Deborah Crombie - Dreaming of the bones

“Even at college she’d only really enjoyed it when the boys were watching, and so she was more or less doing me a favor in return for stability and companionship.”

“And you knew it,” said Gemma.

“Oh, I tried to fool myself at first, but you can’t keep that up for very long. And as Lydia found her footing again she began to find me… tiresome. Her work was becoming quite successful and she was moving in much more sophisticated circles than her old friends could offer.” Daphne paused, staring past them with an unfocused gaze.

“So she broke off your relationship, and you started planning your revenge,” said Kincaid.

Daphne gave him a startled look, then tilted her head back and laughed aloud. “Don’t be absurd, Mr. Kincaid. It was I who broke things off between us. I didn’t care for feeling like a burden to anyone, so I left Lydia.” More soberly, she added, “But I didn’t foresee the consequences.”

“What happened?” asked Gemma, with a quelling look at Kincaid.

“Lydia was utterly and absolutely devastated.” Daphne paused, but there was no tension in it. She leaned back against the windowsill, her arms folded loosely across her chest, as if the telling of her story had released her. “She wrote to me, saying she drove away everyone who mattered to her because she hated herself. The letter came in the post after she’d crashed her car into a tree outside Grantchester.”

This had been the second suicide attempt, thought Gemma, the one for which Vic had found no explanation. “And after that?”

“She recovered slowly, and I supported her. I stopped asking for more than she could give me, and we became friends in a different way. Those were the best years of my life, from that time until Lydia died.” The certainty and the complete lack of self-pity in Daphne’s words made Gemma feel chilled.

“And nothing else happened before she died?” asked Kincaid. “No rows, no odd behavior?”

Daphne shook her head. “I’m sorry to disappoint you, Mr. Kincaid, but there was nothing out of the ordinary. And I certainly didn’t kill Lydia to protect my reputation, if that’s what you’re getting at. Nor your Dr. McClellan. I’d been considering early retirement even before Lydia’s death. That’s why I bought the weekend cottage, you see, so that Lydia and I could work together, her on her poetry, I on my novel.”

Pausing, Daphne seemed to come to some decision. “All weekend I thought about what you said, that Lydia may have been murdered. I don’t know who would have done such a thing, and I hate the idea of someone taking her life before she was ready to let it go. But it’s also a sort of release, because it lets me believe that I wasn’t wrong about her happiness, about what we had together those last years. And if that’s the case, I owe it to her to finish what we began. I’m going to write that novel, and I had better get started. I think I’ve finally come to terms with the fact that Lydia won’t be there to listen to it.”

“Who besides Daphne really grieved for Lydia?” asked Gemma as they walked down the school’s curving drive towards the car park. “I mean the Lydia of the present, as she was when she died, rather than the Lydia of the past.” It was a bright, blowy day, and the wind whipped her skirt, wrapping it round her legs. She had to stop and brush a wayward strand of hair from her face before she could see to unlock the car.

“Vic,” Kincaid said when they had sealed themselves in the car’s calm interior. “I think Vic grieved for her.”

Gemma glanced at him as she fastened her seat belt. He’d been unusually silent all morning, and she didn’t know if worry over Kit or the case occupied him the most. “You don’t really think Daphne Morris had anything to do with Lydia’s death, do you? Or Vic’s?”

After a moment, he shook his head. “What motive could she have had, other than concealment? And then why reveal anything to us? We had no proof. They must have been very careful to leave no evidence of their relationship. I don’t think Vic even guessed.”

Gemma turned the key in the ignition and listened to the Escort’s engine cough and sputter its way to life. “What now?” she asked. “We seem to have come to a bit of a dead end.”

“I think we need to have a word with the very tactless Miss Pope,” said Kincaid, his face grim. “I rang Laura last night. She said the boys’ school is in Comberton, just the other side of the motorway from Grantchester.”

After a brief consultation of the map, they were once again circling the Newnham roundabout. But this time they stayed on the Barton Road, bypassing the Grantchester cutoff, and had soon run through Barton and into Comberton. The village had none of the charm of Grantchester but seemed rather a suburban enclave, with its quiet clusters of semidetached houses. It looked, thought Gemma, a nice place for children.

They found the secondary school without difficulty, a large, sprawling building just off the main road. An inquiry at the office sent them to the staff room, where they were told they might be lucky enough to catch Miss Pope between classes.

The corridors were filled with uniformed children changing classes. They parted round Gemma and Kincaid as if the adults were of no more interest than stones, and their voices echoed from the walls and ceilings like cannon fire. Gemma thought of Kit here a week ago, as silly and raucous as the boys she saw now, an ordinary child thinking of exam papers and football.

The break room contained half a dozen teachers in various stages of correcting papers and drinking coffee. When Kincaid asked for Miss Pope, the woman sitting alone and unoccupied except for a coffee raised her head. A dishwater blonde with prominent roots, she was a little plump and a little overly made up. Her eyes were red, as if she’d been weeping.

She looked up at them uncertainly. “Yes, I’m Miss Pope. Can I help you?”

Kincaid introduced them and asked if there were somewhere they might talk alone.

“You’re from Scotland Yard? But what-I mean… Why me? What is this about?” She twisted her hands together, shredding the tissue she held.

“It won’t take long, Miss Pope,” Gemma reassured her. “We just have a few routine questions we’d like to ask you.”

“Well… I suppose it’s all right,” she said, frowning. “There’s an empty classroom just down the hall that we could use, but I’ve a class in five minutes.”

The man at the next table had been making little pretense of ignoring their conversation, and after glancing again from Kincaid to Gemma, Miss Pope said, “Shelley, would you take register for me if I’m a bit late?” She then led them down the corridor to an empty classroom.

Kincaid closed the door, shutting out the sound of the children’s last scramble for their rooms before the bell. “Miss Pope, did Vic McClellan come to see you last Tuesday afternoon?”

Elizabeth Pope’s mouth began to tremble and her eyes filled with tears. “I never meant any harm, honestly I didn’t. I told her I never meant to hurt poor Kit…” She pulled another bedraggled tissue from the sleeve of her ruffled blue dress and dabbed at her eyes.

“Do you mean the conversation Kit overheard?” asked Gemma, pulling a fresh tissue from her handbag and offering it.

Miss Pope gave her a grateful smile and blew her nose. “It’s just that I’ve an awful habit of running my mouth without thinking, and he’s such a lovely man… Dr. McClellan, that is, so good-looking, and always so charming when he came to the school. I didn’t see how she could let him go like that…”

“What exactly did Vic say to you?” asked Kincaid a little more gently, with an obvious effort to control his impatience.