“I shouldn’t have said that. I promised Lydia I’d never tell anyone.” She shook her head. “And I’ve never in all these years broken a promise to Lydia.” Her eyes filled with tears.
“There will be records, you know, hospital admissions and so on, if we’re forced to trace them,” Gemma continued. “But it would be better coming from you. Was this shortly before Lydia died?”
Daphne gave her a look of blank incomprehension. “I’m sorry?”
“You told us Morgan attacked Lydia.” Kincaid said carefully. “Did this happen near the time of her death?”
“Lydia hadn’t seen Morgan for years when she died, as far as I know This was just weeks before they separated. She came to me.” Daphne groped backwards for her chair, and Kincaid moved quickly to right it for her. “Why do you keep talking about Lydia’s death?” she asked. “What has that to do with anything?” Daphne’s hands gripped the seat of the gilded chair beneath her thighs as if it were a frail craft on a storm-tossed sea.
“Vic-Dr. McClellan-thought that Lydia’s death might have been… engineered,” said Kincaid. “She was, in fact, convinced that Lydia Brooke was murdered. And don’t you find it rather odd, Miss Morris, that Victoria McClellan should have been murdered, too?”
Cambridge
11 February 1968
Somehow I never thought it would come to this. Fragmented. Observed and observer. The first Lydia dispassionate, rational, knowing there were only two inevitable conclusions-death or division.
The other Lydia knows death would have been the better alternative.
Lydia watches Lydia lying fetus-curled in the sweat-soaked bed. Lydia knows it for sabotage, knows the other one couldn’t bear the fine, clean strength of what they had between them. So the other poisoned it, a word here, an expression there, provoked when she should have comforted, drew blood with savage appetite.
And Lydia watched, Electra tongueless, mute, the poet silenced.
There will be no more.
“She never denied it,” said Gemma, glancing at Kincaid as he drove. “Who never denied what?” he asked, frowning, distracted by the traffic at the Newnham roundabout as he signaled for the Barton Road.
“Daphne never actually denied her relationship with Lydia.”
“Maybe she didn’t think the allegation worth denying,” Kincaid suggested, looking away from the road long enough to grin at her. “Maybe she thinks we’re as round the twist as Morgan Ashby. Maybe by this time she’s called the Yard to complain about our irrational behavior-we have, after all, just accused a respected professional woman of having a homosexual relationship, not to mention murder, on the basis of nothing whatsoever.”
Stung by his reckless sarcasm, Gemma said hotly, “She’s not telling the whole truth. She was relieved when I said the letters were to Lydia’s mother. I’m sure of it.”
“She also seems to have a cast-iron alibi for the afternoon of Vic’s death.”
They had spoken again to Jeanette, and had a look at Daphne’s daily calendar, both of which confirmed that Daphne had had a full schedule of meetings and appointments on Tuesday, but Gemma was not ready to capitulate. “There are always holes in alibis. And we don’t know where Vic went when she left the English Faculty that afternoon. What if she went to Daphne’s flat? Daphne could have slipped out of her office and met her with no one the wiser.”
She knew from the look on his face that he’d considered the possibility, but rather than agreeing with her, he said, “Now that we’ve already done six impossible things before lunch, as well as buggering any claim to reputable behavior, how do you suggest we persuade Morgan Ashby to sit down and have a nice pleasant conversation about all this?”
Gemma felt the knot of dread in her stomach expand at the thought. She had lied to Morgan Ashby, and that was something even a calm and stable man might not take too kindly. But she smiled at Kincaid, and said carelessly, “Well, if your pretty face won’t do the trick, I suppose we’ll have to rely on my charm.”
They went by farmhouse rules this time, and knocked at the back door first. They hadn’t seen the car, but their hopes that it was Morgan who was out, and that Francesca would be able to pave the way for them, were soon dashed.
Morgan opened the door scowling, as if he’d been expecting someone else, but it soon became obvious that they were not more welcome. “You,” he said to Kincaid. “I thought I told you to bugger off.” Then he glimpsed Gemma, half-hidden behind Kincaid’s shoulder, and for an instant his face started to relax into a smile. “What are you doing here, Miss Ja-” Breaking off, he looked from Kincaid to Gemma again, and the scowl came back in full force. “You weren’t here about the studio at all, were you? You were bloody snooping. I should have bloody known.” He shook his head in disgust. “All right, I’ve had enough. I’ve said it before, and this is the last time I’m going to tell you-either of you. Fuck off.”
“Mr. Ashby,” called Gemma, as Kincaid put out a hand to stop the door shutting. “We’re police officers. Both of us. From Scotland Yard. We need to talk to you.”
Morgan gave Kincaid a disdainful look, but at least her sally had kept him from shutting Kincaid’s hand in the door, thought Gemma.
“Scotland Yard? So that was a load of bollocks you fed me, too,” Morgan said to Kincaid. “All that sob story about Victoria McClellan being your ex-”
“It was true,” said Kincaid. “Vic came to me because I’m a policeman, when she began to feel uneasy about Lydia’s death.”
“Lydia’s death?” repeated Morgan, hesitating for the first time. “What are you talking about?”
Gemma stepped forwards into the opening Kincaid had created with his arm. She had felt a sense of rapport with Morgan Ashby, and now she gambled on it. “Look, Mr. Ashby, please let us come in. We won’t take up more than a few minutes of your time.”
Morgan stared at her for a moment, brows drawn together as though he meant to refuse, then he suddenly shrugged and stepped back. “Say what you have to say, then, and get it over with.”
As an invitation, it was less than gracious, but Gemma moved quickly into the kitchen, and Kincaid followed, closing the door.
Socks and underthings hung drying on a rack suspended above the Rayburn, and Gemma smelled potatoes boiling on the cooker’s top. Her stomach rumbled, but she couldn’t tell whether it was from hunger or nerves.
Morgan stood with his backside against the cooker and didn’t invite them to sit down. “What do you mean, uneasy?” he said, glancing from one to the other. “Why would McClellan have needed to go poking about into Lydia’s death? Isn’t the simple fact of it enough?”
“There were several things that worried Vic about Lydia’s suicide. But first let’s go back a bit.” Kincaid stepped forwards, physically crowding Morgan, and Gemma bit her lip on an admonition. She knew his aggression was an instinctive reaction to Morgan’s belligerence, but her gut feeling told her it wasn’t the way to handle him.
“We’ve just come from a visit with Daphne Morris,” Kincaid said. She saw Morgan tense at the name, his pupils dilating until the gray in his eyes disappeared into black, but Kincaid smiled and continued, “It seems you were all quite well acquainted. She told us some fascinating things about your relationship with Lydia. There was a little matter of a reported assault, for instance, and some fractures-”
Gemma heard the crack of Morgan’s fist against Kincaid’s jaw almost before she saw it-then came a flurry of punches too quick for her to follow, and they were straining together, panting, their faces fierce with intent, and blood welled crimson bright from Kincaid’s split lip.