Dreaming Of The Bones

Last night I went to Evensong at King’s for the first time. Oh, Mummy, it was incredible. The voices soared, and for a little while I soared with them, imagining myself floating above Cambridge in the clear night, held only by a silver tether of sound. I sat next to a Trinity boy, very serious, who invited me to a poetry reading on Thursday in his rooms. So you see, I already have a social engagement, and you needn’t have worried about me.

If the weather’s fine on Sunday I mean to walk to Grantchester along the river path. I’ll pretend I’m Virginia Woolf going to visit Rupert Brooke. We’ll have tea in the garden at the Old Vicarage and discuss important things: poetry and philosophy and life.

Darling Mother, I’m sure I haven’t thanked you properly. You made me work when I felt tired or cranky; you encouraged me when I couldn’t see past some trivial setback; you built me up when I lost faith in myself. If it weren’t for your vision and determination I’d probably be standing behind the chemist’s counter today, dispensing cough syrup and milk of magnesia, instead of here, in this most glorious of places. I’ll write in a day or two and give you my schedule. I want to share this with you.

Your loving… Lydia

CHAPTER

4

My restless blood now lies a-quiver,

Knowing that always, exquisitely,

This April twilight on the river

Stirs anguish in the heart of me.

RUPERT BROOKE,

from “Blue Evening”

Kincaid had kept his word to Vic, ringing his friend, Chief Inspector Alec Byrne, first thing Monday morning, but it wasn’t until midday Wednesday that he found the time to go to Cambridge. Having decided he’d put enough wear and tear on the Midget for one week, he took the train, stretching his legs out in the empty compartment and dozing between stations. A little more than an hour after leaving King’s Cross, he paid off a taxi in front of the cinder-block building on Parkside Road that housed the Cambridge police.

A blonde constable with traffic-stopping legs escorted him to Byrne’s office, ushering him in with a smile and the merest suggestion of a wink.

“Watch out for our Mandy,” Byrne said with a grin as the door closed. He stood and came round his desk. “She’s been through every man in the department once, and now she’s starting on the second round.”

“I’ll exercise proper caution,” Kincaid assured him. “It’s good to see you, Alec. They seem to be treating you well, if the accommodations are anything to go by.” He raised an eyebrow at the furniture and carpeting, a definite step up from Scotland Yard standard issue.

“I can’t complain. Executive loo and three squares a day.”

Something nagged at Kincaid, and after a moment he realized what it was. Alec Byrne had quit smoking. His desk no longer held ashtrays, and the hand he’d held out for Kincaid to shake was scrubbed pink, only the nails of his thumb and forefinger still showing faint yellow stains. When they’d been fledgling detective constables together, his friend had seldom been seen without a cigarette adhering to his lip or dangling from his fingers. Kincaid had always found it odd, as Byrne was a most fastidious man in other ways.

“I see you’ve given it up,” he said as he settled into the visitor’s chair.

“Had to, I’m afraid. Developed a bit of a spot on my lung.” Byrne shrugged a bony shoulder beneath an exquisitely tailored suit jacket. “Decided it wasn’t worth dying for.”

“You look well.” Kincaid meant it sincerely. A tall man, still as thin as he’d been when Kincaid had first known him, Byrne looked whippet fit. His reddish fair hair had receded above the temples, leaving him a pronounced and rather distinguished widow’s peak.