Dreaming Of The Bones

“Oh, but I can, you see. One can’t be, friends with a hollow man, Darcy.” Nathan caught the glint of a watch chain with the rise and fall of Darcy’s chest. When had Darcy started wearing a watch chain? He hadn’t needed the silly waistcoats or watch chains, once. His charm and facile wit had been enough—enough to make Lydia see Rupert in his ruddy good looks, enough to fool them all. “You manipulated us. All these years, you counted on our loyalty to each other binding our silence, and when you saw that failing, you resorted to murder. Did it get easier each time, Darcy? Vic wasn’t as much of a threat as Lydia—she might never have put all the pieces together.”

“Not without your help. And I couldn’t chance that collaboration, could I? If you came to doubt Lydia’s suicide, I couldn’t be sure you wouldn’t succumb to the same self-righteousness that was Lydia’s undoing. Though I have to give the fair Victoria credit for dogged persistence,” Darcy added.

Nathan felt his self-control cracking, his fury seeping through like acid. “You bastard. I loved her—did you know that? And her life meant nothing more to you than an inconvenience. But she outwitted you in the end. They both did. Lydia kept copies of the poems you took from the manuscript, hidden in a book she left to me, and Vic returned them to me after she’d read them. That’s why you didn’t find them when you searched her cottage. The police have them now.”

Darcy laughed aloud. “And a fat lot of good that will do them. Give it up, Nathan. It’s hopeless. And even if you were foolish enough to tell them where to look for Verity’s bones, it’s only your word and Adam’s that I was even there that night.”

Nathan saw his error in the split second it took him to bring the gun to bear on Darcy’s chest. His word and Adam’s. He had underestimated his opponent; he should have realized that when Darcy made his first admission. Darcy would kill him, if he could, then Adam. It didn’t matter what they could prove—even the suggestion of Darcy’s involvement in any of the deaths would lose him his coveted position in the Faculty; Dame Margery would see to that if no one else did.

But even as he felt the pressure of the stock against his shoulder, the pinch of the trigger as he squeezed it, Darcy lunged for him. The gun went off as Darcy hit the barrel a hard upward blow, wrenching it from Nathan’s fingers.

The gun jerked in recoil, then Darcy’s weight carried them to the ground and pain seared through Nathan’s shoulder as the gun flew out of his hand. Blackness … He couldn’t see and his ears rang from the sound of the gun. A warm saltiness on his lips—his blood or Darcy’s? Wetness at the back of his head … more blood? No, water, his head was half in the pool, and the pressure against his throat came from Darcy’s encircling hands.

CHAPTER

21

Say, is there Beauty yet to find?

And Certainty? And Quiet kind?

Deep meadows yet, for to forget

The lies, and truths, and pain? … oh! yet

Stands the Church clock at ten to three?

And is there honey still for tea?

RUPERT BROOKE,

from “The Old Vicarage,

Grantchester”

Kincaid swung left at the High Street junction and pulled the Escort up behind Adam Lamb’s Mini. Light spilled out from the open door of Nathan’s cottage.

“I don’t like the look of this,” he muttered as he pulled up the hand brake and vaulted out of the car. He heard Gemma close behind him as he started up the walk.

Adam hurried out to meet them before they reached the door, scarecrow tall and thin in full clerical black. He shook his head at the sight of their questioning faces. “No joy, I’m afraid. No one’s seen him. Father Denny and some of the church wardens are searching along the riverbank with torches.” His face was creased with worry and exhaustion. “I said I’d wait here for you.”

Kincaid took Adam’s arm and pulled him into the hall. “Adam, tell us about Darcy and Verity Whitecliff.”

“Oh, dear God.” Adam sagged against the wall as his face drained of color. “What… what has that to do with this?”

“Did he kill her?” Kincaid pressed him, a hand on his shoulder. “Did he kill Verity?”

Adam rubbed a trembling hand across his face, then seemed to gather strength. Straightening up, he said, “It’s more complicated than that. We all felt responsible. We should never have allowed it to happen.”

“Did he kill her? Yes or no?” Kincaid squeezed his shoulder, urgency driving him.

Adam winced as Kincaid’s fingers bit into the nerve, but he held Kincaid’s gaze. “Yes,” he said on a sigh. “Yes, he did.”

Kincaid released Adam’s shoulder and, glancing at Gemma, read the brief flare of triumph in her eyes. They had been right, after all. “Adam, we think Lydia meant to tell what happened. She wrote a poem about Verity’s death which we believe Darcy removed from the manuscript of her last book. Vic found a copy in a book Nathan had given her, but Nathan didn’t know it was there. He may have read it for the first time this afternoon.”