Dreaming Of The Bones

“I’m saying so what if it is true?” said Darcy. “This was the sixties—remember the Profumo Affair? We were riding the crest of the great sexual revolution, imitating in our rather tame and provincial way what we thought they must be doing in London. We were young, we were away from home, and we were drunk with the idea of our own daring.” He grinned. “God, just thinking of it makes me realize how middle-aged and conventional I’ve become.”

“If these … things happened before Lydia married Morgan, then why did he feel so threatened?” Gemma asked. “She seems to have been quite devoted to him.”

Darcy made a face. “Besotted might be more accurate. Of course Lydia always did have a bit of an obsessional streak, but I thought she had better sense than to focus it on a man of Ashby’s background.”

“Background?” said Gemma, her hackles rising. “What does Morgan Ashby’s background have to do with it?”

“Oh, you know, Welsh mining family, salt of the earth and all that—and the bloody great load of puritanism that came with it. He couldn’t bear the idea that Lydia had enjoyed anyone else, no matter how much she loved him.” Darcy paused, knitting his thick brows together, then added, “I don’t think Ashby much liked the idea of anyone enjoying anything, for that matter, including himself.”

“I doubt that could be said of you, Dr. Eliot,” said Gemma with a smile. She glanced towards the sideboard, where a drinks tray held glasses ready beside an ice bucket and a dish of cut limes.

“Certainly not,” he said in mock offense. “Though I have to admit that a meeting of my graduate students seems quite dull after being reminded of the good old days.” He smiled at her in a way that made her suddenly aware that he was still a very attractive man, then he gave an exaggerated sigh. “But even I cannot escape duty entirely, especially as it looks as though I may need to take on some of Iris’s workload.”

“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.”