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 rested 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, its gravelly surface traced by the light beams, towards the buildings that now stood gaunt and sullen. Overcast.
The agonized 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.
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 realized 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 the 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 . . .
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 begun 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.
Shielding his eyes against the searing glare, his brown-rimmed glasses also acting as a thin barrier, Childes took a fast look back inside, skin on his hands and face immediately scalded by the exposure, breath torn, it seemed, from his throat by molten fingers. He staggered away again, varnish on the wood he had rested against beginning to bubble and crack, the door ready to ignite.
The stairway was ablaze. An
d closer, near to the entrance and within the flames, something black sizzled. Only briefly did he wonder whose body it was.
Childes wanted to run, to leave the grounds, to get away from there; afraid for himself, yet aware of the danger for those on the upper floors, the boarders and few members of staff who lodged at La Roche. The alarm bells would have aroused them by now and they would be confused, panic-stricken, their first thought to escape by the easily accessible main stairway, not knowing its lower reaches were already destroyed, perhaps fright and haste overcoming the carefully indoctrinated fire-drill they had rehearsed so often.
Before running to the rear of the building where the fire-exit was located, Childes reached into the inferno with one hand and grasped the door’s handle, shouting out in pain at the touch of scorched metal. Forcing himself to maintain a grip, he banged the door shut, knowing it was a small gesture to prevent a draught being sucked in to aid the flames in their journey up the staircase, but hoping the action might make some difference. The door bounced against its partner, the wood already warped from its original shape. Childes left it and jumped down the steps, running alongside the school, passing dazzling windows, ducking as glass shattered.
Turning the corner, coolness hit him like air from an opened freezer door, changing perspiration on his face into cold liquid drops. He was in darkness, no fire-glow on that side – yet. Areas of reflected light began appearing on the lawn as lights were switched on in dormitories and corridors. Feeling the wall to his left for guidance, Childes hurried forwards, turning a corner again, soon reaching the fire-door itself. Finding it already open, a glass pane smashed at waist level where a hand could be put through to pressure the lock bar inside.
Childes wasted no time pondering the who or the wherefore: he pushed his way in, reaching for the light-switch he knew to be nearby.
Acrid smoke had searched out that part of the building although, as yet, the swirling clouds were thin and nebulous. The alarms, so much louder inside, served to stoke his fear with their incessant shrill, but he forced himself onto the stone steps, taking them three at a time, jangled nerves reminding him of a similar upward flight only a few days before. This time, though, there was more than one life at stake.
Smoke grew thicker as he went and the crackling rumble of the fire itself could be heard. Then voices, footsteps descending, growing louder. More light from above, glimpses of movement on the stairs. Thank God, they were on their way down!
He paused on the first floor, both hands resting on the iron stair-rail, and scanned the corridor running off from that landing. The far end was an inferno, rolling flames filling the space from floor to ceiling. Sweltering heat roared from the passageway to wash over him.
Onwards. Foolish to stop, even for a second. Foolish to take time to consider the danger.
The voices were near, now perhaps only one flight above, and Childes continued to climb, smoke beginning to sting his eyes, the air itself becoming parched, somehow burnt dry, even though the heart of the blaze was some distance away. It made him wonder how much ground the fire had gained below. The first stumbling figures appeared above and he quickly covered the distance between them.
A girl of no more than ten or eleven tumbled into his arms, her face streaked with tears, the hem of her nightdress flapping loosely over bare ankles and feet.
‘You’re safe,’ he told her, looking over her head towards the other girls crowding behind. ‘You’ll soon be outside.’
‘Mr Childes, Mr Childes, is that you?’ came a breathless voice from somewhere in their midst.
A figure, taller than most of the girls, worked her way through. Like the pupils, she was in night attire and she clutched her dressing gown around her as if for protection against the mounting heat. Incongruously, she wore normal flat-heeled walking shoes. For a moment, he thought it might have been La Roche’s principal, but he quickly recognized Harriet Vallois, history tutor and one of the housemistresses.
‘Are all the girls out of their dormitories?’ he asked, shouting over the noise of the alarms and frightened girls; some of the girls were coughing into cupped hands because of the worsening atmosphere.
‘Matron and Miss Todd are checking,’ the teacher replied, a quivering of her lips suggesting that she, too, was close to tears. ‘They sent me on with this group.’
He clasped her shoulder, more to steady her than to comfort. ‘Is Miss Piprelly with them?’
‘N-no. I passed her rooms and knocked at her door, but there was no reply. I assumed she would have gone straight up to the dormitories, but . . . but there was no sign of her!’
The burning thing in the hallway!
Childes shuddered. The body might well have been that of the arsonist, destroyed by its own intent, caught in its own trap. He couldn’t really be sure that it had been Estelle Piprelly lying there, a frizzling lump of blackened meat; he couldn’t really be sure, yet somehow he was, somehow he had no doubts.
Harriet Vallois was looking back up the stairway, her eyes wild, desperate.
‘Get the girls out!’ he snapped, sharply increasing his grip on her arm. The sudden pain made her spin round towards him once more.
‘Get them out!’ he repeated, pulling her forward and handing over the girl still clinging to him. ‘Keep them all together and don’t stop for anything.’ Then, closer to her ear, ‘You haven’t got much time.’
Her alarm increased. ‘Won’t you help me?’ she pleaded.
Oh yes, he would love to help by leading her and the girls away from that place of impending death in which a body lay crisped and inhuman in the main hallway, where God-only-knows-what might still be roaming the corridors and where ravenous flames ate away the very innards of the building.
‘You’ll be okay,’ he reasoned with her, ‘there isn’t much further to go. I’ve got to try and help those still left upstairs.’
He gave her a firm but gentle shove downwards and reached for the nearest girls, encouraging them to follow. The rest quickly fell into step and he urged them to take care not to lose their footing, reassuring each one as they went by. He estimated that at least thirty had passed him and more were continuing to trickle down. Childes had no idea of how many of La Roche’s three hundred pupils were boarders, but a calculated guess put the figure at sixty or so. Apart from Estelle Piprelly, only two staff members and the matron were in charge of the girls at night. His pace quickened even though the effort of climbing was becoming harder, the air more difficult to breathe. The higher he went, the more dense the rolling smoke became. The soot-filled fumes were like some insidious scout, exploring and seeking out, giving gleeful warning of its master’s seething approach. Louder, also, was the grumbling resonance of the fire itself, with timbers cracking somewhere deep within the furnace like rifle shots. And over all were the stridulous alarms inciting their own special panic.
Beginning to choke, he drew out a handkerchief and held it to his mouth. More girls appeared, their spluttering cries preceding them.
‘Keep going!’ he shouted to them, though they did not need his bidding. Two older girls were supporting another whose hysteria had virtually rendered her helpless. Childes was tempted to lift the screeching girl and carry her down himself, but realized that despite their difficulties the trio would make it to the exit.
Someone staggered into him and he held out his arms to prevent the figure from falling.
‘Eloise!’ he said, recognizing the other teacher who lodged at the school.
Miss Todd gaped at him, bewildered, unsure, her plump chest rasping noisily as she sucked in spoilt air.
‘How many are left up there?’ he yelled close to her face.
She shook her head, impatient to be away.
‘For God’s sake, try to think!’
‘Let me go,’ she begged. ‘There’s nothing we can do!’
‘How many?’ he insisted, gripping her flailing arms tightly.
‘We looked, we searched! Some were so frightened they were hiding
in the bathrooms. Others were screaming from windows.’
‘Did you get them all out?’
‘Oh let me go let me go! ’
He held her rigid. ‘Did you get them all out?’
Girls pushed past, all of them clinging to the stair-rail for guidance, shoulders jerking and eyes streaming tears. Their screams had merged into a kind of wailing. The teacher broke away from Childes and joined them in their flight, her arms going around the shivering shoulders of one, giving comfort in spite of her own desperate fear.
She turned to call back to him. ‘Some of the girls went in the other direction, towards the main staircase! Matron went after them!’ Then she hurried away, pushed on by those behind.
Childes wasted no more time. Covering his mouth with the handkerchief, he mounted the remaining flights, passing no one else on the way. He had lost count, but he suspected that most of the boarders were on their way down.
He arrived at the top floor where the smoke was almost overpowering. His eyes were blurred, his throat painfully dry. With dismay he saw that the flames had reached that level, for there was a glow from further down the corridor he now faced. It was considerably softened by the whirling haze, but he was sure its source was the other stairway.
Bending low to avoid the worst of the smoke, Childes ran along the passageway, looking into dormitories as he passed.
A bout of coughing made him clutch his chest and sink to his knees. Realizing he was near one of the washrooms, he crawled inside to find the air much clearer. He staggered to a basin and turned on a tap, removing his spectacles and splashing water on his face. He grabbed a towel, throwing it into the basin to soak, then wrapped it around his neck like a scarf, pulling the sodden material up over his nose and chin.
First checking toilet cubicles and bathrooms, he went back out into the corridor, the wet towel serving as a mask against the fumes. The fire’s sound had become a low roar and the heat was stifling as he drew near the main stairwell. He was about to enter another dormitory when a different noise caught his attention, faint under the meˆle´e of alarm bells and burning, splintering wood, but distinct from them. The screaming seemed to come from the heart of the blaze itself.
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