Deborah Crombie - Dreaming of the bones

I’m writing poems that are searingly good, and Morgan’s shown me that the rest-all the academic pretensions and stultifying traditions of university life-are only impediments to doing our best work. We are neither of us going back next week for the beginning of term. We’re going to live instead, and practice our chosen vocations .

We’ve found a tiny flat in Cambridge-little more than a bed-sit, really, but it’s ours-and we have already moved in our few bits and pieces. Morgan has an offer of a job as assistant at a photography studio in town, and while it’s the most boring of work (weddings, baby portraits, etc.), he will do it well, and it will give him the facilities to process his own photographs .

Dr. Barrett has been most understanding, and has kindly offered to send some tutoring my way, and when I’m not working I am going to write and write and write .

Don’t worry, Morgan’s very practical, and while we won’t be living in luxury we will make ends meet. And as long as we have food in our mouths and clothes on our backs, what else matters?

I promise you’ll love him, too, Mummy. His brooding dark looks conceal a wonderful sense of humor and the sort of kindness I’ve never met in anyone but you. He makes me feel adored, and safe .

Be happy for me-

Lydia

Adam found Nathan sitting in the sun in the garden, with a rug over his knees like an old man.

He walked across the lawn, his shoes leaving a dark trail in the silver-dewed grass, and hunkered down beside Nathan’s chair so that he could study his friend’s face. Pale, though not so pasty as yesterday, but his eyes were still dull as river pebbles left out to dry.

“How are you?” he asked gently.

“If you mean am I sober, the answer is yes,” said Nathan, then he sighed and looked away. “I’m sorry, Adam. Sit down.” He gestured at the other lawn chair. “If you want to know the truth, I feel as though an enormous wave has washed through me and left me weak and empty on the beach. It’s dull, and restful, and I wish it would last. But I don’t think it will.”

“No,” said Adam as he lowered himself into the canvas curve of the lawn chair, “I don’t suppose so. But the worst is over.”

“Is it? I rather think not.” Nathan shivered and pulled up the rug a bit. “Because now the bloody instinct for self-preservation has reared its ugly head, and oblivion would have been far preferable to going on. It’s too bad you had your friend Father Denny come and confiscate my shotgun.”

Adam had called the Grantchester vicar in a panic the previous morning, asking him to go round and not only remove the gun, but stay with Nathan until he could get there himself. Unfortunately, Adam had two terminally ill parishioners who depended on his daily visits, but otherwise he had delegated his church duties so that he could be with Nathan as much as possible.

“Let me ring your daughters, Nathan,” pleaded Adam, as he had the day before. “It would do you good to have them here.”

“No.” Nathan shook his head. “I couldn’t bear to have them fussing over me. And they’d be a bit condescending with it, because they can’t imagine anyone over thirty feeling… what Vic and I…”

“Passion,” said Adam. “The young think they have a monopoly, and nothing but experience will disabuse them of it. We were the same.”

“Were we?” Glancing at Adam, Nathan said, “You felt that way about Lydia, didn’t you?”

“Yes. But age did temper it. You teach yourself to focus on other things, even to take pleasure in them. But still, I wished it had been me she’d called that last day. It took me a long time to forgive you for that.” Adam saw Nathan’s eyes widen in a surprise that mirrored his own. He hadn’t meant to tell Nathan that, not ever, and especially not now.

“I didn’t know.”

“It doesn’t matter now. But I always thought I might have changed her mind, or at least given her some comfort-”

“You think she’d have told you what she meant to do? Or that you’d somehow have divined it, when I didn’t?” said Nathan, with a spark of anger.

“Can’t you see her intention now, looking back?” asked Adam reasonably.

“No, I bloody well can’t.” Nathan pushed the tartan rug from his legs. “Vic asked me the same thing, but Lydia sounded perfectly ordinary that day, only perhaps a little excited about something, a bit urgent. And to think I was always glad you were spared-” Nathan broke off, and Adam thought that even now he found it difficult to talk about how he had found her.

In the silence, Adam became suddenly aware of the sparrows chirping in the hedge, and of the warmth of the sun on his face. After a moment, he said, “But it would have given me some sort of… closure. You see, I understand how you felt… when you couldn’t see Vic.”

“Vic and Lydia,” said Nathan under his breath. “Lydia and Vic. They’re so intertwined now that sometimes I can’t separate what happened to one from the other.”

“I hadn’t thought of it that way,” said Adam. “But it is odd that Vic should have a weak heart as well…” He thought again of his visit with Vic, and of what they’d talked about. “All those questions Vic asked about Lydia’s suicide-she didn’t believe in it, did she?”

“Don’t think I don’t know what you’re up to,” said Chief Superintendent Denis Childs. “Or that I won’t yank you back here faster than you can blink if I get the least complaint of interference from the Cambridge force.” His chair creaked as he sat back and sighed. “Don’t be a bloody fool, man. I know Alec Byrne. He’s a good man, even if his predecessor may have been a bit of a slacker. Let him do his job.”

“I have no intention of keeping him from it,” Kincaid had said, and thanking his chief, had let himself out of Childs’s office. And it was true, he thought, as he picked up the M11 towards Cambridge. But it was also true that he had prior knowledge that Alec Byrne was not inclined to take seriously, and that he was bound by both duty and need to make use of it.

The bag containing Vic’s papers and manuscript sat beside him, wedged into the Midget’s passenger seat. He was happy enough now to turn them over to Byrne, for before he’d left the Yard last night he’d photocopied every single scrap of paper. Then he’d stayed up reading until he had some sense of what Vic had been doing.

The biography, though incomplete, was as seamless and as compelling as a novel. He’d followed Lydia, the solitary child, as she grew into an ambitious young woman, seen her give up scholarship, and, before his body had forced him to sleep, seen her marry. Vic’s intense and compassionate account of Lydia’s devotion to Morgan Ashby had made him wonder if Vic had once felt that way, too.

He intended to find out why Morgan Ashby had refused to see Vic. And he intended to see Vic’s friend and neighbor, Nathan Winter, but first he had better tackle Alec Byrne.

“I’d like to see the pathologist’s report, Alec,” he said, sitting once more in Byrne’s office. “I’ve been a good boy-surely you can have no objection.”

“And surely you’ve pushed the bounds of friendship and obligation far enough. You’ve interfered with my crime scene, for which I could have made official complaint, and on top of that you’ve been bloody rude and overbearing.”

This time Kincaid controlled his impulse to anger. Calling Byrne’s bluff would not get him what he wanted, but groveling very well might. “You’re right, Alec,” he said. “I’m sorry, but I’d think you’d have done the same in my position. Vic is dead, and I don’t have the luxury of good taste. What possible harm can it do to let me see the pathologist’s report? I might even be able to offer some helpful suggestions.”