Dreaming of the Bones (29 page)

“That’s why his name sounded familiar,” said Kincaid. “I’d been trying to place it. My mother’s quite fond of his books, but I’ve never read one myself.”

“They’re very enjoyable—witty and well informed, if not always kind. And I personally have never been able to see why anything which encourages people to read, be it biography or criticism couched in terms a layman can understand, should be considered
an embarrassment to the study of English literature.” For a moment, as Iris Winslow spoke, he had seen the truth of the resemblance between this large, plain woman and his former wife.

Then Dr. Winslow rubbed at her forehead with blunt fingers and added wearily, “But the battle against elitism is a losing proposition, and I’m hanging up my sword. I’m going to sit in my garden and learn to enjoy books again—that was, after all, what brought me here in the first place.”

“Are you feeling all right, Professor?” asked Kincaid, as she grimaced and continued to apply pressure to her forehead.

“It’s just this damnable headache.” She lowered her hand and gave him a strained smile. “Since Tuesday. Hasn’t let up.”

“You’ve been too kind to let me take so much of your time, especially when you weren’t well,” he said, preparing to rise. “But if you don’t mind, I have one more question.”

She gave a nod of permission and waited, watching him intently.

“Did you notice anything unusual about Vic on Tuesday?”

Her lips tightened in an expression of regret. “I only saw her in the morning, I’m afraid. We had a brief talk about some faculty business, then I had an appointment for lunch, and afterwards a meeting at Newnham. But she seemed perfectly all right then.” Moving restlessly, she clasped her hands together on her desktop. “Of course now I wish I’d come back here after lunch, as illogical as such a desire is. It wouldn’t have changed anything, and I’d not have had the foreknowledge to say good-bye.”

As Kincaid stood up, he looked round her office. Every available inch of wall space held bookshelves. The volumes overflowed onto desk and table, had even crept onto the extra chairs placed against the far wall, and the room had the faint musty smell of old paper and bindings. He waved a hand in a vague gesture towards the books. “If we humans were ever as logical as we’d like to believe, I doubt literature would have got very far, don’t you, Professor?”

What he didn’t say was that he was just as guilty of human frailty as she—he wished the same futile wish, that he’d seen Vic just once more.

*   *   *

Alone in the reception area, Kincaid realized he’d forgotten to ask which office belonged to Darcy Eliot. He checked the other ground-floor doors, looking for Eliot’s nameplate, then started up the stairs.

He found it on the second floor, across the corridor from Vic’s.

A knock on the door brought a grumbled, “You’re bloody early, Matthews.” Kincaid opened the door and looked round it. Darcy Eliot sat half turned away from the door, a sheaf of papers in his hand. Without looking up, he said, “Why do you suppose God invented the watch, Matthews? Do you suppose he meant that man should be punctual, which by definition means arriving at a designated place neither early nor late?”

“I’ll be sure to ask him next time we meet,” said Kincaid, amused.

Eliot swiveled round with a start and frowned at Kincaid. “You’re not Matthews. For which you should probably be grateful. He’s a pimply little brute, and not likely to impress the world with his intellectual prowess. But I’m sure I know you—” His face lit in recognition. “You’re Victoria McClellan’s former policeman. Or is it former husband, still a policeman?”

“The latter, I’m afraid.” Kincaid indicated a chair. “May I?”

“Please do,” said Eliot. “And forgive my flippancy. Old habits and all that, but it is rather inappropriate under the circumstances.”

“Dr. Winslow’s just been telling me that you had a habit of disagreeing with Vic,” Kincaid said, deciding on the direct approach.

Eliot laced his fingers over his canary yellow waistcoat and leaned back in his chair. “And took great pleasure in it. In fact, my days seem quite surprisingly empty without the anticipation of our little sparring matches.” He frowned, drawing together his heavy, springing brows. “That may seem odd to you, Mr.—”

“Kincaid.”

“—Mr. Kincaid, but I assure you it meant a great deal to me. Victoria and I were the lone occupants of the aerie, as we liked to call this floor. I could have moved into one of the larger, ground-floor offices years ago, by right of seniority, but I found I’d settled in here, and the very idea of a change became almost as daunting as moving house. But I am not solitary by nature, and the coming of fair Victoria
did much to relieve my sense of being incarcerated in the proverbial ivory tower.”

Kincaid thought that if Iris Winslow remained set on retiring, Darcy Eliot might be contemplating a move after all, but he could see why he’d become attached to the space. It was a pleasant room, graced with a dormer window looking north, lined with glass-fronted bookcases, and above the shelves a series of framed satirical prints was arranged on the pale gold walls. A pipe rack filled with several expensive-looking pipes sat atop one of the cases, but Kincaid had noticed no odor of tobacco.

Following his glance, Eliot said, “Had to give it up a few years back—the first intimations of mortality—but I couldn’t quite bring myself to dispose of the pipes. They add quite the professorial touch, don’t you think?”

“Undoubtedly. And your students probably appreciate your
not
smoking them.”

Eliot smiled. “As did Victoria. I still indulged when she first came, and we had no end of rows about it.”

Kincaid wondered how Vic, whom he had always thought of as disliking confrontation, had adapted to daily contact with a man who so obviously enjoyed stirring things up. “What did you find to argue about after that?” he asked. “Dr. Winslow said you were opposed to the biography Vic was writing.”

“I wasn’t opposed to Victoria’s biography in particular—although I can’t say I find poor Lydia an absorbing subject—just to the general idea of delving into the lives of poets and novelists. Are you a student of literature, Mr. Kincaid?”

He thought of his running joke with Vic—
policemen don’t read—
and decided this was one instance in which he needn’t defend himself. “Um, not particularly,” he said, putting on a rather hesitant expression.

Eliot hooked his thumbs a bit more firmly together over his middle and spoke in the rich tones Kincaid associated with the lecture hall. “It’s my belief that there’s not a single example of a literary text which cannot be shown to contradict itself, therefore rendering itself meaningless. And if the text itself is meaningless, of what use is it to examine the life of its author? And, I might add, since most
authors’ lives differ little from that of the common man in being merely pitiable attempts to disguise crippling inadequacies, they cannot be of interest to anyone.” He rocked back in his chair and beamed at Kincaid.

“Then why bother to teach something you see as inherently useless?” Kincaid asked, wondering if he’d missed something in Eliot’s argument.

“Well, one must do something, mustn’t one?” Eliot said, still looking pleased with himself. “And I find it more amusing than any other occupation which springs to mind.”

“Do I take it that Vic didn’t subscribe to your theory?”

Eliot shook his head, pursing his lips in an expression of regret. “Victoria insisted on cobbling together feminist criticism with some sort of updated version of liberal humanism—producing a hideous hybrid which was illogical at best, and smacked of metaphysics at worst.” He closed his eyes in mock dismay.

“What you’re telling me is that Vic had the temerity to assign
value
to literature?” Kincaid said, raising his eyebrow.

Eliot clapped his hands together. “Bravo, Mr. Kincaid. Very well put. Although you’ve given yourself away in the process. I did think the vague copper bit was overdone, especially in light of your accent and your bearing—you’re obviously well educated.”

And you’re a condescending bastard, thought Kincaid, and smiled. He did not feel inclined to share the particulars of his background with Darcy Eliot. The man must’ve given Vic a chronic case of the pip. “Now that I understand the theoretical repercussions of Vic’s biography, Dr. Eliot, do you know of anyone who might have had a personal objection to Vic’s researching Lydia Brooke’s life?”

“Lydia was a minor poet whose early work was pleasantly facile, if derivative,” Eliot said tartly. “She flirted with mental illness all her life, and her later poems combined a ‘confessional’ exploration of her illness with the most trite elements of feminism. I can think of any number of people she might have offended with her poems, but I doubt her life provided the requisite drama.”

“But you knew her personally,” said Kincaid. “You were friends at Cambridge.”

“Do you still find yourself in sympathy with everyone you were
at school with, Mr. Kincaid?” Eliot raised one massive eyebrow. “I find that one often outgrows such relationships. Although in Lydia’s case…” He paused and gave Kincaid a considering look.

“Don’t hesitate to express your
opinion
, Dr. Eliot,” said Kincaid.

Eliot smiled at the thinly veiled sarcasm. “I daresay such tact would be out of character, wouldn’t it? It occurred to me that there might be one person who would prefer that not all the details of Lydia’s private life be made public. Lydia flirted with more than mental illness, and at a time when lesbianism was not considered quite as politically correct as it is these days.”

“Lydia had a homosexual relationship?” Kincaid asked, surprised. If Vic had been aware of it, she hadn’t mentioned it to him. “One can never be sure of the details unless one is personally involved, but that was the operative rumor. And as the lady in question is now headmistress of a prestigious girls’ school …” Eliot made a
tut-tut
sound with his tongue. “I doubt the school governors would find the story too amusing.”

“Who was the other woman, Dr. Eliot?”

Darcy Eliot looked uncomfortable. It seemed that repeating unsubstantiated titillating rumors was all in a day’s work, but naming names might press the limits of his public school code of honor. “Why should I tell you, Mr. Kincaid?”

Kincaid had expected the challenge. He leaned forwards and met Eliot’s gaze. “Because Victoria McClellan is dead, and I want to know who had reason to kill her.”

Eliot looked away first. “Well, I suppose that’s reason enough, if you put it that way. Though I can’t imagine Daphne killing anyone—”

“Daphne Morris? Lydia’s friend from Newnham?” Kincaid had a clear image of the girl as Vic had written of her, but that was years ago. “Headmistress of a girls’ school?”

“Here in Cambridge. Just on the Hills Road, in—” There was a tentative tap at the door, and an acne-scarred boy put his head round.

“Give me a minute more, will you, Matthews?” Eliot said testily, and the boy scuttled apologetically backwards, closing the door with a snap.

“Just one more thing, Dr. Eliot,” said Kincaid as he rose. “Did you see Vic at all on Tuesday?”

“It was an ordinary day,” Eliot said slowly. “One doesn’t think about it at the time, and that makes it difficult to piece things together again. We passed on the stairs, we passed in the corridor, but I’d be hard put to tell you what time.”

“Do you remember anything in particular she said?”

Eliot gave a frustrated shake of his head. “Only the most mundane of things. ‘Morning, Darcy’ ‘Do let me use the photocopier first this morning, Darcy’” He frowned. “I believe she said something about having a sandwich at her desk while she prepared for a supervision at half past one—but I can’t tell you if she actually did, as I was out to lunch, then had supervisions myself the rest of the afternoon.” Looking up at Kincaid, he added, without his usual air of supercilious amusement, “I’m sorry. I suppose that’s in the way of a condolence. Sometimes one finds it difficult to say these things.”

“Old habits?” asked Kincaid.

“Indeed.”

The door to Vic’s office was shut, but not, Kincaid discovered, locked. He opened it slowly and went in, feeling a sense of trespass that he had not felt in her office at the cottage. He wished suddenly that he’d seen her here, in her element, doing what she loved—that he’d shared this part of her life in however small a way.

The fine hand of the local police was in evidence. The desk had been stripped bare, and its emptied drawers hung open like gaping mouths. They had left the books and the personal photographs atop the bookshelves. Those of Kit he had expected—baby pictures, a first bicycle, awkward school photos with his hair slicked into submission, a fairly recent print of him handling a punt pole with great concentration.

There was no trace of Ian. It was as if Vic had not hesitated to erase him from her life here, where his absence would not further distress Kit.

Something familiar caught his eye as he turned away—a snapshot propped behind one of the frames.

It was his parents’ garden, in full summer bloom. He and Vic sat
sprawled in the grass, laughing, his mother’s spaniel half in Vic’s lap. They had been married just a few months, and he had taken her to Cheshire for a visit.

He looked away, out of the window. Vic’s office lay across the corridor from Darcy Eliot’s, and her window faced south, towards Newnham. Lydia’s college. Vic, he thought, would have liked that.

Kincaid found Laura Miller waiting for him at her desk.

“You look a bit battered,” she said. “I put the kettle on when I saw Darcy’s supervision go up. I thought you might need a cuppa.”

He sank into the now familiar visitor’s chair and loosened the knot on his tie. “Thanks.”

Laura disappeared into a small pantry and returned a moment later with two mismatched mugs. “Milk and sugar all right?”

“Lovely.” Wrapping his hands round the mug’s warmth, he said quietly, “Are you sure Dr. Winslow’s all right? She seems to be feeling a bit off-color.”

Laura made a face as she scorched her tongue on the hot tea. “I’ve been nagging at her the last two days to see someone about her headache, but she’s that stubborn.” She glanced at Dr. Winslow’s door and lowered her voice further. “To tell you the truth, I’ve been worried about her since Dr. Whitecliff’s death last June. It seemed to take the starch out of her, if you know what I mean, and she hasn’t been the same since. We were always teasing her about trying one of Vic’s teas—” She broke off, looking stricken, and her eyes filled with tears. “Oh, damn and blast,” she muttered, scrabbling in her desk drawer for a tissue.