A Dangerous Fortune - Ken Follett [46]
Your cousin Edward was, as you so colourfully put it, more rotten than a dead cat. You managed to get most of your clothes out of the water and scarper, but Peter and Tonio weren’t so quick.
I was over the other side, and I don’t think Edward and Micky even noticed me. Or perhaps they didn’t recognise me. At any rate they never spoke to me about the incident
Anyway, after you had gone Edward proceeded to torment Peter even more, pushing his head under the water and splashing his face while the poor boy struggled to retrieve his clothes.
I could see it was getting out of hand but I was a complete coward, I’m afraid. I should have gone to Peter’s aid but I was not much bigger myself certainly no match for Edward and Micky Miranda, and I didn’t want my clothes soaked as well. Do you remember the punishment for breaking bounds? It was twelve strokes of the Striper, and I don’t mind admitting I was more frightened of that than anything else. Anyway, I grabbed my clothes and sneaked away without attracting any attention.
I looked back once, from the lip of the quarry. I don’t know what had happened in the meantime, but Tonio was scrambling up the side, naked and clutching a bundle of wet clothes, and Edward was swimming across the pool after him, leaving Peter gasping and spluttering in the middle.
I thought Peter would be all right, but obviously I was wrong. He must have been at the end of his tether. While Edward was chasing Tonio, and Micky was watching, Peter drowned without anyone’s noticing.
I didn’t know that until later, of course. I got back to school and slipped into my dorm. When the masters started asking questions, I swore I had been there all afternoon. As the ghastly story began to emerge I never had the guts to admit that I had seen what happened.
Not a tale to be proud of Hugh. But telling the truth at last has made me feel a bit better, at any rate….
Hugh put down Albert Cammel’s letter and stared out of his bedroom window. The letter explained both more and less than Cammel imagined.
It explained how Micky Miranda had insinuated himself into the Pilaster family to such an extent that he spent every vacation with Edward and had all his expenses paid by Edward’s parents. No doubt Micky had told Augusta that Edward had virtually killed Peter. But in court Micky said Edward had tried to rescue the drowning boy. And in telling that lie Micky had saved the Pilasters from public disgrace. Augusta would have been powerfully grateful—and perhaps, also, fearful that Micky might one day turn against them and reveal the truth. It gave Hugh a cold, rather scared feeling in the pit of his stomach. Albert Cammel, all unknowing, had revealed that Augusta’s relationship with Micky was deep, dark and corrupt.
But another puzzle remained. For Hugh knew something about Peter Middleton that almost no one else was aware of. Peter had been something of a weakling, and all the boys treated him as a weed. Embarrassed about his weakness, he had embarked on a training program—and his main exercise was swimming. He stroked across that pool hour after hour, trying to build his physique. It had not worked: a thirteen-year-old boy could not become broad-shouldered and deep-chested except by growing into a man, and that was a process that could not be hurried.
The only effect of all his efforts was to make him like a fish in the water. He could dive to the bottom, hold his breath for several minutes, float on his back, and keep his eyes open underwater. It would have taken more than Edward Pilaster to drown him.
So why had he died?
Albert Cammel had told the truth, as far as he knew it, Hugh was sure. But there had to be more. Something else had happened on that hot afternoon in Bishop’s Wood. A poor swimmer might have been killed accidentally, drowned because Edward’s roughhousing was too much for him to take. But casual horseplay could not have killed Peter. And if his death was not accidental, it was deliberate.
And that was murder.
Hugh shuddered.
There had been only three people there: Edward, Micky and Peter. Peter