Dying to Know (A Detective Inspector Berenice Killick Mystery) (38 page)

‘The
infinite circles of Satan,’ she read. ‘Your days are numbered…’ Clumsy handwriting, threatening the end of the world. Not the same as the elegant faded script of the book in her hands.

Johann
van Mielen, and his daughter. And his son-in-law Gabriel Voake.

And
now, a hundred odd years later, another Voake has camped on the edge of the Lab, with his vulnerable daughter, peddling guns or drugs or both. And has been seen round Hank’s Tower. The Scallop Tower.

She
got up, went over to the window, fingered a gap in the blinds.

Where
is the connection? she wondered. How do I get from three dead physicists to a low-life dealer and his mouthy and possibly-at-risk daughter, via a weird old book of quasi-religious writings?

I’m
not used to this, she thought, sitting back at the desk, scrolling through e-mails. I’m used to straightforward criminality, greed or fraud or theft or murderous rage, where the motivation is obvious, the outcomes are clear. Not this, this life-threatening danger, so acute, so dark, so frightening – and so completely hidden from view.

She
picked up the book, fingered the yellowing pages. Then she switched off her machine, packed everything into her briefcase, grabbed her coat and left.

The
daylight was already fading, and the headlamps of her car cut through the falling rain as she pulled away from the exit barrier and headed towards town.

Chapter Twenty-Five

‘Oh.
It’s you.’ Virginia stood at her door. ‘I’ve got nothing more to say to you.’

‘I
assume you’ve heard the awful news.’ Berenice took a step nearer the threshold.

‘You
mean, poor Iain.’ Virginia gazed out beyond her at the rain.

‘Auntie,
who is it?’ Tobias jostled behind Virginia. ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘it’s you. Come in, come in, we’ve got lots to talk about. Haven’t we Auntie, it’s got very bad, very very bad.’

Virginia,
reluctantly, stepped aside. Berenice went into the cottage, shaking rain from her coat. ‘This isn’t an official questioning,’ she said.

‘Good.’
Virginia indicated a chair, and they all three sat down. The cat appeared, eyed Berenice, slunk away again.

Berenice
put the book down on the table, which was cluttered with old coffee mugs, newspapers, a tweed hat, a wooden box. Virginia eyed the book. She appeared to shudder at the sight of it, although, Berenice thought, it might just be the chill of the room, with its unlit fire, its single lamp against the dark outside.

‘This
Aether,’ Berenice went on. ‘Is it something in the air? Is it a real thing?’

‘He
doesn’t mean aether the way we do,’ Virginia said. Her tone implied there was nothing more to say.

‘Oh.
Right.’ Berenice looked at Tobias. He’d picked up the book and was weighing it, gently, in his hand.

‘So,’
she went on, ‘some other kind of thing. Like, some magic thing. The way he talks about it, it’s like it could unlock all the secrets of the universe. Gravity, heaviness. Emptiness…’

Virginia
gave no reply, sitting with her hands in her lap. The pale lamplight sculpted the worn corduroy of her skirt, lightened the rough strands of her hair.

‘Well,
it must have mattered at the time,’ Berenice went on. ‘And perhaps it matters even now. How did it end up at your house, then?’

Virginia
raised her head. ‘I don’t know what this has got to do with Iain,’ she said. ‘Or with any of them, for that matter, Murdo, Alan…’

Berenice
shrugged. ‘You tell me.’

Virginia’s
gaze was unblinking. ‘That book is nothing but trouble.’

‘Is
that why you gave it to the vicar?’

‘Something
like that, yes.’

Berenice
wished she had someone with her, just to break the silence, the scratch of a pen of a DC taking notes. Tobias was breathing, hard, and suddenly he slammed the book down on the table.

‘Alan,’
he said. ‘The Professor. Not the same as Murdo and Iain. Oh, no, not the same at all.’ He was shaking his head from side to side. ‘Murdo and Iain knew things properly, they knew about the cold darkness out of which light comes. But Alan…’

Virginia
reached across and took his hand.

‘And
the book isn’t trouble, Auntie. Not in the right hands. I love that book, I want to have it back, it’s got the whole story in it, the tunnel and everything. And Uncle Murdo liked it too. And the Professor kept asking me for it but I didn’t give it to him and then he told me not to go and work there anymore. And Dr. Iain didn’t like him, either, when they both wanted to buy the old house the Prof was shouting at him, going on about the ghost and the dead child, and how he’d get the house, you’ll see, and Dr. Iain was very angry with the Prof after that, very very angry. Uncle Murdo had to take him for a walk to calm him down.’ He got to his feet. ‘And now it’s all gone wrong, and I can’t find Lisa either, she’s not even in our special places, I’m frightened that she’s next even though she’s not colliding things, not like the others…’ He had been pacing to and fro and now he stopped, in front of Berenice.

Their
eyes met. She was about to speak, to ask about what he’d seen at Hank’s Tower, but there was something about him, something restless and fearful, and she remained silent. He turned and left the room, and they heard him clomp up the stairs.

Virginia
faced her, tight-lipped. ‘I won’t have you upsetting that boy,’ she said. ‘You can see what he’s like. Obsessive.’ The cat had reappeared, and she bent to stroke her. ‘Things that the rest of us take for granted, he has to think about it. And some things capture him, his thinking gets snagged on them. It’s mixtures, now, his mercuries he calls them. It was stones on the beach for a while, always bringing them back, only certain kinds, particular shapes, particular marks, it all had meaning. And then after that it was Kings and Queens, firstly the historical ones, and then after a bit any country. We became experts. Even now, there are kingdoms in the world you’d never know about without Tom telling you, Andorra, Tuvalu… Their rulers still come and have tea at Buckingham Palace, says Tom.’ She allowed herself a small smile.

‘So
the book…?’ Berenice retrieved it, held it on her lap.

The
smile faded. ‘Can you imagine what that did to a boy like Tom? Not only rules, but hidden rules. Not only structures, but secret ones. He became obsessed. And then he got that job. Murdo thought it would be good for him, harness all that chaos into something more orderly.’ She shook her head. ‘Murdo was wrong.’

The
rain pattered against the thick glass of the window panes. Virginia seemed to shrink once more, her eyes downcast.

Berenice
thought about Dr. Merletti, with her mistress’s manifesto, the ‘drooping wife’, ‘it was over long before I met him,’ ‘well, if you neglect a man like that….’

The
van Mielen name in the book, too. The jealousy between Murdo and Iain. And then of course, the child, the tragic drowning.

‘Mrs.
Maguire,’ she began. Virginia didn’t move. ‘Would you say your husband was troubled?’

Virginia
looked up at her. She shook her head.

‘There
were these threats to the laboratory,’ Berenice said.

‘I
thought at first it was just Moffatt’s attention-seeking again. He likes to think he’s pushing at the frontiers of science. At first I thought no one could be that bothered about Bosons and Muons, not really. But, then, of course, with these new events, I suppose one has to accept that there are indeed dangers…’

‘And
in your marriage?’ Berenice said.

Virginia
met her eyes. ‘What do you mean?’

Berenice
took a breath, then said, ‘On Murdo’s team, and Iain’s…

‘Is
this relevant?’ Her gaze was piercing now.

‘I’m
simply asking - ’ Berenice said.

Virginia’s
voice was suddenly loud. ‘I only let you into my home out of politeness. That’s all. No doubt you’ve heard all sorts of rumours from the lab, from one person in particular. I will say this to you. If you believe anything that person says, you’re more of a fool than I thought. There will always be the woman who imagines herself loved by a man, who enjoys the challenge of being irresistible. But what does she know of love, such a woman? Murdo and I knew a different kind of love, one which was capable of carrying us through the worst that can befall a couple, the death of a child. A woman like that can toss her hair and talk of love, but she knows nothing. There is a kind of love that is a fragment of a whole, a note in the vibration of the universe. That’s what I have known, and what I have lost. What does she know of that?’ She stared, unseeing, illumined by the pale lamplight.

Berenice
watched her, gathering her thoughts. ‘Mrs. Maguire – I have one other question. What was Tobias doing at the scene of three very serious crimes?’

They made their way under dripping trees as far as the wall. Elizabeth pushed at a gate, and then they were on an overground path. At the end stood the house, still somehow solid and elegant despite the gaps in the room, the broken, empty windows.

Amelia’s
house, Helen thought.

Elizabeth
pushed at the front door, and then they were inside. Tazer began to nose around, sniffing her way down the corridor towards what must have been the kitchen.

‘Amelia’s
house,’ Helen said.

‘You
know her? Amelia Voake?’

‘I’ve
read her writings.’

‘You
have?’ Elizabeth turned to her.

‘The
book – it ended up with my husband.’

‘Heavens.’
Elizabeth shook raindrops from her coat. ‘This’ll be a lovely history lesson for you, then.’

‘It
was yours.’ Helen leaned her hand on the bannisters. She looked upwards, towards the first floor.

‘Are
you all right?’ Elizabeth glanced at her. ‘They say this place is haunted,’ she added. ‘Old Digby Voake said it used to scare him as a child.’ She turned to follow Tazer, who was snuffling at the kitchen door.

The
kitchen was drier. The table was old and wooden, and littered with several empty beer cans.

‘Ah,’
Elizabeth said. ‘Signs of life. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Clem was hanging out here.’ She pulled out a chair and inspected it. ‘He always thought he’d end up with this place. But I fear Digby had other ideas.’

Helen
sat down at the table. ‘Did he own this?’

She
nodded. ‘Old Digby Voake was the last survivor of the Gabriel Voake line, indirectly, of course. But he’s a roofer by trade, he could never afford to do anything with this place. Just before he died, he sold it. To the lab. Alan was desperate to get hold of it, for the land. Iain was interested too, but Alan outbid him. I think Digby got quite a good price.’ She sat down opposite Helen.

‘Do
the police know?’

‘I
assume they do, yes. But…’ She looked at Helen. ‘Clem as – as a killer? I hadn’t thought…’

Helen
bent to her bag and pulled out the pink folder. She passed it across.

‘What’s
this – ’

‘It’s
part of the book,’ Helen said. ‘Your book.’

Elizabeth
flicked through the pages. ‘Amelia’s writings.’ She looked up at Helen. ‘She died, their child. That’s what I’d heard.’

‘Grace?’

Elizabeth nodded.

Helen
stared at the pages in front of her. ‘That explains… that explains a lot. I’ve read through them, loads of times, this sense of dread, this fearfulness…’ She looked at Elizabeth. ‘How do you know?’

‘The
van Mielens, my father’s side. They talked about her. How she married into this Kentish family and then disappeared. It was her cousin who came to the States, he was my great-great Uncle or something… No one knows how we ended up with this book. Perhaps someone found it here in the house and shipped it over to New Jersey with the other stuff.’ She shivered in the chill of the half-ruins. She touched the red hair-band that lay on the table. ‘Well,’ she said. ‘What are we going to do?’

Virginia sat, stiff and upright. ‘Tobias is incapable of harming anyone,’ she said.

‘How
long has he been with you? Did he come to you before or after your son died?’

‘Just
after,’ she said. ‘A few months after.’ She fell silent again.

‘Dead
children,’ Berenice said. ‘This whole case seems haunted by them.’