“Let me ring your daughters, Nathan,” pleaded Adam, as he had the day before. “It would do you good to have them here.”
“No.” Nathan shook his head. “I couldn’t bear to have them fussing over me. And they’d be a bit condescending with it, because they can’t imagine anyone over thirty feeling… what Vic and I…”
“Passion,” said Adam. “The young think they have a monopoly, and nothing but experience will disabuse them of it. We were the same.”
“Were we?” Glancing at Adam, Nathan said, “You felt that way about Lydia, didn’t you?”
“Yes. But age did temper it. You teach yourself to focus on other things, even to take pleasure in them. But still, I wished it had been me she’d called that last day. It took me a long time to forgive you for that.” Adam saw Nathan’s eyes widen in a surprise that mirrored his own. He hadn’t meant to tell Nathan that, not ever, and especially not now.
“I didn’t know.”
“It doesn’t matter now. But I always thought I might have changed her mind, or at least given her some comfort-”
“You think she’d have told you what she meant to do? Or that you’d somehow have divined it, when I didn’t?” said Nathan, with a spark of anger.
“Can’t you see her intention now, looking back?” asked Adam reasonably.
“No, I bloody well can’t.” Nathan pushed the tartan rug from his legs. “Vic asked me the same thing, but Lydia sounded perfectly ordinary that day, only perhaps a little excited about something, a bit urgent. And to think I was always glad you were spared-” Nathan broke off, and Adam thought that even now he found it difficult to talk about how he had found her.
In the silence, Adam became suddenly aware of the sparrows chirping in the hedge, and of the warmth of the sun on his face. After a moment, he said, “But it would have given me some sort of… closure. You see, I understand how you felt… when you couldn’t see Vic.”
“Vic and Lydia,” said Nathan under his breath. “Lydia and Vic. They’re so intertwined now that sometimes I can’t separate what happened to one from the other.”
“I hadn’t thought of it that way,” said Adam. “But it is odd that Vic should have a weak heart as well…” He thought again of his visit with Vic, and of what they’d talked about. “All those questions Vic asked about Lydia’s suicide-she didn’t believe in it, did she?”
“Don’t think I don’t know what you’re up to,” said Chief Superintendent Denis Childs. “Or that I won’t yank you back here faster than you can blink if I get the least complaint of interference from the Cambridge force.” His chair creaked as he sat back and sighed. “Don’t be a bloody fool, man. I know Alec Byrne. He’s a good man, even if his predecessor may have been a bit of a slacker. Let him do his job.”
“I have no intention of keeping him from it,” Kincaid had said, and thanking his chief, had let himself out of Childs’s office. And it was true, he thought, as he picked up the M11 towards Cambridge. But it was also true that he had prior knowledge that Alec Byrne was not inclined to take seriously, and that he was bound by both duty and need to make use of it.
The bag containing Vic’s papers and manuscript sat beside him, wedged into the Midget’s passenger seat. He was happy enough now to turn them over to Byrne, for before he’d left the Yard last night he’d photocopied every single scrap of paper. Then he’d stayed up reading until he had some sense of what Vic had been doing.
The biography, though incomplete, was as seamless and as compelling as a novel. He’d followed Lydia, the solitary child, as she grew into an ambitious young woman, seen her give up scholarship, and, before his body had forced him to sleep, seen her marry. Vic’s intense and compassionate account of Lydia’s devotion to Morgan Ashby had made him wonder if Vic had once felt that way, too.
He intended to find out why Morgan Ashby had refused to see Vic. And he intended to see Vic’s friend and neighbor, Nathan Winter, but first he had better tackle Alec Byrne.
“I’d like to see the pathologist’s report, Alec,” he said, sitting once more in Byrne’s office. “I’ve been a good boy-surely you can have no objection.”
“And surely you’ve pushed the bounds of friendship and obligation far enough. You’ve interfered with my crime scene, for which I could have made official complaint, and on top of that you’ve been bloody rude and overbearing.”
This time Kincaid controlled his impulse to anger. Calling Byrne’s bluff would not get him what he wanted, but groveling very well might. “You’re right, Alec,” he said. “I’m sorry, but I’d think you’d have done the same in my position. Vic is dead, and I don’t have the luxury of good taste. What possible harm can it do to let me see the pathologist’s report? I might even be able to offer some helpful suggestions.”
Byrne hesitated, his long fingers steepled together under his chin. Finally, he said, “I’ll tell you what she said, and you’ll have to be satisfied with that. Dr. McClellan’s heart failed due to an overdose of some form of digitalis, as you know. The pathologist couldn’t hazard a guess as to when the poison was administered, because the different forms of digitalis have varied reaction times. Digitoxin is very quick acting, while digoxin, on the other hand, takes several hours. Most cases of digitalis poisoning result from therapeutic overdose rather than homicidal intent, but we’ve tracked down Dr. McClellan’s physician, and he confirms that she had no history of heart disease and was not currently taking any medication.”
“What medication did Lydia take?” Kincaid asked, wishing he could remember more of the detail from the file he’d read.
Byrne pulled another folder from his desk drawer, and Kincaid was glad to see that he had at least kept Lydia’s file at hand. “Let’s see,” Byrne muttered as he opened the folder and skimmed the pages, using his finger to mark his place. “Lydia took digoxin for a minor heart arrhythmia, although there’s a note here from the pathologist that digoxin is not usually the first choice for that condition, because the therapeutic dose is so near the toxic dose. If Lydia had not had a previous history of attempted suicide, he would have been inclined to rule it an accidental death.”
“But they can’t tell if Vic was given the same thing?”
Byrne steepled his fingers again. “No. Nor can we even be certain that Lydia Brooke actually died from an overdose of her own medication, even though digoxin was present in her body, because-as I understand it, and I’m no chemist-digoxin is one of the metabolic by-products of digitoxin.” He glanced at the report. “The twelve-hydroxy analog, to be exact, if that’s any help.”
“So basically what you’re telling me is that it all comes down to the same thing in the end,” said Kincaid. “Was there anything else?”
Switching folders, Byrne said, “Dr. McClellan had a trace of alcohol in her blood, but nothing else of interest that I can see.”
“So she might have had wine or beer with her lunch?” asked Kincaid. He didn’t remember that Vic had been fond of drinking during the day, but perhaps she’d changed her habits.
“Her stomach was empty, but that doesn’t necessarily tell us anything, as she’d have digested her lunch by that time anyway. We have yet to confirm where or with whom she had a meal.”
Kincaid refrained from saying that they’d had almost forty-eight hours, and just what exactly had they been doing? Instead he made an effort to say mildly, “And did you turn up anything in the garden?”