Dying to Know (A Detective Inspector Berenice Killick Mystery) (2 page)

Virginia
Maguire sat in the shadows of her cottage, the book on her lap. She ran her finger along the parchment-thick paper.

‘
Whence
is
it
that
nature
doth
nothing
in
vain
;
and
whence
arises
all
that
order
and
beauty
that
we
see
in
the
world
?
What
hinders
the
fixed
stars
from
falling
upon
one
another
?
’

She
tutted loudly, her lips tight with disapproval.

‘
For
if
Nature
be
simple
and
pretty
conformable
to
herself
,
causes
will
operate
in
the
same
kind
of
way
with
all
phenomena
,
so
that
the
motions
of
smaller
bodies
depend
upon
certain
smaller
forces
,
just
as
the
motions
of
larger
bodies
are
ruled
by
the
greater
force
of
gravity
…
’

She
held the book in her lap. Perhaps I should throw it in the fire, she thought. She looked at the fireplace at her side, its dusty black surfaces, the cold ash in the grate.

And
what would he think, my husband, to find I’ve thrown his precious book into the fire…

She
picked it up and read some more.

‘
The
Imprint
of
the
origin
of
the
universe
can
,
in
the
right
hands
,
be
detected
in
its
ancient
chemistry
.
It
is
a
creation
of
infinite
duration
,
and
yet
,
the
question
we
must
ask
is
,
how
did
matter
become
matter
?
Who
,
or
what
,
set
this
universe
in
motion
?
It
is
this
that
we
are
working
to
uncover
–
’

‘Hah.’
She spoke out loud. She turned to the very first page, and ran her finger along the line where her husband had written, in pencil, his own name. ‘Murdo Maguire.’

Her
finger, roughened through age and hard work, brushed against the words. ‘
We
have
the
authority
of
those
the
oldest
and
most
celebrated
philosophers
of
Greece
and
Phoenicia
,
who
made
a
vacuum
,
and
atoms
,
and
the
gravity
of
atoms
,
the
first
principles
of
their
philosophy
…
’
She slammed the book shut.

The
thick window panes let in a dusky daylight which picked out the grain of the wide oak window sills, the faded whitewash on the old stone walls.

There
was a knock at the door. She stared at it. Another knock. She got to her feet and went to open the door.

A
uniformed policewoman was standing there, with a police officer next to her, a man. He gave his name, Detective Sergeant something or other, but she felt only weariness at the sight of them, standing there on her doorstep.

‘Mrs.
Maguire?’ they said. ‘Mrs. Virginia Maguire?’

‘Yes,’
she said. ‘Do come in.’ But she knew, as she showed them in, as she went to the kitchen to put on the kettle, she knew as they told her about the body found on the beach, a man, drowned, that the moment she had always dreaded, had thought of as inevitable, had come.

She
would show no emotion. Like the quiet hiss of the kettle as it sat on the stove, as she listened to their words, ‘body found on the beach… initial identification suggests… we’re very sorry, Mrs. Maguire…’ her feelings would stay hushed, simmering quietly. There would be no rage. Even when the kettle came to the boil, even when its whistle shrieked through the air around her, she would sit there, quiet and pale, her head on one side, listening politely.

Alone at her desk, Elizabeth Merletti, physicist, sat by her computer. Her gaze was fixed on the screen as she clicked between images. Click: multi-colour lines emanating outwards from the chaos. Click: two lines, one red, one blue, intersecting where the beams collide. Click, a graph, a sharp upward black line. Click: a photo; him, standing, in sunshine, by water, head turned towards her, smiling. The blue of the lake, the blue of his shirt, the sun on his hair, the warmth of his smile…

And
now gone.

Beneath
her feet, sixty metres under the ground, there is a tunnel of ice-cold nothingness and infinite collidings, its giant, glinting engineering conjuring the figures on to the screen in front of her.

But
all she sees is a blue and blonde picture of life itself. Her eyes shine, perhaps with tears.

She
murmurs to herself, one word. It sounds like ‘cheated’.

Tyres sliding into mud. Engines silenced. The flash of head lights on the black bare branches of the trees. Berenice Killick opened her car door. DS Mary Ashcroft did the same.

They
surveyed the scene before them. One ancient white van, one caravan, their wheels mired in mud.

‘That’s
the van all right.’ Berenice nodded towards it. Mary took a photo of the number-plate.

Silence.
Grey afternoon light, grey of the concrete wall behind the caravan. They knocked on the door.

Still
silence. They peered through the windows. There were sleeping bags heaped on the seats, empty beer cans on the table.

Berenice
stepped back on to the mud.

‘So
what’s that, then, over the wall there?’

Mary
looked at the high concrete, the barbed wire on top. ‘That’s the lab. The physics place, where they’re smashing atoms.’

‘So
that’s where he worked, our drowned man?’

‘Secret
of the universe in there, Boss. Keeping the whole show turning.’

‘Shame
it can’t stop just long enough for us to find our villain at home - ’ She stopped, short. There was a flick of curtain in the window of the caravan. ‘There’s someone there.’

Berenice
knocked loudly. ‘Or do you want us to break this door down – ’

The
door swung open. Standing there slouched a girl, in a huge red sweatshirt and tattered leggings.

‘Who
are you?’ Berenice said.

‘I’m
Lisa.’

‘Police,’
Berenice said, as Mary flashed a badge.

‘Yeah
yeah, I know.’ The voice had a teenage weariness.

‘D
I Killick and DS Ashcroft. We’re looking for Clem Voake. Is he your dad?’

The
girl laughed. ‘My dad?’ She shook her head. ‘Look at me, blad. He’s a white man, innit.’

Berenice
had her foot in the door. ‘My dad’s a white man too.’

Lisa
eyed her. ‘You saying you black like me?’

‘That’s
exactly what I’m saying.’

‘Black
you may be, but you’re gavvers all the same.’

‘Do
you know where he is, Clem Voake?’

The
girl met her eyes. ‘Don’t know. Don’t care. Berenice turned to go.

‘He’s
at a funeral,’ the girl said.

Berenice
turned back. ‘Thought you didn’t know where he was.’

‘Just
remembered.’

‘Whose
funeral?’

She
shrugged. ‘Dunno. Shall I tell him you called?’ She gave an empty laugh.

Berenice
faced her. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘And tell him we’ll call again.’

At the car, Berenice handed Mary the keys. She sank into the passenger seat, as the wheels span in the mud before skidding out on the track.

‘Did
you see those marks on her arms? If we don’t get him for the warehouse raid, we can get him for child abuse.’

‘Child?’

‘I reckon she’s about fifteen.’

‘Do
you think she’s related to him?’ Mary accelerated onto the main road. The rain had begun again.

‘Why
else is she there?’

‘I
can think of many reasons, and none of them good.’

Berenice
yawned. ‘Gavvers,’ she said.

‘Makes
a change from Filth, I suppose. Or Scum.’

The
radio crackled against the to and fro of the windscreen wipers.

Berenice’s
phone rang, loudly. She answered, listened, then clicked it off.

‘Well,
well. The drowned physicist. They’ve stopped the Post Mortem. Called in the Home Office. Bruising to the head. Fractured cheekbone. Suggests he was assaulted before he hit the water.’

‘Not
suicide…’ Mary stared at her.

‘Unlawful
killing. Maybe.’

‘Maybe
Stuart’ll need us after all.’

Berenice
looked at her. ‘He might need you…’

Mary
sighed, shook her head. ‘Far be it from me to deny your radar where that kind of thing is concerned,’ she said.

‘Good.’
Berenice yawned, again, settled back in her seat. She watched the drizzle in the windscreen wipers. She thought about the physicist, his last moments, his fractured cheekbone. A fight of some kind, a scuffle on the tower. The wind, the tide high, the sea… Then falling.

Falling.

‘Maybe he was pushed,’ Mary said.

Chapter Two

The Reverend Chad Meyrick walked along the beach, his collar buttoned against the cold sea wind. He’d been telephoned by the police, that community constable, he’d met him a couple of times now, the last time was that business with the sign outside the village hall. At the time they’d found it amusing, he and Helen, how in his previous parish he’d been comforting the bereaved mothers of gang members and now here he was, having to describe a stolen parish notice board - but the policeman, PC Andrews, he was called, said, no, this time it’s quite serious, ‘You know they found a body on the beach?’

A
body. Helen had told him that morning at breakfast that they’d identified the drowned man that they’d found further up the coast.

‘Yes,’
Chad had said to PC Andrews, ‘I had heard.’

‘Well,
the widow has asked if you’d visit her, as she’s one of your flock, you know how it is, Sir…’

My
flock…