Death of a Stranger (22 page)

This time it was his mother who laughed, so shrilly Benjamin exclaimed again.

Now they ignored him, turning to each other. “That's all right, then,'' his mother said.

“I didn't think you were a fool, Marjorie.'' His father spoke so scornfully the boy as well as his mother shrank away from him. “Of course it's not all right. Who else could they put in the frame?''

She had shaken her head without speaking, and Benjamin had been unable to sit looking at their misery any longer and had taken himself off to bed. Besides, he needed to think, to decide whether he should do the one thing that he could do. Tell the truth. He didn't know how much it would help, but his parents had brought him up to believe that the truth helped everyone. And he had seen it working in their lives. Until now.

And it was his fault that it wasn't working still.

Perhaps it was the weight of that which had brought him to the morning's decision. Or perhaps it was just that he couldn't live with his responsibility any more. Whatever it was, his mind was made up and now he must do it as quickly as possible.

“I'm going for a ride,'' he mumbled, as his mother got to her feet and began to clear the breakfast table. “I'd like to stretch my legs.'' That was how his parents put it when they decided they wanted the exercise he himself never felt any need of.

Both of them said “Good!'' and looked at him with surprise. In the days before the nightmare had started they had always been coaxing him to use his bike more, get out and about instead of sitting in that greenhouse …

His father was murmuring. “If they come with a search warrant …''

He had to get there first. “See you later,'' he said, jumping up. “I'll just get a hanky,'' he lied as he left the kitchen at a run.

Up in his parents' bedroom, treading softly in case they went into the sitting-room beneath, he cautiously lifted the extension telephone. Thank goodness he didn't have to look up the number, the taxi firm sent a car for him nearly every day during term-time, because of his parents being busy at the centre. He asked for one in five minutes, told them where it should wait. They said they'd do their best. Then he went into his own room and took enough money to pay the taxi out of his tight-lidded tin, glad now that the nightmare had taken away his appetite for ice-creams. He called goodbye as he ran through the kitchen. His mother had sat down at the table again after clearing it and they were both slumped hopelessly in their chairs.

It was a warm dry morning, he had no need of a jacket. He took his bike from the toolshed, realising when he saw the film of dust how long it was since he'd used it. Normally he would have at least flipped the seat with his handkerchief because he was a clean and tidy boy, but today he climbed straight on to the saddle, rode round the deserted building, across the forecourt and out into the lane.

The summer tourist season was the time of risk to property, but he'd stowed his bike at all times of the year in the ditch up the crack off the lane just before it joined what on the island passed for a main road, and it had always been there when he came back for it after taking the bus into St Sampson for an ice-cream and a stroll round the shops. He'd lied then, Benjamin reflected unhappily, as he plodded the remaining few yards of the lane, telling his parents when he got home what a long, healthy ride he'd had, and for the first time he began to suspect that telling the truth at all times was a hard thing for everyone, however old or young you were.

The taxi arrived a couple of minutes after he reached the corner. He had hoped he wouldn't know the driver but he did; it was the young one who in normal times he liked best.

“Running away from home are we, then?'' the driver asked. Benjamin jumped guiltily before realising it was a joke, not a real question.

“Just thought I'd get a bit of exercise and save you the turn,'' he heard himself say. Another lie. When he said he wanted to go to the police station the man raised an eyebrow and looked slightly curious, but he merely said, “ Okay,'' and shrugged as Benjamin got into the back. Normally he sat in the front, but today he didn't want to talk to anyone until he'd talked to Detective Inspector Le Page. The driver didn't say anything on the journey either and Benjamin admired his restraint: the discovery of the murder had been too late for the
Press
, but he and his mother had watched the Channel TV report in anguish the night before.

When they arrived on the station forecourt the driver did say, “You're sure you're all right, now?'' as Benjamin leaned in through the open window to pay him, and Benjamin thought there was anxiety as well as amusement in his eyes. For an unrealistic happy moment, he imagined explaining things to him when everything was all right again.

“I'm fine. Honestly. Thanks.''

“Want a ride back?''

He hadn't thought about it, but now he did, he was certain the detective inspector would see to that.

If he allowed him to go home.

“No, thanks.''

“Okay, Master Charters. See you.''

It could be that the driver would contact his parents to ease his conscience that he might have been aiding and abetting some ill-advised escapade. But Benjamin didn't care. By the time anyone caught up with him, he would have done what he had come to do.

It was a boost that the policeman on Reception recognised him, was round the counter shepherding him along the corridor almost before he had got out his request to see the detective inspector. They encountered DI Le Page in his office doorway.

“Young man to see you, sir,'' the PC said, and Benjamin saw the DI's face sharpen, suddenly intent.

“Benjamin!'' he said, as suddenly smiling. But he didn't have to be careful, Benjamin had made up his mind. “ You're with your father?''

“I'm on my own. I came in a taxi. My mother and father don't know I'm here.'' He heard himself speaking in a fluent rush, not stumbling over his words as he usually did when it mattered. “There's something I've got to tell you.''

“Of course. We'll find an interview room. Get hold of DS Mahy, will you?'' he ordered the PC. Benjamin could see that the detective inspector had been reluctant to take his eyes off him and fix them even for a second on the police constable who was escorting him, and realised that part of his tension now was excitement, pleasure even, at finding himself the focus of the attention of someone important.

But there was still the fact that he was only twelve years old. Benjamin heard the DI ask for a social worker to be brought in with a sense of deflation. But the DI then said, “Soonest!'' very sharply and his sense of worth was restored. Not that that was why he had come, he hadn't thought of himself, for once, in making his decision to tell the truth. To do the one thing that must finally persuade the insurance company that the owners of the burned greenhouse hadn't had anything to do with starting the fire that destroyed it.

So far as the murder of the burglar was concerned, Benjamin couldn't see what he was going to say having any effect on what the police thought about that: his father had made sure they would never find out what the man had photographed.

He had to wait twenty minutes before the social worker showed up, but although he was impatient to get his piece said he wasn't worried any longer by the delay because he'd heard DI Le Page tell his sergeant he was going to keep things on hold until after he had found out what Benjamin wanted to say to him.

The social worker was female, and he thought she was surprisingly young and pretty, not the forbidding school-mistressy figure he'd been afraid of. He'd also been afraid she would make him feel like a child, but in fact she made him feel more grown-up than he usually did in company. When he was sitting beside her opposite the two policemen he was surprised to find himself glad she was there, her scent was nice and he liked the interested and sympathetic expression in her face and her soft voice telling him to take his time and say exactly what he wanted. The two policemen nodded as she spoke, and this time it didn't frighten him when the DS put a tape in and announced the beginning of the interview.

“Off you go then, Benjamin,'' DS Mahy said then.

For a moment he thought he was going to blurt it straight out, but he managed to hold back and begin as he had been working out in his mind he should ever since he had woken up that morning. “It was when Mr Thomas came to dinner, and my father told him he'd decided to sell the pictures.'' He remembered that sunny evening in the greenhouse so horribly well. His mother had cooked an especially good meal and both his father and Mr Thomas had said things funny enough to make him laugh. But although he'd enjoyed himself, he'd started hoping during coffee that the grown-ups would decide to go into the house so that he could reclaim his space for himself for an hour or so before he was sent off to bed. When they walked away from the table he'd clear it in ten minutes and bring his things out of the small cupboard next to the big one where the pictures were kept. But then his father had mentioned the pictures …

“My father told Mr Thomas he was going to sell the pictures, and Mr Thomas started looking uncomfortable. Then he said he didn't think the pictures were what my parents thought they were, he believed they were nineteenth-century fakes.'' He could still see, in vivid detail, how his parents' faces had looked when Mr Thomas had said that.

The DI was moving restlessly in his chair, and Benjamin realised that up to now he had told the policemen only what they already knew. “Mr Thomas left earlier than usual,'' he said swiftly. “After he'd seen him out my Dad came back into the greenhouse and we went on sitting round the table. My Dad said that if Mr Thomas was right he wouldn't get the money he'd been hoping for from the sale of the pictures, and we wouldn't be able to expand the Golden Rose, we might even have to close it down.'' A horrid little worm of doubt had begun wriggling about in Benjamin's mind, making him wonder if he could be damaging rather than helping his mother and father by what he was saying, but he'd started now, he'd have to go on. “Then he said in a jokey way – it was only a joke, Mr Le Page – he said that if the greenhouse burned down we'd be all right, we had the certificates of authentication that had come with the pictures when my uncle left them to us, and they'd mean more to the insurance company than anything Henry Thomas might say. Then he said let's be serious and that they must make an appointment to have the pictures valued by a professional expert before putting them on the market, that was the only thing they could do.'' The worm was wriggling more strongly, and Benjamin was suddenly terrified by what he was doing. It was as crazy, as ill-thought-out, as what he had done before. “The only thing they could do,'' he repeated loudly. “ That's what my father said, Mr Le Page, he wasn't thinking of doing anything else. And the next morning he made the appointment.'' Benjamin paused, to try and pull himself together and not give in to the dizziness which had suddenly come over him. He wanted to pull back from the table and put his head between his knees, but savagely he resisted.

“Go on, Benjamin,'' the lady beside him urged gently, patting his hand.

“Thanks,'' he muttered, and to his infinite relief was suddenly clear-headed. “My father'd told me off once, Inspector Le Page, for leaving a magnifying glass over some paper on the table in the greenhouse. He said it might catch fire. So I thought that if I lit a piece of paper deliberately it would seem as if the glass had started the fire. I had to have a hot sunny day, and it had to be when we were closed and going out, and two days before the appointment with the art expert it was both. So after breakfast I put the magnifying glass where my father had told me not to put it, and just before we were going out, about twelve noon I think, I went back there. The glass had made the paper very hot but it hadn't caught fire, and I lit a corner of it before locking the greenhouse up again as we always did, with the pictures being there, and slipped the key back on its hook in the house and then went out with my parents. Mr Le Page …''

To his further horror, Benjamin found that he was crying, great racking sobs that made it difficult to speak. The social worker asked for a break, but he was so keen to get it over he managed to say – to shout – that it was all right, he wanted to go on.

“When we got back,'' Benjamin said between hiccups, “the fire engine was there but the greenhouse was almost gone. The cupboard was all gone, with the pictures. Oh!'' His wail of anguish was far too big for the small room. “I'd forgotten about the certificates, Mr Le Page, I'd forgotten they were in the cupboard with the pictures. If my father'd set fire to the greenhouse, he wouldn't have forgotten that, he'd have taken them away. So you've got to believe me, Mr Le Page, Mr Mahy'' – Benjamin turned to meet the lady's kindly gaze, but he couldn't remember what they'd told him she was called –“my father had nothing to do with it, it was me. I'm telling you the truth!''

His outburst received the short silence its impact deserved. Then the DI said, “Did you tell your father and mother what you'd done, Benjamin?''

Tossing and turning in his bed that night, Benjamin knew he should say no, that his orgy of truthfulness should stop there, but now it was an uncheckable avalanche. So he told the policemen that he'd managed not to tell them right away but in the end he hadn't been able to help it.

“So why didn't they tell the insurance company, Benjamin?''

“Because they knew that if they did I'd be taken away from them! It was nothing to do with the value of the pictures. Oh, don't you
see
?'' How could they be sitting, all three of them, so obviously not seeing? “I'm only twelve, a doctor told my parents once that I'm maladjusted because I'm happy with my own company, I don't play games unless I'm forced to, and I'd rather be with older people than children of my own age. If they'd told anyone how the fire started I'd be a fire raiser too. My parents knew I'd be taken away from them, not just for whatever time a sentence for fire-raising brings. They knew I'd be called dangerously disturbed and that I mightn't be allowed back with them for years. So of course they didn't tell the insurance company. Didn't tell
anyone
. How could they?''