Well-Schooled in Murder

  “…the analysis on the deposits under the boy’s toenails and on his shoulders and buttocks.” Canerone broke into Lynley’s thoughts.

  “Sorry?”

  “We’ve completed that analysis. It’s potassium hydroxide, but its two other names might be more familiar to you. Caustic potash. Lye.”

  “Lye?”

  “Odd, isn’t it?”

  “Where could Matthew Whateley have come upon lye?”

  “If he was held, bound and gagged, somewhere,” Canerone pointed out, “he would have picked up the lye in that location, I should guess.”

  Lynley weighed the implications of this against what he had come to know about Bredgar Chambers. As he did so, Canerone continued, his manner affable.

  “Every schoolboy knows the basics about lye, that it’s used in soap and detergents. So I should think you’re looking for a storeroom of some sort. Perhaps a place where the cleaning agents are kept. A shed. An outbuilding.” Canerone poured himself a second cup of tea. “Or there’s the possibility that he came into contact with the lye in the boot of the vehicle in which he died. If that’s the case, you may be looking for a service vehicle, one that does hauling and clean-up for the school.”

  Canerone went on, and although Lynley made appropriate replies, his thoughts drifted elsewhere. He evaluated the information he had and admitted to himself the possibility that he was twisting the facts to fit a case that he had sketched out in his mind, instead of collecting the facts and building a case upon them. Failing to maintain an objective distance until all the information had been gathered was always the risk of policework. He had walked this perilous route once before, so he recognised his tendency to draw a conclusion too soon. More significantly, he recognised his propensity for letting loyalties from the past colour his interpretation of the present. He put up his guard against that proclivity and forced himself to assess the relative strength of each piece of evidence they had come across.

  The danger inherent to an investigation into murder grew out of the need for haste. The more quickly the police gathered pertinent details, the likelier that an arrest would follow. But the attendant hazard was that reality could become easily blurred. The need to fix guilt often resulted in the unconscious suppression of a fact that might otherwise lead in a new direction. Lynley was aware of this. He saw how it was acting upon the investigation now.

  The carbon monoxide poisoning had turned the case on its ear. It made the chamber above the drying room an unlikely location for Matthew Whateley’s death. If the new reality was that Matthew Whateley had died elsewhere, then the additional new reality was that—no matter how Lynley longed to pin guilt upon him—Clive Pritchard was not only not involved, but also telling the truth. Inexorably, then, that truth led back to the photographs. The photographs led back to John Corntel.

  There had to be a way to verify that the room in Calchus House could not have been a source of the poison that killed the boy. Before moving on, that verification had to be made. Lynley knew beyond a doubt the very man who could make it. Simon Allcourt-St. James.

  “Tuesday last,” Colonel Bonnamy said. The words slurred into one another. That was always the case late in the day when his strength diminished. “Tuesday last, Jeannie.”

  Jean Bonnamy poured her father less than half a cup of tea. Because he suffered from tremors as he grew more exhausted, a half-cup was all he could manage without spilling, and he refused to allow her to hold a fuller cup to his lips. Rather than suffer the ignominy of being fed and watered like a toddler, he took his tea and his food in smaller portions. His daughter didn’t mind. She knew how important dignity was to him, and little enough remained of that once she’d helped him to dress or bathe or get to the lavatory.

  “I know, Dad,” she replied, but she didn’t want to talk about Matthew Whateley. If they spoke about the boy, she would begin to weep. Her father would respond by breaking down himself, and in his condition, that would be dangerous. His blood pressure had been high for the last two days. She was determined that nothing would force it higher.

  “He would have been with us yesterday, girl.” Her father lifted the teacup to his lips. The shaking in his arm rattled the china against his teeth.

  “Shall I play chess with you, Dad? Would you like that?”

  “’N place of Matthew? No. Leave the board be.” Her father placed his cup in his saucer. He took a slice of buttered bread from the plate on the table between them. He shivered.

  Seeing him do so, Jean realised how cold the sitting room had grown. Darkness was rapidly falling outside—intensified by the continuing rain and the bank of tenebrous grey clouds that pushed from the west—and the gloom of the late afternoon was matched only by the chill that seeped into the cottage like a stealthy intruder.

  The electric fire was lit, and their old retriever basked in front of it quite happily. But the heat did not carry across the sitting room to their chairs. Watching her father shiver again, Jean spoke.

  “I think we need a fire, Dad. What do you say? Shall I move that old dragon of yours and give us a proper blaze?”

  Colonel Bonnamy turned his head to the fireplace where his Chinese dragon rested against two prongs on the grate. Outside, a gust of wind tossed its way through one of the chestnut trees, scraping its branches against the sitting room windows. The retriever lifted its head, listened, gave a deep-throated growl.

  “Just a storm, Shorney,” Jean told the animal. He growled a second time. Something banged against the cottage. He barked.

  “Never liked weather,” Colonel Bonnamy said.

  The dog barked again. He looked from Jean to the window. Tree branches tapped against it. The rain fell harder. Something rasped the wall. Burdened by age, the dog struggled to his feet, planted them on his blanket, and began to yelp.

  “Shorney!” Jean Bonnamy admonished. The animal howled. His short coat bristled.

  “Blast it! Enough!” Colonel Bonnamy cried. With his good hand he crumpled a bit of newspaper and threw it at the dog to distract him, but the paper fell short. The dog’s barking continued.

  Jean went to the window and squinted against the glass, but all she could see was rain streaking the pane and the reflection of the lights in the sitting room. Another gust of wind coughed against the cottage. A sharp clatter followed, as if tiles were tumbling from the roof to the ground. The dog snarled, showing teeth, taking two steps towards the darkened window. As he did so, something banged against the cottage, then slid noisily down the wall.

  Over the dog’s responding howl, Jean said, “That must have been the rake, Dad. I think I left it outside with the secateurs. When that inspector came yesterday…I’d better fetch them before they’re ruined. And some wood for the fire as well. Shorney! Quiet!”

  “We need no fire, Jeannie,” her father protested as she went to the coat rack and pulled on a mackintosh stained with grease. But even as he spoke, a shudder passed through his body. The wind shrieked in the chimney. The retriever bayed.

  “We do,” Jean replied. “I won’t be a moment. Shorney!”

  The dog advanced in her direction, but the last thing she intended was to let the old retriever out in a storm. She slipped from the room, closing the door behind her. The lights were not on in the kitchen, so she felt her way across the room and opened the back door.

  A blast of cold wind hit her, whipping against her clothes. Rain pelted her wildly. She huddled into her mackintosh and went out.

  She had left both the rake and the secateurs in the rear of the cottage, leaning against the wall. They would have fallen in the storm, she decided. That would have been the noise they had heard. She hurried along the cottage wall, turned the corner, and began to search for them in the gloom. Inside the cottage, the dog continued to bark, but the sound was muted compared to the growing roar of the wind.

  “Now, where on earth…” She came upon the secateurs easily enough, fallen to their side next to a clump of lavender. But the rake seemed lost. As she
felt along the ground for it, the wind streamed her hair directly into her face so that it stung her eyes and beat against her skin. “Oh, damn!” And over the din, in an attempt to settle the dog, “Shorney! Quiet!”

  She pushed herself to her feet, tucked the secateurs under her arm, and made her way along the path to the shed at the far side of the garden where she kept her tools. Yanking the door open, she stepped inside, taking a few moments’ respite from the unabated fury of wind and rain. She hung up the secateurs on their hook. The shed door banged shut.

  Startled, she cried out, then laughed at herself nervously. “A storm,” she said.

  She thought about waiting until the rain abated before she gathered wood from its shelter next to the shed. But the image of her father shivering in the cold prompted her to action. She, after all, could warm herself quickly enough with a bath and a bit of brandy if she got chilled. She retied the belt of her mackintosh, pulled up its collar, and steeled herself to meet the rain once more. She took a step towards the door, her hand outstretched. On its own, it flew open.

  Jean jumped back, gasped. A figure appeared in the doorway, silhouetted against the sky outside. Jean started to speak. “What d’you—”

  She saw an uplifted arm. It held the rake. It lashed down furiously, sharp metal tines digging into her neck. She fell. She rolled away. She tried to protect her head. The rake sought her, finding her again and again. She felt her flesh tear. She tasted her blood.

  Faintly, at a great distance, the retriever barked in panic.

  Lynley watched as St. James made his way with some difficulty up the old wall ladder. The process was both slow and awkward, but as always St. James’ face remained impassive as he made the climb. Above him, Lynley knew better than to extend his hand and offer assistance. Still, he felt himself draw a breath and hold it until his friend stood safely in the small corridor next to him.

  Lynley handed St. James a torch. “It’s here,” he said, beaming his own cone of light towards the door at the corridor’s end.

  It was after six. The building was quiet, empty of boys and staff members during the dinner hour. Only Clive Pritchard remained in Calchus House, confined to his bed-sitting room with a staff member posted in the corridor outside.

  “What kind of heating system do they have?” St. James asked as he followed Lynley into the little room.

  “Radiators.”

  “That’s not going to be much help, is it?”

  “There’s a fireplace, though.”

  St. James shone his beam in that direction. The scene-of-crime men had removed both ashes and debris. “You’re thinking of coal gas, I take it?”

  “I’m thinking of anything, at this point.”

  St. James nodded and examined the fireplace. He lowered himself to the floor and directed his beam up the flue. “But the question is, where would a student get his hands on coal to burn up here?”

  “From any of the houses. They all have fireplaces.”

  St. James shot him a curious glance. “You want this to be the spot, don’t you, Tommy?”

  “That’s why I’ve asked you to make the determination for me. I like to think I’ve learned to be a bit more circumspect when I find my objectivity slipping.”

  “John Corntel?”

  “I don’t think so, St. James. But I need to be sure.”

  St. James didn’t respond. Instead, he spent a few more minutes looking over the fireplace before he pushed himself to his feet, rubbing his hands together to free them of dust.

  “The flue’s clean,” he said. “That’s not your source.” He walked to the wall and followed the pipes at its base, playing his light along them. “Water pipes,” he said. “None of them are gas.” Rain beat against the window. St. James went to it and examined the narrow stone sill. He guided his light along the beams in the ceiling. He flashed it into corners. He directed it along the worn floor. At last he shook his head. “I don’t see how Matthew Whateley could have died in here, Tommy. He may have been in here for a period of time—Horsham CID will be able to tell you that—but this isn’t where he died. What else did Canerone give you?”

  “Lye.”

  “As in Macbeth?”

  Lynley smiled. “As in soap.”

  “Ah. Lye.”

  “Trace deposits. That’s all. It could have come from this room, I dare say, considering what it looked like in here before the scene-of-crime team swept through.”

  St. James was frowning as Lynley spoke. He said, “I shouldn’t think lye would have been kept in here, Tommy.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s too caustic. Anyone handling it would have to be damned careful about it. It attacks glass and clay. Iron as well. It dissolves skin tissues. It’s the sort of chemical compound—potassium combined with water—that one might find—”

  Lynley held up a hand to stop St. James. The image was planted firmly in his mind. He had seen it, seen her, watched her deft movements. Only hours ago. The sudden horror of contemplating a crime of such enormity momentarily froze Lynley’s words.

  “What is it?” St. James asked.

  He formulated his question. Guilt and innocence rode hand in hand upon his friend’s answer. “St. James,” he asked, “can carbon monoxide be produced?”

  “Produced? What are you asking? We’ve been up here looking for the means of production.”

  “I don’t mean as a by-product. I don’t mean as an accident. I mean produced deliberately. Are there chemicals that can be mixed together to form carbon monoxide?”

  “Certainly. Formic acid and sulphuric acid.”

  “How is it done?”

  “By adding formic to sulphuric. That dehydrates the formic—removes the water from it. The result is carbon monoxide.”

  “Can anyone do it?”

  “Anyone with the chemicals and the equipment. You’d have to do it with a burette, to control the flow of formic acid into the sulphuric. But anyone…”

  “God. My God.”

  “What is it?”

  “Potassium hydroxide. I was thinking of it as lye, not as a chemical compound, St. James. Potassium hydroxide. Carbon monoxide. He died in the chemistry lab.”

  “The fume cupboard,” Lynley said. He unlocked the laboratory door with keys supplied by Frank Orten. He groped for the lights. The room became preternaturally bright. Lab tables sprang out of the darkness. Glass-fronted cupboards jumped forward, glittering. Across the room from them, the fume cupboard was closed, the glass that comprised its front and sides still smudged and cloudy as Lynley had first seen it.

  St. James went to examine it, pushing up on the sash that served as its front panel. “It looks like a two-metre cupboard,” he said, studying everything from the white tiles of its base to the vent in its side. “Two metres tall. One metre in width.” He leaned closer to the traces of the deposit which smudged the glass. “I should think…” He removed a penknife from his pocket and scraped it against the glass. A residue of white powder dropped into his hand. He brushed it off. “I should think that’s your potassium hydroxide, Tommy. If one were going to create it in the lab—and it would be a technical demonstration of what happens when one mixes an alkaline metal with water—it would have to be done in a fume cupboard like this. Not so much because of fumes, but because of the reaction.”

  “Which is?”

  “It bubbles first. Then it explodes, sending up a white powder. In this case, right against the glass of the cupboard.”

  “So when Matthew Whateley was put inside, he would have picked up the trace deposits from the glass.”

  “I should think that’s how it happened.”

  “And the carbon monoxide?”

  St. James directed his attention to the rest of the lab. “Everything’s here. The beakers, the burettes. Look at the chemicals in that cupboard. Each bottle is plainly labelled. And is the cupboard locked?”

  Lynley checked this. “No.”

  “Formic acid? Sulphuric?”

&n
bsp; Lynley went through the bottles. There were dozens of them. He found what he was looking for on the bottom shelf of the second cabinet he opened.

  “Here they are, St. James. Formic and sulphuric. Other acids as well.”

  St. James nodded. He pointed to the row of large burettes that were lined across the top of the cabinets. “We’ve a volume of two cubic metres to fill with gas,” he said. “The drain and the vent in the fume cupboard would be blocked off. The boy would be placed inside—bound and gagged. In a corner of the cupboard would be set up one of the wide beakers and the largest burette—a five-hundred-cc one would be the most likely. The formic acid would drip into the sulphuric. Carbon monoxide would form. The boy would die.”

  “Wouldn’t he try to knock over the burette or the beaker?”

  “Possibly. But the space is confined. He’d be placed inside the cupboard with little freedom of movement. Even if he did move, I should guess our killer explained to him all the corrosive qualities of the acids being used. So even if Matthew wanted to knock over the beaker—even if he had the room to do so, which I think unlikely—how reasonable is it that he would do it and risk having the acid spill over his skin?” St. James closed the fume cupboard. He turned back to Lynley. “So I suppose the question is: Do you have a suspect familiar with chemicals?”

  It was the obvious question. Lynley found himself reluctant to give a reply. Again, disquiet afflicted him. He hadn’t wanted to find guilt in John Corntel. But he wanted to place it in this room even less.

  The laboratory door opened and Sergeant Havers entered. She was carrying an umbrella which had apparently afforded her little protection from the rain, for her jacket bore great damp patches upon the shoulders and down the back, her trousers were speckled with water, and her wet hair clung to her skull like a cap.