"I said sorry," he muttered.
Mac snorted. "I'm afraid sorry just isn't going to do. You are accused of a criminal offence of the most heinous type and you must answer for it before the court."
"So sorry," he whispered again, and his head slumped forward as his shoulders began to heave. He began to sob.
Mac was unmoved.
"Do I take it to understand that you are throwing yourself upon the mercy of this court, Colonel?"
But the only sound that came from Bates was a deep, hoarse moan.
"In which case we shall retire to consider our verdict."
As Mac rose Bates looked up and began to speak.
"All I wanted," he sobbed, "was to help."
"Well I think that..."
"All I wanted," Bates interrupted, "was to look after them. To make them safe, to protect and care for them, that's all I ever wanted, even before. But it was always so hard. They never understood what I was doing, never understood that it was all for their own good. Never understood. Nobody ever understood."
He started to speak more loudly now, passionately pleading with us to understand his choices and failures.
"Do you know what it's like to try and help someone who doesn't want to be helped? Do you? To try and persuade them that you know best? It's impossible. But it was my job, my duty, I couldn't just give up, could I? I had to make them see. I had to keep them safe. 'Arm ourselves', I said. 'The school will be safe', I said. 'Sanctuary', I said. But they wouldn't believe me. Wouldn't do things my way. Had to challenge me, always had to challenge me. Undermine, countermand, mock and ignore. All I wanted, all I ever wanted, was to be a hero, their hero."
Mac started to giggle. A man was falling to pieces in front of him and the sick bastard actually thought it was funny.
"And now I never will be, will I?" Bates looked up at Mac again, suddenly clear-eyed and focused. "Because you're going to kill me, aren't you, Mac?"
Mac met his gaze, but said nothing.
"Yeah, of course you are," said Bates. "You've been building up to this from the moment you arrived. Just biding your time, waiting for me to make a mistake. Well, good for you. Good for you. Made it easy for you really, didn't I? Got it wrong every step of the way and you just let me get deeper and deeper into the shit until it was time to make your move. And now you've got your lackeys and your weapons and your army. But what are you going to do with it all? What's the point of all the power? Do you even have a point, or is it just for its own sake, just because you can? You don't care for these boys, you don't care for their wellbeing or safety. You just want to be in control of them. And now you are. My fault, again. My fault."
He took a deep breath and calmed the final sobs that had interspersed his little speech. He raised his bound hands and wiped his eyes and nose on his sleeve, sat upright and stared straight ahead, trying to find some final shreds of dignity.
"Before you pass sentence I want to make a final request." He turned his gaze to me. "I don't know why you're allying yourself with this bastard, Keegan, but I've been watching you and I think you're better than this." Oh shit, thanks. Blow my cover, why don't you? "I want you to do something for me, if you can."
"What's that then?" I tried to sound casual and unconcerned. Mustn't let Mac know how much I was hating this.
"I want you to find my sons and tell them what's happened."
"What?" I couldn't keep the surprise out of my voice. "They're alive?"
"Oh yes, they're alive. What, you thought I'd buried them? No, they were both O-neg. But they weren't mine. Carol and I adopted. Pure chance they had the same blood type. All I ever wanted... sorry. Anyway, find them. Apologise for me. They're with their mother at a farm just north of Leeds. Ranmore Farm, it's on the maps."
"So why did you come back here? What happened?" asked Mac, intrigued, in spite of himself.
"They left me." He gave a bitter laugh. "I was the luckiest man in the world, you see. Only child, so no brothers or sisters to lose. Both my parents already dead. My wife and kids all immune. My whole family, everyone I loved, survived The Cull. Luckiest man in the world. But then... they just left me. No reason left to pretend, she said. Not our real dad anyway, they said. And gone. All I ever wanted was to make them safe, be a hero to them, to my boys. But they hated me. All that love and now... just... nothing."
Suddenly Bates was transformed, suddenly he made sense. I felt desperately, achingly sorry for him.
"Wow," laughed Mac. "You're an even bigger loser than I thought!"
"Yes," said Bates, thoroughly broken. "I suppose I am."
"Well, the sentence is death, obviously. But I need a bit of time to consider how, so we'll just bung you back in a locked room for a bit while I work it out, yeah?"
While Bates languished under lock and key and Mac worked out which form of painful death most took his fancy, the day proceeded as normal. Norton wheeled me back to the San where I was still sleeping, despite Matron's incarceration.
"She's in one of the rooms upstairs," Norton said. He'd been snooping around for me, trying to find out where she was being kept. "Mac's old room, actually. The door's not locked as far as I can tell, but he's got Wolf-Barry on guard outside."
"Has she... has anything..." I couldn't quite bring myself to put my fears into words.
"I only found out where she was this morning, and as far as I know no-one's been in to see her since. But I don't know about last night, Lee."
I didn't want to think about what Mac might have done to her. I recalled the mysterious bruise on Mac's cheek.
Norton handed me the two Brownings that he'd hidden for me and I pocketed them both.
"Right, we need to get Wolf-Barry away from that door. I need to get in there."
"I might have an idea how we can do that," said Norton. "You might even call it a plot. But how are you going to manage? You can barely walk."
I lifted my good leg off the wheelchair rest and placed it on the floor, levering myself upright. I gingerly put my bad leg down and allowed it to take the tiniest fraction of my weight. Not so bad. A bit more. Bearable. I tried a step and it was like someone had shoved a hot metal bar straight through my calf. I grunted in pain and clenched my jaw. But I could do it. I had to.
Norton looked at me doubtfully.
"Piece of cake," I lied.
With the arrival of winter the school had become bitterly cold, and fires were kept burning in most grates throughout the day. Norton snuck into the dorm along the corridor from where Matron was being kept and nudged one of the logs out of the grate and onto the floor where it began to smoulder on the old waxed floorboard. The dorm door was open so we were counting on Wolf-Barry smelling the fire and raising the alarm before it really took hold. Last thing we wanted was to burn the school down.
Norton wafted the fumes towards the door then nipped out the dorm's back door and down the fire escape. It didn't take long for Wolf-Barry to cotton on, and he ran off shouting. I had managed to hop my way up the back stairs and as soon as he was out of sight I pushed open the stairwell door and hopped to Matron's room. I tried to ignore the blood that was beginning to trickle down my wounded leg, and the spots that were appearing at the edge of my vision.
I pushed the door - not locked, thank Christ - and lurched into the room. It was only my unsteady footing that saved me from receiving a floorboard to the face.
"Hey, hey, it's me, Lee," I whispered urgently.
Matron was stood just inside the door holding her improvised weapon. Her face was one big bruise. One eye was swollen shut, her lips were blue and bulbous. There was blood underneath her nose, which bulged where I think it had been broken. Her clothes were torn, too. She was breathing hard and her teeth were bared and bloody.
"What kept you, Lee? Come to take your turn?"
No time to dwell on what that implies. Focus. Concentrate. Things to do.
"Matron, we need to get you out of here now."
"And why should I trust you? They told m
e, you're his loyal second-in-command now!" She was fighting back tears, her words coming out in a furious mix of anger and pain.
There was no time to explain myself. The corridor would be swarming in seconds. I pulled one of the handguns from my pocket and held it out to her.
"Take it."
She looked down at it, confused.
"Take it!"
She dropped the floorboard, grabbed the gun and then looked up at me. I couldn't read the expression on her wrecked face.
"Now come on!" I grabbed her hand and turned, gently pushing the door open as I did so. But we'd lingered too long. There was already a crowd of boys arguing over which colour of fire extinguisher they should use. Norton was nearest the door, bathed in a dim orange light, trying to take control but also keeping an eye out for our escape. Not only was he providing a distraction for us, he wanted to be closest to the danger, didn't want anyone else getting burnt because of his actions. My admiration for him grew hugely.
I pulled Matron behind me and dashed for the stairwell. We feel through the door and it closed behind us. We'd made it unseen.
It was only when I stopped inside the door that I realised I had run along the landing. Adrenalin is a great painkiller, but I knew I'd pay for that later. I could hear footsteps coming up the stairs below us; someone taking the back route to the fire. Matron and I flew down the flight of stairs and flung ourselves through the door of the next floor down, just in time to avoid being seen.
My leg buckled underneath me, and Matron helped me along the corridor to the San, which was almost directly beneath the burning dormitory. Smoke was beginning to seep through the ceiling from above.
"We don't have much time," I said. "Someone will be coming to get me to safety soon. They can't find you here and they mustn't suspect that I can walk yet. Help me into bed." Matron did so, and her hands came away from my leg covered in blood. She gasped.
"Lee, you must let me see to this, you could be crippled."
"No time. Now take the gun and go. Run. Find somewhere and hole up. This school isn't safe for you any more and I can't deal with Mac if he has you hostage. So go, please."
She hefted the Browning. Then she popped out the clip, checked it was loaded, slammed it home, cocked the gun, chambered a round and slipped off the safety catch. She knew exactly what she was doing. How the hell was a boarding school matron so familiar with a firearm?
"I'm not going anywhere." She was breathing hard and even through the bruises there was no mistaking the look of fury and determination on her face.
"And what are you going to do?" I demanded. "Shoot them all? You don't stand a chance. There are six of them, not to mention Mac, and after what they've done do you think they'll hesitate to shoot you? This school needs you - I need you - to be safe, so that when we finally get rid of that fucker you're there to help us pick up the pieces."
Her eyes burned with hatred, but I could see she was beginning to hesitate. I pressed my advantage.
"If you go after him now you'll be dead within the hour. Or worse - locked up again. Please, just run."
She hesitated, her hand upon my arm. If I'd been in her shoes I don't know if I'd have been able to beat down the desire for vengeance, but somehow I got through to her. I looked up at her ruined face and saw tears of frustration welling out of her swollen eyes.
I had so much I wanted to say to her but this was not the time.
"Please, Jane, just run. Be safe."
She leaned down and kissed me gently on the lips.
"You too," she said, and ran out the door.
I thought she'd make straight for freedom, but once again I'd underestimated her determination. In fact she took refuge in a deserted classroom until the early hours of the morning and then crept out to implement her plan.
The boys were sleeping in five dorms of about ten each, and each dorm had one officer sleeping there as well, as a deterrent against night-time escape attempts. But the four girls who had taken shelter at the school slept in their own dorm, along with the old aunt and one grandmother. They were unguarded and in a different part of Castle to the boys.
Under cover of darkness Matron snuck in, woke them, got their bags packed and provided armed escort as they slipped silently out of the school and into the night. Although prepared to forgo her revenge, she nonetheless ensured that no other girl or woman would have to endure what she had.
When I found out about Matron's night raid I couldn't help but smile. She was certainly audacious. I didn't want to think about where she and the girls were going or how they'd fare. All I knew was that they were safer elsewhere, and were one less factor I had to consider when it came to planning Mac's downfall.
However, I needed Matron's medical skills more than ever; my leg was wrecked. The stitches had split, the wound was oozing blood and the pain was unspeakable. I started to worry about things like gangrene and amputation. I did the best I could to sort myself out with antiseptic, fresh stitches and dressings.
Have you ever stitched your own wound? I don't recommend it. Once I was finished I lay back and hoped for the best. With any luck I'd be able to stay off it for a while now, and would be able to let it heal.
The big question now was what would happen to Bates. We got our answer the next morning, and it was worse than anything I could have imagined.
Behind the main school building were two sports pitches and a cricket square, all ringed by woods. The school had favoured rugby over football, and there were huge H-shaped rugby posts at either end of each pitch. Mac had a detail of boys cut down one of the rugby goals, dismantle it and reassemble it in the shape of a cross, which lay flat, ready to be re-erected using one of the vacated postholes.
He was going to crucify Bates.
"We can't let this happen," said Norton, urgently, when the truth became apparent. We were sitting in the San staring out of the window at the ghastly construction and all it represented. "If we let him do this then... I don't know what. But it ain't good."
"And how do you suggest we stop him?" I replied. "He has a cadre of permanently armed boys who are fiercely loyal. At first through stupidity and now, after what they did to Matron, they're as guilty as he is and they know it. He owns them and I don't think they'll hesitate to shoot any one of us dead if Mac orders it. Not now."
Norton nodded. "I've asked around, as discreetly as I can, but no-one saw anything that night. I can't find out which boys went into that room."
Alone in the San, my mind focused by the pain, I'd had plenty of time to dwell on what had happened to Matron. "Come to take your turn?" she'd asked. At first the implication of that question made me sick with horror, but then, as the long night wore on that disgust turned into a deep burning pit of anger, a fury I didn't know I had it in me to feel. It changed me. It made things simple.
"Then we assume they all did," I said. "Every one of those bastards is responsible for what happened to Matron, and every single one of them will pay for it. They crossed a line when they went into that room. He initiated them."
I was actually grateful for being bedridden, and that gratitude made me guilty. Had I been expected to participate I would have either gotten myself killed trying to prevent it, or been forced to take part at the point of a gun. I knew this, but still I felt that I should have been there to protect her, that I could have done something, anything.
"They're like him now," I went on. "He's made them that way, and we mustn't underestimate any one of them. They're loyal and stupid and, we now know, capable of pretty much anything. We have to be so careful. Play the long game."
"Bates won't be around that long."
"No," I admitted, matter of fact. "He probably won't be."
Norton looked at me askance.
"So we do nothing? We just let them do this?"
I looked at the cross and considered my options.
"No. No, we don't. But I can only see one course of action that doesn't get us crucified too. I don't like it, and neither will you."
All the blood drained from Norton's face as I told him what I wanted him to do.
"Coming to join the party?" asked Mac, as he pushed the wheelchair to my bedside. "I promise you, son, it's gonna be massive!"
"Wouldn't miss it for the world, sir." I smiled my most feral smile and for the first time it didn't feel forced or fake. I felt like a hunter, felt that ruthlessness, that focus, that calm.
"Attaboy, Lee." He playfully punched me on the arm and then helped me into the chair. I didn't bother disguising my discomfort and pain; if my plan didn't work and I had to resort to plan B, I would need Mac to know just how bad my leg really was.
"Still bad, eh?"
"Yeah. Little bit. Wish Matron was here, I don't want it going gangrenous."
"That bitch is long gone, but we'll find her. Just for you Lee, we'll find her."
He pushed me out the door and down the corridor to the stairs, where Patel was waiting to help carry me down.
"Actually, Lee, you missed some fun the other night, y'know."
Staying calm in the face of moments like this was becoming easier; the anger gave me more control.
"Really? What was that then?"
We reached the top of the stairs and Patel took the front wheels.
"What do you say, Patel? The other night. Quality times, yeah?"
Patel looked momentarily uncomfortable, but it might just have been the weight of the chair.
"Yes sir. Top quality," he replied.
"We taught that bitch a lesson all right. Let her know who's in charge around here. You should've been there, Lee. I reckon you always fancied her, am I right? Shame you missed your chance to take a pop, yeah?"
I fantasised about taking a knife, driving it deep into his beating heart and smiling into his dying eyes.
"Now that," I said enthusiastically, "would have been worth getting gangrene for!"
Mac and Patel laughed. All three of us, partners in crime.
We reached the bottom of the stairs and I was wheeled out through the courtyard to the back field.
School's Out Page 8