by James Runcie
Trevor Paine had just been for a cigarette and a cup of tea in the canteen. Despite the bandage round his face and on the right side of his body, the damage done would not be permanent and he was expected home in the next few days.
He was a small man with thick, bristly grey hair, a long dark toothbrush moustache and a ruddy face that looked as if its owner was no stranger to either drink or anger. He explained that he was sure that someone had come in after he had unlocked the building that morning. They must have opened up all the Bunsen burners, allowing methane gas to pour out into the room, mixing with oxygen and requiring only the tiniest spark from the electric light switch or the flame from a cigarette to set off the explosion.
‘Didn’t you smell it first?’ Sidney asked.
‘I was smoking as I entered the room. I reached for the light switch.’
‘In broad daylight?’
‘The blinds were down. We keep the room dark to preserve the chemicals.’
‘I thought they were locked away.’
‘They are. This is an additional precaution. But obviously no matter what safety measures we employ, it’s not going to stop someone blowing up the labs if they feel like it.’
‘Would it have to have been a sixth former?’
‘It could have been any one of the little bastards. We teach them how to blow up empty biscuit tins and lemonade bottles all the time. It’s part of the excitement of chemistry, moving copper wires through flames or seeing the different colours produced by things like copper sulphate, strontium chloride and boric acid. Sometimes the boys get out of hand, pouring methanol directly into a crucible rather than using a pipette . . .’
‘What happens then?’
‘The flame follows the vapour back into the bottle. Then there is a kind of flashover, and bang. Explosion. Fire. Drama. Panic. Most of the boys are pyromaniacs. Pearson especially. The headmaster will be on to him, I’m sure.’
‘He was playing cricket when the explosion . . .’
‘The timing is irrelevant. This was planned well in advance.’
‘Targeting you? Or just the lab in particular?’
‘I don’t think it’s necessarily to do with me. It may not be anything personal at all. I think it’s one of the leavers showing off.’
‘Pearson is not a leaver. He has another year at the school . . .’
‘I don’t think he was aware I might have been killed. I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. But I wouldn’t mind giving him a good caning.’
‘There is still corporal punishment at Millingham? I know some schools have decided to do away with it.’
‘More fool them.’
Sidney wondered if this was the right way of going about things. Just because the beating of boys had been passed down through the generations didn’t make it acceptable. Tradition, he suggested, was no guarantee of morality.
Paine headed him off. ‘I have no truck with those new-fangled educationalists who believe that their pupils should choose what they want to study. What is the point of one of those ridiculous schools where children are allowed to pick their own lessons? How can they know what they don’t know?’
‘I think the idea behind them is that the child lives his or her own life instead of one that anxious parents or traditional educators lay down for them.’
‘Boys need to be guided and disciplined. It’s as simple as that. They can decide what to do on their own when they’re older.’
‘Is that what your friend Rev Kev thought?’ Sidney asked.
‘I don’t think he’s got much to do with this inquiry.’
‘How well did you know him?’
‘What are you asking about him for?’
‘It might be connected . . .’
‘With the explosion? I don’t think so.’
‘The two of you were friends.’
‘We weren’t that close. And Kevin’s in prison, as you probably know.’
Sidney leaned back in his chair. ‘Could you tell me about the other boys that you have had to punish; and not just Pearson? Have there been some particular troublemakers who have kept coming back; any who have needed, for example, more and more discipline?’
‘There are one or two of them every term.’
‘I am thinking about the last three or four years; either a boy who is still in the school or one that left recently. Someone who might want a bit of revenge.’
‘It’s Pearson, I know it.’
‘The other names would be helpful . . .’
Sidney made an unexpected stop on his way home at a riverside pub. Christopher Clough was having a drink with Sabine. Two things annoyed him about this. The first was that although his au pair girl appeared to be drinking an orange juice he couldn’t be sure that vodka had not been added. Secondly, Hildegard was teaching. Anna would need supper, bathing and putting to bed and here was the person they had specifically employed for the task, dressed in little more than a T-shirt, which revealed an all-too-visible cleavage, out on a jolly.
Sabine said that they were just finishing and that she would soon be home. Christopher had been very kind, even, apparently, ‘reizend’.
‘I am sure he has. There is something I wanted to ask you, Christopher. Am I mistaken, or didn’t you once teach at Millingham School?’
‘Like you, I helped out between vacancies. I was never an employee.’
‘Was that just before Kevin Warner got the job?’
‘Why do you ask?’
‘You knew him?’
‘Not well. I gave him some advice about teaching the young, that’s all. A sorry end, of course. I presume you know all about it?’
‘Not as much as I would like. This isn’t the time, but perhaps I could come and talk to you about it? If you could find a moment in your diary.’ Sidney looked at Sabine and could not resist a moment of tartness. ‘I know you are very busy. You must have a lot on.’
‘I will always have time for you, Canon Chambers. Even on a day off such as today.’
‘Then I won’t take up any more of your evening.’
It was unchristian to dislike a fellow priest but Sidney could not help it. Was it jealousy, he thought for a moment, before bicycling away? No, it was not, he told himself. It was fury.
Adam Barnes had stayed on at the Archdeacon’s House but had been left to practise on his own while a disgruntled Hildegard mimicked cheerfulness and ran Anna’s bath, angry that neither Sabine nor her husband had returned. Adam had opted for the haunting sonorities of Dvořák rather than the bravura theatricality of a Chopin étude and was slowly working through some of the more complex sections when Sidney arrived. He asked Hildegard’s pupil how he was getting on.
‘I’m all right,’ the boy answered non-committally.
‘That was quite a thing on Prize Day, wasn’t it? I am only glad the explosion didn’t happen in the middle of your performance. I very much enjoyed your playing, by the way. I hope your parents did too.’
‘They weren’t there. Only Mrs Chambers.’
‘So you had no family watching?’
‘Dad’s away. Mum prefers to stay at home. She doesn’t go out much. And I can play to her whenever she likes.’
‘It would have been nice for her if she had heard the applause.’
‘She’s funny about coming to things like that. And what happened would have made it worse.’
‘An extraordinary thing. I suppose it can’t have been an accident.’
‘I don’t know.’
‘The school seem very keen to blame a boy called Pearson. I think he’s in your year.’ Sidney knew he was pushing it.
‘He wouldn’t have done it.’
‘Why not?’
Adam Barnes wasn’t sure whether or not to go on. Sidney thought that he was working out if he was sneaking. ‘It would be too obvious. He knows everyone would accuse him anyway. He’s cleverer than that. He prefers to do things that get other people into trouble.’
Hildegard entered the
room, expressed some pleasure that Sidney was back at last, and informed her husband that it was his turn to take over. His daughter had been asking for him.
Sidney tried one last question. ‘Does he tell you then?’
‘Not really.’ Adam Barnes gathered up his music and put it in a case. ‘He was a friend of my brother.’
‘Was?’
‘I have to go home now. Thank you for the lesson, Mrs Chambers.’
‘I’ll see you next week,’ his teacher replied. ‘Remember. Take it slowly then build it up. Make it full of longing. Imagine a place you have always wanted to go to, or somewhere you once knew, where you were happy . . .’
‘I’ll think of somewhere.’
After he was safely out of sight, Sidney asked his wife why Adam was so evasive.
‘He doesn’t like to talk about his family.’
‘Why not?’
‘His father left. I’m not sure about his brother. His mother pays the bills. I’ve only met her once. She’s a nice woman but she has very bad arthritis and she doesn’t like to go out. I think Adam looks after her.’
‘Is it just the two of them?’
‘I think so. I don’t like to ask too many questions. I am not you, Sidney.’
‘I have to investigate. This could be attempted murder.’
‘Well, that is what he is doing to his Dvořák at the moment. He was my best pupil before all this happened.’
‘How long has he got before his exam?’
‘It’s next term. I don’t want him distracted.’
‘I think he already is.’
A few days later Sidney was back at Millingham to take prayers at the final assembly of the term. After a predictably disappointing lunch (spam, beetroot and boiled potatoes followed by a particularly revolting tapioca pudding served with a dollop of jam) he planned to interview as many pupils as possible before they disappeared on their summer holidays. The headmaster had organised what he called a ‘rogues’ gallery’, starting with Marcus Pearson and followed by the more troublesome sixth formers who had been in Mr Paine’s chemistry class: Fishwick, Swainson, Charkin and Newton.
Geraint Rogers was not confident. ‘I can’t promise that this is going to be easy, Canon Chambers. There is a great reluctance to sneak and the boys will be suspicious of a clergyman.’
‘Is that to do with Rev Kev?’
‘So you know about our other local difficulty.’
Sidney was not going to be hoodwinked. ‘I think it was a bit more than that.’
‘Some of the boys told their parents but they weren’t believed. Now they are wary of saying anything at all. They don’t trust the older generation.’
‘None of them?’
‘Some fathers might have believed their sons but didn’t want to cause a fuss, or they were old boys who said that they had experienced it themselves and you just had to put up with it. Rev Kev had a good war record but he came out shell-shocked. His hands trembled and then they tended to wander, especially after a drink or two. He wasn’t capable of very much. It was more a case of wishful thinking.’
‘Still . . .’
‘It wasn’t assault or violence, just a bit of fumbling about. It’s fairly common for teachers to fall in love with a pupil or two. As long as they don’t do anything then it’s fairly harmless.’
‘That doesn’t exactly excuse it.’ Sidney knew he had to keep his temper in check in order to get the information he needed.
‘I know. But there are degrees to these things . . .’
‘I’m not so sure, Headmaster. You’re telling me that some parents complained?’
‘They did.’
‘Some mothers?’
‘Yes.’
‘And was Mrs Barnes one of them?’
‘I can’t recall.’
‘I think she might have been. What about Mrs Pearson?’
‘Why do you want to know?’
‘I am about to see her son.’
‘Then you can ask him yourself. I don’t think he’s ever been on the receiving end of that kind of trouble. He’s too busy getting into scrapes himself. Not everyone appreciates his exuberant personality.’
‘Exuberant’ was one of the last adjectives Sidney would have chosen to describe a sullen, good-looking sixteen-year-old boy who had loosened his tie and thrown off his school blazer for a conversation in an empty classroom.
Marcus Pearson came from London and had been to a good few schools before ending up at Millingham. His hair was defiantly long, he wore Chelsea boots and smelled of smoke. He denied everything, saying that not only did he have an alibi (he had been in the nets after breakfast, ready for the cricket, and had never been anywhere near the science labs) but there were more important misdemeanours that Sidney should be investigating. ‘Crimes that cause more lasting damage.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Doesn’t your wife teach Adam Barnes?’
‘She does.’
‘Well, ask him.’
‘I have. He told me that it couldn’t have been you.’
‘Is that all you asked?’
‘He said that you were friends with his brother.’
‘Did he tell you about Luke?’
‘No. That was rather what I wanted to ask. Does it have any bearing on this case?’
‘It might do.’
‘Then what is it?’
‘The teachers.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Mr Paine. His mates.’
‘Do you think the explosion was an act of revenge?’
The boy nodded. ‘That’s about right. It isn’t very complicated once you know what you’re after.’
‘You are saying, I imagine . . .’
‘What do you think? I can’t do it all for you. The clergy haven’t exactly helped us in the past. And only one of them has gone to prison. To think our parents pay money for this so-called education.’
‘Then why do you stay here?’
‘Nowhere else will have me.’
‘I don’t think that’s true. You’re good at cricket. Your family have been generous benefactors . . .’
‘You mean they bought my place here . . .’
‘I don’t know the facts.’
‘You should go and see Adam’s mum, Canon Chambers. She’ll tell you if she trusts you. Don’t bother with Paine. Or with anyone else. They can talk as much as they like and you’ll be no clearer.’
‘Are you telling me everything you know?’
‘I’m telling you as much as I think you need. That’s different. Anything else might confuse you.’
Sidney was not going to rise to the boy’s patronising provocation. ‘I could be the judge of that.’
‘I know. But this isn’t to do with me. I’ve got nothing to do with your inquiry.’
‘It’s not an investigation.’
‘What is it then?’
‘A survey. A chat. Something like that.’
‘I don’t believe you. And I don’t have to say anything. I’ve done nothing wrong.’
‘I hope that’s the case.’
‘I don’t need to lie. It’s Mrs Barnes you want to talk to. Or Rev Kev. What a bastard that bloke is. They’re all as bad as each other at this school. That’s what’s really criminal. Not us. Them.’
Geordie Keating said he was ‘trying not to be optimistic’ the next time the two men met in the Prince Albert. Sidney had hoped that he was talking about life and the solving of crime, but his friend had confined his hopes to the England football team after their World Cup quarter-final victory in a bad-tempered game against Argentina. ‘I don’t want to jinx things by complacency.’
Sidney carried the pints back to their table. ‘There’s no chance of that at Millingham School.’
‘Are you still worrying away? Don’t they want the problem contained? They must know you speak to me.’
‘I have told them that I will keep matters to myself for the time being. However, I don’t intend t
o remain silent if I discover any more unacceptable behaviour.’
‘So you’ve lied?’
‘I was careful with the truth. That is different.’
‘And how’s it all going?’
‘Not well. There are probably two conspiracies of silence: one amongst the teachers and another amongst the boys. Everyone pretends they are helping but each person’s point of view confuses the situation. The more people tell me, the less information I feel I am being given.’
‘At least they are saying something.’
‘And I am finding it hard to concentrate. Things keep irritating me, Geordie.’
‘That’s not like you.’
‘I sometimes wonder if it’s the job.’
‘Do you mean being a detective or being a clergyman? It doesn’t sound like you are doing much of the latter.’
‘Do you think it’s because I don’t want to?’
‘Perhaps it’s because you are part of a team. In Grantchester you were running your own show. Now you are just any old clergyman.’
‘I hadn’t thought of it like that.’
‘Don’t you like your colleagues?’
‘I do find some of them quite trying.’
‘Anyone in particular?’
‘Yes,’ Sidney answered all too quickly.
‘Blimey . . .’
‘It could be serious but you might also find it entertaining. Talking about it will certainly take my mind off more pressing matters.’
‘Tell me all.’
‘It’s about our new au pair girl.’
‘She must be about the same age as my Jean. Are you having trouble? Once they reach sixteen they’re nothing but a worry . . .’
Sidney explained the situation, adding that Canon Christopher Clough was not only old enough to be Sabine’s father, but technically her grandfather too.
‘And you are in loco parentis?’
‘She is seventeen.’
‘Then you have every excuse to attack with all guns blazing. I wouldn’t dare do this with one of my own daughters, mind, but it’s probably easier if she’s no relation. You’ve got to go in hard and early, like Nobby Stiles making a tackle. You should have seen him against Argentina. He gave their captain such a run for his money he got sent off.’
