He’d laughed. ‘You can take on a missing person’s case if you want, Miss Killick.’
‘Her father is our main suspect.’
‘We’re doing all we can.’
‘Why didn’t you impound the dog?’
He’d sat, a silent sneer on his lips.
And then she’d realized. ‘She asked for me, didn’t she? And you wouldn’t admit I was off the case.’
The sneer had stayed, unchanged. He’d said nothing more, just waved towards the door.
Her car juddered to a halt outside her house.
She slammed her front door, threw down her bag on the shabby sofa.
Saturday night, she thought. A girl should be out partying.
Berenice twitched back the grey-ish net curtains and stared out at the street. The city lights seemed to vibrate with beats of music, the shrieks of girlish laughter.
And here I am, she thought, with only a book, a folder full of hate mail and a box of weird toys for company.
“The Philosopher’s stone is a fixed, subtle, concentrated fire which does these things. Men greater than I have explored its power. But what I know to be true, is that Fallen Man must rise again. He must be united to the Divine Light, from which by disobedience he was separated. A flash or tincture of this must come or he can no more discern things spiritually than he can distinguish colours naturally without the light of the sun.”
She closed the book.
No way, she thought. No way those guys at the lab would take this stuff seriously.
So, what were they fighting over? What was it about the sale of the Voake house, that led them one by one to Hank’s Tower?
And as for the way that boy today was looking at the vicar’s wife…
I nearly said to her, Don’t do it girlfriend. I’ve seen enough in my time, not scientists, mind you, crime reporters, but still, I can tell a cheat when I see one.
Although, that Liam, maybe not a cheat exactly. Just a man.
She plumped the tired velvet cushions on the worn sofa.
But what do I know? A cheating hack might be better than nothing.
But then she remembered. She remembered the silences, the unanswered texts, phone calls going to voice mail. The sudden flights from her flat, pulling on of clothes, mumbled excuses, parents evenings, ‘got to be there, she’ll be suspicious otherwise’… Hopes raised, hopes dashed. Hopes so trampled underfoot that they turned to – what? To rage, certainly. Hatred, perhaps. Cynicism too.
And in the end, came that day on the doorstep, refusing to let him in, telling him his wife was welcome to him, throwing all his clothes out into the street, into the rain, a cliché, sure, but God it was fun…
The affair, once the solid core of her life, had drifted to the edges, had become as easy to discard as bubble wrap.
And now here I am, with only long dead madmen for company. In the hope that they’ll lead me to a killer.
She yawned, went to the kitchen, put on a kettle, opened cupboards in search of peppermint tea.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Sunday lunch, Helen thought. Cooking for my husband. Normal life.
Perhaps everything’s going to be all right.
The night before, Chad had come back late. ‘The road was up,’ he’d said. ‘Had to drive around the long way.’ He’d talked about stone carvings in a church, a Green Man. ‘I know that church,’ she’d said. ‘Out on the marshes? St Bruin’s. I passed it once…’ but he’d hardly looked at her.
After a while she’d gone to bed. She had lain awake, sleepless, hearing him typing downstairs.
She tossed potatoes with salt and rosemary. If this is normal life, she thought, why do I feel so afraid?
Berenice checked the address again. She knocked on the brass lion’s head on the red-painted door.
The door opened and Elizabeth stood there.
‘Detective Inspector Killick,’ Berenice said.
‘Oh,’ Elizabeth said. ‘Thank goodness.’
She led the way through the black-and-white tiled hall.
‘Please take her away,’ she said.
The dog was curled up on a newly-upholstered antique chair.
‘I don’t know why I agreed to keep her,’ Elizabeth was saying, ‘but your underling was so reluctant… Do sit down.’
‘My underling,’ Berenice said, and smiled.
The room had pale walls, white window blinds. In the stripped, clean fireplace stood an abstract bronze sculpture.
Elizabeth took a seat on the sofa, which was large and maroon and matched the thick rug that almost covered the polished wooden floor. She eyed the dog again.
Berenice saw the well-cut trousers, the camel cashmere sweater, the slick of lipstick.
The droopy wife, she thought.
She settled on another antique chair. ‘So, you found the dog – ’
‘Yes. And this.’ Elizabeth held out the hair band in its plastic bag. ‘It’s Lisa’s. Helen was sure of it.’
Berenice noticed the odd mixed accent, the hint of American with a slight Italian lilt.
‘We were at the old house. The Voake house. We were looking for Lisa.’
‘But she wasn’t there. Just the dog.’
Elizabeth nodded.
‘So - ’ Berenice leaned back on her chair. ‘What do you know about Clem Voake? Apart from the fact he seems to be running a gun racket from the edge of your lab?’
‘Very little. His family and mine are distantly connected.’
‘Would he have a grudge against the lab?’
Elizabeth frowned. ‘He seems to have. If we assume it was him writing those notes. And Alan, our chief, bought the Voake land from under him. But it was never his, he just thought that Digby would leave it to him. God knows why he wanted it, you’ve seen the house, it’s a wreck.’
Berenice nodded at her. ‘And the book?’
Elizabeth sighed. ‘The book.’
‘It has your surname in it. Johann van Mielen, it says. Your maiden name.’
Elizabeth smiled at her. ‘It turns out, I came home. Without even realizing it. Or maybe, there aren’t that many places to do physics. Johann’s cousin came over to the States, before the First World War, and his offspring produced my father.’
‘How did you end up with the book?’
‘Amelia must have passed it on to our lot, somehow.’
‘And the Voakes? Gabriel, in the book? And Clem?’
Elizabeth sighed. ‘I wish I knew more. Ask Neil, he knows more about my family history than I do.’
Berenice met her eyes. ‘Why did the book end up with Virginia?’
‘It was of no interest to me,’ Elizabeth said. ‘Some weird pseudo-scientific ramblings from a distant ancestor.’
‘And it was interesting to her?’
‘To Murdo,’ Elizabeth said. ‘A gift,’ she added. ‘From me to him. He loved that book.’ She gave a brief, soft smile.
‘She was keen to get rid of it, Chad said.’
Elizabeth’s gaze was even. ‘I’m not at all surprised.’
On her luxury chair, the dog stirred, stretched, settled again.
‘Dr Merletti,’ Berenice began. ‘Your relationship with Murdo… and Iain…’
‘We were friends. The three of us.’
‘You used to go to Hank’s Tower.’
Elizabeth smiled. ‘We did, yes. We’d take wine, look out to sea, watch the sunset…’
‘Why Hank’s Tower?’
‘Why not? And anyway, we had a joke, about the old tunnel there, how we could set up our own private collider.’
‘What old tunnel?’
Elizabeth looked at her. ‘It’s mentioned in the book, those pages at the back, Amelia’s ones.’
‘I haven’t seen those.’
‘Ah.’
‘Am I missing anything?’ Berenice threw her a look.
‘Just the pain of an unhappy woman. And maybe a map, though I think that was lost.’
‘A map?’
‘Amelia’s husband made this tunnel, supposedly. And he left a map. It was said to have an entrance underneath Hank’s Tower. We never found it. I guess it was flooded years ago.’
Berenice glanced at the bronze shape in the fireplace. It looked vaguely humanoid. A skull? she wondered. ‘Dr Merletti – these terrible events at the lab… do you have any idea what might be the cause?’
Elizabeth shook her head. ‘Alan Moffatt was an angry man. He’d take dislikes to people. Me, for example. There were grudges, certainly. But the others…’ Her face clouded. She shook her head.
‘Do you feel endangered?’
‘No more than anyone else. In fact, probably less. Whoever’s doing this, if he’s going for physicists, he might think they’re all men. It’s a common mistake.’
‘Yes, like Detective Inspectors. They’re always men too.’
Elizabeth gave a thin smile.
‘Was Murdo happy, in those days?’ Berenice asked.
Elizabeth gazed towards the windows. ‘We were happy, yes.’
‘But he was married. With a son – ’
‘No. No son. Not in those days. Jacob came along later. Murdo was so sure he was infertile…’ Her words tailed away.
A miracle child. Berenice remembered what Virginia had said.
‘Ghosts,’ Elizabeth said, suddenly. ‘This case is full of them. Peppered with them.’ She looked at Berenice. ‘Although, I expect you police, with your rationality, your quest for evidence…’
‘Ghosts?’ Berenice said.
‘There’s an old soldier. A wounded soldier. He walks the lab. Loads of people have seen him.’
‘Aren’t you rational too, you physicists?’
Elizabeth sighed. ‘We’re going through terrible times,’ she said. ‘The Voake family… Amelia had great loss in her life. She had a daughter who died too, a little girl. Neil says there’s a grave in a funny old church, up on the marshes.’ She sighed. ‘It’s the past, you see. The shadows it casts. It’s like the book. For Johann, it’s about purity, but spiritual purity. If you’re aiming to turn lead into gold, you have to be a certain kind of person. But then later, for Gabriel, it’s still about purity. The Aether, the fifth essence,’ she said. ‘The truth beyond which there is nothing more to say. And even for us, trying to balance matter with anti-matter…’ She gazed, unseeing, at the floor.
‘This ghost,’ Berenice prompted.
Elizabeth met her eyes. ‘I think he’s Amelia’s brother, Guy. He was best friends with her husband, Gabriel. He was a physicist too, involved with the aether experiment. Until he died in the War.’
‘And why should he be an unquiet spirit?’ Berenice asked.
Elizabeth shook her head. ‘I don’t know.
She looked up at Berenice. ‘You must think I’m mad.’
‘No,’ Berenice said. ‘I had a brother who died. I know about hauntings.’
A quiet drizzle spattered the windows.
Elizabeth’s eyes welled with tears. ‘I loved them both, you see. Can you understand that?’
Berenice gave a small nod.
‘For many women… I might seem unnatural…’ Elizabeth twisted her manicured fingers together.
‘I wouldn’t dream of judging – ’
‘ - but Murdo was the love of my life. And yet, in the end, I lost him.’ She stretched out her legs, re-crossed them. ‘What I’ve learned in this, is that it’s always the Wife who wins. Always. Anyone who thinks otherwise is deluding herself.’ She smiled, wearily. ‘When you people allow us a funeral, she will be his widow. She will have the rightful place.’ She dabbed at her eyes.
The dog began to whimper.
‘You’d better take her away,’ Elizabeth said. ‘I’ve run out of steak.’
His feet on the pulpit steps seemed to echo through the church. Chad, ordering the notes for his sermon, took in the sparse congregation. Joyce Benfield, with her sister - Lilian, was it, he had been told once… And Mrs. Lynch, arms folded, as if already anticipating a point of theology with which she was bound to disagree.
Chad glanced down at his typed-out words. This had all made sense, very late last night, as he’d worked through his ideas.
‘“ And Jesus took the Blind Man by the hand and led him out of the town; and when he had spit on his eyes, and put his hands up on him, he asked him if he saw anything. And the blind man looked up and said, ‘I see men like trees, walking.”’
He’d sat downstairs, at the kitchen table, in the silent house, his wife, sleepless, he knew, upstairs, and he’d trawled the sacred texts for healing, for a miracle.
‘In Biblical times,’ he began, facing the congregation, ‘being ill was also about being unclean, being spiritually exiled in some way. Not something that can be cured by a couple of aspirin…’
The arms folded themselves more tightly.
‘When we hear these ancient tales, we have to remember that this is a different way of telling a story. The distinction about what’s true, and what’s false, falls away. There is a blurring of fact and fiction.’
The two Benfield sisters glanced at each other.
‘A man with leprosy can be cured with the right words. A woman troubled by demons can have them dismissed. It’s important – ’ he raised his head, surveyed them all – ‘it’s important to be open to the possibility of these stories.’
His words filled the church. The thoughts of the congregation too, whispered between the pillars of stone… if it’s a three pound bird it better be put in the oven as soon as I get back… Perhaps it should have been an each-way bet on the Kempton Park two-thirty… Mother does hate lunch being late… Look at that damp wall, I don’t suppose we’ll ever get the funds to fix it now Robinson’s gone…
Chad came to the last page. A brief burst of sunlight through the stained glass. His audience seemed to fade beyond the wash of colour. He spoke again.
‘…and to finish, I would say, that whatever the story is, it is nothing, without Love. That is the message of the Gospels, and it is as true now as it was then.’
Chad folded up his notes, and descended the pulpit steps.
‘Dad – ’ Lisa’s voice shook with fear.
‘What is it?’ He was hunched over a pistol, polishing it.
‘Dad – you’ve got to let us out of here.’
‘We’ll be OK, you and me. We’ll be OK.’ His fingers moved feverishly to and fro.
‘Dad – you’ve been doing that for hours.’
He looked up, blankly. He went back to the polishing.
‘We’ve run out of water.’
‘There’s lots of water.’
She looked at the rising puddles of sea water at their feet.’
‘I’m hungry, Dad.’
‘When it’s safe, we’ll go. When it’s safe…’
‘And when’s that, Dad?’
Again, the blank look.
She could hear the wind rattling the rotten wood above them. She could hear the rhythmic swishing of the waves.
And the faint barking of a dog.
She strained to listen. Was that really her?
No. No dog. A moment of hope faded to despair. Lisa imagined her dog, circling, barking, sniffing at the blocked door. And even if she did come back, what good is that? She’d be out there, loyally standing at her post, waiting for her mistress.
When we drown, she’ll drown with us.
Berenice allowed her car to roll to a stop. Rain hammered on the roof, on the windscreen. The ruined tower was black against the dark grey sea.
‘… that the great flood will wash all clean…’
Was that what he’d said, the author of the book. Water, the purifier, and yet also the destroyer.
And here I am, she thought, looking out to sea, facing the flood. With a missing girl, a father who’s killed. And with only a dog to help me.
What am I doing?
Elizabeth had been effusive in her thanks, ‘I so appreciate you taking her, she’s called Tazer, by
the way, yes I know, that’s Lisa for you…’
An odd woman. Something so detached about her. Perhaps that’s what you need if you’re smashing particles for a living.
An outsider, in a way.
Perhaps they say the same of me.
Certainly now. I used to head a team. I used to have Mary at my side. And now…
She turned to look at the dog, who sat, waiting, breathing.
‘Now there’s just me and you, kid.’
The dog eyed her.
The book was on the seat next to her. She brushed the leather cover with her fingertips.
‘There’s something about all this, you see, Tazer. What a crap name for a dog. And a girl dog at that…’ The dog panted, her head on one side. ‘Something that woman wasn’t saying. Or am I going mad? Does this book drive you mad, maybe? So that you end up chasing the book. And in the end, you’re here, at Hank’s Tower. And dead.’ She stared out at the tower, blurred by the rain.
A need for revenge, she thought. Like the hate mail, with its determination that the flood would come and wash us from our sins…
Something buried, some deep wrong, emerging into the light.
Murdo ended up with the book, because of Elizabeth.
And Alan…
Alan bought the land.
She flicked through the pages.
‘…the Tree of Life, the Lord emerging from the Tree, the first Adam and the last. Who can say, I am worthy of this knowledge….’ ‘Entelechia… whereby matter comes to be the thing in itself…’ ‘One drop of baptismal water may be equal to the flood of Noah in washing clean our sins. At that moment does the man stand on the threshold, where there is no time, no God, where the moment endures forever.’
She closed the book. She stared at the angry sea, the driving rain. She turned to the dog.
‘Come on, kid, let’s get wet.’
She got out of the car. She picked the hair-band out of its wrapper, and gave it to Tazer.
Tazer sniffed at it. She jumped down from the car, still sniffing. She began to circle, her nose in the sand, then, barking loudly, headed for Hank’s Tower.
Lisa heard it first, the barking of a dog.
It’s Taze, she thought. They’ve found us.
Dying to Know (A Detective Inspector Berenice Killick Mystery) Page 26