“I’m not sure I can tell you anything about him, but, yes, I used to tutor Luke.” Lauren sat on the small sofa with her legs tucked under her, cup held in both hands. She blew on the tea. “He was so far ahead of the rest of his class, he must have been bored silly at school. He was far ahead of me most of the time.” She raised her hand and flicked some troublesome locks of hair out of her face.
“That good?”
“Well, his enthusiasm made up for what he lacked in formal training.”
“I gather he was a talented writer, too.”
“Very. Again, he needed discipline, but he was young, raw. He’d have gone far if… if…” She held her cup in one hand and rubbed her sleeve across her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I just can’t get over it. Luke. Dead. Such a waste.”
Annie passed her a tissue from the box on one of the bookshelves. “Thank you,” she said, then blew her nose. She shifted on the sofa and Banks noticed her feet were bare and her toenails painted red.
“I know it’s hard to accept,” said Banks, “but I’m sure you can understand why we need to know as much about him as possible.”
“Yes, of course. Though, as I said, I don’t see how I can tell you much.”
“Alastair Ford said you’re the kind who listens to people’s problems.”
She snorted. “Alastair! He was probably trying to say I’m a prying bitch. Alastair runs a mile if anyone comes within vague hailing distance of whatever warped emotions he might possess.”
Banks had got the same impression himself, though he wouldn’t have put it in quite those words. On early impressions, Lauren Anderson was turning out to be perhaps the most normal friend Luke had had. But the competition – Ford and Wells – wasn’t very stiff.
“Did Luke ever talk about himself?”
“Not much,” said Lauren. “He could be very closed, could Luke.”
“Sometimes?”
“Sometimes he might let his guard drop a little, yes.”
“And what did he talk about then?”
“Oh, the usual. School. His parents.”
“What did he say about them?”
“He hated school. Not only were most things boring for him, but he didn’t like the discipline, the formality.”
Banks thought of the boys who had tormented Luke in the market square. “What about bullying?”
“Yes, that too. But it wasn’t serious. I mean, Luke was never beaten up or anything.”
“What was it, then?”
“Mostly teasing. Name-calling. A bit of jostling. Oh, I’m not saying he wasn’t hurt by it. He was very sensitive. But he could handle it, in a way.”
“What do you mean?”
“It didn’t really bother him. I mean, he knew the boys who were doing it were morons, that they couldn’t help themselves. And he knew they were doing it because he was different.”
“Superior?”
“No, I don’t think Luke ever believed himself to be superior to anyone else. He just knew he was different.”
“What did he have to say about his parents?”
Lauren paused for a moment before answering. “It was very private,” she said.
Annie leaned forward. “Ms. Anderson,” she said. “Luke’s dead.”
“Yes. Yes, I know.”
“And we need to know everything.”
“But you surely can’t think his parents had anything to do with his death?”
“What did he say about them?”
Lauren paused, then went on. “Not much. It was clear he wasn’t very happy at home. He said he loved his mother, but he gave the impression that he didn’t get along with his stepfather.”
Banks could well imagine it. Martin Armitage was a physical, dominating presence, used to getting his own way, and his interests seemed worlds away from those of his stepson. “Did you get the impression that his stepfather abused him in any way?” he asked.
“Good Lord, no,” said Lauren. “Nobody ever beat him or abused him in any way. It was just… they were so different. They’d nothing in common. I mean, Luke couldn’t care less about football, for a start.”
“What was he going to do about his problems?”
“Nothing. What could he do? He was only fifteen. Maybe he’d have left home in a year or so, but we’ll never know now, will we? For the time being he had to put up with it.”
“Kids put up with a lot worse,” said Banks.
“Indeed they do. The family was well-off and Luke never lacked for material comforts. I’m sure that both his mother and his stepfather loved him very much. He was a sensitive, creative boy with a boorish stepfather and an empty-headed mother.”
Banks wouldn’t have said Robin Armitage was empty-headed, but perhaps Lauren was making the sort of assumption people often make about models. “What about Neil Byrd?” Banks went on. “Did Luke ever talk about him?”
“Hardly ever. He got very emotional when the subject came up. Angry, even. Luke had a lot of unresolved issues. You just knew to back away.”
“Can you explain?”
Lauren’s brow furrowed. “I think he was angry because he never knew his father. Angry because Neil Byrd abandoned him when he was just a baby and then went and committed suicide. Can you imagine how that would make you feel? You don’t even mean enough to your father for him to stay alive and watch you grow up.”
“Was there anything in particular that might have been bothering him recently, anything he might have mentioned to you?”
“No. The last time I saw him, at the end of term, he was excited about the summer holidays. I assigned him some reading.”
“A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Crime and Punishment?”
Her eyes widened. “Those were two of the books. How do you know that?”
“It doesn’t matter,” said Banks. “How did you go about tutoring him?”
“Usually I’d assign him some reading, maybe a novel or some poetry, and then we’d meet here and discuss it. Often we’d move out from there and discuss painting, history, Greek and Roman mythology. He was very advanced when it came to understanding literature. And he had an insatiable appetite for it.”
“Advanced enough for Rimbaud, Baudelaire, Verlaine?”
“Rimbaud was a mere boy himself. And young teens are often attracted to Baudelaire.”
“‘Le Poëte se fait voyant par un long, immense et raisonné dérèglement de tous les sens,’” Banks quoted, in an accent he hoped wasn’t too incomprehensible. “Does that mean anything to you?”
“Why, of course. It’s Rimbaud’s description of the method he used to make himself a seer. ‘A total disordering of all the senses.’”
“It was written on Luke’s bedroom wall. Did it involve taking drugs?”
“Not that I know of. Not in Luke’s case, anyway. It was about opening oneself to experience of all kinds. To be quite honest, I didn’t approve of Luke’s fascination with Rimbaud. In so many cases like that it’s a fascination with the romantic ideal of the tortured boy-poet, not with the work itself.”
Not wanting to get lost in the realms of literary criticism, Banks moved on. “You felt very close to Luke, am I right?”
“In a way, I suppose. If you really could be close to him. He was slippery, chameleonlike, often moody, quiet and withdrawn. But I liked him and I believed in his talent, if that’s what you mean.”
“If Luke had come to you for help, would you have given it?”
“That depends on the circumstances.”
“If he was running away from home, for example.”
“I’d do all I could to discourage him.”
“That sounds like the official line.”
“It’s the one I’d follow.”
“You wouldn’t harbor him?”
“Of course not.”
“Because we don’t know where he went the day he disappeared. Not after about five-thirty, anyway. But he was last seen walking north on Market Street. That would eventually have brought him to your neighborhood, wouldn’t it?”