I topped up Winter’s brandy. ‘So, you live with your mother?’ I said.
He shrugged. ‘It’s not always easy. I mean – she’s not always easy.’
‘I think I know how you feel,’ I said. ‘It’s natural to feel that way.’
‘There’s nothing natural about Ma. Ma’s a genetic anomaly. Like the cockroach, she’ll survive alien invasion, nuclear war. She’s immortal. When I die, she’ll be there, holding a cup of the vitamin drink she made me swallow when I was a boy. How I always hated it.’
How I always hated her.
Poor Winter. No wonder he lied. No wonder he spends all his time online, building fantasy friendships. Sic transit Gloria mundi. I gave a wince at the bad pun. Sometimes I worry that I don’t know how to deal with emotional distress. Perhaps it’s the way I was brought up, but outpourings of feeling have always made me feel profoundly uncomfortable. Maybe it’s a good thing that I never married; from what I know of women (albeit not very much, most of it gleaned from Kitty Teague, or Danielle, or Mary, my old cleaner), life with them is a minefield of hormones, tears and misery.
My own mother lasted three more years after the death of my father. That’s three years of multiple overcoats, of random, tearful profanity. Of cups of fishy-tasting tea while Crown Court or Celebrity Squares played silently in the background, and the other old folk (some of them lucid, others as lost as she was) would slowly settle around me like a flock of baffled pigeons, drawn, perhaps, by my relative youth and by the biscuits I always brought. By then, my mother, never a big eater, would hardly eat anything but biscuits. This caused me some concern, I’ll admit – the food at the Meadowbank home, though bland, was far from inedible. In fact, it was rather better than the St Oswald’s refectory, and I worried that she was starving herself, perhaps as a plea for attention. But when I gave her biscuits with a cup of much-sweetened tea, she always seemed perfectly happy, which meant that, for the sake of her health, I had to go and visit her more often than I wanted to.
I know it sounds callous. The fact is, those visits were a torture. My mother seldom recognized me; and when she did, it was not as her son, but as the man who brought biscuits. Tiny, birdlike, confused, indestructible under those layers of overcoats, she stayed alive for three more years, as the lights went off, one by one, in the haunted building.
I said: ‘You shouldn’t blame yourself.’ By then, I wasn’t entirely sure if I was talking to Winter or to some previous version of Straitley. In any case, I sounded unsure. I poured another brandy. ‘I’ve had a lot on my mind,’ I said. ‘I shouldn’t have come to your house. Your mother – your relationship with her – those things have nothing to do with me.’
I thought Winter looked relieved.
‘But let me get this right,’ I said. ‘Are you telling me you didn’t report our theft of the Honours Boards to Ms Buckfast?’
‘Of course not. That’s why I left,’ he said. ‘Apparently, they have surveillance cameras, linked to Dr Strange’s computer. They caught the whole thing on camera, but you were off the premises. They said that if I’d incriminate you, they’d overlook the incident. They were very persistent.’ He sighed. ‘That was when I decided to leave.’
‘But – won’t the School involve the police?’
Winter gave a tiny smile. ‘They might, except that something – perhaps a virus – got into Strange’s computer. Somehow, it managed to corrupt a lot of those digital images. Including the ones of me putting the Honours Boards into my car.’
For a moment I stared at him. ‘You did that?’
Winter gave a little shrug.
‘Oh.’
I’d been so sure of his guilt. So certain he’d betrayed me. So certain that I’d almost played right into Johnny Harrington’s hands. I felt a sudden stirring of hope, mingled with a sense of shame.
‘Mr Winter, I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I was so sure. I should have known.’
I explained about La Buckfast and her ultimatum. Winter listened in silence, occasionally sipping his drink.
At last, he said: ‘I don’t understand. Don’t you want to retire, sir? Travel a bit, see the world? With the money they’re offering – you could go anywhere you liked. You could visit Rome, Pompeii—’
‘Hawaii, perhaps?’ I said, and smiled. ‘I think I’m too old for hula girls.’
‘But you could get away, sir. See something more than this little town. Get a different perspective. Have adventures—’
I drained my glass. I knew he wouldn’t understand if I tried to explain it all. And it isn’t that I don’t want to see Rome, or Venice, or Naples, or Carthage. But this is my world. It may be small, and yet I could live a hundred years and never come close to exhausting its infinite variety. Maybe I do lack perspective. But a Master of St Oswald’s sees more than any tourist could. At St Oswald’s, all of Life can be found in microcosm; Tragedy and Comedy pursue each other down the halls; great friendships are forged and forgotten; impossible dreams pursued; tears shed. These may not be the happiest days of our lives, but they are surely the keenest; days when everything cuts like a knife; days when the future seems infinite. Who would want to leave all this for the sake of a different perspective?
I must have said some of this aloud, because when I came to myself again, Winter was watching me curiously.
‘Each to his own, Mr Straitley,’ he said. ‘But if someone showed me the door to the cage, I’d be out of it like a shot.’ He reached into his pocket and came out with an envelope. ‘This was in the paper,’ he said. ‘I was going to show it to you then. But then, things started to happen, and – well. Perhaps you should just read it for now.’
It was a sheet of newspaper, dated from three weeks ago. One item was circled in red; just a few lines, barely a squib, between a row of lonely hearts and an advertisement for a carpet warehouse.
YORKSHIRE MAN DROWNS IN CANAL
A man was found dead under a bridge over the canal in Malbry town centre in the early hours of Sunday morning. The unemployed man, Charles Wenceslas Nutter, 38, was thought to have been suffering from depression. Police say the death is not thought to be suspicious.
You never expect your boys to die. They seem to be immortal. And even though it’s been twenty-odd years since Charlie Nutter was a boy, I can still see him in my mind; that pale and anxious little face, those skinny shoulder blades forever raised like hackles against adversity. And now here was his obituary – accident, or suicide? – on page 5 of a local paper, dated from over three weeks ago.
It hadn’t made the Examiner. Perhaps Nutter’s father had seen to that. But it had made the Sheffield Scout – a free paper, mostly given to advertising. What an obituary, I thought. A few lines in the free paper. His school reports were longer than that.
I know that bridge over Malbry Canal. The water there is three feet deep, four at most, if it has rained. The article suggests that he fell – or jumped. Depression, or alcohol? It’s not that I liked him, especially. But he was one of my boys, and he – a person Harry Clarke had loved – died in three feet of water and mud, on a night in lonesome October.
I looked at the date of the piece again. Nutter had died on a Saturday night, or in the early hours of Sunday morning. Which pub had he been drinking in? There are several in the Village, though the Scholar is the most popular. I tried to think back to the day I’d seen Johnny Harrington in the Scholar. What day was that? A Friday, perhaps? Damn my failing memory. But Harrington had been edgy that day; talking on his mobile phone, then heading off through Malbry Park. Where had he gone after that call? Had he met Charlie Nutter?
‘Why show me this now?’ I said at last. ‘Why not tell me three weeks ago?’
Winter gave a rueful smile. ‘It’s complicated, sir,’ he said. ‘There were some things I needed to check. Things I only suspected at first. But now I’m sure. All I need is proof.’
‘Of what?’
‘That Nutter was murdered.’
4
November 200
5
Dear Mousey,
The thing about lost dogs, Mousey, is that they will always come back in the end. They run free awhile, chase a couple of cats, maybe kill a lamb or two, then slink back home for dinner. And that’s why I wasn’t too surprised when Poodle turned up in September, wanting to talk to me again. I’d been expecting him for some time. Well, for fifteen years or so. And for him to come back, after all this time, could only really mean one thing. Harry Clarke was dead at last. That old business was over.
Of course, we hadn’t kept in touch. Things were too raw between us. But Poodle had followed my progress – my recovery years; Survivors – and finally, had followed me here, to Malbry, and a little red house in a cul-de-sac, not far from the Village.
Of course, he denied following me. ‘I came back to care for Harry,’ he said. ‘He had no one else to look after him. Do you know where I found him? At the old people’s hospice. He had no house, no possessions. Nothing but his memories.’
‘Did he mention me?’ I said.
Poodle gave me a venomous look. The years hadn’t favoured him, Mousey. He looked old and decrepit. Too much booze and drugs, I thought. He’ll be gone in less than a year.
‘We never talked about you,’ he said. ‘I tried once or twice, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t let Harry know what we did. Not after all these years.’
I’d invited him inside, for fear of what the neighbours might hear, but his voice was so quiet that even I could barely make out what he was saying.
‘I wanted to tell him the truth,’ he went on. ‘But he always trusted me. He used to write to me from jail, telling me all kinds of things. I wasn’t allowed to see him. I couldn’t even write to him. My father said if I ever tried to contact Harry again, they would have me sectioned.’
Well, Mousey. Imagine that. How spineless can a person be? Turns out old Poodle had lived at home ever since the trial, with regular stints in therapy. That golden summer before the trial was the only freedom he’d ever known – at least, until a few months ago, when he’d moved back to Malbry. I almost envied him that, you know. To have had Harry to himself for that time; to be with him; to be needed by him. And now, he was dead, and Poodle thought that both of us should put things right.
‘What do you mean, put things right?’
Perhaps I’d spoken too loudly. He flinched. He never was much for shouting. Even when he was a boy, he was always the one who winced at loud voices, and cried when he had to drown the rats.
‘Ziggy, we have to do it,’ he said. ‘We owe it to him. To Harry. He spent seventeen years under a cloud. We have to reinstate him.’
I’ll admit it, I was touched. It’s been so long since anyone called me Ziggy. ‘Why?’ I said. ‘He’s dead now. How can he benefit any more?’
Tearfully, Poodle tried to explain. It wasn’t clear; something about Harry’s ashes, and Mr Scoones, and a memorial in the Chapel at St Oswald’s. It was nonsense, of course; St Oswald’s would never allow it. Besides, it was impossible. I am a different person now. The events of so long ago happened to another boy. I spent seven years in therapy getting rid of the guilt of that day. My sacrifice was Harry Clarke. Don’t think it was easy.
I tried to explain this to Poodle, but he was incoherent. ‘He lost everything,’ he said. ‘Everything but this one thing. And we can give it to him now. We can give him peace at last.’
Peace? What about my peace? What about the life I’ve built for myself out of the wreckage? I built that, Mousey. Not Mum, not Dad, but me. And I did well. I’m a rich man. I had no qualifications, but I managed to make good, all the same. People respect money. Money gives you authority. And people fear authority – or at least, some people do. People who value secrecy. People who have something to hide.
I knew there was no way I could get Poodle to listen to all of this, so I pretended to listen to him as he rambled on and on. I pretended to listen, and then at last I nodded.
‘OK.’
He looked surprised. ‘Do you mean it?’
How very like him to say that. I said: ‘I think you’re right. We’ll deal with it. I promise.’
His hopeful expression was almost like the Poodle of our schooldays. As if I’d given him a treat, instead of the kick he deserved. He said: ‘Really? Really? You promise?’
‘Of course.’ Well, Mousey, I had to say that. I needed to buy some time to think. ‘I’ll have a word with Johnny,’ I said. ‘We’re going to need him on our side.’
5
November 2005
Dear Mousey,
Getting in touch with Johnny proved more difficult than I’d thought. The new Head of St Oswald’s wasn’t an easy man to pin down. His phone number was ex-directory; his mobile went straight to voicemail. Even when I called him at school, all I got was his secretary, who asked too many questions and never seemed to know anything.
To be honest, it was hurtful. We’d been close for so many years, but now, except for the fifteen thousand paid into my account twice a year, it seemed that he was avoiding me. He hadn’t come to see me since I moved into my Malbry home. I could tell he didn’t want his wife around me any more. She never called me, either. Still, I’m sure that was his fault. Miss McRae always liked me.
Finally, I decided to call and see him in person. I went round to St Oswald’s and told the secretary I’d wait. I’d brought a box of Harry’s things to deliver to the Chaplain – Poodle and I had gone through them together, and I knew there was nothing in there to incriminate us. I was informed as I arrived that Dr Harrington was on a course, and that I could speak with Ms Buckfast or come back in the morning.
I didn’t want Ms Buckfast. I wanted the Head, and I said so. But the secretary – a bird-eyed blonde who seemed to look right through me – must have been briefed to get rid of me, because after a wait of ten minutes or so, a red-haired woman of generous size came out of a nearby office.
‘Mr Spikely,’ she said. ‘Can I help?’
For a moment, I almost revealed my surprise. But I’ve always been good at hiding things. I smiled, pulled a face at the secretary, and followed Ms Buckfast into her room.
It’s funny, the things you remember. Perhaps it’s the smell that brings it back; that uniquely St Oswald’s smell, like cabbage, chalk and floor polish. That day it was raining, and the sound of water in the gutters and drains was like a tiny orchestra of splashing and popping and gurgling. It brought it all back, Mousey. That little room in the Bell Tower; our own form-room beneath it. The smell of the rain from the rooftops; the sound of it flicking against the glass. The way he put his hand on my leg, and whispered in my ear: Good boy. Not a pleasant memory, and yet it has made me who I am. A rich man. A success. You might say, a survivor.
I sat down in a leather chair and let the years wash away from me. ‘Becky Price,’ I said, and smiled.
‘How nice of you to remember me. It must be over twenty years.’
‘You haven’t changed all that much.’
That was stretching the truth a bit. She’s a lot bigger than she was then; more rounded at the edges. But her voice is still the same; that low and throaty contralto that used to go down so well in Church. I wondered if she’d got the job by sleeping with the boss. Probably not. I mean, why would he? Johnny’s wife is gorgeous, and Ms Buckfast (what a name!) is only, at best, a four out of ten.
She gave me a smile. It brought her to five. ‘It’s good to see you, David,’ she said. ‘Now tell me, how can I help you?’
‘I want to see Johnny,’ I told her.
‘I’m afraid that isn’t possible. Johnny’s very busy right now. But I can pass on a message.’
I tried a more direct approach. I said: ‘Is he avoiding me? Because that would be dangerous.’
That ought to get her attention, I thought. But Becky Price just smiled again and said: ‘That sounds like a threat, Dave. Can I offer you a drink?’
I shook my head. Too risky. I like to use my own crockery. The state of the mugs at St Oswald’
s was always suspect, Mousey. Cracks; chips; rings inside like on the stump of an ancient tree. You can catch all kinds of things from a dirty coffee mug.
Becky poured herself a cup. I admired her confidence. Then again, she must have had a pretty strong constitution to do all those things with Goldie.
‘Let me make myself clear,’ she said. ‘Johnny isn’t available. But if you want to leave a message – or anything else – with me—’ Her eyes flicked to Harry’s box. ‘I take it you’ve been through the contents?’ she said.
I nodded. She was pretty quick.
‘Then I’ll make sure it’s dealt with,’ she said. ‘But this is a sensitive time, Dave. I don’t want Johnny involved in anything that might jeopardize his work with St Oswald’s. The school is already in a delicate situation. Any adverse publicity will just make his job so much harder.’
I explained to her about Poodle. She drank her tea and listened, occasionally nodding. I remember, when she was a Mulberry girl, she wanted to be an actress. From the way she reacted, I guessed she would have been a good one.
‘So you see,’ I told her. ‘That’s why I need to see Johnny.’
Becky shrugged. She isn’t so much a red Flamingo girl any more. She’s more like a ginger house-cat, purring by day; a killer by night.
‘I’ve told you. That isn’t possible.’ She looked at me with cat-green eyes. ‘You’ll just have to talk to Charlie. Persuade him. I know you can.’
I wasn’t sure what she was saying at first. But Mousey, she was serious. I’d never thought about her much, not even after what happened. She was Goldie’s girl, which meant hands off and no peeking. Besides, she wasn’t my type. But now I started to wonder. And to be honest, Mousey, if I’d persuaded Charlie, back in the winter of ’81, we wouldn’t have had this problem at all.