Dreaming of the bones

by Deborah Crombie

  This had been the second suicide attempt, thought Gemma, the one for which Vic had found no explanation. “And after that?”

  “She recovered slowly, and I supported her. I stopped asking for more than she could give me, and we became friends in a different way. Those were the best years of my life, from that time until Lydia died.” The certainty and the complete lack of self-pity in Daphne’s words made Gemma feel chilled.

  “And nothing else happened before she died?” asked Kincaid. “No rows, no odd behavior?”

  Daphne shook her head. “I’m sorry to disappoint you, Mr. Kincaid, but there was nothing out of the ordinary. And I certainly didn’t kill Lydia to protect my reputation, if that’s what you’re getting at. Nor your Dr. McClellan. I’d been considering early retirement even before Lydia’s death. That’s why I bought the weekend cottage, you see, so that Lydia and I could work together, her on her poetry, I on my novel.”

  Pausing, Daphne seemed to come to some decision. “All weekend I thought about what you said, that Lydia may have been murdered. I don’t know who would have done such a thing, and I hate the idea of someone taking her life before she was ready to let it go. But it’s also a sort of release, because it lets me believe that I wasn’t wrong about her happiness, about what we had together those last years. And if that’s the case, I owe it to her to finish what we began. I’m going to write that novel, and I had better get started. I think I’ve finally come to terms with the fact that Lydia won’t be there to listen to it.”

  “Who besides Daphne really grieved for Lydia?” asked Gemma as they walked down the school’s curving drive towards the car park. “I mean the Lydia of the present, as she was when she died, rather than the Lydia of the past.” It was a bright, blowy day, and the wind whipped her skirt, wrapping it round her legs. She had to stop and brush a wayward strand of hair from her face before she could see to unlock the car.

  “Vic,” Kincaid said when they had sealed themselves in the car’s calm interior. “I think Vic grieved for her.”

  Gemma glanced at him as she fastened her seat belt. He’d been unusually silent all morning, and she didn’t know if worry over Kit or the case occupied him the most. “You don’t really think Daphne Morris had anything to do with Lydia’s death, do you? Or Vic’s?”

  After a moment, he shook his head. “What motive could she have had, other than concealment? And then why reveal anything to us? We had no proof. They must have been very careful to leave no evidence of their relationship. I don’t think Vic even guessed.”

  Gemma turned the key in the ignition and listened to the Escort’s engine cough and sputter its way to life. “What now?” she asked. “We seem to have come to a bit of a dead end.”

  “I think we need to have a word with the very tactless Miss Pope,” said Kincaid, his face grim. “I rang Laura last night. She said the boys’ school is in Comberton, just the other side of the motorway from Grantchester.”

  After a brief consultation of the map, they were once again circling the Newnham roundabout. But this time they stayed on the Barton Road, bypassing the Grantchester cutoff, and had soon run through Barton and into Comberton. The village had none of the charm of Grantchester but seemed rather a suburban enclave, with its quiet clusters of semidetached houses. It looked, thought Gemma, a nice place for children.

  They found the secondary school without difficulty, a large, sprawling building just off the main road. An inquiry at the office sent them to the staff room, where they were told they might be lucky enough to catch Miss Pope between classes.

  The corridors were filled with uniformed children changing classes. They parted round Gemma and Kincaid as if the adults were of no more interest than stones, and their voices echoed from the walls and ceilings like cannon fire. Gemma thought of Kit here a week ago, as silly and raucous as the boys she saw now, an ordinary child thinking of exam papers and football.

  The break room contained half a dozen teachers in various stages of correcting papers and drinking coffee. When Kincaid asked for Miss Pope, the woman sitting alone and unoccupied except for a coffee raised her head. A dishwater blonde with prominent roots, she was a little plump and a little overly made up. Her eyes were red, as if she’d been weeping.

  She looked up at them uncertainly. “Yes, I’m Miss Pope. Can I help you?”

  Kincaid introduced them and asked if there were somewhere they might talk alone.

  “You’re from Scotland Yard? But what-I mean… Why me? What is this about?” She twisted her hands together, shredding the tissue she held.

  “It won’t take long, Miss Pope,” Gemma reassured her. “We just have a few routine questions we’d like to ask you.”

  “Well… I suppose it’s all right,” she said, frowning. “There’s an empty classroom just down the hall that we could use, but I’ve a class in five minutes.”

  The man at the next table had been making little pretense of ignoring their conversation, and after glancing again from Kincaid to Gemma, Miss Pope said, “Shelley, would you take register for me if I’m a bit late?” She then led them down the corridor to an empty classroom.

  Kincaid closed the door, shutting out the sound of the children’s last scramble for their rooms before the bell. “Miss Pope, did Vic McClellan come to see you last Tuesday afternoon?”

  Elizabeth Pope’s mouth began to tremble and her eyes filled with tears. “I never meant any harm, honestly I didn’t. I told her I never meant to hurt poor Kit…” She pulled another bedraggled tissue from the sleeve of her ruffled blue dress and dabbed at her eyes.

  “Do you mean the conversation Kit overheard?” asked Gemma, pulling a fresh tissue from her handbag and offering it.

  Miss Pope gave her a grateful smile and blew her nose. “It’s just that I’ve an awful habit of running my mouth without thinking, and he’s such a lovely man… Dr. McClellan, that is, so good-looking, and always so charming when he came to the school. I didn’t see how she could let him go like that…”

  “What exactly did Vic say to you?” asked Kincaid a little more gently, with an obvious effort to control his impatience.

  “She was angry, of course. I couldn’t blame her. She said Kit was very distressed, and would I please…” Miss Pope winced and hesitated, but after a glance at Kincaid she went on. “She said the separation had been difficult enough for Kit as it was, and would I please not gossip about things that were none of my business. Then she said that no one ever knew the truth of a relationship except the people in it.” She’d begun wringing her hands again, and the tissue joined the remains of the others. “When I think that a few hours later she was dead, and that I should have upset her when she wasn’t feeling well… And oh, poor Kit. What’s to become of him now?”

  “What do you mean, she wasn’t feeling well?” Kincaid asked quietly, but at his tone Miss Pope looked up and stilled her hands.

  “She was pale. At first I thought it was because she was angry, but then after we’d talked she said she felt a bit under the weather. A headache, she said. And she was sweating, I remember that. I offered her some paracetemol, but she said she’d go home and have a cuppa.”

  Kincaid looked at Gemma. “If we’d known she was already ill-”

  His beeper went off, shrill in the empty classroom. Removing it from his belt, he glanced at the message. “Nathan Winter wants us to ring him right away.”

  “It couldn’t have been Nathan Winter, do you see?” Kincaid pulled his cell phone from his pocket as they pushed through the school’s swinging front doors. “She must have been poisoned before she left work, not after she got home. And it can’t have been foxglove-the digitoxin in it acts too quickly.” He’d been transferring the number from his pager to his phone as he talked, and as they reached the car he pushed SEND.

  “Nathan, it’s Duncan Kin-” He stopped, listening, then said, “Bloody hell. Can you stall him until we get there? Good man. Ten minutes.”

  He disconnected and looked at Gemma. “Ian M
cClellan’s at the cottage, loading things into his car.”

  CHAPTER 19

  Love wakens love! I felt your hot wrist shiver,

  And suddenly the mad victory I planned

  Flashed real, in your burning bending head…

  My conqueror’s blood was cool as a deep river

  In shadow; and my heart beneath your hand

  Quieter than a dead man on a bed.

  RUPERT BROOKE,

  from “Lust”

  “It still doesn’t make sense,” said Kincaid as Gemma reversed the car from the school car park. “If it wasn’t digitoxin, it must have been digoxin. But the expected reaction time for digoxin is five to six hours. According to Laura, Vic showed no symptoms of illness when she left the English Faculty at half past two-and yet she died just after five o’clock. So it was too slow for digitoxin, and too quick for digoxin.” With part of his mind he heard himself speaking, as if Vic’s death had been something removed from him, a statistic, a simple problem to be solved-yet he knew his detachment was essential if he were going to find her killer. He would have to hold on to it… for now.

  Glancing at Gemma, he found her scowling at the rear end of the farm tractor creeping along ahead of them. They were not going to make record time to Grantchester. He thought a moment, then opened his notebook and checked a number. Dr. Winstead, the pathologist at High Wycombe General Hospital, had proved helpful to Kincaid on several occasions since they’d met during an earlier investigation, and if Kincaid remembered correctly, he was something of an expert on poisons.

  “Hullo, Winnie?” he said when the direct number rang through. “Duncan Kincaid here.”

  After responding to Winstead’s cheerful greeting, Kincaid gave him a rough outline of the case, adding, “Do you know of anything that might potentiate digoxin, making it act more quickly than expected?” He rolled his eyes as Winstead began a lecture on the metabolic breakdown of poisons derived from digitalis. “Wait, Winnie, I don’t have much time. Just give me a list, okay? Reserpine… quinidine… succinylcholine…” he repeated as he wrote in his notebook. “Laxative abuse… calcium or potassium loss due to diuretics-” Giving Gemma a startled look, he said, “Winnie, what kind of diuretic? Does it matter if it was natural or pharmaceutical? She drank diuretic herbal teas.” He listened a moment. “Could someone have put the tablets in her tea? How many would it have taken? She had no history of heart trouble, but Lydia did. Right. Right. Okay, thanks, Winnie. I’ll let you know.”

  “What?” Gemma asked as he rang off. Just then the road widened and she zipped round the tractor. “Bloody nuisance,” she muttered.

  “Winnie said the tea might have potentiated the digoxin, although he doesn’t know if it would have disguised the taste of the tablets. The tablets are small, though, and very soluble. Lydia would have needed very few, as she was already sensitized to the medication-Vic maybe twice that.”

  “So it probably would’ve tasted bitter,” said Gemma, but Kincaid didn’t answer. They’d crossed the motorway and would be in Grantchester within minutes. He supposed he hadn’t really expected Ian McClellan to come back… and he supposed he’d expected to feel relieved if McClellan did… surely that would be best for Kit, after all, to stay where he’d been happy and secure…

  And it was all absolute bollocks, Kincaid thought as they reached the High Street junction. What he really felt at the prospect of confronting Ian McClellan was a deep and simmering anger, and the thought of McClellan taking Kit out of his life brought with it a frightening sense of loss.

  Gemma pulled into the cottage’s drive with a spray of gravel, blocking the new model Renault parked near the back door.

  Nathan Winter stood near the Renault’s bonnet, talking to a slender, bearded man in a brown corduroy sports jacket, and from their gestures, Kincaid surmised that the discussion was not friendly As he and Gemma got out of the car, he heard McClellan say, “As far as I know this is still my bloody house, and neither you nor anyone else is going to stop me taking my things from it.”

  “Good morning,” Kincaid said as they came up to the two men, “you must be Ian McClellan.”

  McClellan turned, glaring at them. “Who the hell are-” He stopped, his eyes widening as he focused on Kincaid. “My God,” he said slowly. “I don’t believe it. The ex-husband himself, riding to the rescue. You’ve a lot of nerve coming here.”

  Kincaid’s anger rose in a dizzying, sickening rush. Before he quite knew what he was doing, he’d grabbed the front of McClellan’s jacket with one hand and jerked him close. “That would be offensive if Vic were alive,” he said. “And now-”

  “Duncan.” Gemma took his arm, pulling at him. “Duncan, let him go.”

  Taking a breath, he released McClellan’s jacket and stepped back. “You’re the one who left her,” he said, jabbing his finger at McClellan. “And Kit.”

  “So you want to talk about Kit, do you?” McClellan smiled and leaned back against his car, folding his arms, but a pulse beat in his neck. “I’d say you left it a bit late.”

  Kincaid stared at him. “What-what are you saying?”

  “I’d have known you if I’d bumped into you in an alley. She kept photos of you, did you know that? Tucked away in her favorite books, in her office, in her desk. I used to wonder whether she took them out and compared him to you, checking his progress.”

  “Bloody hell,” Kincaid breathed, shaking his head. “You knew all along.”

  “What?” asked Nathan, stepping between them. “What are you talking about?” He still looked ill, but his face no longer had the flush of fever.

  Until that moment Kincaid had completely forgotten Nathan’s presence. “Nathan, why don’t you and Gemma-”

  “I didn’t mind so much at first,” McClellan continued as if he hadn’t been interrupted. “She swore she didn’t know for certain, and I felt generous then. She’d chosen me, hadn’t she? And a child was a child, after all, and I was a civilized, enlightened man.” He laughed.

  Nathan touched Kincaid’s arm. “Is he saying Kit’s your son?”

  “I didn’t know,” Kincaid said quietly. “Not until a few days ago.” He turned back to McClellan. “What changed, then?”

  McClellan shrugged and looked away. “I thought there would be others. A son of my own… a daughter, even. But she was too concerned with her career. ‘Not this year,’ she’d say. There was always some excuse. And all the while she watched him.” He turned his sharp glance back to Kincaid. “I must say it didn’t take her long after I left to think of an excuse to call you.”

  “It was no bloody excuse, man!” Kincaid shouted, furious again. “She’s dead, for God’s sake. Don’t you feel anything for her?”

  “What would you know about what I feel?” McClellan shouted back. “What I feel is none of your fucking business, so why don’t you just shut the fuck up, okay?” He wiped spittle from his lip with the back of his hand, and his eyes were wet with unshed tears.

  Gemma stepped in close to McClellan, separating him from Kincaid with her body. “Look, Ian, why don’t we all start over from the beginning,” she said. “You two standing here blaming one another is not going to get us anywhere.”

  “Then let me get on with things,” said McClellan with a weary gesture towards the house. “I’ve a few more boxes to load before I turn the keys over to the estate agent.”

  Kincaid stared at him blankly. “Estate agent? “You’re not-”

  “Selling up? Did you think I’d come back here, to live in this house?”

  “But what about Kit?” said Kincaid, shaking his head in disbelief “He should go back to his school-”

  “Who said anything about Kit? I’m going back to France, just as soon as your friend the Chief Inspector finishes checking my visa.”

  “But you’re Kit’s legal guardian. You can’t just-”

  “Chief Inspector Byrne said he was with his grandparents. I’m sure that’s what Vic would have wanted for him.”

&
nbsp; “What Vic wanted? How do you know what Vic wanted?” Kincaid was shouting again. “And you-you raised him as your son. How can you abandon him like this?” Raising his hands in angry frustration, he saw that they were shaking. Oh, Christ, he was losing it. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. For Kit’s sake, he had got to pull himself together. Gemma said something softly, anxiously to Nathan, but the words were snatched by the wind.

  Kincaid blinked. Use your head, man. Pretend it’s a case, just another case. He dropped his hands, lowered his voice. “Look, Ian. We need to talk. Why don’t we go inside for a bit?”

  “I’ll make us some tea,” offered Gemma.

  McClellan seemed to look at her for the first time. He shook his head. “Not in the kitchen. They said she…”

  “I’ll bring it to you in the sitting room,” Gemma said. She led him towards the house, and Kincaid and Nathan followed.

  “I didn’t know about Kit.” Nathan sounded bewildered. “She never said.”

  Glancing at him, Kincaid thought he had the stunned look of someone who’d been punched once too often. Was he wondering what else Vic had kept from him? “Vic was good at keeping secrets. And so, I think, was Lydia. Perhaps that’s one reason Vic was so drawn to her.”

  In the sitting room, Nathan perched uneasily on the footstool, while Ian sank into the chair occupied just a week ago by Vic and Kit. The room had the cold, stale smell of disuse and long-dead fires.

  For a brief instant, Kincaid tried to imagine the three of them-Vic, Kit, and Ian-together as a family. What arguments had Ian’s jealousy and resentment fueled? And what wounds had Vic kept to herself? “Where were you on Tuesday, Ian?” he asked as he sat down.