Dying to Know (A Detective Inspector Berenice Killick Mystery) (50 page)

‘DI
Killick,’ she said to the young woman on reception. ‘I want to speak to Dr. Merletti. The hospital said she’d come straight back to work.’

She
was shown into a waiting area. A young man appeared. ‘Dr. Merletti is in the engineering sheds. She said would you mind joining her there.’

‘I
don’t mind where I go.’ Berenice followed him along the sunlit corridor, out of a door, through a yard, then through a huge industrial doorway.

They
were standing in something like an aircraft hangar. Huge steel trolleys wheeled past. She saw workbenches, shining metal.

From
the groups of white-coated people, Elizabeth emerged. Even with one arm in a sling, she looked groomed and smart. She smiled at Berenice. ‘Glad it’s over, are you? Has he confessed?’

‘You
look well,’ Berenice said.

‘I
was lucky.’ She shrugged.

‘And
brave.’

Elizabeth
glanced at her. ‘That too. Perhaps. At the time I didn’t think. I just saw that poor child in danger and I – ’ she shuddered. ‘Well, it turned out OK. Let’s go somewhere we can talk.

‘Back
at work.’ Berenice glanced around the huge space as they walked through the hangar. ‘I thought it was all about the maths.’

Elizabeth
smiled. ‘You can’t prove the maths without the right kit.’

‘And
this is the kit?’

They
passed two white-coated men, bent over a bench on which was placed a huge metallic hexagonal shaped tube.

‘Electro-magnets,’
Elizabeth said. ‘You can’t just buy them in Homebase.’ She pushed at two swing doors. It was a quieter space, stacked with bits of furniture, and clear plastic boxes that seemed to hold nuts and bolts. ‘So.’ Elizabeth leaned against the table. ‘How can I help?’

Berenice
took the funeral photo from her pocket and held it out to her.

Elizabeth
glanced at it. ‘What’s – Oh. Oh God.’

Berenice
watched her. ‘You’re there. In the corner there.’

‘Of
course… Jacob’s funeral…’ Her voice was shaking. The colour had drained from her face. ‘Of course I’m there.’

‘He
was your son.’

The
words hung in the air.

‘Yes,’
Elizabeth said. ‘He was my son.’ She sank down onto a plastic chair.

‘Why
did you lie?’

Elizabeth
looked up at her. She was empty-eyed, grey-faced. Her lips moved, but no words came.

Berenice
tried again. ‘You didn’t tell - ’

Elizabeth’s
eyes blazed sudden fury. ‘Is there any reason why I should? Is it the kind of thing you go around telling people you hardly know?’

Berenice
sat down next to her. ‘Why did you give your baby away?’

Elizabeth
raised her head. ‘Are you a mother?’ Her voice was oddly sharp.

Berenice
shook her head.

‘Have
you ever loved a man? I mean, really loved a man?’

Berenice
hesitated. She shook her head.

‘When
I saw the situation clearly – when I looked at it for what it was…’ Her voice was firmer now. ‘When I realized that Murdo was never going to leave her… I thought to myself, what do I want? And I realized that it was all wrong, to have the child but – but not to have him…’ She met her gaze. ‘It was all wrong,’ she repeated.

Berenice
was silent.

‘Do
you think I’m unnatural? Not a proper woman… to give away one’s child?’

Berenice
spoke quietly. ‘As you say – I know nothing about it.’

‘I
got used to it, of course,’ Elizabeth went on. ‘That look in people’s eyes, that flicker of judgement, as if I’d been weighed up and found wanting…’

‘Was
it - ?’ Berenice hesitated.

‘What?’

‘Was it your idea or his?’

The
poise faltered slightly. ‘We were as one,’ she said.

‘You
and Murdo?’

‘We
adored each other. We had to find a solution…’

‘But you weren’t going to raise him, this baby?’

Elizabeth
smoothed her skirt on her knees. ‘Murdo made it clear…’

Berenice
waited.

Elizabeth
met her eyes. ‘We needed a solution. And he came up with one.’

‘To
adopt the baby? To raise it with his wife?’

‘She’d
always wanted children. She was an excellent mother, too.’

‘But
why…?’

‘Why
what?’ Elizabeth was upright, now, her tone matter-of-fact. ‘You mean, why didn’t he leave? Why didn’t he and I run away, raise the child together?’

‘If
he loved you as you say…’

Elizabeth
shook her head. ‘It wasn’t just Murdo. If you knew about my upbringing, the pain I saw my mother bear…’ She breathed. ‘It killed her in the end.’

‘And
you felt as if you were to blame?’

Elizabeth
threw her a cold, blank look. ‘I’d always known I wasn’t cut out for motherhood, that’s all.’

Berenice
nodded. ‘I know the feeling,’ she said.

A
burst of distant noise, electrical, drilling of some kind.

‘So
- ?’

Elizabeth
sighed. ‘Murdo talked to his wife. She accepted it. More than that, she was happy, I think. It solved a lot of problems. And she won, after all.’

‘You
mean, she ended up with Murdo?’

‘That’s
winning, isn’t it?’

‘And
you went to Italy.’

Elizabeth
nodded. ‘Yes.’

‘Did
you ever come back – I mean, in between - ’

‘No.’

‘Apart from for the funeral.’ Berenice flicked the photograph between her fingers.

‘Apart
from that. I caught the next flight back to Rome.’

Berenice
gazed at the image, the tiny coffin, the white flowers. ‘Jacob,’ she said.

Elizabeth’s
gaze was unblinking. ‘Jacob,’ she said.

‘So
– what happened next?’

‘It
was the end of Murdo and me. We were both heartbroken, of course.’

‘And
Iain?’

Elizabeth
flashed her a glance. ‘Iain?’

‘You’d
had an affair with him.’

She
shrugged. ‘Sort of. On and off.’

‘But
nothing serious? Not like you and Murdo?’

‘Oh,
no.’ Her tone was emphatic. ‘Nothing like me and Murdo. Iain had hopes of me. But I went to the new lab, started a new life.’

‘Met
your husband,’ Berenice said.

‘Yes.’

‘Until…’

Elizabeth
crossed one neat shoe over the other. ‘You know the rest. A job came up here. My marriage was over. So I came back.’

‘And
you and Murdo?’

Elizabeth
fixed her with a look. ‘You say you’ve been in love? Can you imagine, after all those years, of silence, of nothing… to set eyes on each other again? It was wonderful.’

‘Until
he died.’

A
nod of her head. ‘Yes,’ she said.

The
drilling noise erupted, briefly, then faded away.

Berenice
shifted on the hard plastic chair. ‘Going back some years… what did Murdo think about you and Iain?’

A
brief smile, a shrug.

‘He
knew you were sleeping with Iain?

‘He
didn’t care. He knew I loved him more than life itself.’

‘Do
you remember telling me, about Murdo? About their difficulties in conceiving?’

Elizabeth
raised her eyes, slowly. She stared at her.

‘Was
it, perhaps, more than difficulties? More like, impossibility?’

Elizabeth’s
gaze didn’t falter.

‘You
did know, didn’t you,’ Berenice went on. ‘And Murdo knew too. So this baby, this miraculous baby – ’

‘No.’
It was almost a shout.

‘This
child - ’

‘He
was our child.’ Her voice was loud. ‘I wasn’t going to have it any other way…’

‘He
was Iain’s son.’

Elizabeth
clapped her hand across her mouth. She stared, mutely, at Berenice.

‘You
knew. And Murdo knew. But Iain trusted you… he trusted you to tell him the truth.’

Elizabeth
was shaking her head, her hand still covering her lips.

‘And
then came the day, not that long ago, when Virginia found out, that the child she’d accepted as her husband’s, her beloved husband’s - and raised, and mourned for all these years, was the child of another man.’

Elizabeth
took her hand away from her mouth. She sat, her breathing shallow, staring at her lap. At length, she spoke. ‘I wished it was his,’ she said. ‘The baby. I wanted it to be Murdo’s.’

‘But
Iain must have had suspicions… the timing….?’

‘He
asked me. I said no. We all signed… we all signed documents.’ Her voice was small. ‘They were similar men. The baby… he looked like both of them.’ Elizabeth glanced up at her. ‘I loved Murdo. I loved him more than I’ve ever loved anyone, before or since. But – but he was never mine. When I found I was pregnant… I so wanted it to be his.’ She was almost whispering.

‘And
Iain?’

Elizabeth
gave a dismissive wave of her manicured fingers.

Berenice
was silent. Then she said, ‘When did Virginia find out?’

‘I
don’t know.’ Elizabeth’s voice was small.

‘She
had raised your child, believing it was her husband’s. And now she’d found out that you had deceived her. And deceived her so cruelly. And all that rage, the rage of the wronged wife, multiplied by – by the sort of numbers you deal with here, must have come to the fore.’

Another
brief nod.

‘So
– ’ Berenice leaned against the hard back of her chair. ‘Three weeks ago, Alan and Iain are having a shouting match about the land sale, the Voake house. And in the heat of the moment, Alan suggests to Iain that he’s been misled, by you and Murdo. He talks of ghosts, and dead children. Is that what happened?’

Elizabeth
was shaking her head.

‘And
Murdo, attempting to calm things down, takes Iain for a walk on the beach…’

‘I
wasn’t there.’ She stared, sullenly, at her lap.

‘And
something that had been gathering, some truth lurking at the back of his mind, fell into focus.’

‘I
told you - ’

‘I
know. You weren’t there. But let’s just say, you’re Iain. And you’ve discovered that you were deceived by people who claimed to love you. And that as a result you’d been made to sign away your paternal rights to a child that was yours, a son.’

A
silence. Elizabeth stared at the floor.

Berenice
sighed. ‘Ghosts,’ she said. ‘As you said the other day. The shadow of the past.’

Elizabeth
raised her eyes to her. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘You
know the truth, Elizabeth. You know who killed Murdo.’

‘So
why ask me?’ Elizabeth flashed back. ‘Sure. I know who killed Murdo. What good does that do anyone?’

Berenice
got to her feet. She looked down at Elizabeth. ‘And who killed Iain?’

Elizabeth
too, stood up. In her heels she was taller than Berenice. ‘If you know so much, you know the answer to that too. Like I said, Lady, we do the same job, you and me. We define our questions. We sift through the evidence until we find the right answer. And now may I go?’

She
stepped past Berenice and opened the door. Berenice watched her go, watched her glide through the sun-lit shed, flanked by towering tunnel pieces and half-built magnets.

Chapter Thirty-Three