Free Dying to Know (A Detective Inspector Berenice Killick Mystery) by Alison Joseph Page A

still fixed on him. He waited, wondering what she was about to say. But then she stood up and left the room.
    He stared at the door, noticing the chips in the turquoise paint. He wondered whether the parish would extend to redecorating. He wondered whether he should finish the washing up. He wondered how it was that the only woman he had ever loved was lost to him. How had it come to this, he thought, to see her turned away from him, as if there was glass between them and he could see her speaking but not hear?
    He reached towards the old leather, turned the creamy pages between his fingers.
    “… spiritum quondam infinitum ,’ he read, “ spatia omnia pervadere et mundum universum …”
    There was a line scored through the Latin. Underneath, in the same ink handwriting, he saw the words, “A certain infinite spirit pervades all space and contains and vivifies the whole world.” Underneath that, and underlined, were the words, “Therefore that force by which the moon is kept in its orbit is the very one that we generally call gravity.” The last word was underlined three times.
    Chad flicked through the pages. He wondered who he was, this Edwardian diarist who had gone to all the trouble to transcribe these words, at least some of which were Newton’s, he was sure of it, to translate them from the Latin, to annotate them. It seemed to be a labour of love, a reflection of the transcriber’s own views.
    He turned to the inside cover, and saw in the same handwriting, the same brown ink, the name, ‘Johann Van Mielen’. He ran his finger under the name, turned the pages to the end of the book.
    “…an empty space into which will see the seeping of evil, an evil kept at bay by our Lord. And the Lord knows how I pray to him to keep me safe, for my husband with his prism and his rays is risking all…”
    Chad turned the page. The writing was different, he realised, the loops more rounded, the ink a different colour, more black than brown. He read some more.
    “I fear for our souls, and for that of our dear child. My husband chases the missing force, the aether, that unites gravity with light, that allows the being of all matter, from the smallest particle to the greatest star. He sees neither me, nor our daughter any more…”
    Chad turned the page. The rounded handwriting continued. “The death of my dear brother haunts us all. Last night I slept alone. My husband inhabits a world wherein I cannot join him. He sits at his bench long into the night, with his lenses and rays and beams. Last night I watched our dear child in her cradle, and I prayed to the Lord to keep us from this Heavyness, this Darkness. When I awoke this morning I ventured to my husband’s room and found him sleeping there, a makeshift mattress on the floor. He is like a shadow to me now, this man whom once I loved, and my heart does bleed. Where once was joy and laughter, now there are tears, and Silence.”
    The next page was blank. Chad turned back, and read the woman’s words again. Then he closed the book.
    The kitchen was quiet. The lamp above him shed a pool of light. He could hear distant piano notes coming from Helen’s studio.
    Last night she had slept there. Venturing in this morning he’d found her sleeping, wrapped in blankets, a makeshift bed on the couch.
    A shadow to me now.
    The words echoed in his mind.
    This woman whom once I loved. Now there are tears. And silence.
     
     

     
     
    Chapter Eight
     
    I didn’t mean to sleep in the studio, Helen thought, as she folded blankets, lifted the blinds to let in the morning sun. It just kind of happened.
    Last night, there we were, sitting side by side on the sofa, watching television, I can’t even remember what it was, a game show? A kind of competition thing involving food, that’s what it was. I remember pouring wine, probably too much. I remember asking him, again, about that weird lunch yesterday, that Virginia woman. Why are you involved, I said, when what she needs is