Dying to Know (A Detective Inspector Berenice Killick Mystery) (26 page)

Berenice
scribbled a note. ‘Old House. Lab. Moffatt. Neil Parrish.’ She turned a page.

‘Interview
with Iain Hendrickson. Senior team member. “It makes no sense. No sense at all. Why us? Why target the lab like this? What did you say? Is there anything I can think of to explain it? Nothing. Murdo… I mean, Murdo Maguire of all people. One of the best men you could hope to meet. Key part of the team. And Moffatt? I don’t understand it. I just don’t.”

Berenice
picked up her phone. ‘Any chance of a coffee in here?’ she said. She replaced the receiver, rubbed her forehead.

The
next report read, ‘Liam Phelps. Interviewer DC Ashcroft. “I can’t believe he’s gone. Murdo was a good man. Very good physicist too. The Prof? Well, I wouldn’t say I was as close to him, no. And it’s an open secret that his work was pretty thin. Shouldn’t speak ill and all that, but even so. We’ve been getting some interesting results on super symmetry, bumps on the curve, you know, talking to our colleagues at CERN a lot, and there he is, posturing away, claiming it as his research, when everyone knows it’s a team effort, the CP violation stuff is all very well, but… sorry? Have I lost you? All I’d say is, I have no idea who would want Murdo dead. He’s a great loss to us all…” [silence while he wipes tear from his eye]’. Berenice looked up and smiled at her sandwich. She took a bite from it, admiring Mary Ashcroft’s attention to detail. She thought about this physicist having a quiet weep at the death of his colleague.

‘Why
did he leave? No one turns down the opportunity he had. The Higgs mechanism confirms the Standard Model, you see, but raises questions of asymmetry… Have I lost you again? And Murdo was never the same, after they lost their child, him and Virginia. Talked of going to CERN. We were glad he stayed with us, though.’

Berenice
read on, picking up a cleaner’s report, ‘Bessie Wallace: “All I’ll say is, Ma’am, people get mighty superstitious when it comes to atoms, don’t they? And them notes put under them people’s doors, that’s what they were saying. That if you mess with the Lord’s creation, who knows what might happen? All this smashing them tiny particles, all that nothingness, you’re asking for trouble, isn’t it? Opening up them empty spaces, who knows what might get in the gaps in between?”’

Berenice
replaced the paper on the pile. She found that she’d eaten all her sandwich without noticing.

Helen dabbed at a scratch in the smooth polish of the bureau. Escritoire, perhaps it should be called, she thought, looking at the fine mahogany finish. Stacked on the surface were the loose pages of the book that she’d carefully unfolded and removed, and it occurred to her that the desk had been made long before poor Amelia had written the words in front of her.

“I
fear for our souls, and for that of our dear child. Where my father had the Lord, my husband will have Aether, and Atoms, and Gravity. I ask him why Gravity, why is it so mysterious, and he tells me it’s about the measurement of it, to see how it comes to bear on particles. He said, that he and Guy had set out to measure it, and he will do so still. He speaks much about my brother, about their work together, about honouring his memory. Then he takes my hand, and tells me we are falling, falling through space, through time, even. I remain silent, for to say any word at all is to risk his wrath…’

She
turned the page.

“The
death of my dear brother haunts us all. Last night I slept alone. My husband inhabits a world wherein I cannot join him. He sits at his bench long into the night, with his lenses and rays and beams. Last night I watched our dear child in her cradle, and I prayed to the Lord to keep us from this Heavyness, this Darkness. When I awoke this morning I ventured to my husband’s room and found him sleeping there, a makeshift mattress on the floor. He is like a shadow to me now, this man whom once I loved, and my heart does bleed. Where once was joy and laughter, now there are tears, and Silence.”

Helen
slipped the pages into their folder. She’d bought it earlier today, a cardboard file, a designer one, covered in white roses. It seemed to suit Amelia, she thought, why she wasn’t sure. Loss, perhaps; a husband who once had loved her, now turned away.

She
got up, went to the window. The glass was dotted with drops of rain. Beyond that, the strip of sea was a threatening grey. Somewhere in the house her phone trilled, a text message coming in, and at once she thought, it’ll be Liam, he’ll be telling me –

Telling
me what?

Chad
had phoned earlier, to say that the police were interviewing everyone in the lab now. He’d dropped off the book at the front desk, felt a bit of a fool, he’d go straight from the office to evening service, they could eat together after that…

She
wandered out to the kitchen, picked up her phone, found a message from Anton saying that one of their former colleagues was reviewed in the papers that day, ‘Glowing, darling, glowing – and richly deserved, of course, dear Tanya…’

Anton,
of course. Not Liam. She smiled at the message, at its Anton-ness. He’d always say to anyone who’d listen that Tanya was an “also ran”. She told herself that Liam would have nothing to say to her, police investigation or not. She went back to the bureau, finished hiding away Amelia’s writings.

Liam collected Jonas from the Duty Sergeant, with effusive thanks on his side and admiring comments from the Sergeant, ‘Good as gold, he was, and you can’t say that for all of them, tetchy breed, collies, aren’t they…’

He
left Police HQ in the rain, putting up his umbrella, gathering up Jonas’s lead, checking his phone for messages…

He
found himself hoping that Helen had texted him, ridiculous thought… Then he thought he might text her, or even call her, he could tell her… What? What was this urge to confide in her?

An
amusement, he thought. That’s what my sister always says. Another way of wasting your life, that was how she put it last time, you always manage to find the perfect distraction, Liam, they’re either married, or they don’t want you, what was the last one, oh, yes, she was just about to emigrate, wasn’t she, always someone who isn’t going to make any demands…

Sinead’s
voice in my ears. Perhaps she’s right, he thought. Maybe Helen’s a distraction. What is it to her anyway, Murdo and Elizabeth and poor Virginia…

I
played it down, just then, with that nice policewoman, didn’t want to besmirch Murdo’s good name… Perhaps I should have said more. Perhaps it’s more relevant than I think. Helen would know, I could ask her what she thinks…

‘What
would you do, Jonas boy?’ he stopped, adjusting the umbrella. Jonas shook raindrops from his neck and looked up at him.

‘You’d
ring her, would you? Mind you,’ he said, as they set off again, ‘you’ve always been an incisive kind of chap. Always one to seize the moment, eh, boy?’

The
dog lifted one ear, trotting at his side.

Liam
stopped again, reached out his phone and dialled Helen’s number.

Particles, Berenice thought, weighing the book in her hand. Gravity. Nothingness.

It
was beautifully made, bound in soft leather, with thick creamy pages.

She
opened it at random. Was it really dangerous, as the cleaner said, if you open up those empty gaps?

“…
a most subtle spirit,” she read, “which pervades all particles, by the force and action of which spirit all particles attract one another…”

She
flicked to another page. “It is in the Chaos that order is restored. And we must face the Chaos in order that the Truth be revealed…”

And
what was this to do with two murders? So, she thought, they happened to be scientists. So, they both fell from the old lighthouse. So, there was a certain amount of bad feeling, but only normal workplace stuff, they should try HQ here… And there’s a thread of a dispute with this villain and some claim on the old house next door.

She
held the book in her fingers.

From
the sound of it, Virginia was keen to get rid of it, now her husband’s dead. And the lad Tobias claims it carries some kind of secret, that Moffatt was after.

In
my experience, she thought, murder is always human. Born of ordinary, human feelings. Like jealousy. Or greed. Or revenge. If we’re looking for secrets in all this science here, this aether and nothingness and particles - we’re looking in the wrong direction.

She
glanced up as the door opened and Mary appeared with a mug of coffee for her.

‘I
didn’t mean that
you
should bring it,’ Berenice said. ‘One of those lads out there, sitting on his arse-’

‘I
think you should join me,’ Mary said. ‘Elizabeth Merletti. Reckons she’d had an affair with the deceased. Before she was married. When she was Elizabeth Van Mielen.’

Berenice
put the book down. ‘Van Mielen, yeah? Now we’re getting somewhere.’ She stood up, gathered up her jacket. ‘Like I always say. Not science at all. Just human feeling. Extreme, maybe. But, in the end, human.’

Chapter Seventeen

‘I’m
sick and tired of that blasted book.’ Elizabeth Merletti flicked back a loose lock of hair. ‘I wish the Kent lot had kept it.’

Berenice,
having shown her the book, withdrew it, stacking it back on the desk with her papers.

‘It’s
your name in it,’ she said.

‘Not
my name,’ Elizabeth said. ‘Some ancestor. My grandfather’s cousin.’ She sighed, shifted on her chair, glanced up at the narrow window which was dark with the late afternoon rain. She was still in her raincoat, which she’d refused to remove – ‘It’s not as if I’m staying,’ she’d said, in that cool, even voice with its very slight accent. Berenice wondered whether she put it on for effect, a kind of all-purpose continental sophistication. It certainly worked, she thought, or perhaps it was just the long sweep of hair, the well-cut clothes, the low-heeled but elegant black patent shoes.

‘It’s
your maiden name,’ Berenice said. She glanced at Mary, who sat, head bent, writing notes. ‘Van Mielen,’ she went on.

Elizabeth
sighed.

‘You
must admit, it’s rather odd…’

‘Is
it?’ Elizabeth fixed her with her clear, grey-green eyes. ‘My father’s family were from round here.’

‘You
know its history, then?’

‘Neil
knows more about it than I do. Neil Parrish. He’s the local history freak. It was he who told me about it. Frankly, I really wasn’t that interested. We’re from a different branch, you see. The American lot. I knew nothing about this eccentric ancestor until I mentioned the book to Neil.’

‘So
you gave it away?’ Berenice watched her.

She
yawned, but it seemed fake. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I gave it away.’

‘To
Murdo,’ Berenice said.

Once
more that fixed, determined look. ‘Which is what we’re here to talk about, isn’t it? Not some silly old book.’

Mary
exchanged a glance with Berenice, then went back to her note-writing.

‘Yes,’
Berenice agreed. She took a sip of cold coffee. ‘That’s what we’re here to talk about. You and Murdo Maguire.’

The
room quietened. Berenice could hear the slam of distant doors, the revving of car engines as people began to head for home. For a moment she envied them, until she thought of what passed for her own home, a characterless rented terraced house where even the furniture didn’t feel like her own…

‘I
loved him.’ Elizabeth’s words cut through her thoughts. ‘Murdo. I loved him for years,’ she said. ‘And he loved me.’ For the first time, there was a tremor in her voice. She looked across at Berenice. ‘I don’t particularly want to tell you all this,’ she said, ‘but I figured you’d find out anyway, and I don’t want to “impede the course of justice” or whatever it’s called, and anyway…’ Again, the shake in her voice. ‘And anyway,’ she said, ‘I owe it to Murdo.’

‘Mrs.
Merletti.’ Berenice crossed and uncrossed her legs. ‘Do you have any idea who might have wanted to kill Dr. Maguire?’

Elizabeth
shook her head, with an expert swish of hair.

‘People
have mentioned bad feeling in the lab,’ Berenice went on. ‘Hatemail stuffed under doors. We’ve seen a few of them.’

She
shrugged. ‘People can get silly about scientific truth.’

‘You’d
only recently come here. From Italy.’

‘Yes,’
Elizabeth said.

‘What
brought you back here?’

The
grey eyes fixed on hers. ‘I got the job here. My marriage in Italy was over, and this experiment here, it’s very exciting.’