Dreaming of the Bones (37 page)

Darcy made a face. “Besotted might be more accurate. Of course Lydia always did have a bit of an obsessional streak, but I thought she had better sense than to focus it on a man of Ashby’s background.”

“Background?” said Gemma, her hackles rising. “What does Morgan Ashby’s background have to do with it?”

“Oh, you know, Welsh mining family, salt of the earth and all that—and the bloody great load of puritanism that came with it. He couldn’t bear the idea that Lydia had enjoyed anyone else, no matter how much she loved him.” Darcy paused, knitting his thick brows together, then added, “I don’t think Ashby much liked the idea of anyone enjoying anything, for that matter, including himself.”

“I doubt that could be said of you, Dr. Eliot,” said Gemma with a smile. She glanced towards the sideboard, where a drinks tray held glasses ready beside an ice bucket and a dish of cut limes.

“Certainly not,” he said in mock offense. “Though I have to admit that a meeting of my graduate students seems quite dull after
being reminded of the good old days.” He smiled at her in a way that made her suddenly aware that he was still a very attractive man, then he gave an exaggerated sigh. “But even
I
cannot escape duty entirely, especially as it looks as though I may need to take on some of Iris’s workload.”

“Is Dr. Winslow all right?” Kincaid asked with quick concern.

“She has an appointment to see a specialist about her headaches on Monday,” said Darcy. For the first time his voice held no hint of the teasing tone Gemma had come to expect. “This has been going on for some time, and I must admit I feel rather uneasy about it,” he continued, shaking his head. “Iris is one of my mother’s oldest friends. If anything should happen to her …” Looking up, he met Gemma’s eyes. “Well, there’s no point borrowing trouble, is there? I hate having come to the age where one has these constant intimations of mortality. It’s most unsettling.”

“But I understand that you’re first in line for Dr. Winslow’s position if she retires,” said Kincaid. “You must find that rather gratifying.”

“I
understand
being synonymous with
rumor has it?”
Darcy flicked a speck of dust from his trouser leg. “I learned a long time ago not to put too much credence in the academic grapevine. As in all small and incestuous communities, things tend to get blown out of proportion.”

Kincaid tilted his head to one side, as if the remark had reminded him of something. “Vic was aware of that, too, and she said she thought it curious there was so little speculation at the time of Lydia’s death. It was assumed a suicide and dropped at that.”

Darcy gave Kincaid a puzzled look. “Everyone who knew Lydia knew her emotional history. We were distressed at the news, but not surprised. What else was there to say?”

“One might have said that it was all a bit too convenient, Lydia living up to everyone’s expectations like that. Vic began to think so. She became convinced, in fact, that Lydia did not commit suicide at all.” Slowly, Kincaid added, “She was quite sure that Lydia was murdered.”

For a moment, Darcy sat without protesting, his face expressionless, then he shook his head. “I’m afraid, Mr. Kincaid, that this is a case of the biographer taking on the characteristics of her subject.
When Victoria McClellan first came to the department, she displayed every evidence of a sound and practical personality. It only illustrates the development of a rather unhealthy identification with Lydia that she should have come to embrace such nonsense.”

Kincaid smiled. “And I might have agreed with your argument, Dr. Eliot, were it not for the indisputable fact that Vic herself was murdered. Had you forgotten that?”

“I’m having a bit of a hard time with this,” said Gemma with a glance at Kincaid’s profile as he once again negotiated the Newnham roundabout. This time their destination was the Grantchester Road, and Nathan Winter’s cottage. “I had boyfriends before Rob, of course, but only one at a time.”

“And no girlfriends?” Kincaid said with a sideways smile.

“Not in that sense,” Gemma said a little primly. “Does that make me conventional?”

“Very.” The smile became a grin.

“I suppose it must be my background, then,” she said, joking, but she heard the hint of injury in her own voice.

Kincaid glanced at her. “You’re just fine the way you are, Gemma. Don’t ever think otherwise.” He touched the backs of his fingers to her cheek for a moment. “If anyone’s background was conventional, it was Lydia’s,” he added as he reached for the gear lever. “A schoolmistress’s daughter from a small village.”

“What would she say to a baker’s daughter from north London?” Gemma mused. “I’m beginning to feel what Vic must have felt—I wish Lydia would suddenly appear and talk to me, tell me what she thought, what she was really like.”

“We can try asking Nathan,” Kincaid suggested as he slowed. They’d come to the scattered houses marking the beginning of the village, and across the fields to their left they could see the line of trees following the course of the Cam.

“And Adam Lamb,” added Gemma. “Of all of them, he’s the one who seems most unlikely doing … you know … what they did. There’s such a gentleness about him.”

There was no sign of Adam’s battered Mini in front of Nathan’s cottage, however, nor was there any immediate answer when they
rang the bell. They rang again and waited, listening for any sound from within the house, but Gemma heard only the faint chirping of birds and the occasional swish of tires on the tarmac.

“We could try the garden,” Kincaid suggested, stepping back from the porch and looking to either side. “There seems to be a path round to the right.”

He started in that direction and Gemma followed. As she stepped carefully on the spaced flagstones, a sweet smell rose from beneath her feet. She stopped and knelt, picking some of the tiny green stems growing in the crevices of the walk. She rubbed the leaves between her fingers, then held them close to her nose. The headiness of the scent made her close her eyes for a moment. “Thyme, isn’t it?” she said to Kincaid, who had stopped to watch her. “Look, there’s all different varieties.”

“Like Prince Charles’s Thyme Walk at Highgrove? That’s a bit grand for a village cottage, don’t you think?”

“I think it’s lovely.” Gemma stood and brushed at the knee of her trousers. “Makes me want to roll in it, like a cat in catnip.”

“Feel free,” he said, with an amused lift of his eyebrow.

They had come to a stone wall with a white gate set in it. He reached over its curved top to unfasten the latch, and once through the gate they found themselves in a tunnel-like passage formed by arching yews. Gemma felt the drop in temperature and shivered a little at the cool, dank smell, then they came out the far end into the back garden. Patches of sunlight skittered across the grass, dappling Nathan Winter as he knelt beside a knot-shaped bed.

He was digging furiously in the earth with a hand trowel, and they watched him for a moment before he looked up and saw them. The wind ruffled his fine white hair, but he wore only an old jumper that looked as though it had been in intimate contact with the compost heap, and dirty canvas trousers. Bright dots of color flamed in each cheek, and Gemma thought that in spite of the physical activity he looked less well than he had the day before. As they walked across the lawn towards him, he sat back on his heels. A half-dozen small green plants littered the ground beside him, their roots exposed.

“Did you like the tunnel?” he asked as they reached him. “Kit liked to play in it. He was still young enough for imaginary games of
soldier or explorer—another couple of years he’d have been smoking cigarettes and kissing girls under the yews.”

Gemma felt a little chill, for Nathan spoke as if Kit were dead, too, or at least as lost to him as Vic. She glanced at Kincaid, but his face was closed, unreadable. He hadn’t spoken of Kit since the evening before, and she had no idea what he must be feeling.

Since Nathan showed no sign of getting up, Gemma lowered herself to the grass. Hoping to turn the conversation, she touched one of the wilting plants and asked, “What are you digging up?”

“Bloody lovage.” He jabbed savagely at the earth with the trowel. “I planted them for Vic, but there’s not much point now, is there?”

“Vic’s teas, of course.” Kincaid said suddenly, shaking his head. “How stupid of me.” Sinking to one knee, he looked Nathan in the eye. “You made Vic’s teas, didn’t you, Nathan? I remember Laura saying it was lovage she drank.”

Nathan stared at him. “Who else do you think would’ve mixed them? But lovage makes a broth, really, not a tea. It tastes a bit like celery.”

“Do you grow foxglove in your garden?”

“Of course there’s foxglove, just back of the lavender, along the walk.” He started to point in the direction of the flagged path that led from the tunnel’s exit to the patio, then looked back at Kincaid.

His face paled, so that the spots of color on his cheekbones stood out as if they’d been painted on. “You don’t think I put foxglove in Vic’s tea? What kind of an idiot do you think I am?” He lurched to his feet and staggered slightly.

For a moment, Gemma wondered if he were drunk, but thought she would have smelled the alcohol on his breath.

Kincaid, who’d stood as well, reached out a hand to steady him. “Could someone
else
have put it in Vic’s teas?”

“I picked the leaves myself and hand-dried them in the kitchen. Then I put them in little zip-top bags for her.”

The pain in her neck made Gemma realize she was still kneeling. Pushing herself to her feet, she said, “What about after she took the bags to school, Nathan? Could someone have added foxglove then? Would she have tasted it?”

“I don’t know. Foxglove’s very toxic—it wouldn’t take much.
And the taste of the lovage might be strong enough to disguise any bitterness.”

Gemma heard the tremble in Nathan’s voice. Shock, she thought, and illness? Reaching out, she touched his neck. He flinched away from her hand, but not before her fingers had registered the heat.

“Nathan, you’re burning up with fever. What were you thinking of, out here in this wind?” To Kincaid she whispered, “Let’s get him in the house.”

Kincaid took his elbow and urged him towards the patio. “Let’s all have a cuppa, Nathan. Where’s Adam?”

Nathan let himself be led without protest. “Finally got him to bugger off,” he said. “Told him his cardie-and-false-teeth set needed him a damn sight more than I did.” Suddenly he twisted his arm from Kincaid’s grasp and looked back. “My trowel. Have to wash … always wash it.”

“I’ll get it,” said Gemma, and ran back for it.

“… funny thing is, now he’s gone I actually miss him,” Nathan was saying when she returned, his voice slurring a bit. “Old sod. Least he lets me talk about her, doesn’t change the bloody subject.” He swung round suddenly and looked at Gemma, his eyes fever-bright. “They think they’re being kind. But they’re not.”

They maneuvered Nathan in through the French doors on the patio and settled him in the nearest armchair. By this time, his shivering had developed into hard chills, and as Kincaid found a rug to cover him, Gemma went into the kitchen to make tea.

When Kincaid joined her, she said softly, “A hot drink may help, but I think he’s really ill. I’m surprised he’s not delirious.”

“Near enough, and getting worse by the minute,” said Kincaid. “I’ve Adam Lamb’s number in my wallet. I’m going to give him a ring.” He slipped out the French doors again, and Gemma saw him pull the cell phone from his pocket as she filled the kettle at the sink.

It took her a few minutes to find her way round the strange kitchen, and by the time she had everything assembled, Kincaid had returned from the patio. As he took the tray from her, he said in her ear, “Adam’s on his way, and he’s called the doctor to meet him.”

Then they tiptoed into the sitting room to find that all their whispering had been in vain. Nathan was fast asleep.

They sat at the kitchen table, drinking their tea and listening to Nathan’s slightly raspy breathing. “It won’t work,” said Kincaid.

Gemma had been looking round the room, thinking how pleasant it was, and wondering if Vic had come here. “What?”

“It’s too quick. If someone put foxglove in Vic’s tea at school, she’d have been ill by the time she left.”

“Did she drink the stuff at home, too?” Gemma wondered. “She might have had a cup once she arrived.”

Kincaid shook his head. “Forensics didn’t find a trace.”

“Could someone have removed it afterwards?”

“Kit’s dark shape in the garden?” He stared at her. “No one’s explained that.” His mouth tightened. “But if she were still alive, how could they have been so thorough?”

Gemma jumped as a sound like a gunshot came from the street, followed by a mechanical cough and splutter. “Adam?” she said, and downed the last of her tea.

He let himself in before they could get up, and greeted them quietly as he came through into the sitting room. He looked harried, his hair tangled from the wind, his collar askew, but Gemma felt the same immediate comfort in his presence she’d felt at the memorial service.

A close look at Nathan seemed to confirm an opinion, for he was shaking his head as he returned to them. “I’ve been afraid of this. He was ill like this after Jean died. It seems to be his way of dealing with shock.”

“Will he be all right?” asked Gemma.

“This seems to have hit him very hard. And the last time he developed pneumonia,” said Adam, then smiled and seemed to make an effort to sound more cheerful. “But he’s stubborn as an ox—this may be simply his body’s means of making him rest. And I’m sure the doctor will pump him full of all sorts of things he’ll despise when he’s coherent enough to know it.” He grinned and added, “Thanks for ringing me. I’ll wait for the doctor and stay with him afterwards.”

Gemma took a last look at Nathan as Adam escorted them towards the front of the house. With his pale hair and his flushed face relaxed in sleep, he looked surprisingly childlike.

“Adam,” said Kincaid when they reached the door. “We heard some odd things today, about Lydia and Nathan, and Darcy, and even Daphne Morris. Morgan Ashby told us—”