Dreaming Of The Bones

Ian held his gaze, then gave a barely perceptible nod of agreement. “I’ll get the rest of my things,” he said. “Now—if you don’t mind …” He gave them a slightly sardonic smile as he stood.

“Ian,” Kincaid said before he could leave the room. “You haven’t found one of Vic’s books in with your things, by any chance?” He described the Marsh memoir. “And there were some poems—”

“Lydia’s poems?” said Nathan. “The ones Vic found in the Marsh book?” He frowned at Kincaid. “Why didn’t you ask me before? Vic gave them to me.”

Cambridge, Addenbrooks Hospital

15 December

1975 Dear Mummy,

No, I can’t come home. As much as my heart cries out to see your dear face, and to receive the comfort only you can give, I must get well on my own. Oh, physically, I’m all right—a few lacerations, bumps and bruises, nothing that won’t heal. They shall keep me in hospital, “under observation,” for another day or so, and after that Daphne will come and look after me as it’s her Christmas break.

I honestly don’t think I meant to harm myself, though I’d toyed with the idea of the grand gesture. I saw myself noble and tragic as Virginia Woolf walking into the river, stilling the clamoring voices of madness, but it was only my own voice I wanted to silence, the one that kept telling me what I’d become.

What have I done to deserve Daphne’s forgiveness, or yours? Why do you insist on loving me in spite of myself? I’ve spent years trying to run away from my life, my past, my self. I’ve written shallow and sensational poems which traded on others’ misery. I’ve sold my voice for a few pretentious reviews in the Times. I’ve shunned my friends for the company of sycophants. I’ve tried to lose the last bit of myself that mattered, but your love held me accountable. I see now that I must try to live up to it—I can’t bear it otherwise.

Lydia

They’d spent most of the afternoon at Parkside police station going over things with Alec Byrne, and had achieved little more than confirming that Ian McClellan’s documents did indeed show him to have been out of the country at the time of Vic’s death.

Byrne had received their account of Miss Pope’s evidence that Vic had already been ill by half past three with a distinct lack of enthusiasm. “We’ll go over the statements again, but I really don’t see that this puts us much further forwards,” he said. “We’ve no apparent motive for Dr. McClellan’s death—or for Lydia Brooke’s in the event she did not commit suicide—and now it seems that these poems you thought the murderer had stolen were simply misplaced.” Byrne steepled his long fingers together. “Quite frankly, Duncan, we’ve not had a single good lead on this case, and my manpower resources are dwindling. You know how it is. I’ve a missing child to deal with, and the mugging of an eighty-year-old woman in her bed.” He shrugged.

“You’re telling me you’re turning Vic’s case over to a file clerk. Alec—”

“If anything turns up I’ll put every available officer on it. But in the meantime …” Byrne cast a look of appeal at Gemma, then turned back to Kincaid. “What would you do if you were in my shoes?”

Kincaid had reluctantly conceded Byrne’s point, his sense of frustration mounting. Would he keep on, he wondered, if he weren’t personally involved?