Dreaming of the Bones

aware of it, she hadn’t mentioned it to him.
    ”One can never be sure of the details unless one is personally involved, but that was the operative rumor. And as the lady in question is now headmistress of a prestigious girls’ school…” Eliot made a tut-tut sound with his tongue. ”I doubt the school governors would find the story too amusing.”
    ”Who was the other woman, Dr. Eliot?”
    Darcy Eliot looked uncomfortable. It seemed that repeating unsubstantiated titillating rumors was all in a day’s work, but naming names might press the limits of his public school code of honor. ”Why should I tell vou. Mr. Kincaid?”
    Kincaid had expected the challenge. He leaned forwards and met Eliot’s gaze. ”Because Victoria McClellan is dead, and I want to know who had reason to kill her.”
    Eliot looked away first. ”Well, I suppose that’s reason enough, if you put it that way. Though I can’t imagine Daphne killing anyone—”
    ”Daphne Morris? Lydia’s friend from Newnham?” Kincaid had a clear image of the girl as Vic had written of her, but that was years ago. ”Headmistress of a girls’ school?”
    ”Here in Cambridge . Just on the Hills Road , in—”
    There was a tentative tap at the door, and an acne-scarred boy put his head round.
    ”Give me a minute more, will you, Matthews?” Eliot said testily, and the boy scuttled apologetically backwards, closing the door with a snap.
    ”Just one more thing, Dr, Eliot,” said Kincaid as he rose. ”Did you see Vic at all on Tuesday?”
    ”It was an ordinary day,” Eliot said slowly. ”One doesn’t think about it at the time, and that makes it difficult to piece things together again. We passed on the stairs, we passed in the corridor, but I’d be hard put to tell you what time.”
    ”Do you remember anything in particular she said?” Eliot gave a frustrated shake of his head. ”Only the most mundane of things. ‘Morning, Darcy.’ ‘Do let me use the photocopier first this morning, Darcy.’ ” He frowned. ”I
    believe she said something about having a sandwich at her desk while she prepared for a supervision at half past one—but I can’t tell you if she actually did, as I was out to lunch, then had supervisions myself the rest of the afternoon.” Looking up at Kincaid, he added, without his usual air of supercilious amusement, ”I’m sorry. I suppose that’s in the way of a condolence. Sometimes one finds it difficult to say these things.”
    ”Old habits?” asked Kincaid.
    ”Indeed.”

    The door to Vic’s office was shut, but not, Kincaid discovered, locked. He opened it slowly and went in, feeling a sense of trespass that he had not felt in her office at the cottage. He wished suddenly that he’d seen her here, in her element, doing what she loved—that he’d shared this part of her life in however small a way.
    The fine hand of the local police was in evidence. The desk had been stripped bare, and its emptied drawers hung open like gaping mouths. They had left the books and the personal photographs atop the bookshelves. Those of Kit he had expected—baby pictures, a first bicycle, awkward school photos with his hair slicked into submission, a fairly recent print of him handling a punt pole with great concentration.
    There was no trace of Ian. It was as if Vic had not hesitated to erase him from her life here, where his absence would not further distress Kit.
    Something familiar caught his eye as he turned away—a snapshot propped behind one of the frames.
    It was his parents’ garden, in full summer bloom. He and Vic sat sprawled in the grass, laughing, his mother’s spaniel half in Vic’s lap. They had been married just a few months, and he had taken her to Cheshire for a visit.
    He looked away, out of the window. Vic’s office lay across the corridor from Darcy Eliot’s, and her window faced south, towards Newnham. Lydia’s college. Vic, he thought, would have liked that.

    * * *

    Kincaid found Laura Miller waiting for him at her desk.
    ”You look a bit battered,” she said. ”I put the kettle on when I saw Darcy’s supervision go up. I thought you might need a cuppa.”
    He sank into the now-familiar visitor’s chair and loosened the knot on his tie. ”Thanks.”
    Laura disappeared into a small pantry and returned a moment later with two mismatched mugs. ”Milk and sugar all right?”
    ”Lovely.” Wrapping his hands round the mug’s warmth, he said quietly, ”Are you sure Dr. Winslow’s all