Chapter 14 #2
Something that was not a smile flexed the corners of the other man’s mouth, then was gone.
“ ‘Used to be’ is the operative part of that sentence.” He paused.
“I have to admit, Phineas’s death has hit me harder than the other two.
He wasn’t like the rest of them, you know, and it wasn’t only because he was quieter, more serious.
They might have laughed a lot, but it wasn’t a nice kind of laughter.
They liked to laugh at people, not with them. ”
Sebastian found himself remembering the way Phineas Upcott had sneered at Royston-Jones’s “lumper” grandfather and his maternal grandfather’s Irish peerage. But all he said was, “Phineas wasn’t like that?”
“He went along with them, but I think it was mainly because he liked being part of their pack. Not because he liked what they did, but because they made him feel stronger, less vulnerable. Basically, he was a very weak man.” Emmanuel hesitated, then looked away and said more quietly, “Like me, I suppose.”
Sebastian studied the younger man’s half-averted face. “Tell me about what happened out at Chalk Farm Tavern a month or two ago.”
“Heard about that, did you?”
“Some of it.”
Emmanuel was silent for a moment. Then he swiped one hand across his lower face.
“I was only there for the first part. There were two young Cambridge lads having a drink in the tavern. I had the impression they’d just been sent down for something, but whatever it was, it couldn’t have been particularly grievous because they looked and sounded like the makings of a couple of future dons.
I mean, there they were, sitting in a notoriously rough tavern that’s essentially a bloody thieves’ den, and they were talking about Lucan and Pythagoras, of all things. ”
“Who started it?”
“That was Toole. He and Bridgewood are like that, you know. They can sense weakness in another man the way a spider knows when a juicy new meal has fallen into its web.”
Sid Diamond had said something similar, Sebastian remembered. Except that at some point Toole’s predator instincts must have failed him badly.
“He’s the one who went over first and started picking on them,” Emmanuel was saying. “But Bridgewood was right behind him, and then Keebles and Wilcox joined in.”
“And Upcott?”
“He was there, but he wasn’t really taking part.
He rarely did. He’d just stand to one side and snicker.
At first they were picking on both lads, but it didn’t take long for them to focus on just the one—I think he might be Captain Fenton’s youngest brother, Dudley, although I could be wrong about that. ”
“Do you know who the other lad was?”
“No. Sorry.”
“Did he make any attempt to stand up for his friend?”
“No. I think he was just grateful that Fenton was their main target and not him. I told them to stop, but they just laughed at me and said if I didn’t like it, I could leave. So I did.”
He fell silent again, his gaze on the bare branches of the trees in the square, his face pale except for the stain of color riding high on his cheekbones.
“Not one of my finer moments, I’m afraid.
When Upcott came to see me afterward and told me what they’d done to the lad and to that innkeeper who tried to step in, it made me feel physically sick.
At that point I’d already been staying away from them, and I haven’t deliberately seen any of them since. Not even Phineas.”
“Who do you think killed them?” said Sebastian.
Emmanuel stared down at the hands he now held clasped between his knees. “I don’t know. I’ve been thinking and thinking, but I can’t make sense of it. They obviously tangled with someone who’s meaner than they are, but I don’t know who it is or what they did to provoke him.”
Sebastian drew the small carved wolf from his pocket and held it out. “Have you ever seen this before?”
Emmanuel looked up and frowned. “No. Why? What is it?”
Sebastian tucked the carving back into his pocket. “I don’t know exactly what it is. I found it not far from where Marcus Toole was killed. Do you know if he—or any of the others—ever had anything to do with Druidism?”
Emmanuel gave a short, surprised bark of a laugh. “Druidism? Those men? Not hardly.”
“You’re certain?”
He nodded. “I have a cousin who considers herself a Druid. She’s very serious about it.
For her it’s something intensely spiritual; it’s about cherishing the earth and everything living on it, plants and animals alike.
She essentially sees nature as divine. I don’t think Marcus Toole could even understand what that means.
” His jaw hardened. “I remember one time I ran into them when she was with me. Somehow or another the subject came up, and she was trying to explain how the ancient ways help her feel a connection with nature, and they acted like they found the entire idea uproariously funny.”
“Can you think of someone in the neo-Druid movement they might have angered? Humiliated, perhaps?”
“No. Like I said, except for that night I went with them to Chalk Farm—and when Phineas came here afterward—I haven’t seen much of them in the last six months or so. I don’t know why I decided to go with them that night, but all it did was serve to remind me of why I’d been avoiding them.”
“And why was that, exactly? Why had you started avoiding them?”
Emmanuel hesitated again, as if searching for a way to put what he wanted to say into words.
“I was thirteen when my father sent me to Eton. I didn’t want to go—I knew I wouldn’t fit in.
But he said it was important I learn how to fit in.
” He drew a painful, ragged breath. “My first few months were…not pleasant. Children—especially privileged boys on the cusp on manhood—can be extraordinarily cruel, can’t they?
But then for reasons I could never understand, Marcus Toole and Theo Bridgewood decided to become my friends, and everything changed. ”
Sebastian suspected he could understand quite well.
Emmanuel’s paternal grandfather might have been a lumper and his maternal grandfather “only” an indebted Irish peer, but Emmanuel’s father’s wealth made the holdings of men like Sir Samuel Toole and Lord Bridgewood pale into insignificance.
Such extravagant wealth typically produced insufferably arrogant sons, but it obviously hadn’t in Emmanuel’s case.
And Sebastian found himself wondering whether Emmanuel’s newfound “friends” had somehow found a way to make him feel protected while simultaneously perpetuating his sense of inferiority.
“The other boys were all afraid of them, you know,” Emmanuel was saying.
“Toole, Keebles, and Bridgewood, especially. They could be nasty in a hundred different ways. But they were also clever and daring and fun. I enjoyed kicking up larks with them almost as much as I enjoyed having them on my side. And yet, even from the beginning, I knew there was a dark edge to them. I just ignored it.” He shook his head.
“I can find excuses for the lonely, confused boy I was then, but not for the man I became who still stayed their friend. I can’t believe it took me so long to end it. ”
“Was there something in particular they did last summer?”
“No,” he said quickly. Too quickly? Sebastian wondered.
“I think it was because of Annie, to tell the truth. She never said anything to me about them, but I could tell some of the things they did troubled her. And when I looked at them through her eyes, I was ashamed of myself for being their friend.”
“What about the coffeehouse out near Spa Fields? Were you there when they wrecked it?”
“You mean the Rising Sun? I wasn’t there, but I heard about it.”
“Do you know why they did it?”
“Not exactly. I think basically the owner made the mistake of talking back to them—refused to treat them like the superior beings they thought they were.” He unclasped his hands and let them fall to his sides. “I wish I could help you more, but I don’t understand it myself.”
“You’ve helped me see things more clearly,” said Sebastian, pushing to his feet. “Thank you for your time.”
Emmanuel walked with him to the entrance hall, the big, empty house echoing around them. They’d almost reached the front door when the younger man said, “Do you think I have reason to be afraid? Of this killer, I mean?”
“I suppose that depends on if these murders are an act of revenge, and if the killer blames you for whatever it was your friends did that has made him want to strike back. If you know anything—anything at all that might explain—”
“But I’ve already told you, I don’t.”
Sebastian met the younger man’s stricken, haunted gaze. “Even if you don’t, it might be a good idea to be careful. Some people can carry a grudge for a long time before they get up the courage to strike back.”