Dying to Know (A Detective Inspector Berenice Killick Mystery) (8 page)

He
saw Virginia lift her head. Her eyes met his. He took a deep breath and continued to speak.

‘Man, I’m not having all this ballet shit, you get me?’

Helen
glanced at the rest of the class, then back at the boy who was standing in front of her. He was tall and muscular, in T-shirt and leggings, his feet in their black ballet shoes placed firmly on the floor, his hands on his hips. His blue-grey eyes shone from his face, which glowed dark with sweat. Behind him the class took a break, leaning on the barre, sipping water, stretching legs, watching with interest.

‘Finn,
it’s a ballet class.’ Helen faced him.

‘You
told me dance, man. Dance to me, it’s the beat, right? Like, living the music. Not this…’ He waved his arm around the studio.

‘It’s
all dance, Finn.’

‘And
the music’s shit too.’

‘You
don’t have to do it, then, blad.’ One of the girls approached. She had straightened Afro hair pinned back, and was dressed in a scarlet T shirt with matching leggings. ‘We don’t need you here, you get me?’

‘Wha’
else me going to do?’

She
tutted, turned to Helen. ‘Sorry about him, Miss, he’s just like this, y’know?’

Helen
smiled at her. ‘It’s OK.’ She turned to him. ‘It’s up to you, Finn.’

He
shrugged.

‘You’re
good, you know?’ she went on.

He
slouched in front of her, staring at the floor.

‘Really,
you are.’

He
raised his eyes. ‘I ain’t no good at all this shit. All them words, don’t know what they mean or nothing.’

‘You
don’t have to know what they mean. You just have to dance them.’

The
girl in red tugged at his sleeve. ‘You wasting our time, bruv.’

‘Leave
it, Lisa.’ He shook her off. He walked over to the corner of the studio and sat on the floor.

Helen
started the music CD again, and the class gathered into lines.

‘Adage,’
Helen began. ‘Chassé forward on the left,
port
de
bras
…’ She was aware of Finn watching the class. She was also aware that the energy had faded from the group and was now concentrated sullenly in his corner of the room.

Chapter Five

Chad
stood at the church door, greeting the departing congregation, shaking hands, smiling, asking after absent parishioners, ‘How is Joan now? Out of hospital this week? Oh, good, I am glad…’ ‘The cat, yes, I know, all very sad, I heard… Lovely flower arrangement in the Lady Chapel, Mrs. Lynch…’

There
was no sign of Virginia. He watched them go, the tap of sticks on the old paved path, the sunshine silvering the gravestones.

He
went back into church. A relief, to find it empty. He would just finish the last few tasks, and then home for lunch.

She
was still sitting in the pew at the back. She turned as the door clicked behind him.

‘Oh,’
he said.

‘Didn’t
mean to scare you,’ she said.

‘Not
at all. I didn’t expect to see you in church today, that’s all.’ He sat down next to her. The altar candles were still alight, and he found himself worrying about the wax dropping on to the altar cloth.

‘I
thought of them all,’ she said, ‘all what they’d say, there’s Ginny Maguire, fancy her showing her face after all this time, and then I thought, let them. Let them gossip all they want. There’s been enough said about me in the past, and there’ll be enough said about me in the weeks to come.’

He
nodded his support, watching the flicker of the candles.

‘Your
sermon,’ she said.

‘Hmmm?’
he said.

‘It
wasn’t what I expected.’

He
turned to face her. ‘I – I have no idea what I said, I’m afraid.’

The
hint of a smile lifted the corners of her mouth.

‘Did
it seem like that?’ he asked her.

‘Depends
what they’re used to, I suppose,’ she said.

‘I
– ’ he hesitated. ‘I didn’t want to offer you empty hope,’ he said.

She
met his eyes. ‘That’s very kind of you,’ she said. ‘The thing is – we had bad news this morning, Tobias and me. The police came again. It – it wasn’t suicide.’

He
looked at her hands clasped tight together in her lap. ‘Not suicide?’

‘Type
of injuries, they said, brain injury, bruising… suggests he was already unconscious when… when he hit the water.’

He
looked up at her. ‘But how…?’

‘Killed,’
she said. ‘By person or persons unknown.’

‘But
– who? Why…?’

She
opened her hands, palms upward. ‘I can’t help them, can I? He goes to the lab. He comes home for tea. He talks to Tobias. We watch the television. I can’t help them…’

A
shouting outside, a hammering on the door of the church. Chad jumped to his feet, swung the door open. ‘Tobias,’ he said.

He
loomed in the church doorway, dishevelled and tearful. ‘Can I… ’ he sniffed. ‘Is she here?’

‘I’m
here, love.’ Virginia spoke from her pew. Tobias screwed up his eyes in the dim light, stumbled towards her, sank down next to her. She put her arm around him.

‘I
woke up and you weren’t there,’ Tobias said, his face half-buried in Virginia’s shoulder.

‘It’s
all right, love, I’m here now.’ She looked up at Chad. ‘It’s been awful for our Tom.’

‘Uncle
Murdo,’ Tobias said. ‘I keep thinking about him and who would do that to him, who would do it? I asked that woman from the police, why? I asked her, why do people do that to other people? She didn’t say anything, did she Auntie? She couldn’t tell me.’

Chad
walked to the altar and blew out the candles. He gathered up the pages from the lectern.

Tobias
had followed him. He stood next to him. The white altar cloth was splashed with colour from the stained glass window. Tobias circled a patch of red with a finger. ‘No one should do that to someone else, should they?’ he said.

‘No,’
Chad agreed. His gaze fell on Virginia, where she sat, cold and still, at the back of the church. He took a step towards her, wanting to help, wanting to offer her warmth, kindness. ‘Come to the vicarage,’ he said. ‘Come for lunch.’

‘He’s the most talented of the whole class, and he spent most of it sitting on the floor.’ Helen tucked the phone under her chin, slipped off one ballet shoe and then another.

‘Babe,
if he don’t want to do it, he don’t want to do it.’ The soft drawl of his voice down the phone. ‘I’d tell him you don’t need him.’

She
smiled, stretched herself along the sofa. ‘The problem is, Anton – ’

He
interrupted her. ‘The problem is, babes, you
do
need him. What’s the day job? Working with Miss Doris – ’

‘Dorothy,’
she corrected him –

‘Coaching
all the Maisies and Evies through Grade Three – ’

‘Two
of them are on Grade Eight – ’

‘It’s
always been the hand-picked rude-boys where your heart resides. Nothing’s changed, even by the sea.’

She
laughed.

‘I’m
tempted to join you there,’ he said. ‘I’m sitting in a Starbucks in Soho, on my own because a certain gorgeous man is late as usual, and it’s pouring with rain. How is it where you are?’

She
looked out at the slate grey sky. ‘Well, it’s not raining,’ she said. ‘But Chad will be back from church in a minute, and I’ve got nowhere with lunch.’

‘What
kind of vicar’s wife are you?’

She
laughed again, at his fake-scandalized tone. ‘A very bad one, as you knew I would be.’

There
was a brief pause. ‘Babe – how is it really? Apart from recalcitrant rude-boys and the lack of lunch?’

She
breathed a deep breath. ‘Whatever is wrong with my life here,’ she began, hearing footsteps outside, voices too, ‘it would have been just as wrong in London.’

‘Well,
I guess that’s one way of looking at it.’

‘Anton
– I’ve got to go. Chad’s back, and he’s got people with him, from the sound of it.’

‘Needy
parishioners,’ Anton said. ‘Rather you than me. Speak soon, Hon.’

She
clicked off her phone, unfurled herself from the sofa and went to see what was happening.

Two
people were standing in her kitchen next to Chad. One was a small blonde-ish woman of indeterminate age in a neat navy raincoat. The other was a huge young man, or perhaps a giant child, his fists clenched at his side, his eyes blinking as if he was about to burst into tears.

‘Helen
– ’ Chad glanced at her nervously. ‘This is Virginia – Mrs. Maguire. And this is her nephew, Tobias. They’ve had some rather bad news. I don’t suppose there’s any, um… ’

Helen
was aware of the woman looking at her. She felt suddenly exposed in her layers of pink dancewear. ‘Lunch,’ she said, brightly. ‘Yes, of course. Nothing special, but I’m sure we can find something.’

Twenty
minutes later the casserole from the night before was bubbling gently on the hob, having been extended with various chopped vegetables, and there were potatoes roasting in the oven. Helen, now in jeans and cashmere jumper, put her head round the door of the lounge. ‘Drinks, anyone?’

Tobias
looked up from the large armchair. ‘I like Coca Cola,’ he said, ‘but I’m not allowed it, am I Auntie?’

‘I
don’t think we have any,’ Helen said. ‘How’s orange juice?’

‘I
don’t like orange juice,’ Tobias said.

‘Just
water is fine for us both,’ Virginia said.

As
Helen stood in the kitchen pouring glasses of water, she wondered at her husband’s life. How had he not told her about this tiny sad-faced woman who sat on one corner of the sofa as if she didn’t deserve to be there, and this large man-boy who filled the huge armchair as if he belonged in this house made for giants.

She
returned to the lounge, and all four sat and sipped water. She felt as if she’d silenced a conversation. On the coffee table there was a book, a beautiful leather-bound, honey-coloured thing. She reached across and picked it up.

‘What’s
this?’

Chad
seemed to blush. ‘A loan,’ he said, glancing at the sofa. ‘Virginia lent it to me.’

‘Gave
it,’ Virginia said, with a harsh rasp.

Helen
looked up at her. ‘A gift? Why?’

‘Because
I don’t want it,’ she said. ‘And because he’s interested in it,’ she added, with a tilt of her head towards Chad.

Helen
tried not to stare, fascinated by her sharp tone. She flicked through the book instead. ‘What is it?’

‘Careful,’
Chad said.

She
glanced at him. ‘It’s only a book,’ she said.

‘It’s
quite old,’ he said. ‘Late nineteenth century. It’s a kind of diary, someone’s copied out loads of natural philosophy, ideas about gravity and atoms, Newton and people, and then at the end there’s another writer, a woman, taking issue with it all, heart-felt arguments about the aether, absolutely fascinating, all hand-written…’

‘Is
that what you were reading last night,’ she said, ‘when you wouldn’t come to bed?’

A
look from Virginia made her feel she’d said too much.

‘It
does that,’ Virginia said. ‘Takes you over.’

‘It’s
ours,’ Tobias said.

Chad
looked across at him. ‘I’m only borrowing it, remember?’ he said.

‘It’s
all in my head anyway.’ Tobias breathed out. He picked up his glass of water and drained it in one gulp.

‘“If
we are to say that there can be nothing, that matter can support the absence of itself, then we are lost,”’ Helen began to read. ‘“For nothingness is a gap that must be filled, if not by good, then by evil –’”

‘Then
by evil,’ Tobias repeated. ‘That’s why you can’t have nothing – ’ he was almost shouting. ‘When you smash particles together, there can’t be nothingness, that’s what’s wrong with it all –’