The enigma of the man frightened her.
She turned as a breeze brushed against the window. Had she expected Death himself to be peering in?
Miss Piprelly wondered how secure the school was. True enough, a policeman guarded the main gate, frequently leaving his vehicle to prowl the grounds, checking doors, windows, shining his torch into surrounding shrubbery. But could a solitary policeman prevent somebody from entering one of the buildings, with their numerous access points, the irregularity of the complex itself making surveillance difficult and providing easy concealment for skulking figures. She had spoken with Inspector Robillard that very afternoon, voicing her concern (and, of course, unable to explain the reason) and he had assured her that the area in and around the college was regularly patrolled, had been since the attempt on Jeanette's life. He understood her anxiety perfectly well, yet felt it was misplaced: he doubted the attacker would return to La Roche now that the police had been alerted. The principal wished with all her heart that she could accept the policeman's calm assurances.
Her thoughts dwelt on Jonathan Childes once more - as they often had over the past few days. Reluctantly, Miss Piprelly had asked him to stay away from the college - no, she had insisted, he was not on suspension, neither was he under suspicion; but his presence at La Roche appeared to have put her girls at risk, and their welfare must always be her prime concern. She, Victor Platnauer, and several other members of the governing board had discussed the matter with Inspector Robillard and it was deemed wise, for the time being, that Childes should be kept away from the school (she had not mentioned that Victor Platnauer had insisted Childes be instantly dismissed). As there were less than two weeks left of summer term, it did not seem unreasonable that Childes should accede to their request. He had. And without hesitation.
When she had called him to her study on that Monday morning, just three days ago, his intensity had been disconcerting. He had hardly seemed to hear her words, yet had not been inattentive. His mind was grappling with inner confusions, while still acutely aware of everything around him. Of course he was distressed not only by Jeanette's terrible ordeal, but also by the injuries to Miss Sebire in the car crash on the same day; however, she felt his inward preoccupation had little to do with shock. The man was seeking -she had felt his probing inside her own head - but his searches were random, speculative. He had recognised the gift in her, although he had not spoken of it. At times she sensed a vibration all around his form, a psychic field constantly expanding and contracting. Its fluctuating levels disconcerted her, yet he appeared unaware of these invisible emanations.
Her body juddered as the terrible violence to come, a jagged, cutting thought only, pierced her brain like a heated knife. Her mind no longer lingered on the days past. Now was the real nightmare.
Some alien presence was inside the school.
With the notion, the shadows of the room pressed in closer, the ticking of the clock grew louder, both seeking to intimidate, to influence reason.
Miss Piprelly's initial reaction was to call the island's police headquarters and she actually pushed herself from the chair-pushed herself because the pressure from the enclosing shadows and the thunderous ticking of the clock sought to smother all movement - and walked - staggered? - over to the telephone. But her hand stayed on the receiver, did not lift it.
What could she tell them? Please come, I'm alone and frightened and somebody is with me here in the school, someone who wishes us harm, and my girls are sleeping and I've seen death in their faces and they're so young, so unknowing, their lives unlived, and they have no idea of the danger… Could she tell the police that?
Had she heard a break-in? they would ask. Their man had reported nothing unusual, but they would radio through, ask him to check the grounds more closely, report back to them. No need to worry, Miss Piprelly (an old spinster grown frightened of her own shadow), all was well, their man was on duty, call again later if you're still anxious.
She could lie, pretend to have heard noises. And if they arrived in force to find no sign of an intruder, what then? Raised eyebrows, condescending smiles? Mocking chuckles on the return journey?
That consideration straightened her back, set her face into firmer lines once more. She would not be belittled by the apprehensions of one night. Miss Piprelly headed for the door. She would look for herself and on finding the slightest evidence that all really was not well, she would contact police headquarters. The barest indication…
But her resolve faltered for an instant when she opened the door and fear touched her like a skeletal hand from the darkness.
41
Childes awoke.
There had been no nightmare, no chasing demons, no horror to jolt him from sleep. His eyes had merely opened and he was awake.
He lay in the darkness and listened to the night. Nothing there to disturb him. Only the wind, a breeze, a guileless whispering of air.
But still he rose from the bed, naked and quickly chilled, to sit there on the edge, unsure, uncertain of the tingling expectation that gnawed at him. The outline of the nearest window was a grey patch among the black. Mellowed patterns of ragged cloud edges shifted in the frame.
After fumbling at the bedside table for his glasses, Childes slid them on and went to the window.
His hands clutched at the sill as something cold and vicious inside his chest clamped hard.
In the distance, near the clifftops, La Roche glowed red.
Unlike before, there was no setting sun to flush the school's buildings. This time, flames coloured the walls as they fluttered upwards from windows to lick at the clouded sky.
42
As Estelle Piprelly descended, her footsteps unusually loud in the emptiness of the corridors and stairway, an unexpected smell wafted upwards to meet her. A smell unfamiliar only because it was not in context with the school's normal odours of age-mellowed wood, polish, and the constant but subtle taint of transient human bodies. Life itself.
This was not part of that common texture.
She paused, one hand on the thick stair-rail. Listened to a silence that was more ominous than peaceful. The aroma, still mild because its origin was not close, was faintly cloying and reminded her of an outhouse in the school grounds where garden machinery was stored. A small, ramshackle brick building full of tools, lawn-mowers, hedge cutters and the like, which always reeked of earth, oil and… petrol.
Now that she knew the source her disquiet increased tenfold, for the malodorous scent was a precursor, an indication that perhaps her own intuitive dread was not unjustified. The prevailing urge was to retrace her steps, climb the stairway to the top floor where her charges slept, rouse the girls and lead them from this unsafe place. But another impulse weighed against that course of action. An irresistible force lured her downwards.
Curiosity, argued her own rationalising thoughts. A need to substantiate her suspicions so that she would not be accused of crying 'wolf. But a tiny voice, a whisper almost, tucked somewhere deep in her consciousness, hinted otherwise. This voice alluded to a morbid compulsion to confront the ghost that had constantly haunted her in the unknowing faces of those soon to die. She descended further.
On the last step, the hallway widening, corridors stretching from right to left, Miss Piprelly lingered once more, sniffing the air and wrinkling her nose at the now powerful fumes. The floorboards were damp with sleek liquid. Light came from the stairway behind, so that the farther reaches of the corridors were but gloomy tunnels. The large double-door entrance to the school building was directly opposite the stairway, a distance of perhaps thirty feet. A bank of light-switches was on the wall next to those doors.
Thirty feet was not too far. So why did the expanse appear so formidable? And why the graduating blackness so menacing?
Because she had become a silly old maid who would soon begin looking beneath the bed each night, she scolded herself, but knowing that was not the reason. The darkness was menacing, the distance from there to th
e doors was immense.
And she had no alternative but to cross. Returning upstairs would mean the spilled petrol would be lit. Turning on the lights might possibly flush out the intruder, hopefully frighten him off. At least the lights would attract the policeman on watch.
One brown, chunky-heeled shoe touched the floor. The other followed. Miss Piprelly began the long journey across the hallway.
Again, only halfway there, she halted. Had she heard something, or had she felt it? Was there someone in the corridor to her left? Was there a shadow moving among the other shadows? Miss Piprelly journeyed on, the thin layer of inflammable liquid spread over the floorboards sucking at her feet. Her pace quickened as she neared the doors.
There was someone lurking in the covering gloom, someone who wished ill on her and her school. The sense of it was overwhelming, tightening her chest so that her breaths came in short gasps. Her heart raced with her legs, her hands stretched outwards long before she was in the proximity of the switches. The presence was closer, drawing near, still unseen but undoubtedly reaching for her, soon to touch, soon to feel.
She had to get out!
She would find the policeman, call him to her, inform him of the intruder inside. He would know what to do, he would prevent the petrol from being lit! He would save her!
She was at the doors, almost crashing into them, scrabbling hurriedly for the handles, the lock, sobbing now with relief that she was there, soon to be free from the impending threat behind.
She knew it was close, but would not turn to look, sure that the prickling of her neck was due to this intruder's cold breath.
A vague wondering at why the doors were already unlocked, and then she was twisting the handles, a small cry of triumph mixed with fright escaping her. She pulled the doors inwards. Chilled air ruffled in.
And the shape, a dark blankness against the night, was standing before her on the porch steps outside, unmoving and impassable.
Miss Piprelly's legs buckled and her voice was merely a sighing moan as the shape reached for her.
43
Childes brought the hire-car to a lurching halt outside the tall open gates of La Roche, hands locked tight on the wheel and foot hard on the brake pedal. Despite the steadying grip, his body shot forward with a jolt, then rocked backwards with the motion of the vehicle.
His eyes widened as he stared down the long driveway, lit by the Renault's headlamps, at the college buildings.
They were darkened and impassive, the whiteness of the main building reduced to a heavy grey by the cloud-dense sky. No flames leapt from the windows, no redness scorched the interiors. There was no fire.
He hadn't heard sirens during the brief, frantic journey from his home to the school, hadn't met any other vehicles similarly racing to La Roche. The roads were deserted. And why should they be otherwise at that late hour when there really wasn't any blaze?
He shook his head, bewildered. Then saw the patrol car waiting just inside the gateway, lights and engine switched off. Childes shifted into first and gentled the Renault through the gates as if the police vehicle were some slumbering animal he had no wish to disturb. He pulled up alongside. The car was empty.
Wasn't it?
Then why the compulsion to leave his own car and look through the window of the other? And why the counter-compulsion to turn the hire-car around and flee from these forbidding, ill-defined grounds, their moonlight mastered by massed, scarcely-moving clouds?
Why indeed? spoke a low, mocking voice somewhere outside his own dimension.
The silvery patterns of cloud edges streaked the black sky like stilled lightning; a lively breeze swept in from the sea to unsettle leaves and branches; the headlights beamed a vignetted tunnel towards the tall, weighty buildings. Beyond any doubt, Childes knew he would look inside the patrol car, then drive up to the school itself, as though the rules had already been laid down for him, the pattern already set. His will was still his own, and he could deviate from the course at any time he chose, but a certain destiny had been predetermined. He would follow it through, but would not succumb. He prayed he would not succumb.
Childes left the Renault and walked around its bonnet to the other vehicle. He peered through the open window.
The policeman had slid down in his seat, his knees high behind the steering wheel. For one hysterically funny moment, Childes thought the man had fallen asleep, but the black stain spreading from his throat like an infant's bib onto his light-coloured shirt told otherwise. Even so, he reached in and nudged the policeman, careful not to touch the slick mess that was still seeping outwards. There was no response to the touch, as he knew there wouldn't be. He pulled at the handle and opened the door a fraction, just enough for the interior light to come on.
The uniformed man's chin rested on his chest so that the neck wound could not be seen. He was plump for a policeman, the overhead light throwing a shiny highlight on his balding head. His eyes were partially closed as though he were looking down, contemplating the inky crimson spoiling his shirt. Hands resting placidly at his sides, fingers unclawed, relaxed, they looked as if death had arrived too quickly for combat. He appeared in repose, unmindful of his fate.
Childes closed the door, its soft clunk the sound of a coffin lid falling into place. He leaned against the roof of the car, head bowed onto forearms. The victim, unaware, extreme violence rare in his career on the island, had been watching the school, the car's side-window open so that any inconsistent sounds could be heard.
Probably his attention had been focused upon the complex of buildings ahead, or/as well as the shrubbery surrounding them, not - for a few moments, at least - on the roadway behind. A knife, a razor - a sharp steel blade of some kind - had quietly thrust through the opening to slice his throat, deep and neat, the movement taking no more than two, perhaps three, seconds. Had the policeman cried out, the noise would have been no more than a throttled gurgling, all that the wound would have allowed.
It was here, in the school. The thing he knew only as Moon.
The notion curdled inside his lower stomach and the walls of his lungs became hardened, stiff, barely able to pump air. He raised his forehead from his arms and looked down the long drive, gravelly surface traced by the light beams, towards the buildings that now stood gaunt and sullen. Overcast.
The agonised moan was inside his head but did not come from him. It belonged to someone behind the doors of the tallest, grey building. Someone beyond those stout walls was in mortal terror.
And something in there was enjoying that terror.
Now, in the lower-floor windows of La Roche's main building, Childes saw a rapidly spreading orange glow, the fire no longer a precognitive vision of his mind, but there in reality before him.
44
Miss Piprelly lay on the floor, unable to move, her head twisted at a grotesquely odd angle.
She was conscious and she was terribly afraid. And she was aware in a strangely detached fashion - for there was no pain, only paralysis - that her neck was broken, the bones snapped easily by rough, powerful hands that had reached for her from the darkness outside as her legs had given way. In that one terrifying instant of confrontation, the principal had realised that the intruder had hidden outside the doors at the sound of her approach.
Miss Piprelly had not seen her assailant, had perceived only an image of bulk, black unremitting bulk, that shuffled forward to ensnare. Stale, noxious breath. A raspy, grunting satisfaction. The twisting - the snapping - of her own neck column when her head, viced between palms as hard and grazing as rock, was sharply turned sideways. The ungainly moving away of the raven form, clump, clump, on bare floorboards. Its return. The splashing of liquid over her clothes, her body, smooth coldness running through her hair; shutting her eyes against the wetness.
Lying there, limbs useless, her voice only a weakened garbling. The stinging of her eyes as fluid drained from her forehead into them. Blinking - at least she could blink her eyelids - clearing her sight, but t
he burning sensation still there, impeding her vision.
Then just able to see the lumbering shape at the end of the corridor, and crying out in dread, the sound inside her own head, unable to be released.
The sudden and distant flare that was a match being struck. Its slow, plunging fall to the floor, the bright effulgence as the petrol exploded into flame.
The creature lit by the fire, smiling… grinning… grinning at her!
The flame snaking fast - so very, very fast - along the corridor towards her own soaked, unmoving body…
45
The fire was all but consuming the ground floor, the conflagration widening before Childes' eyes as he raced towards the buildings, flames eager to gorge themselves on the old, dry timber inside. Window after window became a fierce reddish orange. At the blaze's core glass had already began to burst outwards with the heat. As he drew near he saw the shimmering glow was quickly moving upwards to the first floor. Ringing of alarm bells, set off by smoke sensors, came faintly to him.
His footing almost skidded away as the surface beneath changed from gravel to night-damp grass; he recovered, scarcely breaking stride, and pounded across the circular lawn of the school's turnaround drive. La Roche's sculptured founder impassively watched the burning, his countenance taking on a ruddy glow.
Childes leapt the few steps to the main entrance, expecting the double-doors to be locked, yet, because they were the easiest access to the stairway, having to try that way first. He pushed at a metal handle and to his surprise one half of the doors swung inwards. A scorching blast of heat sent him spinning sideways, his back coming to rest against the closed section.
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