Lessons in Power (22 page)
“Thank you, Mr. Cohen. Strange as it may seem, I’ve developed a sort of peace these last few weeks
that I never imagined I’d find.”
The door opened and Rhodes—escorted by two prison warders—entered and sat down. His guards
prepared to stay, but Cohen spoke a word in their ears and, under protest, they left. The prisoner looked tired yet calm. If he was frightened or troubled he gave no sign of it. “Dr. Stewart, we meet again. And this is…?”
“Sergeant Cohen, of the Cambridgeshire Constabulary. He’s here at the request of Surrey police.”
Rhodes nodded, as if this made entire sense. “Mr. Cohen. May I help you gentlemen?”
“I wish to clarify the matter of Timothy Taylor’s death.” Jonty fixed his adversary with a piercing
blue gaze. “I’m entirely satisfied that you killed Jardine, and I know what motivated you, but I can’t say the same of the other death. Did you really murder Taylor?”
“Do you doubt my word so much?”
“You’ve given me plenty of cause to do so in the past.” Jonty’s tense fingers drummed on the table.
“This time, to my astonishment, I think you’ve been surprisingly honest. I’ve looked at Dr. Coppersmith’s record of his conversation with you and I’m not surprised at your adherence to the literal truth in what you had to say. It was very clever. But then you always were a very intelligent man.”
“And you don’t think that I was careful in what I said to you?”
“I’ve gone over that too—it seems a strange mixture of falsehood and truth. When you spoke of me or
Kermode I think you lied, time and again. You were never contrite, Mr. Rhodes, not over us. But when you
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spoke of Nicholls I think you believed every word, even though I believe you were still far from the reality of things. You were considering Nicholls all the time, making events appear favourable towards him.”
“And?” Rhodes seemed as if he’d come to terms with the fact that he was likely to be hanged. No fear
or apprehension here, just the effect of someone playing cat and mouse.
“I believe that you were still covering for him when you confessed to killing Taylor. Do you believe
in ghosts, Mr. Rhodes?” Jonty remembered the butterflies he’d seen in a museum as a child. Pinned to the card, trapped and preserved forever because of their beauty. Was he pinning his tormentor in his guilt, as the housemaster had tried to capture Nicholls?
The other man turned as pale as the ghosts they were discussing. “I—I beg your pardon?”
“I believe you heard me aright the first time. Do you believe in ghosts? Have you ever seen one?”
“Who told you?” Rhodes’s eyes were welling with tears. The sergeant—bluff, bull-like, unexpectedly
kind Cohen—handed him a handkerchief.
“You did. You intimated it to my friend Dr. Coppersmith. And when you saw Simon Kermode
emerging from Taylor’s house you thought it was the ghost of Andrew Nicholls. They really are very
alike.”
“Kermode? The name seems familiar…”
“It was the other boy, the one they used before me. He had been to see Taylor and you thought it was
Nicholls come to take vengeance for all of us. Especially when you found Taylor dead.”
“There was blood everywhere. It was like a scene from a biblical painting—the slaughter of the
innocents or the striking down of some army in the book of Judges. And I had seen the avenging angel
who’d come with his sword to do the deed.” Rhodes bore a beatific look again, just like when he’d
confessed to the crime.
“It was no angel. Just another one of your victims, armed with a poker and a burden of fury.” Jonty
felt like an archangel himself, bright with righteous anger. “I don’t know why he struck down his abuser at that particular point, although I can guess. But it was Kermode and not Nicholls who did the deed, so you don’t need to take the blame for him any more. He was innocent of this.”
“Is that true? Was it really this other boy? Not my Andrew?” Rhodes’s excitement, his shining eyes
and shaking hands, startled his interrogators.
“It is. It was.” Jonty had no proof of what he said, not yet, but Orlando believed it, which was good enough.
“Then please tell your superior officers,” Rhodes addressed Cohen for the first time, “that I withdraw my confession to the second crime. I will, however, stand by my acknowledgement of the first.”
“Might I ask a question at this point?” It seemed odd that the sergeant had to seek permission of Jonty but in the circumstances it felt right for them both.
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“Please do. I’ve ascertained all I need to know.” Jonty laid his shaking hands in his lap, felt his heart racing fit to burst. It was done—at last it was all over.
“Mr. Rhodes, you say you found Taylor already dead. Did you check that he wasn’t just injured?”
“I had no need to. Did you see his head, Mr. Cohen? There was no earthly way in which he could
have survived such an attack.”
Cohen nodded—they hadn’t seen the body although they’d read the gruesome reports. “Did you
notice anything else? If Taylor was dead we’re assuming Kermode had already done the deed, but we still need solid evidence to convict him. Can you help us?”
Rhodes nodded. “I found something there. I’ll sign a statement to that effect, if you assure me once
more that it really was a living man I saw leaving that house. If you go to Epsom you’ll find it in the drawer of my desk. Dr. Stewart might recognise it, it’s the badge like the one he wore on his blazer as a member of St. Vincent house. I found it next to Taylor’s body and I believed Andrew had put it there as a sign of his displeasure. I now see that this other man—what was his name?—must have either left it deliberately or let it fall by accident.”
“I’ll make sure we find this badge and then I’ll return to take your statement.” Cohen adopted his
most workmanlike tones. There was strong emotion at work all around him and he felt the need to be above it all.
“And Mr. Cohen,” Rhodes said softly, eyes streaming with tears, “would you please check that my
aunt is coping? I do worry about her.”
Orlando made an appointment to see Kermode at his shop, ostensibly to look at some wonderfully
obscure mathematical works from the late eighteenth century. He took Inspector Wilson with him, not
simply in case an arrest was necessary but as a form of protection. He’d seen one murderer cornered before and knew how dangerous they could become.
They kept up a degree of subterfuge, Orlando being so interested in the dusty old tomes he purchased
one of them, Wilson all the while hovering in the background looking at sailing prints. At the appropriate moment Orlando murmured a few words to Kermode concerning Dr. Stewart, the recent murders, the true
identity of the man interested in the etching of HMS Victory and the need to gain a little help in securing Rhodes’s conviction. Kermode sent his assistant out for a lengthy lunch then focussed his attention on the two men.
“We are very grateful,” Wilson began, “for the information you gave Dr. Stewart. Your help
ultimately led us to identify Sebastian Rhodes as the man who killed Jardine.”
“You’re sure he was the killer?” Kermode looked pale, concerned.
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“We are. We have the man’s confession, although we still need to establish the facts in case he
changes his plea in court. Men do.” The smell of books, dusty, age-worn, seemed to stifle the air in the room, suspend all life within it for a few moments.
“It is odd how this case revolved around
those three
.” Kermode looked at his hands. “How every thread seemed to be linked to St. Vincent house.”
“That seems to me inevitable.” Orlando spoke slowly and carefully. “Once Jardine decided to make a
form of public confession, then all those who had been touched by this case—perpetrators and victims—
would be dragged in.”
“How can I help further? I gave a full statement to the local police about my visit to Dorking.”
“And very clear and helpful it was, sir.” Wilson spoke the truth. All agreed it had been a cogent and sensible explanation. “But we’d like to know if you can give us any help regarding the second crime to which Rhodes has confessed.”
“Which crime is that?”
“The murder of Timothy Taylor.” Orlando and the inspector hadn’t planned in advance who would
ask what. After the experience in Epsom with Jonty changing the script, Orlando was wary of doing it anyway. But this was a question
he
had to pose—he was Jonty’s champion, not Wilson. “A man who resembled you was seen going into Taylor’s house the morning he was killed. We wondered if you’d been to visit him.”
“This man resembled me, you say? Well, I don’t have any particular outstanding attributes, it might
have been anyone. Even your friend Dr. Stewart. I know from the evidence of my own eyes that we’re
alike.”
“There is a certain similarity.” The words stuck in Orlando’s craw. “Although there’s someone else to whom you bear a stronger resemblance. Mr. Wilson?”
The inspector produced the picture which had graced Rhodes’s desk and gave it to Kermode. The man
might have been looking at a photograph of his brother.
“Who is this?” Kermode’s hand trembled.
“A boy called Andrew Nicholls. He was the one who died in mysterious circumstances, an accident
that may well have been suicide, prior to your time at school.”
Wilson was studying Kermode’s face. Orlando had seen that penetrative look before—it was like a
mongoose with a snake under its spell. “You see, we have a witness who thought they saw Nicholls going into Taylor’s house. That can’t be possible, so we need to find someone who looks similar enough to be mistaken for him. Dr. Stewart bears a passing likeness, but not enough to convince, and anyway he was attending church with several members of the royal family so is to be counted out entirely.”
“Then so am I, I’m afraid. I was at mass—Brompton Oratory, you know.” Kermode must have been
trying his best to look suitably pious. “With Mama.”
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“Really? I know that your mother was in attendance, and that she was accompanied by a young man
who was very conscientious in his attentions to her.” The inspector leaned forwards. “Whether that man was actually you, I have my doubts.”
Kermode paled. “Why should I want to visit Taylor? I had nothing to say to him. He hadn’t felt a
moment’s remorse about what he did, not like Jardine. I’ve not even seen him since those days at school.”
Wilson reached into his pocket, producing a small packet which he carefully and elaborately
unwrapped. “Mr. Kermode, do you recognise this?” He tipped out a bright metal object which had made a careful journey (with Mr. Cohen in the Stewarts’ coach) from Epsom Downs to London, thence by train to Cambridge and Wilson’s eager hand.
Kermode reached for the little badge which lay revealed, but was restrained from touching the bright
metal. “It’s a house badge, from my old school.”
“As you say, everything keeps coming back to St. Vincent house.” Orlando regarded the other man
steadily. If Kermode recognised the little emblem as his own he gave no sign. “Might this be yours?”
“No.” The answer came a little too quickly. “I don’t know where mine is. Think I threw it away when
I left that ghastly place.”
“This was found next to Taylor’s body. It must have been placed there, or dropped accidentally,
perhaps by an old pupil, or someone from their close family. I did wonder whether your mother had taken it with her as some sort of a talisman when she stove Taylor’s head in.” Orlando noticed the anger flaring in Kermode’s eye and was pleased to see it. A rattled man might say all sorts of things he didn’t intend to.
“How dare you accuse my mother—”
“We’re not accusing her.” Wilson turned the badge in his fingers. Dazzling shafts of light reflected
and danced from it, producing an almost hypnotic effect. “We know that she was at the Oratory. She was seen by several people who could vouch for her and whose word I accept. You, however, were not known
to these witnesses and I only have your mother’s word to them that the man she introduced was her son.
Resemblance again—it seems to saturate this case.”
“Mr. Kermode.” Orlando was becoming frustrated, seeing no sensible way through this man’s veneer.
“It would be easy to arrange for the witness who saw you entering Taylor’s house to be asked to positively identify you. Likewise those who vouched for you at mass could be asked to review their conviction in the light of seeing you in person.”
“Then do that, Dr. Coppersmith, I have nothing to fear.”
“Don’t you? No fear at all? That amazes me.” Orlando had a plan beginning to form in his mind. It
wasn’t particularly fair, yet it might prove effective. “My dear friend Dr. Stewart suffered as you did at the hands of these men, and he’s told me often of the fears and unhappiness he was left with. Are you saying that you haven’t been affected as he is?”
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Kermode blanched, studied his hands. “I’m not saying that at all. If you have any idea of what Dr.
Stewart truly endured then you’ll know the nightmares I’ve had. But those who people my dreams are now either dead or in prison facing a capital sentence. I don’t believe that I’ve anything further to fear.”
The man’s face contradicted his words—Orlando ploughed on. “Something Dr. Stewart found odd
was how his demons weren’t quite as he’d built them up to be in his imagination. Jardine had repented, unexpectedly but genuinely. Rhodes is a loving nephew who shows a real devotion to his aunt.” Words
stuck again in Orlando’s throat but he was learning how to dissemble. “Did you find the same?”