Dreaming of the Bones (46 page)

“There’s a signpost. And the path is clearly marked,” said Adam. “But I can show you—”

“No, you stay here and wait for Chief Inspector Byrne,” said Kincaid, already half out the door. “Show him the way,” he called over his shoulder as he sprinted for the car, Gemma on his heels.

“Would Darcy agree to meet him?” said Gemma as they slammed their doors and the engine coughed to life.

“I don’t think Nathan will have had the advantage,” Kincaid answered grimly. The lights of the houses flashed by as they sped through the village, then they were dipping down to cross the old stone bridge by the Mill. Kincaid slowed as they began the curving ascent on the other side. “There!” He pointed at a signpost, faintly legible in the beam of the headlamps. “Byron’s Pool. And there’s a car park.” The small graveled area was empty.

“Nathan walked,” said Gemma as Kincaid stopped the car. “But Darcy must have left his car somewhere else. He won’t have meant to be seen. Torch under the seat,” she added as they scrambled out of the car. “Look, there’s the path.”

Kincaid reemerged from the car with the torch. “We’ll not use it just yet,” he said quietly. “Our eyes will adjust in a minute or two, and there’s no sense making targets of ourselves.” Putting his hand on Gemma’s shoulder, he felt her vibrating with tension. For an instant, he thought of ordering her to wait for him there, but he didn’t like the idea of leaving her alone, unarmed, and possibly blocking Darcy’s exit from the car park. He squeezed her shoulder. “Stay behind me, love, and at the first sign of trouble, go for backup.”

The path was uneven, but lighter in color than the surrounding leaves and bracken, and as his eyes learned to differentiate he began to pick up speed. The car park soon disappeared, swallowed by the trees, and the night sounds rose round them.

“Wait!” Gemma’s hand clamped his elbow. “I heard something,” she breathed in his ear.

He listened, straining into the darkness. A rustle … then a sound that might have been a faint human grunt of pain. Nodding at Gemma, he turned and went on, placing each foot more carefully than before. Cowboys and Indians, he thought, conscious of every snapping twig. As a child, he’d always wanted to be the Indian, and he had a sudden intense memory of the smooth, rolling motion of his feet as he crept through the woods. Then he came round a twist in the path and stopped short.

They stood at the edge of a small clearing faintly illuminated with moonlight. On the far side, two bodies grappled on the ground, and a few feet away he saw a gleam in the grass. The gun.

Then the body on top heaved itself up, turning towards them with the heavy menace of a cornered beast. Darcy.

Kincaid dived without thought, a soaring lunge that brought him skidding across the grass onto the gun. He rolled with it in his hands and scrambled to his knees.

Darcy stood before him, swaying slightly. Half his face and neck looked black in the dappled light—a shadow? No, blood, Kincaid realized. He got one foot underneath him and rose slowly without shifting the stock of the gun from the hollow of his shoulder, or its aim from the center of Darcy’s chest.

He could shoot Darcy. Now
. The thought came with cold clarity.
Self-defense. Justifiable homicide. Who would question it?
He had broken so many rules already, why not one more?

Darcy shifted on his feet, balancing his weight on flexed knees.

He meant to run. Let him make his break, then shoot him. No one could say it wasn’t right
.

The whites of Darcy’s eyes flashed as he looked from side to side. His hands clenched into fists.

“Lie down on the ground,” said Kincaid slowly. “Put your hands behind your back. If you don’t do as I say, now, I
will
shoot you.”

For a moment, Darcy stood, and Kincaid tensed, preparing for the recoil of the gun.

Then Darcy dropped heavily to his knees. “I need help, medical attention,” he said. “He shot me. I’m injured.”

“Down!” Kincaid shouted, his anger and frustration breaking on a rush of adrenaline. “I don’t care if you bleed to death, you son of a
bitch. Do you understand that?” He motioned with the gun, and Darcy lowered himself to the ground with a groan. “Gemma—”

She’d reached Darcy. “I’ve got a scarf.” Quickly, she knotted his hands together, then ran to Nathan.

Kincaid heard her whisper, “Oh, dear God, please …” as she knelt beside him.

“Is he breathing?”

“I think so. Yes.” She struggled to lift Nathan’s head from the water. “But he’s covered with blood—”

There was a racking, retching cough, then Nathan’s voice gasping, “His. It’s his. I shot him.”

Then Kincaid heard the screech of tires and the slamming of car doors, and a moment later he saw the flicker of torches moving through the trees. Lowering the gun, he said, “It seems the cavalry has arrived.”

“I didn’t know how much I wanted to live until he had his hands round my throat,” said Nathan, his voice little more than a hoarse whisper. They sat round the table in his kitchen, he and Adam, Kincaid and Gemma, drinking herbal tea.

The medics had dressed the worst of his cuts and abrasions, but he’d refused to go to hospital. “I thought I wanted to die,” he continued after a sip of tea. “I thought I’d shoot him, then shoot myself. But I failed on both counts.”

Gemma touched her slender fingers to the back of his hand. “You didn’t fail, Nathan. You didn’t need Darcy’s death on your conscience. And it wouldn’t have made Vic’s death, or Lydia’s, any less a waste.”

“We all failed,” said Adam. “We failed ourselves, and we failed Darcy. He wasn’t always so wicked. I don’t think he meant to kill Verity. But she refused him, and he couldn’t control his temper.” Pausing, he eased his finger between the clerical collar and his neck. “We’ll never know what he might have become if we’d held him accountable for what happened that night.”

“You will hold him accountable now,” said Kincaid.

After a preliminary assessment, the medics had taken Darcy to Addenbrooks, accompanied by police guard. He’d suffered considerable blood loss from the shot embedded in the right side of his
face, neck, and shoulder, but he’d been protesting his innocence and threatening legal action even as they closed the ambulance doors.

“Your testimony will be essential to the prosecution’s case.” Kincaid looked from Nathan to Adam. “But it will mean revealing your own parts in the cover-up of Verity Whitecliff’s death, regardless of the personal consequences.”

“I think we’ve had quite enough of secrets,” said Adam.

Nathan looked up at them, his eyes dark. “What chance have you of getting a conviction on nothing but our word? There won’t be any evidence left of how Verity died or that he killed her.”

Kincaid glanced at Gemma. “We can only recommend to the Crown Prosecution Service, but my guess is that they’ll charge him with Vic’s and Verity’s deaths, and use Lydia’s for evidence of system in Vic’s case. We’ve the best chance of finding physical evidence in Vic’s case, and in Verity’s the court can rule based solely on the testimony of witnesses. And that means you and Adam.”

“I’ll do whatever it takes,” said Nathan, then he shook his head. “If I’d only known what Vic suspected …”

“We’re all going to have to live with our ifs,” Kincaid said heavily, and rose. “I’d advise you to get some rest. You’re going to need it.”

They said good-bye to Nathan and Adam at the door. When Kincaid shook Nathan’s hand, he felt the kinship of those who pass through the eye of the same needle. They had loved Vic, and she was gone.

He followed Gemma slowly to the car and handed her the keys, suddenly too exhausted to drive. Climbing in beside her, he slumped in his seat, but before she could start the engine he reached for her hand and held it between his.

“I thought you were going to shoot him,” said Gemma, turning to him.

“So did I.”

“I daresay he deserved it.” She searched his face. “Why didn’t you?”

He thought for a moment, trying to formulate an answer in words. “I’m not sure,” he said finally. “I suppose because it would’ve meant accepting violence as a solution.” He traced his fingers lightly over Gemma’s, then looked up into her eyes. “And then what would have separated me from Darcy?”

Cambridge
1 September 1986
Darling Mummy
,

I have been in a black hell this past week, railing against fate for taking you from me, railing against you for not letting me cling to false hope. Until now I’d begun to believe I’d been tested in my life—I’d even been smug enough to think Yd endured more than my share and that Yd emerged with some sort of fire-forged honor
.

But when your news came I found nothing had prepared me for this, that the courage I’d taken such pride in was a mere travesty, and I thought I could not bear it
.

I woke early this morning to find frost on the windowpanes and the first crisp hint of autumn in the air. I dressed and went out, compelled by an urgency I didn’t understand, and walked until I reached the river meadows. It was you who taught me about the healing power of walking—about the magic in the harmony of breath and stride that opens the connection between heart and mind
.

Then somewhere in that clear space between field and sky, I saw my anger for what it was
.

Losing you means I must grow up, at last, and I’ve been kicking and screaming like a child unwilling to come into the world
.

I saw that Yd underestimated the strength and capacity of your love for me, but that you had not done me the same disservice. You thought me equal to the task before me, and so I must be
.

Why are the old truths so simple and so hard to learn? Love is a two-edged sword—it can be no other way. I will be forever blessed by your love, and forever diminished by your loss
.

Lydia

The air under the yews felt cool and damp against Kit’s face. It had a musty, humic odor that reminded him of the way the mud smelled when he dug in the riverbank, but his flash of pleasure at the thought quickly faded. There didn’t seem much point now in wanting to be a naturalist.

Tess whimpered and pulled at her lead, but Kit stood fast, not yet willing to move from the dimness of the tunnel. He carried the
books Nathan had lent him, and it felt to him as if returning them would sever his last connection with the village.

Mrs. Miller had brought him to the cottage that morning to help him pack up the remainder of his things, then had agreed to return for him after he’d visited Nathan. Colin had offered, awkwardly, to come with him, but Kit refused. He’d wanted a few minutes alone to say good-bye to the cottage.

When they’d driven away, he stood for a long while in the front garden, gazing at the house, memorizing its lines and imperfections, then he’d kicked the estate agent’s sign as hard as he could. It wasn’t fair. Nothing was bloody fair. How could his dad bear the idea of some other family living in their house? And how could his dad leave—

Kit stopped at that point in the well-worn groove of his thoughts. He didn’t want to think about his dad anymore. Giving a gentle tug to Tess’s lead, he stepped out into the sunlight of Nathan’s back garden.

Nathan knelt at the edge of the knot bed, digging in the earth with a trowel. He looked up, smiling, as Kit and Tess came across the grass. “Hullo, Kit. Is this your dog, then?”

“Her name’s Tess,” said Kit, dropping to his knees beside him.

“She’s lovely,” said Nathan, scratching her rough coat and the pink insides of her ears. “Why don’t you let her have a run in the garden?” he suggested. “It’s secure enough.”

“What are you planting?” asked Kit as he unhooked Tess’s lead and watched her bound across the grass towards the robins feeding near the hedge. “They’re not very pretty.”

Nathan sat back on his heels, resting the trowel on his knee as he looked at the bedraggled row of herbs. “No, I suppose they’re not. I was ill, you see, and I dug them up. But my friend Adam came along afterwards and put them in water for me. They’d have died if he hadn’t.”

Kit frowned. “Why did you pull them up, if they weren’t dead?”

Nathan reached out and smoothed the soil round the last herb with the palm of his hand, then said, slowly, “I planted these for your mother. I thought that if I pulled them up, I wouldn’t miss her so much. But I was wrong. Sometimes it helps to remember.”

Kit stared at him with a flash of adult understanding. “You loved my mum, didn’t you?”

“Yes. I did.” Nathan watched him carefully. “Do you mind?”

“I don’t know,” said Kit, for his brief spasm of jealousy had been replaced by the thought that Nathan, at least, might understand how he felt. “No… I suppose not.” He looked again at the neat row of plants, then held out the plastic carrier bag. “I brought your books back.”

Nathan glanced at the bag but didn’t reach for it. After a moment, he said, “I want you to have them. We can talk about them when you come to visit. Will you come to see me?”

Kit watched Tess happily rooting about at the bottom of the garden, felt the heat from the midday sun soaking into his hair like warm honey, and for an instant, in that bright place, he felt his mother’s presence a little nearer.

He nodded.

CHAPTER
22

He wears

The ungathered blossom of quiet; stiller he

Than a deep well at noon, or lovers met;

Than sleep, or the heart after wrath. He is

The silence following great words of peace.

R
UPERT
B
ROOKE
,
from a fragment of an elegy
found in his notebook
after his death