Dreaming of the Bones

saying you tried to break down her door? And the neighbors came?”
    Nathan smiled at him as if he’d made a brilliant deduction. ”That’s it. Must’ve been shouting. Can’t ‘member.”
    ”Did someone look at your hand? You should see a doctor.”
    ”Doesn’ matter,” Nathan mumbled, then he pulled himself up in his chair a little and seemed to try to focus on Adam’s face. ”It doesn’t matter,” he said carefully. ”Nothing matters now.”
    Oh, dear Lord, thought Adam, he’d been a fool, a blind fool, not to have seen it. Nathan’s veiled hints about someone in his life, his air of nervous excitement. And the expression on Vic McClellan’s face when he’d mentioned Nathan’s name.
    ”I’m so sorry, Nathan. I didn’t know.”
    Nathan sat forwards suddenly in his chair, knocking his glass from the side table. It hit the rug and rolled against the edge of the hearth with a soft clink. ”I need to see her,” he said clearly, as if his anguish had burned momentarily through the haze of alcohol. ”Do you see? I need to hold her, touch her, so I’ll know it’s true. I held Jean until she wasn’t Jean anymore. That’s how I knew.” He frowned at Adam and reached for his tumbler again, then stared in puzzlement at the vacant spot on the table.
    Adam got up and retrieved the glass, and as he returned it to the table he saw that the bottle was almost empty. How full had it been in the beginning, he wondered, and need he worry about alcohol poisoning?
    ”Let me help you to bed, Nathan,” he said gently. Nathan poured the last bit of whisky into his glass and swallowed it. ”Don’ wanna sleep. Hafta wake up then, see?” He leaned his head against the back of the chair and closed his eyes. ”Go home, Adam. Nothing to do.” After a moment he repeated, as if to himself, ”Nothing to do.” Adam sat on, watching him until his breathing changed. Whether Nathan had fallen asleep or passed out, he couldn’t tell, but his breaths were deep and regular, and he didn’t respond when Adam softly said his name.
    Carefully, Adam knelt by the hearth and banked up the fire, then fixed the screen in front of it. He took the lap rug that had been folded over the back of his chair and spread it over Nathan’s still form, and then, not knowing what else he could do, he let himself out.
    It was only when he woke in the cold hour before dawn, in his bed in the vicarage, that he realized what he’d seen in the sudden blaze as he’d made up the fire: Nathan’s father’s old shotgun, propped in the shadows by the back door.
    As he turned the comer into Carlingford Road , Kincaid saw Gemma in the halo of light cast by the streetlamp. She wore jeans and the old navy pea coat she used for knocking about on weekends, and she sat on the steps of his building with her arms wrapped round her knees as if she were cold.
    First he felt a flooding of relief, just knowing that she was alive and well, not snatched away from him, too—and then, mixed with the relief, the sort of senseless anger one feels towards a child who has narrowly escaped mishap.
    He pulled the Rover into an empty spot at the right-hand curb, got out, and walked across to her. ”Why didn’t you let yourself into-the flat?” he said. ”Look at you—you’re freezing.”
    ”I tried,” she said, looking up at him. ”I couldn’t settle.” She pushed herself up from the steps and stood, her face on a level with his. ”The Chief told me about Vic, Duncan . I’m so sorry.”
    It was then he discovered that her sympathy was the one thing he couldn’t bear, and that any response he might make would threaten his precarious control. Looking away from her, he said, ”Let’s go upstairs, why don’t we, and have a drink.”
    When they reached the flat, he discovered that Gemma had switched on the lamps and turned up the heating, and when he’d poured them both a small whisky he joined her on the sofa. Sid jumped into his lap, purring as if he’d been gone a week. ”Hullo, mate,” he said, stroking the cat’s sleek, black fur. ”It’s been a bloody long day, hasn’t it?”
    ”Tell me what happened,” said Gemma. ”I only know what you told Denis.” She’d curled up in the comer of the sofa, feet beneath her, so that she could face him.
    He took a sip of his drink, and while his throat still burned from it, he said harshly, ”Kit found her in the kitchen when he came home from school. The medics said there was nothing they could