Dreaming of the bones

by Deborah Crombie

  “Oh,” she said with a start. “Do forgive me. My manners seem to have flown out the window.” Daphne gestured to the sofa, which faced the marble fireplace, and took a small, gilded chair for herself. The flat had a serene and formal atmosphere, which suited her classical looks, but also gave it an impersonal quality. There were no photographs, no open books, no magazines or newspapers, knitting or needlework. “Now, please tell me what this is all about.” She had a natural authority as well as graciousness, thought Kincaid, and she’d just shown a hint of the headmistress.

  “Victoria McClellan,” he began, and cleared his throat. Bloody hell “Dr. McClellan-”

  “Dr. McClellan died on Tuesday,” said Gemma quietly, coming to his rescue.

  “But how dreadful…” Daphne looked from Gemma to Kincaid in concerned surprise. “I hadn’t heard. One never expects one so young-”

  “She was murdered, Miss Morris. Poisoned, in fact,” Kincaid said baldly, watching her. “We believe there may be some connection to her research on Lydia Brooke.” He would have sworn the paling of her already creamy skin, the widening of her dark eyes were reflections of a genuine emotion, but was it shock or fear? Before she could recover, he said, “When Dr. McClellan interviewed you, you gave her the impression that you and Lydia were merely acquaintances, old school chums whose paths occasionally crossed.”

  “But I-”

  “When, in fact, you and Lydia Brooke had a long and close friendship. Why would you have wished to mislead her?”

  “I didn’t deliberately mislead her,” Daphne protested. “But why should I have felt compelled to discuss my personal affairs with a complete stranger? I have a right to my life, and my memories-”

  “But what about Lydia?” interrupted Gemma. “Surely if you cared about Lydia you’d have wanted her portrayed accurately. And Lydia’s letters certainly suggest that you might give the most unbiased picture-”

  “Letters?” whispered Daphne, her face ashen. “What letters?”

  “Oh, Dr. McClellan had access to Lydia’s letters, of course,” said Gemma brightly. “Did she not mention that? Including Lydia’s extensive correspondence with her mother over the years, in which she mentioned you repeatedly. It appears that you weren’t on the best of terms with Morgan Ashby. Was there some particular reason why Morgan disliked you?”

  For a moment, Daphne seemed too stunned to answer, then she rallied. “It’s none of your business. And I didn’t give a damn how Lydia appeared in Dr. McClellan’s book. Biography is a useless exercise, a picking over of bones when the meat is gone.” She took a breath and clasped her trembling hands together. “Look, I’m not saying that Victoria McClellan didn’t have good intentions, but no amount of letters or interviews could ever have conveyed-”

  “Well, that’s rather a moot point now, isn’t it?” Kincaid drawled. “Because there won’t be a biography. And if someone preferred that the details of Lydia’s life remain buried, then they’d be feeling quite comfortable with it all, wouldn’t they? Enjoying weekends in the country and all that.” He smiled. “It has come to our attention, by the way, that you might have had very good reason to safeguard the details of your relationship with Lydia Brooke, Miss Morris. Say if your relationship was of an… unorthodox sexual nature, for instance? I doubt that would go over smashingly well with the school governors.” He looked round with evident admiration. “It is rather a prestigious institution, as far as girls’ boarding schools go, I understand.”

  Daphne jerked to her feet, knocking the delicate gilded chair over backwards, where it bounced soundlessly on the soft carpet. Ignoring the chair, she shouted, “You’ve been talking to Morgan, haven’t you? He’d say anything to hurt me, the jealous, paranoid bastard. Did he tell you that he was arrested for assaulting Lydia?” Their surprise must have shown in their faces, because she went on with great satisfaction, “Oh, yes. Did he tell you he broke her ribs? And her jaw? Did you think Morgan’s famous artistic temper was all bark and no bite?”

  “When exactly did this happen?” asked Gemma.

  The calmness of Gemma’s tone seemed to communicate itself to Daphne, for she wiped a shaking hand across her mouth, then touched the hair that had escaped its binding. She had large hands, Kincaid noticed, more suitable to a milkmaid than a goddess.

  “I shouldn’t have said that. I promised Lydia I’d never tell anyone.” She shook her head. “And I’ve never in all these years broken a promise to Lydia.” Her eyes filled with tears.

  “There will be records, you know, hospital admissions and so on, if we’re forced to trace them,” Gemma continued. “But it would be better coming from you. Was this shortly before Lydia died?”

  Daphne gave her a look of blank incomprehension. “I’m sorry?”

  “You told us Morgan attacked Lydia.” Kincaid said carefully. “Did this happen near the time of her death?”

  “Lydia hadn’t seen Morgan for years when she died, as far as I know This was just weeks before they separated. She came to me.” Daphne groped backwards for her chair, and Kincaid moved quickly to right it for her. “Why do you keep talking about Lydia’s death?” she asked. “What has that to do with anything?” Daphne’s hands gripped the seat of the gilded chair beneath her thighs as if it were a frail craft on a storm-tossed sea.

  “Vic-Dr. McClellan-thought that Lydia’s death might have been… engineered,” said Kincaid. “She was, in fact, convinced that Lydia Brooke was murdered. And don’t you find it rather odd, Miss Morris, that Victoria McClellan should have been murdered, too?”

  Cambridge

  11 February 1968

  Somehow I never thought it would come to this. Fragmented. Observed and observer. The first Lydia dispassionate, rational, knowing there were only two inevitable conclusions-death or division.

  The other Lydia knows death would have been the better alternative.

  Lydia watches Lydia lying fetus-curled in the sweat-soaked bed. Lydia knows it for sabotage, knows the other one couldn’t bear the fine, clean strength of what they had between them. So the other poisoned it, a word here, an expression there, provoked when she should have comforted, drew blood with savage appetite.

  And Lydia watched, Electra tongueless, mute, the poet silenced.

  There will be no more.

  “She never denied it,” said Gemma, glancing at Kincaid as he drove. “Who never denied what?” he asked, frowning, distracted by the traffic at the Newnham roundabout as he signaled for the Barton Road.

  “Daphne never actually denied her relationship with Lydia.”

  “Maybe she didn’t think the allegation worth denying,” Kincaid suggested, looking away from the road long enough to grin at her. “Maybe she thinks we’re as round the twist as Morgan Ashby. Maybe by this time she’s called the Yard to complain about our irrational behavior-we have, after all, just accused a respected professional woman of having a homosexual relationship, not to mention murder, on the basis of nothing whatsoever.”

  Stung by his reckless sarcasm, Gemma said hotly, “She’s not telling the whole truth. She was relieved when I said the letters were to Lydia’s mother. I’m sure of it.”

  “She also seems to have a cast-iron alibi for the afternoon of Vic’s death.”

  They had spoken again to Jeanette, and had a look at Daphne’s daily calendar, both of which confirmed that Daphne had had a full schedule of meetings and appointments on Tuesday, but Gemma was not ready to capitulate. “There are always holes in alibis. And we don’t know where Vic went when she left the English Faculty that afternoon. What if she went to Daphne’s flat? Daphne could have slipped out of her office and met her with no one the wiser.”

  She knew from the look on his face that he’d considered the possibility, but rather than agreeing with her, he said, “Now that we’ve already done six impossible things before lunch, as well as buggering any claim to reputable behavior, how do you suggest we persuade Morgan Ashby to sit down and have a nice pleasant conversation about all this?
”

  Gemma felt the knot of dread in her stomach expand at the thought. She had lied to Morgan Ashby, and that was something even a calm and stable man might not take too kindly. But she smiled at Kincaid, and said carelessly, “Well, if your pretty face won’t do the trick, I suppose we’ll have to rely on my charm.”

  They went by farmhouse rules this time, and knocked at the back door first. They hadn’t seen the car, but their hopes that it was Morgan who was out, and that Francesca would be able to pave the way for them, were soon dashed.

  Morgan opened the door scowling, as if he’d been expecting someone else, but it soon became obvious that they were not more welcome. “You,” he said to Kincaid. “I thought I told you to bugger off.” Then he glimpsed Gemma, half-hidden behind Kincaid’s shoulder, and for an instant his face started to relax into a smile. “What are you doing here, Miss Ja-” Breaking off, he looked from Kincaid to Gemma again, and the scowl came back in full force. “You weren’t here about the studio at all, were you? You were bloody snooping. I should have bloody known.” He shook his head in disgust. “All right, I’ve had enough. I’ve said it before, and this is the last time I’m going to tell you-either of you. Fuck off.”

  “Mr. Ashby,” called Gemma, as Kincaid put out a hand to stop the door shutting. “We’re police officers. Both of us. From Scotland Yard. We need to talk to you.”

  Morgan gave Kincaid a disdainful look, but at least her sally had kept him from shutting Kincaid’s hand in the door, thought Gemma.

  “Scotland Yard? So that was a load of bollocks you fed me, too,” Morgan said to Kincaid. “All that sob story about Victoria McClellan being your ex-”

  “It was true,” said Kincaid. “Vic came to me because I’m a policeman, when she began to feel uneasy about Lydia’s death.”

  “Lydia’s death?” repeated Morgan, hesitating for the first time. “What are you talking about?”

  Gemma stepped forwards into the opening Kincaid had created with his arm. She had felt a sense of rapport with Morgan Ashby, and now she gambled on it. “Look, Mr. Ashby, please let us come in. We won’t take up more than a few minutes of your time.”

  Morgan stared at her for a moment, brows drawn together as though he meant to refuse, then he suddenly shrugged and stepped back. “Say what you have to say, then, and get it over with.”

  As an invitation, it was less than gracious, but Gemma moved quickly into the kitchen, and Kincaid followed, closing the door.

  Socks and underthings hung drying on a rack suspended above the Rayburn, and Gemma smelled potatoes boiling on the cooker’s top. Her stomach rumbled, but she couldn’t tell whether it was from hunger or nerves.

  Morgan stood with his backside against the cooker and didn’t invite them to sit down. “What do you mean, uneasy?” he said, glancing from one to the other. “Why would McClellan have needed to go poking about into Lydia’s death? Isn’t the simple fact of it enough?”

  “There were several things that worried Vic about Lydia’s suicide. But first let’s go back a bit.” Kincaid stepped forwards, physically crowding Morgan, and Gemma bit her lip on an admonition. She knew his aggression was an instinctive reaction to Morgan’s belligerence, but her gut feeling told her it wasn’t the way to handle him.

  “We’ve just come from a visit with Daphne Morris,” Kincaid said. She saw Morgan tense at the name, his pupils dilating until the gray in his eyes disappeared into black, but Kincaid smiled and continued, “It seems you were all quite well acquainted. She told us some fascinating things about your relationship with Lydia. There was a little matter of a reported assault, for instance, and some fractures-”

  Gemma heard the crack of Morgan’s fist against Kincaid’s jaw almost before she saw it-then came a flurry of punches too quick for her to follow, and they were straining together, panting, their faces fierce with intent, and blood welled crimson bright from Kincaid’s split lip.

  It seemed to take her aeons to cross the mere two paces of kitchen floor, then she was shoving and shouting at them. “Stop it! Both of you! Morgan, listen to me. Lydia didn’t commit suicide. Someone killed her. Do you hear me? It couldn’t have been you-you’d never have poisoned her. But someone did, and you have to help us. Morgan-”

  Then suddenly Kincaid had Morgan’s arm pinned back in a hammerlock, and Morgan was grimacing with pain.

  “Let me go, goddamnit!” he shouted, kicking at Kincaid’s shin, but Gemma sensed the fight had gone out of him.

  Kincaid eased up, but said furiously, “You bloody well keep your hands to yourself, okay?”

  Morgan jerked his arm out of Kincaid’s grasp and stepped away, touching the blood trickling from his nose. He gave a perplexed look at the smear on his fingers, then frowned at Gemma. “Why should they bother to kill her?” he said. “Didn’t they do enough damage as it was?” To Gemma’s horror, his face contorted in a sob.

  She guided his now unresisting body into one of the chairs at the kitchen table, then dampened a dishcloth and handed it to him. Slipping into the chair opposite, she said gently, “Who hurt Lydia, Morgan?”

  “Bloody perverts.” Morgan dabbed at his nose. Even though he seemed to have got his face under control, unshed tears glistened on his lower lashes.

  “Are you talking about Daph-” Kincaid began, but Gemma made an abrupt shushing gesture with her hand, and after a moment’s hesitation, he sat down at the far end of the table and held his handkerchief to his lip.

  “She’s a cunning bitch,” said Morgan. “She bided her time, all those years-faithful, dependable Daphne, waiting for an opening.”

  “Was Lydia sleeping with Daphne?” asked Gemma, in a carefully neutral tone.

  “Sleeping.” Morgan gave a bark of laughter. “Bloody euphemism for what they did. All of them, not just Daphne, and Lydia held it up to me, taunted me with it when we had rows. They made her ill, twisted her so that she could never have a normal relationship.

  “She had night terrors, did you know that? She’d wake up screaming and sweating from dreams she never remembered. And the worst of it was that she couldn’t bear to be happy. We’d get along well for a bit and then she’d start picking at things, starting rows. Sometimes I think now that she wanted me to hurt her, but I was too close to it then. I couldn’t see it.”

  “Did she want you to hurt her so she’d have an excuse to leave you?” asked Gemma. “That’s what happened, isn’t it?”

  “Oh, no. You’ve got it all wrong.” Morgan shook his head. “She ran to Daphne, but she came back in a few days, and things were all right for a while.”

  “Then she started in at you again,” said Gemma, now beginning to see the pattern of it.

  Morgan nodded, closing his eyes for a moment. Then he said slowly, “It was when I found myself shaking her with my hands round her throat that I knew I had to be the one to do it.”

  Sensing Kincaid stir at that, Gemma gave a quick shake of her head. She waited, resisting the impulse to hurry Morgan or to speak for him.

  “I pried my hands away, and I felt as though they’d never be clean again. How had I let her bring me to that? Later that night, when she had cried herself to sleep, I packed my things and walked out. The next day I filed for divorce. I gave her the house and everything in it.” He looked up at Gemma beseechingly. “Was it such a terrible thing to do, abandoning her that way?”

  “You couldn’t have done anything else.” Gemma allowed herself to touch his hand. “Morgan, who was it that made Lydia ill? Besides Daphne?”

  The skin beneath his eyes crinkled as he frowned at her. “Adam, of course. The spoiler of her virginity, she liked to call him, or the Lamb of God. She thought it funny.”

  “Just Adam?” she asked.

  “Adam, and Darcy Eliot, and that bloody hypocrite Nathan Winter, who went on afterwards to become the perfect, morally upright husband and father,” Morgan sneered.

  “You’re saying that Lydia slept with all of them?” Gemma refrained from making eye contact
with Kincaid. “Including Daphne?”

  “She told me I was unreasonable because I didn’t want them coming round after we were married.”

  “But you gave in about Daphne, didn’t you? After Lydia lost the babies, because Daphne was the only woman she could bear to be round. What about afterwards, when you’d separated? Did they continue to see one another?”

  Morgan shook his head. “I don’t know. I didn’t see Lydia again, except for the few occasions when we couldn’t avoid running into one another.” He sounded suddenly very tired.

  “There was Francesca.”

  “Francesca kept me sane. Still does, though it’s a job I don’t envy her.” Morgan attempted a smile. “We’d both have been better off if I’d-” He paused and tilted his head, listening. “She’s home now. Back from the shops. I can recognize the sound of the bloody old Volvo’s engine a mile away.”

  A car door slammed nearby. They waited, and after a moment the back door swung open. Francesca Ashby stepped in, her pleasant face creased with anxiety. She took in Morgan’s face, with the traces of blood drying black beneath his nose, and dropped her parcels where she stood. “Morgan! Are you-”

  “I’m fine, love, don’t worry,” he reassured her.

  “But-” She glanced at Kincaid, whose cheekbone was beginning to darken in a bruise, then at Gemma. “What happened?” she asked as she went to stand beside her husband.

  “Something that should have happened a long time ago,” he said, putting his arm round her waist. “But I’m not sure I can explain it. It’s over, Fran. Finally. They say that someone killed Lydia. She didn’t commit suicide.” He looked at Kincaid for the first time since their scuffle. “Are you sure of it?”

  “There’s no physical proof at this point, but I think it’s fairly certain,” said Kincaid.

  “And you think this same person may have killed your Dr. McClellan?”

  Kincaid nodded. “Do you have any idea who might have done such a thing?”