Scoones ignored me completely. ‘Any more noise from this classroom,’ he said, ‘and you’ll all be staying in after Break. Is that understood?’
‘Yes, Sir.’
‘I didn’t hear you!’ said Scoones.
‘Yes, Sir!’
‘You’d better,’ said Scoones, and left once more, without having a said a word to me, or even having acknowledged my presence. For a moment I stood there in silence, feeling my embarrassment turn to inarticulate rage. How dare the man! How dare he! The boys were still standing, awaiting my reaction in silence.
‘Oh sit down, for pity’s sake,’ I said. Then shifting my gaze to the sunlit back row, I looked for the troublemaker –
And in that moment, I realized two things. One, the reason the boy in the back row had looked so very familiar was that he was the very image of my brother at fourteen, two, in the moment between my outburst and Eric’s intervention, the blond-haired boy in the back row had somehow completely disappeared.
9
St Oswald’s Grammar School for Boys Academy
Michaelmas Term, September 7th, 2006
Three days into the new term, and still no word of the body. It is starting to weigh on my mind. The thought of that bundle lying there is like an itch in an unreachable place; it makes me distracted, irritable; it colours every moment. I find myself looking for reasons to walk past the flooded building site. I tell myself that the Porter’s Gate is closer to the Bell Tower than the Main Gate, and use this as my daily excuse to check out the Gunderson Building.
This morning, I noticed that the remains had been covered with orange tarpaulin. Does this mean that the police have been told, and have secured the crime scene? It would make sense if that were so, but so far there has been no sign of police anywhere on the School grounds. Perhaps La Buckfast has asked for their discretion at this difficult time.
I managed to catch her this morning, though not for as long as I would have liked. The first week of term is a busy one for any new Head, and especially given all the changes that she has implemented over the holidays. I managed five minutes with her alone, in her office, after Assembly, but when I asked her the question outright, she remained evasive.
‘Mr Straitley,’ she said. ‘Do you know what happens if a builder discovers human remains during the course of an excavation?’
‘I imagine he informs the police, and they secure the site,’ I said.
She smiled and poured herself a cup of coffee from the machine. ‘Would you like one?’
I shook my head. ‘What I’d like, Headmaster, is answers.’
‘Nine times out of ten,’ she said, ‘the builder pretends he didn’t see anything, and just bulldozes whatever it was back into the ground. Why? Because to do otherwise would involve stopping work for months, maybe even longer. It means letting the client down. It often means laying off the crew, unpaid, returning hired machinery. It means being out of pocket at best, maybe even losing the contract. And there are so many human remains buried under this piece of ground. Some are very, very old. Some date back from coal-mining days. Did you know that there was once a coal seam running under our land?’
‘Of course. When we were boys, we used to go looking for pit tags on the fields.’
She smiled. ‘You and Eric.’
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘So a lengthy, damaging investigation might ultimately reveal your find to be ancient remains, unconnected to Conrad’s disappearance.’
‘You don’t really believe that,’ I said.
She shrugged. ‘No, I don’t. But it’s possible. And if the police were informed, they would have to follow every lead, including those that might further damage the School’s reputation.’
‘We’ve weathered storms before,’ I said. ‘The past two years are proof of that.’
‘But all that came at a high cost,’ she said. ‘That business last year – and especially the loss of the new Head in a time of crisis – was the final straw. The parents need assurances that the old ways are gone for good. They needed a change. Girls in the School. New buildings. A cull of the old staff.’
‘You certainly thought so,’ I said pointedly.
She smiled again. ‘Oh, Roy,’ she said. ‘You know that was nothing personal. And you know as well as I do that parents don’t send their children here to learn Latin. They send them here for peace of mind. For shiny new facilities. For sporting fixtures, foreign trips, Drama clubs –’
‘Progress Through Tradition,’ I said, quoting the School’s new motto.
‘Some traditions are best left behind,’ she said. ‘And if ever word gets out that someone found a body, everything I’ve done to try to distance us from the past will be swallowed up in a tidal wave of scandal and speculation.’
‘If you’re asking me to lie to my boys –’
‘Oh, get off your high horse, Roy. Did you ever tell your boys that Eric Scoones was a paedophile?’
And there she is, I told myself. Do not be fooled by the quiet voice, or the hint of vulnerability. La Buckfast is made of tempered steel, snugly wrapped in lambs’ wool.
‘I can’t be certain he was,’ I said. ‘It was only last year that –’
‘And yet you were friends since childhood. If that story got out, Roy, would anyone believe you didn’t know?’
I felt an unpleasant tightening around the waistcoat region. The past is a dark magician, pulling bouquet after bouquet of poisoned flowers from his hat. What was La Buckfast telling me? That she believes that Eric Scoones was involved in the death of Conrad Price? That, by association, I too might be a suspect?
‘Be patient, Roy,’ La Buckfast went on, ‘and let me finish my story. If, after that, you still believe that we should inform the authorities’– she shrugged – ‘I’ll respect your opinion. But wait until you have the facts. And, of course,’ she gave me a tight-lipped smile, ‘if you were to decide to take the decision unilaterally, then I don’t think I could continue to keep you in my confidence.’
How does she do it, I wonder? It is a kind of hypnosis. She does not raise her voice, and yet, she has such an air of authority. Accustomed as I am to the traditional kind of Headmaster – bullishly, reassuringly rude, arrogant in his doctoral robes – it comes as a surprise that she should be the one to inflict on me this singular paralysis.
Of course I know it cannot last. The body – if that’s what it is – must be turned over to the authorities. But, in some ways, she is right. An investigation will reopen wounds that have only just started healing. The Harry Clarke affair will be back in the news and, with it, a new set of rumours. How does she know what Eric was? Was it Johnny Harrington, the boy who nearly brought down the School, only to return as its Head? Or did she witness an incident during her time at King Henry’s?
I told La Buckfast I did not know about my old friend’s proclivities. Only last year did I suspect, following my discovery of that letter from David Spikely. But now, I wonder whether perhaps I knew all along and ignored it, as a man might ignore a suspicious mole or lump that presents no symptoms. But were there symptoms? His secretiveness. His stubborn refusal to be a Form Master. His swift departure from St Oswald’s in the wake of the Harry Clarke affair. His equally swift departure from King Henry’s in 1989. Did I never question these things? Or did I simply let them pass, in fear of a diagnosis? I do not think I suspected him. And yet, when I read that letter to him, I do not remember feeling surprise; simply a terrible sense of loss and loneliness and betrayal. Have I been fooling myself all this time? Worse still, if Eric’s story came out, would anyone think that I didn’t know?