Dying to Know (A Detective Inspector Berenice Killick Mystery) (32 page)

He
held out a hand, let it fall to his side. He ambled out of the door. His footsteps faded away along the corridor.

Berenice
looked at Mary. ‘What do you make of that, then?’

Mary
shrugged. ‘Dunno Boss, but I’m sure as hell missing Chapeltown.’

‘Oh my God - ’ Helen put her hand across her mouth. ‘How did it get so late?’

Liam
laughed.

‘Look,
everyone’s gone home. There’s only us.’

The
café was deserted. They’d had lunch, and then tea, and now the light outside the windows was fading to a dusky blue.

‘Are
you going to tell me you’re supposed to be doing Grade Four pliés with a load of eight year olds?’

She
smiled, shook her head. ‘No classes today, thank goodness. But we ought to get back.’

‘And
we’ve concluded nothing.’

‘Other
than that we must make a proper statement to the police.’

‘Yes.
In the morning.’

They
began to walk towards town. The sky was clearing, darkening into dots of stars. There was a fresh sea breeze.

‘Your
car – ’ Helen said.

‘At
the lab,’ he said. ‘I can give you a lift…’

She
fell into step beside him, her head bowed, aware of the movement of his legs, the rhythm of his body next to hers, aware, too, that they’d passed the road back to the lab and were now walking in the wrong direction.

She
stopped and faced him. ‘This isn’t – ’

‘No,’
he agreed. ‘It isn’t.’

‘I
ought to – ’

‘Yes,’
he said. ‘Of course. Let’s go back.’

He
didn’t move. Behind him she could see the flicker of the distant road, the tall white lights of the industrial estate, the anonymous fluorescence of a business hotel.

‘Unless…’

One word. He’d uttered one word, but they both knew.

He
took her arm and she shivered at his touch. They began to cross the wide road, the expanse of car park. Near the gate he stopped. ‘Sinead says…’

‘Who?’
she said, looking up at him, her eyes dark with desire. He could hardly speak for wanting her.

‘My
sister,’ he said.

‘What
does she say?’ Helen gazed up at him.

He
looked down at her. ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘you know the kind of thing. Disapproval, mostly.’

She
laughed. She took hold of his arm again, and together they walked towards the rhythmic gleam of the revolving door.

Chapter Twenty-One

The evening air had sharpened into frost as Chad walked up to the cottage.

Tobias.
The name had been on his mind, all day. A background worry, the danger he was in, the way he did nothing to protect himself, the thought that he’d been at the scene of Alan’s death.

His
knock was answered almost immediately. She reached out and grasped his hand, and led him inside.

Once
again he was struck by the chill of the place. He looked at the stove, a black square with a chimney snaking upwards behind. It sat, half open, revealing a thin pyramid of ash.

‘How
are you?’ he said.

She
sank into a chair. She sighed. ‘All these years I’ve been fighting for him. Health people, school people. And now the law. So, nothing’s changed.’ She shrugged.

‘Where’s
Tobias now?’

She
flicked her head towards the ceiling. ‘In his room,’ she said.

‘You
look tired,’ he said.

She
smoothed a lock of hair from her forehead.

Chad
settled into his chair. ‘I hope she looks after the book,’ he said.

‘Oh,
you’ll get it back.’ Virginia placed her hands on the arms of the chair. ‘Tea, perhaps.’ She pushed herself to standing, went into the kitchen.

Chad
listened to the opening of cupboards, the clink of mugs.

‘It’s
nice of you to visit,’ she said.

He
turned towards her, about to speak. But what would I say, he thought. That it’s better than being at home?

‘I’m
not even a proper parishioner,’ she said, with a thin smile.

‘You’ll
do,’ he said.

‘A
broad church, is it?’ She stirred milk into two mugs and carried them through, placing them carefully on the small table.

‘Do
you think they’re any further on?’ Chad picked up a mug of tea.

‘Not
really. But while Tom is in the frame, she’s not going to tell me much more.’ She sat down heavily.

‘But
Murdo’s death?’

Virginia
held her mug between both hands. ‘She has nothing to say.’

‘They
came to our house last night, these young people.’ Chad turned to her. ‘And that man from the lab too. He was already there, my wife said. I couldn’t quite get to the bottom of it. Anyway, Finn, is it? And that girl. Lisa Voake. She was in a bad way.’

‘The
Voakes.’ She sighed. ‘Not well thought of round here. They used to own the big house, as you know, but they went to the bad - ’

A
loud thump on the stairs, and Tobias appeared in the doorway.

‘You
know them, don’t you, Tom,’ she said. ‘The Voakes. Lisa was at the vicarage last night.’

‘Is
she all right?’ His gaze was intense as he took a step towards Chad.

‘Um
- ’ Chad glanced at Virginia. ‘Her father was… she had to stay with us last night. Finn brought her…’

‘Is
she all right?’ He was shouting now, his fists clenched at his sides.

‘Hush,
dear…’ Virginia’s voice was firm. ‘Chad’s looking after her, aren’t you? And his wife…’

My
wife. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes, we are.’

Tobias
threw himself into a chair. ‘She shouldn’t live with him,’ he said. ‘She shouldn’t. He’s not a good father. Not good. The police,’ he said. ‘That woman. They should tell her. The black one. She’s kind.’

Virginia
looked up in surprise. ‘Is she?’

‘I
like her,’ Tobias said.

‘You
hardly spoke to her.’

He
shook his head. ‘No,’ he agreed. It was the other one. The Mary one. The white one. She was all right too. But I didn’t tell her about the men on the beach. I tried to tell her about the ghost, but I could tell she didn’t believe me so I stopped. The soldier, you know, the one with all the blood who walks near the old house. But when I was on the beach I saw a man carrying another man over his shoulder. I thought it was the soldier doing something new, but then I thought the man he was carrying looked like Uncle Murdo and I thought the soldier wouldn’t do that, and anyway the soldier is very thin, sort of see-through, he wouldn’t be strong like that, to lift up another person, would he Auntie Ginny?’

His
gaze was open, almost amused.

She
was staring at him, white-faced. ‘Tom… When did you see this?’

‘It
was when Uncle Murdo was still alive. It was the day before it all went wrong.’

‘The
day before he died?’ She clapped one hand to her lips. ‘Tom – were you there?’ Her voice was hushed, appalled.

He
studied her. ‘I didn’t tell them, Auntie Ginny. Was that the right thing to do?’

She
leaned back against her chair. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes, it was the right thing to do.’ She sipped at her tea. Chad noticed the tremor in her hands as she placed the mug down on the table.

‘Virginia…
surely, evidence like that…?’

She
met his eyes. ‘You don’t understand. What will they do with information like that? They’ll say it puts Tom here at the scene of the crime. It’s bad enough these images they claim they have of him being there when Moffatt died - ’

‘But
I was, Aunty, I was - ’

‘Yes,
dear, I know.’

‘That
doesn’t mean I killed him, does it?’

She
reached across and patted his hand. ‘No. It doesn’t mean you killed him.’

He
gave a long sigh. Then he got up and left the room.

She
turned to Chad. ‘You must understand. I cannot risk them putting anything on to him.’ She leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. ‘I am so tired,’ she said.

From
upstairs came a bang, a crash.

She
opened her eyes. ‘It’s just Tom,’ she said. ‘He’ll be looking for something in the old cupboard.’ She gave a weary smile. ‘You see, I have had to fight for everything. Everything,’ she repeated. ‘My marriage. My motherhood. And before that. Even this…’ She flicked a hand towards the space around them. ‘I ran away from home with nothing. I took every job I could find. I ended up as a secretary at the university here, that’s when I met Murdo…’ Her eyes clouded. ‘I’ve had to fight for all of it. And I’ve still ended up with nothing…’

Another
series of thumping noises, and Tobias reappeared. He was carrying a box, an old, square mahogany box. He settled on the sofa, the box on his knee, and opened it. He began to arrange the things within it.

Another
thin smile. ‘Not nothing.’ She turned to Chad. ‘But now you understand why I’ll fight for him.’

He
nodded. ‘I understand.’

‘The
Green Lion and the Red - ’ Tobias waved a small figure. ‘I found them, didn’t I, Auntie? But now I’ve only got the red one.’ He replaced it in the box. ‘And here’s the fifth essence - ’ He waved a bottle at Chad. ‘It’s my collection. I don’t show everyone. Lisa knows about it. When I’ve got everything, then I’ll put it all together like in the book. I’ve got the lead, but I still need some mercury, it’s difficult because it’s a liquid you see, even though it’s a metal. And a prism. And some hydrogen, I don’t know where I’ll get that – Oh.’ He was staring into the box. ‘Pictures.’ He produced two photographs.

‘Where
did you get those, Tom?’ She reached out a hand.

‘You
don’t mind, do you Auntie?’

She
shook her head. She stared at the images, then passed them to Chad.

He
saw a photograph of a boy, blond-curled, blue eyes, a wide, gap-toothed smile.

‘Jacob,’
she said.

The
other was a park of some kind, a garden, filled with people – no, of course, a graveyard, a funeral, a small white coffin, a single arrangement of roses.

He
studied it for a long minute, then handed it back to her.

She
gazed at the image of the boy. She went over to the fireplace and placed it carefully on the mantelpiece, next to a dusty old vase and a plastic bowl filled with old buttons.

Tobias
had taken some pages out of his box and was furiously writing on them.

‘Time,’
he said. ‘If things can be and not be, maybe what it is, is that it’s time that’s different. Like anti-matter and matter, right?’ He looked up at Chad. ‘It’s like we’re going backwards and forwards, all the time, between matter and anti-matter, but when we look we think we’re seeing just matter. Because it’s all so fast.’

Chad
smiled at him. ‘I’m trying to write something about that too. For a sermon.’

‘What’s
it about?’

‘It’s
about the question of truth, of reality. How human beings always need evidence for things, which is why we’ve made the advances we’ve made, in science, for example, because we’re good at asking questions and finding the evidence for the answers. But then you look at the wider question, about why, why we’re here, is there a reason for it, is it just random, and our tendency to look for evidence doesn’t really help us.’

Tobias
was nodding. ‘Yes,’ he said. He bent to his paper and began to write again. ‘Evidence,’ he said.

Virginia
watched Tobias. She turned to Chad. ‘What does your wife think?’

‘Of
what?’ He looked at her blankly.

‘Of
your sermon, of course.’

‘Oh.
I don’t know.’

They
sat in silence, with only the loud scratch of Tobias’s pencil. Then Tobias got up. ‘Thirsty,’ he said. ‘What am I allowed?’