Well-Schooled in Murder (32 page)

“Bastard,” she flung at the mirror through clenched teeth. “Filthy little bastard.”

Barbara joined her, offering a neatly folded handkerchief. “Use this,” she said.

The girl took it, said, “Thanks,” and scrubbed it across her skin.

“Is he always like that?”

“More or less. Pathetic, isn’t he? Anything to get just a bit of attention.”

“Whose attention?”

Daphne rinsed the handkerchief and worked it against her jersey. “Anyone’s. I hate him. Bastard.” She blinked quickly.

“Does he go after you like that very often?”

“Clive goes after
anyone
. But he likes to try me best because he knows that I’ve no…The filthy prick. Rotter. Thinks he’s such a swell.”

“I know the type. God’s gift.”

“He pretends it’s all for a bit of fun, doesn’t he? All a big joke with me too stiff to laugh with the others. But what
they
don’t know is that when he’s got me on the floor, he’s holding me against his…so I can feel how big…” She bit her quivering lip. “It’s a turn-on to him. He makes me sick!” She bent over the basin. Her stringy, limp hair dangled down to hide her face.

Barbara saw the dynamics of the relationship easily enough. Victimiser and his victim. “Why don’t you report him?”

“To whom?”

The question was filled with bitterness, presenting an opportunity in two simple words. Barbara took it, careful to sound disinterested. “I don’t know. I didn’t attend a school like this. But if you’re hesitant about one of the adults knowing—and I can see why you might be. It’s embarrassing, isn’t it?—surely another pupil…perhaps someone with influence…?”

“D’you mean Chas Quilter, our sainted senior prefect? Our stellar example? Don’t make me laugh! They’re all the same here. Putting on a front. Acting the part. Chas is no different. He’s worse.”

“Worse than Clive? Hard to believe, that.”

“Not at all. Not—at—all. Hypocrisy is always worse than ignorance.” Daphne ran her fingers roughly back through her hair.

Barbara felt the quick surge of excitement, but she spoke casually. “Hypocrisy?”

It didn’t work. At the question, the girl remembered herself and quickly withdrew. Even now, the tradition-bound call of loyalty was stronger than the need for revenge. She folded the handkerchief and handed it over.

“Thanks,” she said. “I can’t do much with the jersey, but at least the mess is off my skin.”

The nature of her response to Barbara’s question made further subterfuge unnecessary. There was nothing to be lost by a frontal assault. “You’re in Miss Bond’s upper sixth chemistry, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“You live in—”

“Galatea.”

“She’s tutor there. You must know her fairly well.”

“No better than her other pupils know her, I imagine.”

“Such as Chas, you mean? Or Brian Byrne?”

Daphne looked perplexed at this line of questioning. “I’ve no idea. Miss Bond’s nice to everyone, isn’t she?”

“You must see her in the house a great deal if she’s the house tutor.”

“Yes. Well, no. I just…I don’t know. I must see her here and there. I don’t think about it when I do.”

“And this past weekend?”

Comprehension swept across the girl’s face. She looked beyond Barbara to the doorway. “Mr. Pitt’s waiting for me. Thanks awfully for the handkerchief.”

Barbara let her go, remaining behind to reflect on the only piece of information that seemed viable—her remark about Chas Quilter and hypocrisy. That the senior prefect was not all that he seemed had been evident from the first moment they had stepped into Erebus House and seen its disorder. Even before that, a casual remark tossed over the shoulder of a passing boy—
sod you, Quilter—
spoke of some sort of cancer that ate at both the prefect’s authority and his position at the school. But that cancer lacked a clear definition. Whether it had anything at all to do with the death of Matthew Whateley remained to be seen.

Colonel Andrew Bonnamy and his daughter lived less than a mile from the village of Cissbury, in one of a cluster of five cottages partially hidden from the passing lane by a privet hedge in need of trimming. Like the other structures, the Bonnamy cottage was small, half-timbered, with wattle-and-daub infilling that was whitewashed but showing signs of age. Cracks etched its surface like geological faults, threading upwards from the foundation and creeping towards the roof. Chestnut trees shadowed this, tall and angular with branches that dipped down to scrape against the tiles.

When Lynley and Havers pulled into the narrow drive to one side of the cottage, they saw a woman descending a slope that led to an orchard beyond it. She was wearing a faded denim skirt, a navy windcheater zipped to her throat, and heavy workshoes. In one hand she dragged a rubbish sack behind her while the other held secateurs and a rake. As she approached them, they saw that her face was stained with disregarded dirt. They saw also that she had been weeping recently, for her tears had left tracks against her skin. She appeared to be about forty years old.

Seeing Lynley and Havers, she dropped the rubbish sack by a stack of firewood and came towards them, rake and secateurs still in hand. She had not, Lynley noted, worn gloves for her gardening, so her hands were grimy. Dirt made black crescents under her nails.

Lynley produced his warrant card and introduced himself and Havers. “You’re Jean Bonnamy?” he asked. “We’ve come to talk to you and your father about Matthew Whateley.”

She nodded. Her throat worked furiously but failed to prevent a sound from escaping. It was like a whimper. “I phoned the school this morning to leave a message that I would be late to pick him up today. They put me through to Mr. Lockwood. He told me. Matt always came to us on Tuesdays. To see my father. And I suppose to see me as well, although I’d not really considered that at all. Until today.” She looked down at the tools she was carrying. Clods of earth and broken twigs were embedded on the prongs of the rake. “So sudden. Unexpected. I can’t bear the thought that he died so young.”

Immediately Lynley understood the nature of the information Alan Lockwood had given Jean Bonnamy. “Matthew Whateley was mudered.”

Her head came up sharply. She tried and failed to repeat the word, managing at last to say only, “When?”

“Probably Friday or Saturday. We won’t know for certain until we have the autopsy results.”

Dazed, she leaned the rake against the trunk of a chestnut, dropped the secateurs next to it, and reached out herself for the solid reassurance of the tree. “Mr. Lockwood didn’t…” Her voice became importunate, tinged with anger. “Why didn’t he
tell
me?”

The question was moot, with a dozen different explanations. Rather than explore them with the woman, Lynley merely asked, “What did he tell you?”

“Virtually nothing. That Matthew was dead. That the school was waiting for details. He hurried me off the phone by saying that he’d get back to me as soon as he could give me a ‘complete report.’ He said he’d let me know when the funeral was, so Dad and I could go.” Tears welled up in her eyes, spilling over in a rush. “
Murdered?
He was such a sweet little boy.” She wiped the sleeve of her windcheater against her wet face. It smeared the dirt and stained the material. Seeing this, and looking from it to her filthy hands, she said unnecessarily, “I’m a sight. I had to work. I had to do something. Dad wouldn’t talk. He’s…Just for a few minutes, I had to get out of the house. And the orchard needed attention. It seemed best that we each be alone for a bit. But he doesn’t know the worst. How can I tell him?”

“He has to be told. It’s important that he know. We need to speak to him about the boy, and we can’t do that if he doesn’t know the truth.”

“I’m afraid it will kill him. No. I know you’re thinking how dramatic and ridiculous that kind of statement is. But my father isn’t well, Inspector. Did they tell you that at the school?”

“They told me only that Matthew visited him as part of the Bredgar Volunteers.”

“He had a stroke ten years ago in Hong Kong when he was with the army. He resigned his commission, and since my mother was already dead, he came to me here. He’s had three more strokes since then, Inspector. Each time he’s expected he’ll die. But he hasn’t. And I…we’ve been together so long now, I can’t bear the thought that anything…” She cleared her throat.

“If he knows the boy’s dead, he already knows the worst, doesn’t he?” Sergeant Havers asked the question in her usual forthright manner.

Jean Bonnamy seemed to recognise the truth behind Havers’ words, for after a moment’s thought she nodded slowly and said to Lynley, “Let me go in to him first. Will you wait here a moment?”

When he agreed, she left them, going up a wooden ramp at the rear of the cottage and entering through a door there.

“How long do you think Lockwood intends to try to keep a lid on this?” Havers asked Lynley when they were alone.

“As long as he can get away with it, no doubt.”

“But he’s being irrational. The newspapers will pick up the story eventually, if they haven’t already. We’ve a thirteen-year-old boy who was found nude, murdered—tortured—in a graveyard miles away from both his home and his school. We’ve a story that hints at perversion, homosexuality, sadism, kidnapping, and God knows what else. How on earth does Lockwood think he’s going to keep all that quiet?”

“I don’t think he’s concerned that the story be kept quiet as much as he’s concerned that Bredgar Chambers not be mentioned in any part of it. If he could keep the school out of it, no doubt he’d be the first to shout the information from the nearest street corner. But since he can’t do that without involving the school, he can’t do anything but obfuscate the truth from whoever isn’t directly involved.”

“All for the sake of the school’s pretty reputation?” Havers scoffed.

“And for his own. ‘Who steals my purse,’ Havers. Lockwood’s no fool. He knows how much of his future is tied up in his name and his reputation. Both of them are tied inextricably to Bredgar Chambers.”

“And if it turns out that someone Lockwood placed in a position of responsibility is our killer…?”

“Then I should imagine he’ll have a difficult time explaining to the Board of Governors how he made such an error in judgement.”

“And then he’s gone? The first headmaster at Bredgar Chambers not to die with his boots on?”

Lynley smiled wryly. “In a word, Sergeant.”

Jean Bonnamy called to them from the top of the ramp. “We’re ready for you, Inspector.”

If the style of building had not indicated the age of the cottage, the kitchen they entered would have done so. Its ceiling was low and cross-beamed in oak in the fashion of the late fifteenth century, and its oddly shaped, uncurtained windows were set into walls more than twelve inches thick. It was a room in which one stepped back in time, to a period in which life was neither nicely packaged nor convenient. Lynley had the impression that Jean Bonnamy preferred it this way. A large pot on the Aga, emitting the scent of fresh vegetable soup, seemed verification of this fact. She paused there to stir the mixture with an age-darkened wooden spoon before leading them through a low doorway into a sitting room beyond.

This was obviously her father’s demesne, for memorabilia of his life in Hong Kong filled it, represented by photographs of junks in the harbour at sunset, a large collection of carved jade and another of ivory, an antique sedan chair with side curtains of heavy, faded brocade. Even the wide-mouthed fireplace had been relegated a position in the overall theme of the room’s decoration, for it held a dragon, a creature of papier-mâché head and red silk body, the sort that leads parades down city streets on Chinese New Year.

In spite of this museumlike array of objects, the room smelled largely of dog, and the offender—a coal-black retriever with greying snout and rheumy eyes—lay on a blanket in front of an electric fire. He stirred only to lift his head slowly when Lynley and Havers entered the room.

Next to the dog, Colonel Bonnamy sat in a wheelchair with his back to the door. He faced a low cherrywood table on which a set of chessmen indicated that a game was in progress. There was no evidence of a fellow player.

“Here’s the Inspector, Dad,” Jean Bonnamy said. “And the Sergeant.”

“Devil take them,” Colonel Bonnamy replied. His speech was perfectly clear, unimpaired by his stroke.

His daughter went to the wheelchair and grasped its handles. “I know, Dad,” she said quite tenderly and swung the chair round to face the room. She was careful not to disturb the table on which the chess pieces sat.

Although Jean Bonnamy had told them of her father’s strokes, she had not prepared them for what apoplexy had done to ravage him. Even had his health not been impaired, he would have presented a far from soothing aspect. Hair grew out of both his ears in great grey tufts. Huge dark freckles looking much like scabs covered his bald head. His nose was bulbous, and on its left nostril grew a misshapen wart.

Continued ill health had exacerbated this dreadful appearance. The strokes had affected the left side of his body, so his facial muscles were pulled down into a permanent sneer and his left hand was frozen into a claw with cuticles growing the length of his fingernails. In spite of the electric fire heating the room, he wore thick shoes, a flannel shirt, wool trousers. A mohair blanket lay across his knees.