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 women 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