“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.”