Dying to Know (A Detective Inspector Berenice Killick Mystery) (45 page)

Her
car juddered to a halt outside her house.

She
slammed her front door, threw down her bag on the shabby sofa.

Saturday
night, she thought. A girl should be out partying.

Berenice
twitched back the grey-ish net curtains and stared out at the street. The city lights seemed to vibrate with beats of music, the shrieks of girlish laughter.

And
here I am, she thought, with only a book, a folder full of hate mail and a box of weird toys for company.

“The Philosopher’s stone is a fixed, subtle, concentrated fire which does these things. Men greater than I have explored its power. But what I know to be true, is that Fallen Man must rise again. He must be united to the Divine Light, from which by disobedience he was separated. A flash or tincture of this must come or he can no more discern things spiritually than he can distinguish colours naturally without the light of the sun.”

She
closed the book.

No
way, she thought. No way those guys at the lab would take this stuff seriously.

So,
what were they fighting over? What was it about the sale of the Voake house, that led them one by one to Hank’s Tower?

And
as for the way that boy today was looking at the vicar’s wife…

I
nearly said to her, Don’t do it girlfriend. I’ve seen enough in my time, not scientists, mind you, crime reporters, but still, I can tell a cheat when I see one.

Although,
that Liam, maybe not a cheat exactly. Just a man.

She
plumped the tired velvet cushions on the worn sofa.

But
what do I know? A cheating hack might be better than nothing.

But
then she remembered. She remembered the silences, the unanswered texts, phone calls going to voice mail. The sudden flights from her flat, pulling on of clothes, mumbled excuses, parents evenings, ‘got to be there, she’ll be suspicious otherwise’… Hopes raised, hopes dashed. Hopes so trampled underfoot that they turned to – what? To rage, certainly. Hatred, perhaps. Cynicism too.

And
in the end, came that day on the doorstep, refusing to let him in, telling him his wife was welcome to him, throwing all his clothes out into the street, into the rain, a cliché, sure, but God it was fun…

The
affair, once the solid core of her life, had drifted to the edges, had become as easy to discard as bubble wrap.

And
now here I am, with only long dead madmen for company. In the hope that they’ll lead me to a killer.

She
yawned, went to the kitchen, put on a kettle, opened cupboards in search of peppermint tea.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Sunday
lunch, Helen thought. Cooking for my husband. Normal life.

Perhaps
everything’s going to be all right.

The
night before, Chad had come back late. ‘The road was up,’ he’d said. ‘Had to drive around the long way.’ He’d talked about stone carvings in a church, a Green Man. ‘I know that church,’ she’d said. ‘Out on the marshes? St Bruin’s. I passed it once…’ but he’d hardly looked at her.

After
a while she’d gone to bed. She had lain awake, sleepless, hearing him typing downstairs.

She
tossed potatoes with salt and rosemary. If this is normal life, she thought, why do I feel so afraid?

Berenice checked the address again. She knocked on the brass lion’s head on the red-painted door.

The
door opened and Elizabeth stood there.

‘Detective
Inspector Killick,’ Berenice said.

‘Oh,’
Elizabeth said. ‘Thank goodness.’

She
led the way through the black-and-white tiled hall.

‘Please
take her away,’ she said.

The
dog was curled up on a newly-upholstered antique chair.

‘I
don’t know why I agreed to keep her,’ Elizabeth was saying, ‘but your underling was so reluctant… Do sit down.’

‘My
underling,’ Berenice said, and smiled.

The
room had pale walls, white window blinds. In the stripped, clean fireplace stood an abstract bronze sculpture.

Elizabeth
took a seat on the sofa, which was large and maroon and matched the thick rug that almost covered the polished wooden floor. She eyed the dog again.

Berenice
saw the well-cut trousers, the camel cashmere sweater, the slick of lipstick.

The
droopy wife, she thought.

She
settled on another antique chair. ‘So, you found the dog – ’

‘Yes.
And this.’ Elizabeth held out the hair band in its plastic bag. ‘It’s Lisa’s. Helen was sure of it.’

Berenice
noticed the odd mixed accent, the hint of American with a slight Italian lilt.

‘We
were at the old house. The Voake house. We were looking for Lisa.’

‘But
she wasn’t there. Just the dog.’

Elizabeth
nodded.

‘So
- ’ Berenice leaned back on her chair. ‘What do you know about Clem Voake? Apart from the fact he seems to be running a gun racket from the edge of your lab?’

‘Very
little. His family and mine are distantly connected.’

‘Would
he have a grudge against the lab?’

Elizabeth
frowned. ‘He seems to have. If we assume it was him writing those notes. And Alan, our chief, bought the Voake land from under him. But it was never his, he just thought that Digby would leave it to him. God knows why he wanted it, you’ve seen the house, it’s a wreck.’

Berenice
nodded at her. ‘And the book?’

Elizabeth
sighed. ‘The book.’

‘It
has your surname in it. Johann van Mielen, it says. Your maiden name.’

Elizabeth
smiled at her. ‘It turns out, I came home. Without even realizing it. Or maybe, there aren’t that many places to do physics. Johann’s cousin came over to the States, before the First World War, and his offspring produced my father.’

‘How
did you end up with the book?’

‘Amelia
must have passed it on to our lot, somehow.’

‘And
the Voakes? Gabriel, in the book? And Clem?’

Elizabeth
sighed. ‘I wish I knew more. Ask Neil, he knows more about my family history than I do.’

Berenice
met her eyes. ‘Why did the book end up with Virginia?’

‘It
was of no interest to me,’ Elizabeth said. ‘Some weird pseudo-scientific ramblings from a distant ancestor.’

‘And
it was interesting to her?’

‘To
Murdo,’ Elizabeth said. ‘A gift,’ she added. ‘From me to him. He loved that book.’ She gave a brief, soft smile.

‘She
was keen to get rid of it, Chad said.’

Elizabeth’s
gaze was even. ‘I’m not at all surprised.’

On
her luxury chair, the dog stirred, stretched, settled again.

‘Dr Merletti,’ Berenice began.
‘Your relationship with Murdo… and Iain…’

‘We
were friends. The three of us.’

‘You
used to go to Hank’s Tower.’

Elizabeth
smiled. ‘We did, yes. We’d take wine, look out to sea, watch the sunset…’

‘Why Hank’s Tower?’

‘Why
not? And anyway, we had a joke, about the old tunnel there, how we could set up our own private collider.’

‘What
old tunnel?’

Elizabeth
looked at her. ‘It’s mentioned in the book, those pages at the back, Amelia’s ones.’

‘I
haven’t seen those.’

‘Ah.’

‘Am I missing anything?’ Berenice threw her a look.

‘Just
the pain of an unhappy woman. And maybe a map, though I think that was lost.’

‘A
map?’

‘Amelia’s
husband made this tunnel, supposedly. And he left a map. It was said to have an entrance underneath Hank’s Tower. We never found it. I guess it was flooded years ago.’

Berenice
glanced at the bronze shape in the fireplace. It looked vaguely humanoid. A skull? she wondered. ‘Dr Merletti – these terrible events at the lab… do you have any idea what might be the cause?’

Elizabeth
shook her head. ‘Alan Moffatt was an angry man. He’d take dislikes to people. Me, for example. There were grudges, certainly. But the others…’ Her face clouded. She shook her head.

‘Do
you feel endangered?’

‘No
more than anyone else. In fact, probably less. Whoever’s doing this, if he’s going for physicists, he might think they’re all men. It’s a common mistake.’

‘Yes,
like Detective Inspectors. They’re always men too.’

Elizabeth
gave a thin smile.

‘Was
Murdo happy, in those days?’ Berenice asked.

Elizabeth
gazed towards the windows. ‘We were happy, yes.’

‘But
he was married. With a son – ’

‘No.
No son. Not in those days. Jacob came along later. Murdo was so sure he was infertile…’ Her words tailed away.

A
miracle child. Berenice remembered what Virginia had said.

‘Ghosts,’
Elizabeth said, suddenly. ‘This case is full of them. Peppered with them.’ She looked at Berenice. ‘Although, I expect you police, with your rationality, your quest for evidence…’

‘Ghosts?’
Berenice said.

‘There’s
an old soldier. A wounded soldier. He walks the lab. Loads of people have seen him.’

‘Aren’t
you rational too, you physicists?’

Elizabeth
sighed. ‘We’re going through terrible times,’ she said. ‘The Voake family… Amelia had great loss in her life. She had a daughter who died too, a little girl. Neil says there’s a grave in a funny old church, up on the marshes.’ She sighed. ‘It’s the past, you see. The shadows it casts. It’s like the book. For Johann, it’s about purity, but spiritual purity. If you’re aiming to turn lead into gold, you have to be a certain kind of person. But then later, for Gabriel, it’s still about purity. The Aether, the fifth essence,’ she said. ‘The truth beyond which there is nothing more to say. And even for us, trying to balance matter with anti-matter…’ She gazed, unseeing, at the floor.

‘This
ghost,’ Berenice prompted.

Elizabeth
met her eyes. ‘I think he’s Amelia’s brother, Guy. He was best friends with her husband, Gabriel. He was a physicist too, involved with the aether experiment. Until he died in the War.’

‘And
why should he be an unquiet spirit?’ Berenice asked.

Elizabeth
shook her head. ‘I don’t know.

She
looked up at Berenice. ‘You must think I’m mad.’

‘No,’
Berenice said. ‘I had a brother who died. I know about hauntings.’

A
quiet drizzle spattered the windows.

Elizabeth’s
eyes welled with tears. ‘I loved them both, you see. Can you understand that?’

Berenice
gave a small nod.

‘For
many women… I might seem unnatural…’ Elizabeth twisted her manicured fingers together.

‘I
wouldn’t dream of judging – ’

‘
- but Murdo was the love of my life. And yet, in the end, I lost him.’ She stretched out her legs, re-crossed them. ‘What I’ve learned in this, is that it’s always the Wife who wins. Always. Anyone who thinks otherwise is deluding herself.’ She smiled, wearily. ‘When you people allow us a funeral, she will be his widow. She will have the rightful place.’ She dabbed at her eyes.

The
dog began to whimper.

‘You’d
better take her away,’ Elizabeth said. ‘I’ve run out of steak.’

His feet on the pulpit steps seemed to echo through the church. Chad, ordering the notes for his sermon, took in the sparse congregation. Joyce Benfield, with her sister - Lilian, was it, he had been told once… And Mrs. Lynch, arms folded, as if already anticipating a point of theology with which she was bound to disagree.

Chad
glanced down at his typed-out words. This had all made sense, very late last night, as he’d worked through his ideas.