The Language of the Dead (31 page)

The living room was to Lamb's right; to the left a narrow flight of stairs led to the second floor. A hall led through the center of the house to the kitchen. Lamb peeked into the living room but found it empty, the blackout curtains drawn. He moved down the hall to the kitchen but found that empty also. He went back down the hall and mounted the steps to the second floor, where he found two rooms. The first was a kind of study. A desk was pushed against the window on the wall opposite the door; the other walls were lined with books in shelves, with the exception of a small space by the desk in which sat a file cabinet. Piles of papers and files lay on the floor near the desk. Lamb entered the room and looked through the papers but found nothing related to Thomas Bennett.

The second room was Pirie's bedroom. It contained a dresser, a single bed against the far wall, which was unmade, and a night table next to the left side of the bed.

Lamb carefully picked through the drawers of the dresser but found only socks and underwear, along with several wool sweaters and cotton shirts. The bottom drawer contained a blanket. He checked the closet and also found nothing but clothes—trousers, shirts, jackets,
a pair of dark suits—and three identical pairs of well-shined black shoes. He checked the pockets of the trousers and the jackets but found nothing, not even lint. He pulled back the covers on the bed but found nothing beneath them. He got onto his hands and knees and looked beneath the bed, where he also came up empty. He saw no sign of the presence of a woman in the house; Gerald Pirie appeared to be a bachelor.

He stood and looked around the room. He glanced at the nightstand; its top contained nothing save an alarm clock that had wound down. He pulled open the drawer and found that it contained several religious-themed books and a volume of Wilfred Owen's Great War poetry. He leafed through the books but found nothing in them.

A leather portfolio lay at the bottom of the drawer. Lamb tossed the books on Pirie's bed and picked up the portfolio. It contained a sheet of plain white paper lying atop a photograph. Lamb removed the sheet and found beneath it a photograph of a dark-haired boy of about ten, who stood facing the camera utterly naked in what appeared to Lamb to be a kind of white-walled cell. The boy stood with his hands on his hips, his eyes brimming with fear and confusion. The boy was standing on a white sheet and in front of a second white sheet that appeared to have been pinned to the wall behind him.

The boy was Thomas Bennett.

The emotions that Thomas's face betrayed pierced Lamb to his soul; the child was a prisoner, held against his will. He was small and weak and had no recourse but to obey whatever power dominated and threatened him. His neck and chest were bruised in several places.

Lamb's mind raced with scenarios of what might have happened to Thomas and why. He thought that Thomas might have run from Pembroke's to escape going back to Pirie. But then Pembroke had sent Thomas back to Basingstoke. Blackwell had assisted in that, if unwittingly. Thomas's running had spooked Pirie, who was used to Thomas's obedience. So Pirie had killed Thomas and concocted the fake transfer to cover the boy's sudden absence. None of the boys who had gone to Pembroke's the previous summer—nor, perhaps,
Pembroke himself—had even known that Thomas was gone from the orphanage until the summer had ended and they'd returned to Basingstoke, when Pirie had told them that Thomas had been transferred to St. Christopher's.

He wondered how much of the truth Pembroke knew. And he wondered if, perhaps, Pirie knew something compromising about Pembroke that had compelled Pembroke to cover for him.

In any case, Thomas's disappearance had upset Peter, who then had tried to contact Emily, thereby unearthing events Pirie—and perhaps Pembroke—had sought to bury. Pirie might easily have killed Emily, driven from Basingstoke to Lipscombe and back in the space of two hours. Lamb was not yet certain how the killing of Will Blackwell fit this scenario, other than that Thomas might have said something to Blackwell about why he feared returning to Basingstoke. Again, Pirie had more than enough opportunity to drive to Quimby and kill Blackwell.

Now the threads of Pirie's elaborate deception were unraveling and he had gone on the run. But why hadn't he destroyed the incriminating photo of Thomas, or taken it with him?

He must speak again with Pembroke.

He also must find Gerald Pirie and discover with certainty the fate of Thomas Bennett.

LAMB USED PIRIE'S HOME TELEPHONE TO CALL WALLACE AT THE
orphanage.

He described what he'd found in Pirie's night table and told Wallace that he would await the arrival of the constables and the warrant at Pirie's house, then return to the school with a constable who would take over the job of waiting for Pirie. Wallace then would take charge of the search of Pirie's house while Lamb went to Brookings to speak with Pembroke.

In slightly more than an hour, all was done and in place.

At Brookings, the venerable Hatton answered the door. “May I help you, sir?”

“I'd like to speak with Lord Pembroke, please.” The butler raised his eyebrows slightly and gestured for Lamb to follow him into the foyer. “If you'll just wait here a moment, sir,” he said, then disappeared into the bowels of the house.

Two minutes later, Leonard Parkinson appeared. “Chief Inspector,” he said, offering his hand. “Very good to see you again. What can I do for you?”

“I'd like to speak with Lord Pembroke.”

A cloud crossed Parkinson's round face. “Oh, dear,” he said. “I'm afraid Lord Pembroke's in London. I'm sorry.”

“When do you expect him to return?”

“Well, I'm afraid I don't know exactly.”

“Do you know where I might reach him in London? It's rather important.”

“I'm sorry, but I don't know that exactly, either.”

“Can you get a message to him?”

“Yes—yes, of course. I expect he'll call sometime today. What should I tell him?”

“I have a question regarding Thomas Bennett's disappearance that I'd like to discuss with him.”

Concern creased Parkinson's brow. “I don't mean to pry, Chief Inspector, but is there something that Lord Pembroke—or perhaps I—should know?”

“No,” Lamb said. He left it at that.

“Yes—yes, I see,” Parkinson said. “Official business; I understand. Well, I'll let Lord Pembroke know that you're trying to reach him as soon as I am able.”

“Thank you.”

As he departed Brookings, Lamb drove about two hundred meters up the main drive, until he was out of sight of the house. There, he pulled the Wolseley off the road, next to a small wood. He exited the car and began to move through the wood until he reached the lawn that fronted the main house. The house was about eighty meters away, to his right. He moved across the lawn until he reached the east side of the house. Between him and the house lay the fallow vegetable gardens. He saw no one. With the exception of Hatton and Parkinson, Brookings seemed deserted.

He moved along the east garden until he reached the high hedge that ran along the back lawn toward the cliffs and the sea. He followed
the hedge, keeping to the side that was out of sight from the house, until he reckoned that he was near the place where the hedge opened onto the trail that led down the hill to Peter's cottage. He peered through the hedge and saw the opening on the opposite side.

He continued for another fifty or so meters until the hedge ended in a grassy area by the cliff edge. He walked to the edge and looked down at the sea surging and foaming among the rocks. The drop was at least thirty feet and nearly sheer. A pair of seabirds wheeled above, putting him in mind of dueling airplanes.

He crossed to the opposite hedge and walked along it until he reached the opening that gave onto the switchback trail to Peter's cottage. When he reached the bottom of the trail, he stopped and peered toward the cottage. He could see no sign of Peter. He moved to the front window but found it covered by the blackout curtains. He moved to the back and stopped at the corner in case Peter was in the rear yard. He was uncertain how he would communicate with Peter, even if he found him there. But he must try.

Peter was not there. He moved to the back door and again found it open. Inside the cottage, all appeared the same as it had on the first time he'd entered. He walked among the piles of papers, drawings, and files, lifting and sorting through them, hoping they contained something that would strike him as relevant. He looked beneath Peter's modest cot and through Peter's small dresser. He found only books, drawings, and dust.

He moved to the wall on which Peter had hung his collection of butterflies and other insects, the pinned-up corpses in neat rows. He stared at the papery veined wings of the butterflies, the fat venomous abdomens of the spiders, the needle-like stingers of the wasps.

The photograph of the tree caught his eye. It was off center, whereas before it had been perfectly centered between the butterflies and the spiders. Peter liked everything in its place. Even the smallest disruptions upset him. So Pembroke had said. He moved close to the photo and this time noticed that it possessed a vaguely arty quality, depicting the dead tree silhouetted against a stormy sky. He wondered
if Peter had taken it. The photo seemed to Lamb an anomaly in the tiny, well-ordered cottage, not merely in its placement near the collection of insects but because the cottage contained no other photos. Peter drew and painted; he did not seem to take photographs. Lamb took the framed photograph from the wall and flipped it over, but found nothing attached to it.

He left the cottage and pulled shut the back door. When he turned to face the hill, he saw Peter standing at its crest, by the tree, clutching a sheet of paper in his right hand. Peter stood as if frozen, his eyes fixed on Lamb. Lamb remained still, worried that any move he made would cause Peter to run. They stood that way for several seconds, staring at each other.

“Peter,” Lamb said finally.

Peter flinched, poised to run.

“I won't hurt you, Peter. I want to talk to you about Emily and Thomas.” Lamb took a tentative step in Peter's direction. “It's all right, Peter. I won't hurt you. I promise.” He took another step. “I want to help you, Peter. I know you're frightened. I can help you.”

Peter took a backward step. Lamb froze. They stared at each other for another few seconds before Peter, still clutching the paper, turned and sprinted past the tree, and out of Lamb's sight.

“Peter!” Lamb said. He ran up the hill. He reached the crest nearly out of breath and stopped beneath the tree. In front of him lay a meadow, and on the other side of this meadow lay a wood. He caught a glimpse of Peter disappearing into the wood at a run, like a scared deer fleeing into a thicket. The boy moved with alarming speed. Lamb put a hand against the ancient, skeletal tree to steady himself. He looked at the sky through its naked branches and said “Damn.”

He then noticed that Peter had dropped the paper by the base of the tree and bent to retrieve it. It was a sheet of sketching paper on which Peter had made a rough charcoal drawing of a dark oval, in the middle of which a spider with a fat abdomen had spun a symmetrical web.
Another bloody spider
. The drawing was not as detailed, as fine, as the other of Peter's drawings he'd found. Peter seemed to
have rushed the sketch. Lamb flipped the paper over and found two words scrawled upon it in pencil.

tommss ded

He crossed the meadow to the wood into which Peter had run. He looked into the dense thicket of trees for some sign of Peter but could see nothing. He held up the drawing.

“I know Thomas is dead, Peter,” he shouted. “But I don't know who killed him. Did Mr. Pirie kill him? Did Mr. Pirie hurt you, too? Did he hurt the other boys?”

Silence.

Lamb sensed that Peter was watching,
waiting
. But he also sensed that time was running out for them both.