Well-Schooled in Murder

by Elizabeth George

  Hot blood surged up Chas’ neck as he listened. His Adam’s apple suddenly became prominent, bobbling ostensibly of its own volition. One hand reached for his ankle, which rested across his knee. His spectacles reflected the morning light from the windows, disks of gold behind which his eyes were hidden.

  “Matthew Whateley recorded it,” Lynley said at the conclusion of the tape. “He wired a room for sound here at the school. This is a duplicate of the original tape. We’re looking for that original.”

  “Do you know anything about this, Quilter?” the Headmaster asked. “The police believe that the boy either hid the original or gave it to someone for safekeeping.”

  Chas addressed his answer to Lockwood. “Why would he do either of those things?”

  Lynley replied. “Because he believed he had to follow the school’s unwritten rules.”

  “Rules, sir?”

  Lynley found the question disingenuous and irritating. “The same unwritten rules that made Brian Byrne reluctant to tell us how many times you left the upper sixth social club on the night Matthew disappeared. Just as you’re reluctant now to tell us about the tape.”

  A minor movement betrayed the boy, his right shoulder pulling back as if by the force of an invisible hand. “D’you think I—”

  Lockwood interposed with a baleful glare in Lynley’s direction. His conciliatory words indicated that the behaviour of the sons of knighted physicians was above reproach, no matter their elder brothers’ failures. “No one thinks anything, Quilter. The police aren’t here to accuse you.”

  Next to him, Lynley heard Havers mutter a nearly inaudible oath. He waited for Chas to respond.

  “I’ve not heard the tape before now,” the boy said. “I didn’t know Matthew Whateley. I couldn’t say where he put the tape, or even if he gave it to someone else.”

  “Do you recognise the voices?” Lynley asked.

  “No, I can’t say—”

  “But it sounds like an upper sixth boy, doesn’t it?”

  “Possibly. I suppose. But it could be anyone, sir. I wish I could help. I ought to be able to help. I know that. I’m sorry.”

  There was a quick knocking at the door, three light taps. It opened. Elaine Roly stood framed in the doorway. Lockwood’s secretary lurked behind her, attempting to prevent the intrusion. But the matron of Erebus House was not to be thwarted. She threw a withering look upon the secretary and marched across the fine Wilton carpet.

  “She tried to stop me,” the matron said. “But I knew you’d want this straightaway.” She pulled something from the sleeve of her blouse, saying, “Little Harry Morant gave that to me this morning, Inspector. He won’t say where he found it. Nor what he was doing with it. But you can see clear as clear that it belonged to Matthew Whateley.”

  She dropped a sock on the table. Chas Quilter jerked spasmodically in his chair.

  The library smelled largely of pencil shavings and books. The former odour emanated from the electric pencil sharpener that was used by students with more delight and enthusiasm than actual need. The latter drifted from the tall serried shelves of volumes that jutted out from the walls, their ranks broken intermittently by broad study tables. Chas Quilter sat at one of these, finding it inexplicable that he should feel so numb as his world continued to crumble round him, like a building caught in a conflagration that gives itself up, piece by piece, to the flames. He remembered a Latin phrase that had been one of many he had been forced to memorise as a fourth form student. Nam tua res agitur, paries cum proximus ardet.

  Alone, he whispered the translation into the listening room. “‘For it is your business, when the wall next door catches fire.’”

  How true the aphorism was proving. How assiduously he had avoided facing it. It was as if, without knowing, he had been running from that fire for the last sixteen months, yet every path he had chosen only brought him face to face with another wall of flame.

  His flight had begun the previous year with his brother’s expulsion from the school. How well he remembered the course of those events: his parents’ outrage at the initial accusation made against an older son who wanted for nothing; Preston’s hot denials and insistence upon proof; his own impassioned defence of his brother at gatherings of supportive but sceptical friends; and then the humiliation attendant to the knowledge that the accusations were true. Money, clothing, pens and pencils, special food brought in tuck boxes from home. It hadn’t mattered to Preston. He had stolen without thinking, whether he wanted the item or not.

  In reaction to the revelation of his brother’s sickness—for it was a sickness and Chas knew that—he had run from Preston. He had run from his brother’s need, from his shame, from his weakness. All that had seemed important at the time was to disassociate himself from disgrace. He had done so, throwing himself into his studies and avoiding any circumstance during which his brother’s name or his folly might arise. Thus, he left Preston alone in the flames. Yet even as he did so, he faced the fire himself, where he least expected to find it.

  Sissy, he believed, would be his salvation, the one person in his life with whom he could be perfectly honest, entirely himself. In the months that followed Preston’s expulsion from the school, Sissy had learned all of Chas’ weaknesses and his strengths. She had learned of his pain and his confusion, of his hard-edged resolve to make up for Preston’s mistakes. Through it all she had been there for him during his lower sixth year, calm and serene. Yet as Chas allowed himself to grow closer to her, he failed to see that she was just another wall, that she too would give over to fire and destruction.

  So the wall next door had indeed caught fire. The fire had spread. It was time to put an end to the burning. But to do so would put an end to himself as well. If only his own life hung in the balance, Chas knew it wouldn’t matter what he did at this point. He would speak without caring what consequences might follow. But his life touched upon other lives. His responsibilities did not end at the boundaries of Bredgar Chambers.

  He thought about his father and his generous expenditure of time in Barcelona where each year during his own holidays he offered his services as a plastic surgeon to those who could not otherwise afford to see one, repairing cleft palates, rebuilding the faces of accident victims, grafting skin over burns, reshaping deformities. He thought about his mother and her lifetime of selfless devotion to both husband and sons. He thought about their faces on that final morning last year when they packed Preston’s belongings into their Rover and tried not to let the depth of their confusion and humiliation show. They had not deserved such a blow as Preston’s fall from grace had dealt them. So Chas had thought. And so he had determined to alleviate their suffering, to replace it with pride. He could do that, he thought, for he was not Preston. He was not Preston. He was not.

  Yet even as he swore this to himself, words came swimming into his mind without provocation, like incantations in a nightmare. He had read them this morning while waiting for his meeting with the Headmaster, and now he saw and heard them all again. Acrobrachycephaly. Syndactyly. Coronal suture. Without wanting to, he heard Sissy weeping. Without wanting to, he felt guilt and grief. Again he faced that burning wall and tried futilely to tell himself it was not his business.

  But he failed to convince himself of anything at all save the extent of his personal culpability in the damage he had inflicted upon the people in his life.

  Harry knew what was expected of him the moment he walked into the Headmaster’s study. Only Mr. Lockwood and the two detectives from New Scotland Yard were there. On the table in the bay window, Matthew Whateley’s sock curled like an incomplete question mark. Someone had turned it inside out, and even from where he stood by the door, Harry could see the small white tag and the black number 4 printed upon it.

  He had wanted Miss Roly to give it to the police. He had even expected her to do so. But he hadn’t thought that Mr. Lockwood would be told, nor had he imagined that his own part in the drama would not end with his handing over Matthew
Whateley’s sock. Naturally, he’d seen enough detective shows on television that he should have realised the police would want to speak with him. But now that he was here, with the tall blond detective leading him to a chair, his hand warm and firm on Harry’s shoulder, he wished he had kept the sock to himself or thrown it away or left it where it was for someone else to discover.

  All those wishes were in vain and too late. Harry felt waves of hot and cold wash over him as the detective pulled out a chair for him at the table.

  He kept his eyes on his hands that were balled into fists in his lap. His right thumb, he saw, had an ink mark on it that was shaped like lightning. It looked like a tattoo.

  “I’m Inspector Lynley. This is Sergeant Havers,” the blond man was saying.

  Harry heard a rustle of paper. The sergeant was getting ready to take notes.

  He felt so cold. His legs began to shake. His arms quivered. If he spoke, he knew that his teeth would chatter and that the words themselves would come out distorted by tremors that fast gave way to sobs.

  “Matron Roly tells us that you gave her this sock,” Inspector Lynley was saying. “Where did it come from, Harry?”

  A clock was ticking somewhere in the room. Funny, Harry thought, he’d not noticed it last time he’d been in Mr. Lockwood’s study.

  “Did you find it in one of the buildings? Or on the grounds somewhere?”

  He could smell the flowers in the centre of the table. Mrs. Lockwood grew them. He’d seen her shadowy movements inside the greenhouse that she called her conservatory. He’d even sneaked a look inside once at the long brick paths between rows of plants. She kept a section for flowers, another for vegetables. Pots hung from poles. Water dripped rhythmically. The soil smelled rich.

  “Did you have it all along, Harry? It’s Matthew’s, you know. You do know that, don’t you?”

  His mouth tasted sour. All along his tongue, back into his throat, was a ridge of flavour like rotten lemons. He swallowed against it. His throat was sore.

  “Are you listening to Inspector Lynley?” Mr. Lockwood demanded. “Morant, are you listening? Answer him, boy. At once.”

  He could feel the wood on the back of the chair. It pressed into his shoulder blades. One part of the carving was like a little bulb of pain.

  Mr. Lockwood continued. Harry heard his anger. “Morant, I’ve absolutely no intention—”

  The detective made a movement. A sharp, mechanical click followed. Then the room was filled with the sound of the voice.

  Want a grind, nancy boy, want a grind, want a grind?

  Harry’s eyes flew up and he saw a tape recorder in front of the detective. He cried out once, tried to cover his ears to block out the sound. But it was no good. The voice continued. The nightmare was real. He stuffed his fingers into his ears. Still, snatches came to him, filled with derision, contempt, and loathing.

  Little thing in our panties…oooh…have a look…little cobblers…squeeze…

  The horror crashed upon him, as if fresh and new, and he began to cry. The tape switched off. He felt strong but gentle hands remove his fingers from his ears.

  “Who did this to you, Harry?” Inspector Lynley asked.

  Weeping, Harry looked up. The detective’s face was implacable, but his eyes were dark, they were kind and compelling. They invited confidence. They demanded truth. But to tell…He couldn’t. Not that. Not ever. Still, he had to say something. He had to speak. Everyone was waiting.

  “I’ll take you,” he said.

  Lynley and Havers followed Harry Morant out the front doors of the school. They crossed the car park in front of the east wing of the quadrangle and set off on the path that led to Calchus House. Since pupils were in their lessons, the grounds were deserted.

  Harry trotted ahead of them without saying a word, rubbing his arm back and forth across his flushed face as if to obliterate the signs of his weeping. In the hope that the boy might be encouraged to say more than he had said in the presence of the Headmaster, Lynley had managed to convince Lockwood to remain in his study. But aside from that single sentence spoken on a torn cry, Harry had offered nothing else.

  He appeared determined to remain mute as long as possible, putting space between himself and the police as he scurried down the path. His shoulders were hunched. He looked furtively from side to side. By the time they were twenty yards from Calchus House, he was nearly running, and he vanished inside before Lynley and Havers reached the door.

  They found him waiting in the building’s entry hall, a small shadow in the darkest corner by the telephone. Lynley noted that Calchus House had the same floor plan as Erebus House where Matthew Whateley had lived, and like Erebus, it was in need of repair.

  Harry waited until they had closed the door before he slipped past them and made for the stairs. He ran up two flights with Lynley and Havers on his heels. At no point did he look back to see if they were following him. Indeed, it appeared that he hoped he might lose them, and he almost did in the upstairs corridor when he made a quick turn into the southwest corner of the building.

  They found him standing by a door. He looked shrunken in size, and he kept his back against the wall as if in the fear of being taken unaware.

  “In here,” was all he said.

  “This is where you found Matthew’s sock?” Lynley clarified.

  “On the floor.” He hugged his arms across his stomach.

  Lynley eyed the boy, concerned that he might attempt flight. He pushed open the door and looked into the hot, malodorous little room.

  “Drying room,” Sergeant Havers said. “There’s one in every building. God, what a smell!”

  “You checked it, Sergeant?”

  “I checked them all. They’re exactly like this one. And as foul-smelling.”

  Lynley looked at Harry, who was staring straight ahead. His dark hair had fallen across his brow, and his face looked feverish. “Stay with him,” he told Havers and went into the room. He propped the door open behind him.

  There was little enough to see, just water pipes hung with clothes on the walls, a linoleum floor, a single light bulb, a padlocked trap door in the ceiling. Lynley climbed the metal ladder built into the wall to check the trap door, his head brushing against the wads of chewing gum that had been used to decorate it. He reached out, grasped the padlock, and jerked down upon it. It pulled easily away from the hasp that served to keep the door closed, and holding it in his hand, Lynley saw what his sergeant had evidently overlooked in her perusal of the room from the floor below. Someone had used a hacksaw on the padlock. Someone had managed to gain easy access to whatever existed above the trap door. Lynley shoved it open.

  Above him was revealed a narrow, dark passageway, its walls covered with paint-chipped plaster. At the end of the passage, a warped door was cracked open and a weak beam of light shot out from it, like daylight diffused through a dirty window. Ascending the final steps of the ladder, Lynley lifted himself into the passageway, coughing against the dust which rose like a miasma with his movements.

  He had no torch with him, but the light from the drying room below, in addition to that which came from the doorway at the end of the passage, served to show him the footprints that padded back and forth across the floor. He examined them but saw nothing to distinguish them beyond the fact that they were made by athletic shoes, probably male. He sidestepped several fairly decent prints and went to the door at the passage’s end.

  It was well-oiled and free of dust. The slightest pressure of his knuckles upon it was sufficient to glide it soundlessly open, revealing a small chamber of the sort peculiar to fifteenth-century buildings, a useless space tucked beneath the gabled roof and no doubt long forgotten by those in authority. It had, however, been neither forgotten nor useless to someone.

  Three perpendicular windows along the west wall admitted weak light through windowpanes that were filthy from years of neglect. The consequences of this same neglect extended outward from the windows like an insidious web.
Stains covered the walls, some from the damp, others looking like the result of liquor hurled in drunkenness or anger, still others in splatters of rusty brown bearing the appearance of blood. Where there were no stains, lewd drawings had been scrawled onto the plaster, male and female figures engaged in a variety of sexual postures. Rubbish lay in piles on the dusty floor—cigarette butts, candy and crisp wrappers, empty beer bottles, a plastic glass, an institutional mug, an ancient orange blanket left in a heap before the fireplace. This contained its own complement of debris as well as a foul mass of ashes that contributed to air that was already foetid with the odours of urine and excrement. On the plain stone mantelpiece, hardened globules of wax fixed four white candles into position. They were stubs only, and the amount of wax that surrounded their bases gave testimony to the frequency with which the room had been used surreptitiously at night.

  Lynley let his eyes take in all of this, realising that it represented a preponderance of evidence that would take a forensic team weeks to sort through in an attempt to place Matthew Whateley in the room prior to his death. That the evidence was here somewhere—represented by a hair from the boy’s head or a spot of his blood or a scraping of his skin or a fibre that matched one found on his body—was a fact that Lynley did not question for an instant. But the thought of Patsy Whateley’s disintegrating condition was building a pressure within him to bring the case to a quick conclusion. It was inconceivable that he might have to wait an arrest upon the slow and meticulous work of a forensic team. For that reason, he returned to the trap door and called down to the drying room, seeking a way to end Harry Morant’s persistent refusal to speak. Sergeant Havers came to the door in answer.