Dieter looked shocked, and Burnside added quickly, ‘That’s why I want to ask you to help us by finding out as much as you can about what she’s doing.’
Dieter nodded.
‘But you must be careful,’ went on Peter Burnside. ‘It could be very dangerous for you if you were caught. I think this is a serious business and they will do whatever they can to protect it.’
Dieter stood up. His face was flushed. The downtrodden, sad-looking, grey figure had turned into a warrior. ‘The Russians,’ he said, ‘have played me for a fool. I will not stand by and let them destroy the lives of these poor children. You can count on me to do whatever I can to help.’
‘Thank you.’ Peter Burnside was amazed by the change in the man. ‘If you have any information to pass on, ask Matilda to arrange a meeting with me. But please,’ he repeated, ‘be very careful.’
35
The new students were a strange bunch, thought Miss Girling, as she watched them filing into the new computer block. They must have arrived all at once in the evening – none of them had been there when she left for home the night before. What’s more, they all looked foreign and they were all boys, quite different from the children who used to attend the school when she was a teacher – middle-class children from local families, never a brown or black face among them. This intake seemed to be all brown faces and she wondered where they had come from.
The other odd thing was that they were all amazingly quiet. In her day, a group of children going into lessons would have been chattering and laughing so loudly you couldn’t hear yourself think. The problem was to quieten them down enough to start the lesson. She had never come across children so subdued. Perhaps they were tired after their journey from wherever it was, she thought to herself. As she stood and watched, the school cook came past on his way to the kitchens.
‘Where are they from?’ he asked Miss Girling.
‘Heaven knows. I was wondering that myself,’ she replied. ‘They don’t look English.’
‘A spooky lot, I’d say. I hope they don’t have a special diet. No one’s given me any instructions.’
Spooky’s a good word for the whole place nowadays, thought Miss Girling as she watched the headmaster’s assistant, Cicero, following the children into the new classroom block. She went into the office where the accounts manager Miss Looms was working. Miss Looms, like Miss Girling, was a hangover from the glory days of the school, but her job was now severely curtailed from what it had been and she only came in two mornings a week to deal with the housekeeping accounts – food bills, utilities and simple upkeep of the building. Everything else seemed to be in the hands of the mysterious Cicero.
‘I see the new pupils have arrived,’ said Miss Girling. ‘Where are they going to live? The old dormitories are not in a fit state.’
‘No. They’ve got accommodation for them at one of the farms. They have converted some outbuildings into summer lets and the farmer was delighted to have more permanent lodgers – especially out of season. His wife’s going to cook their evening meal.’
‘Good luck to her. I’ve just been talking to Cook. He says no one’s told him what they eat.’
Miss Looms shrugged her shoulders as if to shake off all responsibility.
Miss Girling waited two days, in case there were any more developments, then called the number the nice policewoman, or whatever she really was, had left with her. She got an answer machine and, flustered, hung up. But telling herself not to be silly, she rang back, this time leaving a message in as calm a tone as she could manage, saying simply that the new students had arrived.
What she hadn’t said, since it took her another day or two to realise this, was that these new pupils seemed to spend all their time in the new IT block. As far as Miss Girling could tell, the classes they attended there were taught by Mr Sarnat or by another new arrival, a middle-aged man with a greying beard called what sounded like Gottingen. He was also foreign – probably a German, Miss Girling decided.
Miss Girling knew absolutely nothing about computer science, but she guessed that if something fishy was going on at the school, it must have something to do with what these new students were being taught. So she made a point of walking slowly past the computer block in the mornings when the students were in their lessons. She was vaguely hoping she might hear something or see something that might give her a clue about what was going on inside. But although the block had large windows, they were never open and no sound escaped.
However, on the third morning, becoming more daring, she looked into the window as she walked slowly past and noticed that Mr Gottingen was handing out some sort of paper document to each student. Maybe it was a test or instructions of some kind. If she could get hold of one of those, she thought, it might help someone more computer-literate than she was to understand what was going on. At the end of the lesson period, as the students were coming out for their morning break, she was back. She waited until the classroom had cleared and Mr Gottingen had gone to the staffroom, then she sidled in.
But Mr Gottingen must have taken everything away; the screens were all switched off and there was no paper lying around or anything at all to show what the students had been studying. She left the classroom empty-handed and nearly tripped over Cicero, who was standing just outside the door.
He stared at her unpleasantly. She told herself that it was not for him to question her whereabouts, but found herself nonetheless justifying her presence. ‘I was just looking for Mr Gottingen,’ she said. ‘I have a message for him,’ she went on nervously, realising her voice sounded shrill.
‘Break time,’ said Cicero shortly. He looked at her coldly, appraisingly. ‘You should know that.’
‘Yes, of course,’ said Miss Girling. It seemed best to witter on; hopefully Cicero would decide she was simply doddery. ‘How silly of me to forget. I’ll go find him in the staffroom.’ She felt her performance as a scatty old thing was quite convincing, until she saw the expression in Cicero’s eyes.
If she couldn’t actually get a copy of any handouts, then Miss Girling reckoned her best hope of finding out what was going on was with the students themselves. She was used to talking to students – goodness knows how many she had come to know during her years at Bartholomew Manor. But this lot were oddly unapproachable. They seemed to operate in an indivisible pack. Polite, yes; willing to reply to her questions, yes again – though only up to a point. The minute Miss Girling asked them anything more substantial than if they were enjoying their course, a shutter seemed to come down: their understanding of English suddenly grew worse, and her questions were answered with a show of bafflement and incomprehension.
Then on Friday, as she was about to leave the college to catch her bus, she found one of the students in a corner of the courtyard, quietly crying. She had noticed him before: he was smaller than the others, with dark cropped hair and big soulful eyes. Miss Girling stopped, out of natural curiosity and of kindness.
‘Is there something the matter?’ she asked gently.
The boy shook his head, vainly trying to fight back his tears.
Miss Girling said, ‘What’s your name?’
He replied in a whisper. ‘Thomma.’
‘Thomma? That’s a lovely name,’ said Miss Girling, though it sounded odd to her ears. ‘I say, Thomma, come with me for a minute.’
The boy followed dutifully as Miss Girling led him into the main school building. She thought of heading for the staffroom but feared she might bump into the headmaster or, worse still, Cicero. Further down the corridor there was a small room used by the school nurse. She’d have left for the day, so Miss Girling went in there, Thomma trailing behind her.