Dreaming of the bones Read online

  She sat silently beside him, watching the sky, not even complaining, for once, about his car. He thought about asking her what she was thinking, but just then a passing lorry spattered sludge on the windscreen, and fighting its back draft while momentarily blinded required all his attention. When he could see again, he put a piano cassette in the tape player and concentrated on his driving.

  They found the lights switched on in Gemma’s flat and a vase of daffodils on the table. Beside it lay a note from Hazel, a pot of beans, and a loaf of homemade bread. “Have a good feed,” the note read. “Gourmet beans on toast.”

  “I see your fairy godmother’s been,” said Kincaid, dipping a finger into the still warm beans for a taste. “If she weren’t already taken, I’d snatch her in a minute.”

  “She wouldn’t have you,” Gemma said equably. “Just count yourself lucky to get some of the fringe benefits.”

  When Toby had been fed and put to bed, and they’d finished up the last of their toast and tea, Kincaid rolled up his shirtsleeves. “I’ll do the washing up,” he offered, “if I can have a glass of wine. I could swim in the tea I’ve drunk today.”

  “Red or white?” Gemma stood on tiptoe as she reached for the glasses in the cupboard.

  He admired the elongated line of her body as she stretched, and the curves hinted at beneath the bulk of her jumper. Stepping up behind her, he laid his hands lightly on her waist. “Mmmm, red, I think.”

  Gemma slipped out of his grasp with an abstracted smile. When she’d poured them both a glass of burgundy, she cleared the dishes from the half-moon table while he ran hot water and squirted soap in the basin.

  “Sit,” he ordered her as he began the soaping and rinsing. “There’s not room for us both in here-or there is, but it’s quite distracting.” When this mildly flirtatious comment received no response, he looked round as much as his dripping hands would allow. She sat in one of the slatted chairs at the table, booted feet stretched out before her, staring into the wineglass cradled in her lap. He started to speak, then thought better of it, slotting the last of the plates into the drying rack before he wiped his hands and turned to her.

  “Gemma, what is it?” he asked, taking the other chair so that he could look directly into her face. “You’ve hardly said a word since we left Cambridge.”

  “Oh.” She looked at him as if surprised to find him there. “I’m sorry. I was just thinking.”

  “So I gathered. Care to elaborate?”

  She frowned. “I’m not sure. I mean, I’m not quite sure I’ve worked out how to put it into words.”

  With some trepidation, he asked, “Is this about Vic?” He’d thought taking Gemma with him the best way to allay her fears, but perhaps it had been a mistake.

  To his surprise, the corners of Gemma’s mouth turned up in a smile. “I didn’t expect to like her, you know, but I did. Even though there’s still a connection between the two of you, I found I didn’t mind. I don’t know why I was so frightened of it, or why I expected to be so intimidated by her.”

  “Intimidated by Vic? Why?”

  Hesitating, Gemma looked away from him, then said slowly, “You know I did my A levels, but then I decided on the Academy rather than University. I thought I wouldn’t be able to talk to her-that we wouldn’t have a thing in common. Or worse, that she’d talk down to me, be all smug about her education and her career.”

  “Why on earth should she-”

  “No, wait, let me finish.” Gemma gave him a quelling look, her brows drawn together again. “It didn’t turn out that way at all. The things she said made sense to me, and the funny thing is, I think I understood something you didn’t.”

  “What are you talking about?” he asked, thoroughly puzzled now.

  “You told her that the end of her book about Lydia didn’t matter. You didn’t see that it’s the end that gives the book its truth.” He must have looked blank, because she shook her head in frustration. “Look at it this way. Vic’s right about women needing stories about other women’s accomplishments. Do you know how much it would have meant to me when I started out in the Met if I’d had another woman’s experience to guide me?

  “There were less than a handful of female DCIs then, and they were playing by men’s rules. But I wanted something different. I thought that I could be a good police officer-maybe even a better police officer-because I’m a woman, not in spite of it, and there were times, especially in the beginning, that I almost gave up. There was nobody to reassure me that I had something special to offer, that I wasn’t crazy, that it could be done.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said, taken aback by her intensity. “I didn’t know that’s how you felt. You’ve never said.”

  “Those aren’t things that are considered appropriate to say.” Her smile held little humor. “And that makes other women’s stories even more important, including Lydia’s. But if Lydia killed herself, it changes her story. I’m not saying that it makes it invalid, but it does make it a different story.”

  “I don’t understand. Surely she would still have accomplished the same things?”

  “But they wouldn’t matter in the same way. Suicide is an admission of defeat. It tells us that she couldn’t put all the pieces of her dream together, and if she couldn’t, maybe we can’t, either.”

  “Are you saying I shouldn’t have told Vic to leave it alone?”

  Gemma took a belated sip of her wine. “Not exactly. I’m saying that it doesn’t matter what you said, because Vic needs Lydia not to have committed suicide, and she can’t let it go. And you didn’t see that.”

  “What else could I have done?” he said defensively, feeling as though he’d been tried and found wanting. “You were the one who thought I shouldn’t bother with it at all.”

  Shrugging, Gemma said, “I’m allowed to change my mind, aren’t I?”

  Newnham

  30 January 1963

  Dearest Mummy,

  Sometimes I think this poetry is a curse, not a gift. The words haunt me when I should be sleeping, haunt me when I should be working, and they’re black, cold beasts I can’t tame into acceptable shapes. Six rejections just this week, without even a hint of encouragement. Why can’t I give it up, concentrate on my studies?

  Last term’s workload was difficult-this term’s may be insurmountable. If I had been better prepared I might not be floundering so now, trying to make up for the lack of depth and breadth in my reading. And what shall I do with this degree, if I somehow manage to earn one of any distinction? Teach sixth-form girls in some dreary comprehensive, in the hopes that one of them will possess the gift I lacked?

  Do you know how many women manage to publish poetry? And of the few that do, most have their work reviled by the critics for being too pretty, too feminine, but if they write anything else it’s said to be unsuitable. If I’d had any sense. I’d have taken that clerk’s job in the Brighton Woolworth’s. I’d be taking the bus home in the rain, warm and dry on the upper deck, not cycling everywhere through slush and sludge, rain cape and boots perpetually soaked. I’d have met some nice fellow and I’d go to the cinema with him on Fridays, and if he were persistent enough I might bring him home for tea. Marriage and babies would lurk in the offing, and these spiky thoughts would not jostle so in my head.

  Oh, poor Mummy, forgive me this outpouring of misery. I feel small and mean, burdening you with it, but I simply couldn’t go on without the hope of comfort. Tell me these feelings will pass, that the rain will stop, that my dreadful cold will go away, that someone, somewhere, will publish one of my poems.

  Your Lydia

  CHAPTER 7

  Tenderly, day that I have loved, I close your eyes,

  And smooth your quiet brow, and fold your thin

  dead hands.

  RUPERT BROOKE,

  from “Day That I Have Loved”

  Vic often thought that this was her favorite time, Kit asleep, the house still and quiet except for the occasional creak as it breathed. Sh
e sat at the kitchen table with a cup of milk hot from the microwave, for once neither reading nor writing, but simply thinking about her day. This was a habit begun in the last years with Ian as a way of avoiding bed until she knew he was asleep, and now enjoyed for its own sake.

  They’d never had the money to do the kitchen up properly, so she’d got creative with paint and jumble sale finds, discovering an unexpected sense of pleasure in the process. Blue on the cabinets, sunflower yellow on the rough plaster walls, junk shop jugs and pitchers on the worktops and windowsill. The Welsh dresser with its blue-and-yellow Italian pottery she’d found for a song at an estate sale, along with the small oak, drop-leaf table and her Tiffany lamp. At least she always thought of it as her Tiffany lamp-it was probably a cheap imitation, but she meant to have it valued some day, just in case.

  Her mother, whenever she came to visit, threw up her hands in despair at the sight of Vic’s kitchen. A proponent of hygienic, synthetic surfaces, with a fetish for appliances (her latest acquisition was a rubbish compactor), Eugenia Potts had no patience with her daughter’s contentment. It was a good thing, thought Vic, that she didn’t really want a dishwasher or a refrigerator the size of cave, because without Ian’s salary the possibility of refitting had receded further than ever.

  For a moment, she allowed herself the luxury of wondering what her life would have been like if she’d stayed with Duncan. Would they live in the flat he’d described in Hampstead, with its sunset view over the rooftops? Would she be teaching at London University, in a department less difficult? Would she and Duncan have ironed out their differences, she growing less jealous of his work as she became more absorbed in her own?

  The one thing she felt quite certain of was that she wouldn’t have begun a biography of Lydia Brooke, and she was beginning to think that might have been a blessing.

  Even after so many years apart, it had felt quite odd today to see him with another woman. She hadn’t felt jealous-she had, in fact, found herself unexpectedly drawn to Gemma-but she had experienced a sense of displacement.

  Just how honest had she been with herself about her reasons for contacting him? Oh, she’d had legitimate need, and he had been helpful, but now that he’d done as much as he felt he could in the matter of Lydia, she found herself wanting very much to maintain the friendship, for Kit’s sake as well as her own. Kit had few enough male role models, and it was especially important now that Ian-

  The phone rang. She lunged for it instinctively, hoping it hadn’t waked Kit. Even as she lifted the handset from the cradle, she knew who it was.

  “Vic? I hope it’s not too late, but I managed to get away from the conference a day early.”

  “No, it’s all right. I’m still up,” she said, her breathing quickening at the sound of Nathan’s voice.

  “It was a bloody weekend, I can tell you,” he said, and she could imagine him smiling. He’d gone unenthusiastically on Friday to a botanists’ meeting in Manchester, mumbling that they could hardly have picked anywhere less appropriate.

  She hadn’t often talked to him on the telephone, and she thought how much she liked his voice, deep, with laughter resonating under the surface. She’d always been a sucker for voices, Duncan’s, too, with its hint of Cheshire drawl, blunted now by so many years in London.

  “Come round and I’ll tell you about it,” Nathan urged.

  Hesitating, Vic felt the anxious knot of dread forming in her stomach. Did she want to confront him tonight? No point putting it off, she thought, and took a deep breath.

  “Yes, all right. I suppose I can come over for a bit.”

  “Come the front way. The garden’s a bog.” He added, teasing, “I don’t think the neighbors will see you this time of night.” The phone clicked, then the dial tone buzzed in her ear.

  He still wore his jacket and tie, though he’d undone his collar button and pulled the knot of his tie down to a rakish angle. “I’ve got the fire going,” he said, ushering her into the hall. “Let me get you a drink.”

  She shook her head. “Not just now.” The door to the music room stood open and the lamp on the piano was lit. “You’ve been playing,” she said, wandering in and touching the sheet music open on the stand. It was handwritten, and she recognized Nathan’s strong, black script.

  “Just doodling while I waited for you.” He stood in the doorway, looking perplexed.

  Vic slid onto the piano bench and stared at the keyboard. After a moment, she began to pick out a hesitant, childish version of “Chopsticks,” all she remembered from the brief lessons forced on her by her mother. Her rebellion had taken the form of stoic silence coupled with an adherence to the exact number of minutes she was required to practice. After a few months, her mother had given up in defeat. Vic was not musically gifted.

  Ballet had been next. She should have stuck with piano.

  “Didn’t you tell me that you were writing music based on DNA sequences?” she asked. “Is that what this is?”

  “In part. It’s an idea mentioned briefly in a lecture by Leonard Bernstein, and I’ve always been fascinated by it. An innate universal musical language.” He left his position by the door frame and came towards her. “Vic, I happen to know that your interest in the mechanics of music lies somewhere on a par with your interest in particle physics. And you haven’t once looked at me since you came in. What is the matter? Has something happened?”

  She turned towards him. “Nathan, why didn’t you tell me that you found Lydia?”

  He stared at her. “It never occurred to me. I suppose if I’d thought about it, I’d have assumed you knew.”

  “No. I’d no idea until I saw a copy of the police report today.”

  “Does it matter?” he asked, sounding baffled. “Did you think I was deliberately keeping something from you?”

  “No, not really,” she said, not willing to admit what she had thought in the face of his matter-of-factness. “It’s just that everything surrounding Lydia’s death seems so elusive.” She shivered with a sudden chill.

  “It’s cold in here. Come in by the fire,” Nathan said with instant concern, and this time she followed him obediently.

  “Why didn’t you ask me?” he said when he’d settled her in the armchair nearest the heat. “I’d have told you anything you wanted to know.”

  “I didn’t know to ask. And even now I feel uncomfortable, because I’m afraid talking about it might distress you.”

  “Ah.” Nathan sat across from her and took a sip of a drink he’d apparently made while waiting. “It was very distressing, actually, at the time,” he said slowly. “And I didn’t speak about it to anyone except the police, but I’d always assumed it had got about somehow, as everyone seemed to avoid the subject so assiduously.

  “But it’s been a long time, and I don’t mind talking about it now, if you like.”

  A simple explanation after all, thought Vic, and she had worked herself into a lather over it. Was she becoming paranoid, imagining conspiracies, and suspecting Nathan, of all people? Collecting herself, she said, “The police seemed to think that Lydia asked you to come that evening because she wanted you to find her.”

  Nathan shrugged. “I suppose that’s the logical explanation. Or perhaps at some level she was hoping to be rescued.”

  “As Adam rescued her the first time?”

  “Poor Adam. At least I didn’t find her floating in her own blood. Sorry, love,” he added with a grimace. “Not a nice picture.”

  “She wrote about it-Life blood/Salt and iron/cradle gentle as a/mother’s kiss…” Vic recited softly. She stood up and went to the old gramophone cabinet Nathan used to store drinks in the sitting room. Pouring herself a generous sherry, she said, “What did she say when she called you that day, Nathan? How did she sound?”

  He thought for a long moment. “Tense… excited… almost combative. I suppose all of those would be natural if she were working herself up to suicide.”

  “But what exactly did she say? Can you
remember the particular words or phrases?” Vic came back to her chair and curled up with her feet beneath her.

  Nathan closed his eyes, then said slowly, “She said, ‘Nathan, I simply must see you. Can you come round this evening?’ And then she said, ‘We need to talk.’ Or was it, ‘There’s something I need to talk to you about’?” He shook his head. “I’m sorry, I can’t remember.”

  “And then what did she say? When she rang off?”

  “Oh, Lord.” Nathan rubbed his chin. “Let me think. She said, ‘Come for drinks round sevenish?’ A question, rather than a statement, but she didn’t wait for me to answer. And then, ‘See you then. Cheerio,’ and she hung up.”

  “And you thought that sounded like someone intending suicide?” Vic’s voice rose to an incredulous squeak.

  “Well, I have to admit it sounds a bit absurd now,” said Nathan, exasperated. “But I had indisputable evidence, damnit. She was dead.”

  “What did you think about the poem in the typewriter?” asked Vic, plowing on.

  “The Rupert Brooke? I supposed she had never quite got over Morgan, and that was her way of saying good-bye to him. It did seem a bit sentimental for Lydia, but when I heard she’d left him everything it seemed a fair assumption.”

  “The police thought Lydia wrote it.”

  “Did they?” Nathan’s brows lifted in surprise. “Well, they never asked me. I’d have set them straight. But what difference does it make?”

  Not yet, she thought. She wasn’t ready to lay her cards out quite yet. And there was still the matter of the poems. “Nathan, did you know about the poems in the book you gave me?”

  “The Rupert Brooke? Of course it had poems in it,” he said, looking at her as if not quite sure of her sanity. “It was the first collection of his poems, along with Marsh’s rather sexually biased memoirs, if I remem-”

  “No, no, I don’t mean those poems,” Vic protested, laughing. “I meant Lydia’s poems.”