Dying to Know (A Detective Inspector Berenice Killick Mystery)

by Alison Joseph

  His knife was sharp, tearing at the meat. The noise of the blade against the plate was loud. She wanted to put her hands over her ears.

  ‘It’s not so-called.’

  He looked up. ‘What?’

  ‘My faith,’ she said. ‘It’s not so-called. It’s real.’

  ‘If you say so.’

  ‘I do say so. And Guy believed too. He was baptized, confirmed, just as I was, we made our promises together…’

  ‘Oh, and he’s in Heaven now, is he?’

  She bit her lip. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I believe that he is with our Lord.’

  The noise of his knife resumed, tearing the meat to strips under savage blows.

  ‘Well, you’re wrong,’ he said.

  ‘How can you – ’

  ‘How can I be so sure? I’ll tell you how. In those last hours, did he cry to your God? No, he did not. In those last hours, lying in the mud, the life draining out of him, surrounded by the wreckage of battle, the screams of the dying, the stench of flesh… ’ The knife clattered on the plate. ‘Where was your God then? An empty promise of Heaven when we were all in Hell.’

  ‘Hush, Gabriel, please…’

  ‘What do you know of it? Were you there, when we called for help and no one came? The light going out of his eyes, and I’m pleading with him to stay with us, stay with me…’

  ‘Gabriel, please dear…’

  ‘Where was your God then?’ His eyes flashed with rage.

  ‘Hush, please, think of Grace - ’ she could hear the light footsteps of their daughter in the hall.

  ‘Grace - ’ His face was blank.

  She knew these times, when his mind was elsewhere, attending to other sights, other places.

  ‘Guy,’ he said.

  ‘Guy is my brother.’ Was, she corrected herself.

  His eyes stared at her unseeing. He frowned, appeared to focus, nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Your brother.’

  The door opened, the handle tugged down with difficulty by small fingers. ‘Naddle said you’d have finished I could come now, can I mummy, can I?’

  Amelia wrapped her arms around her daughter, lifted her onto her lap, buried her lips in the blonde curls.

  Opposite her, Gabriel sat, frozen, staring still at unseen horror.

  Chapter Nine

  Chad stooped to get through the door, as Virginia stood to one side to let both men in.

  ‘I thought you weren’t coming,’ she said. She was in black, black skirt, black jumper.

  They followed her into the living room.

  ‘The Archdeacon,’ Liam said. ‘The Reverend was delayed.’ He smiled, but her face remained expressionless. ‘Is Tobias here?’ he asked.

  She shook her head.

  ‘Shame,’ Liam said. ‘I like to catch up with him when I get the chance.’

  ‘He’s off with his tutor,’ she said. ‘Once a week, I can still afford it while he’s earning. After that…’ She shook her head. She turned to Chad, and reached her arm out towards him. ‘Can I take that?’

  Chad was standing in the middle of the room, his coat slung over his arm. He looked down at her as she took the coat, watched her as she went to hang it up. She seemed dwarfed by her clothes, her sleeves hanging over her fingertips. She sat on the edge of an armchair.

  He felt his way to the sofa and took one end of it. Liam took the other.

  To the surprise of both men, Virginia burst into tears. ‘They’ve been here again,’ she said. She put her hands up to her face. ‘Coppers. Can’t bear them…’ Her words were swallowed up in sobbing.

  Neither man moved. They sat, side by side on the sofa, their hands on their laps.

  ‘I can’t answer them, can I?’ Virginia looked up. ‘Anyone would think it was me who’d killed him, the way they go on.’ She sniffed, dabbed at her cheeks with her fingers. ‘That detective sergeant, the one who came the first time, saying his name was Ben as if we’re best friends… He had a different girl with him, Ashcroft or something, she was just as bad.’ She fiddled in her pocket and produced a handkerchief. ‘And now they’re saying they want me to come in, they kept asking me about Jacob, it was years ago now, why did they have to bring that up, it’s not as if I don’t think about him all the time, I loved that boy more than my own life…’ Her eyes welled with tears again, and she dabbed at them with her handkerchief.

  ‘Why – ’ Chad glanced at Liam, then went on, ‘why do they want to question you?’

  ‘The police?’ She looked up at him. ‘I’ve no idea. The cheek of it, that policeman asking me about the state of my marriage, I told him it was none of their business. That’s when he said I might have to come in for questioning. Then I said, why are wasting your time with me, why aren’t you out there looking for a real murderer, if murdered he was?’

  ‘What did they say?’ Liam’s voice was soft from his corner of the sofa.

  ‘The girl said they wanted to help. As if that’s helping. Then she told me about his injuries, a blow over the head at the top of the tower there, and then whoever did it pushed and he fell. They’re up there now, looking for fingerprints or whatever they do these days. And she said her boss wants me to come in tomorrow, in the morning, that’s why I wanted you two here, it’s going to upset him so much, he needs us all on his side, he’s not himself at the moment as it is, and seeing me carted off by the Law isn’t going to help.’

  ‘No one’s going to cart you off,’ Chad said. ‘They want to interview you, that’s all. It’ll be quite straight-forward, they’ll just need a statement – ’

  ‘So I told them you’d be with me, tomorrow,’ she said. ‘I said, I’m bringing my priest.’

  A look passed between them. ‘OK,’ Chad said.

  There was a silence. ‘They’ll be wanting to talk to us at the lab too,’ Liam said.

  ‘And that’s another thing.’ She addressed Liam. ‘I told them, they’re not to go near Tom, he’s got nothing to do with this and he’s upset enough as it, I’m worried I’m going to lose him altogether…’

  ‘I’ve been meaning to say this.’ Liam leaned towards her. ‘I think he should leave that job. I don’t think it’s doing him any good. I’m going to talk to the Prof about finding him something more appropriate. He shouldn’t be near the experiments.’

  ‘But the money – ’

  ‘The library need someone to sort out the journals, he could do that.’

  ‘He’d like that,’ Virginia said.

  There was a clatter of the cat flap from the kitchen.

  ‘Ooh, that new moon.’ Virginia turned to greet her. ‘You’re in and out all the time today, aren’t you poppet?’ The cat eyed her, then went to sniff at her food bowls.

  ‘I miss him.’ Liam spoke abruptly. ‘Murdo. I can’t believe he’s gone. On research trips there’s e-mail, skype… but this… It’s so final, isn’t it.’

  ‘And yet it’s only just begun,’ Chad said.

  Virginia sat, poised and motionless on the arm of the chair. The sunlight fell across the faded upholstery, touching the worn roses briefly into life. The cat approached, and Virginia bent and gathered her on to her lap.

  Helen flicked through the thick, yellowing pages.

  “What we know, is that Gravity, whatever it may be, is not innate to matter. The actions that we describe as Gravity, must be caused by an agent acting according to certain laws. If the word for such an agent is God, then so be it. After the devastation of War, we are ready for a new story, a story of light and truth and courage, where the Beginnings of All shall be accounted for and the Stuff of Matter truly described. It is in Chaos that order is restored. We who have survived, we must face the Chaos in order to reveal the truth…”

  Helen closed the book. She ran her finger over the worn leather edges of the cover, over the name, Johann Van Mielen. She put the book down, picked up her wrap from the back of her chair and gathered it around her.

  Chad must have read these same words, she thought.

  She went t
o the dishwasher, filled it with stray mugs. Irish, she thought. Liam’s hint of an accent. Southern Irish, she thought. Not Belfast. I must ask him next time.

  Later today.

  She felt her body clench in anticipation. She wondered what to wear. She wondered whether her black crepe dress was too smart. She wondered what physicists usually wore at drinks dos. She imagined them in cardigans, patched corduroy.

  This strange, nervous feeling. Familiar, and yet so long since she’d last felt it. Enjoyable, and yet…

  The black crepe dress it would be. Flat shoes maybe, rather than heels. A concession to the dowdy physicists.

  There was a loud knocking at the front door. She slipped her feet into her slippers and went to answer it.

  At first she didn’t recognize him, away from the noise and bare plaster of the Centre.

  ‘Finn,’ she said, at last.

  He gave her a wide smile. ‘Didn’t know who I was, did you?’ He wore a large striped woollen hat, low-slung jeans.

  She stepped aside, and he walked into her hallway.

  He’d been here before. On the way, he’d almost turned back, reluctant to step back into those dark, wood-panelled corners, that smell of damp. But she was right, Lisa was, he couldn’t keep hiding. He’d walked along the sea front, thinking about her stuck with her Dad, it’s like what Matthew at the Archway says, live each day like it’s your last, or some shit like that, because it ain’t my last, not if I can help it…

  And now he was here, being led into a room with light and colour and paintings and she was gesturing to him to sit down.

  ‘You’ve changed it,’ he said.

  ‘You know it? The vicarage?’

  He nodded. ‘One of the things my Mum tried. Didn’t work though.’

  He sprawled on a chair. ‘Lise said it was like what I always do, trash any chance that comes my way. So I was thinking, and that’s why I’m here.’

  Helen smiled at him. ‘She said that?’

  He folded his arms across his chest. ‘Yeah. It’s like ballet, right?’ he said. ‘Like when you first see it, you think what is this shit, know what I mean, but then when you watch it close you can see them all muscle-y, even the girls, and, man, that control what he has, like that bit when he does all them jumps right round the stage, and he lands just where he wants to land, like on his tip-toe…’ He flashed her a smile. ‘And that’s how it started, cos Lise said if I’m going to spent all my days watching it I might as well be dancing it, innit.’

  ‘Watching it where?’

  ‘Just on the net, you know. YouTube and thing.’

  ‘Finn,’ Helen said. ‘You’re very welcome in my class. But as a dancer. Not as someone sitting in the corner.’

  He nodded. ‘That’s what Lise said. About me sitting in the corner of my life.’ He smiled at her. ‘Have you got anything to eat?’

  She appeared with a plate of biscuits. He took one, then said, ‘Tobias were here, weren’t he?’

  ‘Tobias?’ She nodded. ‘Yes. He was.’

  ‘With his aunt.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said.

  ‘I see him up Hanks Tower. I say to him, All right? And he say, All right. And then we talk. I seen him last night up there, and he tells me he was here. He said you were safe, you and your old man. Told me all what you had for dinner too.’ He laughed.

  She reached for a biscuit and broke off a small piece. ‘Did Tobias tell you he did ballet?’

  ‘He did? Him do ballet? Like what, he had to play the Giant or something?’

  She smiled. ‘They did it at his school. He learned it then. And he said his mother was a dancer.’

  Finn frowned at the biscuit plate. Then he looked up. ‘He weren’t right, you know? Tobias. He was chatting stuff, about falling from the tower. And I said, what, like jumping off, you don’t want to try that Tom, I said to him, them of us that ain’t Angels, how we going to fly - like a joke, right? And he said, you could kill someone from up here, he said. Like really serious, you know? Went on about gravity. Went on about pushing someone off the tower, and all the forces that would make someone fall from there.’

  Helen broke off another piece of biscuit and began to eat it.

  Finn watched her. ‘The guy they found. On the beach. Tom’s step-dad, sort of, isn’t he? That’s what it is with him, with Tom. Reckon he know something about all that. And it gnawing away at him. I told him, don’t go thinking about that shit. Just because there’s death walking the streets out there, don’t mean those of us what’s alive have to go and walk with him too. Know what I’m saying, Miss?’

  ‘My name’s Helen.’

  He met her eyes. He nodded. ‘Helen,’ he said.

  ‘What do you know of death?’ she said.

  He shrugged. ‘This and that.’ He sighed. ‘People I know, them die young.’

  ‘You’ve lost friends?’

  He shrugged.

  Helen broke off another piece of biscuit.

  ‘Lisa, right?’ He scratched at his head. ‘Didn’t know who to ask.’

  ‘What about her?’

  ‘Her Mum kicked her out ‘cos her new boyfriend don’t like her, innit. He says Lisa is trouble, which she is, but that ain’t no reason to come between a mother and her daughter, know what I’m saying? So that’s why I’ve come. Cos Lise said I had to sort out my life before I sort out anyone else’s, even though there she is stuck with her dad and he’s weird, right? She said no one could help, and last night I was out all night, walking and thinking, that’s what I do, I go up the Canterbury Road and I walk and think and what came into my mind was you.’

  ‘I don’t know what I can do,’ she said.

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘I mean, I could ask Social Services, I suppose…’

  He began to laugh. ‘Yeah, right.’

  ‘We haven’t been here long, we don’t know…’

  ‘Funny, isn’t it.’ He got to his feet. ‘All this.’ He waved his arm around the room. ‘All yellow and light and stuff, but it might just as well be the same old place I came to with my Mum all them years ago.’

  He was heading out to the hall, and she followed him.

  ‘Finn – I’m just a dance teacher.’

  He stood on the doorstep. ‘Well, you think about it. That’s the deal. I’ll stop sitting in the corner, and you think about it. OK?’

  ‘OK,’ she said.

  He held out his hand. ‘See you in class next week, yeah?’

  ‘See you then,’ she said, taking his hand.

  She watched him saunter away from her out onto the road. He didn’t look back.

  The black crepe dress was laid out on the large double bed. Helen moved around the room, gathering up a scarf here, a necklace there. She reached her dressing table, settled in front of the mirror.

  Face cream, foundation, powder compact. She felt a sudden weariness as she picked up her eye pencil. Her reflection stared back at her. Who is this for, she wondered. For him? For me?

  Words brushed against her mind, her mother’s voice, sniping away in the background… ‘Once you’re a wife, it’s all about making an effort, and even then you can’t count on him taking the blindest bit of notice…’

  Helen drew a firm line of black against her eyelid.

  She wondered where Chad had got to. She was aware, as she painted the other eye, of an image of Virginia, so pale, and fretful, and vulnerable, holding out that book to him, and then, as he reached out to the soft leather and the gold leaf, she would reel him in, Helen thought, and he, lost in the delight of the dusty pages, wouldn’t even see…

  She brushed mascara onto her eye-lashes.

  All nonsense, of course. She isn’t the type.

  And now this. Finn, coming here, asking for… for what, exactly? This glimpse of another life beyond the confines of the vicarage, beyond Chad’s straggling congregation of old ladies. Finn, of no fixed abode, Lisa, trapped with her weird father. And, Tobias… If what Finn says is true, we have to talk to Virgin
ia about it. If Tobias really knows more about Murdo’s death, people must be told…

  Virginia hovered, pale and predatory.

  She picked up her favourite lipstick, film-star red. She turned it in her hands, thinking about patched corduroy. Perhaps just a subtle neutral lip gloss…

  She thought of Liam in his linen shirt, his careless, thrown-together look, sipping coffee at her kitchen table, talking about the One-ness, the Hum of the Universe, the pictures on the graphs, matter and anti-matter, so clever, so warm, so alive…

  In an hour I’ll see him.

  Downstairs, the door slammed, Chad’s voice called her name.

  ‘I’m here, love,’ she called back. ‘Just getting ready.’

  She put down the red lipstick, applied a thin coat of lip gloss. She slipped her feet into her flat, black shoes.

  We will go together, Chad and I. A married couple, as one out in the world. We will go together.

  Chapter Ten

  The wind buffeted the bricks around her. Berenice pulled her scarf tighter around her neck as she ascended the last few steps of the tower.

  ‘Afternoon, Ma’am…’

  Berenice nodded a greeting at the Scene of Crime Officer, tried to remember his name, a detective constable, wasn’t he…

  ‘DC Dexter Jones,’ the young man said.

  ‘Yes, of course. How’s it going?’

  He gestured around him, as if the gathering clouds and the waves crashing beneath somehow held the truth.

  ‘Does the tide come high up?’ she asked him.

  He shook his head. ‘This is as high as it gets.’

  She peered over the cracked bricks. ‘What’s it for, then, this tower?’

  He shrugged. ‘No one knows. It’s old,’ he said.

  ‘I can see that.’

  ‘Not safe,’ he added.

  He came and stood next to her. He looked younger close-up, with his shorn afro hair, his wide, trainer-clad feet.

  ‘What you looking at?’ He turned to her.

  ‘Nothing.’ She gazed out to sea again.

  ‘I can wear trainers if I want,’ he said.