Well-Schooled in Murder (22 page)

The man pushed the door closed and said, “Well? What have you come to tell us?” When Whateley took a step forward into the light, Lynley saw that his forehead had been cut recently and dirt crusted fresh wounds that should have been bandaged.

“You mentioned yesterday that Matthew received a scholarship to Bredgar Chambers,” he said. “Mr. Lockwood told us that one of the Board of Governors, a man called Giles Byrne, put Matthew forward for it. Is that correct?”

Kevin crossed the room and selected a biscuit. His fingers left a shadow of dirt on the plate. He did not look at his wife.

“True enough,” he said.

“I was wondering how you happened to select Bredgar Chambers and not some other school. Mr. Lockwood indicated that you reserved a place for Matthew when he was eight months old. Bredgar Chambers isn’t unknown, of course, but it’s not Winchester or Harrow. Or Rugby. It’s the sort of school men send their sons to, to maintain a family tradition. But it doesn’t seem to be the sort of school one would select out of the air, without having done some research into it. Or without having been solicited.”

“Mr. Byrne recommended it,” Patsy said.

“You knew him prior to putting Matthew forward for the school?”

“We knew him,” Kevin said shortly. He walked to the fireplace and turned his attention to the narrow mantelpiece upon which sat an opaque green vase, empty of flowers.

“Through the pub,” Patsy added. Her eyes were on her husband’s back, mute with an unspoken appeal. He continued to ignore her.

“The pub?”

“I worked there as barmaid. Before Matthew,” she explained. “I changed to an hotel in South Ken. I didn’t want…” She smoothed the material of her dressing gown. The movement caused one of the dragons to ripple menacingly. “Didn’t seem right that Mattie’s mum should be a barmaid. I wanted to do right by him. Wanted him to have more of a chance than ever I did.”

“So Giles Byrne was someone you knew from the pub. A local pub? The one next door?”

“Down the mall a bit. Place called the Blue Dove. Mr. Byrne came in there just about every night. Could be he still does. I’ve not been there in ages.”

“Not there,” Kevin said. “Not last night, at least.”

“You went to the pub to see him last night?”

“Yeah. He’d been at Bredgar yesterday afternoon when Mattie went missing.”

It seemed unusual that a member of the Board of Governors would be at the school on a Sunday afternoon. As if reading this thought, Patsy Whateley said:

“We rang him, Inspector.”

“Always took an interest in Mattie, he did.” Kevin sounded as if he were defending their decision to call in a member of the Board of Governors. “He could make sure we didn’t get a runaround from the Headmaster. So he met us there. Fat lot of good it did. With everyone insisting that Mattie’d run off. And everyone shifting blame onto everyone else. And no one bloody willing to ring the police. Fucking sods.”

“
Kev…
” Patsy said his name like a plea.

Whateley swung on his wife. “What would you have me call them? High and mighty Mr. Lockwood and that bum-boy Corntel. Should I thank them that we’ve lost our Mattie, girl? Is that what you want? We’d be getting it right then, wouldn’t we, Pats?”

“Oh, Kev…”

“He’s
dead
! Damn you, the boy’s dead! And you expect me to thank my betters for seeing to it, don’t you? While all the time you bake biscuits to serve to the sodding police who don’t give a toss about Mattie or us! He’s just a body to them. Don’t you see that yet?”

Patsy’s face crumpled under her husband’s words. She managed only to say, “Mattie does love his biscuits. Ginger the best.”

Kevin cried out once. He flung himself away from the fireplace, threw open the door of the cottage, and left. Havers crossed the room quietly and closed the door.

In the brown and yellow plaid chair, Patsy Whateley twisted the sash of her dressing gown, which had fallen open to reveal one plump thigh. Blue veins knotted against pasty skin.

It seemed indecent to Lynley that they should stay any longer, knowing that it would be an act of mercy to leave the Whateleys to themselves. Still, there was more to be learned and little enough time in which to learn it. Lynley knew he was being governed by a cardinal and relentless rule of policework. The sooner one gleaned information after an untimely death, the more likely it was that one would solve the crime. There was no time to lose, no time to soothe, no time to smooth over the rocky path of the Whateleys’ grief. He despised himself for doing so, but still he pressed on.

“Giles Byrne came often to the Blue Dove. Does he live here in Hammersmith?”

Patsy nodded. “On Rivercourt Road. Just a bit down from the pub.”

“Not far from here?”

“A walk is all.”

“You knew each other? Your sons as well? Did Matthew and Brian know one another prior to Matthew’s going to Bredgar Chambers?”

“Brian?” She seemed to be searching for a way to connect the name to a memory. “That would be Mr. Byrne’s son, wouldn’t it? I remember him. He lives with his mother. Has done for years. Mr. Byrne’s divorced.”

“Could Matthew have served as a replacement for Giles Byrne’s own son?”

“I can’t think how. Mr. Byrne hardly ever saw Mattie. Perhaps he might have run into him on the green if he was out for a stroll and Mattie was playing there. Mattie often did. But he never mentioned seeing Mr. Byrne that I recall.”

“Brian told us that his father once tutored a boy called Edward Hsu. He said that his father had been looking for a replacement for Edward Hsu since 1975. Do you know what that means? Could Matthew have been a replacement for a boy Giles Byrne was perhaps overly fond of?”

Patsy reacted to the question with an infinitesimal movement that Lynley might have missed had he not been watching her hands. They clutched the dressing gown, then relaxed. “Mattie didn’t see Mr. Byrne, Inspector. Not that I knew. Not that he told me.”

She sounded both insistent and convinced, but Lynley knew that children rarely tell their parents everything. He reflected upon what Kevin Whateley had previously informed him about the change in Matthew’s behaviour. An explanation existed for it somewhere. Change does not occur without a force behind it.

There was only one area that he had not touched upon with Patsy Whateley, and he came to it gently, realising the pain it would cause her.

“Mrs. Whateley, I know how difficult this is for you to accept, but it appears that Matthew did indeed run away from the school. Or at least that he wanted to run away and made some sort of arrangement with someone who…” He hesitated, wondering why he was having such trouble getting to the point. Havers did it for him.

“Someone who killed him,” she said quietly.

“I can’t think that,” Patsy Whateley replied, giving her attention to Havers. “Mattie wouldn’t run off.”

“But if he were troubled, if he were being bullied—”

“
Bullied?
” Her head swivelled to Lynley. “Whatever do you mean?”

“You saw him on holidays. Was he ever bruised? Was he marked in any way?”

“Bruised? No. Of course not. Of
course
not! Don’t you think he’d tell his mum if someone was bullying him? Don’t you think he’d confide in his own mummy?”

“Perhaps not. Not if he knew how important it was to you that he stay at Bredgar Chambers. He may not have wanted to disappoint you.”

“No!” The single word was so much more than mere denial. “Why would anyone bully my Mattie? He was a good boy, a quiet boy. He did his lessons. He followed the rules. Tell me why someone would bully Matt!”

Because he didn’t fit in, Lynley thought. Because he wouldn’t follow traditions. Because he wasn’t shaped to fit the mould. And yet there was more to what had happened at Bredgar Chambers than was represented by a list of Matthew Whateley’s class differences. It spoke to Lynley from the eyes of Smythe-Andrews, from Arlens’ fainting, and Harry Morant’s refusal to go to his lessons. They were all afraid. But, unlike Matthew, they were not afraid enough to run away.

The narrow brick house on Rivercourt Road was dark. In spite of this clear indication that no one was home, Kevin Whateley pushed fiercely through the gate, mounted the steps, and pounded the brass knocker against the door. Even as he did it, he knew it was a futile effort, yet still he knocked. The noise grew louder, echoed in the street.

He
would
see Giles Byrne. He would see him tonight. He would rail and storm and scream and torment the one man who was responsible for Mattie’s death. Kevin’s fist clenched. He beat it on the door.

“Byrne!” he shouted. “Sod you, bugger! Come out here, damn you. Open this door! You queer! You fucking queer! Hear me, Byrne? You open up! Now!”

On the corner across the street, a narrow shaft of light hit the pavement as a door was opened cautiously and someone looked out. “Steady on,” a voice called.

“Bugger off!” Kevin shouted. The door hastily closed.

Two large pottery urns stood on either side of the porch, and when no one from within the Byrne house gave answer to his summons, Kevin’s eyes fell upon them, and then upon his hands. He grabbed one urn, heaved it onto its side, shoved it down the neat steps. It sprayed soil and leaves across the tile, crashing and shattering on the swept front path.

“Byrne!” Kevin shouted. The name caught on a laugh. “See what I’m doing here, Byrne? What’s that, chum? Want more of the same?”

He fell upon the second urn, found purchase for his hands along its raised lip, and smashed it into the white front door. Wood splintered. Soil flew up into his eyes. Shards of broken pottery struck at his face.

“Had enough?” Kevin shrieked.

He found that he was panting, that a pain caught at his chest like the point of a spear.

“Byrne!” he wheezed. “Damn you…Byrne…”

He sank onto the top step, into the soil. A crescent piece of the broken urn bit into his thigh. His head felt heavy, his shoulders sore. His vision was blurred, but clear enough to see that next door a slender young man had come out of a house and walked along the pavement to peer past the pyracantha bushes that served as border between the properties.

“You all right, mate?” he asked.

Kevin fought for air. “All right. Okay,” he replied.

He pushed himself to his feet, coughing against pain, and stumbled through soil and debris to the gate. Leaving it gaping open upon the mess, he made his way towards the river and the Upper Mall. Ahead of him the branches of an enormous chestnut were silhouetted against the night sky. Kevin blinked at the tree.

I can climb it! Watch me! Watch me, Dad!

Come down from there, Mattie. Break your neck, son. Or fall into the river
.

Into the river? I should love that! How I should!

Mum wouldn’t think much of it, would she? Come on, down with you. And no nonsense about it
.

Down he would come, never truly in danger since he’d only managed to climb to the first branch, but perfectly safe now with both his feet on the ground.

Kevin tore his eyes from the tree, plodded in the direction of the Blue Dove and the green that lay a short distance beyond it. He tried to look at nothing as he walked. He tried to forget where he was. He tried not to realise that every step he took brought him only closer to another part of the neighbourhood that reminded him of Mattie. Especially the river.

Like the few remaining unrestored cottages on the Thames, their own cottage had a passage to the water, remnant of a way of life long dead when the fishermen used it as easy access to their livelihood. It was in a far corner of the cellar—a door leading to a tunnel and a set of stairs that dropped beneath the embankment to the river below. How many times had he warned Mattie off opening that door? How many times had he explained the dangers of a tumble down those worn stone steps?

As many times as he’d told him to be careful about dashing across the street, to stay away from the Great West Road, to keep off the wall that separated the Lower Mall from the river, to cover his eyes with goggles before he ever placed drill to stone, to keep the radio far enough away from the bath. They were loving admonitions, patiently given, all designed to protect the boy from harm.