Well-Schooled in Murder (55 page)

“St. James,” he asked his friend, “do you know anything about Apert’s syndrome?”

“No. Why?”

“It’s a thought…” Lynley scanned the page, for the first time reading what Chas Quilter had been reading when they entered his room that morning. The words were dizzying. Lynley tried to assimilate them as, next to him, St. James reached forward and picked up the photograph from the windowsill.

“Tommy—”

“A moment.” His eyes swept the text.
Coronal sutures. Syndactyly. Acrocephalosyndactyly. Bilateral coronal synostosis
. It was like reading Greek. He turned the page. A photograph stared up at him. The final piece of the puzzle that was Chas Quilter clicked into place. It was followed immediately by a dawning understanding of the forces of chance and circumstance that had combined to result in the murder of Matthew Whateley.

“Tommy.” St. James was saying his name again. His hand shot out to grip Lynley’s arm.

Lynley looked up. His friend’s angular features were sharp, his expression intense. He was, Lynley saw, holding the photograph from the windowsill.

“This girl,” St. James said. “I’ve seen her.”

“Tonight? Here?”

“No. Sunday. Deborah went to her house to phone the police. In Stoke Poges, Tommy. She lives across the street from St. Giles’ Church.”

Lynley felt his blood begin to pound. “Who is she?”

“She’s called Cecilia. Cecilia Feld.”

Lynley’s eyes went to the wall of framed quotations. To the calligraphic lines from Matthew Arnold.
Ah, love, let us be true to one another
. And the small, neat signature at the bottom, near the frame.
Sissy
. Cecilia. Being true. Waiting in Stoke Poges.

They dropped Sergeant Havers at the hospital in Horsham where she would wait in the hope that Jean Bonnamy might regain consciousness and name her attacker. They drove on through the rain towards Stoke Poges. The continuing storm slowed traffic to a crawl in some places. As the minutes passed and St. James related what little he had heard Cecilia Feld tell the police Sunday night, Lynley felt his sense of urgency grow. It was after eight o’clock when they pulled into the drive of the house across the street from St. Giles’ Church.

As they got out of the car, Lynley took up the medical volume that he had removed from Chas Quilter’s desk. He tucked it under his arm and followed St. James through the rain.

The house was dark, save for a light that shone at a distance through the translucent glass of the front door. Their first knock brought no response. Nor did their second. It was only when Lynley found the doorbell—half-hidden under a mass of wet Virginia creeper—that they were able to rouse someone inside the building. A shadowy figure approached. The door opened a cautious two inches.

She was small, delicate, a wisp of a girl who looked extremely unwell. But Lynley recognised her from her picture. He produced his warrant card. “Cecilia Feld?” When she nodded solemnly, wide-eyed and mute, he said, “I’m Thomas Lynley. Scotland Yard CID. You’ve already met Mr. St. James, I believe. Last Sunday night. May we come in?”

“Sissy? Who is it, my dear?” A woman’s voice came to them from a hallway to the left of the front door. Footsteps approached. A second figure in shadow joined Cecilia. She was a taller woman—grey-haired and sturdy, with strong, capable hands. One of them sought Cecilia’s shoulder and drew her back from the door. She stepped in front of the girl. “May I help you?” With a flip of a switch the porch was instantly brightened, and the light fully exposed the two women in the house.

In spite of the hour, they were both dressed as if for bed, in wool wrappers with slippers on their feet. The older woman had begun to put her hair up in curlers, so her head looked oddly shaped, knobbed on one side and smooth on the other. She scrutinised Lynley’s warrant card. Behind her, Cecilia stood against the wall, her arms cradled in front of her, hands cupping her elbows. Beyond them, from a room at the end of the hall, a diffused light shifted and blinked. A television set, Lynley decided, with the sound turned off.

Evidently satisfied with Lynley’s credentials, the woman held the door open wider. She introduced herself as Norma Streader—
Mrs.
Streader, she emphasised—and led them to the room from which the shifting light shone. She lit two lamps and used a remote control unit to switch off the television set.

Planting herself on the chintz-covered couch, she said, “What may I do for you, Inspector? Please. Sit down.” And then to the girl, “Sissy, I think it’s time you had a bit of a lie-down, don’t you?”

The girl looked willing enough to leave. Lynley stopped her. “It’s Cecilia we’ve come to see.”

Cecilia had taken a position near the doorway, arms still wrapped round her body as if in the need to protect herself. When Lynley spoke, she edged a few inches into the room.

“You’ve come to see Sissy?” Mrs. Streader repeated. “Why?” She examined them shrewdly. “You’re not here on her parents’ behalf, are you? They’ve caused this child enough distress already, and if she wants to stay here with me and my husband, she’s welcome to do so. I’ve made that clear to the social worker, to the solicitor, to the—”

“No,” Lynley interposed. “We’re not here on behalf of her parents.” He looked at Cecilia. “Chas Quilter’s disappeared from Bredgar Chambers.”

Lynley saw her grip her wrapper. She said nothing. Mrs. Streader spoke quickly. “What do you want with Cecilia, Inspector? You can see she’s not well. She shouldn’t even be out of bed.”

“I don’t know a Chas Quilter.” Cecilia spoke in a whisper.

Even Mrs. Streader looked surprised by this response. She said, “Sissy.”

Again Lynley interrupted. “Of course you know him. Rather well, I should guess. He has your picture in his room at the school. He has the stanza you copied from Matthew Arnold on his wall. Has he been here tonight, Cecilia?”

Cecilia said nothing. Mrs. Streader opened her mouth to speak, but closed it again. Her eyes went from Cecilia to Lynley to Cecilia. Finally she said, “What’s this about, please?”

Lynley shifted his gaze to the woman. “Murder.”

“No!” Cecilia took a step towards them.

“‘Ah, love, let us be true to one another,’” Lynley quoted. “That was the line you and Chas Quilter clung to, wasn’t it? It got you through these past few months.”

She dropped her head. Her hair—so lovely in the photograph, so thin and lifeless now—swept forward momentarily to cover her face.

“Has he been here?” Lynley asked.

She shook her head. She was lying. He could feel it.

“Do you know where he is? Do you know where he’s gone?”

“I’ve not seen Chas Quilter in…I don’t know. Months. Ages.”

Mrs. Streader extended a hand to the girl. “Sissy. Sit down. You must. You’re not strong.”

Cecilia joined her on the couch. Lynley and St. James sat opposite them in the matching armchairs. A coffee table stood between them. On it were two glasses, one empty, one half-filled with a soft drink. Their presence was a revelation of the truth.

“We need to find him, Cecilia,” Lynley said. “You must tell us how long it’s been since he left you. You must tell us where he is.”

“I haven’t seen him,” she repeated. “I told you. I haven’t
seen
him. I don’t know anything about him.”

“You’re protecting him. That’s understandable. You love him. But I can’t think you’d do that in the face of murder.”

“You’re talking nonsense.”

Lynley leaned forward. He placed the medical volume on the table between them, but he did not open it. “You and Chas were lovers during your lower sixth year, weren’t you?” he said. “You made love in the little chamber above the drying room in Calchus House. Late at night. On weekends. When no one was about. You tried to be careful. You tried to take precautions. But you didn’t always manage, did you? So you became pregnant. You could have had an abortion, but I don’t think that’s the sort of people you and Chas are. He wanted to do right by you. You wanted to do right by him, by the baby. So you pretended to transfer out of Bredgar Chambers to another school. Cowfrey Pitt said something about a girl transferring out at the end of summer term last year under questionable circumstances. You must have been that girl. And you did it to protect Chas Quilter. If anyone discovered that he’d made you pregnant, he’d be expelled from the school. His education would be in shambles, and the future you planned to have together would be in shambles as well. But I imagine your parents weren’t too pleased when you wouldn’t have an abortion and wouldn’t name the father, so you had to come here, to a foster home.”

“Sissy, my dear…” Mrs. Streader reached for the girl, but Cecilia jerked away.

“You don’t know anything,” she said to Lynley. “Even if you did, I’ve committed no crime. I’ve done nothing. Nor has Chas.”

“A thirteen-year-old boy is dead, Cecilia. A woman is in hospital with a fractured skull. Several people’s lives are in ruins. How much more is going to go into the protection of Chas Quilter’s future?”

“He’s done nothing. I’ve done nothing. We—”

“That was almost the case,” Lynley agreed. “But you panicked Friday night—was that when you had the baby, Cecilia?—and you phoned the school. Again and again. You needed him, didn’t you? Because the future was in doubt. The plans were going awry.”

“No!”

“The happy ending you were looking for with Chas had been twisted by a circumstance you hadn’t considered. It was one thing to leave the school, to bear a pregnancy without him, even to have his baby and be willing to safeguard his reputation at the cost of your own. There was even a bit of nobility in that. But it was quite another thing when you saw the baby, wasn’t it? You weren’t prepared for Apert’s syndrome.” Lynley opened the medical volume. He turned the photograph of the baby towards Cecilia. “The concave skull. The misshapen eyes. The long forehead. The webbed fingers. The webbed toes. The possibility of mental—”

“Stop it!” Cecilia shrieked.

“The child would need years of plastic surgery even to look normal. And the greatest irony of this entire wretched mess is that the best plastic surgeon in the country is Chas Quilter’s own father.”

“No!” Cecilia flung herself forward, grabbed the book, hurled it across the room.

Lynley pressed her. “Was Chas backing out on your plans, Cecilia? When he found out about the baby, did he want to end his relationship with you?”

“He’s not like that. You don’t even know him. He loves me. He
loves
me!”

“I don’t see how that’s possible. He let you leave the school. He let you give up your education. He let you have this baby all alone—”

“He was here. He came. He said he would and he did because he loves me. He loves me!” She began to cry.

“He was here for the birth?”

Cecilia rocked on the couch. She sobbed bitterly, a fist at her mouth, one hand cradling her elbow as if it were supporting a baby’s head. Mrs. Streader spoke.

“He came up on Tuesday evening, Inspector.”

“No!” Cecilia shrieked. Her hands dug into her hair.

Mrs. Streader’s face was soft with compassion. “Sissy, I must tell them the truth.”

“You can’t! You promised!”

“While it was just you and Chas, yes. But if someone has died. If there’s been a murder—”

“You can’t!”

Lynley was waiting for Mrs. Streader to continue. As he did so, the words
Tuesday evening
sang in his brain. Matthew Whateley had been with the Bonnamys Tuesday evening. Jean Bonnamy had driven him back to the school quite late. The lights of a minibus had struck him as he waved goodbye. Jean Bonnamy had seen that bus. So whoever had been driving it had no doubt seen Matthew. This, then, had to be the boy to whom Matthew was referring in his note to Jean Bonnamy.

“He came on Tuesday evening,” Mrs. Streader continued. “Sissy was already in hospital in Slough. He came to the hospital, but when we knew it would be hours before the baby came, we insisted he go back to the school. It was dangerous enough for him to be away without permission for even a short time. Considering how he’d managed it, it was even more dangerous for him not to return as soon as he could.”

“How had he managed it?” Lynley asked, although he was certain what the answer would be.

“He’d taken one of the minibuses.”

Lynley saw how it had been done. Breaking into the porter’s office was a simple procedure. The keys were available on the wall. By Elaine Roly’s admission, Frank Orten had been with his daughter Tuesday night—was with her every Tuesday night—so he wouldn’t have been in the lodge to hear one of the minibuses drive by. It was a risk, but Chas had been desperate enough to take it. Enough in love. Enough burdened by guilt. Everything had gone perfectly until he returned the bus…only to be seen by Matthew Whateley. Of all persons to see him, no one could have been worse than Matthew, who had already demonstrated his willingness to take action when someone decided to live in defiance of the rules. The problem was that since Chas—the senior prefect—was breaking the rules, Matthew Whateley had no one to turn to if he wanted to serve the cause of honour without breaking the code of silence by which all the pupils lived. He could hardly act on what he knew about Chas in the manner in which he had acted on what he knew about Clive Pritchard. So his only option would have been to tell the Headmaster. Chas faced expulsion because of Cecilia’s pregnancy. He faced expulsion because he’d taken the minibus. He faced expulsion because he’d protected Clive Pritchard. Any one of the charges against him might not be enough to seal his fate. All three of them acted in concert to doom him. His future rested in the hands of a thirteen-year-old boy who believed in rules, who believed in honour. The only way he could survive was to eliminate the threat. And on Friday night, he’d done it. Then on Saturday, he’d taken the minibus a second time. He’d dumped the body in Stoke Poges.