Antman (43 page)

‘
Where does she live?'

'Somewhere near Pocklington.'

'Coincidentally near.'

'I'm not quite sure of the exact location, but we're running a check to see if she's on the phone. Whether she's ex-directory or not we should be able to trace her.'

'Not if she's married and the entry is under her married name. Don't nuns use a surname, then take a New Testament Christian name when they move from being Sister to Mother?'

'Fortunately, our informant remembered the name this woman goes by.'

*  *  *

When Chris drove out to interview Sister Ruth, she took Tom with her. It wasn't protocol, but she wasn't in the mood for observing that.

Sister Ruth now called herself plain Miss Ruth Craig. She was older and more frail than Chris had expected, with thin silver hair and wizened features. Chris thought it was the face of a woman who has endured, or witnessed, severe pain. The reason for her change of title wasn't clear. Apparently, several years ago she'd retired from her last job as housemother in a private boarding school, and now lived alone in a tiny maisonette in a relatively new housing development. She seemed friendly, more than willing to talk and surprisingly frank.

'I fell out with staff in the local authority soon after I met Ian – he was cook at the Home at the time – and made my application to leave the Order.'

'They made it difficult for you?'

'It wasn't the Order that raised problems. They were very accommodating. My problems arose from having admitted to a relationship with another member of staff. In the service manager's eyes, that was a major crime.'

She went through to the kitchen to make the coffee.

'Can we trust her?' Tom mouthed.

'She wants to get her own back on the employing local authority. I think it's worth talking to her.'

Miss Craig returned with three mugs of coffee on a tray, accompanied by a generous plateful of biscuits.

'I'd just returned from the shops,' she explained. 'You're lucky. I have a once-a-week binge.'

'I'd describe the regime in the Home as rigorous,' Miss Craig offered. 'I'm not saying the children were beaten or otherwise actively maltreated, but it was tough – life in dormitories I mean. I speak as a former convent pupil.'

‘
What about the religious side?'

'The Home was Roman Catholic if that's your question.'

'Lectures about what dreadful fate awaits sinners?' asked Tom.

Miss Craig wasn't to be drawn: 'Some would have that view,' she said softly.

‘
Were the children punished by the nuns?' Tom asked.

'There were punishments, but nothing out of the ordinary for a Home of that kind.'

After further questioning about Walters, Miss Craig offered the information they needed to confirm the link between the two boys.

'He had a brother,' she said. 'A half-brother, really. One of them, as you know, was John Walters, the other was John Thompsen. An unusually spelt name, as I recall. 'S-E-N at the end. Thompsen was no choir boy. When he was no more than a toddler – he was in the Home from a much earlier age than Walters – one of the councillors, a Margery Wallace, visited, bent over his push chair to say what a pretty child, or some such, and he bit her finger.'

Tom shrugged. 'You're saying he was possibly more disturbed than Walters.'

'Before he was fostered and eventually adopted, he lived in the Home for four years, till just before he started school. I remember him being brought there. He was found on some waste ground at the back of the bus station. The local media ran a big campaign to find the mother. It even made the national news. He was only a few hours old. It was raining hard. If they hadn't found him, he would only have lasted a few more hours.'

A thought struck Chris. 'You don't recall who fostered John Thompsen?' This was a long shot. To her surprise the response was immediate.

'Of course I do. The couple who fostered both boys, Mr and Mrs Blatt.'

'I don't think that's possible,' said Chris.

'It is because it's true,' said Miss Craig.

Chapter 28

Seated in the battered old rocking chair he called his mad chair, a position that gave him permission to think his thoughts without constraint, Graver looked across the empty room and addressed the invisible visitors who could now harass him constantly.

When the Inspectors came, they shut two of the kids, Louise and Ben, in rooms in the staff quarters. Everybody knew this, but nobody spoke about it. Some said they had bruises, others said it was worse. Little Margarite said she'd seen Mother Bernadette chasing Louise with a carving knife. There was a tale that Ben was taken for holidays by the driver, when the priests from the boys' college went on their summer retreat.

'One of the Inspectors – a kindly but rat-faced woman whom you couldn't trust to be in the pay of the same people that ran the Homes – stopped me when I was walking to the bath with my towel round my neck and asked if I wanted to make any complaints. I shook my head. I knew if she was genuine she'd have looked into the backs of my sad eyes and read the messages etched there. But she didn't and the moment of truth passed.'

*  *  *

'Did the nuns use corporal punishment?' Chris asked old Miss Craig, who seemed to become more frail and wizened as she delved deeper into her memories.

'It did take place at the Home, but I never administered or witnessed it,' she said.

'After leaving, did you communicate with any of the staff there?'

'I kept in touch with one or two.'

'Anybody in particular?'

'Father Doyle, the head.'

'Did you visit him?'

'He used to visit me at home sometimes. Of course, that stopped when I moved away from the area.'

‘
Were children ever beaten in the Home?' asked Tom.

'I don't know what you mean by beaten.'

A bell rang in the kitchen. It sounded like a timer on the cooker. 'Excuse me,' Miss Craig said and went into the kitchen to deal with it. When she returned, Chris looked at Tom. His face was pale and as bleak as she'd ever seen. This is getting to you, she thought.

As soon as she could, Chris diverted the line of questioning.

'Can you remember how Thompsen behaved?'

Miss Craig stared at her with suspicion. ‘What do you mean?'

'Did he do anything which led to him being punished?'

'It's the school you want to be focusing on, if you want to know about punishments.'

Chris tried to show interest that was not over-zealous. 'Oh?'

Miss Craig sniffed. Chris thought she was going to cry. The old woman shook her head as though reliving the pain the boy experienced at the hands of visiting priest Father Doyle and her Mother Superior.

'I saw him go through it,' she said. 'I did nothing. Tell me you can do penance. Tell me all these years are enough.'

*  *  *

The knowledge that they had discovered the whereabouts of Sister Ruth meant Graver was reliving those terrible days, months, years. The dormitory smelled of sweat and slow death. Father Doyle's face in the Reverend Mother's office was in the shadows, sinister and promising the pain of Purgatory for his sins. The boy was frightened.

‘
Where are you from, John?'

He didn't answer.

‘
What are your parents?'

'I haven't no parents.'

'But you have a father and a mother.'

'Yes.'

There was a pause.

'Yes what?'

The boy didn't answer, mainly because he didn't know he had to. Without warning, the priest leaned forward and slapped him hard on the face, shouting, 'Yes, Father.'

Then, more softly, the priest asked, 'Have you heard of the Catechism?'

'Yes, Father.' The words squeezed out between sobs.

‘
What can you remember?'

The boy started to recite. After several minutes, Father Doyle held up his hand. 'Stop, stop.' The boy continued as though in a trance. The priest shouted 'Stop!' This time the boy stopped. The priest laughed. 'Mother Mary, it is true what they say about you.'

The boy didn't answer. No-one, least of all this priest, realised the ease with which he achieved almost total recall of most things he read.

'Do you believe in the catechism?'

'I believe in God but I'm not a cath'lic, Father.'

'You're a clever boy, John. Let me tell you what makes a good school. Not an ordinarily good school, but an extra ordinary school. You have to have a good building, yes, and playing fields, yes, to build up their bodies, and good dormitories so they can have eight hours sleep. Good food depends on a good cook and a good refectory as well, and boys whose backgrounds have the potential. But above all, yes, it is the quality of the staff, and over and above all of that it is the supreme quality of the headmaster which makes a good school into an entity which is more than good – excellence!'

He suddenly got up and lurched forward. The boy, anticipating another blow, stepped back in fear and stumbled. The priest grabbed his arm. 'I worry that my pupils won't understand what I have done, won't know I believe in it,' he muttered into the boy's ear. ‘What do you hear about me?' he whispered right in the boy's face.

The boy bent his body back as far as he could, without taking an obvious step backwards. 'I know you're a strict headmaster, Father.'

'Right, right,' he intoned softly, nodding slowly at the same time. All the boy could think was:
Don't let his hand touch me. Keep him talking and pray to God to keep him away. I'll not believe in you any more, God, if you let me down this time
.

'Anything else they say about me?'

'They say to watch out not to insult the College, the Queen or the Virgin Mary.'

'Ha! That's good, very good. I like it.'

He chuckled to himself for a minute or so. 'You've told me what they tell you about me. What do you think?'

The boy did not speak.

'Nothing? Have you nothing to say?'

The boy shook his head.

'That's no answer.'

Father Doyle suddenly exploded into anger. He jumped up and banged his fist on the desk, making all the pens and papers jump. 'That's no answer either!'

For a few minutes, Father Doyle's rage was uncontainable. He picked up a cane which was leaning against the wall behind his chair, and strode about the office, ranting about the state of the boys, the staff, the school. As he shouted, he laid about him with the cane and it was all the boy could do to dodge the blows he inflicted on the bookcases, the mantelpiece, the walls and the desk itself. But he seemed not to notice the boy until he had calmed down again, when he told him to go back to his class. He was at the door when Father Doyle changed his mind. 'I think it would be better if you went back to the Home for the rest of today. Are you feeling peaky?'

The boy shrugged. He looked puzzled.

'You know, tired.'

He shook his head.

'A little sick, maybe?'

The boy realised the easier option. He shrugged again.

'Maybe. Ah. Good. Take the day off, and come back to school when you're feeling one hundred percent again.'

He hated Father Doyle. He held him responsible for everything going on in the school. Even though the priest hadn't hit him that day, he had on many other occasions. From that day the boy vowed to get him, if ever the chance arose.