by M. J. Trow
Outside in the rain, Maxwell’s phone warbled in the gathering dusk.
‘Max?’
‘Yes.’ Triumph! He’d pressed the right button again.
‘It’s Tony Graham. Look, we’ve found John Selwyn. I can’t talk over the phone. Are you back home?’
‘No, I’m in Selborne as a matter of fact.’
‘Really? Well, look, I hate to ask you this, but you couldn’t come over, could you? There’s a problem. With John, I mean.’
‘Yes,’ Maxwell nodded. ‘Yes, Tony, I expect there is.’
Old Jedediah Grimond’s opulent pile looked black and oddly lonely in the purple of the night sky. There was a frost of stars shimmering in God’s Heaven now that the evening cloud had cleared. Peter Maxwell paid his taxi fare and sauntered through the open gates. This was odd. Even the two remaining paparazzi had drifted away to chase other stories, make other people’s lives a misery. The wrought iron was thrown back, chained against the stone pillars and the rampant lions snarled soundlessly in the still of the night. His feet crunched on the gravel until he reached the limes that formed an avenue into the main quad. He saw a light burning in Parker’s window and the moon cold on the parked cars. He checked his watch as he passed the chapel. Gone nine. Supper would be over. Prep should be done too, except for the late bird, the anorak to whom good grades were everything and who would be burning the midnight oil.
He heard the chatter of the younger boys in the lower Tennyson corridors as he rounded the corner. A clutch of lads were laughing and rough-housing on their way to the television room. One of them, less happy than the rest, a quiet-looking blond boy the wrong side of thirteen, stopped for a brief moment, looking solemnly into Maxwell’s eyes. Then he was gone.
‘Courage, Jenkins,’ the Head of Sixth Form muttered to himself. ‘It won’t be long now.’
He heard his feet echo on the wooden stairs and turn to a clatter as he reached the stone. In front of him was the solid oak door of Tony Graham’s study; Bill Pardoe’s study. He knocked.
‘Up here, Mr Maxwell.’
He turned at the sound of his name. Roger Harcross stood there, dressed to the nines in his CCF uniform, boots polished, buttons gleaming, a corporal’s stripes on his sleeve and a black beret across his forehead.
‘Evening, Ape,’ Maxwell said.
‘Up here, sir,’ he said. ‘We’re waiting for you in the theatre.’
‘Ah,’ Maxwell said. ‘Special showing of the Film Club tonight?’
‘Not exactly, sir,’ Ape said, as the Head of Sixth Form reached him on the upper landing. ‘More of a debate, of sorts. You’ll see.’
Maxwell walked with the boy along the gloomy corridor that led past the stairs to his old room, past the door that led to the roof, to that cold lonely place where Bill Pardoe had said his farewells to the world. ‘I gather John Selwyn’s returned to the fold,’ Maxwell said.
‘He has, sir,’ Ape smiled. ‘He strayed a little yesterday, but he’s back now. One of us again.’
Ape led the way up the small flight of steps that led into the theatre. The auditorium was in darkness, the rows of plush seats silent and black in the gloom. On the little stage below them, in front of the huge white screen, a knot of cadets sat facing the newcomers. John Selwyn was there, in his sergeant’s uniform and crimson colour-sash, his face pale and grim under the beret. Antonio Splinterino was on his left, grim-jawed and jackal-eyed in khaki, watching Maxwell make his entrance. And in the centre, in his mortar-board and gown, smiling benignly, sat Tony Graham, the Head of Tennyson House.
Maxwell heard the door click and lock behind him. In the state sector, nanny state regulations would insist on at least three exits from this room. But this was the private sector. This was Grimond’s and the only way out was locked. He felt Ape at his shoulder. ‘Could I have your mobile please, Mr Maxwell?’ he asked.
‘Never carry one, dear boy,’ Maxwell held out his arms to allow a body search. Ape hesitated, glancing down to the stage, but Graham nodded and the lad rummaged through the man’s pockets, patting his chest, ribs and back.
‘He’s clean, sir,’ Ape called, his voice sounding hollow in the echo-chamber of the Tennyson theatre.
‘Which is more, I suspect, than any of you are,’ Maxwell said.
‘Now, Max,’ Graham chuckled. ‘You’re not going to start moralizing, are you? So early in the proceedings.’
‘Proceedings?’ Maxwell repeated.
‘The debate,’ Graham explained. ‘Well, not really a debate. More a trial, really. Well, actually, a Court Martial. I’m sorry about all this theatricality – dressing up, I suppose you’d call it. But you see, it’s what we do at Grimond’s, isn’t it, Arbiters?’
Ape had joined the three on the stage now and as one their boots thundered on the woodwork, reverberating around the auditorium.
‘But if you want a debate,’ Graham turned to his left, ‘Cassandra.’
There was a shiver in the half-drawn tabs and the lithe Captain of Austen sauntered across the stage, wearing her braided Prefect’s blazer and tie and smouldering with contempt at the Head of Sixth Form.
‘This House believes,’ she said in a clear, cold voice, ‘that Peter Maxwell has outlived his usefulness in this life and deserves to die.’
The thudding boots took up the mantra again. Maxwell waited until they died down. This was all so surreal. ‘Are you seriously going to kill me?’ he asked, ‘with Tennyson lads running all over the place and various House staff on the prowl?’
‘Tennyson lads,’ Graham said, ‘will do as I tell them, Maxwell. Without question. Without thought. And House Staff? Who had you in mind? Dear old Dr Sheffield left us quite precipitately this afternoon. Gave no explanation. Just drove away with a suitcase. Jumping before he was pushed, I suspect.’
‘A bit like Bill Pardoe?’
‘Can you defend yourself, Maxwell?’ Cassandra asked. ‘Can you give us a reason why we should let you live?’
‘None at all,’ Maxwell laid his hat and coat down carefully on a chair in the front row and sat next to it. ‘In fact, if you’ll indulge me, I’ll give you plenty of reasons why you have to kill me.’
‘Really?’ Cassandra’s disdainful eyebrow said it all. ‘God, you’re so boring.’
‘No, no,’ Graham smiled. ‘Go on then, Max. Consider yourself indulged. Tell us what you think this is all about. I know you’re dying to.’
And Ape and Splinter sniggered at their House-master’s side. Cassandra took the vacant chair on stage and sat facing the man who was signing his own death warrant.
‘Are you sitting comfortably?’ Maxwell asked. ‘Then I’ll begin. Once upon a time there was a complete shit called Anthony Graham. He impressed people. He listened carefully, made them believe he cared. There was no one quite like him, in fact. He was a one-off. The sort of character, larger than life, you might say, we’ve long ago lost in the state sector. They broke the mould, etcetera, etcetera.’ It was still a brilliant Yul Brynner and still Tony Graham didn’t appreciate it.
‘Get to the point, Max,’ he snapped. ‘We’ve all got a busy evening in front of us.’
‘Oh, but that is the point,’ Maxwell said, spreading his arms along the seat back. ‘This whole thing is about you, Tony. Your ability to manipulate people. Your megalomania. How does it go? Today, Tennyson; tomorrow, the world? And now George Sheffield’s gone, well … the world’s your lobster, isn’t it?’ Maxwell clambered to his feet. He did it a little too sharply and his vision wobbled, but he didn’t let it show. ‘Vaulting ambition, boys and girls,’ he strode backwards and forwards in front of the stage, just out of the limelight. ‘My own humble little educational establishment …’
Graham snorted.
‘… Leighford High, put it on not five weeks ago – the Scottish Play by William Somebodyorother. Macbeth, obsessed with a need for power, kills those who stand in his way – “I have no spur to prick the sides of my intent, but only vaulting ambition, which o�
�erleaps itself and falls on the other”. Well, people, there’s going to be a lot of o’erleaping and falling tonight, I fancy.’
‘Is that right?’ Splinter mocked him.
‘Oh, yes. Now, let me see if I’ve got this right. John, you’re an intelligent young man, Captain of House, fencing champion, rugger hearty and,’ he glanced at Cassandra, ‘super-stud. Tell me, what are the two things a teacher can lose his job over?’
Selwyn frowned under the beret, glancing at Graham to his right.
‘No?’ Maxwell was in full flight. ‘Well, let me tell you. Fingers in the till and fingers in the knickers. Not much else. You can be a crap teacher like dear old Tubbsy or an indifferent one like poor old Tim Robinson and you won’t lose your job over it. But naughty happenings in the dorm, now, that’s different. So that’s what Mr Graham went for in the case of his House boss, Mr Pardoe. He framed him. Poor old Bill was an ingénue, a Roger Rabbit caught in the brilliant headlights of a clever, ruthless bastard out to get him. Mr Graham opened a subscription to a Swedish porn company and had their samples sent to Mr Pardoe here at the school. To be exact, of course, they were sent to Mr Graham under an altogether more innocent-looking cover. He stole some plain stationery from Austen House to package them and re-posted them in Petersfield. That created a certain muddying of the waters, a widening of the net. When Pardoe took to burning the envelopes without opening them, he placed them open on the man’s desk – I know; I saw one. Not content with that, he rang the coppers; Chief Superintendent Mason, no less, and told them there was a paedophile ring operating out of Grimond’s. And to put the icing on the cake, he cut his nasty tapes, accusing Pardoe of God knows what and suggesting suicide. All very professional, all very supportive, in a colleaguey sort of way.’
‘You’re reaching, Maxwell,’ Graham sneered.
‘You were, of course, aided and abetted in this by your less-than-able henchman, Jeremy Tubbs. You bailed him out, literally, years ago, from a potentially sordid sex scandal and he owed you one. So I suspect the voice on the tape, suitably distorted electronically, is his.’
‘Mr Graham …’ Selwyn was frowning, looking at his Housemaster.
‘Shut up, John,’ Graham said. ‘Mr Maxwell is, I fear, clutching at straws.’
‘Endoslung, John,’ Maxwell shouted. ‘You’re an historian, dammit; what does it mean?’
‘Er … it’s the German for the final solution,’ Selwyn remembered. ‘The Nazi extermination of the Jews.’
‘Excellent!’ Maxwell clapped. ‘You might have gone somewhere if you hadn’t had the misfortune to be in Tennyson House. Mr Graham hit upon the final solution for Mr Pardoe. You see, it wasn’t really working.’ Maxwell was wandering to the steps that led to the stage. ‘The porn, the tape, the rumours, the call to the police. Against all the odds, Bill Pardoe was coping as best he could. He might survive a campaign like that and he had, what, another fifteen years to go in the job? Mr Graham couldn’t wait that long. So he hatched a plan. And his timing was immaculate. On the afternoon after Bill Pardoe’s body was found I overheard a sweet little conversation in the library from some Year 9 … er … sorry … Lower Fifth kids, I believe. They were speculating on who might have pushed the poor bastard off the roof and one of them said, “There’s only one of them in the clear. Mr Graham. He’s the only one not here.” How true. Mr Graham was miles to the south-east, kipping peacefully under the eaves of my very dear friend Mrs Sylvia Matthews, Matron of Leighford High. What an alibi. But he didn’t need to be here himself, did he Cassandra?’
‘Look,’ Selwyn said. ‘What’s going on?’
‘Shafting, John.’ Maxwell had reached the stage. ‘You, Ape, Splinter, even dear old Cassandra, the ice-maiden of Austen House. You’ve all been shafted by Mr Graham here.’
‘All right,’ the Housemaster was on his feet. ‘That’s probably enough, I think. Arbiters, do we have a decision?’
‘Oh, but you haven’t indulged me yet, Tony. Not fully. Cassandra here is such a consummate actress. A woman for all seasons. One minute she’s a poor little heroine, a fragile Joan of Arc battling against the evil bully John Selwyn. Her girlies whoop and shout for her and sad little misfits like Janet Boyce cry. The next minute she’s shagging John Selwyn in the boat-house – and offering me the same services, by the way.’
‘Shut your fucking mouth,’ the girl hissed, standing up now, her face a mask of fury.
‘You almost certainly made the same offer at least to Jeremy Tubbs, didn’t you? That’s how you got Pardoe up on the roof that night. You and Tubbsy acted out a little charade in the quad. You’d sowed the seeds earlier, at Mr Graham’s suggestion. What did you do? Go and see Par- doe? Turn on the water-works? “Oh, Mr Pardoe”,’ it was a damn good Cassandra James, ‘“Mr Tubbs keeps pestering me. He’s threatened to come to Austen tonight, to take me to the boat- house” and …’
‘Bastard!’ Cassandra flew at Maxwell, all teeth and claws. Graham clicked his fingers and Ape and Splinter leapt up to hold her back. ‘Enough!’ he barked and she stood still, spitting blood, but not moving.
‘Very impressive,’ Maxwell nodded, eyebrows raised. ‘I could use you with Nine Eff Twenty-Four last thing of a Friday afternoon. So Mr Pardoe was primed, ready, on the lookout. It was stupid of me, really. I thought you and Tubbsy were putting on a show for me. Then I realized – it was for Pardoe. Pardoe’s room was directly below mine. He had the same view out of his window that I did. Wicked, evil Tubbsy dragging poor Cassandra to a fate worse than death.’
‘Tell him he’s talking bollocks, Cassandra!’ Selwyn shouted, pale under the lights and shaking.
Nothing.
‘Oh, but I’m not, John. Look at her. Look at her face. She knows I’m right. She left poor deluded Tubbsy back in the quad with … what? The promise of a grope later? Then she doubled up to Pardoe’s corridor, hovering just long enough to let him see her. He followed her up to the roof. It’s odd how sound distorts up there. It sounded like scrabbling in the wainscoting, rats in the attic. It was Cassandra on her way to the place of execution. It was Pardoe, following like a lamb to the slaughter. Once up there, what could be easier? There’s a chimney on that side of the roof – I know; I’ve looked. Plenty of space for a slim young filly like you to hide, Cassandra. Bill’s up there, still in his jammies, poor bugger. Rather crankily, when he saw the scene in the quad, he just grabbed the nearest overcoat he’d got, his gown. But he didn’t put any shoes on. All you had to do was wait until he was near the parapet and … push.’
There was a silence in the auditorium.
‘No.’ It was John Selwyn’s voice. ‘No, it’s not true.’
Maxwell was alongside the lad now. He laid a gentle hand on his shoulder. ‘Yes, it is, John,’ he said softly. ‘You know it is. You’d put all this together, hadn’t you? You’d seen through Svengali here for the devious, murderous bastard he is.’
Graham rose to his feet, looking Maxwell in the face.
‘That’s why you rang me, wasn’t it? Asking me to come for the debate? You wanted to talk. Only Mr Graham found out, didn’t he? You were wavering. You,’ Maxwell patted the shoulder, ‘the brightest and best.’
John Selwyn was crying softly.
‘You’re pathetic,’ Cassandra sneered and turned away, folding her arms tightly across her breasts.
‘You ran,’ Maxwell went on. ‘Where, God knows. But you had to get away. That rattled you, Tony, didn’t it? For the first time last night I saw you confused, worried. You, Ape, Splinter, you really didn’t know where he’d gone. Then you found him. And you could probably shut him up. Honour of the House and all that. And anyway, he didn’t know the exact details, any more than Ape and Splinter did.’
Maxwell was wandering the stage, watched intently by them all except Cassandra, who had resolutely turned her back. He was pointing at the rows of videos that lined the far wall. ‘What really gave it away was all this,’ he said. ‘When you invited me for the screening of The Witchfinde
r General I took a little peek at your collection. And three of them just leapt out at me. There was Dead Poets Society of course, an over-rated little number with Robin Williams as the schoolmaster exhorting his pupils to “seize the day”. Well, that was Mr Graham here, wasn’t it? One of those mercurial one-offs, a charismatic teacher who is, God knows, so rare in the profession today.’ Maxwell turned to face him. ‘Tony, you could have been so good. But these days people kill each other for a mobile phone, for a pair of trainers. Why not kill for something worthwhile, like a House? Then there was a real little oddity in your Film Soc collection called Unmann, Wittering and Zigo, Paramount, I think you’ll find, 1971. Naive young teacher David Hemmings discovers that his predecessor was murdered – killed by the boys – in a British private school. The spooky thing is that the eponymous heroes never appear – Hemmings just reads their names out at registration, but they’re never there.’ He turned to face the little company on stage. ‘But here you are; John, Ape, Splinter – Unmann, Wittering and Zigo. And finally, a creepy little number called Child’s Play – oh, not that many-sequelled tosh involving a rather awful animated doll, but something again from Paramount. It could have been a blueprint for what’s happened at Grimond’s. James Mason is Bill Pardoe. If I remember rightly, malevolent old Robert Preston is you, Tony. In that, of course, the boys do the killing. And that, Unmann, Wittering and Zigo, is exactly what Mr Graham has in mind for you tonight. You are all going to kill me. You’ve already shown me what a fine, ritualistic and symbolic send off I’ll have – the carrying of the coffin across the quad. Where do you keep that, by the way? But your real problem tonight is … how are you going to get me in it? The coffin was empty before. But a third killing … boys, you really are chancing your arms.’