Bones of the Buried

by David Roberts

  ‘Possibly, but you may remember that Tilney’s pipe was close by his body. You don’t fall asleep when you’re smoking a pipe – at least I doubt it.’

  ‘The murderer could have been a woman – at least in theory.’

  ‘Yes, I wondered if Rosalía had done away with him but her grief was real enough.’

  ‘But why did she agree to take us to his hideout?’

  Edward paused. ‘Sutton says she is – and was – a member of the Party and under orders.’

  ‘Orders?’

  ‘Orders to take us to him and so provide David with his alibi.’ He looked anxiously at Verity to see if she realised what this meant.

  ‘I don’t believe anything Tom Sutton says . . . not any more . . . not without evidence. Rosalía has been a good friend and I don’t believe she would ever have put us in danger.’ She paused, and then said firmly, ‘Who are our other suspects?’

  ‘Maurice Tate for one. We know he hated Tilney. He had tried to blackmail him about his homosexuality. But I found out that Maurice was rehearsing the play when he ought to have been in the mountains killing Tilney. There were plenty of witnesses.’

  ‘What about Hester? You’ve ruled her out?’ Verity said brutally.

  Edward tried to answer her as objectively as he could. ‘Yes, I did. I thought for a moment that she might have had a motive.’

  ‘What motive?’

  ‘Well, not a motive exactly, but she is Jewish and I had it in mind that a Jew might want to avenge the destruction of a Jewish family but I became convinced she knew nothing about Max or Oliver Federstein. That was a burden Elizabeth had to carry.’

  ‘Revenge for a death so many years ago? It does seem . . . I was going to say “unbelievable”.’

  ‘Suicide’s not an accident, V, and you know that Elizabeth felt bound to carry out her stepfather’s last wish. And you also know why Tom Sutton identified so closely with Oliver. There are always reasons behind a suicide. A suicide which, in this case, led to a father’s despair . . . bitter wounds, bitter guilt! I guessed it must be something like that when the horrible little man – Mike Nadall – told us the rest of the story of which Miss Harvey had told me the first part.’

  ‘Revenge is a dish best taken cold,’ Verity mused. ‘It’s a strange story but then English public schools are such strange institutions. I mean . . . does any boy come out at the end of his schooling at one of these places undamaged? I only ask out of curiosity.’

  ‘We learn to run the empire,’ Edward said in mock seriousness.

  ‘Pooh! You can’t even run the country let alone the empire and, when we come to power, you know what will be the first thing to go?’

  ‘The public schools?’

  ‘Yes, of course, but I really meant the empire. It’s an anachronism. The masses are kept down by . . .’

  ‘Quite,’ said Edward hurriedly.

  ‘It’s lucky, isn’t it, that David was in gaol when Tilney was murdered?’

  ‘Very fortunate,’ said Edward solemnly. It’s certainly where he ought to be, he added, but not aloud.

  ‘He had a motive after all. Tilney didn’t approve of him buying arms for the government from . . . wherever he could.’

  ‘From Fascists,’ said Edward, rubbing it in.

  ‘The corrupt may be corrupted,’ she responded sententiously.

  ‘That’s what David says, is it?’ Verity scowled at him. ‘Please don’t tell me the ends justify the means,’ he said. She scowled even harder.

  ‘As I understand it – and this is David’s story as far as he’s prepared to tell it to me – Tilney needed to “disappear”. He wanted his enemies to think he was dead while he did what he had to do for the Party. Afterwards, he was supposed to come back to Madrid, explain breezily that he had been away visiting friends and hadn’t heard all the hoo-ha and David would use his “get-out-of-gaol-free” card.’

  ‘Right, but he didn’t come back because he wanted David dead at the hands of the Republic?’ Edward suggested provocatively.

  ‘He didn’t because he had been killed by Sutton,’ Verity corrected him.

  ‘It’s odd that, isn’t it? Why did Sutton leave it so long before killing Tilney?’

  ‘That’s easy! He didn’t know Tilney was still alive until he heard that David had asked you to go up the mountain and find him. As a spy, he must have known where Tilney had his base camp – and he went there to kill him before you could find him alive – to fulfil his “quest”.’

  ‘Yes, that must be it,’ Edward agreed. ‘He thought Tilney was dead so it must have been a nasty shock to discover he had tricked him and was just pretending.’

  ‘Do you think Tilney was aware that Sutton was after him?’

  ‘Probably. Sutton said he had hinted that he knew Oliver Federstein’s story. He wanted to see Tilney sweat.’

  Verity brooded for a minute and then said, ‘Let’s talk about Stephen Thayer. It’s queer Tom was so easily persuaded by Elizabeth not to kill him, isn’t it? It doesn’t ring true to me.’

  ‘Well, it’s hard to say. He may have wanted to concentrate on politics and the impending revolution. He had orders from the Party which probably didn’t include taking time off to go back to London and murder someone. After all, he didn’t have a particularly strong motive. I mean, no one has accused Stephen of . . . of liking boys. In fact, it looks as if he did everything he could to protect Oliver from Hoden.’

  ‘He might have had a motive. What if he was jealous of Elizabeth’s friendship with Stephen? Perhaps he thought it was something more than that? Maybe he thought she had betrayed him.’

  Edward considered this. Then he said, ‘It’s just as likely Sutton had got sick of the “quest”. Absence doesn’t always make the heart grow fonder. Maybe he didn’t feel as intensely about Elizabeth as he had in Kenya. We don’t know.’

  ‘Maybe Elizabeth did ask him to give it up and stop the killing . . .’

  ‘And he refused? If he did kill Stephen, I don’t think he meant to. The fact that the killer didn’t use a gun suggests he – or she – hadn’t brought one. I think the killer tried to reason with Stephen – perhaps get an apology out of him. As I imagine it, they talked for some time before something happened which made him – let’s call the killer “him” – pick up the nearest heavy object and hit him over the head. Perhaps even then he didn’t mean to kill him.’

  ‘Why did Thayer turn his back on him? He must have known he was talking to someone who was a threat – even mad?’

  ‘We can only guess, but Stephen wasn’t lacking in courage. Let’s say it was Sutton. Stephen tells him how much he regrets Oliver’s death, how he did what he could to protect him from Hoden’s bullying. He offers him a cigar and they smoke together – Stephen thinks he can relax. He takes Sutton’s glass to “top it up”. He turns with the tumbler in his hand and says something which enrages him.’

  ‘Hold on. No drinks. Sergeant Willis said there was no evidence that Thayer had offered anyone a drink.’

  ‘No, you’re right. We’ll never know exactly what happened but Stephen could be very arrogant.’

  ‘Was he anti-Semitic? I mean, you said that might have been Hester’s motive for murdering Tilney, in revenge for his having persecuted Oliver because he was Jewish. Maybe that’s also a motive for Stephen’s murder. Perhaps, just when he thought he had calmed his visitor, he let on somehow that he was doing deals with the Nazis and that caused . . . the explosion.’

  ‘He wasn’t particularly anti-Semitic – just the usual.’

  ‘ “Just the usual”,’ Verity repeated bitterly.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘You said, “just the usual” – the usual anti-Semitism.’

  ‘Yes,’ Edward said, ‘I did, didn’t I. I’m afraid it’s true, though. I’m not saying anyone approves of the way the Nazis are treating their Jews but . . .’

  ‘ “Their Jews”! Edward, sometimes I think I hardly know you.’

  ‘I’m sorry,
’ he said and was silent.

  ‘It’s convenient that Sutton’s disappeared, isn’t it?’ she said at last. ‘Could we prove anything against him?’

  ‘No. We have to face it: Sutton has nothing to fear from the British police. Pride is only investigating Stephen Thayer’s death, not Hoden’s, not Tilney’s. And unless he has turned up something we don’t know about, the only hard evidence we have is that the photographs of Thayer’s body show that the killer dropped a fountain pen and a matchbox from Chicote’s beside the body. You wouldn’t hang a dog on that.’

  ‘They might hold him for spying?’ Verity thought for a moment. ‘It’s a problem for any Communist Party member if they work for the British government. Is it better to try and influence policy from inside or does there come a moment when one has to choose between betraying one’s country or one’s principles? Thank God, it’s not a dilemma David or I face.’

  ‘Not yet, anyway,’ Edward said grimly.

  ‘You know who else was in London when Thayer was murdered?’ Verity said slowly.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Maurice Tate.’

  ‘Maurice? But the play, he was rehearsing the play!’

  ‘No, his mother was ill, he said, and he dashed back to London. He was away for forty-eight hours. Long enough . . .’

  ‘Oh God, why didn’t I know that?’

  ‘Because you left me to do the questioning and I got knocked on the head before I could report back.’

  ‘So Maurice could have knocked you on the head to prevent you telling me . . . in which case you may still be in danger.’

  ‘Not just me. He’ll assume that I’ve already told you.’

  ‘Oh God, I’m so confused and yet, just a few hours ago, it all seemed so clear!’ Edward cried in frustration. ‘Well, I’ll wire Pride and get him to investigate Maurice’s mother and see if she is ill or well or not even alive. Tell me, Verity, could any of our other Madrid friends have been in London when Stephen was murdered?’

  ‘No, everyone else was definitely here . . . except David, of course. I don’t know where he was.’ She laughed. ‘He said he was on Party business somewhere and I assumed that meant here in Spain, but it could have been Germany, England or anywhere else. He’s learning to fly, you know. He thinks it might be useful if there’s a war . . .’

  She stopped chattering and looked at Edward, seeing his face, suddenly serious. ‘You don’t really think . . .’

  ‘Verity, I’m just so . . . I don’t know what to think. Look, I’m going to leave you in peace while I go for a walk and send that wire to Pride. If you’ll let me, I’ll come and fetch you at eight and we’ll go to the Institute together.’

  ‘Oh, I’ll be all right . . .’

  ‘I think it would be safer,’ he insisted.

  ‘Very well, but it’s not necessary. Off you go then,’ she said, struggling to sound cheerful. ‘By the way, Edward, there was something I’ve been meaning to ask you and keep forgetting. Before you went back to London, you said you had two questions to ask: one for Sutton and one for Hester. What were they?’

  ‘I asked Sutton if he was Jewish and he said he wasn’t. And I asked Hester what was her maiden name.’

  ‘Hester? What do you mean?’

  ‘Hester’s been a little mischievous. She confirmed what I had already guessed: before she was Baroness Lengstrum, she was Hester Belasco. She’s Ben’s sister.’

  ‘But I . . . I don’t understand. Why didn’t she tell me? What was she hiding?’

  ‘Nothing sinister though for a moment I thought it might have been. It began as a sort of joke. She and Ben have always been very close. Their parents were divorced when they were children and they were tossed about from pillar to post. They found they could only rely on each other. As you know, they both tried marriage but for whatever reason – perhaps because of their own childhood experiences – neither marriage had a chance of success. So, when they teamed up after Hester’s fiasco with that poor blighter Lengstrum, they decided not to advertise their relationship. Much as she loved him, Hester didn’t approve of the way Ben behaved, particularly with women . . .’ Verity blushed but Edward pretended not to notice. ‘Ben, for his part, thought it was a good prank. He knew everyone would think Hester was or had been his lover.’

  ‘Damn him! Damn them both!’

  ‘Oh, don’t be sore, V. They told you no lies. It was just that it never occurred to you to ask. Hester’s been a good friend to you. Ah, talk of the devil! Here she is!’

  Hester put her head round the door and said, ‘Honey, are you mad at me? I guess you’ve every right to be . . .’

  Edward slipped out of the room and left the two women to it. The other side of the door he paused and smiled to himself. Verity did not like being made to feel ridiculous. He was sure she would forgive Hester for the trick she had played on her but Ben Belasco . . . Was it too much to hope he wouldn’t be forgiven?

  28

  It was odd, Edward thought, when Madrid was awash with rumour and counter-rumour that so many Spanish had decided to spend the early evening in the stifling heat of the British Institute watching a performance of Love’s Labour’s Lost. But Madrid was always agog with gossip, political and social, and the Institute was as convenient a place as any to carry on this activity. Verity had insisted they sit in the front row – ‘in order to give Maurice our full support’ – alongside Hester and Ben Belasco. Edward would have preferred to be at the back where he could make a discreet exit if he so wished. He thought he might very well so wish. He normally avoided amateur dramatics; they were at best charming – particularly if one had a child of one’s own on stage – and at worst boring and embarrassing. And Love’s Labour’s . . . it was such an abstruse play. He still could not see why Maurice had chosen it. The wordplay was difficult for the English to make head or tail of, let alone the Spanish. He tried to think what he would feel like being made to sit through a play by Lope de Vega – in Spanish – and he shivered.

  ‘Surely you’re not cold?’ Verity said irritably. ‘The temperature must be over a hundred already.’

  The first scene was quickly over and Edward was surprised to find that he was actually enjoying himself. The plot was absurd, of course – as if a group of men could remain celibate for three years! Could he, he wondered, if at the end of it he won . . . love? He smiled grimly. He very much doubted it.

  At least the young lords in the play were acting out their charade in the open air! How perverse of Maurice to trap them in this hothouse instead of staging the play outside as he had originally proposed. ‘Our court you know is haunted by a refined traveller of Spain . . .’ That was good! The Spanish in the audience chuckled. The clowning ought to have been teeth-scraping, but somehow he found himself laughing. ‘Tender juvenal . . .’ Oliver Featherstone – he had been a tender juvenile. Wait, what was this? ‘How mean you, sir? I pretty?’ Hoden had called Oliver pretty. ‘Love is familiar. Love is a devil. There is no evil angel but love . . .’

  Edward’s brain spun and twisted as the voices on the stage duelled, thrust and parried. He had been quite wrong. He had wanted to believe that the deaths of three Eton contemporaries – all within a few months – had been in some way linked and that he had found the connection! But it had all been too neat. He had wanted ends to tie up as they would in a novel, but Shakespeare had known better. Reality is rarely neat and men’s actions reverberate in succeeding years through new generations.

  In the interval, they drifted out into the street where a soft breeze refreshed them. Edward was so silent that Verity asked him what he was thinking about.

  ‘Just what a fool I am,’ he said with a half-smile. Verity snorted and went off to talk to a Spanish journalist she knew. She came back with sparkling eyes and flushed cheeks. ‘He says something’s happening,’ she whispered.

  ‘What sort of thing?’

  ‘He thinks there may be some sort of uprising.’

  ‘People have been saying that for weeks,’
Edward yawned.

  ‘As soon as this is over, I must make some telephone calls.’

  ‘But after that, can we have supper? I’ve got something to ask you.’

  ‘Maybe, if there’s time,’ was all she would say.

  ‘Isn’t that David?’ Hester whispered in Edward’s ear when they returned to their seats.

  ‘Yes, you’re right. I wonder if there’s something wrong. Look, he’s seen us. He’s waving.’

  He was about to tell Verity that her . . . her what? he wondered, her Svengali? her ex-lover? had materialised when the auditorium lights were lowered.

  Edward continued to listen to the play with one ear while he puzzled things out. David: he was certain he had killed Tilney. Tom Sutton had been telling the truth when he said he only got to the cave after the body had been removed. Otherwise the ring would have been found earlier. The Spanish police weren’t fools. David had denied it but the prison governor – what was his name? Captain Ramón – was his friend. What could have been easier but to give his prisoner parole? How would anyone know? Edward wondered who could tell him about Ramón’s politics. He didn’t doubt that he would discover he was a committed communist. If he were a member of the Party . . . What an alibi! Anyway, what did it matter? No Spanish court would, in these days of political turmoil, order one of its most important foreign workers to be rearrested in order to charge him with a murder of which he had already been cleared. It was a preposterous idea.

  Makepeace Hoden; now his death he had finally cleared up. He had been killed by Tom Sutton at Elizabeth’s urging. He had probably deserved to die. That was Edward’s only comfort because, once again, he could never hope to bring Sutton to justice. He was not sure he wanted to now. At one time he had thought he had also murdered Stephen Thayer and for that murder he might have been convicted. But now? Now, he did not believe Sutton had killed him.

  What was that in the play? ‘Beat not the bones of the buried.’ What did that mean? Don’t speak ill of the dead? No, ‘let the dead rest in peace.’ That was it, but could he do that? His accursed conscience would not let him. ‘To move wild laughter in the throat of death.’ That was all he could do.