Dying to Know (A Detective Inspector Berenice Killick Mystery)

by Alison Joseph

  The next page was blank. Chad turned back, and read the woman’s words again. Then he closed the book.

  The kitchen was quiet. The lamp above him shed a pool of light. He could hear distant piano notes coming from Helen’s studio.

  Last night she had slept there. Venturing in this morning he’d found her sleeping, wrapped in blankets, a makeshift bed on the couch.

  A shadow to me now.

  The words echoed in his mind.

  This woman whom once I loved. Now there are tears. And silence.

  Chapter Eight

  I didn’t mean to sleep in the studio, Helen thought, as she folded blankets, lifted the blinds to let in the morning sun. It just kind of happened.

  Last night, there we were, sitting side by side on the sofa, watching television, I can’t even remember what it was, a game show? A kind of competition thing involving food, that’s what it was. I remember pouring wine, probably too much. I remember asking him, again, about that weird lunch yesterday, that Virginia woman. Why are you involved, I said, when what she needs is the police? And he just said what he’d said before, about being her priest… and so after that I got up and came in here, I told him I needed to tidy up before the week’s lessons. And then I sorted out some CDs and then I thought I should work through the Grade 8 barre music, and I put on the CD player.

  And for some reason the Board have chosen a long piece of Chopin for the Adage, the Lente con Gran Espressione, and it’s the music we had at that show, the first one where I ever had a real solo, Oh that crimson costume, and Xavier the director claimed to have fallen madly in love with Anton, even though it turned out he was living with someone else all along, that Welsh boy who worked in the zoo and knew all about lizards…

  Another life.

  Chad came to the first night. It was in those weeks before our wedding. I was so nervous, almost sick before I went on… And afterwards, he said, did it go OK? And I remember thinking, what an odd question, how could he not tell how well it had gone, how as soon as I took my first steps I had forgotten to be nervous, and the feeling in the music had led me…

  It had been jagged layers of dark red silk, the costume deliberately torn. It floated around me, as I did a turn, like that, a pirouette, arabesque…

  Chad had said, afterwards, I don’t know anything about it, you see. But –

  But what? I’d said.

  You were very beautiful, he’d said. ‘Graceful.’ And then he’d stood there, twisting his fingers together like he did when he was shy, still does sometimes, and talking about the word Grace, ‘like the word in the scriptures,’ he’d said, ‘a state of Grace, you see, a completeness with things, and that’s what it was like watching you dance…’

  She had looked up at him, at his awkwardness, his hesitancy. She had taken hold of his hands to still them, and her eyes had filled with tears.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ he’d asked her, concerned, and she hadn’t been able to reply, hadn’t found the words to say that it was the greatest praise she’d ever had. Instead, she’d smiled, and said, ‘I’m so glad I’m marrying you.’

  A jetee, pas de bouree. The feeling of the floating silk around her.

  And now, here I am. The same steps. The same tears in my eyes.

  She stopped, motionless in the sunlit studio.

  Chad’s gone out now. I don’t know where he’s gone.

  She switched off the music, opened the studio windows, huge sheets of glass with a view of the sea, she’d had them fitted specially. She pulled on her leggings, her pink leg-warmers, Anton always laughs at these, she thought, so very eighties… She pressed Play on the CD player, and resting one hand on the barre she began, and point and close and point and close and en seconde and close…

  We were full of hope, then, Chad and me. He seemed so strong, so capable. When my mother insisted, as she always did, that I visit without him, our first Christmas, ‘it’ll be back to normal, dear, just you and your sister,’ Chad had said, firmly, that they would have Christmas at home, in London, ‘we can invite your mother to visit us instead, the sights of Hackney will be a nice change from Wiltshire…’

  En cinquieme… and point and close, and point…

  When did that desert him, that strength? When did he cease to be dependable? When we lost the baby, what made him shrink and furl away, so that instead of being there with the right words, the right touch, a reassuring hug, he was absent, somehow, nowhere to be seen?

  Chad must have gone out early this morning, she thought. There was no sign of him at breakfast, although coffee had been made and there was a plate in the dishwasher…

  And demi-detourné, and point and close…

  A ring on the doorbell.

  Perhaps he went for a walk.

  Another ring.

  He must have keys.

  The bark of a dog.

  A dog?

  She went to the CD player, pressed STOP, hurried to the front door.

  A man was standing there. He had floppy blond hair, a well-cut beige raincoat. Beside him sat a dog, similarly coloured, the two of them giving a general impression of smiling sandy-haired-ness.

  ‘Hello,’ he said. ‘You must be his wife.’

  She stood there, aware of her leggings and leotard, and wondered what to say.

  ‘I mean, of course, shouldn’t assume,’ he went on, ‘please forget I said that…’ He ran his fingers through his hair. ‘Terribly rude of me, I always do it, no manners at all…’ He held out his hand. ‘Phelps,’ he said. ‘Liam Phelps. From the lab. Hoping to see your old man about poor old Tobias, gather he’s stepped in rather…’

  His head was on one side, and the dog, too, had one ear tilted. She smiled at the dog, then at the man, then shook the offered hand. ‘Helen,’ she said. ‘My husband’s out, but I don’t expect he’ll be long.’

  She led them into the kitchen, picking up her old cashmere cardigan from the back of a chair, throwing it round her shoulders. He sat down at the table with an expectant air, which was echoed, again, by the dog.

  She glanced down at him. ‘Does he… I mean, is he…?’

  ‘Just some water if you’ve got anything suitable, bowl or something, you know. We’ve had rather a long walk this morning, haven’t we Jonas-boy?’

  The dog gazed up at him and thumped his tail on the tiled floor.

  ‘A collie?’ she said.

  ‘Cross,’ he said. ‘Mongrel, really. But something Collie-ish in there. Rescue dog. Got fed up with living alone, thought I’d share my damage with someone similar.’ He laughed.

  The kitchen seemed brighter, somehow, warmer.

  ‘What about you?’ she asked him.

  He blinked at her. ‘What about me?’

  ‘I meant, coffee? A drink?’

  ‘Oh.’ He laughed again, and she laughed too. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Coffee. If it’s not too much trouble.’

  As she turned to fill the kettle, she saw that he had blushed pink. She wondered whether she had too.

  ‘Chopin,’ he said.

  She turned back to him. ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Your music. Just now. Back there…’ He tilted his head towards the studio.

  ‘Oh. Yes.’ She switched on the kettle, reached for two mugs.

  ‘The Gran Espressione. I’ve always liked it. Used to play a bit, when I was young.’

  ‘You’re still young,’ she said, turning back to face him, meeting his eyes.

  For a moment his gaze was fixed on hers. Then he shrugged, and she laughed, and turned away to find the cafetiere, ground coffee, milk from the fridge.

  ‘Awful cheek,’ he said, ‘turning up like this, asking for your old man, and now making myself at home, sitting at your table, drinking your coffee… it’s really very kind of you…’

  She pushed down the plunger of the cafetiere.

  ‘It’s Tobias, you see,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean to get involved, but Murdo was a good friend of mine, a great colleague at the lab… and now this awful bu
siness, it’s a shock for all of us, and Tobias is taking it badly, the job was wrong for him at the best of times, but – I don’t know if you’ve met Tobias?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I have.’ She found a plastic dish, poured water into it, placed it on the floor. The dog ignored it.

  ‘Well, you’ll know what I mean. He’s a swell chap, but – fragile. You know. And the work is distressing to him. And Virginia said that your husband had offered to help find him something else, and I suggested to her that we pop over there this morning, and she agreed. And given how bloody difficult she is at the best of times, I thought it was best to seize the moment, as it were…’

  ‘He was here yesterday. Tobias. They both were.’ She passed him a mug of coffee, pushed the milk across to him, sat down opposite him.

  ‘Here?’

  ‘My husband invited them to lunch.’

  ‘Oh.’ He glanced at her, then down at his mug. ‘Brave man.’

  ‘Tobias was talking about Nothingness,’ she said, ‘and gravity. He seemed very exercised by it. He said he argued with someone at the lab about it…’ She raised her eyes to him. ‘That wasn’t you, was it?’

  He shook his head. ‘No, that’s the Prof. Not me. I’m an underling.’ He smiled at her.

  ‘He didn’t seem very happy about this man.’

  ‘No. Alan is not the most, shall we say, empathetic of men. He makes no allowances.’ He took a sip of coffee. ‘The sooner we find Tobias something else to do, the better.’

  ‘He danced. Yesterday.’

  He frowned. ‘Who? Who danced?’

  ‘Tobias. He seems to know ballet.’

  ‘Ballet – you mean, a dancer like you?’

  ‘Yes.’ She met his eyes. ‘Like me.’

  His eyes were still on hers. She looked away, fiddled with her mug. ‘He’s quite good. You wouldn’t think so to look at him.’

  ‘No.’

  There was a silence. Liam stirred a spoon around in his coffee and she wondered whether she should have offered sugar.

  ‘And then there was a row,’ she said, ‘well, kind of, about that stupid old book.’

  ‘What book?’

  ‘Oh,’ she sighed. ‘Virginia gave it to us. I wish she hadn’t. It’s here somewhere…’ She stood up, lifted the book from the corner of the dresser, passed it to him.

  He leafed through the pages. She watched how he held it with care, how delicate his fingers were, more like an artist than a scientist, she was thinking, more like a dancer than someone who smashes atoms or whatever it was he did…’

  ‘What?’ He looked up.

  ‘I was just wondering whether smashing atoms takes brute force.’

  He laughed. ‘No,’ he said. ‘It means staring at screens. A lot. That’s all. That, and doing sums.’ He handed her the book. ‘It looks extremely interesting. It quotes Newton.’

  ‘Yes, that’s what Chad says. That’s why he’s so obsessed with it. I don’t know why Virginia gave it to him.’

  ‘Virginia – Virginia Maguire?’ His gaze was intense.

  ‘It belonged to her husband. She didn’t want it anymore.’

  ‘Murdo?’

  ‘It’s almost as if she knew that it was very him. I mean, my husband.’

  ‘Very him? And him a clergyman?’

  ‘Yes. These things are complicated.’

  ‘Clearly.’ He leaned back in his chair. ‘Of course, the quest to shed light on the workings of the universe might be seen to be religious. As Newton saw it. And a lot of his contemporaries.’

  ‘That’s what Chad says.’

  ‘Even now,’ he said. ‘Like Higgs Boson being called the God particle. Not that we call it that,’ he added.

  ‘And what is there to find now?’

  He hesitated. ‘Well, our work. Super-symmetry, you see. Dark matter, CP violation…’ He glanced up at her. ‘There’s a balance, between matter, and anti-matter. And for every particle that’s matter, there is its opposite. And the whole thing is held in balance. But – ’ he said the word emphatically - ‘the odd thing is, there is a tendency towards matter rather than anti-matter. Otherwise there might just as well be nothing. But there isn’t nothing. There’s Something. So, yes, it does raise questions of why matter should “be” rather than “not be”. However, personally, as a physicist, I don’t think you need God as a cause for it all.’

  ‘You explain it very well.’

  He gave a nod of his head. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘I think, for my husband,’ she began, then stopped.

  ‘Different ball game, isn’t it?’ He glanced at her. ‘I mean, sometimes, I suppose, I’m looking at the graphs and thinking, is this it, then? Is this how it looks, the One-ness of it all, the Hum of the Universe, the Great Vibration in the Silence that contains us all, even us tiny dots on a small planet at the edge of a minor galaxy…’ He was smiling now, a warm brown smile.

  ‘Go on,’ she said.

  ‘And then, I look at the graphs some more and I think, my job is to explain how, not why.’

  She sighed. ‘Whereas for Chad…’

  ‘Much more complicated for him, I’d say.’ He met her eyes. ‘I only have to do the maths.’ He picked up his mug and stared into it, then put it down. ‘Funny that Murdo had that book,’ he said. ‘Perhaps your husband understands it better, though.’

  ‘I don’t know where he is,’ she said.

  There was a silence in the room. Jonas the dog opened one eye, then closed it again.

  ‘Do you want more coffee?’ She stood up.

  ‘No, really, it’s fine.’

  She sat down again. She was aware of his eyes upon her as she gathered the mugs towards her. She could hear the rumble of the boiler as it clicked into life. Then a car, approaching, stopping, the bang of the car door, footsteps to the back door.

  ‘Here he is – ’ she began. Jonas sprang up and went to the door, glancing back at his master.

  ‘Ah – ’ came a voice. The door swung open, and Chad stood there. ‘There you are,’ he said. ‘And – ’

  ‘This is Mr. Phelps.’ She got to her feet. ‘Doctor Phelps – Professor - ?’ Her eyes were on Liam.

  He smiled. ‘Liam,’ he said. He was standing up, his arm outstretched towards Chad. ‘I said I’d come to talk about Tobias.’

  ‘Ah, yes, of course.’ Chad shook his hand, then bent to stroke the dog, who wagged his tail and then went to drink from the dish of water.

  ‘I’m already running late…’ Liam began. ‘I don’t want to drag you away, but – ’

  ‘That’s fine, that’s fine.’ Chad readjusted his coat, ready to go out again. ‘I had a meeting with the Archdeacon, went on a bit. Shall we go?’

  Chad glanced at Helen. She moved towards him, reached up to his collar, smoothed the lapels of his coat. It was a gesture that took them both by surprise.

  ‘We’ll go in my car,’ Liam said. ‘That way I can leave old Jonas in there. I’ve learnt from past experience not to bring him anywhere near Mrs. Maguire.’

  Helen bent to pat the dog. Chad took a step towards the door.

  ‘I have an idea,’ Liam was saying. ‘There’s a do at the lab this evening. A drinks thing. A sort of welcome to the new researchers. Why don’t you both come? Bit of a funny atmosphere there at the moment, of course…’ He stared at his feet. ‘Apart from this awful event, we seem to be a focus for hostility at the moment, and then there’s been some odd results, shall we say, all hush-hush at the moment…’ He looked up at them. ‘But we didn’t want to cancel it.’

  Chad glanced at Helen. She turned to Liam. ‘Thank you. We’d like to,’ she said.

  ‘Six-ish,’ he said, backing towards the door, his dog at his legs. ‘I’ll give your husband the details.’

  Chad squeezed her hand, then followed him out of the door. She heard their feet on the gravel path as they walked round the house to Liam’s car.

  She put the mugs in the dishwasher. She put the milk in the fridge.

/>   We never go to drinks ‘do’s, she thought.

  She touched her hand, where Chad’s had been.

  Something has changed, she thought.

  In her mind, she heard Liam’s voice. ‘Chopin,’ he’d said. ‘A dancer, like you.’

  She thought about the wide studio windows, the top one open, through which the music would have floated.

  He must have seen me at the barre. Before he rang the doorbell, he must have passed the studio.

  She sat down at the table. She placed her cool hands on her warm cheeks. Then she reached for Virginia’s book and began to read.

  In the cottage, Virginia waited. An odd sort of clergyman, she thought. But Tobias took to him. Didn’t even mind him taking that book away.

  Glad to get rid of it, she thought. That poor woman, mired in a web of particles and hauntings and grief.

  Not that anything is lighter now.

  I will not cry, she thought. All these years, I barely shed a tear. Not now.

  She stood up, rubbing her back, aware of a distant hum of a car engine.

  15th August, 1922

  ‘Still writing in your book? You’re just like your father.’ Gabriel picked up his fork. ‘I hope you’re not writing about the same things.’

  ‘No, dear. Just thoughts.’ Amelia passed him the dish of potatoes.

  ‘Your father with his Newton and his Mercuries. And his need for a Creator too…’

  Amelia poured gravy onto her meat.

  ‘Guy used to say he was out of his time, your father.’

  ‘Some of us still believe.’ She spoke quietly.

  He looked up. She saw his deep blue eyes, his shock of black hair, “Welsh looks,” Guy used to say, she was never sure what he meant, the Voakes had been a Kentish family for years…

  ‘You can believe if you want. If it helps.’

  ‘It does help,’ she said.

  ‘I’d rather have truth.’ He began to cut his meat into slices.

  ‘Guy used to say - ’ she began.

  ‘Guy? Don’t try to link your brother with your so-called faith.’