Deborah Crombie - Dreaming of the bones

“Is Dr. Winslow all right?” Kincaid asked with quick concern.

“She has an appointment to see a specialist about her headaches on Monday,” said Darcy. For the first time his voice held no hint of the teasing tone Gemma had come to expect. “This has been going on for some time, and I must admit I feel rather uneasy about it,” he continued, shaking his head. “Iris is one of my mother’s oldest friends. If anything should happen to her…” Looking up, he met Gemma’s eyes. “Well, there’s no point borrowing trouble, is there? I hate having come to the age where one has these constant intimations of mortality. It’s most unsettling.”

“But I understand that you’re first in line for Dr. Winslow’s position if she retires,” said Kincaid. “You must find that rather gratifying.”

“I understand being synonymous with rumor has it?” Darcy flicked a speck of dust from his trouser leg. “I learned a long time ago not to put too much credence in the academic grapevine. As in all small and incestuous communities, things tend to get blown out of proportion.”

Kincaid tilted his head to one side, as if the remark had reminded him of something. “Vic was aware of that, too, and she said she thought it curious there was so little speculation at the time of Lydia’s death. It was assumed a suicide and dropped at that.”

Darcy gave Kincaid a puzzled look. “Everyone who knew Lydia knew her emotional history. We were distressed at the news, but not surprised. What else was there to say?”

“One might have said that it was all a bit too convenient, Lydia living up to everyone’s expectations like that. Vic began to think so. She became convinced, in fact, that Lydia did not commit suicide at all.” Slowly, Kincaid added, “She was quite sure that Lydia was murdered.”

For a moment, Darcy sat without protesting, his face expressionless, then he shook his head. “I’m afraid, Mr. Kincaid, that this is a case of the biographer taking on the characteristics of her subject. When Victoria McClellan first came to the department, she displayed every evidence of a sound and practical personality. It only illustrates the development of a rather unhealthy identification with Lydia that she should have come to embrace such nonsense.”

Kincaid smiled. “And I might have agreed with your argument, Dr. Eliot, were it not for the indisputable fact that Vic herself was murdered. Had you forgotten that?”

“I’m having a bit of a hard time with this,” said Gemma with a glance at Kincaid’s profile as he once again negotiated the Newnham roundabout. This time their destination was the Grantchester Road, and Nathan Winter’s cottage. “I had boyfriends before Rob, of course, but only one at a time.”

“And no girlfriends?” Kincaid said with a sideways smile.

“Not in that sense,” Gemma said a little primly. “Does that make me conventional?”

“Very.” The smile became a grin.

“I suppose it must be my background, then,” she said, joking, but she heard the hint of injury in her own voice.

Kincaid glanced at her. “You’re just fine the way you are, Gemma. Don’t ever think otherwise.” He touched the backs of his fingers to her cheek for a moment. “If anyone’s background was conventional, it was Lydia’s,” he added as he reached for the gear lever. “A schoolmistress’s daughter from a small village.”

“What would she say to a baker’s daughter from north London?” Gemma mused. “I’m beginning to feel what Vic must have felt-I wish Lydia would suddenly appear and talk to me, tell me what she thought, what she was really like.”

“We can try asking Nathan,” Kincaid suggested as he slowed. They’d come to the scattered houses marking the beginning of the village, and across the fields to their left they could see the line of trees following the course of the Cam.

“And Adam Lamb,” added Gemma. “Of all of them, he’s the one who seems most unlikely doing… you know… what they did. There’s such a gentleness about him.”

There was no sign of Adam’s battered Mini in front of Nathan’s cottage, however, nor was there any immediate answer when they rang the bell. They rang again and waited, listening for any sound from within the house, but Gemma heard only the faint chirping of birds and the occasional swish of tires on the tarmac.

“We could try the garden,” Kincaid suggested, stepping back from the porch and looking to either side. “There seems to be a path round to the right.”

He started in that direction and Gemma followed. As she stepped carefully on the spaced flagstones, a sweet smell rose from beneath her feet. She stopped and knelt, picking some of the tiny green stems growing in the crevices of the walk. She rubbed the leaves between her fingers, then held them close to her nose. The headiness of the scent made her close her eyes for a moment. “Thyme, isn’t it?” she said to Kincaid, who had stopped to watch her. “Look, there’s all different varieties.”

“Like Prince Charles’s Thyme Walk at Highgrove? That’s a bit grand for a village cottage, don’t you think?”

“I think it’s lovely.” Gemma stood and brushed at the knee of her trousers. “Makes me want to roll in it, like a cat in catnip.”

“Feel free,” he said, with an amused lift of his eyebrow.

They had come to a stone wall with a white gate set in it. He reached over its curved top to unfasten the latch, and once through the gate they found themselves in a tunnel-like passage formed by arching yews. Gemma felt the drop in temperature and shivered a little at the cool, dank smell, then they came out the far end into the back garden. Patches of sunlight skittered across the grass, dappling Nathan Winter as he knelt beside a knot-shaped bed.

He was digging furiously in the earth with a hand trowel, and they watched him for a moment before he looked up and saw them. The wind ruffled his fine white hair, but he wore only an old jumper that looked as though it had been in intimate contact with the compost heap, and dirty canvas trousers. Bright dots of color flamed in each cheek, and Gemma thought that in spite of the physical activity he looked less well than he had the day before. As they walked across the lawn towards him, he sat back on his heels. A half-dozen small green plants littered the ground beside him, their roots exposed.

“Did you like the tunnel?” he asked as they reached him. “Kit liked to play in it. He was still young enough for imaginary games of soldier or explorer-another couple of years he’d have been smoking cigarettes and kissing girls under the yews.”

Gemma felt a little chill, for Nathan spoke as if Kit were dead, too, or at least as lost to him as Vic. She glanced at Kincaid, but his face was closed, unreadable. He hadn’t spoken of Kit since the evening before, and she had no idea what he must be feeling.

Since Nathan showed no sign of getting up, Gemma lowered herself to the grass. Hoping to turn the conversation, she touched one of the wilting plants and asked, “What are you digging up?”

“Bloody lovage.” He jabbed savagely at the earth with the trowel. “I planted them for Vic, but there’s not much point now, is there?”

“Vic’s teas, of course.” Kincaid said suddenly, shaking his head. “How stupid of me.” Sinking to one knee, he looked Nathan in the eye. “You made Vic’s teas, didn’t you, Nathan? I remember Laura saying it was lovage she drank.”

Nathan stared at him. “Who else do you think would’ve mixed them? But lovage makes a broth, really, not a tea. It tastes a bit like celery.”

“Do you grow foxglove in your garden?”

“Of course there’s foxglove, just back of the lavender, along the walk.” He started to point in the direction of the flagged path that led from the tunnel’s exit to the patio, then looked back at Kincaid.