Raising Arcadia

by Simon Chesterman

  “Well if there’s been a kidnapping then you’re not going near that school,” Mother declared.

  “Come now, Mother,” she replied, “today is going to be about as safe as the school can get. Some of Britain’s finest patrolling the grounds. You have nothing to worry about.” She did not add that a repeat actor would be more consistent with a murderer than a kidnapper: the last time they discussed serial killers at breakfast had caused Mother to have palpitations. She kept the observation to herself.

  It still took some time to persuade her parents that she could, in fact, go to school. In the course of the conversation, she variously promised not to speak to strangers, not to leave the school grounds, and not to put herself in danger. At last Father agreed to drop her off on the way to work — a little later than usual but probably acceptable in the circumstances.

  Now, having deposited her duffel bag and violin in the dormitory, she walks along the paved path towards Hall. It crosses the grassy quadrangle, intersecting the path to the classrooms that she and her parents followed the previous Friday. The footprints that she saw that night are no longer visible, but a second, fresh set of prints that also cut diagonally across the grass can be seen — leading from a dishevelled climbing ivy at the base of the sandstone dormitory building.

  She is about to look more closely when the first of nine bells rings, indicating that assembly is about to start. She quickens her pace as the second bell sounds, past the open door to Chapel, where Jesus stares down at the nave from his Crucifix. The third through fifth ring as she bolts up the stairs. She walks through the huge oaken doors to the sixth, and by the eighth has taken her place with her class, next to a pasty-faced boy only slightly taller than she but twice her girth.

  “Just in time, Arcadia?” the boy beams at her, elbowing her painfully in the ribs. Sebastian, one of the least pleasant of her classmates, has a penchant for stating the obvious. She is about to reply when the ninth bell rings. At the front of Hall, Mr. Ormiston is standing before the lectern. At a nod from him, the school organist plays a few introductory bars, the students rise, and launch into a sombre rendition of “God Save the Queen”.

  God save our gracious Queen!

  Long live our noble Queen…

  The bobbing heads make identification tricky, but her own class is accounted for. Except for one mop of blond hair.

  Send her victorious,

  Happy and glorious…

  She cranes her neck to look at the seats nearest the oak doors in case he arrived after she sat down. No.

  Long to reign over us:

  God save The Queen!

  As the last line fades, Mr. Ormiston switches on the microphone at the lectern. A squeal of feedback causes a wince and a glare at the boys handling the audio at the back of the room. He quickly composes himself. “You may take your seats. Headmaster will now say a few words.”

  Mr. Ormiston steps back and the white-haired Headmaster rises from his ornate carved chair. Wearing a tailored suit, he is the picture of English respectability, down to a chin whose near absence suggests genetic connections to a noble line. He looks at the assembled group, scanning row by row as if to make eye contact with as many of his charges as possible.

  “Ladies, gentlemen, it is a troubling day for the Priory School,” he begins. “Earlier this morning we discovered an open window on the second floor of the dormitory building. A boy is missing.”

  Although the whispered news had already made its way through the serried ranks before the start of assembly, its confirmation by Headmaster still causes a gasp.

  “At present we are cooperating with the police, who are looking into the matter. I want to assure each and every one of you that you are perfectly safe.” Headmaster gives them a kindly smile, but it fades a little too quickly. “As a precaution, we have increased security, supplementing the private company that has long served the school with some of Her Majesty’s Constabulary.”

  He brushes a stray lock of white hair back into place before continuing. “Many of you know Henry well” — so it is the blond mop of hair — “I myself spoke with him only last Friday. You may be worried about him. Please do not. The very best men and women in the land are working to find him and bring him back to us. I am optimistic that this will happen very soon. But if any of you have information that may help us, please let me or one of the other teachers know. We will be concluding assembly early, so if you have any information do come up and share it.”

  Another reassuring smile, turning to Mr. Ormiston who quickly echoes it. Headmaster continues: “This is a difficult time for all of us. But it is important that you all continue going about your business. So no tears, no fears. That is all.”

  Headmaster takes his seat and Mr. Ormiston goes over other, more mundane announcements concerning sports practices and the concert taking place on Wednesday. There is nothing further about the missing boy, Henry. But it is odd that they are asking for help from the students themselves. Clearly the school, and presumably the police, have very little to go on indeed.

  When they are dismissed, a jabbing at her ribs reminds her that her tardiness getting to assembly left her sitting next to Sebastian.

  “It’s a shame,” Sebastian is saying — he has adopted a tone of mock sorrow, but is clearly setting up some kind of joke. “It’s a shame — that it wasn’t you that got spirited away, eh Arcadia? Because you’re kind of arsking for that, aren’t you, Arsey? Eh? Am I right?” The pasty-faced boy looks around as if expecting applause. He has clearly spent much of the morning thinking this up.

  “How I miss you on the weekends when I’m at home, Sebastian,” she replies. She hesitates, as it is unlikely that the boy actually has any information. But it is possible that he knows more than what Headmaster has shared. “But tell me, Sebastian: do we know what happened to Henry?”

  “Well,” says Sebastian, savouring a rare occasion on which he may know more about something than another person. “Last night, around midnight, there was a creaking sound as Henry’s window was opened from the outside. Someone silently sneaks into his room — ninja style — and then carries him off to who knows where.”

  “How do we know that it was opened from the outside?”

  Sebastian rolls his eyes. “Well no one is going to break in from the inside, are they?”

  She pauses, determining how to ask a question simple enough for Sebastian to understand without sounding so condescending that the boy is offended. “I mean, why do they think that he was kidnapped at all?”

  Sebastian leans in towards her conspiratorially: “Because there was a ransom note. Left in his room, on his desk. I hear it asked for a million pounds to get him back.”

  A ransom note written before a kidnapping has taken place? Possible, but against type. It appears that Sebastian knows nothing else and the lack of students heading down to see Mr. Ormiston or Headmaster suggests that there is not much more information to be had.

  She reviews what she does know. Henry is in her class and a taciturn boy; built lightly as she herself is. His parents are wealthy but rarely come to the school. His father travels a great deal for work, Henry once said, though it is likely that this is not the only reason for the infrequent visits. During letter-writing periods Henry typically scribbles something cursory and then immerses himself in a book.

  Though “friends” might be too strong a word, Henry and she have developed a nodding acquaintance based in part on their tendency to frequent little-used sections of the library. Henry has an abiding interest in fish of all kinds, which the library locates adjacent to its paltry collection of books on poisonous snakes and reptiles. The Dewey Decimal system has in this way led them to spend occasional hours in a quiet corner of the library, immersed in their respective passions and away from the noise of their peers.

  Boys and girls are now beginning to stream noisily from Hall towards their classes. She joins the flow, peeling off at the quadrangle when she sees the young constable from the gate on the g
rass near the climbing ivy. Careful to avoid the footprints, she walks across to where the officer is adjusting the police tape that now cordons off the ivy and a few square yards of the adjacent grass.

  “Good morning,” she says to the constable, who looks at her suspiciously. “Need a hand?”

  “No thank you,” the policeman finishes with the tape and prepares to leave.

  “It’s just that I thought you would have wanted to cordon off a larger area. The footsteps continue in this direction for another ten yards.”

  A sigh. “Yes, lass, but they quickly reach the path and so are not much help. Here we have what we need: sufficient prints to get an estimate of height and weight and — and why am I even talking to you? The detectives will be here soon enough.”

  She nods in sympathy. Says nothing, but continues to nod and, as is human nature, after five such nods the officer feels compelled to say something more. “You’ve got nothing to worry about lass.”

  Kind, but not useful. “Thank you, Constable. But if you want I can give you an estimate of the height and weight.”

  “Really?” A patronising smile crosses the officer’s face. “Do tell.”

  “Yes. I would say about five feet four inches and seven stone.”

  The officer frowns, mind ticking over. “That’s a pretty small kidnapper.”

  “But within the normal distribution for a sixteen-year-old boy.”

  “I can see you don’t know much about criminal investigation. Can you see this footprint here?” Next to the ivy is a clear print of a man’s running shoe. “That’s a size nine or ten shoe. Does your sixteen-year-old friend normally wear shoes that big?”

  “It’s a size ten and no he doesn’t normally wear such shoes. They would be uncomfortably large and quite impractical for running. Nonetheless, it seems fairly clear that he made the prints himself.”

  The officer is still smiling, but uncertainty has crept into his voice. “Why do you say that?”

  “Well, what’s your theory at present? Kidnapper climbs up ivy, sneaks into room, drugs the boy, leaves a pre-written ransom note, carries the boy out the window, and then leaves a nice clear set of prints to find?”

  Silence indicates that much of this is close to the mark.

  “So let us review the flaws in this picture. First, it’s a bold kidnapper who writes a note in advance of the actual kidnapping. If the kidnapping had to be aborted it would be evidence to be used against him. But I concede that it is possible. Secondly, however, look at the climbing ivy. There is no way that a man could climb down it carrying anything. In fact I doubt there is even a way in which a man could climb up it to the window. Given the current state of the ivy it’s obvious that the primary damage to it was from someone climbing down. But thirdly, and most importantly, your key piece of circumstantial evidence has one major flaw.”

  “Oh, and what’s that then?”

  “The footsteps only lead away from the dormitory. Add to that the fact that they are clearly too shallow to have been made by a full-grown man, let alone a man carrying a sixteen-year-old boy — even a small one — and this looks less like a kidnapping and more like an escape.”

  “An escape? From what?”

  She ponders this. “That I do not know. But the tracks go in the same direction as footsteps that I saw on this lawn on Friday night. Those were a little clearer and went from the dormitory across to the edge of the woods. I think that might have been a practice run for the real thing last night.”

  “So you’re saying you think that this lad ran away?”

  “It appears more likely than your kidnapping scenario. But if the story about the ransom note is true, then he went to some lengths to make it look like a kidnapping — including procuring a larger pair of shoes to make it appear that he had been taken.” She sniffs in disapproval. “If Henry had been serious about this he should have made heavier tracks going to the dormitory and back, as well as propped up a ladder so that the carried-out-the-window theory could withstand some scrutiny.”

  “Yes, it’s a shame that he didn’t consult you first.” The officer sees the logic in her deductions, but is perhaps unsettled by her suggestions as to how Henry might have improved the fake kidnapping. “So if he climbed out himself then where was he going?”

  She pauses. “The tracks on Friday led into the woods. I’m assuming you have an alert out to look for him at nearby railway stations?” Again, silence indicates agreement. “So it would be risky for him to try to take public transport any great distance. But these woods go for a couple of miles before you get to the other side. There’s a stream that would be difficult to cross at this time of year, though there are plenty of places to hide. If Friday was a proper rehearsal then he may have gone all the way to where he planned to conceal himself. Henry enjoys camping in general and fishing in particular. My guess is that he may be planning to stay in the woods for a little while as he contemplates what to do next.”

  She starts walking across the lawn towards the woods. When there are no accompanying footsteps behind her, she turns. “I promised my parents that I wouldn’t leave the school grounds alone. Actually I promised them that I wouldn’t leave the grounds at all, but I think that if I am accompanied by a police officer then they would understand. Come to think of it, I also promised them that I wouldn’t talk to strangers — but again I think that a police officer constitutes an exception. So are you coming?”

  She continues walking and smiles as a heavy sigh is followed by brisk footsteps that catch up with her as she reaches the edge of the woods. A well-trodden path leads in — little hope of finding usable prints there. But for a good half-mile there are no forks and the undergrowth on either side is undisturbed.

  When they reach a point at which the path intersects with a wider trail, they stop. “OK, lass,” the police officer says. “I think we should probably head back and share what you’ve told me with the detectives. They should be arriving any minute. I’m just here with a couple of the lads to protect the crime scene and keep the press out.”

  “Yes of course,” she replies, but at the same time she is scanning the ground. Moving across the intersection she mentally divides the area into squares and checks each for prints or disturbances of any kind. Annoyingly, the wider trail is used by cyclists and the occasional horse. She is about to concede defeat when she at last spies a clear print in some damp ground on the continuation of the path beyond the intersection. She calls the constable over.

  “That’s nothing like the print at the bottom of the building,” the officer says with frustration. “You’re wasting my time — and I’m going to get it for leaving the school grounds.”

  “Look more closely,” she says, pressing her own foot into the mud next to the footprint. “That’s a size five men’s hiking boot. Once he was clear of the school grounds he would have changed into his own shoes.” She sees that the constable still doubts. “Officer, there are no other prints nearby. How many teenagers do you think have been out hiking alone in the past twelve hours?”

  She sets off down the path. Another sigh, and once again the footsteps follow her further into the wood.

  “This friend of yours. Why do you think he would run away?”

  They have been walking for around twenty minutes now, the officer at last breaking the silence.

  “I’m not sure,” she replies truthfully. “Henry is a fairly quiet boy, no real enemies at school. The teachers are tough on him — but they’re tough on everyone. He doesn’t get along well with his parents, who are either in the process of getting divorced or should probably start thinking about it. Psychologically he appears stable enough — the rehearsal of his escape suggests that this was planned rather than spontaneous. Though it isn’t clear what his next step would be after making it into the woods. His family is wealthy, but a teenager can only get so far travelling by himself before drawing attention. I should know.”

  The policeman lets this pass. “Does he have friends or relatives wh
o live nearby? Anywhere he might be heading to?”

  “Not that I know of. As I’ve told you, however, he is knowledgeable about camping and fish. My guess is that he’s somewhere near the river, which shouldn’t be too far from here.”

  The path bends and the trees begin to thin. They hear the river before they see it, the path winding towards a narrow point in its flow that causes turbulence in the water, a rushing sound that grows louder as they approach. Then the path ends abruptly at the water’s edge, with a bench from which to admire the view.

  “That’s it?” The officer is getting frustrated again, doubtless fearing that he will be disciplined for having followed a teenage girl on a wild goose chase. “There’s no bridge, no road?”

  “As I said, given his interest in fishing and camping I think he’s most likely staying somewhere near here. There is a rough trail that follows the river downstream and if you look carefully you will see another print from the same pair of boots. Not too far now, I think.”

  They set off down the smaller trail. It is only a few minutes before she stops and puts a finger to her lips, urging the police officer to quieten his clomping steps. She points off to the side of the trail, where a sheet of green tarpaulin has been hung over a rope lashed between two trees. Inside the simple shelter are a sleeping bag, a thermos, a flashlight, and a fishing rod. A small backpack has recently been used as a pillow. There is no sign of a boy, but a rustling in the trees too heavy to be a bird gives him away.

  “You can come down now, Henry,” she says without raising her head.

  There is a pause, then more rustling, and a boy with matted blond hair clambers down from a nearby birch. He has not slept well and mud covers some of the freckles on his cheek. Interestingly, he appears both upset and relieved to have been found.

  “I should have known it would be you,” Henry says to her. He glances at the constable. “You didn’t need to bring the fuzz.”