Dying to Know (A Detective Inspector Berenice Killick Mystery) (48 page)

By morning they decided to give it a rest. Berenice went to get some sleep, driving home through the rain. The flood, she wondered, yawning. The ending of it all.

At the lab, people arrived, gathering in corners, in coffee bars, ‘have you heard… they’ve got him… Dr. Merletti shot, yes, really… We’re safe, it seems… Elizabeth was really brave… Someone’s organised a card for her… out of hospital in a day or two, they said…’ People settled at their desks, stared at their screens.

‘There’s
still the little matter of our weird results,’ Roger said to Neil.

‘Perhaps
this Voake chap caused those too. Perhaps it’ll all go back to normal now.’

Roger
gave a thin smile. ‘Whatever normal is.’

‘I look around at this place I have called my home, and I know that soon it will no longer be mine. I shall turn my back on this plate and these cloths, the candles, the silverware. I shall take my leave of it all.’

Helen
put down the yellowing pages on her kitchen table.

This
place I have called my home.

I
wonder how the church views the re-housing of divorced vicar’s wives, she thought.

Knowing
the church, not at all.

Perhaps
if children are involved…

If
children were involved… would I have done the same? Liam, with his care, his concern, his sexiness, his laughter - would I have fallen just the same?

In
her mind, the picture of Chad, leaving. Not a shuffling, defeated, half-man, but tall and broad and strong, and striding away from her. Forever, she supposed.

I
wonder where people live when they only live half a life. Wherever it is, that’s where I’m headed…

A
loud knocking at the kitchen door. A breath of relief, he’s back, of course he is, he’s not going to let our marriage go –

‘Oh,’
she said. ‘Liam.’

He’d been talking to his sister, in his head, all the way there, driving along the coastal road, the rain against the windscreen.

She
listens, he’d told Sinead. When I talk about my work, she understands. Not all of it, obviously, but she likes to hear about it. It’s the way she speaks, the way she laughs. It’s the way she moves. When she moves it’s always in the right way. When she throws an old cardigan over a pair of jeans, it hangs in the right way, as if there was no other way that it could hang. And when we’re in bed…

Oh
God.

I
have to have her. Not just for now. Forever…

And
now here she was, standing in her kitchen doorway, staring up at him.

‘Are
you alone?’ he said.

She
was still staring, as the trees dripped rain behind him.

‘I
need you,’ he said.

She
noticed the sparkle of raindrops in his hair.

He
took a step towards her, and she put her hand up to stop him, her fingers against the soft linen of his shirt.

‘Helen
– ’

‘You
know what I’m going to say,’ she said.

He
shook his head, gazing at her.

‘It
was never possible,’ she said.

‘What?
You’re wrong – I’ve come here to tell you – ’

‘Liam.’
Her eyes on his.

‘No.’
His voice was loud. ‘This is different. For the first time in my life - Oh, God. Helen. Surely you can see – ’

She
was shaking her head.

‘I
love you,’ he said. ‘I know you’re married, I know there’s your husband – ’

‘There
isn’t,’ she said.

He
looked at her. ‘What?’

‘He’s
gone. Chad.’

‘He
found out?’

She
stared at him, at his wide-eyed surprise, and she wanted to laugh. ‘Found out?’ she echoed. ‘Oh, God, Liam, how little you know. Chad… he’s my life. He’s the man I chose. And I know everything was so right with you, and you made me laugh like no one else and you’re so clever and sexy and… and sexy,’ she finished. ‘But Chad’s my husband. Or was, anyway.’

And
then she burst into tears, real sobbing, standing there in the rain on her doorstep, and Liam reached out and took hold of her, clumsily, and as she didn’t move, he found himself gripping her elbow as she sobbed, her other hand dashing tears from her face. Aren’t you going to ask me in, he was about to say, but it was quite clear she wasn’t.

‘I’m
sorry,’ he said. ‘I didn’t want it to be like this. I didn’t want to harm your life…’

She
shook her head. ‘It’s me,’ she said, through tears. ‘I harmed my life. Not you.’

He
moved to hug her then. She stood, stiff and awkward in his arms. And then, soaked with rain, he faced her. ‘We’ll be friends,’ he said. ‘Won’t we?’

She
almost smiled, through tears. ‘Who knows,’ she said.

He
turned away, took a few steps towards his car. She saw him dab at his eyes, at his wet face. She watched him get into the car and drive away.

The voice in Liam’s head was silent. Just the windscreen wipers, slicing through the grey day.

He
drove, waiting for the words to start, his sister’s voice.

There
was still silence.

Just
as well, he thought.

What
Sinead will say, when she gets to hear, is that it’s typical of me. Same old Liam, falling in love with the unattainable. Perhaps I always knew she loved her husband. Perhaps that’s what made her so desirable…

A
sudden braking, a scuttle of paws across his path, a rabbit, badger, maybe.

No.
This is not the same old Liam.

I
love her. Helen.

I
don’t think I can bear it.

Helen stared unseeing at Amelia’s pages.

I
don’t think I can bear it.

It
was for fun, wasn’t it? To be desired, to make love without thought of anything else, to push to one side all those hopes of conception.

And
now it’s not fun. I’ve lost the man I love most of all. And I’ve hurt poor Liam…

Poor
Liam. He had walked away into the rain, his coat flapping at his shins.

If
there’s one thing I know in all this, she thought, it’s that Liam will be all right.

She
picked up Amelia’s pages and began to read.

Chapter Thirty-One

The
day wore on. Berenice reappeared at work. Four hours sleep, it’s enough, she thought.

‘Any
news?’

DS
Conway looked up from his files. ‘He’s still quiet. We’ve told him about the DNA match, the CCTV from near the Tower.

‘We’ve
told him that no one else could have killed Moffatt,’ Mary added.

‘What
does he say?’

Ben
shrugged. ‘Nothing much. He goes on about the house, the old Voake house. Told me he’s going to plant white roses round the door. He said there used to be roses there when he was a kid.’

‘Has
he asked about Elizabeth?’

Ben
shook his head. ‘Not once.’

‘I’ll
go back in and have a word.’

‘He
said – ’ Ben glanced at Mary, shuffled his notes.

‘He
said,’ Mary finished for him, ‘that if we sent that mare in to see him, he wouldn’t say a word.’

Berenice
smiled. ‘I expect there was another word before the mare one, wasn’t there?’

Ben
chewed his lip.

‘If
references to my colour were any bar…’ Berenice picked up the file.

‘…
you wouldn’t be where you are today.’ Mary finished.

‘Wherever
that is.’ Berenice went to the door. ‘I’ll have a lovely chat and nice cup of tea with our friend. Those attitudes are very easy to shift, trust me.’

At the lab, Richard the director consulted Tricia in the Press Office.

‘Ooh,
I don’t know, Director. I mean I know these new particles are all very exciting, but hadn’t we better wait until the fuss has died down…’

At
the lab, Neil wondered, quietly, to Liam, when the funerals would be. ‘More to the point, who will be at them? Do you think Elizabeth will go to Murdo’s – or maybe she can use her injury as an excuse to absent herself. Liam?’ But Liam, gazing at his screen, seemed not to be listening.

In her hospital bed, Lisa slept. Sometimes she would stir, aware of whispering anxieties, about where she would live, where they might put her, wishing she were older and could decide for herself… but then she’d settle back to sleep, the dreamless sleep of someone warm, dry, fed and safe. For now, at least.

On
the floor above, Elizabeth dozed. There were wires, and drips, and beeping. Sometimes she heard rushing water, like the sea. Sometimes she’d hear deafening loud bangs, and the beeping would shift rhythm, and a passing nurse would come and soothe her. ‘You’ll be well enough for visitors soon,’ one of them said.

Visitors.
Will they come to blame or praise? Will they talk to me of courage or foolhardiness?

It
was neither, of course. At the point where I walked into the firing line, it was because I didn’t care whether I lived or died.

And
now…

The
beeping settled into evenness. The rushing tidal noise retreated. She could hear the quiet busyness of the hospital ward. Elizabeth breathed, and thought, I am still here.

At the end of that day, Clem Voake appeared in court charged with murder, kidnap, wounding and firearms offences. In the absence of any response, a not guilty plea was entered. He was remanded in custody.

Outside
Police HQ the reporters began to drift away. The rain, too, had stopped, and the evening air was cold.

‘It’s late, Boss.’

Berenice
looked up from her desk. ‘I’m thinking,’ she said.

Mary
laughed. ‘The DS better get further away than Ashford, then.’ She glanced at Berenice’s desk.

‘What’s
that photo?’

Berenice
sighed. ‘It’s a funeral.’

Mary
took it from her. ‘A baby? That little white coffin…’

‘It
belongs to the Maguires. I should give it back to them.’ Berenice placed it on her desk. ‘Do you think the case stands up?’

‘The
Voake case? Sure. DNA everywhere on the Moffatt killing. He’s admitted to a grudge against Henrickson, as he wanted the house too. It’s all about the house. All about his entitlement. He would have killed Dr. Merletti, as she was a Van Mielen once.’

‘How’s
she doing?’

‘OK.
The hospital want to discharge her tomorrow.’

‘Good.’

‘It’s amazing what she did. She saved that kid’s life, I reckon. Do you think it makes you brave like that, being The Other Woman?’

Berenice
smiled. ‘I’m not sure it extends to walking into a firing line. Not in my case, anyway.’

‘Not
yet, Boss.’ Mary closed the door behind her, wishing her a good night.

Outside
the beams of departing cars cut through the darkness.

She
picked up Tobias’s lions, the green and the red. The coloured paint was flecking away from the brown plastic underneath.

Dear
Tobias, she thought. An ordinary toy plastic lion becomes something greater, endowed with meaning, with magic…

She
looked at his mixtures. Perhaps he’ll do it, she thought. Perhaps he’ll make gold out of lead. Perhaps all you need is faith…

As
if we thought he was capable of killing. Just because he was angry with the Prof. But then, it’s quite clear Alan was capable of shouting at everyone, like his rage with Iain over the land sale, what was it Tobias said, that he was shouting at Iain about the ghost and the dead child, and how 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, Tobias had said.