Well-Schooled in Murder

by Elizabeth George

  “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.

  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 it
s 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?”