The Red Road (4 page)

I had heard that some of the
teachers were looking forward to seeing the backs of a number of the
sixth formers when they finally completed their A-Levels at the end
of the year and left for good. Apparently, they found some of the
eighteen-year-olds a little intimidating. I never really got that.

Edward Darwin, of Tudor House’s
upper sixth, looked up at me from where he had been shovelling some
tinned peaches into his mouth, slopping the juice half onto the table
in the process. He was a scruffy-looking guy, his hair long and wild
and in need of a cut. He didn’t look as though he had had a shave
in well over a week, either.

“You staying here tonight, too?”
Darwin asked me. “Or are you just going home late?”

I smiled to myself. It was funny how
people like him became all talkative and polite when they were
missing their friends. Staying here,” I said. “My parents are out of
the country and won’t be getting back until tomorrow morning.
They’re going to pick me up when they land.”

He grunted his response and dug into
his peaches once more.

“You?” I asked.

“Tomorrow morning. Train back to
Edinburgh.”

“You couldn’t have gone
earlier?” I genuinely wanted to know.

“They only go twice a day from
Hallmouth.”

That being as much contact with the lower years as he
was apparently willing to subject himself to, and having now finished his
peaches, Darwin dropped his fork into the bowl, picked up his tray
and started away from the table. He paused by Mr Sutherland, maths
tutor and housemaster of Enfield House, sitting on an adjacent table.

“How long will the school be shut,
sir?” Darwin asked the man.

“Seven days, I believe the
headmaster said, Edward,” Mr Sutherland said. “I think it might
be a little longer than that, though. You’ll have to call up every
few days to check and see. I’d estimate maybe a couple of weeks,
myself.”

“Because this could affect my
studies and my Oxbridge application.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about
that. They’re sure to take this into consideration.”

Darwin nodded and trudged off
without another word, stashing his tray on the empty rack and exiting
the refectory.

“Edward,” Mr Sutherland called
after him, “where are you going?”

“To my room,” Darwin grunted
back.

It was pretty obvious that he
wasn’t. Most likely, he was heading out for a post-dinner
cigarette. I found it funny how even the threat of a murderer on the
prowl wasn’t enough to persuade the school’s heavy smokers to
refrain from their habit for even one night. I half-expected Mr
Sutherland to go after him, letting Darwin know that he knew he was
going for a smoke, and to not leave the school building. He said
nothing, however. He was probably too scared.

But two weeks? No school for two
weeks? It sounded great, but I knew it would ultimately mean pushing
the end of term back, and that I wouldn’t be getting out of here
until it was very nearly Christmas. They had done the very same
during the hurricane of 1987. Oh well, I would just enjoy the time
off and worry about everything else later.

“Joe?”

I looked over to see Mr Sutherland
seeking my attention. “Sir?” I asked.

“When you’re finished, could you
please walk these boys back up to Butcher?”

I glanced across the group, sure
that some of them weren’t from Butcher.

“We’re all sleeping in Butcher
tonight, as it’s within the main building and easiest to secure,”
Mr Sutherland finished.

I nodded, finished my food and made
ready to walk the boys to the west wing of the main building.

~ ~ ~

That night, at around nine p.m., we sat
in Butcher’s common room and, led by Mr Somers, my housemaster, we
said prayers for the dead boy, his family, the other students, others
around the world who might be suffering a similar loss, and all those
people still fighting in the Gulf. St Christopher’s was a Catholic
school, meaning weekday prayers and Sunday Mass (as well as the
occasional weekday attendance) were a regular part of school life.

I went back to my dormitory after
that. The place was empty, all the other boys having left. I was a
dormitory prefect this term, my second time as one. The dormitory I
was in charge of was actually the same as I had been in myself,
during my first year in Butcher. There had been some architectural
changes since then, and the dorm had been split in two. I was looking
after seven boys instead of fourteen, all first years. Some had come
through from the junior school, but about half were new to St
Christopher’s that term. I recognised none of them from my own time
in the junior school.

Next term, I would be shifted into a different
dormitory, either to be another prefect (likely to second years this
time), or to the third-year dorm. I hoped to be spending the summer
term in the third-year dorm, so I would be able to concentrate on my
studies without having to deal with excitable, irritating younger
boys (and I knew they were, as I’d been one twice before, myself).

A couple of the larger dorms in the
school had two perfects. I was the sole prefect in here, the dorm
containing only eight beds, including mine – two bunk beds and four
singles. The beds were still all made, slippers, dressing gowns and a
handful of other items such as books and alarm clocks remaining where they had
been left that same morning. They would likely remain there until St
Christopher’s returned to normal.

The only person here, I put the
radio on and listened to the DJ talking with a guest about something
or other for a little while. I wondered as the news came around if
they were going to mention the incident at St Christopher’s and
that the school had been closed, but they never did. It was a long
shot given that the incident had only occurred that afternoon, and
that the station I was listening to, Capital FM, was London-based.
The reception could sometimes be weak, but on most days it was fairly
clear. I’m not sure why I listened to that station in particular;
maybe it was because most others at the school did.

I looked at a piece of work on my
desk that I’d been doing before lunchtime – a large rectangular
diagram of a plant cell. They were a little more complicated than
animal cells, having a few extra parts to memorise and label. I
always tended to get chlorophyll and chloroplasts mixed up, too. The
rest I could remember.

With little else to do, I considered
quickly redrawing it, just to reinforce it in my mind. I gave up when
I was unable to locate any pencils. Clearly one of the more
boisterous of the first years I looked after in the dormitory had
helped themselves to them, to do a crossword or something. I would
have to make a better effort to secure them in future. I thought
about hunting through the boys’ bedside lockers, to see if I could
locate them, before I decided to just buy some more during the break.

I switched off the radio as
Take
That
came on, deciding that with the time approaching ten I
should get into bed. I switched on my lamp and turned off the main
lights, put on my pyjamas and grabbed my Wilbur Smith book. I wasn’t
in the mood to read it though, and after about a page and a half, I
set the book aside. I felt more in the mood for something light. I’d
seen a copy of a film magazine,
Empire
or something else,
floating around the dormitory the previous day that I felt was more
apt. I got out of bed and had begun to hunt for it when there was a
brief knock at the dormitory door. It opened before I could say
anything, and I was relieved to see Mr Somers, my housemaster, in the
doorway.

“Hello, Joe,” he said, looking
around at the empty beds. “Are you in here all by yourself?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“Okay, well could you grab your
duvet and pillow and come down the hall, to 2E? I thought it would be
best if we all stayed in the same dormitories tonight, and most of
the other boys are first and second years, so I need you to look
after them.”

“What about the sixth formers?”
I asked.

“They’re okay up in their
rooms,” Mr Somers said, before indicating for me to come along.

I got out of bed, locating my
slippers and putting them on. I noticed as I did so how the bottoms
seemed to be crusted in mud.
How did that get there?
I
wondered. I hauled my duvet and pillow off my bed and carried them
down the echoing hall of the silent first floor to 2E, the only other
dormitory that had its lights on. Mr Somers followed me in,
explaining to the boys already there that I would be sleeping in the
dorm with them that night. Should they need anything, they were to
tell me. If it was important, I should then tell him.

I glanced around the dorm,
recognising only one of the faces there – Neil Booth, a second-year
Butcher boy who was almost as wide as he was tall. The other boys
were from the other houses. I had seen them around the school in
passing, though I couldn’t name any of them. Unknown to them, the
younger ones looked at me with some trepidation, in case I should be
one of those older boys with a quick temper; maybe even one of the
more violent ones from Tudor House. I wondered for how many of them
this was the first time they had lived away from home. Quite an
experience this was turning out to be for them.

“I’ll be sleeping in my room
tonight, Joe,” Mr Somers said. “Mr Sutherland is sleeping in 1C
with some of the boys there, and the other boys are in 2D. Father
Matthew has also volunteered to sit up all night and keep watch.”

All night?
I knew that from
time to time some of the resident monks stayed up late, treading the
corridors of the main school until a little after midnight, but I’d
never known them to be up all night long. I imagined Father Matthew
would be patrolling the corridors with a lantern, much like the
teachers did whenever we had a power cut. I had seen a significant
number of those oil lamps during the Great Storm of 1987.

“If any of you need to use the
toilet in the middle of the night, please could you let Joe know, and
he’ll walk you there,” Mr Somers said. “Even you, Neil,” he
added to the rotund boy.

“Yes, sir,” came a little chorus
from the boys.

A little extreme, I thought, as I
bundled up the current dorm prefect’s duvet and pillow and set them
on top of the linen pile in the corner. I didn’t have time to
remove the bed sheet itself; I just had to hope that it was clean.

“I’m going to lock the front and
rear doors,” Mr Somers said. “I’ll unlock them tomorrow
morning, and then we’ll all go down to breakfast together. Okay,
it’s past ten, so lights out.” He clicked off the light switch
and closed the door.

The dorm remained as silent as it
had been when I entered. I guessed the other boys just wanted to go
to sleep and get the night over with. Good idea. I decided to join
them.

~ ~ ~

“Prefect ...”

The pitch of the voice told me that
it was one of the first years.

“Hmm?” I murmured. I was a light
sleeper, easily woken. Half-expecting to be called upon in the middle
of the night, I had clearly been sleeping far shallower than most
other times. “What’s wrong?” I asked.

“I need to go to the toilet,”
the boy replied.

“Okay, so go,” I said.

“We were told not to go on our
own,” he apologised.

Damn, that was true. “Do you
really need me to go with you?” I asked. I kept my voice even so as
not to come across as irritated.

“I don’t know where they are.
I’m from Enfield.”

“Ah.”

“Do you mind?”

“No. Let’s go.” I started to
get out of bed, seeing the silhouetted form of the other boy as he
pushed aside his covers. “Who else is awake?” I asked generally
of the dorm in a hushed voice.

“Me,” came another voice.

“Who’s that?” I said.

“Neil.”

“Do you need to go to the toilet,
too?”

“No. I just can’t sleep.”

“Okay. Anyone else awake?”

No answer.

“Will you be all right for a bit?”
I asked Neil.

“Sure,” he said.

“Cool. I’ll be back in a bit.”

I left the dorm with the first year,
and we began making our way towards the toilets. The corridor was
near pitch black, save for a little light filtering in from
irregularly sized and spaced windows along the way. They didn’t
help much, though; the sky must have been quite cloudy. Out here, in
the middle of the countryside, it could be difficult to see at night. I
fumbled around for the light switch.

“Shit,” I said.

“What’s wrong?” my short
companion asked.

“Nothing, I just can’t see a
bloody thing.”

I tried to remember where the light switches were at
this end of the corridor. I couldn’t remember if they were
individual ones by the corners or if it was actually a bank of
switches at either end. I slid my hand along the wall, hoping to feel
a bump where the panel was. Nothing. We inched along, coming around
the corner, where I once more looked for a switch.

“Don’t happen to have a torch
back in there, do you?” I asked.

“No, sorry.”

“Okay, never mind.”

I walked slowly. Even though I knew
the corridor would be empty, I couldn’t shake the ridiculous notion
that a load of pillars and pipes could have magically appeared in the
darkness, waiting for me to walk into. What was even more ludicrous
was the misplaced belief that the floor had become a minefield of
garden rakes, all ready for me to step on and make them spring up and
thwack me in the face. I guess it could have been worse – it could
have been an army of pale-white goblins lurking in the gloom, waiting
to drag me away and tear me to pieces.

“Have you been here long?” the
first year asked me. I could hear a small quiver in his voice.
Perhaps he, too, was picturing something awful waiting in the dark
for us; though he was probably picturing a murderer who had snuck in
through a window, the same who had killed the boy on the Road.