R.S. REPORT TO OFFICE AT ONCE. M.R.D.
I wondered if he was in on it, too. I wouldn’t have put it past him. So I made him wait; marked a few books, exchanged pleasantries with the boys; drank tea. Ten minutes later Devine came in like a dervish, and on seeing his expression I dismissed the boys with a wave of the hand and gave him my full attention.
Now you may have been under the impression that I’ve got some kind of a feud going with old Sourgrape. Nothing could be further from the truth; in fact most of the time I quite enjoy our spats, even though we don’t always see eye to eye on matters of policy, uniform, Health and Safety, cleanliness, or behavior.
I do know where to draw the line, however, and any thought of baiting the old idiot vanished as soon as I saw his face. Devine looked sick. Not merely pale, which is his natural state, but yellow; haggard; old. His tie was askew; his hair, which is usually immaculate, had been pushed out of place so that now he looked like a man in a high wind. Even his walk, which is usually brisk and automatic, had developed a hitch; he staggered into my room like a clockwork toy and sat down heavily on the nearest desk.
“What’s happened?”
There was no trace of banter in my voice now. Someone had died; that was my first thought. His wife; a boy; a close colleague. Only some terrible catastrophe could have affected Dr. Devine in this way.
It was a sign of his real distress that he took no opportunity to berate me for my lack of response to his summons. He remained sitting on the desk for a few moments, his thin chest drawn down toward his protuberant knees.
I pulled out a Gauloise, lit it, and held it out.
Devine hasn’t indulged in years, but he took it without a word.
I waited. I’m not always known for my savoir faire, but I know how to deal with troubled boys, and that was exactly what Devine looked like to me then, a gray-haired, very troubled boy, his face raw with anxiety, his knees bunched up against his chest in a desperate protective gesture.
“The police.” It came out as a gasp.
“What about them?”
“They’ve arrested Pat Bishop.”
It took me some time to get the whole story. For a start, Devine didn’t know it. Something to do with computers, he thought, although no one seemed to know any details. Knight was mentioned; boys in Bishop’s classes were being questioned, though what the charge against Bishop actually was no one seemed to know.
I could see why Devine was panicked, though. He has always tried very hard to ingratiate himself with the management, and he is naturally terrified of being implicated in this new, unspecified scandal. Apparently the visiting officers questioned Sourgrape at some length; seemed interested to know that on several occasions Pat has played host to Mr. and Mrs. Sourgrape; and were now about to search the office for any further evidence.
“Evidence!” yawped Devine, stubbing out his Gauloise. “What are they expecting to find? If only I knew—”
Half an hour later, two of the officers departed, carrying Bishop’s computer. When Marlene asked why, no answer was given. The three remaining officers stayed to carry out further enquiries, mostly in the computer labs, which have now been closed to all members of the school. One of the officers (the woman) came into my form room during period eight and asked me when I had last used my station in the IT lab. I informed her curtly that I never used the computers, having no interest at all in electronic games, and she left, looking like a school examiner about to write an unfriendly report.
The class was completely uncontrollable after that, so we played hangman in Latin for the last ten minutes of the lesson while my mind raced and the invisible finger (never far) jabbed at my breastbone with ever-increasing persistence.
At the end of the lesson I went in search of Mr. Beard, the Head of IT, but I found him evasive, speaking of viruses in the school computer network, of workstations and password protections and Internet downloads—all subjects that hold as little fascination for me as do the works of Tacitus for Mr. Beard.
As a result, I now know as little about the matter as I did at lunchtime and was forced to leave (after waiting over an hour, without success, for Bob Strange to emerge from his office), feeling frustrated and horribly anxious. This isn’t over, whatever it is. November it may be, but I have a feeling the Ides of March have just begun.
4
Tuesday, 2nd November
My pupil made the papers again. The nationals this time, I am proud to say (of course, Mole had a little something to do with that, but he would have found his way in there sooner or later).
The Daily Mail blames the parents; the Guardian sees a victim; and the Telegraph included an editorial on vandalism, and how it should be tackled. All very gratifying: plus Knight’s mother has launched a tearful TV appeal to Colin saying that he isn’t in any trouble and begging him please to come home.
Bishop has been suspended, pending further enquiry. I’m not surprised; what they found on his computer must certainly have helped. Gerry Grachvogel too must have been arrested by now, and very soon, others will follow. The news has hit the school like a bomb—the same time bomb, as it happens, that I put in place during half-term.
A virus to immobilize the system’s defenses. A carefully planted set of Internet links. A log of e-mails sent to and from Knight’s personal station to a hotmail address accessible from the school. A selection of images, mostly stills but with a few interesting webcam clips, sent to a number of staff addresses and downloaded into password-protected files.
Of course, none of this would have come to light if the police had not investigated Colin Knight’s e-mail correspondence. But in these days of Internet chat rooms and virtual predators, it pays to cover all the bases.
Knight fitted the victim profile—a solitary youngster, unpopular at school. I knew they would hit upon the idea sooner or later. As it happens, it was sooner. Mr. Beard helped it along, going through the systems after the crash, and after that it was just a question of following the thread.
The rest is simple. It’s a lesson they still have to learn, the folk of St. Oswald’s; a lesson I learned over fifteen years ago. They are so complacent, these people; so arrogant and naive. They need to understand what I understood in front of the big NO TRESPASSERS sign; that the rules and legislations of the world are all held in place by the same precarious fabric of bluff and complacency; that any rule can be broken; that trespass, like any crime, goes unpunished when there’s no one to see it. It’s an important lesson in any child’s education—and, as my father always said, your education’s the most precious thing in the world.
But why? I hear you ask. Sometimes I still ask it myself. Why do I do it? Why so dogged, after all these years?
Simple revenge? I only wish it were that easy. But you and I both know that it goes deeper than that. Revenge, I’ll admit, is a part of it. For Julian Pinchbeck, perhaps—for the whingeing, cringing child I was, hiding in the shadows and wishing desperately to be someone else.
But for myself? Nowadays I’m happy with who I am. I’m a solid citizen. I have a job—a job at which I have proved myself unexpectedly talented. I may still be the Invisible Man as far as St. Oswald’s is concerned, but I have refined my role far beyond that of mere impostor. For the first time I wonder if I could stay here longer.
It’s certainly a temptation. I have already made a promising start; and in times of revolution, field officers are quickly promoted. I could be one of those officers. I could have it all—all St. Oswald’s has to offer—bricks, guns, and glory.