Well-Schooled in Murder (23 page)

Yet even as he mouthed these tender warnings, real danger had lurked, waiting to pounce. As much as he had loved his son, Kevin had not seen what that danger was. He had been beguiled into believing that it did not exist, beguiled by Giles Byrne. He and Patsy had caved in to the man’s logic, his wit, his superior experience. Damn him to hell.

Mattie hadn’t wanted Bredgar Chambers. He’d asked repeatedly not to be sent away. But they’d done it to him anyway, Kevin telling himself that the boy’s reluctance to leave Hammersmith was an indication that the apron strings holding son to mother had to be cut. Well, they’d cut them now, hadn’t they? No worry that Mattie might cling to his mother any longer. No chance of that.

Mattie
. Kevin’s eyes smarted. His throat ached. His chest swelled to bursting. He fought it all.

Can I have my own stone to carve sometime, Dad? I’ve an idea for a piece and…Let me show you. I’ve drawn a bit of it here
.

How could he be dead? How could that swift, sweet life be over? How could they survive without Mattie?

“Ooooh, mate, looks like you’ve been mucking round with the pigs!”

The drunken voice roused him. On a bench at the edge of the green, a man slumped in the darkness, drinking from a bottle in a paper bag. He leered at Kevin. He sneered for a smile.

“Piggy pig,” the drunk warbled. “Piggy, piggy, piggy, pig!” He laughed and waved the bag in the air.

“Bugger off,” Kevin replied, but the words trembled.

“Ooooh, weepy piggy pig!” the drunk responded. “Weepy, weepy piggy pig! Crying ’cause his trousers is covered with muck!”

“You bloody—”

“Oooooh, I’m frightened! I really am! Frightened of the weepy
weepy
piggy pig. What have we got to cry about, piggy? Lost our sow? Lost our piglet? Lost our—”

Kevin lunged at the man, his fingers driving towards his throat. “Bloody bastard! Shut your mouth!” he screamed and began to pound at the face beneath his own. He felt bones crack, felt his knuckles split upon teeth.

The contact was good, the pain was right. And when the drunk’s knee came up savagely into Kevin’s groin and the agony shot up through his body, that was good as well. He loosened his grip, fell to the ground. The drunk staggered up, kicked Kevin in the ribs, ran off in the direction of the pub. Kevin remained where he was, his body pounding, his heart hammering.

But he did not cry.

10

Deborah St. James was curled into the worn leather chair next to the fireplace in her husband’s study. Although her hands held a stack of photographic proof sheets and a magnifying glass, her attention was on the golden-blue lick of flames upon wood. A glass of brandy stood on the table next to her, but other than to breathe in its heavy, vinous scent, she had not been able to touch the drink.

Following Lynley’s early morning visit, she had spent most of the day alone. Simon had gone out to a meeting shortly before lunch, from there to an engagement at Chelsea Institute, from there to a session with a team of solicitors who were preparing to represent the defendant in a murder case. He had not wanted to keep any of the appointments and had been in the process of surreptitiously cancelling the first of them when she had come upon him doing so and prevented him, knowing full well that he was putting aside his work so that he could be there in the house should she need him that day.

She had reacted angrily, insisting that she wasn’t a child, that he stop trying to coddle her. But anger was a guise she adopted to hide the extent to which her inner turmoil needed release, a release that she knew could only come from telling him the truth. It was upon truth that they had once promised one another that they would lay the foundation for their marriage. She had blithely agreed, believing that one small, ugly secret from the past would not be enough to undermine what they had together. Yet it was doing so now, and this morning, faced with the pained confusion with which Simon greeted her words, she had seen the first unmistakable fissures in their relationship.

His departure had been achingly remote. Coming to stand in the doorway of her darkroom, dressed in his navy suit, his ungovernable hair curling past the collar of his shirt, a briefcase in his hand, he had said little enough.

“I’m off then, Deborah. I shouldn’t think I’ll be back in time for dinner if this meeting at five is anything like the previous one I had with Dobson’s barrister.”

“All right. Yes.”
My love
. She had wanted to add that, but the chasm between them was far too great. Had it not been there, she would have gone to him and brushed unnecessarily at the shoulders of his jacket, would have smoothed back his hair, would have smiled to feel his arms come round her in automatic reaction, would have lifted her mouth eagerly for his kiss. His hands would have moved to caress her, and her response would have been loving and quick. In another time, under different circumstances. But now, only distance allowed her to protect him, and his proximity was the single most dangerous inducement to speaking at last.

A car door slammed in the street outside, and she went to the window. In spite of everything, she hoped it was Simon even as she knew it probably would not be. It wasn’t. She saw the silver Bentley parked along the kerb and Lynley climbing the five front steps to their door. She went to admit him.

He looked exhausted. Tiny lines made etchings at the corners of his mouth.

“Have you had your dinner, Tommy?” she asked him as he hung his overcoat on the rack in the hall. “Shall I ask Dad to fix you a tray? It’s no trouble, and I should guess it’s high time that you…”

She hesitated when he turned to face her. She knew him too well for him to conceal the manner in which murder took its toll upon him. She read it in his eyes, in the set of his shoulders, in the flicker of despondency that passed across his face.

They went into the study where she watched him pour a small whisky at the bar. “How miserable a case like this must be for you. I only wish there was
something
…I’ve thought and thought about it. Surely there’s a detail I’ve failed to remember…something that will help you…And I ought to be able to remember. I keep telling myself that.”

He tossed back the drink and returned the crystal tumbler to its tray. He tapped its rim restlessly.

“Simon’s not here,” she went on. “One of those days of endless meetings, I’m afraid. I don’t know when he’ll be back. Tommy, are you sure you’re not hungry? Dad’s in the kitchen. It’ll just take a moment—”

“What’s happening to you, Deb?”

The question was unexpected, spoken in kindness. With its tender pressure against her defences, Deborah felt the cold finger of panic touch her. Above all else, saying nothing was imperative.

“I was just going over my proof sheets from the trip.” As if to give this statement veracity, she returned to her chair, sat down, and picked up the photographs once more. “As I was printing the proofs, I
did
wonder if they might be of use to you, Tommy. I mean the pictures from Stoke Poges. Not the rest. I’m sure you’re not interested in Tintern Abbey.”

Lynley’s eyes were on her far too long for comfort. He moved Simon’s lumpy ottoman nearer her chair, taking that as a seat for himself. Deborah reached for her brandy and drank at last. The liquor felt like fire shooting through her throat.

“I’ve wanted to tell you how sorry I am,” he said. “But there’s been no chance. You were in hospital. The next thing I knew, you were off on your trip. Deb, I know what the baby meant to you. To both of you.”

She felt the tightness of encroaching tears. He didn’t know. He never would. “Please, Tommy,” she managed.

The two words apparently sufficed. After a moment, he took the photographs and removed his spectacles from his jacket pocket. He used her magnifying glass to indicate a picture. “Stoke Poges. St. Giles’ Church. The problem is that Bredgar Chambers is in West Sussex, fairly dead on the button between Horsham and Crawley. But by no stretch of the imagination is it in a direct line to Stoke Poges and that churchyard. So the killer had to have chosen it deliberately. But why?”

Deborah thought over the question. There did seem to be something after all….

She went to the desk and found her copy of the rough manuscript of the book that her photographs were intended to illustrate.

“Just a moment…I remember…” She brought the manuscript back, sat down, and began leafing through it to find Thomas Gray’s poem. Having done so, she skimmed the stanzas, exclaimed, and handed the manuscript to Lynley. “Look at the epitaph,” she said. “The first part.”

He read the first four lines aloud.

“Here rests his head upon the lap of Earth.

A youth to fortune and to fame unknown;

Fair Science frowned not on his humble birth,

And Melancholy marked him for her own.”

Lynley looked up at Deborah. “It’s hard to believe,” he said. “I’m not even sure I want to believe it.”

“How well do the lines fit that little boy?”

“Perfectly.” Lynley removed his spectacles, stared at the fire. “Line by line, it’s all there, Deb. Matthew’s head was on the earth when you found him, wasn’t it? He certainly had neither fame nor fortune. His birth was humble—more than humble, I dare say. In recent months, he’d become morose, melancholy. His father described it like being in a trance. Noncommunicative.”

Deborah felt a shiver of apprehension. “Then Stoke Poges was chosen deliberately.”

“By someone who had a vehicle, someone Matthew knew, someone with a perverted interest in little boys, someone who knew the poem well.”

“Do you know who it is?”

“I don’t think I want to.” He pushed himself off the ottoman, paced the distance to the window and back. And again to the window. He rested his hand on the sill and looked out into the street.

“What happens next?” Deborah asked him.

“The autopsy has got to give us more. Fibres, hairs, deposits of some kind to explain where Matthew was from Friday afternoon until Sunday. He wasn’t killed in that field. He was dropped in that field. So for at least twenty-four hours, perhaps more, he was a prisoner somewhere. The autopsy may give us an idea where. And a sure cause of death. Once we have that, we’ll have a clearer direction.”

“But don’t you have a direction now? Because from what you were saying—”

“It’s not clear enough! I can’t make an arrest on the strength of a poem, ownership of a car, position of trust at the school, and the curious manner of describing a little boy to me. Not to mention being head of English, a literature master into the bargain.”

“So you
do
know,” Deborah said. “Tommy, is it someone you…?” She saw the answer on his face. “How dreadful for you. How perfectly awful.”

“I
don’t
know. That’s just it. He has no clear motive.”

“Except the curious manner of describing a little boy?” She reached for her photographs and chose her words with care. “He’d been tied up. I could see that. There were abrasions, places where the skin was raw and chafed. And the burns…Tommy, it’s the worst sort of motive. What’s making you afraid to face it?”

He swung round from the window. “What’s making
you
afraid?” he demanded.

The words buffeted the brittle calm that their few minutes of conversation had allowed her to develop. She felt her skin blanch.

“Tell me,” he said. “Deborah, for God’s sake, do you think I’m blind?”

She shook her head. Of course he wasn’t blind. He saw far too much. That had always been at the root of the problem. He persisted.

“I saw how the two of you were acting this morning. You were like strangers. Worse than strangers.”

Still she said nothing. She willed him to stop speaking. But he went on.

“You’re removing Simon from the grief, aren’t you, Deb? You believe he feels no loss or at least that it doesn’t compare to yours. So you’re cutting him off. You’re cutting everyone off. You want to suffer alone, don’t you? As if it’s your fault. As if you’re being punished.”

She felt her face betray her and knew she had to divert the conversation. She sought direction in vain.

Somewhere in the house, the dog began barking, excited yelping that generally meant a demand for reward for some trick performed. She heard her father’s answering laughter.