Dying to Know (A Detective Inspector Berenice Killick Mystery) (39 page)

Virginia
softened slightly. ‘It was bad for Tobias,’ she said. ‘It was a bad house for him to be in. We were grief-stricken. And he’d already lost his mother, that’s why he was with us. But you see-’ she looked up at Berenice, ‘he was a Godsend to us. We had to get on with our lives, for him. If he hadn’t been there…’

‘Does
Tobias…’ Berenice began. ‘Does he think about death a lot?’

A
flush of pink touched her face. She nodded. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It figures in his thinking. That’s another reason Murdo was so keen on the lab for him, because he thought it would be abstract, another way to think about things, not just life and death, but something eternal, universal…’ She sighed. ‘It didn’t work.’ She flashed a glance at Berenice. ‘But you’ll still haul him in, won’t you? None of this makes any difference.’

‘Virginia,’
Berenice said. ‘We’re trying to help.’

‘How
does this help? Getting me to share these memories like this?’ Her voice was harsh once more.

‘I
need to talk to him. If he’s innocent – ’

‘There
you go again. If, you say. When I know, as sure as I know anything, that he’s innocent. For all these years, I’ve fought for that boy. And I won’t stop now.’ She sat there, breathing hard.

‘My
brother was disabled,’ Berenice said. ‘My mother fought for him, too.’

Virginia
met her gaze, blank-faced. ‘You have to,’ she said. She seemed about to speak again, but Tobias was coming down the stairs. He ambled back to his seat. The cat jumped on to his lap, and he sat there, stroking her, calmly.

Virginia
turned to him. ‘This lady here – ’

‘Berenice
– ’ she said.

Virginia
gave a small shrug. ‘She says you saw something happen. At Hank’s Tower. The night that Murdo… The night that he…’

Tobias
looked up. He considered Berenice for a moment. Then he said, ‘One man. One man carrying another. The one being carried, he looked like Uncle Murdo, he looked dead or asleep or something, his arm was swinging, like that – ’ He swung his arm clumsily across the table, catching one of the mugs, tipping cold coffee across the clutter. ‘My box – ’ he shouted, as the sticky liquid trickled towards it. He scooped it up in his arms.

Berenice
looked at it. ‘What’s that?’ she said.

‘My
things. Special things.’

Berenice
glanced at it. ‘What kind of things?’

He
settled back into his chair. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘things to do with the Aether. From the book,’ he added. He pushed the box into her arms. ‘Like the lion that you took.’

Berenice
looked at Virginia, who inclined her head in permission. She lifted the objects, one by one, a red plastic lion, tiny glass bottles, perfume, she thought. Sheaves of paper, covered in scribbled numbers, diagrams. A pink hair-band – ’

‘Lisa
kept the red one,’ he said, and smiled. ‘She let me have that one. I like pink,’ he said.

A
postcard of an old painting… a tree with apples, a man, a serpent -

‘Adam
in the Garden,’ Tobias said. ‘It’s old.’

Two
photographs. One seemed to be a cemetery, people standing near a grave. The other, a photo of a little boy. Berenice held them, one in each hand.

Virginia
began to speak, but Berenice stopped her. ‘I know what these are,’ she said. ‘You don’t have to explain.’ She gazed at them for a minute. ‘My brother…’ she said. ‘I was nine when he died. He was two years older than me. His funeral… Such terrible grief. And at that age, you don’t understand, do you…’ She fingered the photographs. ‘He was a beautiful child,’ she said.

‘Yes,’
Virginia said. She reached out a hand and Berenice passed her the photo of the child.

Virginia
gazed at the blond hair, the open, smiling face. ‘Yes. He was a beautiful child.’

Elizabeth paced the kitchen.

‘I
can’t think where he’d have taken her,’ she said. ‘Where he’s been hiding out. He claims to be a devoted dad, that’s the problem, it’s all tied up with him wanting to be something he’s not…’

‘The
police are looking for him – ’ Helen said.

‘And
failing to find him.’ She sat down again at the table. ‘Oh, God, they could be anywhere. I should have got involved earlier, I’m a relative of the poor kid, after all…’

‘A
very distant one,’ Helen said.

‘She’s
got no one to care for her, that’s the problem.’

‘There’s
Finn, her friend. And Tobias.’

‘Yeah.
Finn’s probably been hauled in for dealing again. And Tobias…’ Elizabeth shook her head.

Outside
it had grown dark. The silence of the house was punctuated by rustlings, mice, perhaps, birds in the rafters. Tazer snuffled from her place by the back door.

‘Well,
no point staying here,’ Elizabeth said. ‘I guess you’ve got a home to go to.’

Helen
shook her head. ‘Not really, no.’

‘No?
That makes two of us.’ Elizabeth hesitated, then said, ‘When I first saw you, I thought, you don’t look like a vicar’s wife. You look like a dancer.’

‘A
dancer.’ Helen looked at her. ‘I am. At least I was…’

‘Was?’

They
faced each other across the shadows of the kitchen. Helen wondered what to say, how to begin.

‘God,
it’s bloody dark in here,’ Elizabeth said suddenly. She got to her feet, gathering candles from the old kitchen range, matches. Soon there was light, flickering across the room. ‘Or maybe I’ve made it worse,’ she said, surveying the room. ‘Even more spooky.’ She sat down again.

Helen
gazed at the candle flame.

‘Giving
things up,’ Elizabeth said. ‘For you, it’s your dancing so that you can be a vicar’s wife. For me, it’s any kind of life so that I can do my work.’

‘Is
it like that?’

‘Not
for every woman, no. But I guess I have standards. The kind of physics I want to do. I don’t want to stop what I’m doing just to go home and cook some man’s dinner.’

‘Are
you happy with that?’ Helen hadn’t meant to ask, but there was something about the house, the sense that there was only a thin crumbling wall between this room and the wild night outside.

‘At
this moment?’ Elizabeth shook her head. ‘No. I’m not happy at all. I loved two men and both of them…’ Her voice cracked. ‘Both of them are dead. And the worst of it is, I feel I’m to blame. I feel I’m at the heart of it all.’

‘But
– Elizabeth – ’

‘What?’

‘It’s someone dangerous. It’s some kind of crazy, murderous vengeful person. Your lab is just the focus of a madness, surely…?’

Elizabeth
traced lines on the old oak table. ‘I guess I’m not thinking straight. Alan, the director, he was obsessed with this house. He got the idea he’d buy it, with the land around it. He’d go on about extending the lab. Just before he died, he’d completed the sale. It was uncomplicated – Digby Voake, apparently, he owned all this. He was quite happy to get rid of it. But Alan was nervous about it, anxious. He seemed to think I was an obstacle to it all. I don’t know why. He’d use my van Mielen name, even though I shed it years ago. I don’t even like it. My father’s name…’ She shrugged. ‘Not one I want to carry.’

‘So
– surely, whoever is angry with the lab – it’s about this house. This land. Surely the police know all that…?’

‘Oh,
yes. Everyone’s told them. They’re pursuing Clem for just that reason. That, and the fact he’s a low-life criminal… which is presumably why he’s gone into hiding and taken his poor kid with him.’

‘Oh
God.’ Helen shivered. ‘I should have kept her with me.’

‘Would
she have let you?’

‘No.’

‘It’s not your fault,’ Elizabeth said. ‘And I guess it’s not mine. It’s just, everyone sees me as some kind of femme fatale. And that isn’t me at all. I loved Murdo. I loved him very very much. When I came back here, from Italy… God, I was so moral. So bloody
good
. I kept my distance, I left him to his drippy wife… and Iain was funny and sweet and supportive, he knew the whole story, he and I had been… well, I guess we’d sort of been lovers in the past… who would blame me for turning to him?’

‘No
one,’ Helen murmured.

‘I
mean, if the man you love makes himself unavailable in some way, it’s just human nature to find love elsewhere, isn’t it?’

Helen
met her eyes. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I suppose it is.’

Berenice sat in her car in a layby on the dual carriageway. The rain poured down, blurring the headlights of the oncoming cars. It was late, she realized, and she was hungry.

On
the seat next to her, sat Tobias’s box. Virginia had softened, somehow, had even offered her something to eat, which Berenice had declined. When she’d asked Virginia, and Tobias, if she could keep the box for a few days, they’d agreed, ‘As long as you look after it, and don’t do any of the experiments, promise…’ he’d said. She’d promised. Now it was all there, in her car, apart from the photo of Jacob, which Virginia had placed on her mantelpiece, ‘Where it belongs,’ she’d said.

The
other photo was tucked amongst the objects, the plastic animals, a toy yellow tractor, she saw now.

I
am going crazy, she thought. What made me ask to take this stuff away?

It’s
madness. Like mentioning Danny, I’ve never done that, never in all my years in the job…

She
was about to start the engine again, when her phone rang.

‘Mary
– wassup?’

‘DNA
matching. At last. There’s a match between Clem Voake and Moffatt’s SOC. And the path labs say that Hendrickson has significant toxicity, probably sedatives.’

‘Oh.’

‘I thought you’d like to know. I’m just leaving the office, though the Chief has put me on earlies from tomorrow, with Kevin, it’ll be hell, it’s all right for you. Or, maybe, it isn’t. Anyway, proper evidence, at last, the Chief’s delighted.’

‘I
can imagine.’

Mary
was silent for a moment. ‘Sorry. Guess I said the wrong thing.’

‘It’s
cool.’

‘It
is?’

‘Sure.
See you around.’

Mary
sounded uncertain. ‘OK. See you soon.’

Berenice
put her phone back in her bag.

Evidence,
she thought. Every case I’ve been on, there’s been evidence. There’s been imaging, forensics, fingerprints, witness statements. And here I am, getting caught up in a weird old book, a muddle of local history; the grief of a bereaved mother.

She
glanced at Tobias’s collection on the seat beside her. She thought about Virginia, iron-willed, deflecting anything that would harm Tobias. She’d looked so like my mother. Weary, steadfast, determined…

Perhaps
that’s why I’d talked about my brother. Letting down my guard…

At
her door, as she’d said goodbye, Virginia had half-shaken her hand, a brief touch of her fingertips.

Berenice
started her car engine. She thought about a tailored raincoat, a toss of pale hair, smart court shoes.

She
turned off on the road back into town. She remembered there was a pizza in the freezer. A boring, cheese and tomato thing, but there were some olives in the fridge, and she’d stop off at the corner shop and see if he had a drinkable red.

‘I guess we should go,’ Elizabeth said.

Helen
sighed.

‘Dinners
to cook for husbands…’

Helen
nodded.

‘You
don’t have children,’ Elizabeth said.

‘No.
We – we tried. We lost one… miscarriage, you know… Since then…’

‘Oh.
I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.’ She fiddled with some loose candlewax.

‘You
don’t either?’ Helen said.

Elizabeth
looked up. ‘What? Oh, children. No. Not part of my plan. I saw what it did to my mother.’

‘Your
mother?’

‘She
was depressive. It killed her in the end. Or, rather, she killed herself.’

The
silence held them for a moment.

‘I
was twelve. Raised a Catholic. Everyone told me she was in Heaven,’ she went on. ‘But I knew they were lying. So, I made a few decisions. No God, no motherhood. No fairy tales. It worked very well, until… all this.’ She shivered. ‘We’d better go. We’ll either die of cold or hunger at this rate.’