Deborah Crombie - Dreaming of the bones

“She also seems to have a cast-iron alibi for the afternoon of Vic’s death.”

They had spoken again to Jeanette, and had a look at Daphne’s daily calendar, both of which confirmed that Daphne had had a full schedule of meetings and appointments on Tuesday, but Gemma was not ready to capitulate. “There are always holes in alibis. And we don’t know where Vic went when she left the English Faculty that afternoon. What if she went to Daphne’s flat? Daphne could have slipped out of her office and met her with no one the wiser.”

She knew from the look on his face that he’d considered the possibility, but rather than agreeing with her, he said, “Now that we’ve already done six impossible things before lunch, as well as buggering any claim to reputable behavior, how do you suggest we persuade Morgan Ashby to sit down and have a nice pleasant conversation about all this?”

Gemma felt the knot of dread in her stomach expand at the thought. She had lied to Morgan Ashby, and that was something even a calm and stable man might not take too kindly. But she smiled at Kincaid, and said carelessly, “Well, if your pretty face won’t do the trick, I suppose we’ll have to rely on my charm.”

They went by farmhouse rules this time, and knocked at the back door first. They hadn’t seen the car, but their hopes that it was Morgan who was out, and that Francesca would be able to pave the way for them, were soon dashed.

Morgan opened the door scowling, as if he’d been expecting someone else, but it soon became obvious that they were not more welcome. “You,” he said to Kincaid. “I thought I told you to bugger off.” Then he glimpsed Gemma, half-hidden behind Kincaid’s shoulder, and for an instant his face started to relax into a smile. “What are you doing here, Miss Ja-” Breaking off, he looked from Kincaid to Gemma again, and the scowl came back in full force. “You weren’t here about the studio at all, were you? You were bloody snooping. I should have bloody known.” He shook his head in disgust. “All right, I’ve had enough. I’ve said it before, and this is the last time I’m going to tell you-either of you. Fuck off.”

“Mr. Ashby,” called Gemma, as Kincaid put out a hand to stop the door shutting. “We’re police officers. Both of us. From Scotland Yard. We need to talk to you.”

Morgan gave Kincaid a disdainful look, but at least her sally had kept him from shutting Kincaid’s hand in the door, thought Gemma.

“Scotland Yard? So that was a load of bollocks you fed me, too,” Morgan said to Kincaid. “All that sob story about Victoria McClellan being your ex-”

“It was true,” said Kincaid. “Vic came to me because I’m a policeman, when she began to feel uneasy about Lydia’s death.”

“Lydia’s death?” repeated Morgan, hesitating for the first time. “What are you talking about?”

Gemma stepped forwards into the opening Kincaid had created with his arm. She had felt a sense of rapport with Morgan Ashby, and now she gambled on it. “Look, Mr. Ashby, please let us come in. We won’t take up more than a few minutes of your time.”

Morgan stared at her for a moment, brows drawn together as though he meant to refuse, then he suddenly shrugged and stepped back. “Say what you have to say, then, and get it over with.”

As an invitation, it was less than gracious, but Gemma moved quickly into the kitchen, and Kincaid followed, closing the door.

Socks and underthings hung drying on a rack suspended above the Rayburn, and Gemma smelled potatoes boiling on the cooker’s top. Her stomach rumbled, but she couldn’t tell whether it was from hunger or nerves.

Morgan stood with his backside against the cooker and didn’t invite them to sit down. “What do you mean, uneasy?” he said, glancing from one to the other. “Why would McClellan have needed to go poking about into Lydia’s death? Isn’t the simple fact of it enough?”

“There were several things that worried Vic about Lydia’s suicide. But first let’s go back a bit.” Kincaid stepped forwards, physically crowding Morgan, and Gemma bit her lip on an admonition. She knew his aggression was an instinctive reaction to Morgan’s belligerence, but her gut feeling told her it wasn’t the way to handle him.

“We’ve just come from a visit with Daphne Morris,” Kincaid said. She saw Morgan tense at the name, his pupils dilating until the gray in his eyes disappeared into black, but Kincaid smiled and continued, “It seems you were all quite well acquainted. She told us some fascinating things about your relationship with Lydia. There was a little matter of a reported assault, for instance, and some fractures-”

Gemma heard the crack of Morgan’s fist against Kincaid’s jaw almost before she saw it-then came a flurry of punches too quick for her to follow, and they were straining together, panting, their faces fierce with intent, and blood welled crimson bright from Kincaid’s split lip.

It seemed to take her aeons to cross the mere two paces of kitchen floor, then she was shoving and shouting at them. “Stop it! Both of you! Morgan, listen to me. Lydia didn’t commit suicide. Someone killed her. Do you hear me? It couldn’t have been you-you’d never have poisoned her. But someone did, and you have to help us. Morgan-”

Then suddenly Kincaid had Morgan’s arm pinned back in a hammerlock, and Morgan was grimacing with pain.

“Let me go, goddamnit!” he shouted, kicking at Kincaid’s shin, but Gemma sensed the fight had gone out of him.

Kincaid eased up, but said furiously, “You bloody well keep your hands to yourself, okay?”

Morgan jerked his arm out of Kincaid’s grasp and stepped away, touching the blood trickling from his nose. He gave a perplexed look at the smear on his fingers, then frowned at Gemma. “Why should they bother to kill her?” he said. “Didn’t they do enough damage as it was?” To Gemma’s horror, his face contorted in a sob.

She guided his now unresisting body into one of the chairs at the kitchen table, then dampened a dishcloth and handed it to him. Slipping into the chair opposite, she said gently, “Who hurt Lydia, Morgan?”

“Bloody perverts.” Morgan dabbed at his nose. Even though he seemed to have got his face under control, unshed tears glistened on his lower lashes.

“Are you talking about Daph-” Kincaid began, but Gemma made an abrupt shushing gesture with her hand, and after a moment’s hesitation, he sat down at the far end of the table and held his handkerchief to his lip.

“She’s a cunning bitch,” said Morgan. “She bided her time, all those years-faithful, dependable Daphne, waiting for an opening.”

“Was Lydia sleeping with Daphne?” asked Gemma, in a carefully neutral tone.

“Sleeping.” Morgan gave a bark of laughter. “Bloody euphemism for what they did. All of them, not just Daphne, and Lydia held it up to me, taunted me with it when we had rows. They made her ill, twisted her so that she could never have a normal relationship.

“She had night terrors, did you know that? She’d wake up screaming and sweating from dreams she never remembered. And the worst of it was that she couldn’t bear to be happy. We’d get along well for a bit and then she’d start picking at things, starting rows. Sometimes I think now that she wanted me to hurt her, but I was too close to it then. I couldn’t see it.”

“Did she want you to hurt her so she’d have an excuse to leave you?” asked Gemma. “That’s what happened, isn’t it?”

“Oh, no. You’ve got it all wrong.” Morgan shook his head. “She ran to Daphne, but she came back in a few days, and things were all right for a while.”

“Then she started in at you again,” said Gemma, now beginning to see the pattern of it.