Swing, Swing Together by Peter Lovesey Page B

we’d find ourselves running into the weir.”
    Five minutes after, his confidence was noticeably on the wane. “No need to be quite so energetic with the oars, Thackeray. This ain’t the boat race, you know.” He had got to the point shortly afterwards of saying, “This is madness—” when the prow struck something solid and the rowers were pitched off their seats. They had found the lock gate.
    They had to disembark to rouse the lockkeeper, and then endure a torrent of abuse about lunatics who put to the water in conditions like that, until Cribb coolly reminded the fellow that he was a public servant and it was no business of his to question the sanity of people considerate enough to keep him in employment. As if to reinforce the point, the mist miraculously lifted as the gates parted to let them out of the lock. In sunshine they got down to the serious business of rowing to Culham in the shortest time they could.
    It was after nine when they went through Culham Lock. The keeper there was agreeably civil, but he had discouraging news. There had not been a suspicion of mist at Culham that morning. He was not surprised to hear about the mist at Clifton Hampden. It was quite usual in September for pockets of the stuff to hamper navigation along the river for an hour or so in the mornings. His lock had been open since six. Yes, three men answering Cribb’s description had gone through shortly before he had closed the night before. They had asked the way to the backwater at the end of Culham Cut, where they had proposed passing the night.
    Cribb decided not to explore the backwater, assuming instead that the three had already left for Oxford. They would be able to confirm this at the next lock, which was Abingdon.
    â€œWill you arrest them when we catch up with them?” Thackeray inquired.
    â€œI want Miss Shaw to identify ’em first,” said Cribb.
    This, they discovered at Abingdon, was likely to take longer than they had earlier supposed. The three had been the first through the lock that morning, at seven o’clock. They could well be in Oxford already.
    It was a party exercised in more ways than one that covered the last miles to Oxford, learning at each lock how far behind the Lucrecia they were. The suspects seemed not to have stopped even once along the way. As the distance from Culham to Oxford was nine miles, and none of them had looked like athletes, the question arose whether the quarry had been alerted to the chase. Nobody said a word, but Cribb’s face became increasingly pink with the exertion of rowing at a rate he obdurately refused to slacken. It made fretful the business of waiting in locks for other craft to enter before the gates were closed, but it compelled him to take rests. While Thackeray put his head between his knees like a beaten blue, Cribb paddled the boat as close as possible to the upriver gates and stood with hands impatiently on hips watching the slow ascent as the water coursed in.
    Beyond Iffley Lock the tangle of currents formed by the confluence of the Thames and Cherwell sapped what remained of Cribb’s strength. He dismally acknowledged that they might as well ship oars and tow the skiff from the path. Thackeray was deputed to take the first turn.
    â€œWe’ll follow the main stream,” Cribb instructed. “They could have gone up a backwater if they wanted to, I know, but Jerome seems to have kept to the Thames, so I don’t propose to waste time looking anywhere else unless I’m persuaded otherwise.”
    Harriet thought she divined a note of desperation in this. It was confirmed when Cribb tetchily ordered her to stop admiring the college barges moored beside Christ Church Meadow and look for the Lucrecia. “ You’re not on a pleasure cruise, you know.”
    â€œI’m well aware of that,” she answered, ready to take him on. “Has it not occurred to you that they might as well have left