Raising Arcadia

by Simon Chesterman

  She smiles to acknowledge the anachronism. “I’m afraid we were all getting a bit worried about you. The possibility of a kidnapping at the Priory School was just too exciting for some.” It would be churlish to point out the flaws in Henry’s plan, but she can’t resist confirming her theory. “It was a nice touch, putting on the oversize shoes. Do you still have them with you?”

  Henry grins despite himself. “Inside the backpack. I thought about dumping them, but if they were found then people would wonder what kind of kidnapper would suddenly decide to go barefoot.”

  “Listen, lad.” The police officer is not trained for this, but adopts a kindly tone. “Why on earth would you want people to think that you had been kidnapped?”

  Henry thinks for a moment. “I needed some time,” he says at last. “I needed a break from — from everything.”

  “But your parents must have been frantic.”

  “‘Frantic’ is an exaggeration,” Henry murmurs. “I don’t suppose you know whom my dad called first: the police or his bank? It doesn’t matter. I was hoping to have a couple of days of quiet, without...” his voice trails off.

  “Is there something about your parents that you need to tell me, lad? Are you scared of them?”

  A slight upturning of Henry’s lip shows that this is far from the mark. But he is worried about something.

  “What are you frightened of at school?” she asks.

  Henry looks at her, eyes widening and then turning away. She mentally reviews the past week but there was nothing out of the ordinary. The brutish Sebastian operated within the school-determined boundaries for bullying — no physical contact that left a bruise or a cut. Classes were typical. As it was the last term of fifth form some of the students were anxious about exams, but Henry had always done fairly well. It was unlikely to be schoolwork. But it was something about school.

  Something about Friday.

  Headmaster.

  She takes a step closer to him. “What happened on Friday?”

  Now Henry’s eyes open wide with alarm.

  “What did Headmaster tell you? At assembly this morning he said that he had met with you on Friday. That evening you did your rehearsal of the escape, then spent the weekend gathering kit so that you could stay out here at least a few days. Am I right?”

  “Of course, Arcadia,” Henry whispers. “You’re always right.”

  “So what could Headmaster have said to upset you so much?”

  He looks down, unwilling or unable to answer. Curious.

  She turns to the police officer who is standing awkwardly nearby. “Officer, would you give us a minute?”

  The constable begins to say something then stops. He walks a few paces away: “OK, but one minute only. And then we’re all heading back to the school.”

  “Very well.” She turns back to Henry and whispers: “Henry, what’s going on?”

  He looks up into her eyes and there is real fear there. Not the animal fear of a sudden and violent death, but the sustained fear of someone being forced to do something against their will. “I’m sorry, Arcadia. I really can’t tell you.”

  “You really can, you know.”

  He shakes his head. “No, I can’t.”

  She studies him. He is frightened, being forced to do something he does not want to do — and yet also cannot confide in another student about it. Not out of shame, but fear. Fear that if he were to share the information then worse things would follow. Is he acting to protect himself or someone else?

  “All right, time to go back to school.” The police officer has regained his composure and is keen to exert a little authority. “Let’s pack all this up then and get moving.”

  They pack up the simple camp and return to the trail. Henry walks without enthusiasm.

  “Whatever you are frightened of, I can help you,” she tells him.

  Henry smiles wanly. “Oh Arcadia, you can’t even help yourself.”

  “Constable Lestrange, would you care to explain yourself?” A red-faced policeman — an inspector, from the epaulettes on his uniform — is growing redder from the exertion of yelling at the young officer as he emerges from the woods. “You are given the simple task of securing the crime scene until your superiors arrive. You then promptly disappear for more than an hour. I don’t know what they are teaching in the academy these days, but the police force can only function if everyone plays their proper part. It is a team effort, Constable. Do you understand this?”

  “Yes, sir,” the officer replies, looking down at the ground.

  “And do you recall what that device strapped to your body is for?”

  Constable Lestrange half-turns to the handset on his shoulder. “Er, you mean my radio, sir?”

  The red-faced inspector begins to turn an intense shade of purple. “Yes I mean your radio sir!” He takes a deep breath. “Now get back to the front gate and relieve Gregson. And why in God’s name are you carrying a fishing rod?”

  “Yes, sir. But first, sir, may I present Henry. The missing boy, sir.”

  The inspector takes a deep breath as if to resume yelling but catches himself. “The missing boy. Ah yes.” He is weighing whether to congratulate or discipline the younger officer when a woman’s cry cuts across the lawn.

  “Henry!” An immaculately dressed woman is moving quickly on high heels down the paved path. She pauses to remove her shoes before running across the grass to enfold Henry in an embrace. “We were so worried about you.”

  “We?” repeats Henry.

  “Oh darling please don’t be like that. Your father is terribly worried also. It doesn’t matter. I’m so relieved that you’re all right.”

  Mr. Ormiston is close behind Henry’s mother. “There you are Mrs. Stamford. Safe and sound. Well done, officers.”

  “Oh yes,” she smiles through moistened eyes. “Thank you so much.”

  The inspector’s hue has returned to a ruddy pink. “Nothing more than our duty, Ma’am,” he says without missing a beat. “I’m just pleased that Constable Lestrange and I were able to ensure young Henry was found and that all his, er, fishing tackle was properly accounted for.” He is looking curiously at the equipment the trio are carrying, but smiles and does a half bow to Mrs. Stamford.

  “In the circumstances,” Mr. Ormiston says, stepping forward, “I think we can send you home with your mother. But we will need to have a little chat about what went on today. Soon.”

  Henry nods. His mother leads him back onto the path where she pauses to put her shoes back on.

  The inspector eyes his subordinate officer. “Well, Constable. Don’t you have anything you should be doing?”

  “Yes, sir.” He looks at the fishing rod still in his hand and passes it to Arcadia. “Thanks,” he says under his breath.

  “You’re most welcome,” she replies. “And thank you for trusting me. You know, Constable, I have a feeling we’re going to be seeing more of each other.” The officer is not sure how to take this and limits himself to a smile. He nods to the inspector and Mr. Ormiston and walks back towards to front gate.

  Mr. Ormiston looks at her with suspicion. “And don’t you have anything you should be doing?”

  “I do, Mr. Ormiston.” She crosses back to the path where Mrs. Stamford has finished putting on her shoes.

  “Come now, Henry,” his mother says. They also begin walking towards the front gate.

  Henry turns back to her. “Thanks for looking for me,” he says. “I just — ” His gaze has drifted over her shoulder and he freezes, catching himself in mid-sentence. “Nothing,” he says. “’Bye, Arcadia.”

  “Goodbye, Henry,” she whispers.

  On the walk towards the classroom block, she casts a surreptitious glance in the direction Henry was looking when he cut himself off. She cannot be sure, but from a window on the top floor of the administration block she thinks she catches a flash of white hair.

  4

  TROLLEYS

  “What value is a human life?”
>
  Mr. Ormiston paces across the front of the classroom, eyes roaming across the students at their wooden desks. It is the day after Henry’s adventure and his customary seat by the window, adjacent to where she sits, is empty.

  “And what would you do to save a life, or to save four?”

  Mr. Ormiston enjoys periodically posing such moral dilemmas to the class. It is, presumably, part of his project to “build character” among his charges. Questions of this kind occur frequently in admissions interviews to university, of course, so there may be more base motives involved also — for the Priory School’s high fees depend on its students getting into the best universities. Around a third will decamp in due course to Oxford or Cambridge, as Magnus did. Academic results are important, but so is one’s presentation during an interview — particularly for those who lack a suitably noble pedigree or the kind of wealth that suggests naming opportunities for whichever college they attend.

  “I want you to imagine a runaway trolley — a kind of single-carriage train.”

  Often the dilemmas are tedious: whether one may steal to provide for a starving family member; whether cruelty to animals is morally wrong. But sometimes the scenario to be played out is a little more interesting. The prospect of multiple deaths in a railway accident shifts her attention from Henry’s empty seat back to the teacher, who has stopped pacing to draw a simple railway track running across the whiteboard.

  An arrow pointing to the right depicts the trolley. At the far end of the track, Mr. Ormiston adds five stick figures. Between the arrow and the stick figures, he creates a siding — and then adds a single stick figure to that.

  “I want you to imagine that a runaway trolley is hurtling down this railway track towards a set of points. If nothing happens, the trolley will continue on the main line. Unfortunately, some villain has tied five people down to the tracks. There is no way to free them; no way to stop the trolley. If the trolley follows its current path all five will be killed.”

  He pauses for dramatic effect, suggesting once again that he had an amateur acting career at school — and perhaps university? No, the overacting suggests secondary school at most. He continues, raising an index finger for exaggerated emphasis: “But there is an alternative. You are standing by the tracks next to a lever that can divert the trolley onto a siding. If you pull the lever, the trolley will move onto that track and the five will be saved. Alas, that track passes through a narrow gorge in which a deaf workman is doing some repairs. There is no way to warn him or stop the trolley. So if you do divert it, he will certainly be killed.”

  Mr. Ormiston stops pacing, enjoying another theatrical moment. “So the question is: do you pull the lever or not?”

  Interesting, but surely the wrong question. Tied to a track by whom?

  “Why can’t you stop the trolley, sir?” The oafish Sebastian has put up his hand and Mr. Ormiston has nodded for him to ask his question.

  A sigh. Because that’s how the problem was defined, of course. But the teacher makes the mistake of elaborating. “Let us assume that the brakes have failed. Eventually the trolley will stop due to friction, but not until well after either one man or five have met their grisly end.”

  She raises her own hand. Another sigh. “Yes, Miss Greentree?”

  “Where is this taking place, sir?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “Well, depending on the type of points it may be possible to pull the lever while the trolley is crossing the junction. This would send the front axle down one line and the rear axle down the other, derailing the trolley and saving all the people. If it’s a tongue and plain mate switch, historically used in parts of the United States, then — ”

  Mr. Ormiston is becoming irritated. “No, it is not possible to derail the trolley by moving the switch back and forth. It’s a hypothetical point switch. Indeed, that’s the ‘point’.” His irritation dissipates as he laughs at his own little joke. He coughs and continues: “Nor can you pile up rocks on the track or in any other way stop the trolley. The question is whether you do nothing and allow five people to die, or pull the switch — saving them, but condemning an innocent man to that fate.”

  Innocent is of course the key point here. But the teacher is keen to get on with his hypothetical, prelude to some hypothesis about the conflicting nature of moral obligations that he wishes to keep up his sleeve.

  “And so I will ask you to reflect for a moment and then vote. Would you pull the lever or not? You must do one or the other — failing to answer means that you are allowing five people to die. So which will it be? Those who would pull the lever, raise your hands.”

  The shuffling of sleeves being raised indicates that virtually all the students would pull the lever. Mr. Ormiston looks keenly around the room. “Very interesting. Yes, that is consistent with a majority of people’s responses. It reflects a basic human desire to minimise suffering and maximise happiness: what the philosophers call ‘utilitarianism’. I think we can assume that the five you save would be happier than if they were dead.”

  He pivots on one foot. The brief secondary school acting career appears to have included a musical. “But not all of you chose to pull the lever. Two of you would have let five people die, rather than one. Why?”

  She prepares to respond, but Mr. Ormiston is addressing someone at the back of the room. None of the boys who sit in the back row has said anything remotely interesting for the entire year, but the teacher’s gaze is too high. Either one of them has stood up or someone else has entered.

  “Because it’s not right.” Henry has just walked in, having heard enough of the scenario to take a position. “It’s wrong to kill — even if you think you’re serving some larger good. You don’t have the right to decide that some deaf workman should die.”

  “Good, good,” Mr. Ormiston nods for him to take his seat next to her. “Most people would pull the lever. That’s the utilitarian in us. But I hope that even those who took such a decision felt at least a twinge of guilt. What Master Stamford is showing is that a number of people feel that doing the right thing is more important than simply looking at the consequences of one’s actions. In short, one should do the right thing because it is right, rather than because it leads to a particular outcome. The philosophers call this ‘deontology’ or duty-based ethics.”

  He writes “utilitarianism” and “deontology” on the board. “This ‘trolley’ dilemma is a useful one because it highlights the tension between a moral framework based on consequences, and a morality based on rules.” He looks at her, “And you are our other deontologist, Miss Greentree? I confess I wouldn’t have taken you for a rules-based philosopher.”

  “Not quite,” she replies.

  “Yet you wouldn’t have pulled the lever.”

  “No.”

  “Not even to save four lives.”

  “Not even to save five lives. But a person doesn’t get tied to a railway track for no reason. We may not know much about this group, but it is highly probable that their involvement is not accidental. They are being murdered. This is, therefore, a crime scene. If we interfere in the murderer’s scheme he or she — statistically, we can say ‘he’ — will know that he is under suspicion and go to ground. By allowing it to proceed he may make a mistake and thus be caught. One could argue, I suppose, that saving the lives of the five bound victims would make it possible to interview them and identify the likely murderer that way, but forensic evidence around the bodies would probably be sufficient — despite the inevitable mess caused by the passage of the trolley.”

  Mr. Ormiston has stopped pacing and pivoting, his mouth slightly open. A pause as he takes a deep breath. Rather than answer, he turns back to the board, erases the siding, and adds a bridge with another figure standing on top of it. Unlike the anorexic stick figures, this new figure appears to be morbidly obese.

  “Let’s try a different but related problem,” he says. “Imagine the same scenario, though instead of a lever operating a set of point
s you find yourself standing on a bridge under which the trolley is about to pass on its way to the five victims. You know for a fact that a heavy weight dropped in front of the trolley would stop it. As it happens, on the bridge next to you stands a fat man of precisely that weight — and he is leaning against a weak handrail to watch the progress of the trolley.”

  Again a moment’s silence in a bid to elevate the drama, before the dilemma is presented with a flourish: “Would you push him over the edge?”

  Some of the students are tittering now. One of the boys makes the mistake of whispering a little too loudly that the fat man looks like a certain member of the class and gets a whack on the back of the head from Sebastian.

  “Master Harker, that is enough,” Mr. Ormiston intones — though with no intent to punish him.

  “Now before you ask, let me tell you that you cannot jump heroically onto the trolley and stop it yourself. Nor can you sacrifice yourself and stop the trolley, because you lack the requisite mass. Your only choice is to push the fat man or allow the trolley to continue on its path. So I ask again,” he says, “would you push the fat man over the edge to stop the trolley and save the five victims? Raise your hand if you would.”

  A single hand. A further sigh. “Yes, Miss Greentree?”

  “I’m inferring from your earlier response that the innocence of the five victims was to be assumed. In that case, and if we are primarily trying to reduce the number of casualties, and if there is no additional information about this rotund trainspotter, then pushing him over the edge is no different to pulling the lever that diverts the trolley and kills your deaf workman.”

  Mr. Ormiston forces a smile. “Thank you, Miss Greentree.” He turns to the rest of the class. “For most people, the idea of physically pushing another human being into harm’s way is different from pulling a lever. We tend to view it not through the cold lens of utilitarianism — even though the numbers are indeed the same, five lives versus one. Instead, most people see the injunction not to kill as being paramount when faced with a flesh-and-blood person.”