Canerone turned. The constable extended the phone to him. Salvation came with it.
“Inspector Lynley,” she said. “New Scotland Yard.”
Queen Caroline Street was as close as Lynley could get to the Whateleys’ cottage on the river. He parked his car illegally in the only space available, blocking off half the driveway of an apartment building, and propped his police identification against the steering wheel. On either side of the street stood a grim collection of postwar housing where institutional buildings of mushroom-coloured concrete squared off against other buildings of dirty brown brick. Both were devoid of architectural decoration, bleak and overcrowded and inhospitable.
Even at ten o’clock on a Sunday night, the neighbourhood was alive with noise that rocketed through the street and reverberated against the buildings. Cars and lorries roared along the flyover. Additional traffic fired across Hammersmith Bridge. Shouts echoed in apartment courtyards, followed by the antiphonal barking of dogs.
Lynley walked to the end of the street and descended to the embankment. The tide was up, the water shimmered in the darkness like cool black satin, but what vague, life-giving smell rose from the river was overpowered by the exhaust fumes that drifted down from the bridge above him.
Lynley found the Whateleys’ cottage a few hundred yards along the Lower Mall, an obdurate reminder of Hammersmith’s past. It was an old unrestored fishing cottage, with whitewashed walls, thin strips of black woodwork, and dormer windows rising from its roof.
Access to the cottage interior was gained by means of a tunnel that served as boundary between the Whateleys’ home and a pub next door. The passage was narrow, unevenly paved, and redolent of the yeasty smell of lager and ale. As he made his way to the door the top of Lynley’s head grazed the rough timbers that crisscrossed the tunnel’s low ceiling.
So far, everything had followed the usual roll of policework. Lynley’s phone call to the incidents room in Stoke Poges had resulted in Kevin Whateley’s identification of his son’s body less than an hour later. This led to Lynley’s suggestion that Scotland Yard coordinate the investigation into the death of the boy, since more than one police organisation was involved: the constabulary of West Sussex where Matthew Whateley was last seen alive at Bredgar Chambers and that of Buckinghamshire where his body had been found near St. Giles’ Church. Once Inspector Canerone had given his approval to this plan of action—with rather more relief than was usual when someone from the Met proposed an invasion into another police force’s territory—all that had been left to ensure another case keeping Lynley occupied for the days or weeks it would take to see it to its completion was to secure approval from his own superior, Superintendent Webberly. Summoned away from his favourite Sunday night television show, Webberly had listened to Lynley’s quick recitation of the facts, agreed to his proposed involvement, and returned happily to BBC-1.
Sergeant Havers was the only person who promised not to be relieved by their involvement in yet another new case. But her displeasure could not be helped at the moment.
Lynley knocked on the discoloured door. It was recessed into the wall, and its lintel sagged as if it carried the weight of the entire building. When no one opened it, he looked for a bell, failed to find one, and rapped against the wood again, more forcefully. He heard a key being turned and bolts being drawn. Then he found himself face to face with the father of the boy.
Until that moment, the death of Matthew Whateley had represented to Lynley a means by which he might escape his own troubles and stave off the void. Confronted now with the kind of suffering incised onto Kevin Whateley’s face, Lynley felt only shame at the base selfishness of his own motivation. Here was the real void. Whatever loneliness or loss he felt was risible by comparison.
“Mr. Whateley?” He offered his police identification. “Thomas Lynley. Scotland Yard CID.”
Whateley’s eyes made no move to study the warrant card. He gave no immediate indication that he had heard Lynley. Looking at him, Lynley saw that he’d probably only just returned from identifying his son’s body, for he was wearing a threadbare peaked wool cap, and under his thinning tweed overcoat a brown suit gaped round his neck and sagged at his knees.
His face told Lynley that he would deal with loss through the means of denial. Every muscle was held in rigid control. His grey eyes looked dull, like unpolished stones.
“May I come in, Mr. Whateley? I need to ask you some questions. I realise how late it is, but the sooner I can get information—”
“No good, is it? Information won’t bring Mattie back.”
“You’re right. It won’t. It’ll only bring justice. And I know that justice is a meagre replacement for your son. Believe me. I do know that.”
“Kev?” a woman’s voice called from the upper floor. It sounded weak, perhaps sedated. Whateley’s eyes shifted in the direction of the sound, but it was the only indication he gave that he had heard it. He did not move from the doorway.
“Have you anyone to stay the night with you?” Lynley asked.
“We don’t want no one,” Whateley replied. “Pats and me will cope. Just us.”
“Kev?” The woman’s voice was closer now, and steps sounded upon uncarpeted stairs somewhere behind the door. “Who is it?”
Whateley looked over his shoulder at the woman who was out of Lynley’s line of vision. “Police. Some bloke from Scotland Yard.”
“Let him in.” Whateley still did not move. “Kev, let him in.”
Her hand came round the side of the door, pulling it completely open and giving Lynley a chance to see Patsy Whateley for the first time. The mother of the dead boy was, he guessed, in her late forties, an ordinary woman who, even in grieving, would fade into faceless anonymity within a crowd. On the street she probably would not garner a moment’s attention from anyone at this time in her life, no matter the transitory beauties that might have graced her youth. Her womanly figure had thickened through time, making her appear more solid than she probably was. Her hair was very dark, that sort of uncompromising black which comes from a hasty application of inexpensive dye rather than from nature, and it lay unevenly against her skull. Her nylon dressing gown was wrinkled, printed with Chinese dragons that snarled across her bosom and down her hips. That the dressing gown, for all its garish design, was a possession holding meaning for Patsy Whateley was attested to by the fact that her green slippers had obviously been chosen in an unsuccessful attempt to match the dragons on the gown itself.
“Come in.” She reached for the sash of her dressing gown. “I look like…Not done much, you see…since…”
“Please. It’s fine, Mrs. Whateley.” Lynley sought to brush her words away. What did the poor woman think he expected from the mother of a child who’d just been found murdered? he asked himself. Haute couture? The idea was absurd, yet still, with one hand smoothing down a rucked seam, she seemed to be comparing her appearance with his, as if his tailored presence was somehow a derogation of her own. He felt distinctly uncomfortable and wished for the first time that he had thought far enough ahead to bring Sergeant Havers. Her working-class background and sartorial nonchalance would have eased them through the superficial difficulties created by his own blasted upper-crust accent and his Savile Row clothes.
The door admitted him directly into the cottage sitting room. It was sparsely furnished with a three-piece suite, a sideboard constructed of Formica-topped pressed wood, a single armless chair upholstered in brown and yellow plaid, and one long shelf running beneath the front windows. Two disparate collections sat upon this, one of stone sculptures and the other of teacups, both equally revealing.
Like any collection of art, the stone sculptures acted as a disclosure of someone’s taste. Nude women sprawled in unusual positions, their pointed breasts jutting into the air; couples entwined and arched in mock passion; nude men explored the bodies of nude women who received this attention with heads flung back in rapture. Rape of the Sabine women, Lynley thought, with the wome
n apparently begging for abduction.
Sharing this shelf, the teacups bore inscriptions that identified them as souvenirs. Gathered from holiday spots across the country, each sported a scene to identify its location and gold letters lest the image not be enough stimulus to the memory. Some of them Lynley could read from where he stood by the door. Blackpool, Weston-Super-Mare, Ilfracombe, Skegness. Others were turned from him, but he could guess their origins from the scenes painted upon them. Tower Bridge, Edinburgh Castle, Salisbury, Stonehenge. They represented places, no doubt, that the Whateleys had taken their son, places whose association would pain them treacherously—when they least expected—for years to come. That was the nature of sudden death.
“Please sit…Inspector, is it?” Patsy nodded towards the couch.
“Yes. Thomas Lynley.”
The sofa—blue vinyl—was covered with an old pink counterpane to protect it. Patsy Whateley removed this and folded it slowly, giving care to matching the corners and smoothing the lumps. Lynley sat.
Patsy Whateley did likewise, choosing the plaid chair and making sure that her dressing gown did not become disarranged. Her husband remained standing next to the stone fireplace. This held an electric fire, but he made no move to light it, even though the room was uncomfortably cold.
“I can return in the morning,” Lynley told them. “But it seemed wisest to me to begin working at once.”
Patsy said, “Yes. At once. Mattie…I want to know. I must know.” Her husband said nothing. His bleak eyes were on a picture of the boy that had pride of place on the sideboard. Grinning like any brand new third former, Matthew had been photographed wearing his school uniform—yellow pullover, blue blazer, grey trousers, black shoes. “Kev…” Patsy sounded uncertain. It was clear that she wanted her husband to join them, clearer still that he had no intention of doing so.
“Scotland Yard will handle most of the case,” Lynley explained. “I’ve already spoken to John Corntel, Matthew’s housemaster.”
“Bastard,” Kevin Whateley said on a breath.
Patsy straightened in her chair. She kept her eyes on Lynley. Her hand, however, drew a fold of her dressing gown into her fist. “Mr. Corntel. Mattie lived in Erebus House. Mr. Corntel’s housemaster there. At Bredgar Chambers. Yes.”
“From what I’ve been able to gather from Mr. Corntel,” Lynley went on, “it appears that Matthew may have had the idea to seek some freedom this past weekend.”
“No,” Patsy replied.
Lynley had expected the automatic denial. He continued as if she had not said it. “It appears that he’d got hold of an off-games chit, a paper from the Sanatorium saying that he was unfit for Friday afternoon’s hockey game. The school seems to think that perhaps he was feeling out of place and he wanted to use the opportunity of his proposed visit to the Morant family and the off-games chit to get away, perhaps to come back to London with no one being the wiser. They think he was trying to hitchhike and was picked up by someone on the road.”
Patsy looked at her husband as if hoping that he would intervene. His lips moved convulsively, but he said nothing.
“Can’t be, Inspector,” Patsy said. “That’s not our Mattie.”
“How did he get on in school?”
Again Patsy’s eyes went to her husband. This time, his own met hers momentarily before they slid away. He removed his peaked cap and twisted it once in his hands. They were strong labourer’s hands, Lynley saw, nicked in several places.
“Mattie got on well in school,” Patsy said.
“He was happy there?”
“Quite happy. He’d won a scholarship. The Board of Governors Scholarship. He knew what it meant to go to a proper school.”
“Prior to this year, he’d gone to school here locally, hadn’t he? If so, he could have been missing his mates.”
“Not a bit of that. Mattie loved Bredgar Chambers. He knew how important it was to be educated right. This was his chance. He’d not have thrown it away because he missed some mate of his here at home. He could see his mates at half term, couldn’t he?”
“But perhaps someone special in the neighbourhood?”
Lynley saw Kevin Whateley’s reaction to the question, a quick uncontrolled movement of his head towards the windows.
“Mr. Whateley?”
The man said nothing. Lynley waited. Patsy Whateley spoke.
“You’re thinking of Yvonnen, Kev, aren’t you?” she said and explained to Lynley. “Yvonnen Livesley. From Queen Caroline Street. She and Mattie were mates in primary school. They played together. But it was just children playing, Inspector. Yvonnen wasn’t more to Matthew than that. And besides…” She blinked and said nothing more.
“Black,” her husband finished.
“Yvonnen Livesley’s a black?” Lynley clarified.
Kevin Whateley nodded, as if the colour of Yvonnen’s skin were adequate evidence to support their contention that Matthew would not have left the school illegally. It was a weak position, especially if they had grown up together, especially if they were—as the boy’s mother claimed—mates.
“Was there anything at all that might have given you the impression that Matthew was recently unhappy at school? Not unhappy throughout the year, but unhappy within the past few weeks. Arising perhaps from a cause you know nothing about. Sometimes children go through things and don’t feel quite up to admitting it to their parents. It was nothing to do with the relationship that exists between parent and child. It’s just something that happens.” He thought of his own school days and the pretence of getting on. He had never spoken of it to a single soul, least of all to his parents.
Neither of them replied. Kevin examined the lining of his cap. Patsy frowned down at her lap. Lynley saw that she had started trembling, so he addressed his words to her.
“It’s not your fault if Matthew ran off from the school, Mrs. Whateley. You’re not responsible. If he felt a need to run away—”
“He had to go there. We did swear…Oh, Kev, he’s dead and we did it. You know we did it!”
Her husband’s face worked in reaction to her words, but he didn’t go to her. Instead, he looked at Lynley.
“The boy went dead quiet within the last four or five months.” He spoke tautly. “Last holiday I come on him three or four times just staring out his bedroom window at the river. Like he was in a trance. But he wouldn’t talk about it. Wasn’t his way.” Kevin looked at his wife. She was attempting to maintain that shell of bland civility that she seemed to feel was appropriate. “We did it to him, Pats. We did.”
Barbara Havers stared up at the facade of her family’s home in Acton and made a mental note of everything that needed to be done to the building to make it more habitable. It was an exercise she engaged in nightly. Always, she dwelt on the easiest items first. The windows were filthy. God alone knew when they had last been washed. But it wouldn’t take too much trouble to see to them if she had enough time off, a ladder to use, and sufficient energy to do the job right. The bricks needed scrubbing. Fifty years or more of soot and grime permeated their porous surfaces, leaving an unpalatable patina in every variation of the colour black. The woodwork at the windows, along the roofline, and on the door had long since lost its last flake of paint. She shuddered to think how long it would take to return that innocent decorative carving to its original condition. Drainpipes down the side of the house were rusted through, spouting like sieves whenever it rained. They would have to be replaced entirely. As would the front garden, which was not a garden at all but a square of concrete-hard dirt upon which she parked her Mini, its rusting condition a suitable complement to the environment in general.
Her survey complete, she got out of the car and went into the house. Noise and odours assaulted her. The television blared from the sitting room, while poorly cooked food, mildew, woodrot, unwashed bodies, and old age all battled to be the ascendant smell.
Barbara laid her shoulder bag on the wobbly rattan table by the door. She hung her coat w
ith the others on the line of pegs beneath the staircase and walked towards the sitting room at the back of the house.
“Lovey?” Querulously, her mother spoke from above. Barbara stopped, looked up.
Mrs. Havers was standing on the top stair, clad only in a thin cotton nightdress, her feet bare and her hair uncombed. The light behind her, shining from her bedroom, served to emphasise each angular detail of her skeletal body through the insubstantial material. Barbara’s eyes widened at the sight of her.
“You’ve not dressed, Mum,” she said. “You’ve not dressed today at all.” She felt a great weight of depression settle upon her as she said the words. How much longer, she asked herself, would she be able to hold down a job and still care for two parents who had become like children?
Mrs. Havers smiled vaguely. Her hands slid over the nightdress as if for confirmation. Her teeth caught at her lip. “Forgot,” she said. “I was looking at my albums—oh, lovey, I did so want to spend more time in Switzerland, didn’t you?—and I must not have realised…Shall I dress now, lovey?”
Considering the time, it seemed a rather useless expenditure of energy. Barbara sighed, pressed her knuckles to her temples to stave off a headache. “No, I don’t think so, Mum. It’s almost time for you to be in bed, isn’t it?”
“I could dress for you. You could watch me and see if I do it proper.”
“You’d do it proper, Mum. Why don’t you run yourself a bath?”
Mrs. Havers’ face wrinkled at this new idea. “Bath?”
“Yes. But stay with the water. Don’t let it overflow this time. I’ll be up in a moment.”
“Will you help me then, lovey? If you will, I can tell you my ideas about Argentina. That’s where we’ll go next. Do they speak Spanish there? I think we’ll have to learn more Spanish before we go. One so likes to be able to communicate with the natives. Buenos días, señorita. ¿Como se llama? I remember that from the telly. I know it’s not nearly enough. But it’s a start. If they speak Spanish in Argentina. It could be Portuguese. Somewhere they speak Portuguese.”