Dying to Know (A Detective Inspector Berenice Killick Mystery) (18 page)

Ray
nodded. ‘Fits the description, yes.’

She
looked up at him. ‘I want every sighting you’ve got.’

‘He’s
often at Hank’s Tower,’ Mary said. ‘According to one of the kids there, it’s a favourite haunt of his. He does something he calls experiments there.’

‘I want timings.’ Berenice said. ‘To the second. Is that clear?’

He
turned to her. ‘Yes. Ma’am.’

Berenice
was on her feet. ‘Who’s got the ground plan of the lab? I want round-the-clock on the lab from now on. Ben?’

Ben
Conway stood up. ‘Two main entrances, and there’s a side entrance, garage thing.’

‘I
want it watched. All of it. Is that clear? I don’t want the natural order of the universe to be upset any further.’

There
was a scrape of chairs, a piling up of paper cups in the bin. The room emptied.

‘Not
sure they got the joke, Boss.’ Mary drank the last of her coffee.

‘Not
sure it was a joke, DS Ashcroft.’ Berenice looked at her watch. ‘Mrs. Maguire. When she’s due?’

‘Any
minute.’ Mary looked at her watch.

‘I
want to be there.’

‘We’d
better wait for you. Ten minutes? Twenty?’

‘Ho
ho.’ Berenice opened the door.

‘There’s
a thing you can get from the chemist that really works,’ Mary said, as they headed down the corridor.

She lay curled on the sofa. She arched her bare feet, watching the pink of her toe-nails against the yellow fabric. She listened to the hammering of the rain on the window sills.

Next
to her, on the coffee table, lay the book. She reached out for it, picked it up, turned the pages. She stared at the cover for a long moment.

She
could hear the landline ringing. She rose, wearily, a parishioner, the archdeacon, someone for Chad, that woman about the flowers, “ah, the vicar’s wife,” she’ll say. Her hand on the handset –

‘Is
that Helen?’

Liam.
Of course.

‘Just
wondered if there was any news,’ he was saying.

‘No,’
she said. ‘Chad’s with Virginia now.’

‘Right,’
he said.

There
was a silence.

‘Can’t
settle to anything here,’ he said. ‘Thought I’d go and see Mrs. Maguire, but as your husband’s there – ’

‘They’ve
gone to the police,’ she said.

‘Oh.
Right.’ Another silence. ‘I feel I’m – ’

‘You
could wait here – ’

‘
– to blame,’ he finished. ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘That would be… I mean, if you’re sure that’s all right…’

‘Of
course it’s all right.

‘Right,’
he said. ‘I’ll just sort a few things out here.’

‘OK.’

He was still on the phone. ‘Can I ask you one thing,’ he said.

‘What?’

‘Am I allowed sugar with my coffee this time?’

‘I want him back.’ Virginia faced them both, the Detective Inspector, a black woman, she wasn’t expecting that, next to her another girl, white this time, one she’d seen before, only with bright red shoes. ‘Tobias,’ Virginia said. ‘Find him.’

‘Mrs.
Maguire…’ It was the red shoes that spoke. ‘We’ve invited you here because we believe you can help us….’

‘And
why’s that thing on?’ Virginia pointed at the tape recorder.

Berenice
leaned forward across the table. ‘It’s to help you,’ she said. ‘It’s to help us all.’ She indicated a seat. ‘Won’t you sit down?’

Virginia
didn’t move. ‘Why have you left him outside? He’s my priest,’ she said.

‘The
Reverend Meyrick,’ Berenice said.

‘I
asked him to help,’ Virginia said.

‘Are
you religious?’

Virginia
eyed her. ‘What’s that got to do with it?’

‘Won’t
you sit down?’ Berenice said, again.

Virginia
lowered herself on to the edge of the plastic chair. It was thin and worn, like the paintwork of the walls, on the frame of the high window that seemed to let in no light at all.

‘So,’
Berenice said, ‘let’s begin, shall we?’

Chapter Thirteen

There
was the making of coffee, coffee that neither of them really wanted, but it gave them both something to do. Liam was looking brighter now, or perhaps it was just the sunlight after the rain. When he’d appeared on her doorstep, Jonah in tow - ‘Hope you don’t mind, he’s used to being with me’- he looked like he hadn’t slept all night.

A
bowl of water for Jonah. Sugar for the coffee, yet more biscuits, which they left untouched on the plate as they sat at an unnatural distance from each other in the living room. She was wearing a wrap-around skirt and a cashmere sweater, both navy blue. The skirt clung against her legs as she crossed them in front of her.

‘I
knew he was in distress,’ Liam said.

‘It’s
not your fault,’ she said.

‘Perhaps
he’s turned up.’

‘Perhaps
he has.’ She sipped at her coffee.

‘Your
husband - he’d have called you, wouldn’t he? If they’d found him?’

‘He’s
with Virginia,’ she said. Even to her, it was an odd answer. Through the window she could see the sea, a distant ribbon of blue in the sunlight.

‘The
book,’ he said, picking it up from the coffee table. He flicked through it.‘“… The truth resides in the most noble and subtle particle of all”’ he read. ‘“Yet is that particle hidden from us. It is my view, and that of the great teachers who have come before me, that the truth waits to be revealed by He who made it, in His time alone.”’ He looked up. ‘When was this written?’

‘There’s
no date. Chad thinks it’s late nineteenth century. The writings at the back have a date, 1922, but they’re more recent than the stuff at the front.’

He
flicked to the back of the diary. ‘“My father writes from faith,”’ he read. ‘”But the oneness, the indivisible particle, how can that bring back my brother from the dead?’ Who’s this? He said.

‘Amelia.
She seems to be the daughter of the author of the science stuff at the front.’

‘If
you can call it science,’ he said.

‘Van
Mielen,’ Helen said. The author of the front of the book. Johann van Mielen. And his daughter is Amelia.’

‘“My
husband talks about rotation, about the whirling of the aether.”’ Liam read, out loud. ‘“He has his beams and his lenses, and he talks of the speed of light.”’ Liam looked up. ‘That sounds more like science. Who’s her husband then?’

‘She
seems to have married someone called Gabriel Voake.’

‘Voake.
I suppose the name goes back years. “If only it were to afford him some solace…”’ he read.

‘They
don’t seem very happy.’

‘No.’
He put the book down on the table.

‘So,
Elizabeth?’ she said.

He
looked at her.

‘Elizabeth
van Mielen,’ she said.

‘Oh.
Yes.’ He leaned back against the cushions. ‘She always said her family came from here, way back, but her father’s an American. Farming lot. Settled over there before the Great War. Must be a distant relation. Neil’s always teasing her about her Kentish roots, but she always denies it.’

At
his feet Johan stirred, snuffled, looked around, settled down again, one paw across his eyes.

‘And
Murdo’s wife gave this to you?’ he said.

Helen got up and went to the table where the tray of coffee things sat. ‘It was odd. She seemed very keen to get rid of it. Chad offered it back to her the other night, as Tobias seemed to have a sense of loss about it, and the Professor was asking for it too, as you know. But Virginia wouldn’t touch it.’

‘Weird,’
Liam said.

In
the silence she poured them both more coffee, carried his cup over to him where he sat on the sofa. She bent to hand him the coffee. She was aware of his gaze holding hers. ‘Sugar?’ she said. He laughed, spooning two large spoonfuls into the cup, and she laughed too.

‘Maybe
I should ask Elizabeth,’ he said, as she returned to her place on the sofa. ‘Although…’

She
glanced at him. ‘Although what?’

He
shook his head. ‘Perhaps all labs have secrets. All workplaces…’ He stirred his spoon around in his cup. ‘There were rumours – ’ he glanced up. ‘An affair,’ he said. ‘Between Elizabeth and Murdo.’

‘When?’

‘Some
years ago. Then she left for Italy. But they were only rumours.’

‘Do
you think they were true?’ Helen tucked her legs under her.

He
sighed. ‘Murdo was a friend. And Elizabeth…’ He hesitated. ‘She’s a difficult woman. Her version of events is not always to be trusted, let’s say. And anyway, it was before my time at the lab.’

‘But
if this book – ’ Helen reached over and placed her cup on the table. ‘If this book is so significant, why has Virginia only just now got rid of it? If my husband was given a love-token from a rival of mine, I’d throw it out at once…’ Helen stared at the book lying on the table in front of her.

Thoughts
flickered through his mind - the phone call, the relief to hear she was alone, tumbling into his car, almost jumping red lights to get here…

‘I
watched you dancing,’ he said.

She
met his eyes. ‘I know.’

‘You’re
good.’

She
smiled. ‘How can you tell?’

‘I
know about these things,’ he said.

‘You
do?’

‘Not
as a practitioner,’ he said. ‘Just audience, you know….’

‘Do
you like ballet?’

‘Yes,’
he said. ‘I do. Does that surprise you?’

She
frowned, thinking. ‘Only, perhaps, with the physics…’

‘So
ballet and physics don’t mix?’

She
smiled. ‘Ballet and lots of things don’t mix. My husband…’

He
waited. ‘Your husband?’ he said.

She
shook her head. ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ she said.

‘Surely
he likes ballet,’ he said. ‘To have met you, to have married you…’

She
raised her eyes to his. There was so much to say, she realized, and she didn’t know where to start, about the giving up of things, the loneliness, the new life by the sea that seemed to have put such a distance between herself and Chad, and now here he was, this man sitting opposite her, waiting for her reply, his gaze so intense - and what could she say?

She
felt her eyes fill with tears.

‘I’m
sorry…’ It was Liam who broke the silence.

‘It’s
fine, really…’

‘I
didn’t mean to upset you…’

‘You
didn’t upset me,’ she said.

‘I’ve
never been married, I don’t know anything about it, seem to have managed to avoid any kind of commitment…’

‘Apart
from the dog,’ she said, dabbing at her eyes.

He
glanced down at Jonah. ‘The dog,’ he said. ‘The dog seems to be commitment enough for me.’

‘Married
to your work, perhaps?’ she said.

He
nodded. ‘That’s what I’m always being told.’

She
smiled at him.

‘Perhaps
we need more coffee,’ he said.

DS Ashcroft placed two cups of instant coffee on the desk in front of her. ‘Milk, no sugar,’ she said to Virginia.

Virginia
reached across and picked up the cup.

‘So,’
Berenice said, picking up her cup, glancing across, ‘How far have we got?’

Mary
Ashcroft pulled her notepad towards her. ‘The young man has gone missing before. On this occasion, however, he was very distressed and angry – ’