Well-Schooled in Murder - By Elizabeth George Page 0,43
determined reserve was its own affirmation. Matthew Whateley had indeed been different, but Lynley guessed that the difference had gone far beyond the pictures on his walls. It sprang from his background, from the neighbourhood in which he had spent his childhood, from his accent, from his values, from his choice of friends. The boy had been out of place in this environment, and all of them knew it.
He gave his attention to Arlens. "What do you mean when you say he kept to himself?"
"Just that...well, he ignored traditions.""What sort of traditions?"
"Things that we do. You know. Just things. School things."
"School things?"
Wedge looked exasperated, frowned at Arlens. "Stupid stuff, sir. Like everyone carves his name in the bell tower. It's supposed to be locked, but the lock's been broken for ages, and everyone - the boys, not the girls - climbs up and carves his name somewhere on the wall inside.
And has a smoke there as well, if he wants."
Wedge's information seemed to loosen Arlens' tongue. "And hunting for magic mushrooms," he added with a smile.
"There are drugs in the school?"
Arlens shrugged, subdued perhaps by his own inadvertent admission. Lynley interpreted the shrug as negation and went on.
"But you've said magic mushrooms."
Wedge again took the initiative. "It's a lark. Going out at night with a torch and a blanket over one's head and picking magic mushrooms. We never eat any. I don't think anyone actually eats them. But blokes like to have them about. That was the sort of thing Matt wasn't interested in."
"Was he above it all?"
"He just wasn't interested."
"He was interested in the Model Railway Society," Arlens offered.
The other boys rolled their eyes at this. Obviously, an interest in model railways was a little childish in the eyes of this lot.
"And in doing his lessons," Wedge put in. "He was serious about that. About school."
"And about his trains," Arlens reaffirmed.
"Did you ever meet his parents?" Lynley asked.
A shuffling of feet, a fidgeting on the beds, quite telling at that particular question.
"There was a parents' day, wasn't there? Did you meet them?"
Smythe-Andrews spoke, but he did not look up from his shoe as he did so. "Matt's mum used to work in a pub. His dad carves tombstones outside of London. And Matt didn't hide that from anyone the way some boys might. He didn't care. It's like he wanted people to know."
Hearing the words, seeing the boys' reactions, Lynley wondered if schools had changed at all. He wondered if, in fact, their society had changed. In this age of enlightenment, they all gave lip service to the end of class barriers, but how honest were those declarations of equality in a culture that had for generations judged a man's worth by his accent, by his chance of birth, by the age of his money, by the clubs he belonged to and the people who called him friend? What had Matthew Whateley's parents been thinking of in sending their son to a school like Bredgar Chambers, even on a scholarship?
"Matthew was writing a letter to someone called Jean. Do you know who that is? It was someone he had dinner with."
The boys shook their heads in unison at this. Their confusion looked genuine. Lynley took out his pocket watch, checked the time, and asked them a final question.
"Matthew's parents don't believe that he ran away from the school. Do you believe he did?"
It was Smythe-Andrews who replied for them all. He laughed once - it sounded like something between a yelp and a sob - and said bitterly, "We'd all run off from this place if we only had the nerve. Or somewhere to go."
"Matthew had somewhere to go?""Looks like he did."
"Perhaps he only thought he had that. Perhaps he only thought that he was running to safety when in reality he was running to his death. He'd been tied up. He'd been tortured as well.
So whatever he saw as safety was in reality - "
A loud thump issued from one of the cubicles. Arlens had fainted and fallen to the floor.
It was time for history. Harry Morant knew he should have gone to the lesson, since he was part of a panel giving a report to the class this very morning. He would be missed. The cry would be sent out to find him. Harry didn't care. He didn't care about anything any longer.
Matthew Whateley was dead. Things were changed. The weight of power had shifted. He had lost all.