Dreaming of the Bones (16 page)

Her mother, whenever she came to visit, threw up her hands in despair at the sight of Vic’s kitchen. A proponent of hygienic, synthetic
surfaces, with a fetish for appliances (her latest acquisition was a rubbish compactor), Eugenia Potts had no patience with her daughter’s contentment. It was a good thing, thought Vic, that she didn’t really
want
a dishwasher or a refrigerator the size of cave, because without Ian’s salary the possibility of refitting had receded further than ever.

For a moment, she allowed herself the luxury of wondering what her life would have been like if she’d stayed with Duncan. Would they live in the flat he’d described in Hampstead, with its sunset view over the rooftops? Would she be teaching at London University, in a department less difficult? Would she and Duncan have ironed out their differences, she growing less jealous of his work as she became more absorbed in her own?

The one thing she felt quite certain of was that she wouldn’t have begun a biography of Lydia Brooke, and she was beginning to think that might have been a blessing.

Even after so many years apart, it had felt quite odd today to see him with another woman. She hadn’t felt jealous—she had, in fact, found herself unexpectedly drawn to Gemma—but she
had
experienced a sense of displacement.

Just how honest had she been with herself about her reasons for contacting him? Oh, she’d had legitimate need, and he had been helpful, but now that he’d done as much as he felt he could in the matter of Lydia, she found herself wanting very much to maintain the friendship, for Kit’s sake as well as her own. Kit had few enough male role models, and it was especially important now that Ian—

The phone rang. She lunged for it instinctively, hoping it hadn’t waked Kit. Even as she lifted the handset from the cradle, she knew who it was.

“Vic? I hope it’s not too late, but I managed to get away from the conference a day early.”

“No, it’s all right. I’m still up,” she said, her breathing quickening at the sound of Nathan’s voice.

“It was a bloody weekend, I can tell you,” he said, and she could imagine him smiling. He’d gone unenthusiastically on Friday to a botanists’ meeting in Manchester, mumbling that they could hardly have picked anywhere less appropriate.

She hadn’t often talked to him on the telephone, and she thought how much she liked his voice, deep, with laughter resonating under the surface. She’d always been a sucker for voices, Duncan’s, too, with its hint of Cheshire drawl, blunted now by so many years in London.

“Come round and I’ll tell you about it,” Nathan urged.

Hesitating, Vic felt the anxious knot of dread forming in her stomach. Did she want to confront him tonight? No point putting it off, she thought, and took a deep breath.

“Yes, all right. I suppose I can come over for a bit.”

“Come the front way. The garden’s a bog.” He added, teasing, “I don’t think the neighbors will see you this time of night.” The phone clicked, then the dial tone buzzed in her ear.

He still wore his jacket and tie, though he’d undone his collar button and pulled the knot of his tie down to a rakish angle. “I’ve got the fire going,” he said, ushering her into the hall. “Let me get you a drink.”

She shook her head. “Not just now.” The door to the music room stood open and the lamp on the piano was lit. “You’ve been playing,” she said, wandering in and touching the sheet music open on the stand. It was handwritten, and she recognized Nathan’s strong, black script.

“Just doodling while I waited for you.” He stood in the doorway, looking perplexed.

Vic slid onto the piano bench and stared at the keyboard. After a moment, she began to pick out a hesitant, childish version of “Chopsticks,” all she remembered from the brief lessons forced on her by her mother. Her rebellion had taken the form of stoic silence coupled with an adherence to the exact number of minutes she was required to practice. After a few months, her mother had given up in defeat. Vic was not musically gifted.

Ballet had been next. She should have stuck with piano.

“Didn’t you tell me that you were writing music based on DNA sequences?” she asked. “Is that what this is?”

“In part. It’s an idea mentioned briefly in a lecture by Leonard Bernstein, and I’ve always been fascinated by it. An innate universal musical language.” He left his position by the door frame and came
towards her. “Vic, I happen to know that your interest in the mechanics of music lies somewhere on a par with your interest in particle physics. And you haven’t once looked at me since you came in. What
is
the matter? Has something happened?”

She turned towards him. “Nathan, why didn’t you tell me that you found Lydia?”

He stared at her. “It never occurred to me. I suppose if I’d thought about it, I’d have assumed you knew.”

“No. I’d no idea until I saw a copy of the police report today.”

“Does it matter?” he asked, sounding baffled. “Did you think I was deliberately keeping something from you?”

“No, not really,” she said, not willing to admit what she
had
thought in the face of his matter-of-factness. “It’s just that everything surrounding Lydia’s death seems so elusive.” She shivered with a sudden chill.

“It’s cold in here. Come in by the fire,” Nathan said with instant concern, and this time she followed him obediently.

“Why didn’t you ask me?” he said when he’d settled her in the armchair nearest the heat. “I’d have told you anything you wanted to know.”

“I didn’t know
to
ask. And even now I feel uncomfortable, because I’m afraid talking about it might distress you.”

“Ah.” Nathan sat across from her and took a sip of a drink he’d apparently made while waiting. “It was very distressing, actually, at the time,” he said slowly. “And I didn’t speak about it to anyone except the police, but I’d always assumed it had got about somehow, as everyone seemed to avoid the subject so assiduously.

“But it’s been a long time, and I don’t mind talking about it now, if you like.”

A simple explanation after all, thought Vic, and she had worked herself into a lather over it. Was she becoming paranoid, imagining conspiracies, and suspecting Nathan, of all people? Collecting herself, she said, “The police seemed to think that Lydia asked you to come that evening because she wanted you to find her.”

Nathan shrugged. “I suppose that’s the logical explanation. Or perhaps at some level she was hoping to be rescued.”

“As Adam rescued her the first time?”

“Poor Adam. At least I didn’t find her floating in her own blood. Sorry, love,” he added with a grimace. “Not a nice picture.”

“She wrote about it—
Life blood/Salt and iron/cradle gentle as a/mother’s kiss
…” Vic recited softly. She stood up and went to the old gramophone cabinet Nathan used to store drinks in the sitting room. Pouring herself a generous sherry, she said, “What did she say when she called you that day, Nathan? How did she sound?”

He thought for a long moment. “Tense … excited … almost combative. I suppose all of those would be natural if she were working herself up to suicide.”

“But what exactly did she say? Can you remember the particular words or phrases?” Vic came back to her chair and curled up with her feet beneath her.

Nathan closed his eyes, then said slowly, “She said, ‘Nathan, I simply must see you. Can you come round this evening?’ And then she said, ‘We need to talk.’ Or was it, ‘There’s something I need to talk to you about’?” He shook his head. “I’m sorry, I can’t remember.”

“And then what did she say? When she rang off?”

“Oh, Lord.” Nathan rubbed his chin. “Let me think. She said, ‘Come for drinks round sevenish?’ A question, rather than a statement, but she didn’t wait for me to answer. And then, ‘See you then. Cheerio,’ and she hung up.”

“And you thought that sounded like someone intending suicide?” Vic’s voice rose to an incredulous squeak.

“Well, I have to admit it sounds a bit absurd now,” said Nathan, exasperated. “But I had indisputable evidence, damnit. She was dead.”

“What did you think about the poem in the typewriter?” asked Vic, plowing on.

“The Rupert Brooke? I supposed she had never quite got over Morgan, and that was her way of saying good-bye to him. It did seem a bit sentimental for Lydia, but when I heard she’d left him everything it seemed a fair assumption.”

“The police thought Lydia wrote it.”

“Did they?” Nathan’s brows lifted in surprise. “Well, they never asked me. I’d have set them straight. But what difference does it make?”

Not yet, she thought. She wasn’t ready to lay her cards out quite yet. And there was still the matter of the poems. “Nathan, did you know about the poems in the book you gave me?”

“The Rupert Brooke? Of course it had poems in it,” he said, looking at her as if not quite sure of her sanity. “It was the first collection of his poems, along with Marsh’s rather sexually biased memoirs, if I remem—”

“No, no, I don’t mean
those
poems,” Vic protested, laughing. “I meant Lydia’s poems.”

Nathan just looked at her blankly. “What are you talking about, Vic?”

“Did you look
in
the book before you gave it to me?”

“Just the copyright page, and that marvelous photo on the flyleaf. No wonder Marsh—”

“That’s all right, then,” Vic said on a breath of relief. “No wonder you didn’t see them.” She proceeded to explain about finding the manuscript drafts of Lydia’s poems in the book, and that she thought them among the last of Lydia’s work.

When she’d finished, Nathan said thoughtfully, “Well, no one would know better than you. But how odd. I suppose the logical step would be to ask Ralph if he knows anything about them.”

“Ralph Peregrine? Her publisher?” she asked, while silently blessing Nathan for not questioning her competence.

“A nice chap, and he seems to have had a good working relationship with Lydia. Have you met him?”

Vic nodded. “Briefly. He was very accommodating. He told me as much as he knew about Lydia’s methods of working, and made me copies of his correspondence with her.”

“And there was nothing about these poems?”

“No. She wrote him a series of friendly, chatty letters from abroad over the years, but they seem to have conducted most of their business in person or over the telephone.”

“I suppose that makes sense, in view of the fact that they were both in Cambridge.” Nathan fell silent for a moment, then smiled brightly at her. “You could ask Daphne.”

“That’s exactly what Adam said, only about something else. What—”

“How did your visit go with Adam?” Nathan interrupted, sounding avuncularly pleased with himself.

“He wasn’t at all what I expected,” Vic said, smiling. “He was quite charming, and he gave me very good sherry. It seemed all I needed was your seal of approval.”

“Adam always did have a taste for expensive sherry—it’s probably the one little luxury he allows himself, poor chap. It was he who began the sherry party tradition at college, you know.” As if reminded of his empty glass, Nathan got up and poured himself a bit more whisky. Returning to his chair, he said, “Lydia took it up, but with a bit more flair. I’d forgotten that.”

“Why refer to him as a poor chap?” Vic asked, intrigued. “I’ll admit the rectory is a bit shabby—well, I suppose I’d have to admit that Adam’s a bit shabby himself—but he seemed quite comfortable with his circumstances.”

Nathan grimaced. “You’re quite right. That was bloody condescending of me. That’s what comes of projecting your own ambitions onto someone else.” Frowning, he sipped at his drink. “But you see, all of us—Adam and Darcy and I—came from the same sort of comfortable, middle-class background. Well, mine was a bit less comfortable than Adam’s or Darcy’s, but the point is, we started with the same aspirations, and Darcy and I made a moderate success of it. Adam, though …”

“What?” said Vic, her curiosity further aroused by his hesitation. He looked up at her and for once she found his dark eyes opaque, unreadable.

“All of a sudden, one day Adam decided that wasn’t good enough for him. He wanted to
contribute
something, save his own little corner of the world. And I can’t say he’s made a great success of it—a failed mission, then a decaying church that’s in danger of closure, full of aging and decrepit parishioners.”

“Nathan,” said Vic, taken aback, “you actually sound as if you’re jealous! I’d never have thought it.”

He looked at her for a long moment, then said, “It’s more guilt than jealousy, I’m afraid. At least he made an effort to do something for someone, poor bastard, while the rest of us just grew fat and content and more blind by the day. I used to tell myself that do
gooding was just as self-serving, but I’m not sure I can swallow that anymore.”

“I wouldn’t have thought you’d make a very good cynic.”

“Thanks.” He smiled at her. “Perhaps your good opinion means I have some hope of redemption.”

“What about Daphne? Did she get a case of middle-aged tunnel vision, as well?”

“Daphne?” Nathan tilted his head to one side as he thought. “I’m afraid I couldn’t say, really. I never had much contact with Daphne after college. She’s certainly been outwardly successful, though.”

“But you said—”

“It was Lydia and Daphne who stayed close. And I must say I wondered even then if Daphne only put up with the rest of us for Lydia’s sake. It was Daphne who was most privy to Lydia’s work, especially in the later years.”

“But I interviewed her.” Vic slid her feet to the floor with an outraged thump. “From the way she talked, you’d have thought they’d hardly seen one another since college, a nodding-acquaintances-in-the-street sort of thing. And there’s no record in Lydia’s papers, except for the occasional mention in her letters to her mother—”

“Daphne’s a very private person, as was Lydia. When Lydia died, Daphne asked me to return all the letters she’d written to her over the years. I saw no reason not to.”

After a moment, Vic realized she was gaping and snapped her mouth shut. “But couldn’t you have … But what about—”

“Literary posterity?” Nathan supplied helpfully. “I rather thought that the wishes of the living people involved came first.”