It's Murder at St. Basket's (6 page)

Because of the buildings being low, if you get up on a high place, like Parliament Hill, you can see for miles. It's pretty terrific, I have to admit—at least when the weather is good.

Actually, the weather in London isn't as lousy as people say. It rains a lot, but the thing is that the rain is always very thin, so you don't pay much attention to it, and go on with whatever you're doing. Usually the sun comes out after a while, anyway.

Hampstead, the part of London where St. Basket's is, is pretty nice. There's a big hill, which the main street goes up, and if you've heard about quaint little alleys, well, Hampstead has got them. Then there's Hampstead Heath—the Heath, they just call it. It's a great, huge place, miles big, partly park and fields and woods, and these huge lawns big as ten football fields, where lots of the schools go to play football. On our Sundays out, we spent a lot of time on the Heath. We didn't have enough time to go anywhere else.

Or money, either. In St. Basket's prison you weren't allowed to have your own money. They gave us each tenpence, which is worth about twenty-five American cents, although you can buy more with it. It wasn't enough for the movies or anything, though. Mostly on Sundays we just wandered around for a while and then ended up spending our money for tea and cake. One time, though, Leslie found a pound lying in the street. A pound is worth about two dollars and a half. Margaret wanted us to spend it on the movies, but I felt like doing something bad for a change, so I talked Leslie into buying a bottle of sherry at an off-license, which is a liquor store. That cost most of the pound, and we gave Margaret the rest out of kindness; she spent it on candy, and we went up onto the Heath and hid in some bushes and drank the whole bottle of sherry. We all got drunk and threw up one at a time on the way home. The interesting thing was that as soon as Margaret got drunk on the sherry she stopped being nice. I mean, she was nice to us, but she began saying some pretty bad things about Miss Grime and St. Basket's and a couple other of the masters, too; so I knew that there was still some hope I could teach her to be more rebellious if I kept after it. She felt terrifically embarrassed and stayed in bed all day Monday on some excuse, but I was glad we'd done it, at least, after I got over feeling guilty the next day and stopped promising myself I'd never do anything bad again.

Anyway, at two-thirty we tore out through the gate, and down Parliament Hill Road to South End Green. It felt pretty good to get out, but we were worried about what Plainfìeld's father would say, and we wanted to get that over with. There's a kind of little cement park in the
middle
of South End Green, with a couple of trees in it and some benches. That's where the phone booths are. We started to cross over to it, when we realized we needed change for the phones, so we went into the news agent's, and milled around there for a few minutes trying to decide what to buy to get some change. In the end we settled on some cheap sourballs, and got our change and went out.

Jaggers was standing across the street in front of a pub called the Railroad Tavern, staring at us. He had his hands behind his back in a sort of casual way, as if he was waiting for somebody, and he just stared, not trying to cover it up that he was watching us or anything. We stood looking at him, feeling sort of confused. Finally I said, “Start eating our sweets and pretend we're walking up to the Heath.”

So we turned and began walking slowly along South End Green Road, which leads to a part of the Heath where there are duck ponds, a kind of normal place for us to go. I wanted to know what Jaggers was doing, but we couldn't look back. It was a problem all right: if he saw us going into a phone booth he could just stop us, because it wasn't allowed. We walked along a little bit, and then I said in a low voice, “Stop at the next corner and pretend we're arguing about which way to go.” We got to the corner and stopped, and I pointed up one street and Leslie pointed the other, and I kind of maneuvered myself around so I was facing back down toward where we'd come from.

Jaggers was over on our side of the street. He was standing in front of a little hardware store, but he wasn't even bothering to pretend he was looking in the window. Instead, he was just staring toward us, his hands still behind his back, just as casual and cool as could be.

“He's following us,” I said.

“I'm worried,” Margaret said. “He might try to hurt us.”

“Shut up, Margaret,” Leslie said.

I was beginning to get a plan. “There are call boxes up on Hampstead High Street, aren't there?”

“There are lots up there,” Leslie said.

“All right, let's just go on walking up toward the Heath and I'll tell you my plan.” My idea was this. At the beginning of the Heath there's kind of a parking lot and an open field and then there are these two ponds. Between them is a kind of dam, with a gravel pathway across it, where there are always lots of people fishing, and beyond that are some woods with paths in it,
and
then past that is the famous Parliament Hill, which is always pretty crowded on Sundays.

My idea was that when we got out into the middle of the field, Leslie and I would get down our knees, as if we were starting a race, Margaret would suddenly say go, and we'd race off toward the ponds. When we got across the dam into the woods, Leslie would veer off on a side path, and cut across the Heath higher up to Hampstead High Street. Meanwhile, Margaret would just come trotting slowly along so Jaggers could see where she was going. She'd join up with me, and we'd go on up to Parliament Hill and hang around up there.

“Not half bad,” Leslie said.

“I'm scared to do it,” Margaret said. “He might overtake me and bash me the way he did David.”

“Don't be a bloody ass, Margaret,” Leslie said. “There are thousands of people all over the Heath. He isn't going to bash anybody.”

“Don't call me a bloody ass, Leslie, I won't have it.”

“Don't have it, then.”

“For God's sake,” I said, “will you two stop arguing all the time?”

“You argue, Quincy,” Margaret said.

“Not as much as you and Leslie do.”

“You do too,” she said. Leslie said,

“Must you argue all the time, you two silly asses?”

By this time we'd reached the Heath. There were only a few cars in the parking lot, and not too many people around, although I knew that there would be people on Parliament Hill. We walked a little way along a gravel path, and then we stopped, and I maneuvered myself around to have a look at Jaggers. He was standing at the edge of the Heath, staring at us. But he didn't have his hands behind him anymore. Instead, he was holding a stick—the branch of a tree he'd picked up along the way. It was about four feet long, and as big around as the small end of a baseball bat.

“He's just trying to scare us,” I said. “Don't worry.” But I was worried. I was beginning to get the idea that there was something behind this that we didn't know about. Jaggers was certainly going to a tremendous amount of trouble, keeping a watch on us like this. Telling all these lies about David Choudhry, and keeping this watch on us and so forth, didn't make sense. There had to be something more to it; but I didn't know what.

“
All right, let's go over by that tree there and start the race. Margaret, give us a big ‘On your mark, get set, go.”

We got by the tree and Leslie and I crouched down. “Margaret, can you see what Jaggers is doing?”

“He's coming, he's coming, I'm scared.”

I glanced over my shoulder. He'd spotted what we were up to, and he was coming along quickly, almost trotting. “Quick, Margaret,” I said.

“I'm scared,” she said.

“Margaret,” I snapped out.

“On your mark, get set—”

“Let's go, Leslie,” I said, and we took off. Being March, the ground was pretty sloppy, even on the gravel paths, and I knew we were going to be covered with mud when we got finished. I let Leslie get a little bit in the lead, so Jaggers would focus on me. We ran on, our feet going slurp, slurp on the sticky ground. In a minute we were thumping across the dam. The people fishing didn't look up—they were used to kids riding bicycles there or running by. We got halfway across, and then all of a sudden I heard a rough voice shout: “Plainfield! Quincy!”

“Don't look back,” I said. “Pretend you didn't hear.”

Leslie nodded. We dashed across the dam. At the other side there was a bend and the path began to run up through trees. Jaggers shouted again: “Stop, you two!” Suddenly we began to hear running footsteps on the hard surface of the dam. “He's chasing us,” Leslie said. Being the games master, he was a pretty good runner.

We rounded the bend and entered the woods. Just ahead there was a fork in the path. “Go left, Leslie,” I panted out. “And then run like hell.”

He nodded, panting, and said nothing. I heard Jaggers shout again. I stopped and spun around. He was not in sight. “Quick,” I gasped out. Leslie tore on up the path and dashed off to the left; and just then Jaggers rounded the corner and came into sight. I couldn't tell if he had seen Leslie or not.

But he saw me standing there, waiting for him, and he slowed down and jogged the rest of the way. I noticed that he was still carrying the stick. I felt pretty scared. I didn't think he'd actually try to hit me, but he'd hit David, hadn't he? I remembered the cracking sound the hockey stick had made on David's leg. But I just stood there panting, to delay him as much as
possible.

He came up, and smacked the stick on the ground. “Didn't you hear me, Quincy?” His face was all twisted around with anger.

“Yes, Sir. That's why I stopped.”

“You must be deaf. I hollered two or three times, Quincy.” He smacked the stick on the ground again, and I knew he wished it were me he was hitting instead of the mud.

“I'm sorry, Sir,” I said. “I guess we were running and couldn't hear you.”

“Where's Plainfield?” he snapped out.

I pointed up the right fork toward Parliament Hill. “He went on ahead. I guess he didn't hear you.”

He smacked the stick on the ground once more. “Would you mind telling me how you heard and he didn't, Quincy?”

“He was ahead of me. Maybe I kind of blocked your voice.” I was feeling a little relieved. It didn't seem as if he was going to hit me, and anyway, Leslie had got away. So at least we had got that done, and maybe would save David from having his leg amputated, after all.

“Rubbish,” he said. “Bloody rubbish. I don't suppose it occurred to you that I had a reason for calling?”

“Yes, Sir,” I said.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a pound note. “Which one of you dropped this?” It surprised me. “Not me, Sir. None of us had any money but our tenpences.”

“Don't lie to me, Quincy. I saw it with my own eyes flutter down from somebody's pocket. Now, which one was it?”

“Honest, Sir, I know I didn't have any money, and I don't think the others did, either.”

“I think we'd better find out about that.” He turned around and faced down the path. Margaret was standing there at the corner, looking up at us. I guess she had been standing there for a few minutes, afraid to come up and afraid to go away. Jaggers gestured. “Come up here,” he shouted. She came up the path, her head down, looking scared. When she got there he waved the pound note at her. “Is this yours?”

She shook her head. “No, Sir,” she said in a quiet voice.

“All right, I reckon we'd better find out who's lying. We'll go find Plainfìeld and all trot
right
back to school until somebody confesses.”

And of course that was his trick: accusing us of having extra money was just an excuse to order us back to school. We'd only had forty-five minutes out. It made me mad to be cheated out of our little time off, and I felt like mouthing off, but to tell the truth, with that stick Jaggers had me scared. Anyway, we'd accomplished what we set out to do, so there was at least that.

Jaggers marched us up the path to Parliament Hill, and then he made us sit on a bench while he walked around looking for Leslie. Of course he didn't find him, and so after a while he marched us down the other side of the hill, and into St. Basket's through the rear gate. Going back to jail so soon made me furious. I wanted to throw something. But I didn't. Jaggers just sent us up to our rooms. I was pretty sure he was going out to look for Leslie. I felt pretty sorry for Leslie. Jaggers was going to throw a real scare into him when he finally came back. I hoped he had a good story worked up.

He had. When he finally got up to the dorm he looked pretty nervous, but okay. “What did you tell Jaggers?” I asked him.

“I said I saw a boy I knew from Kent and went with him to have tea in the caff near the football fields. He said I was a bloody liar because he'd looked there, but I said probably we'd already left by then. He was frightfully angry, though.”

“I would have been scared, Leslie,” Margaret said. “Were you?”

“You're joking, surely, Margaret.”

“Yeah, right, Leslie,” I said sarcastically.

“Quincy, I'll bash you—”

“What about the phone?”

“Oh, yes, that was easy. I just ran up through the Heath, and across East Heath Street and up Willow Road to the High Street. There's a call box about halfway up.”

“So at least there's that. What did your father say?”

“Nothing,” he said. “Nobody was at home.”

CHAPTER
6

W
HEN YOU
'
RE IN
prison what you look forward to mostly is getting out. At St. Basket's we got reprieved six times a year. English vacations aren't like American ones. You only get around six weeks off in the summer, from around the middle of July until September, but you make it up by getting a month off at Christmastime, and a couple of weeks at Easter, and a couple more in February at mid-terms. And then there are Bank Holidays. They have four Bank Holidays scattered around the year. A Bank Holiday is just a four-day weekend for no reason—not Henry the Eighth's birthday or the Magna Carta or anything. I guess it must have had something to do with the banks. I asked Mrs. Rabbit about it once, and she told me it had to do with a murderer named Fred Banks, where the king was so glad when they hanged him he gave everybody a holiday. I was pretty suspicious of that, because of Mrs. Rabbit always getting everything wrong, and I said, “How come they don't call it
Banks
Holiday, then?”