Bones of the Buried (42 page)

‘To have left me such a legacy?’

‘To have laid such a burden on you. You ought to have torn up the letter.’

‘And done nothing?’

‘Yes, done nothing. I don’t understand why you felt you had to do what he asked. Surely you knew that violence resolves nothing.’

Elizabeth looked at him in amazement. ‘You don’t understand anything, do you? I loved my stepfather. He was a good man. He had been cheated by his first wife and by the
“English gentlemen” he trusted. He had lost his only son – the boy he lived for. Love . . . it’s the most powerful thing in the world. It makes you do things you could never
imagine doing in cold blood.’

‘I do know what you mean. I feel about Frank in that way . . .’

‘And Verity . . .?’ she said wryly.

Edward did not answer. He sighed. ‘So what happened?’

‘When my mother died five years ago, I thought I ought to do something about my stepfather’s letter. I decided to find Makepeace Hoden.’

‘How did you do that?’

‘Oh, that was no problem. I wrote to the school.’

‘To Eton?’

‘Yes, and they couldn’t have been more helpful. I said I was a friend of his but we had lost touch and I wanted to see him again. They sent me his address by return.’

‘Did you intend to kill him?’

‘I intended to make his life a misery.’

‘But instead he made
your
life a misery.’

‘Yes. I was a fool. I saw he was looking for a wife. I didn’t ask myself why. I thought that if I could marry him I would have him in my power. You can see how husbands and wives
make each other suffer, even when they don’t intend to. Look at my stepfather and Dora Pale.’

‘And he married you just like that?’

‘It turned out he had his own reasons. I thought I was clever but he was cleverer. I discovered much later, when he was doing his best to humiliate me, that before he decided to marry me
he had hired a private detective to find out all about me. That was the sort of man he was.’

‘So he knew you were Oliver’s stepsister before he married you?’

‘Yes. There I was thinking I was in control but he had me checkmate all along.’

‘How long after your marriage did you discover he . . . liked boys?’

‘After just a few months he told me he had only married to protect himself.’

‘To protect himself . . .?’

‘Yes. No one could accuse him of being . . . perverted if he had a wife. That was when I started to hate him. Up till then I wanted revenge for my stepfather’s sake and for
Oliver’s. It was . . . theoretical . . . abstract.’

‘But now it was flesh and blood?’

‘Yes, now I saw he was using me. I could see with my own eyes what it meant to be a child in that man’s clutches. This was the reality. I didn’t need to use my imagination. I
tell you, Edward, I could not bear to let him touch my hand.’

‘Did he mind that you were disgusted by him?’

‘When I discovered what sort of pervert he was – that was when I told him who I was – do you know how he reacted? He laughed. He laughed and laughed and then he sat me down and
told me that he had known all about me before we were married.’

‘So you decided to kill him?’

‘Yes . . . no. I fell in love. This man . . . he was on that safari. He was helping Johnny, our “white hunter”. He was everything my husband wasn’t. We loved each other
the first moment we met. I know it sounds ridiculous but we did. I told him everything. Perhaps I shouldn’t have. He said he . . . don’t laugh, Edward . . . he said he was my knight in
shining armour and would kill for my honour . . . to win me.’

Edward had never felt less like laughing. ‘You got your lover to kill for you?’

Elizabeth shivered, despite the heat. ‘It wasn’t like that. I told you . . .’ Her voice tailed off.

‘And your lover . . . did he kill Stephen Thayer and Tilney, and poor old Miss Harvey?’

‘I don’t know! Truly, I don’t know. He said . . . he said he was going to go away . . . after my husband . . . after he died . . . to “cleanse himself”. He said it
wasn’t safe for us to be together until everyone had forgotten he had been on the safari when Makepeace was killed. He told me that knights of old, having pledged their troth, would go on a
long journey to earn their lady’s hand. I know it sounds like . . . like tosh . . . it is tosh . . . but it didn’t seem like that at the time.’

‘It doesn’t sound like the man I knew.’

Elizabeth laughed. ‘You’ve been in Africa. Love under the stars . . .? It didn’t make you feel romantic?’

‘Sounds like bosh to me,’ he said spitefully. ‘Did you give him your stepfather’s letter and the detective’s report?’

‘Yes,’ she said in a low voice. ‘And the ring.’

‘The ring?’

‘Yes, my mother’s wedding ring . . . Max’s ring. I gave it to him as a kind of pledge.’

Edward looked up at the canopy of green leaves and then across the grass to where the cricketers played, blessedly ignorant of the pain and suffering of one small boy who had also been an
Etonian and had been driven to end his life before it had properly begun.

‘What makes you tell me all this now? You didn’t tell me before. You told me lies then.’

‘Not lies – but not the whole truth. But I had to tell you – you see he came to me yesterday while you were in London . . . to claim his reward.’

‘Reward?’

‘He asked me to marry him . . . he gave me my ring back.’

‘The ring he had beaten Verity unconscious to retrieve?’

‘I’m afraid so. And I . . . I didn’t like him any more. He frightened me. He was no longer my saviour as I had thought in Kenya. I now saw him as a ruthless killer. It
didn’t seem to be about me any more.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I don’t know. I suppose I felt that he wanted to take revenge . . . to kill . . . not for my sake but his own. I was just the excuse.’

‘So what did you do?’

‘I said I couldn’t marry him.’

‘And he was angry?’

‘No, he was deadly calm. He asked why and I said you had . . . you had changed me. I said I didn’t want any more killing . . . any more revenge. I said . . . Well, it doesn’t
matter what I said.’

‘And he left you?’

‘He left saying he had been betrayed and that . . . he would kill you. He said you were an interfering bastard and that you had come between him and his happiness.’

‘He knew you were coming here today with me?’

‘Yes, I had told him. He said he would see you here – whatever that means – and if I warned you . . . I too would . . . be in danger.’

‘You’ve been very brave, Elizabeth, and you did the right thing. He’s a murderer – he might think he’s a knight in armour but he’s just a murderer. Hoden may
have deserved to die but the others . . . By the way, how did he kill him?’

‘He didn’t tell me how he arranged it . . . we never discussed it. I think he thought it would sully me to know the details.’

‘ “Sully” you! That’s good . . . that’s very good.’

‘Edward, try and remember the hell I was in. He seemed to be the key in the prison door. I truly believed he was sincere.’

Edward felt the anger rising inside him. ‘I’m sorry, Elizabeth, but all that . . . chivalrous stuff – it sticks in my throat. Getting to know me – was that part of it?
Did you think I had something to do with Oliver’s death?’

‘I didn’t know. The detective my stepfather hired said that Makepeace, Godfrey Tilney and Stephen Thayer were his chief tormentors but there were probably others . . .
friends.’

‘So did you find Stephen’s address in the same way as you discovered Hoden’s – through the school?’

‘I didn’t need to. It was in my husband’s address book. I found it when I was going through his things . . . after he was killed. I arranged to bump into him at a party. We
liked each other immediately. We were both lonely people. We saw each other a few times. We were never lovers. I still thought then that I
had
a lover.’

‘So what happened?’

‘I told him who I was. I told him about how I had married Makepeace Hoden . . .’

‘But not that he had been murdered?’

‘No. I couldn’t tell him that. I wrote to him . . . my lover . . . and told him Stephen was not to blame for Oliver’s death . . . that he regretted his foolishness with Dora
Pale . . . and that I believed him.’

‘So you wrote to your Sir Galahad and told him he was not to harm Stephen?’

‘Yes. I told him that the killing had to stop.’

‘And did you get a reply?’

‘No,’ she said in a low voice.

‘And how did you find out I was a friend of Stephen Thayer’s? You were lying when you said it was Hoden who wanted you to talk to me?’

‘No! He did talk about you. So did Stephen.’

‘I was the reason you got a job nursing at the hospital here?’

‘Yes,’ she said in a low voice. ‘I thought I’d get to know you and find out what sort of person you were. I thought you would probably be horrible, like my husband, but .
. . but I liked you from the start . . . from the first time I saw you kneeling at your brother’s bed in the hospital and that confused me.’

Edward blushed. ‘I didn’t realise I was being observed.’

‘I wasn’t spying on you.’

‘Look, Elizabeth, I’m desperately sorry about what happened to your stepbrother and I promise you I knew nothing about it. Perhaps I ought to have known, but I was in a different
house and our paths never crossed. I wish they had. Perhaps I might have helped him. Do you believe me?’

‘I do but . . .’

‘You told me you thought Hoden was being blackmailed?’

‘He never said he was but he may well have been. What he was doing was not only wicked but illegal and, as I told you, he was getting reckless. He didn’t seem to mind who knew . .
.’

Edward rubbed his forehead vigorously. ‘Miss Harvey!’ he said aloud. He was responsible for her death. Somehow, the man who was here today to kill him – Elizabeth’s lover
and her husband’s murderer – must have found out that he had talked to her and been frightened he was getting too close to the truth. He rose, unable to keep still any longer, and began
pacing up and down, dragging on his cigarette. He had a growing feeling that he had made a terrible mistake asking Thoroughgood what he knew about the Dora Pale scandal.

Elizabeth watched him sadly. If only they had met in different circumstances. It was all over between them. She knew that. All over, even before it had begun. ‘You don’t think she
could have fallen down the stairs by accident?’ she faltered, reading his thoughts.

‘Well, do you?’ he said roughly. ‘I’ve got to find your paramour before he finds us or rather me – and you’re going to help. Come on!’

Looking for a murderer at an Eton festival was rather easier said than done. The boys might be wearing colourful waistcoats but their fathers and uncles were dressed in a uniform from which no
deviation was permitted. The black coats, the stiff white collars, the faces of the men half-hidden by top hats – only the presence or absence of facial hair differentiated them.

They marched across the acres of green playing fields until Elizabeth complained that she was about to drop with exhaustion. ‘Can’t we go and get a cup of tea?’

‘I don’t want to attach ourselves to Connie and Gerald just in case your friend takes a pot shot at me and damages someone else by mistake.’

‘But surely he’s not going to do anything like that here?’

‘Maybe, maybe not. I just don’t want to run any risks. It occurs to me that he might want to end his “quest” with something of a flourish.’

‘Stop tugging at me!’

‘I want you near me. I think it might needle him a little if he thinks you and I are . . . close.’

‘Oh, so you want him to kill you? Is that it?’

‘I want him to try. I can’t imagine it will be possible to find enough evidence to charge him with the murders in Spain or Africa, but he left a clue when he murdered Stephen Thayer
and I think he knows he did. You see, he killed him on an impulse. He must have confronted him and they talked and, when Thayer turned his back, he killed him with a heavy ornament. He hadn’t
come prepared to kill, I’m almost sure of it. In his hurry, he dropped something – something he knows I noticed and which associates him with the killing. I want him to try to kill me
though I’d rather he didn’t succeed,’ he added grimly. ‘If I can get him to attack me, I think even Chief Inspector Pride would have to take me seriously.’

‘The police? They’re here?’

‘Yes, I alerted Pride to what I thought might happen today and most grudgingly, I have to say, he agreed to place a few men in the grounds.’

‘And they know who they’re looking for?’

‘They do, Elizabeth. What you told me today only confirms what I already suspected.’

At six o’clock, a good-natured but weary throng of parents and boys congregated on the river bank to watch the boats process from the railway bridge down river. As each
boat passed the crowd of spectators, the rowers stood up one by one holding their oars upright beside them. Finally the cox rose, still clutching his rudder lines and desperately trying to stop his
boat colliding with the one in front, or the river bank.

The Duke, applauding enthusiastically, leant over to Elizabeth. ‘I always remember as a boy how we hoped one of the boats would capsize, but it never happened. All the more surprising
because so many of them are not wetbobs but are cricketers like Charles Thayer there. Oh! Well done,’ he cried as, with a final wobble, the boys successfully lowered themselves back on to
their seats and rowed off. ‘Didn’t you once do this, Ned?’ he added, glancing at his brother. Even he had wondered if his brother was feeling well; he was so absent-minded and
unlike his usual loquacious self.

‘Yes, once, when I was captain of the eleven,’ said Edward, hardly noticing the question. Connie glanced at him and at Elizabeth, white and strained-looking, balanced on a shooting
stick beside him. She could only assume they had quarrelled but she could not imagine about what.

Despite the heat of the day it was beginning to feel a little damp so the whole party strolled in the direction of Masters’ Boathouse to look for Frank. They found him without difficulty
and, rather at a loose end, went back to his house to rest for an hour before returning, as dusk descended, to picnic on smoked salmon and strawberries while the midges picnicked on them.
Fortified, they could enjoy the final spectacle of the day – the second procession of boats followed by the fireworks display. The Duke was tiring visibly and Connie was beginning to wish
they had brought two cars so she could have taken him home.