with her. I understand from Glenda that you specialise in finding people. I’m writing to ask you if you will help finding my daughter. Angelica is a vulnerable girl of fifteen. I’ve appealed to the police but they say there is little they can do. They know where she is but she has told them she doesn’t want to come back and wants no contact with me. Now they are saying my son isn’t safe with me either and threatening to take him away. It’s a nightmare. Please, please, help me contact Angelica so I can sort this out and prove to them that I am a good mother.

Amy Mason

Interesting. It begged the question: what made a ‘good’ mother? ‘Good enough’ seemed so much more achievable. I rang Glenda.

‘Jess! How lovely to hear from you! How are you, dear?’

‘Fine, thanks.’ Apart from the dead body in a boat adventure – and the fact that her sneaky bastard of a son had broken up with me without letting me know.

‘You must come to dinner at the weekend and tell us your news. Have you heard from Drew lately?’

‘Yes, I spoke to him at lunchtime.’

‘Lucky you. He only rings home once a week. He must be missing you.’ Glenda at least believed we were still together, partly because she was on a mission to become a grandmother and I was her best bet.

‘Not so much. He and his teacher Nel seem to be aligning their auras.’

She laughed. ‘Don’t be silly – she’s no competition. He loves you. Anyway, she’s forty, far too old for him.’ And Glenda had had the same thought – and dismissed it. Had she never heard of cougar women? ‘He’s just excited by learning something new. He’s always been like that.’

Like sixteen new positions for incredible sex? ‘I was ringing because I had a message from Amy Mason.’

‘Oh, Amy. Poor Amy. Yes, I mentioned you to her this morning. I remember how good you were with that runaway I met with you and thought you might be able to help.’

‘Her daughter has run away?’

Glenda cleared her throat. Oh, we were entering awkward territory, were we? ‘Not exactly. She’s left, but with Amy’s old partner, Roman Wolnik.’

I made a note of the name. ‘Are they …?’

‘I don’t know. I thought he was like a father to Angelica but you never really know, do you? He’s a cold kind of man under the charm. Never stopped to talk unless he wanted something. Anyway, Angelica has cut off all contact with her mother and is now accusing her of child abuse. It’s the first any of us have heard of it. Amy has a son with Roman – a sweet boy, Pawel, about seven, I’d say. Roman is now kicking up a fuss, claiming Pawel isn’t safe with Amy and trying to get the boy handed over to him. Amy is terrified to let him have access in case he snatches Pawel and goes back to Poland with both children. It’s all headed to the courts but Amy also has to prove to her social worker that she isn’t abusive – all one horrible knot of problems.’

I clicked my ballpoint pen. I had to wonder, allow myself to think the worst. ‘How well do you know Amy, Glenda?’

‘She’s a neighbour in Windsor. Across the cul-de-sac from us. Your Cory knows her – or at least their partners know each other from work. TV, films or something.’

I made a note to ask Cory for the low-down on Amy. ‘So not that well?’

‘I suppose not. How well does anyone know their neighbours these days? But I can’t believe she would do anything so terrible. And Pawel seems such a happy little child. He doesn’t seem to miss his sister very much, but then again, she is fifteen and he’s only little, so I doubt they spent much time together.’

‘Who’s the father of Angelica? Not Roman too?’

‘No, no. He was a soldier – an officer. Died in a roadside bomb in Afghanistan. Horrible tragedy – happened soon after we first moved in. Everyone was so devastated. And then Amy met Roman through grief therapy. He lost his first wife – to cancer – back in Poland. We were all so happy for her, especially after Pawel arrived.’

I found the situation interesting – that would be enough usually to take the case – but there was the added pressure here that I didn’t want to let Glenda down.

‘You know my rules – about not telling the one searching where their loved one is without permission?’

‘Of course, dear. Roman’s working in Oxford this summer – another reason I thought of you. I was expecting that Angelica might still be with him. Amy just wants someone who isn’t Roman or the police to pass on a message for her to Angelica.’

‘I can do that. Where’s he working?’

‘Amy and Roman are both employed by the same production company, which is making a big budget film set in Oxford.’

There couldn’t be many of those happening at the moment. It should be easy enough to locate. ‘OK, I’ll see what I can find out. I’ll offer her mates’ rates as she sent me to Cory.’

Most of my cases were mates’ rates as I found it hard to talk money with distressed clients. I needed to toughen up. This was my business after all. Doing what I do, I was hardly going to meet a happy customer, was I?

‘Thank you. I knew I could count on you, dear. Dinner on Sunday? You could meet Amy then.’

I realised this had been Glenda’s plan all along. I didn’t mind as her scheme suited my purposes. It would give me a chance to form an opinion of Amy. ‘OK. Sunday.’

‘Don’t do anything I wouldn’t!’ Glenda said brightly as she put down the phone.

Too late for that.

Chapter 10

Jess

A double-tap toot, in defiance of the early hour, announced my ride. What an idiot. It was like Jago thought everyone in Squitchey Lane should be up at 6.30 just because he was. I waved to him from my window at the front of the house to show I’d heard, then headed down to the ground floor.

Cory was already way ahead of Jago. Marshalling her children was a tightly scheduled operation that would put military commanders to shame. Her alarm was set for 5.45. She still managed to fold me into her planning as she scattered Cheerios on the children like fairy godmother blessings. Last night she’d told me all she knew about Amy – a neurotic, always on a new diet, but essentially a kind woman. Cory didn’t believe the accusation of abuse. Roman’s a difficult man to like, she’d said. But then he gets on with my ex so that tells you everything. She’d described Angelica as taciturn, like many teenagers faced by a well-meaning adult, and unimpressed by life.

‘Got your costume this time, Jess?’ Cory asked.

‘Yes, Mum,’ I teased. I was wearing a one-piece under my Looney Tunes T-shirt and black shorts.

‘A towel? Water shoes?’

Benji was gazing at me from under a Zorro mask. Perhaps his hero crush had shifted? I was with him on that one: Tom Holland was cute, but Antonio Banderas … Maybe I should get him a fencing sword, kid-sized?

I looked at Leah and considered the possible damage. Maybe not.

‘Cory, I’m thirty-one. You don’t need to fuss.’

‘I’m three,’ piped up Leah.

‘I know, Lee-Lee.’ I ruffled her hair in passing. She batted my hand away, as was our custom.

‘Are you going swimming with your boyfriend?’ Leah asked.

‘Yes – but with a friend who is a boy. Not a boyfriend.’ Such distinctions were lost on the under-fives. I said it more for Cory’s benefit so she didn’t spread the rumour on the book club WhatsApp, though I suspected I might be too late.

‘I wanna go swimming.’ Leah’s face crumpled.

Cory presented her with a slice of apple as a distraction. ‘Later, sweetheart. I’ll ask Maria to take you to the pool later.’

Benji miaowed. I changed my mind about Zorro – Puss-in-Boots might be the intended reference. Still Antonio, but not quite as sexy.

‘Have fun, you crazy people!’ I called, remembering not to slam the door behind me.

Running down the path, I realised that I loved the whole silly lot of them. Very quickly they’d wormed their way into my heart and I’d do anything to make them happy. If not a sword, I could perhaps swing by a toy store later and see if I could get a cape. Black capes were so useful. Come Halloween I could dress Benji up as Dracula and persuade Cory to let me loose on trick-or-treating.

Did that mean I thought I’d still be there in October and not back with Drew? That thought shook me as I got into the car.

Jago was at the wheel of the Leaf. Until today, I would’ve expected someone looking like Legolas to drive a vehicle of this name, but Jago was more hobbit than elf, if the hobbit was played by Ben Whishaw. His curly dark brown fringe tipped over his forehead like a low diving board did a pool. I noticed that his forehead was scored with parallel lines like swimming lanes, not so much from age as he was about the same vintage as me, but from scowling while thinking. All those annoying tribes, no doubt, had hammered in those lines of displeasure as he sat in front of his Mac computer to insult us. He was definitely going to be a Mac user rather than PC, wasn’t he?

But this morning he was all smiles. Jago slid into gear. ‘Good morning, mystery lady.’

Oh goodness, I hadn’t yet told him my name. He knew practically everything else about me, including that I was a natural blonde (think about it). That seemed wrong somehow. ‘Hi, Jago. I’ll put you out of your misery. My name’s Jess. Jess Bridges.’

He chuckled, maybe thinking I was making a James Bond joke, but it was entirely unintentional, I promise.

‘You can google me later.’ I really hoped he didn’t. He’d find the Michael thing, and possibly, if he dug deep, mention of the Eastfields disaster where I behaved very badly. I was hoping to put all that behind me. ‘Where are you taking me?’ I looked up at the blue sky. A weather front was coming in from the west but the morning was supposed to be pleasant.

‘That would be telling.’

‘So you want to keep your secrets secret?’

‘And enjoy keeping you in the dark – as you did me.’

‘Do I have to close my eyes or something?’

He indicated to pull out onto the Woodstock Road, heading back into town. ‘I’ll let you know when we get nearer to our destination.’

He was a surprisingly aggressive driver, bullying his way in front of other cars whenever he saw an opportunity. There was a wiry kind of survival instinct to him as he thrashed his way through the urban jungle paths that I hadn’t expected from an electric car owner. I added that to my profile of him as considering Oxford his exclusive territory. I decided to probe a little more.

‘Were you born in Oxford, Jago?’

‘No, London. Can’t you tell?’ He sounded as if he hoped I could, a small city like Oxford not being big enough for his greatness. ‘Born and bred. St Mary’s Hospital, Paddington.’

I thought that was where the royals had their babies so I was assuming he had drawn first breath in the private wing, despite his London lad accent. He aimed to sound street but little bits of posh kept leaking through. ‘Where did you grow up?’

‘Kensington mostly.’ I was correct. ‘Dad works for the Albert Hall and we have a grace-and-favour apartment.’

I didn’t think I’d ever heard anyone string those words together. He clearly moved in very different circles to me. ‘And where do you live now?’

‘I’ve a set of rooms at Linton College but I’ve also got a house in one of the villages nearby. I like living in college so I rent it out for the moment. I was lucky when I bought. Worth a fortune now.’

I headed off this property conversation. Not being on the housing ladder by thirty-one, or even formally renting, it was galling to hear my contemporaries congratulating themselves on their achievement of making the first few rungs. My position felt rather like missing the last lifeboat off the Titanic. ‘And why wild swimming?’

‘I wrote a book about hidden cycle ways.’ He gave a cyclist a wide berth. ‘This seemed the next logical step. Have you read it? It sold quite well. Picked up after Wild Swim hit.’

‘Afraid not. Are you preparing for a triathlon then?’

‘You would think, wouldn’t you?’ He overtook a bus just as it indicated to pull out from a lay-by. ‘Might be a good idea for the next – to end the trilogy. Wild Running.’ He was giving the bus driver cause to add to his own worry lines.

‘I hope I’ll be suitably acknowledged?’

‘How about a dedication to my mysterious naked lady. That should get people intrigued.’

‘You’re never going to let me live that down, are you?’

‘And why would you want to? It was the best moment I’ve had in ages – shook me out of my rut.’

Oh God, I could see that I was going to be an anecdote in his next book. ‘You were in a rut? You, the wild swimmer?’ I couldn’t hide how incredulous I was at the idea. He sold himself as the opposite of rutted-ness.

He nodded as he reluctantly slowed for a pedestrian crossing by Oxford railway station. I was pleased to see his eagerness to get to our destination didn’t include knocking a guy off a scooter.

‘Hate those things,’ he muttered.

‘Hate what?’

‘Motorised e-scooters. Ridiculous. Get a bike,’ he shouted as we passed the scooter rider. The commuter didn’t hear because he had headphones clamped over his mass of curly hair. He stood straight and still as the scooter whisked him along the pavement, like he’d been about to be teleported to his mother ship. To me, he looked blissfully happy. How could Jago hate him?

‘I take it that scooterers – is that a word – are another tribe you despise?’

‘They aren’t my favourite social group,’ Jago agreed. He gunned through an orange light.

‘You don’t like a lot of people, do you?’

‘It’s my trademark now. I’m unsparing with my criticism of pretence and fakery.’

‘Aren’t pretence and fakery the same thing?’

‘No.’ He didn’t explain. ‘Don’t you find it irritating living surrounded by so many sodding people?’

‘Not really.’ Why live in a city if he couldn’t bear it? As a writer, he did have a choice; he had even already admitted to owning a house in a village. I pointed this out.

‘Why should I let them chase me away? It’s therapeutic to let it all out on paper. My publisher says that’s why the books sell so well. People either agree with me and enjoy seeing their own moans put down for them, or they disagree and entertain themselves with tearing me down – same process, just in reverse. And we all go home happy – or happily unhappy.’

‘So you know that you’re outrageously prejudiced against perfectly decent people just going about their own lives?’

‘Oh yes.’

‘Like Yummy Mummies.’

He pretended to shudder. ‘The worst.’

‘Where would the next generation come from if not from the mums? We felt very got at when we read your book.’

He grinned. ‘Good. I hope you ripped me apart?’

‘We did.’

He braked for a red light. ‘Hang on – you don’t have kids, do you?’

‘No. Everyone else in the book club does though.’

‘Good. I’m not great with kids. I rapidly run out of conversation.’

I was interested that he thinks this detail of my private life might matter, as if this might be some kind of relationship we were beginning that went beyond swimming. ‘Hasn’t someone explained you don’t have conversations with kids, you play with them?’

‘I think they forgot to mention it.’ He tapped his chest. ‘Only child.’

Why was I not surprised?

The car turned into a little lane leading to Binsey. ‘Close your eyes now, Jessica.’

When we got out, I discovered that he had brought me to the western bank of the Thames as it runs through Port Meadow, a huge water meadow that floods every year to become one vast lake. In the summer it is usually dry, and grazed by herds of cows and horses who wander among the buttercups and clumps of nettles. Picnickers, drone flyers and birdwatchers all vie for space on fine days. To the south of where we left the car was a marina for canal boats, little yachts, other water craft, owned by people living the kind of off-grid Bohemian life Jago extolled in his books (ironic considering there were few places more on-grid than an Oxford college like his). The spot he had found for our swim belonged to a defunct boating business. He even had the code to the gate.

‘Don’t worry about that.’ He pointed to the sign warning that the premises were patrolled by guard dogs. ‘The yard used to belong to a mate of mine. It’s just a deterrent. He’s thinking of redeveloping it – having a nightmare with the planners – so at the moment we’ve got it to ourselves.’

Once away from the empty boat showroom, it did get wild very quickly. The dockside on an inlet was beginning to fill up with rushes and willows but there was a little jetty that took us out clear of the undergrowth.

‘Why do you like this, Jago?’ I asked, looking a little doubtfully at the slate green water.

‘It’s the freedom, I think. Most of the time we spend our lives inside bricks and mortar, sitting on upholstered chairs, staring at screens, not interacting with the natural world that honed us as a species.’ He knelt and felt the water with his fingers, lifting them up to let them drip in a move that probably played well on camera. ‘This stuff – this has been here since before humans, if not exactly in this spot, but somewhere close by. We get back in touch with that primitive self when we immerse ourselves in it.’

I spread out my towel. ‘Here?’

‘Right here.’ He stripped off with the efficiency of a man who made a habit of this. He jumped in the water before I even had had time to bundle up my clothes and weigh them down with my sandals. I headed to the edge.

‘Don’t dive in,’ called Jago. ‘In wild swimming, you never know how the river or lake bed might’ve changed since you were last there. Feet first is much safer.’

I had been intending to slither in from the side but now felt obliged to jump. I did this with a kind of step out, arms spread, not wanting to go under. Water swiped up my body in a great Tinder ‘yes!’.

‘Oh!’

‘Surprisingly warm, isn’t it?’ Jago was swimming strongly away now he’d seen me in safely. ‘Gets that way in mid summer. Freezes your balls off in winter though.’

This was divine. I followed him with my reasonable breaststroke. I was not a bad swimmer. It was one of the few sports I had liked at school.

Jago turned back and swam right up to me. ‘Living up to your expectations?’

‘Going way beyond!’ Then, foolishly, I splashed him – which gave him permission to splash me back. Our water fight moved on to some dunking which involved more bodily contact than we’d yet had and I thought that I might’ve made a mistake. This was mixed signals territory. Too late now that hostilities had been started. Anyway, I lost the match as he was like a fish in water. No wonder he loved this so much.

‘I surrender!’ I declared, holding up both hands, then both feet to make my point.

He shook his head to clear the hair from his eyes, reminding me of an otter. If he had whiskers they would be triumphantly pricked. ‘OK. We’d better call it a day – with me the acknowledged victor.’

I swam to the jetty. ‘I came second – don’t forget that.’ I pulled myself out, conscious that he was not far behind me.

‘Hmm-hmm, I won’t.’

That sounded a little too appreciative. I wrapped myself in the towel. ‘Thanks. This is a great place. It’ll be a shame when the developers move in.’

‘That’s a city: you have to grab the good bits while they’re still yours. Nothing lasts.’ He got out effortlessly and shook off before reaching for his sports towel. I had a chance to admire his lean frame. He wasn’t big like Michael, more like Drew’s sinewy body, perhaps a shade shorter. He had the build you saw on cyclists in the Tour de France – strong legs and arms, no extra ounces.

‘Thanks for coming with me. I enjoy swimming even more when I have someone to share it with. Makes me see it again with fresh eyes.’ Jago hung the towel around his neck then showed he is a major planner when he pulled out two flasks from his backpack. ‘Tea or coffee? I made both.’

‘Happy with either.’ Fully dressed again, I sat at a picnic bench outside the derelict showroom.

He poured me a tea and got out a little bottle of milk.

‘What else have you got in there?’ I asked hopefully.

‘A full English?’

‘You’re joking!’ I seemed to remember an anecdote from the book about a fry-up next to a reservoir.

‘I am today – but I do have croissants. Will that do?’

‘Amazing. Even better. Can I take a photo?’ I raised my phone.

‘Sure. But let’s make it a selfie.’ He took the handset and put his arm around me. I raised my cup in a toast as we both grinned into the lens. Oh my God, we looked a bit … cool. Young and out there – whatever that meant. ‘Left a bit so we can get in the jetty and inlet. There. Who are you sharing it with?’ he asked as I sent it out.

‘My book club. I’ve got so many brownie points for actually swimming with the author of one of the books we’ve read. The others are going to have to up their game.’

‘Send me the photo, would you? Tell your friends that they could swim with me too if they want.’

‘I was thinking more that they’d have to find one of the authors and do something with them, like have dinner or play tennis. Tough for our next book though.’

‘What? Why?’

‘Great Expectations.’

‘Yeah, I don’t think Dickens would appreciate being dug up to play tennis.’ He presented me with a croissant.

‘But he wouldn’t mind dinner?’

‘He was always fond of a good feast.’

I liked an intelligent man. ‘Tell me you studied English Literature?’

‘With Psychology. UCL. A lifetime ago.’

‘Oh my word, I was a grad student there, five years back!’

He added some grapes to the breakfast spread. ‘I’d left by then. Got disillusioned with academia for a while and went travelling.’

I had to ask, didn’t I? ‘But you’d know Michael Harrison – Dr Harrison – if you were at UCL?’

His lip curled. ‘That fuckwit? Shagging on the shag pile was his preferred way to teach.’

Actually it was the couch but I kept silent, hoping he didn’t look my way and see the confession on my face. ‘Really?’

‘He tried to pass me on to one of his more junior colleagues but I’d decided by then that it was a waste of time. Who needs an MA in Psychology?’

I did. ‘Hmm.’

‘I left London and went to India. Never looked back. Travel writing is my thing now – the psychology of place, you could say. It’s what I did my doctorate on.’

‘Psychology of place?’

‘Like here: it’s all in layers if you can see them – the meadow that used to be open countryside before the ring road crept too close; the canal that used to carry goods from Birmingham now carrying those after an alternative lifestyle; this boatyard with its short time as part of the leisure industry, now in that in-between state, like a relationship between engagement and marriage, before it becomes a housing development.’

I sensed I was getting a preview of the draft of his next article. ‘So who are the planners in this scenario? The lawyers drawing up the prenup?’

He gave me a startled look. ‘That’s good – very good! May I use it?’

‘It’s your simile, not mine.’

‘Thanks, Jessica.’ He poured me another cup from the flask. ‘So, do you know Dr Harrison as well or are you just mentioning him because he was the one who got out from under a murder charge?’

‘Hmm?’ I tried to sound non-committal.

‘He got his name splashed everywhere last year – great marketing for his book.’

‘Oh, yes, I know him. A little.’ This really wasn’t a good subject, not for a first date, er, dip. Moving swiftly along … ‘I was wondering, do you know if they identified the body we found yet?’

He made a gesture as if to hand a parcel back to me. ‘That you found, you mean.’

I wondered why he was so eager to duck any association. Worried for his brand of clean living? ‘OK, my guy.’

‘They have identified him, yes. Didn’t the police call you? I even had the press come round to interview me.’

‘Why?’ I went to my missed calls log. I was not very good at checking up on my notifications and I never listened to voicemail. Sure enough, there was a number that had been withheld, probably the police.

‘To ask me if I knew him.’

‘Did you?’

‘Yes. He was bursar in my college. I came across him a few times, at college events and the like.’

He didn’t seem that upset that a work colleague had been bumped off. ‘You didn’t say anything yesterday.’

He looked away. ‘I did, to the police. But I wasn’t a hundred per cent sure.’

I was suddenly very aware that coming to a desolate swimming spot with a guy I hardly knew wasn’t my best life choice so far. ‘What was his name?’

‘Kenneth Kingston.’

‘Any other details of what happened to him?’

‘None. But I imagine the press will have got some by now, if you’re interested.’

I scrunched up the napkin he had given me to go with the croissant. ‘I’ll read up about him later.’

‘Why?’ Jags slipped his polo shirt back on and we gathered the rest of our picnic.

‘You’ll probably say it’s silly but I feel connected to him.’

He chucked his bag in the boot of his car. ‘Not silly, but you do know that you’re not connected by anything but death?’

Chapter 11

Michael

The bedside alarm went off and Michael lay looking at the ceiling for a long moment. Sunlight was dancing as branches tossed outside in a fresh breeze. He didn’t like the summer very much. Life had more purpose when he could be someone of importance at college rather than that man in a wheelchair next-door, the one you nodded to when you put out the bins. Whereas at college it was Good morning, Dr Harrison. Interesting seminar, Dr Harrison. Lunch in the pub, Michael? These days, he was even more of a someone at Oxford, having been through the spin cycle of disgrace and rapid rehabilitation. There was nothing like a bit of notoriety to make students and colleagues sit up and notice; it got him this prestigious post after all.

He missed his ease of movement. He could now stand for short periods on crutches, though for difficult journeys outside the house he didn’t want to risk a fall. L4 break – the doctors told him that it wasn’t the worst spinal injury and he might one day be able to walk again. Not yet though.

He pulled himself up and considered his day. He had to remember that his situation had improved over the last year. Fortunately, the maddeningly unfair accusations of inappropriate behaviour with female students had been left behind at UCL. In his defence, there had only been one graduate – Jessica – and they went on to have a relationship of almost five years. Hardly a fling. Two consenting adults agreeing to an affair, then to live together. Before that, he’d been married and there had been only Emma. Before that? Well, he’d been younger and more foolish but nothing that stepped over any lines. Not as society understood them then.

These days you had to be so careful. You couldn’t comment on someone’s appearance or touch any part of them, even as a gesture of comfort. They could’ve lost their parent/partner/child and you had to commiserate from afar like they had an infectious disease. It was very bad for the human psyche – all people were animals under all their layers of civilisation. Touch was essential.

He noted, though, that he was something of an exception. People assumed they could touch him – lay hands on him might be a better description.

‘Oh, Michael, you’re so brave.’ This said with a heavy hand on his shoulder.

‘You’ve done so well coming back to full-time work.’ Hand on his thigh in a disappointingly asexual pressure.

‘I admire your courage.’ That accompanied by a chaste peck on a cheek by a fellow psychologist from California whom he’d been hoping to persuade to come back to his hotel room with him. That ambition went down in flames.

God, Michael, don’t you get sick of yourself sometimes? Enough moping. It was getting late and the best of the weather was forecast for the morning. Once in the chair, he decided today was a crutches day – until he got tired. Carefully getting his balance – a fall could set him back months – he propped himself on these and made his way to the kitchen. Fernanda had been in yesterday so all the pathways were scrupulously clear of clutter and every surface gleamed. There were some compensations living alone.

With the help of a designer friend, he’d given a lot of thought to how he wanted to arrange his kitchen. Everything was within reach: a small countertop fridge, the cereals, the fruit bowl. The bowl, spoon, chopping board and knife were already waiting. He made breakfast methodically, selecting what he ate with care. He needed his strength, particularly upper body strength, to get around. He couldn’t neglect lower body either. It was much harder to get back what you had let go. Wise words that covered more than just muscle tone.

Breakfast made, he switched on the morning news to keep him company while he ate. Christ, world politicians were an evil crew, fiddling while Rome burned. It was almost a relief when the anchor moved on to ordinary crime. A stabbing in London. A murder much closer to home in the University Parks.

‘… Police have identified the victim as Kenneth Kingston. Dr Kingston, bursar at Linton College, a church warden in Headington, husband and father of two, was found dead on Sunday night by a late-night swimmer. The body had been left in a punt moored at the popular Parson’s Pleasure swimming spot in the park. The swimmer who came across the body raised the alarm with passing local celebrity author-, Jago Jackson, author of Wild Swim, who was jogging in the vicinity.’

The name caught Michael’s attention and he looked up from his diced melon. Jago Jackson. He couldn’t seem to escape his old student. Jackson’s profile had been growing since he had appeared in a documentary and published a couple of books on the joys of catching Weil’s disease in the dubious rivers and ponds of the Thames Valley. The man hadn’t mentioned that? Why was he not surprised?

The reporter cut to an interview they’d done in the author’s home. He’d got some cushy rooms in Linton College, with a view of the river. Copies of his books were arranged casually beside him, like he’d just put them down when surprised by a call from the press. Poseur.

‘Dr Jackson, you were jogging in the park on the night of the murder?’

‘Oh yes.’ Jago hadn’t aged well – already had lines on his forehead. Kept his curls though. Michael had rather thought he’d lose them by thirty as he always had a high hairline. ‘I was following my usual route. Just a quick five k before it gets too dark.’

Michael had never liked the guy as a student – too arrogant by far – and he saw that he hadn’t grown out of it.

‘And then what happened?’

‘I heard a woman screaming, and I thought, well, you know, that someone must be attacking her? So I ran towards the noise.’

‘You ran towards her?’ The implication was that Jago had been so brave.

‘Well, yeah.’ He managed a sheepish look from under his fringe that reminded Michael of Princess Diana. Bashful calculation. ‘I find this woman, er, a naked woman, dragging a punt onto the bank. I gathered from what she said that she’d been skinny dipping and stumbled over the body. I went over to comfort her –’ I bet you did, mate ‘– we pulled it ashore and I called the police. That was the end of my involvement.’

‘You didn’t know at that time that you knew the victim?’

‘I only had a few dealings with Dr Kingston but I know enough to say that he’s a great loss to the college.’

‘Have you anything else you’d like to say?’

‘Yeah, thanks. I’ve swum in the river many times before and I’ve never heard of anything like this happening. People shouldn’t give up the chance to discover the joys of wild swimming just because of one random and tragic death.’

The piece cut back to the studio and the anchor filled in a few more details about the victim. Michael’s suspicious mind thought that someone so blameless – churchwarden? – must have been hiding some dirty secrets. Else how would he have ended up dead in a boat?

Another familiar face came on screen. DI George, the policeman he’d met at Hendon earlier in the year. He’d come across as far more intelligent than the average senior officer, but so buttoned up that it was hard to know what was going on inside. He gardened like it was his religion, his superintendent told Michael.

‘We are appealing to anyone who saw Dr Kingston on the night of the murder. Dr Kingston had been called away to a late meeting at college. We believe he was lured to the college boathouse. There he was attacked. Robbery is a possible motive as none of his personal possessions have been recovered despite the best efforts of our divers searching the riverbed.’

A reporter got in a question, interrupting the statement. ‘What personal effects might the public be on the lookout for?’

‘Dr Kingston was carrying a black messenger bag containing a laptop, wallet, keys and papers. He was wearing dark grey chinos, white shirt and no jacket. His shoes were black leather slip-ons. He also had a plain gold band wedding ring and a FitBit style watch on a black strap.’

When George had said no possessions, he really had meant none. The poor sod must’ve been stripped to the skin. A sex crime? Had the call in to work been a lie to disguise the fact he was meeting a lover? Maybe he had been a closet homosexual? He wouldn’t be the first.

Michael had seen enough. He turned George off and put the bowl and chopping board in the dishwasher. He was aiming to go down to the end of the garden and back but, before he could attempt this, the cat-flap rattled and Colette appeared. She’d been off her food recently and he suspected some other neighbour was feeding her. In response, he’d improved his offer and moved on to an expensive tinned variety rather than kibble. It seemed to have won her back.

‘Been having fun?’ he asked as he loaded up her dish. She now ate on the counter as it saved him tripping over her bowl on the floor.

She gave a purr and dived in, gulping it down as if she feared he’d snatch it away from her. Emma, who got the cat for him shortly before she died, would’ve told him off for indulging her; Jessica would just laugh and tease him that he was an old softie.

As he stroked Colette, he realised that he was missing Jessica. He always missed Emma, of course, but she was far out of reach now. Passed away six years or more. But Jessica was still very much alive. He missed her presence in his life; he was missing her today as a friend. She had come through for him when it counted and she had kept in touch during his recovery, as well as looked after Colette for him. She was living with her undertaker boyfriend now – strange bloke, alternative, he couldn’t see that lasting – but Drew wasn’t the jealous kind. Michael decided to send her a text, just to touch base. Not because he was crushed by a feeling of loneliness. No, not that.

Michael, you’re such a fraud.

His twenty steps could wait. He’d message her now.

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