by Tony Parsons
Flocks of boys drifted past. They wore straw boaters – the hats on the older boys threadbare and falling to pieces – green blazers trimmed with purple and light grey trousers. All of them lugged books or sports gear or both.
‘It hasn’t changed since Hugo Buck and Adam Jones were here in the eighties,’ Mallory said. ‘A thousand pupils. All boys. All boarding. Three resident staff in every boarding house – House Master, house tutor and matron.’
We paused to look at the statue of the school’s founder in the courtyard of the main building. Not Henry VIII as a fat, bearded king, but as a long-haired scholar and athlete, a lean young man clutching a book, two stone spaniels at his feet – the King Henry VIII who wouldn’t hurt a fly.
‘And it probably hasn’t changed very much since he founded the place,’ Mallory added. ‘Did you know he buried his greatest love here in the school grounds?’
‘What wife was that, sir?’
‘Not a wife. His dogs.’ Mallory indicated the spaniels. ‘Henry buried his favourite dogs at Potter’s Field. We should have a look at their grave. I wouldn’t want to miss it.’
Five hundred years. I couldn’t imagine anything lasting for five hundred years. I was always happy to make it to the weekend.
There was a small graveyard behind the church chapel. Crumbling tombstones, many of the inscriptions wiped clean by time and weather. But the grave of the dogs was easy to find. It was a large square tomb in the very centre of the graveyard with a short epitaph.
Brothers and sisters,
I bid you beware
Of giving your heart
To a dog to tear.
As we walked back to the main buildings a coach was unloading visitors from a local state school’s rugby team. The state school kids grinned with bewildered amusement at the boys from Potter’s Field in their boaters and their green and purple blazers. But the Potter’s Field boys gave no indication that they had noticed, which made the smiles on the faces of the state school kids look like some kind of defensive wound.
A towering man in a gown moved among the visitors, nodding and smiling at nobody in particular with his hands behind his back, like royalty inspecting Third World troops. I had seen him before – the impossibly tall man at the funeral of Hugo Buck.
‘That’s the Head Master,’ Mallory said. ‘He’s expecting us.’
Peregrine Waugh, Head Master of Potter’s Field College, stood at the window of his study and stared across the playing fields.
‘Three Prime Ministers, twelve Victoria Crosses and four Nobel Prizes,’ he said. ‘Two in physiology and two in physics. Fifteen Olympic medallists, forty-four Members of Parliament and six BAFTAs. Our drama department has always been very active. The boys were treading the boards, as it were, long before the first Old Etonian was admitted to RADA.’
‘And two murders,’ I said.
He stared at me over his rimless glasses.
‘What’s that?’ he barked.
‘Hugo Buck and Adam Jones,’ Mallory said. ‘They were Potter’s Field old boys too.’
‘Yes, yes. A terrible tragedy. Both of them. Did you arrest anyone yet?’
‘Not yet,’ Mallory said.
Waugh returned to his desk with a release of breath that might have been a sigh.
‘Although Jones left the school under a cloud,’ he said. ‘And they are not the first old boys to be murdered, sadly. Persian chap in the seventies. Filthy rich. Oil money. Mistress clobbered him with an empty bottle of Bollinger on The Bishops Avenue.’ He offered us a thin smile. ‘Privilege is no guarantee of a happy life, or even a long one. And we do know we’re privileged at Potter’s Field, gentlemen. But we give something back, you know – it’s part of the Potter’s Field tradition. Part of our ethos. Always has been. Remembrance Day service. A carol concert for the people of the town. We pay for a street cleaner. Potter’s Field Lawn Tennis Club uses our courts. And the school’s facilities – the playing fields, the swimming pool – are used extensively by local schools and various charities.’
He rose from his chair and returned to the window.
‘In fact, I think – ah yes.’ He looked at us with a delighted smile. ‘Look.’
We joined him at the window, the great green playing fields of Potter’s Field spread out before us. They were deserted apart from three figures who hovered by the touchline of the nearest rugby field. There was a man in a wheelchair, another with a walking stick, and a third, their physiotherapist, was demonstrating a stretching exercise. They all wore T-shirts. The physio’s face looked somehow unnatural, as if he were wearing some kind of mask.
The man in the wheelchair had no legs. Where his legs should have been there was simply nothing. What looked like two white bowls were attached just below his waist. One of his arms was a far lighter colour than his black skin and it was only the weak sun glinting on a curved piece of metal where a hand had once been that made me understand he was wearing a prosthesis.
The man with a walking stick had also lost his legs. Or most of his legs. Two thin black poles stuck out of his long baggy blue shorts. What remained of his right leg had some kind of white bandage around the knee area. He appeared to need the stick to stand up but his upper body was incredibly muscular.
They were all laughing.
‘The British Army is still the biggest employer of Potter’s Field old boys,’ Waugh said. ‘Despite what the general public may think, not all the old boys go into investment banking in the City and the RSC in Stratford. We never forget our debt to our country.’
We watched the three men perform a few gentle exercises, the man in the wheelchair and the one with the stick taking their directions from the physio, the man who looked as though he was wearing a mask.
‘Splendid, splendid,’ Waugh said, turning away when he decided we had seen enough.
‘You knew them,’ Mallory said. It wasn’t a question. ‘You knew Hugo Buck and Adam Jones. When they were at Potter’s Field. You were here too, were you not? Twenty years ago. In fact, you were their House Master.’
‘Yes, yes,’ Waugh said. ‘Did I not mention that?’
Mallory let him fill the silence.
‘Buck and Jones were both in The Abbey. It’s the oldest and smallest house at Potter’s Field. Not the most obvious of friendships – the athlete and the musician. But sharing a house throws boys together.’
‘Could you explain the role of a House Master at Potter’s Field?’ I said.
Waugh sniffed.
‘A boarding school is really just a day school with hotels attached,’ he said. ‘The House Master is in charge of the hotel where the boys live. He assumes a parental role – encouraging, supporting and making sure they participate fully in the life of the school. Disciplining when necessary.’ The thin smile. ‘Although of course there’s not so much of that these days. Boys don’t get flogged and they don’t learn so much. So what they gain at one end they lose at the other.’
There were bird-like noises from the far side of the playing fields.
‘Hark,’ said Waugh. ‘I believe Mr Philips and the boys are coming home.’
The soldiers saw it first.
Mallory and I had left the Head Master’s office and were standing on the touchline of the main rugby pitch, watching the state school boys getting thrashed by their hosts, not really noticing the boys as they poured out of the tree line, covered in mud, their thin limbs flying.
But the soldiers had stopped their gentle exercise regime and were staring. And then we saw it too.
The boys were crying.
They ran past us, some of them locked in silence as tears streamed down their faces, some of them making the animal noises of shocked grief.
I grabbed one of them by the arm.
‘What’s happened?’ I said.
‘Please, sir,’ he sobbed. ‘It’s Mr Philips, sir. Please, sir, someone’s killing him.’
Then Guy Philips came out of the tree line with his hands around his neck and
his white tracksuit livid with fresh blood. He stumbled across the playing fields, his legs on the edge of going, his eyes telling us that he was drowning.
We ran to meet him, and as he collapsed in Mallory’s arms, the blood began pumping out of his wound.
Mallory tore off his tie, already covered in blood, and I saw the wound, a far deeper red than the blood that was flowing. Then Mallory was winding the tie around the sports master’s ravaged throat, pressing it against the wound, trying to staunch the terrible flood, crouching beside him in the mud. Mallory had his phone in one hand but it slithered away from him, slick with blood.
And I heard him call my name as I began running towards the woods.
I was alone in the woods. I kept running until I came to an open field, as barren as the surface of the moon. There I stopped, finding my breath, uncertain if I should turn back to the woods or cross the ploughed field. There was a farm on the far side.
I saw the tree I was standing next to had a perfect bloody handprint on its trunk.
I looked across at the farm. There was nothing moving. And then something seemed to stir inside. There was a glimpse of a shadow. I didn’t know if it was my imagination or a man or a trick of the dying light. But I began jogging towards it.
There was some kind of square brick pen, crumbling with age, and as I paused by it I saw that the windows of the farmhouse had all been joyfully smashed. Nobody had lived here for years.
I leaned against the low brick wall and jolted when I heard the noise. Like a baby’s cry. I looked into the pen and I saw the pig. Its hind legs had been tied with some kind of twine, as if in preparation for slaughter, and fearing for its life it had crawled on its belly across the dirt of the pen. I stepped over some broken brickwork and crouched down beside the pig. It squealed with terror as I pulled at the twine with my bare hands until I had set it free. It scampered away, wild-eyed with panic.
And as I made to stand up there was a sudden explosion of pain at the back of my skull.
And then, following each other so closely that it felt like one blow, the inner edge of a forearm smashed into my throat and a fist hammered into the small of my back.
Now strong arms were around me, and he was right behind me, forcing my head back. He was near enough for me to kick him in the shins but I was suddenly not strong enough to do it, and he was close enough for me to rip his balls off, but suddenly I was too drained by shock and pain to even try.
Then he had me.
The palm of his left hand pulled hard against my right cheek, his fingertips pressing through the flesh and into my teeth as he twisted my face to one side. I looked down and glimpsed the knife.
The Fairbairn-Sykes commando dagger. The only knife ever designed to sever the carotid arteries of a man’s neck.
The long thin blade moved a fraction and the steel tip pressed into the side of my neck, found a muscle it didn’t like, edged forward, prodded the Adam’s apple for a moment and then slipped back to the fleshy, resistant part of my neck and settled there, pressing harder.
The knife broke my skin with a sharp prick of pain.
I could feel his steady breath on the back of my throbbing head.
The wet warmth of fresh blood slid down my neck.
I tried to drop my centre of gravity. Terrified now, I lashed out with the heels of my shoes. I fought him and I fought my exhaustion, I bit and I cursed, refusing to let either overwhelm me.
But he held me tighter, and I was weak with pain, and the tip of his knife went in deeper, and the blade was buried in my flesh now.
I felt myself sag in his arms.
‘Please,’ I said. ‘I have a daughter.’
He stopped.
The stump of metal at the knife handle’s base banged once against my right temple. And then once against my left temple. It must have put me out for a few seconds because the next thing I knew I was down on my knees, dizzy and sick.
‘Please,’ I said, and when I looked up I saw the bag.
A worn-leather Gladstone bag.
A Murder Bag.
Waiting for him on a dry patch of ground inside the pigpen.
A boot’s steel toecap slammed with full force into the base of my spine. The pain was blinding. I saw yellow light and exploding stars. I felt my back go into spasms of agony.
I realised I was screaming.
There were noises and lights but they were all inside my head. I dragged myself away on my hands and knees. I could not stand. I kept crawling. My muscles were paralysed slabs of pain and only my fear kept me moving. Time meant nothing but I knew it was passing because the ground changed beneath me, from the hard churned mud of the ploughed field to the carpet of dead leaves that covered the woods. And finally I was on grass. Now I heard voices that were not inside my head.
Then there was hot breath on the side of my face and I reared away in mortal panic.
‘Please,’ I said.
And I stared into the terrified face of the pig.
14
I LAY ON my bed in the darkness and the sound of my daughter playing with the dog in the main room edged me closer to sleep. It was a soothing sound, their play – Scout’s laughter like temple bells, and the soft padding of the dog as he chased after whatever chewed-up old toy she was trailing. But then another spasm of pain would grip my back and I would jolt awake.
When they found me at the edge of the playing fields they had taken me to the nearest A&E to Potter’s Field. The doctor wanted to keep me in overnight but that was impossible. I had to get home to Scout. So, after the usual routine – lights in the eyes, questions about being sick, checking for broken bones – the doctor reluctantly let a uniformed officer drive me home where Mrs Murphy took one look at me and packed me off to bed, saying she would call her family, take care of Scout and sleep on our sofa. For a night and a day I stayed in my bed, true rest always just out of reach, the pain never far away.
The tremors began at the bottom of my spine and rolled all the way to the base of my skull, and it was like every muscle in my back, shoulders and neck was clenching at once. At first the pain had an exact centre – the spot in my back where he had kicked me. But as the hours dragged by in that exhausting place between sleeping and waking, that centre point seemed to migrate, up to a shoulder, across to my ribs, to my neck, to the very middle of my back, as if it was seeking a happier home. I never knew where it would be next.
But the muscle spasms were the worst. They made me arch my back whenever another wave of blinding pain rolled through me. I almost cried out loud with the latest one.
‘Daddy?’
Scout was in the doorway. I thought I had frightened her. But she was holding the phone.
‘It’s some lady,’ she said.
I waited until she was in the other room and I could hear Mrs Murphy quietly talking to her, telling her they needed to fix her hair.
‘Wolfe,’ I said.
‘Scarlet Bush.’ I could hear the excitement in the reporter’s voice. ‘You met him. You met Bob the Butcher.’
‘I don’t know who I met.’
‘It has to be Bob.’
‘How did you get this number?’
‘We want to help you find him,’ she said. ‘My editor has spoken to our proprietor. We have his full backing to help you bring Bob the Butcher to justice.’
‘You stitched me up. Your bloody story put words in my mouth that I never said.’
She remained completely calm. ‘E. L. Doctorow said, “I am led to the proposition that there is no fiction or non-fiction as we commonly understand the distinction, there is only narrative.”’
‘You mean you make stuff up?’
‘Not quite. I mean there are facts and then there’s the truth.’ She paused. ‘Was that your little girl who answered the phone? Was that Scout?’
I struggled to contain my anger. ‘Never call my home again.’
‘Did you see his face?’
‘Never speak to my daughter.’
; ‘Did he talk to you?’
‘Stay right away from her.’
‘Did you say something to him?’
A spasm of pain clenched my back. I bit down against it, my mouth tight shut, and ragged breath came from my nose. It made the reporter feel like she was on to something.
‘You did, didn’t you?’
Please. I have a daughter.
Begging him.
Begging a murderer for my life.
Sick with the fear. Unmanned by the terror.
Please.
‘What did you say to him, detective? Did you reason with him? Did you threaten him? How did you feel? We are hearing reports about the murder weapon. Some kind of Special Forces knife? Old school.’ I could hear her tapping a keyboard. ‘A Fairbairn-Sykes commando dagger. Is that what you saw?’
I cursed under my breath. Where did they get this from?
‘One final question,’ she said. ‘Technical point. A third murder is the game changer, isn’t it?’ Her tone was lighter now. She was happy. ‘Because when we have three murders, it’s official: we have a serial killer. That’s true, isn’t it?’
I hung up.
Stan padded into the room and watched with interest as I tried to get dressed. He cocked his head to one side as I struggled to get my socks on. There was no longer enough give in my back for me to bend forward.
‘You’re not allowed in this room,’ I said. ‘Go on, Stan, get out.’
He lay down, still watching me. Sitting on the bed, I pulled my shirt on. Stan rested his chin on his front paws. I buttoned up the shirt and had another go at my socks. But it was no good. The muscles in my back were petrified.
Apparently bored with my pathetic efforts, the dog got up and yawned. Then he stretched, first lifting his tailbone in the air, his chest almost touching the ground, and then rocking forward on to his front legs, his hind legs and back almost a straight line.
Then he looked at me.