Deborah Crombie - Dreaming of the bones

“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.