The Inspector Walter Darriteau Murder Mysteries - Books 1-4 by David Carter (microsoft ebook reader TXT) 📗

At half-past eight they were herded into a line of open communal showers. It was a tough moment for Army. He had never been naked before in company, and the others guessed it, and teased him. What’s that pimple between yer legs, Barmy? All the new jerks were the same on their first strip. Walking through the dorm and across the corridor and into the showers, he had no idea where to put his hands.

‘Bed wetter,’ whispered Robinson in his ear as they left the dorm.

‘Ignore him,’ said Dennis. ‘He’s an idiot.’

Robinson glared at Dennis and Army.

Army said nothing.

Tried to ignore him. Tried to ignore everything.

It was like being in hell.

The dorm lights were switched off at half-past nine. The room was in darkness, except for a moon-like nightlight set high on the beams above Army’s bed. Every half an hour Hancock would come in and wander down the dorm, slow noisy footsteps on the polished wooden floor, ensuring that every boy was in their own bed; no talking or larking around. No one dared.

Army wiggled and wriggled down the bed, pulled the covers over his head, locking himself inside, away from the weird world in which he found himself, and cried.

Not blaring wails, nor gasping for breath jerky sobs, just a still, silent cry, as the tears slipped down his fair face, dampening the sheets. He was crying for his long dead mother whose memories were fading; and his father too, who had been ripped from him. Army was crying because he could not go to King’s. He was crying because of the loss of the dancing lessons he adored, but most of all, he was crying for himself.

He hated the place, and everyone in it, except perhaps Dennis Swallow, and he wondered what tomorrow might bring. He didn’t care. Perhaps the world would end that night. Maybe he would fall asleep and never wake.

He prayed he would.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Toby Malone hurt Desiree Holloway.

He hurt her mentally.

He hurt her physically.

He hurt her when they made love

And when they didn’t.

It was all a novel experience for Desi. She had become used to calling the shots, to having men and boys chase her, doing her bidding, wooing her, desperate to impress. She had known nothing different.

With Toby Malone, everything was different.

She couldn’t comprehend why he should treat her that way. He made her cry, worse still; he appeared to glean enjoyment through making her cry. She should have cut him dead.

But she didn’t.

Because she couldn’t.

Like a moth drawn toward the brightest fire, Desi Holloway was entranced. It unnerved her. It made her ill.

For the first time since she was four, her education went backwards. That alarmed her, and it alarmed her tutors and sponsors even more.

Her senior tutor, Professor Jack Robertson, wrote a re-appraisal and dispatched it to London, so concerned was he at the retrenchment that had set in. That alarmed Mrs Bloemfontein, and her superiors too. Discussions took place outlining how the watertight contract could be terminated.

Desi was unaware of that, and even if she had known, it wouldn’t have made any difference. She couldn’t think of anything else. She went off her food, lost weight, and for a short time the incredible sparkle that was never far from her dark eyes, dimmed and died.

Her friends feared for her.

Their advice was rejected.

Her tutors cajoled her.

She seemed not to notice.

Professor Robertson feared for his reputation after Toby Malone took an interest in Desi Holloway.

Toby was studying aeronautical design. He wanted to be a jet fighter designer and already had a lucrative contract lined up with British Aerospace up at Preston. That interested Desi too, and she encouraged him to follow his dreams, just as she was determined to do.

He was due to escort her to the Autumn College Dinner Dance. It had been a longstanding date, carved in the diary for months. Everyone was going. Everyone was looking forward to it, a chance to dress up and flaunt one’s success, one’s outfit, and one’s partner.

Toby didn’t show, leaving Desi to sit shamefaced across the table from an empty chair, while all those around laughed and joked and felt sorry for Desi Holloway, the girl who could not hold on to a man. They pitied her, and some behind her back, laughed. How the mighty are fallen. The shooting star with unending supplies of cash had crashed to earth.

Desi had never experienced a setback before, in anything. She did not know how to deal with it, and imagined that things couldn’t get any worse.

They did.

Toby Malone arrived at the dance with an impossibly beautiful willowy girl on his arm named Fiona Gilkes-Wood. Fiona’s father was the chairman of the second largest Scottish bank. Loaded, they said, multi-millionaire. Whoever married her would be made for life. Fiona Gilkes-Wood had everything, and now she had Toby Malone too.

How could Desi compete with that?

She couldn’t and didn’t.

Diners and dancers pinched surreptitious glances at her when they imagined she wasn’t looking. She sat alone, picking at her food, unblinking, sipping wine in silence, as if an icy embryo enclosed her. She spoke to no one, and saw no one, not a soul after that appalling moment when she spied Toby striding into the hall with the elated Fiona Gilkes-Wood on his arm.

Desi could cope with the violence, the kinky sex, and his ever-stranger demands, but she could not cope with public humiliation.

It would never happen again.

She would never let it happen again.

She finished her meal in silence, grabbed her things together, and slipped away into the night.

Some of the more aware people breathed a sigh of relief and whispered: How embarrassing was that? She did the right thing, getting out of there when she did, though she should have gone sooner. Poor Desiree. That Toby Malone was a bastard, but didn’t everyone know that already?

It seemed not. Or if she did, Desi could not accept it.

The mesmerised moth was damaged.

She returned to her room alone, took two co-codamol painkillers, and blotted