The little ghost looked at me, then at the wrapper.
“Well done,” I began to say as he moved toward the bin.
At that he turned and grinned at me, exposing teeth as discolored as a veteran smoker’s. “Fuck off,” he said, and ran off down the alley, dropping the Snickers wrapper as he went. The others ran the opposite way, scattering papers as they went, and I heard their jeers and insults as they pelted off into the freezing mist.
It shouldn’t have bothered me. As a teacher, I see all sorts, even at St. Oswald’s, which is, after all, a somewhat privileged environment. Those Sunnybankers are a different breed; the estates are rife with alcoholism, drug abuse, poverty, violence. Foul language and litter come as easily to them as hello and good-bye. There is no malice in it, not really. Still, it bothered me, perhaps more than it should. I had already given out three bowls of sweets to trick-or-treaters that night; among them, a number of mini Snickers bars.
I picked up the wrapper and put it in the bin, feeling unexpectedly depressed. I’m getting old, that’s all there is to it. My expectations of youth (and of humanity in general, I believe) are quite outdated. Even though I suspected—knew, perhaps, in my heart—that the fire I had seen was something to do with St. Oswald’s, I did not expect it; the absurd optimism that has always been the best and worst part of my nature forbids me to take the gloomy view. That’s why a part of me was genuinely surprised when I arrived at the school, saw the fire crew at the blaze, and understood that the gatehouse was on fire.
It could have been worse. It could have been the library. There was a fire there once—before my time, in 1845—that burned up more than a thousand books, some very rare. A careless candle, perhaps, left unsupervised; there is certainly nothing in the school’s records to suggest it was malice.
This was. The Fire Chief’s report says petrol was used; a witness at the scene reports a hooded boy, running away. Most damning of alclass="underline" Knight’s satchel, dropped at the scene, a little charred but still perfectly recognizable, the books within carefully labeled with his name and form.
Bishop was there at once, of course. Pitching in with the firemen so energetically that for a time I thought he was one of them. Then he came looming out at me through the smoke, eyes red, hair in spikes, flushed almost to apoplexy with the heat and the moment.
“No one inside,” he panted, and I saw now that he was carrying a large clock under one arm, running with it like a prop forward about to score a try. “Thought I’d try to save a few things.” Then he was off again, his bulk somehow pathetic against the flames. I called after him, but my voice was lost; a few moments later I glimpsed him trying to drag an oak chest through the burning front door.
As I said, what a fiasco.
This morning the area was cordoned off, the debris still fiercely red and smoking, so that now the whole school smells of Bonfire Night. In the form there is no other topic of conversation; the report of Knight’s disappearance, and now this, are enough to fuel rumors of such wild inventiveness that the Head has had no choice but to call an emergency staff meeting to discuss our options.
Plausible denial has always been his way. Look at that business with John Snyde. Even Fallowgate was hotly refuted; now HM means to deny Knightsbridge (as Allen-Jones has dubbed it), especially as the Examiner has been asking the most impertinent questions in the hope of turning up some new scandal.
Of course it will be all over town by tomorrow. Some pupil will talk, as they always do, and the news will break. A pupil disappears. A revenge attack on the school follows, perhaps provoked—who knows?—by bullying and victimization. No note was left. The boy is at large. Where? Why?
I assumed—we all did—that Knight was the reason the police were there this morning. They arrived at eight-thirty; five officers, three in plainclothes; one woman, four men. Our community officer (Sergeant Ellis, a veteran, skilled in public relations and manly tête-à-têtes) was not with them, and I should have suspected something there and then, though in fact I was far too preoccupied with my own affairs to give them much thought.
Everyone was. And with good reason; half the department missing; computers down with a deadly germ; boys infected with revolt and speculation; staff on edge and unable to concentrate. I had not seen Bishop since the previous night; Marlene told me that he’d been treated for smoke inhalation but had refused to stay in hospital and, moreover, had spent the rest of the night in school, going over the damage and reporting to the police.
Of course it is generally, if unofficially, accepted (at least in management circles) that I am to blame. Marlene told me as much, having glanced at a drafted letter dictated by Bob Strange to his secretary, and now awaiting approval from Bishop. I didn’t get a chance to read it, but I can guess at the style as well as the content. Bob Strange is a specialist of the bloodless coup de grâce, having drafted a dozen or so similar letters in the course of his career. In the light of recent events . . . regrettable, but unavoidable . . . now cannot be overlooked . . . a sabbatical to be taken on full pay until such time as . . .
There would be references to my erratic behavior, my increasing forgetfulness, and the curious incident of Anderton-Pullitt, not to mention Meek’s bungled assessment, Pooley’s blazer, and any number of smaller infractions, inevitable in the career of any Master, all noted, numbered, and set aside by Strange for possible use in instances such as this.
Then would come the open hand, the grudging acknowledgment of thirty-three years of loyal service . . . the small, tight-mouthed assurance of personal respect. Beneath it, the subtext is always the same: You have become an embarrassment. In short, Strange was preparing the hemlock bowl.
Oh, I can’t say I was entirely surprised. But I have given so much to St. Oswald’s over so many years that I suppose I imagined it made me some kind of an exception. It does not; the machinery that lies at the heart of St. Oswald’s is as heartless and unforgiving as Strange’s computers. There is no malice involved, simply an equation. I am old; expensive; inefficient; a worn cog from an outdated mechanism that in any case serves no useful purpose. And if there is to be a scandal, then who better to carry the blame? Strange knows that I will not make a fuss. It’s undignified, for a start; and besides, I would not bring more scandal to St. Oswald’s. A generous settlement on top of my pension; a nicely worded speech by Pat Bishop in the Common Room; a reference to my ill health and the new opportunities afforded by my impending retirement; the hemlock bowl cunningly hidden behind the laurels and the paraphernalia.
Damn him to hell. I could almost believe he’d planned this from the start. The invasion of my office; my removal from the prospectus; his interference. He’d held on to the letter until now only because Bishop was unavailable. He needed Bishop on his side. And he’d get him too, I told myself; I like Pat, but I have no illusions as to his loyalty. St. Oswald’s comes first. And the Head? I knew he would be more than happy to present the case to the governors. After that, Dr. Pooley could do his worst. And who, I thought, would really care? And what about my Century? From where I was standing, it might have been an age away.
At lunchtime I got a memo from Dr. Devine, handwritten for once (I assumed the computers were still down) and delivered by a boy from his fifth form.