Bluegate Fields by Anne Perry

fair, heavily waving hair and regular features. His clothes were excellently cut, but it was the elegance with which he held himself that gave the clothes distinction. The other man was a few years older, thicker of body, but still imposing. His rich side-whiskers were touched with gray, his nose fleshy and strong.
    Waybourne was somewhat at a loss to know how to introduce them. One did not treat policemen as social entities, but he obviously needed to inform Pitt who the others were, though apparently they were expecting Pitt. He resolved the problem by nodding toward the older man with a brief indicative gesture.
    “Good afternoon, Inspector. Mr. Swynford has been good enough to give his permission, if you still find it necessary, for you to speak to his son.” His arm moved slightly to include the younger man. “My brother-in-law Mr. Esmond Vanderley—to comfort my wife, at this extremely difficult time.” Perhaps it was intended as an introduction; more likely it was a warning of the family solidarity that was massing against any unwarranted intrusion, any excess of duty that verged on mere curiosity.
    “Good afternoon,” Pitt replied, then introduced Gillivray.
    Waybourne was a little surprised; it was not the reply he had foreseen, but he accepted it.
    “Have you discovered anything further about my son’s death?” he inquired. Then, as Pitt glanced at the others, he smiled very bleakly. “You may say whatever you have to tell me in front of these gentlemen. What is it?”
    “I’m sorry, sir, but we have found no information at all—”
    “I hardly expected you would,” Waybourne interrupted him. “But I appreciate it was your duty to try. I’m obliged to you for informing me so promptly.”
    It was a dismissal, but Pitt could not leave it so easily, so comfortably.
    “I’m afraid we do not believe strangers would have tried to hide your son as they did,” he went on. “There was no purpose. It would have been simpler to let him lie where he was attacked. It would have aroused less remark, which could only be to their advantage. And street robbers do not drown people— they use a knife or a club.”
    Waybourne’s face darkened. “What are you trying to say, Inspector? It was you who told me my son was drowned. Do you now dispute that?”
    “No, sir, I dispute that it was a casual attack.”
    “I don’t know what you mean! If it was premeditated, then obviously someone intended to kidnap him for ransom, but there was some sort of an accident—”
    “Possibly.” Pitt did not think there had ever been ransom planned. And although he had mentally rehearsed how he would tell Waybourne it was a deliberate murder—neither an accident nor anything as relatively clean as a kidnapping for money—now, faced with Vanderley and Swynford as well as Waybourne, all three watching, listening, the tidy phrases escaped him. “But if it was so designed,” he continued, “then we should be able to find out quite a lot if we investigate. They will almost certainly have cultivated his acquaintance, or that of someone close to him.”
    “Your imagination is running away with you, Inspector!” Waybourne said icily. “We do not take up acquaintances as casually as you appear to imagine.” He glanced at Gillivray, as if he hoped he might have a better understanding of a social circle of finer distinctions, where people did not make such chance friendships. One required to know who people were— indeed, who their parents were.
    “Oh.” Vanderley’s expression changed slightly. “Arthur might have. The young can be very tolerant, you know. Met some odd people myself, from time to time.” He smiled a little sourly. “Even the best families can have their problems. Could even have been a prank that went wrong.”
    “A prank?” Waybourne’s entire body stiffened with outrage. “My son molested in his—his innocence, robbed of—” A muscle jumped in his cheek; he could not bring himself to use the