Free The Art of Murder by Michael White Page A

headmaster, Mr Bathurst, had died back in the late sixties, the good doctor had succeeded him in the post. And I’m grateful he did or else I might never have achieved the wonders for which I am now infamous.
    On my first view of it, Oxford was shrouded in rain. The carriage taking me from the railway station rattled over cobbles and splashed through muddy puddles swamping Botley Road. It travelled pastNorthgate, on to Turl Street, and pulled up outside my new home, Exeter College. I was in reflective mood, paying little heed to my surroundings. It was only the next morning when bright sunshine lit up my meagre room that I felt I had actually arrived.
    My dear lady, to whom I have promised to tell only the truth and only the relevant details of my tale, I will not bore you with the minutiae of my introduction to university life. We have all heard such mundanities before, have we not? Let us not waste time, but instead move straight on to the meat of the story. If you’ll excuse the pun.
    Since my earliest childhood, I had, as you know, led a solitary existence, and so being thrust suddenly into a community like the University came as something of a shock. I quickly realised that I could spend my three years there in one of two ways. I could remain isolated, a misanthrope, or I could make a performance of it. The first path was more in keeping with my true nature and was seductive to me, but I also knew that I would gain far more from the experience of being a student at Exeter College, Oxford, if I … how should I put it? … partook fully of it.
    I found I was rather a good actor – something of a natural mimic, in fact. I learned to disguise my voice and adopt different personae. I experimented with sartorial styling, facial hair, dyes and postures. I actually enjoyed it. And, I have to say, I’m quite a handsome fellow. I have fashionably long hair which is dark blond. I have a strong, intelligent face andlarge blue eyes. My lips are perhaps my least attractive feature, they are slightly too thin, but I have a manly chin, a powerful neck and broad shoulders. I’m several inches above average height, and of muscular build. But, more important than my physical appearance, I succeeded utterly in taking on the role of someone devoid of any anomalies of character, which meant I was readily able to make friends with others of my own age. I knew these were not real friendships, these people were mere stage props to me. Some may even have been fellow thespians – who could tell?
    One such associate was Winston Merryfield, a medical student at Lincoln College. I can’t honestly remember how I first met the man, and really it does not matter. I liked the sharpness of his mind. He was something of an old-fashioned intellectual type, always reading weighty German novels in the original language and extolling the virtues of his favourite composers. I hate music, always have done, and Merryfield’s insistence that I attend the concerts he so loved tested my acting skills to the limit. But I thought from the off that young Winston would be a useful person to know, so with him I made a special effort.
    One of the things I learned early in my university career was that there is a very important link between art and medicine. This is a fact many people ignore. As a student of Fine Art I was taught the rudiments of anatomy in the belief that it would facilitate a more realistic rendering of the humanand animal form. That is an important area of expertise for the artist. Indeed, the Renaissance painter Leonardo da Vinci wrote about it. But the teaching of anatomy for painters is, well, let us say, less than comprehensive. And, as you know of me already, dear lady, I have always been inquisitive when it comes to bodies, dead or alive.
    Merryfield was delighted when he learned that I was happy for him to bore me with his intellectual posturing, and even more so when I told him one evening, after a particularly tiresome performance of a