Miss Dare laughed. “Tell me,” she said, “are you a professional spy or is it just a hobby?”
“I pay attention,” said Keane.
But Scoones was still unconvinced. “No boy of ours would dare,” he said. “Especially not that little runt.”
“Why not?” said Keane.
“He just wouldn’t,” said Scoones contemptuously. “You need balls to go up against St. Oswald’s.”
“Or brains,” said Keane. “What? You’re really telling me it’s never happened before?”
7
Thursday, 4th November
How very inconvenient. Just as I was about to deal with Bishop too. To make myself feel better I went to the Internet café in town, accessed Knight’s hotmail address (the police must surely be monitoring that by now), and sent out a few nicely abusive e-mails to selected members of St. Oswald’s staff. It gave me an outlet for some of my annoyance and, I trust, will maintain the hope that Knight is still alive.
I then made my way to my own flat, where I e-mailed a new piece from Mole to the Examiner. I sent a text message to Devine’s mobile from Knight’s, and after that I phoned Bishop, adopting an accent and disguising my voice. I was feeling rather better by then—it’s funny how dealing with tedious business can still put you in a good mood—and after a bit of initial heavy breathing I delivered my poisonous message.
I thought his voice sounded thicker than usual, as if he were on some kind of medication. Of course it was almost midnight by then, and he might well have been asleep. I myself don’t need a great deal of sleep—three or four hours are usually ample—and I rarely dream. I’m always rather surprised at the way other people cave in if they haven’t had their eight or ten hours, and most of them seem to spend half the night dreaming; useless, jumbled dreams that they always want to tell other people about afterward. I guessed Bishop was a heavy sleeper; a colorful dreamer; a Freudian analyzer. Not tonight, though. Tonight I thought he might have other things on his mind.
I phoned again an hour later. This time Bishop’s voice was as thick as my father’s after a night on the town. “What do you want?” His bull’s roar, distorted by the line.
“You know what we want.” That we. Always a help when spreading paranoia. “We want justice. We want you dealt with, you filthy pervert.”
By this time, of course, he should have hung up. But Bishop has never been a quick thinker. Instead he blustered, angry; tried to argue. “Anonymous calls? That the best you can do? Let me tell you something—”
“No, Bishop. Let me tell you.” My telephone voice is thin and spidery, cutting through the static. “We know what you’ve been up to. We know where you live. We’ll get you. It’s just a matter of time.”
Click.
Nothing fancy, as you see. But it has already worked marvelously with Grachvogel—who now keeps the phone permanently off the hook. Tonight, in fact, I made a little trip up to his place, just to make sure. At one point I was almost convinced I saw someone peeping out from between the living room curtains, but I was gloved and hooded, and I knew he’d never dare to come out of the house.
Afterward, for the third time, I phoned Bishop.
“We’re getting closer,” I announced in my spidery voice.
“Who are you?” He was alert this time, with a new shrillness to his tone. “What do you want, for God’s sake?”
Click.
Then home, and bed, for the next four hours.
This time, I dreamed.
8
“What’s the matter, Pinchbeck?”
August 23rd; the eve of my thirteenth birthday. We were standing in front of the school Portcullis, a pretentious little add-on from the nineteenth century, which marks the entrance to the Library and the Chapel Gate. It was my favorite part of the school, straight from the pages of a Walter Scott novel, with the school crest in red and gilt above the school motto (quite a recent addition, but a word or two of Latin speaks volumes to the fee-paying parents). Audere, agere, auferre.
Leon grinned at me, his hair hanging disreputably in his eyes. “Admit it, Queenie,” he said in a mocking tone. “Looks a lot higher from down here, doesn’t it?”
I shrugged. His teasing was harmless enough for the moment, but I could read the signs. If I weakened, if I seemed in the least bit annoyed at his use of that silly nickname, then he would strike with the full force of his sarcasm and contempt.
“It’s a long way up,” I said carelessly. “But I’ve been there before. It’s easy when you know how.”
“Really?” I could see he didn’t believe me. “Show me, then.”
I didn’t want to. My father’s passkeys were a secret I had never meant to reveal to anyone, not even (and perhaps especially not) Leon. But still I could feel them, deep in my jeans pocket, daring me to say it, to share it, to cross that final, forbidden line.
Leon was watching me like a housecat who isn’t sure whether he wants to play with the mouse or unravel its guts. I had a sudden, overpowering memory of him in the garden with Francesca, one hand laid casually over one of hers, his skin tawny-green in the dappled shade. No wonder he loved her. How could I possibly compete? She had shared something with him, a secret, a thing of power that I could never hope to duplicate.
Or maybe now, I could.
“Wow.” Leon’s eyes widened as he saw the keys. “Where did you get those?”
“Nicked them,” I said. “Off Big John’s desk, at the end of term.” In spite of myself, I grinned at the look on my friend’s face. “Had them copied at the key place at lunchtime, them put them back right where I found them.” That was mostly true; I’d had it done just after that last disaster, while my father lay despondent and blind drunk in his bedroom. “Slack bastard never noticed.”
Now Leon was watching me with a new light in his eyes. It was admiring, but it made me a little uneasy too. “Well, well,” he said at last. “And there I was thinking you were just another little Lower School squirt with no ideas and no balls. And you never told anyone?”
I shook my head.
“Well, good for you,” said Leon softly, and slowly his face lit with his tenderest, most captivating smile. “It’s our secret, then.”
There is something ultimately magical in the sharing of secrets. I felt it then, as I showed Leon around my empire, in spite of the accompanying pang of regret. The passageways and alcoves, the hidden rooftops and secret cellars of St. Oswald’s were no longer mine. Now they belonged to Leon as well.
We went out via a window on the Upper Corridor. I had already turned off the burglar alarm in our part of the school before locking the door carefully behind us. It was late; eleven o’clock at least, and my father’s rounds were long finished. No one would come at this time. No one would suspect our presence.
The window gave onto the Library roof. I climbed out with practiced ease; grinning, Leon followed. Here was a gentle slope of thick, mossy stone tiles, pitching down to a deep, lead-lined gutter. There was a walkway all around this gutter, designed so that a Porter might follow it with a broom, removing the accumulated leaves and detritus, although my father’s fear of heights meant that he had never attempted this. As far as I could tell he had never even checked the leadwork, and as a result the gutters were filled with silt and debris.
I looked up. The moon was nearly full, magical against a purple-brown sky. From time to time little clouds smudged across it, but it was still bright enough to underline every chimney, every gutter and slate in indigo ink. Behind me, I heard Leon draw a long, wavering breath. “Wow!”
I looked down; far beneath me I could see the gatehouse, all lit up like a Christmas lantern. My father would be there, watching TV perhaps, or doing press-ups in front of the mirror. He didn’t seem to mind my being out at night; it had been months since he had questioned where I went and with whom.
“Wow,” repeated Leon.
I grinned, feeling absurdly proud, as if I had built it all myself. I grabbed hold of a climbing rop
e that I had strung into place a few months before, and hoisted myself up onto the ridge. The chimneys towered over me like kings, their heavy crowns black against the sky. Above them, the stars.
“Come on!”
I teetered, arms spread, gathering in the night. For a second I felt as if I could step right out into the spangled air and fly, like Kiefer Sutherland in The Lost Boys.
“Come on!”
Slowly, Leon followed me. Moonlight made ghosts of both of us. His face was pale and blank—a child’s face of wonder. “Wow.”
“That’s not all.”
Emboldened by success, I led him onto the walkway; a broad path inked by shadows. I held his hand; he did not question it but followed me, docile, one arm held out across the tightrope space. Twice I warned him; a loose stone here, a broken ladder there.
“Just how long have you been coming here, anyway?”
“A while.”
“Jesus.”
“D’you like it?”
“Oh, yeah.”
After half an hour of climbing and scrambling, we stopped to rest on the flat, broad parapet above the Chapel roof. The heavy stone slates kept the day’s heat, and even now they were still warm. We lay on the parapet, gargoyles at our feet. Leon produced a pack of cigarettes, and we shared one, watching the town, spread out like a blanket of lights.
“This is amazing. I can’t believe you never said.”
“Told you now, haven’t I?”
“Hm.”
He was lying beside me; hands tucked behind his head. One elbow touched mine; I could feel its pressure, like a point of heat.
“Imagine having sex up here,” he said. “You could stay all night if you wanted to, and no one would ever know.” I thought his tone was slightly reproachful; imagining nights with lovely Francesca in the shadow of the rooftop kings.
“I guess.”
I didn’t want to think of that—of them. The knowledge—like an express train—passed silently between us. His closeness was unbearable; it itched like a nettle rash. I could smell his sweat and the cigarette smoke and the slightly oily, musky scent of his too-long hair. He was staring up at the sky, his eyes brimful of stars.
Slyly I put out my hand; felt his shoulder in five little pinpoints of heat at my fingertips. Leon did not react. Slowly I opened my hand; my hand trespassed across his sleeve, his arm, his chest. I was not thinking; my hand seemed divorced from my body.
“Do you miss her? Francesca, I mean?” My voice trembled, catching at the end of the phrase in an involuntary squeak.
Leon grinned. His own voice had broken months before, and he loved to tease me about my immaturity. “Aw, Pinchbeck. You’re such a kid.”
“I was only asking.”
“A little kid.”
“Shut up, Leon.”
“Did you think it was the real deal? Moonlight and morons and love and romance? Jesus, Pinchbeck, how banal can you get?”
“Shut up, Leon.” My face burned; I thought of starlight; winter; ice.
He laughed. “Sorry to disillusion you, Queenie.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, love, for Christ’s sake. She was just a shag.”
That shocked me. “She wasn’t.” I thought of Francesca; her tawny hair; her languid limbs. I thought of Leon and of everything I had sacrificed for him; for romance; for the anguish and exhilaration of sharing his passion. “You know she wasn’t. And don’t call me Queenie.”
“Or what?” Now he sat up, eyes shining.
“Come on, Leon. Don’t muck about.”
“You thought she was the first, didn’t you?” He grinned. “Oh, Pinchbeck. Grow up. You’re starting to sound just like her, you know. I mean, look at you, getting all worked up about it, trying to cure me of my broken heart, as if I could ever care that much about a girl—”
“But you said—”
“I was winding you up, moron. Couldn’t you tell?”
Blankly, I shook my head.
Leon punched my arm, not without affection. “Queenie. You’re such a romantic. And she was sort of sweet, even if she was only a girl. But she wasn’t the first. Not even the best I’ve had, to be honest. And definitely—definitely—not the last.”
“I don’t believe you,” I said.
“You don’t? Listen, kid.” Laughing, full of energy now, the fine hairs on his arms bleached-blackened silver in the moonlight. “Did I ever tell you why I got chucked out of my last school?”
“No. Why?”
“I shagged a Master, Queenie. Mr. Weeks, metalwork. In the shop, after hours. No end of a fuss—”
“No!” Now I began to laugh with him in sheer outrage.
“Said he loved me. Stupid bugger. Wrote me letters.”
“No.” Eyes wide. “No!”
“No one blamed me. Corruption, they said. Susceptible lad, dangerous pervert. Identity undisclosed to protect the innocent. It was all over the papers at the time.”
“Wow.” There was no doubt in my mind he was telling the truth. It explained so much; his indifference; his sexual precocity; his daring. God, his daring. “What happened?”
Leon shrugged. “Pactum factum. Bugger went down. Seven years. Felt a bit sorry for him, really.” He smiled indulgently. “He was all right, Mr. Weeks. Used to take me to clubs and everything. Ugly, though. Big fat gut on him. And old—I mean, thirty—”
“God, Leon!”
“Yeah, well. You don’t have to look. And he gave me stuff—money, CDs, this watch that cost like five hundred quid—”
“No!”
“Anyway, my mum went spare. I had to have counseling, and everything. Might have scarred me, Mother says. I might never recover.”
“And what was it—” My head was reeling with the night and with his revelations. I swallowed, dry-throated. “What was it—”
“Like?” He turned to me, grinning, and pulled me toward him. “You mean, you want to know what was it like?”
Time lurched. An adventure-story enthusiast, I had read a great deal about time stopping still; as in: “for an instant time stopped still as the cannibals crept closer to the helpless boys.” In this case, however, I distinctly felt it lurch, like a goods train in a hurry pulling out of a station. Once more I was disconnected; my hands like birds swooping and fluttering; Leon’s mouth on mine, his hands on mine, pulling at my clothes with delicious intent.
He was still laughing; a boy of light and darkness; a ghost; and beneath me I could feel the rough boy-warmth of the roof slates, the delightful friction of skin against fabric. I felt close to oblivion; thrilled and terrified; revolted and delirious with irrational joy. My sense of danger had evaporated; I was nothing but skin; every inch a million points of helpless sensation. Random thoughts flitted across my mind like fireflies.
He had never loved her.
Love was banal.
He could never care that much for a girl.
Oh, Leon. Leon.
He shed his shirt; struggled with my fly; all the time I was laughing and crying and he was talking and laughing; words I could barely hear above the seismic pounding of my heart.
Then it stopped.
Just like that. Freeze-frame on our naked, half-naked selves; I in the pillar of shadow that ran alongside the tall chimney stack; he in the moonlight, a statue of ice. Yin and yang; my face illuminated; his darkening in surprise; shock; anger.
“Leon—”
“Jesus.”
“Leon, I’m sorry, I should have—”
“Jesus!” He recoiled; his hands held out now as if to ward me off. “Jesus, Pinchbeck—”
Time. Time lurched. His face, scarred with hate and disgust. His hands, pushing me away into the dark.
Words struggled in me like tadpoles in a too-small jar. Nothing came out. Losing balance, I fell back against the chimney stack, not speaking, not crying, not even angry. That came later.
“You little pervert!” Leon’s voice, wavering, incredulous. “You fucking—l
ittle pervert!”
The contempt, the hatred in that voice told me everything I needed to know. I wailed aloud; a long, desperate wail of bitterness and loss, and then I ran, my sneakers fast and quiet on the mossy slates, over the parapet and along the walkway.
Leon followed me, swearing, heavy with rage. But he didn’t know the rooftops. I heard him, far behind, stumbling, crashing heedlessly across the tiles in pursuit. Slates fell in his wake, exploding like mortars into the courtyard below. Crossing over from the Chapel side he skidded and fell; a chimney broke his fall; the impact seemed to shudder through every gutter, every brick and pipe. I grabbed hold of an elder tree, spindly branches poking out of a long-blocked drainage grate, and hoisted myself farther up. Behind me, Leon scrabbled higher, grunting obscenities.
I ran on instinct; there was no point in trying to reason with him now. My father’s rages were just the same; and in my mind I was nine again, ducking the deadly arc of his fist. Later, perhaps, I could explain to Leon. Later, when he had had time to think. For the moment all I wanted was to get away.
I did not waste time trying to get back to the Library window. The Bell Tower was closer, with its little balconies half-rotten with lichen and pigeon droppings. The Bell Tower was another St. Oswald’s conceit; a little arched boxlike structure, which, to my knowledge, had never housed a bell. Down one side ran a steep-slanting lead gutter, leading to an overflow pipe that shot rainwater out into a deep and pigeon-stinking well between the buildings. On the other side the drop was sheer; a narrow ledge was all that stood between the trespasser and the North Quad, some two hundred feet below.
Carefully, I looked down.
I knew from my travels across the roofscape that Straitley’s room was just below me, and that the window that gave onto its crumbling balcony was loose. I teetered on the walkway, trying to gauge the distance from where I was standing, then jumped lightly onto the parapet, then down into the shelter of the small balcony.
The window, as I’d hoped, was easy to force open. I scrambled through, heedless of the broken catch that gouged my back, and at once the burglar alarm sounded, a high, unbearable squealing that deafened and disoriented me.