Dying to Know (A Detective Inspector Berenice Killick Mystery)

by Alison Joseph

  It was odd, he thought, that Virginia’s husband, a physicist himself, should have treasured this book. Or perhaps it wasn’t odd at all – perhaps questions of gravity, of atoms, of nothingness, are the same whether they’re from the nineteenth century or from the twenty-first.

  In his mind he saw her, again, standing on her doorstep, raw with loss. How could I help her? What is there to say about the death of a child? A real, living child. All I know is the loss of the chance of a child. We have no howls of pain, Helen and I. Only the silence, filling the gaps between us.

  “…It is very unlikely, Mr and Mrs Meyrick, I would say, impossible, that you could ever conceive again…” The consultant’s words, again. “There are, of course, all sorts of treatment paths we could pursue… I leave it to you both to discuss it… my door is always open…”

  IVF. DI. ICSI…

  ‘But I’m only thirty-five,’ is all Helen would say, then thirty-six, thirty-seven… And somehow, the subject was closed.

  The lights of the town shone damp and yellow. He took the path away from the beach. The seafront was loud with cars and strolling boys, clusters of girls smoking and laughing by the derelict pier, its broken lines black against the charcoal sky.

  Helen poured herself a glass of red wine and sat down at the kitchen table. It seemed to be night outside, and she wondered when her husband would be back. She got up and crossed the room, hearing the echo of her steps in the empty house.

  The vicarage, she thought, not for the first time. I live in a vicarage. ‘A vicar’s wife?’ her friends had shrieked, when she’d told them she was engaged to Chadwick. ‘Helen, a vicar’s wife? Who’d have thought?’

  Oh, the merriment. She wandered into the lounge. The two sofas brooded in the darkened room, like slumbering giants. She switched on the lights, put down her glass. She looked at the pale gold walls, she’d chosen the paint herself, stripped out the heavy green-striped wallpaper which was there before. She looked at their Patrick Caulfield print, which seemed brighter and bolder than it ever had in their rather dingy Hackney sitting room. There was a bureau in the corner, one of their few bits of decent furniture, Georgian, handed down from an aunt.

  I give it two years, her friend Anton had said. ‘You’re a dancer, babe. Dancer into vicar’s wife, it just ain’t going to go.’

  Had she thought then he was right?

  But I love him, she must have said. I love Chad and I want to marry him.

  There was more I could have said. I could have said that the first time he put his arms around me, it felt like coming home. I could have talked about his shyness, his awkward tenderness, his concern for me that was almost paternal. I could have told them that after all the years I’d spent being a free spirit, Chad had prevented me floating away altogether, had tethered me to earth. What I would never have told them, though, was about the desire, the rightness of it all, the private, physical spaces that freed him to be so urgently, powerfully male, that allowed me to be so fully a woman…

  She took a sip of wine, went over to the window. The curtains were still open, their heavy drapes tied back with silken ropes, and she could see the line of sea against the sky.

  Yes, I said to them, I shall be a vicar’s wife.

  A vicar’s wife. A warm house, a cosy fire, a welcoming table, a smile for my husband in our noisy, family home, our children running to and fro…

  Not this. Not this echoing shell, these well-appointed rooms in which there is only silence and the tap of my footsteps on the polished floors.

  She found herself back in the kitchen again. She heard her husband’s key in the lock. She bent to the oven and retrieved the casserole for supper.

  Chapter Four

  At twelve noon, on the thirtieth of July 1922, Amelia Voake paused, breathless and shy, at the door of her husband’s workshop.

  ‘Gabriel?’

  She lifted her long skirts, muddy from the garden, took a step over the threshold. The laboratory, he called it.

  ‘Gabriel?’ she called again, but there was no answer. Only the hum in the silence, in the heavy dark shadows of the panelled walls.

  On the oak bench sat the machine, giving off its sour green light. Rays, she thought, gazing at it, something to do with the aether, is that what it was, or was that something else? Dangerous, anyway, he was always saying so, not to come too near, not to let their child anywhere near.

  She wondered where he was. The rain beat against the windows. She stared at the tangle of wires, the light beaming from the lens.

  She’d forgotten, now, what errand had brought her here, a question from Cook, wasn’t it, something about sharpening a knife for the pheasant…

  Above the hum, another sound. She jumped. The machine seemed the same, the flickering light unchanged.

  Again, the sound, like a cry. A human cry, a howl of pain. But where…

  There it was. Out of the corner of her eye, a movement, white in the green light.

  She felt faint, sick with dread. Not this, not this again. Last time, she thought, it was my own imaginings, it was I who’d brought it into being. Last time her husband was there, talking, explaining in his dry voice and dry words the working of the experiment, ‘You see, Amelia, with this modification, the movement of the optical components interferes as little as possible with the actual beam…’

  She’d feigned comprehension, as usual, but behind him, in the thin light, she’d seen a shape, a man’s face, translucent, the bench visible through the human form, the pale hair, the rough white linen of his shirt.

  ‘…and here you see the counter-rotating beams…’

  ‘Gabriel – ’ she’d interrupted him. ‘Did you see?’

  ‘What, my dear?’ His voice was tight with irritation.

  ‘There – ’ She had turned back, pointing.

  ‘Your nerves, Amelia. Playing tricks again.’

  Pointing, staring into the shadows. Seeing nothing.

  And now – now, here alone in the laboratory, she’d seen it again. She turned, breathing, ready to face it, whatever it was. A young man, limping, she thought, even in that one glimpse, the military coat, the torn white shirt…

  She saw only the dark wood walls, the grey daylight beyond. No man. No coat, no shirt.

  The noise of the machine was louder, and the light seemed to pulse more fiercely, as if on the brink of change, throwing fractured colour across the bench, across the wiring and the sheaves of papers.

  Her husband’s writings. A series of numbers, Greek lettering, arithmetic. Phrases, ‘decreased density, thermal expansion…’

  “What is there in places almost empty of matter,’ she read. ‘And whence is it that the sun and planets gravitate towards one another without dense matter between them?”

  ‘Gravitate towards one another…’ She spoke aloud, holding the page in her hand, hearing footsteps, hearing a gentle rattle at the door, as the light from the beam faded and a shaft of sunlight crossed the windows. She remembered it was Thursday, breathed with relief, putting down the page, hearing her own daughter’s voice, ‘I wondered where you were, Mama,’ and as the child came, laughing, into the room, she laughed too and said, ‘It’s Thursday. Papa has gone to collect the logs, darling.’ She gathered her child into her arms, and they left, because ‘Papa doesn’t like people being in the laboratarry, does he, Mama…’

  She felt her daughter’s soft arms around her neck. As they crossed the kitchen garden in the sunlight she noticed the lettuces were ready for eating.

  The click of her heels echoed along the corridor. Berenice glanced down at her new black boots. Investigating Officer’s boots, she thought. Much too warm, of course, Mary warned me that Maidstone always has the heating on, but stilettos aren’t going to work in a Major Incident Room, and my old shoes are too dowdy…

  She pushed the door open in front of her. ‘Morning everyone.’

  ‘Ma’am,’ came the murmured answer from the assembled team.

  ‘For those of you who
haven’t met me,’ she began, surveying the room – paper coffee cups, open notepads, lap-tops, phone-things, several pairs of eyes fixed on her – ‘I’m DI Berenice Killick. Thanks for being here. Shall we start?’

  Dutiful nods of heads in front of her. She glanced at DC Mary Ashcroft, who flashed her a quick grin.

  ‘OK. You know the background. You’ve got the SOC team reports there?’ More dutiful nods. ‘Murdo Maguire. Physicist. Worked at the lab on the edge of town. The East Kent Lepton Research Institute. Initial reports suggest drowning subsequent to a fall from the old lighthouse. However…’ She paused, scanned the faces. ‘Forensics are showing injuries prior to the fall into the sea. Bruising to the skull, brain bleeding too. Brian?’

  A middle-aged man with thin silvery hair nodded behind his thin silvery spectacles. ‘We’re waiting for the final X rays,’ he said. ‘But everything we’ve seen so far suggests he was struck, perhaps with a fist. He either fell or was thrown. Cause of death was drowning, there’s significant water in the lungs.’

  There was a scratch of pens on notepads, a flurry of typing onto keyboards.

  Berenice had been standing, but now she perched on a chair. ‘Other things you need to know. There’d been threats to the lab. Couple of incidents of broken windows. Nothing stolen. And hate-mail. The odd note delivered, and a spate of e-mails too, accusing them of interfering with the order of the universe, that kind of thing. As you know, they’ve got a particle collider down there, smashing things… The chaps that work there take this for granted, apparently, that the lunatic fringe get upset about black holes and stuff, the universe imploding, the end of the world and it’s all their fault…’ She smoothed her jacket, waited for the note-takers to catch up. She noticed that Mary wasn’t taking any notes at all, sitting there all cool, sipping from her paper cup.

  ‘The threats might be connected to a family of low-lifes who are parked on the edge of the site. Caravan dwellers, though not travellers as such. DC Ashcroft, do you want to fill us in?’

  Mary put down her cup. ‘A family called Voake. When I say family, it’s one kid, a daughter of about fifteen, and a father. No apparent mother. The father, Clem Voake, may be connected to a warehouse raid last week at the docks at Dover, but we’re drawing blanks at the moment. And why he’s living rough when that kind of villainy seems to be worth a bob or two, we don’t know. It’s probably unconnected, but it seems odd he’s on the edge of the lab when they’ve had all this trouble. He’s got previous, too, did a stretch for robbery over in Herne Bay six years ago.’

  ‘Murdo Maguire,’ Berenice began again. ‘He was forty-three. Very well thought of in his field. He’s published papers on these meson things. Muons, neutrinos...’ She avoided Mary’s gaze. ‘He’d been with this lab for years. Family – one wife, she lives locally. According to one of his colleagues, it wasn’t a happy marriage. Estranged, he said, but still sharing the same house. No siblings. He grew up in Aberdeen. Parents deceased. The wife – ’ she scanned the room. ‘Who did the visit?’

  A young DS raised his hand. ‘With DC Cowling,’ he said. ‘We told her we were waiting for more tests.’

  ‘So she thinks he flung himself into the sea. Listen, Ben, as soon as the results come through, you need to see her again. The rest of you, the schedule is up on the wall. The car’s secured, but it can be towed now. The tower site is secured. I want an assessment of the tower, I want CCTV of the seafront, and there’s a team on the victimology. It’s all up here. Any questions?’

  The room was hot and airless. She clicked off the power point, told them, once again, that she’d be in her office – ‘And if anything – Anything – comes to light, anything you want to say, however small… I’m here. Got it?’

  And then the room was empty. She went over to the windows, reached up and opened a tiny, high-up pane. The door clicked behind her.

  ‘Thought you’d need a coffee, Boss.’

  ‘Mary – ’

  ‘Thanks aren’t needed.’

  ‘Thanks anyway.’

  DC Mary Ashcroft gave a smile.

  Berenice went back to her seat and sipped at the paper cup. ‘The seaside’s not for wimps, is it?’

  Mary laughed. ‘You never took this job for an easy life. Though, it’s true, you don’t get drownings in inner city Leeds.’

  Berenice dabbed white foam from her upper lip with a finger. ‘There was always the canal.’

  They sat in silence. Outside there was birdsong and the occasional rev of an engine.

  ‘Estranged,’ Berenice said.

  ‘You what?’

  ‘I was thinking about that word. This dude washed up on the beach – they were estranged, someone said. But still sharing a house.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘It’s kind of weird. What do we know about the wife?’

  Mary shrugged. ‘Ben said you can never tell when you’re bringing that kind of news. She was very quiet, he said.’

  ‘He’s right. You can never tell.’

  ‘Biscuit? There are two in here and I should only eat one.’ Mary passed her a chocolate digestive. ‘Well, I shouldn’t be eating any really.’

  ‘You’re not dieting again?’

  Mary nodded. She pulled at her sweater, which was fluffy and turquoise. ‘We’re like a comedy double-act. DI Killick and DS Ashcroft, the thin black one and the fat white one…’

  Berenice laughed. ‘You’re not fat.’

  ‘It’s all right for you. You don’t eat. I’d say it was heart-break, but you didn’t eat in Leeds either.’

  Berenice looked at her. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Not heart-break. Not over him.’

  ‘You don’t even drink.’

  ‘Apart from alcohol,’ Berenice said.

  ‘And you wonder why you get cystitis.’

  Berenice shook her head. ‘That’s just stress, that is.’

  ‘You don’t need to prove yourself.’ Mary got to her feet. ‘Remember that. You were a great copper in Leeds, and you’ll be a great copper here.’

  A brief squeeze of her shoulder, then the door closed behind her.

  Alone, Berenice picked up her phone. ‘Hi, yes, it’s DI Killick. DIO on the Hythe drowning. Can we get those fibres over to the lab asap? Thank you.’

  She rang off. She stared at her computer screen. A great copper, she thought. One day, maybe, I’ll believe it.

  ‘And the Lord God said, ‘The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.’ So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken…’

  Chadwick looked out across a sea of heads to the thick wooden beams above them. The morning sun shone through the stained glass of the East window behind him, throwing patches of colour on to the plain white walls.

  ‘This is the word of the Lord,’ he finished.

  The congregation murmured the response. The organ played the opening notes of the Psalm, the choir began to sing. Chad took his seat again.

  “The voice of the Lord is upon the waters; the God of Glory thunders…”

  In his mind he began to rehearse his Sunday sermon. He had prepared a homily about Adam and Eve, about exile from the Garden of Eden, and how we must remember that, even if we have left God, he hasn’t left us, and that in our suffering he is by our side.

  From his seat he could see Virginia, sitting in the shadows at the back of the church, her head bowed. As he looked at her, the words in his head seemed to lose all their meaning. That God is by our side, he thought. An empty hope.

  The reader was now reaching the ending of the Epistle. It would be time to read the Gospel and then to give the sermon. Chadwick stood up. In his mind he heard the words, ‘The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to live forever…’

  He stuttered through the Gospel, Matthew, Chapter Four, Jesus tempted by the Devil. There was an exp
ectant hush in the church. He glanced at his notes, saw nothing there of any help, and began to speak.

  ‘We are the fallen,’ he said. ‘It is a necessary part of our humanity that we have fallen from Grace. To be human, we cannot be otherwise…’

  He saw Virginia lift her head. Her eyes met his. He took a deep breath and continued to speak.

  ‘Man, I’m not having all this ballet shit, you get me?’

  Helen glanced at the rest of the class, then back at the boy who was standing in front of her. He was tall and muscular, in T-shirt and leggings, his feet in their black ballet shoes placed firmly on the floor, his hands on his hips. His blue-grey eyes shone from his face, which glowed dark with sweat. Behind him the class took a break, leaning on the barre, sipping water, stretching legs, watching with interest.

  ‘Finn, it’s a ballet class.’ Helen faced him.

  ‘You told me dance, man. Dance to me, it’s the beat, right? Like, living the music. Not this…’ He waved his arm around the studio.

  ‘It’s all dance, Finn.’

  ‘And the music’s shit too.’

  ‘You don’t have to do it, then, blad.’ One of the girls approached. She had straightened Afro hair pinned back, and was dressed in a scarlet T shirt with matching leggings. ‘We don’t need you here, you get me?’

  ‘Wha’ else me going to do?’

  She tutted, turned to Helen. ‘Sorry about him, Miss, he’s just like this, y’know?’

  Helen smiled at her. ‘It’s OK.’ She turned to him. ‘It’s up to you, Finn.’

  He shrugged.

  ‘You’re good, you know?’ she went on.

  He slouched in front of her, staring at the floor.

  ‘Really, you are.’

  He raised his eyes. ‘I ain’t no good at all this shit. All them words, don’t know what they mean or nothing.’

  ‘You don’t have to know what they mean. You just have to dance them.’