Dying to Know (A Detective Inspector Berenice Killick Mystery) (35 page)

He
would call her. Later today. He’d call her.

Helen, too, tidying away the breakfast things in a blaze of sunlight, felt a lightness of mood that had been absent the night before. A phrase of music circled in her mind, what was it, a waltz, perhaps, Tchaikovsky, two bars, over and over. She put down the teapot, leaned one hand on a chair as if at the barre and tried out a plié sequence, and one and two, and rise… No, not a waltz, a Mazurka, perhaps…

She
picked up the teapot and placed it in the dishwasher.

He’ll
call me today, she thought.

Or
I might call him. A text, even. Just to say, I’m thinking of you.

This
morning, Chad had said goodbye, squeezed her shoulder. In a brief moment, their eyes had met, and she had seen there – what? A doubt? A question of some kind?

Whatever
it was, it had gone unasked. A few moments later the front door had slammed shut.

Now
she sat at the table, pulled the newspaper towards her, gazed at it unseeing.

The
thought of Liam was a hum of music, of joy, an urge to dance. It had been so long since she had felt this way, with this lightness of spirit, this aliveness. Her marriage had become something heavy, it seemed to her now, something that she carried with her, dutiful, loyal and weighed down. And now, here was a man who made her feel beautiful, made her want to dance.

She
pushed the paper way, and got up from the table. There is work to be done, she thought. I must go up to the Centre, I promised we’d have a chat about the new music system there…

And
as for Lisa…

The
sunlight seemed to fade.

She
is still in danger. Still in fear. Like poor Amelia. Someone must honour her, she thought. Someone must tell her story.

But
Amelia died long ago. Whereas Lisa - Lisa is very much alive. She checked her watch, wondered whether to call in at the police station on her way to the Centre.

‘Missing? Iain?’ Liam looked from the Director to Roger. Roger went over to the wide windows of the meeting room, flicked at the slatted blinds.

‘No
sign of him,’ he said. ‘He was supposed to be early, to set up the kit…’

‘It’s
not like Iain,’ the Director said.

‘No
sign of Elizabeth either,’ Roger said. ‘And Neil- ’

‘Neil
tried to call me,’ Liam began. ‘Last night - ’

‘Didn’t
you answer?’

Liam
shook his head. He put his paper cup down on the table.

Richard
stepped across the cables that trailed across the floor. ‘It’s no time to disappear,’ he said. ‘As it is I’ve got my work cut out trying to get the press to concentrate on our results and not on our recent ghastly events – ’

Liam’s
phone broke the silence. He snatched it from his pocket, clicked it on, listened, replied, ‘OK,’ twice, clicked it off. He looked at the two men. ‘Police. Downstairs. Asking for you, Richard.’

Richard
sighed. ‘That’s all we need. Perhaps they’re researching cold dark matter too.’

He
left the room. In the silence, Liam found he was staring at his phone, and put it back in his pocket.

‘Fuck.’
Roger sank into a chair. ‘How many more? Are we all going to need fucking bodyguards?’ He waved an arm towards the power point screen. ‘We’re about to announce the kind of results that will get the whole world talking, and all eyes are on some kind of weird murder mystery instead.’

Liam
fiddled with the cable across the desk. There was the approach of heavy footsteps. The door opened and Neil stood there. He looked hunched, blotchy with exhaustion.

‘Neil
- ’ Liam stared at him.

‘You
look bloody awful, mate.’ Roger got up, moved a chair across to him.

Neil
sat down, heavily. He picked up Liam’s paper cup. ‘Is this coffee?’

‘Help
yourself,’ Liam said. ‘Sugared, though.’

‘All
the better.’ Neil took a large mouthful of coffee, replaced the cup on the table.

‘So
– ’ Roger prompted.

‘It’s
very bad news.’ He turned to Liam. ‘Didn’t you get my calls?’

‘Um…’

‘Is it Iain?’ Roger’s voice was loud.

Neil
nodded. ‘He’s dead. Same thing. Hank’s Tower. Found at low tide late last night. He’d fallen. Like the others.’

‘Chief Super.’ Berenice pushed at his open door. ‘You asked to see me.’

‘Ah.
Yes. Miss Killick.’

There
was a stress on the Miss, she thought.

‘Bad
times,’ he was saying. ‘Three of them now. I assume you’ve heard?’

She
bowed her head. She remembered Iain’s sweet face, his nervous, intense conversation. The phone call, early this morning, had made her feel sick.

‘Have
you seen today’s papers?’ He pushed a stack of newspaper across the desk to her. ‘Do sit down,’ he added.

She
glanced at the headlines. “Murder Plot Triggered by Laws of Physics?” she read. “Hate Mail Mystery.”

‘We
can’t afford for this to go on any longer,’ he said.

‘No,’
she said.

He
leaned back in his chair. He swept a hand across his thinning grey hair. He was pink-faced, sweaty, in a shiny navy suit, which was buttoned tight across his paunch.

‘Fletcher
has offered his boys,’ he said.

‘The
Met?’

He
nodded. ‘A kind offer. He and I go back some way, of course.’

Of
course, she thought. She raised her head. ‘Sir, I’ve cancelled all leave. I’ve put a watch on every gate, every doorway of the lab. I’ve got cars assigned to track all potential victims. I’ve got forensics on the case with the hate mail. I’ve got Imaging sending me every CCTV trace they can find, from the Tower, the Lab, everywhere. We’re keeping an eye on the boy, our main suspect. And we’ve got a shout out for Clem Voake.’

‘Who
has so far evaded you, hasn’t he?’

She
nodded.

‘That’s
precisely the point, Miss Killick. This boy you’re calling your main suspect…’

‘Yes?’
She waited.

‘I
don’t share your conviction.’

‘We’ve
got CCTV – ’

‘The
first body we found was his stepfather. He has no motive.’ His puffy gaze was fixed on her. ‘Has he?’

She
shook her head. ‘No, Sir.’

‘And
this Tobias lad, is nowhere in the third killing, is he?’

‘No,
Sir.’

‘Whereas
this Clem Voake seems to be very clearly in the frame.’

‘I
haven’t ruled him out. We were back at his caravan as soon as we heard, but he’s vanished. As has his daughter,’ she added.

‘Is
she a suspect?’ His lips were raised in an almost smile.

‘No,
Sir. But Voake is a dangerous man, and she’s –’

‘It’s
not enough, Miss Killick.’ He’d ceased to listen. ‘I don’t think you understood what I said. It has got to stop.’ He got up, suddenly, lurched clumsily to the window. He stood, looking out. ‘Miss Killick, would you say that police work is about evidence? Painstaking gathering of evidence?’

‘That’s
exactly what I’d say, Sir.’

‘And
yet, here we have, one after another, three men who work at the same place, killed in similar ways… we have one suspect with a very substantial grudge against the place and a certain amount of superstitious rage against science…’ He turned back to face her. ‘It seems a cut and dried case.’

‘Yes,
Sir,’ she agreed.

‘So
why did you say that it’s as likely to be about chaos as about order?’

Berenice
blinked at him. ‘I’m not sure that’s – ’

‘Notes,
here.’ He strutted back to the desk, waved an e-mail printout at her. ‘Minutes of a Department Briefing – ’ He screwed up his eyes to read the date. ‘Three, no, four days ago…’

‘Sir,
with all due respect, I’m following every protocol – ’

‘We
can’t afford to have another homicide, Miss Killick,’ he interrupted.

‘No,
Sir. Of course not.’

‘So,
you’ll understand, if I allow Fletcher and his boys full rein.’

She
stared at him. ‘But – the chain of command…’

‘I’m
glad you understand.’

‘You’re
saying I’m off the case?’ She felt her face grow warm.

‘We
all appreciate everything you’ve done so far, Miss Killick, but I’m sure you too realize that something like this, a case of this extraordinary nature, it requires someone with greater experience than you can bring to it.’ He waved his hand towards the door. ‘Any questions?’

She
got to her feet. She hesitated, then said, ‘No Sir.’

She
glanced back from the doorway, but he’d picked up his Blackberry and was tapping away at it.

Chaos.
Order. The words echoed with her footsteps along the orange lino of the corridor.

She
thought about what van Mielen said. That it is in the Chaos that order is restored. That we have to face the Chaos in order to reveal the truth.

Liam picked up his empty coffee cup and put it down again. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘Maybe this clears Tobias.’

Roger
looked at him. ‘Or maybe it doesn’t,’ he said.

Liam
put his head in his hands.

Neil
sighed. ‘It can’t be Tom. The implication is, there really is someone out there who’s after us.’

Loud
footsteps signalled the reappearance of the Director. ‘If anyone had set out to destroy the whole damn experiment – ’ the door swung behind him as he strode into the room – ‘they couldn’t have done it better. These incredible new results, and now we’ve got a serial attacker of physicists to contend with. And not just any physicist, but specifically in our area of research. I said to those coppers, have they called CERN – maybe they’re all being bumped off too?’ He aimed a kick at the power point screen. ‘This might as well come down again. I’ve got another army of reporters outside, but not the science correspondents, oh no, just yet more blasted crime hounds. The police want to meet us all to talk about security - ’

A
ring tone. He pulled out his mobile. ‘Elizabeth? Yes. You’ve heard too… No. Of course. I understand…. OK. Elizabeth – be careful.’ He rang off. ‘She’s heard. A policewoman called on her at home. She’s not coming in.’ He looked at his watch. ‘I’ve got to go and give a statement downstairs to those reporters.’

The
door swung shut behind him.

The
three men exchanged glances.

‘The
curse of the second tunnel,’ Neil said. ‘It’s not funny anymore.’

‘The
ghost,’ Liam said.

‘Oh,
God, that too.’

‘Do
you think Iain really saw it?’ Roger said.

‘He
said he had.’

‘A
First World War Soldier,’ Neil said.

Roger
shook his head. ‘I’m a scientist,’ he said. ‘I work with evidence. With proof. When did it become…?’ His words tailed away.

Neil
looked from one to the other. ‘Up till now, I haven’t been scared,’ he said.

‘And
now?’ Liam said.

‘I
guess, now – yes,’ he said. ‘Yes, I’m scared.’

‘But
what can we do?’ Roger said. ‘Hide? Suspend the experiment? What does this bastard want? Revenge? Revenge for what? Money? Is he just crazy? And how come they all end up at Hank’s Tower?’

Neil
shrugged. Liam stared at the floor. Roger tapped his foot against the carpet.

‘He’s a racist jerk.’ Mary put two cups of coffee down on the table.

‘Shh.’
Berenice glanced around the canteen.

‘Don’t
shush me. And anyway, no one here is going to argue.’ She stirred sugar into her cup. ‘You should be angrier, Boss.’

‘Oh,
I’m angry. Sure. But I learned a long time ago, you have to be careful with that kind of anger.’ She sipped her coffee. ‘Thing is – ’ Berenice waved her spoon. There are people, right, who have to divide people into types. And he’s one of them. So, like, he divides everyone up. People who are black, people who are white. People who are girls, people who are boys. People who look for the truth on the surface of things, people who go underneath the surface, in the hope that order will appear from chaos…’