Deborah Crombie - Dreaming of the bones

Kincaid released Adam’s shoulder and, glancing at Gemma, read the brief flare of triumph in her eyes. They had been right, after all. “Adam, we think Lydia meant to tell what happened. She wrote a poem about Verity’s death which we believe Darcy removed from the manuscript of her last book. Vic found a copy in a book Nathan had given her, but Nathan didn’t know it was there. He may have read it for the first time this afternoon.”

Looking from Kincaid to Gemma, Adam said slowly, “You’re saying that Darcy killed Lydia and Victoria McClellan, aren’t you? And that Nathan has just discovered it?”

“Yes.” Gemma laid a gentle hand on his arm. “What would he do, Adam?”

Adam shook his head. “I should have seen this. Perhaps not when Lydia died, but at the very least when Dr. McClellan began to question the manner of her death. I’ve been willfully and sinfully blind.” He closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them they were luminous with tears. “We all thought we could make reparation for what we’d done, each in our own way. But it wasn’t enough. Nathan will know that now. I fear the worst.”

Kincaid felt the sharp jab of foreboding. “Where would he go? To Darcy’s college?”

“I don’t-”

“Shhh.” Kincaid held up his hand, listening. He could have sworn he’d heard a faint crack of sound in the still air. “Did you hear it?”

“A gunshot,” said Gemma. “Could it have been a gunshot?”

“It came from that direction,” said Kincaid, pointing towards the bottom of the village. “I’d say a good half mile away.”

“The Pool,” said Adam. “Byron’s Pool. Past the Mill about a quarter mile. That’s where he’ll have gone.”

Kincaid thought strategy for a moment. “Can we find it?”

“There’s a signpost. And the path is clearly marked,” said Adam. “But I can show you-”

“No, you stay here and wait for Chief Inspector Byrne,” said Kincaid, already half out the door. “Show him the way,” he called over his shoulder as he sprinted for the car, Gemma on his heels.

“Would Darcy agree to meet him?” said Gemma as they slammed their doors and the engine coughed to life.

“I don’t think Nathan will have had the advantage,” Kincaid answered grimly. The lights of the houses flashed by as they sped through the village, then they were dipping down to cross the old stone bridge by the Mill. Kincaid slowed as they began the curving ascent on the other side. “There!” He pointed at a signpost, faintly legible in the beam of the headlamps. “Byron’s Pool. And there’s a car park.” The small graveled area was empty.

“Nathan walked,” said Gemma as Kincaid stopped the car. “But Darcy must have left his car somewhere else. He won’t have meant to be seen. Torch under the seat,” she added as they scrambled out of the car. “Look, there’s the path.”

Kincaid reemerged from the car with the torch. “We’ll not use it just yet,” he said quietly. “Our eyes will adjust in a minute or two, and there’s no sense making targets of ourselves.” Putting his hand on Gemma’s shoulder, he felt her vibrating with tension. For an instant, he thought of ordering her to wait for him there, but he didn’t like the idea of leaving her alone, unarmed, and possibly blocking Darcy’s exit from the car park. He squeezed her shoulder. “Stay behind me, love, and at the first sign of trouble, go for backup.”

The path was uneven, but lighter in color than the surrounding leaves and bracken, and as his eyes learned to differentiate he began to pick up speed. The car park soon disappeared, swallowed by the trees, and the night sounds rose round them.

“Wait!” Gemma’s hand clamped his elbow. “I heard something,” she breathed in his ear.

He listened, straining into the darkness. A rustle… then a sound that might have been a faint human grunt of pain. Nodding at Gemma, he turned and went on, placing each foot more carefully than before. Cowboys and Indians, he thought, conscious of every snapping twig. As a child, he’d always wanted to be the Indian, and he had a sudden intense memory of the smooth, rolling motion of his feet as he crept through the woods. Then he came round a twist in the path and stopped short.

They stood at the edge of a small clearing faintly illuminated with moonlight. On the far side, two bodies grappled on the ground, and a few feet away he saw a gleam in the grass. The gun.

Then the body on top heaved itself up, turning towards them with the heavy menace of a cornered beast. Darcy.

Kincaid dived without thought, a soaring lunge that brought him skidding across the grass onto the gun. He rolled with it in his hands and scrambled to his knees.

Darcy stood before him, swaying slightly. Half his face and neck looked black in the dappled light-a shadow? No, blood, Kincaid realized. He got one foot underneath him and rose slowly without shifting the stock of the gun from the hollow of his shoulder, or its aim from the center of Darcy’s chest.

He could shoot Darcy. Now . The thought came with cold clarity. Self-defense. Justifiable homicide. Who would question it? He had broken so many rules already, why not one more?

Darcy shifted on his feet, balancing his weight on flexed knees.

He meant to run. Let him make his break, then shoot him. No one could say it wasn’t right .

The whites of Darcy’s eyes flashed as he looked from side to side. His hands clenched into fists.

“Lie down on the ground,” said Kincaid slowly. “Put your hands behind your back. If you don’t do as I say, now, I will shoot you.”

For a moment, Darcy stood, and Kincaid tensed, preparing for the recoil of the gun.

Then Darcy dropped heavily to his knees. “I need help, medical attention,” he said. “He shot me. I’m injured.”

“Down!” Kincaid shouted, his anger and frustration breaking on a rush of adrenaline. “I don’t care if you bleed to death, you son of a bitch. Do you understand that?” He motioned with the gun, and Darcy lowered himself to the ground with a groan. “Gemma-”

She’d reached Darcy. “I’ve got a scarf.” Quickly, she knotted his hands together, then ran to Nathan.

Kincaid heard her whisper, “Oh, dear God, please…” as she knelt beside him.

“Is he breathing?”

“I think so. Yes.” She struggled to lift Nathan’s head from the water. “But he’s covered with blood-”

There was a racking, retching cough, then Nathan’s voice gasping, “His. It’s his. I shot him.”

Then Kincaid heard the screech of tires and the slamming of car doors, and a moment later he saw the flicker of torches moving through the trees. Lowering the gun, he said, “It seems the cavalry has arrived.”

“I didn’t know how much I wanted to live until he had his hands round my throat,” said Nathan, his voice little more than a hoarse whisper. They sat round the table in his kitchen, he and Adam, Kincaid and Gemma, drinking herbal tea.

The medics had dressed the worst of his cuts and abrasions, but he’d refused to go to hospital. “I thought I wanted to die,” he continued after a sip of tea. “I thought I’d shoot him, then shoot myself. But I failed on both counts.”

Gemma touched her slender fingers to the back of his hand. “You didn’t fail, Nathan. You didn’t need Darcy’s death on your conscience. And it wouldn’t have made Vic’s death, or Lydia’s, any less a waste.”

“We all failed,” said Adam. “We failed ourselves, and we failed Darcy. He wasn’t always so wicked. I don’t think he meant to kill Verity. But she refused him, and he couldn’t control his temper.” Pausing, he eased his finger between the clerical collar and his neck. “We’ll never know what he might have become if we’d held him accountable for what happened that night.”