Gentlemen & Players (25 page)

6

St Oswald’s Grammar School for BoysWednesday, 3rd November

Five days, and still no word of Knight. No word of Bishop either, though I saw him in Tesco the other day, looking dazed before a trolley piled high with cat food (I don’t even think Pat Bishop
has
a cat). I spoke to him, but he didn’t answer. He looked like a man under heavy medication, and I have to admit that I didn’t have the courage to pursue the conversation.

Still, I know that Marlene calls every day to make sure he is all right—the woman has a heart, which is more than can be said of the Headmaster, who has forbidden any member of the school to communicate with Bishop until matters have been cleared up.

The police were here all day again, three of them, working through the staff, boys, secretaries, and such with the machine efficiency of school inspectors. A helpline has been set up, encouraging boys to confirm anonymously what has already been established. Many boys have called it—most of them to insist that Mr. Bishop couldn’t possibly have done anything wrong. Others are being interviewed in and out of lesson time.

It makes the boys unteachable. My form don’t want to talk about anything else, but as I have been told quite clearly that to discuss the matter might harm Pat’s case, I must insist that they do not. Many of them are deeply upset; I found Brasenose crying in the Middle Corridor toilets during period four Latin, and even Allen-Jones and McNair, who can usually be relied upon to see the ridiculous in most things, were listless and unresponsive. All my form are—even Anderton-Pullitt seems odder than usual and has developed a new, extravagant limp to go with all his other peculiarities.

The most recent word on the grapevine is that Gerry Grachvogel too has been questioned and may be charged. Other, more outrageous rumors are also running, so that according to gossip, all absentee staff members have become suspects.

Devine’s name has been mentioned, and he
is
absent today, although that in itself shouldn’t mean anything. It’s ridiculous; but it was in the
Examiner
yesterday morning, citing
sources within the school
(boys, most probably) and hinting that a pedophile ring of long duration and unprecedented importance has been uncovered within the
hallowed portals
(
sic
) of the Dear Old Place.

As I said, ridiculous. I’ve been a Master at St. Oswald’s for thirty-three years, and I know what I’m talking about. Such a thing could never have happened here; not because we think we’re better than anywhere else (whatever the
Examiner
may think), but simply because in a place like St. Oswald’s, no secret can be kept for long. From Bob Strange, perhaps; rooted in his office working out timetables; or from the Suits, who never see anything unless it comes to them in an e-mail attachment. But from
me
? From the
boys
? Never.

Oh, I’ve seen my share of irregular colleagues. There was Dr. Jehu (Oxon.), who turned out afterward to be just plain Mr. Jehu, from the University of Durham, and who had a reputation, it seemed. That was years ago, before such things made the news, and he left quietly and without scandal, as most of them do, with no harm done. Or Mr. Tythe-Weaver, the art teacher who introduced life modeling
au naturel
. Or Mr. Groper, who developed that unfortunate fixation on a young English student forty years his junior. Or even our own Grachvogel, who all the boys know to be homosexual—and harmless—but who fears terribly for his job if the Governors were to find out. A bit late for that, I’m afraid; but he isn’t a
pervert
, as the
Examiner
crowingly suggests. Light may well be a boorish ass, but I don’t think he is any more of a pervert than Grachvogel. Devine? Don’t make me laugh. And as for Bishop—well. I know Bishop. More importantly, the boys know him, love him, and believe me, if there had been any breath of irregularity about him, they would have been the first to scent it out. Boys have an instinct for such things, and in a school like St. Oswald’s, rumors disseminate at epidemic speed. Understand this; I have been teaching alongside Pat Bishop for thirty-three years, and if there had been any kind of truth in these accusations, I would have known. The boys would have told me.

Within the Common Room, however, the polarization continues. Many colleagues will not speak of the matter at all, for fear of being implicated in the scandal. Some (though not many) are openly contemptuous of the accusations. Others take the opportunity to spread quiet, right-thinking slander.

Penny Nation is one of these. I remember the description of her in Keane’s notebook—
poisonous do-gooder
—and I wonder how I could have worked alongside her for so many years without noticing her essential malice.

“A Second Master should be like the Prime Minister,” she was saying in the Common Room this lunchtime. “Happily married—like Geoff and me.” A quick smile at her Capitaine, today attired in navy pinstripe that perfectly matched Penny’s skirt-and-sweater combination. There was a small silver fish in his lapel. “That way, there’s no
possible
cause for suspicion, is there?” Penny went on. “In any case, if you’re going to be working with
children
”—she says the word in a syrupy, Walt Disney voice-over tone, as if the very thought of children makes her want to melt—“then you really need to have one of your own, don’t you?”

That smile again. I wonder if she sees her husband in Pat’s job in some not-too-distant future. He’s certainly ambitious enough; a devout churchgoer; a family man; a gentleman player; a veteran of many courses.

He isn’t the only one with ideas. Eric Scoones has been putting the boot in—rather to my surprise, as I’d always thought of Eric as a fair-minded chap in spite of his resentment at being passed over for promotion. It seems I was wrong; listening to the talk in the Common Room this afternoon I was shocked to hear him siding with the Nations against Hillary Monument—who has always been pro-Pat and who, being at the end of his career, has nothing to lose by nailing his colors to the mast.

“Ten to one we’ll find it’s some ghastly mistake,” Monument was saying. “These computers—who trusts them? Always breaking down. And that—what d’you call it? Spam. That’s it. Ten to one old Pat got some spam in his computer and didn’t know what it was. As for Grachvogel, he hasn’t even been
arrested
. Questioning, that’s all it is. Helping the police with their enquiries.”

Eric gave a dismissive grunt. “You’ll see,” he said (a man who never uses computers any more than I do myself). “The trouble with you is that you’re too trusting. That’s what they all say, isn’t it, when some bloke gets up on a motorway bridge and shoots ten people dead. It’s always:
and he was such a nice chap,
isn’t it? Or some scoutmaster who’s been fettling little lads for years—
ooh, and the kids loved him, you know, never thought for a minute.
That’s the trouble. No one ever thinks. No one thinks it might happen in our own backyard. Besides, what do we really know about Pat Bishop? Oh, he
plays
it straight—well, he would, wouldn’t he? But what do we really know about him? Or any of our colleagues, for that matter?”

It was a remark that troubled me then, and has continued to do so ever since. Eric’s had run-ins with Pat for years, but I’d always thought, like my own little spats with Dr. Devine, that it was nothing personal. He’s bitter, of course. A good teacher—if a little old-fashioned—and might have made a good Head of Year if he’d made a bit more of an effort with the management. But deep down I’d always thought he was loyal. If ever I’d expected any of my colleagues to stab poor Bishop in the back, it would not have been Eric. Now I’m not so sure; there was a look in his face today in the Common Room that told me more than I’d ever wanted to know about Eric Scoones. He’s always been a gossip, of course; but it has taken me all these years to see the gleeful schadenfreude in my old friend’s eyes.

I am sorry for it. But he was right. What do we
really
know about our colleagues? Thirty-three years, and what do we know? For me, the unpleasant revelation has not been about Pat at all, but about the rest of them. Scoones. The Nations. Roach, who is terrified that his friendship with Light and Grachvogel might prejudice his case with the police. Beard, who sees the whole business as a personal affront to the IT department. Meek, who merely repeats everything Beard tells him. Easy, who follows the majority. McDonaugh, who announced at break that only a pervert could have appointed that queer Grachvogel in a teaching post anyway.

The worst of it was that no one speaks against them now; even Kitty, who has always been friendly with Gerry Grachvogel and who has invited Bishop to dinner several times, said nothing, but simply looked into her coffee mug with faint distaste and would not meet my eye. She has other things on her mind, I know. Still, it was a moment I could have done without. You may have noticed I’m rather fond of Kitty Teague.

Still, I’m relieved to see that in one or two cases at least, sanity still reigns. Chris Keane and Dianne Dare are among the very few not to have been infected. They were standing by the window as I fetched my tea, still raging against the colleagues who had so summarily condemned Bishop without trial.

“I think everyone’s entitled to a fair hearing,” said Keane, after I had aired my feelings a little more. “I don’t really know Mr. Bishop, of course, but I have to say he doesn’t strike me as the type, somehow.”

“I agree,” said Miss Dare. “Besides, the boys seem genuinely fond of him.”

“They are,” I said loudly, with a defiant glance at the moral majority. “This is a mistake.”

“Or a setup,” said Keane thoughtfully.

“A setup?”

“Why not?” He shrugged. “Someone with a grudge. A discontented staff member. An ex-pupil. Anyone. All you’d need would be access to the school, plus a certain degree of computer literacy—”

Computers. I knew we were better off without them. But Keane’s words had touched a nerve—in fact, I wondered why on earth I hadn’t thought of it myself. Nothing damages a school more cruelly than a sex scandal. Hadn’t something similar happened once at Sunnybank Park? Hadn’t I seen it myself too in the days of the Old Head?

Of course, Shakeshafte’s tastes ran, not to boys, but to secretaries and young female members of staff. Such affairs rarely go beyond the stage of tittle-tattle; they are resolved between adults; they rarely make it outside the gates.

But this is different. The papers have declared open season on the teaching profession. Pedophile stories dominate the popular press. Not a week passes without some new accusation. Head teacher, scoutmaster, police officer, priest. All fair game.

“It’s possible.” That was Meek, who had been following our conversation. I hadn’t expected
him
to voice an opinion; so far he’d done little but nod energetically every time Beard spoke. “I imagine there are plenty of people who might have a grudge against St. Oswald’s,” went on Meek in his small, colorless voice. “Fallow, for instance. Or Knight.”

“Knight?” There was a silence. In the backwash of the bigger scandal I’d almost forgotten my juvenile runaway. “Knight couldn’t be responsible for any of this.”

“Why not?” said Keane. “He fits the type.”

Oh yes. He fitted. I saw Eric Scoones’s expression darken; he was listening, and I could see from the insouciant looks on my colleagues’ faces that they too were following the exchange. “Staff passwords aren’t difficult to get hold of, either,” said Meek. “I mean, anyone with access to the administration panel—”

“That’s ridiculous,” said Mr. Beard. “Those passwords are absolutely secret.”

“Yours is AMANDA,” said Keane, smiling. “Your daughter’s name. Mr. Bishop’s is GO-JONNY-GO—not much imagination required there, for such a keen rugby fan. Gerry’s is probably something from
The X-Files
. MULDER, perhaps, or SCULLY—”

Miss Dare laughed. “Tell me,” she said, “are you a professional spy or is it just a hobby?”

“I pay attention,” said Keane.

But Scoones was still unconvinced. “No boy of ours would dare,” he said. “Especially not that little runt.”

“Why not?” said Keane.

“He just wouldn’t,” said Scoones contemptuously. “You need balls to go up against St. Oswald’s.”

“Or brains,” said Keane. “What? You’re really telling me it’s
never
happened before?”

7

Thursday, 4th November

How very inconvenient. Just as I was about to deal with Bishop too. To make myself feel better I went to the Internet café in town, accessed Knight’s hotmail address (the police must surely be monitoring that by now), and sent out a few nicely abusive e-mails to selected members of St. Oswald’s staff. It gave me an outlet for some of my annoyance and, I trust, will maintain the hope that Knight is still alive.

I then made my way to my own flat, where I e-mailed a new piece from
Mole
to the
Examiner
. I sent a text message to Devine’s mobile from Knight’s, and after that I phoned Bishop, adopting an accent and disguising my voice. I was feeling rather better by then—it’s funny how dealing with tedious business can still put you in a good mood—and after a bit of initial heavy breathing I delivered my poisonous message.

I thought his voice sounded thicker than usual, as if he were on some kind of medication. Of course it was almost midnight by then, and he might well have been asleep. I myself don’t need a great deal of sleep—three or four hours are usually ample—and I rarely dream. I’m always rather surprised at the way other people cave in if they haven’t had their eight or ten hours, and most of them seem to spend half the night dreaming; useless, jumbled dreams that they always want to tell other people about afterward. I guessed Bishop was a heavy sleeper; a colorful dreamer; a Freudian analyzer. Not tonight, though. Tonight I thought he might have other things on his mind.

I phoned again an hour later. This time Bishop’s voice was as thick as my father’s after a night on the town. “What do you want?” His bull’s roar, distorted by the line.

“You know what we want.” That
we
. Always a help when spreading paranoia. “We want justice. We want you dealt with, you filthy pervert.”

By this time, of course, he should have hung up. But Bishop has never been a quick thinker. Instead he blustered, angry; tried to argue. “Anonymous calls? That the best you can do? Let me tell you something—”

“No, Bishop. Let me tell
you
.” My telephone voice is thin and spidery, cutting through the static. “We know what you’ve been up to. We know where you live. We’ll get you. It’s just a matter of time.”

Click.

Nothing fancy, as you see. But it has already worked marvelously with Grachvogel—who now keeps the phone permanently off the hook. Tonight, in fact, I made a little trip up to his place, just to make sure. At one point I was almost convinced I saw someone peeping out from between the living room curtains, but I was gloved and hooded, and I knew he’d never dare to come out of the house.

Afterward, for the third time, I phoned Bishop.

“We’re getting closer,” I announced in my spidery voice.

“Who are you?” He was alert this time, with a new shrillness to his tone. “What do you want, for God’s sake?”

Click
.

Then home, and bed, for the next four hours.

This time, I dreamed.