Not My Blood (19 page)

Encouraged by a derisive snort from Gosling, Joe pressed on.
“My first suspicion is that Rapson, solo or with others, has been taking an unhealthy interest—of a sexual nature, I mean—in boys in his care. What are your thoughts?”

Gosling shook his head and laughed. “You couldn’t be more wrong! Shall I reveal the contents of an official letter of warning the head sent to Rapson only last week? I checked the wording for him so I know what he said. I expect Rapson destroyed it. Not the sort of thing you’d want to keep in your notecase or tucked into your little black book. But you can check his reply if you like; it’s in Farman’s file. It says, and I paraphrase: ‘Mind your own business, you interfering old twerp.’ ”

“In response to?”

“A warning to Rapson to keep away from the staff quarters at the rear of the school. And, specifically, to keep his hands off Betty Bellefoy. She’s a maid at the school. Very pretty and young, which is unusual. Anyway, her mother had lodged a complaint. Demanded that the headmaster restrict Rapson to barracks or Ma Bellefoy would ‘take steps’ is how she put it. Farman professed himself puzzled as to what these steps might be, but the family has served the school faithfully for generations and is well known in the neighbourhood. He decided wisely that it would be easier in times like these to replace a single history master rather than a family of retainers. And Rapson is popular with no one, the Bellefoys are liked by all, so he sent a sharp letter of rebuke and defined his restricted area.”

“Which he broke out of on the night of his death. I think I must go and meet this formidable lady.”

“But it does illustrate the fact that Rapson’s urges were not of a kind that would incline him to the maltreatment of young lads. Apart from the occasional whacking.”

“I think I must turn around my thoughts to date concerning Rapson,” Joe said carefully. “Just chew this over, will you, Gosling? Instead of being a sexual raptor or purveyor of boys to someone
at present unknown to us, he could possibly have been one who had noticed and begun to collate—perhaps even inquire into the disappearances. He was writing the history of the school, I understand?”

“God, that’s right! He used to bore us stupid with his little anecdotes from the files. Ancient cricket scores … casts of school drama performances.… No one else found it remotely interesting.”

“How on earth did he come to embark on such a task? A personal enthusiasm for the dusty annals of a preparatory school?”

“Not your bag, I’d guess, sir, and decidedly not mine, but
he
did it with—er—relish. In fact, I think he exceeded his brief, if the truth be told. Got carried away. He was initially asked by the head, in response to a parental suggestion—a suggestion backed up by a generous donation to funds—to compile a list of school heroes.”

“A list of heroes?”

“It’s something schools do these days, sir. In the aftermath. Memories to be kept bright and all that. Example to the new intake. He was tracking down old boys of the school who’ve won medals for gallantry: the Victoria Cross, Military Cross and all the rest of them. An astonishingly large number of these turned up. Hardly a day passed when he didn’t come smugly into the common room announcing: ‘Hogweed Minor. Mentioned in dispatches at Omdurman,’ or some such. He had all the military service records and was matching them up with the school lists. They’re over there in that cupboard.”

“Right. We can follow in Rapson’s footsteps, then.” Joe waved an arm at the filing room. “I’ve had a preliminary snoop around. I’d say it will take several people weeks to get through it.”

“There may be shortcuts we can take, sir. Using the book for a start. If you’ll just give me a minute to concentrate. I’m trying to match up Peterkin with his disappearance date. And I think I’ve got it. Here! Look! At least we can see from this that he hasn’t
obscured the boys’ initials. We’ve got a J.D.P., plain as day, and a date in … hang on a minute … 
MCMXXI
—that’s 1921. Then we’ve got
pr. Id. Oct
. How’s your Latin, sir? When
were
the
Ides
in October? Thirteenth?”

“In October? No. Try the fifteenth.”

“
Pridie
. That’s the day before the
Ides
which gives us the 14th of October. Spot on! Got him! So we can probably assume the initials are a good guide.”

“Yes. I don’t think this is a code at all—thankfully! They’re just notes to himself. But notes he wanted to keep quiet. No one coming on these unwittingly is going to be seized with an overpowering need to wrestle with them. In his ferreting about, Rapson could have stumbled on some loose threads. And collated them carefully and discreetly here in these pages.”

“He had that kind of brain, sir. Never let anything get by. Questioned everything. Tedious.”

“Did he give any indication to the other staff that he’d come across something stinky in the school cupboard?”

Gosling frowned and considered. “No. He didn’t confide. I was on the lookout for something not quite right with the establishment, following my interest in Peterkin. In fact, I rather directed Rapson towards the Peterkin question. Claimed a family interest. Lord! Perhaps I triggered the whole thing?”

“Isn’t that why you were sent here, Gosling? Just doing your job.”

“The head had begun to trust me, I think. Or at least to depend on me in a nauseating way.” Gosling pulled a face. “Farman may have an imposing physical presence, but underneath the senatorial robes there beats the heart of a pleb and gurgles the stomach of a glutton. The urge to give him a good kicking is overwhelming.”

“I’m wondering if we might be contemplating something that could be termed a conspiracy?”

“More than one person involved? Sounds likely. If the headmaster weren’t such a jelly, he’d be a likely candidate for the frame. Not Rapson—he was a loner. But, sir, the time scale’s all wrong for a conspiracy, isn’t it?”

“Time? How?”

“The disappearances. We’ve got this first photo from Edwardian days. Rapson has a date here of
MCMIII
. Eleven years before war broke out. And the most recent is a date last year. There have been three headmasters in that period. Farman was appointed six years ago. Before that there was a Dr. Sutton. Before him, an ancient old bean who retired at the age of eighty. Now what was his name? Oh, where’s Rapson when you need him? Streetly-Standish! That’s it!”

“Difficult to assign the notion of criminal conspiracy to three generations of headmaster, going back three decades.” Joe’s voice was full of doubt. “ ‘Welcome to St. Magnus, old boy. Here’s the keys to the cocktail cabinet and, while you’re at it, you’d better have an open-ended list of boys who won’t be coming back. You may wish to add to it.’ I can’t see it. I think we need to get old Godwit in here again.”

Gosling was already on his feet. “He’s snoozing in the arm chair in the staff room, sir. I’ll fetch him.”

Godwit seemed alert enough as he entered and took the seat Gosling held for him. He even seemed pleased to be called on again. “The last three headmasters? I knew them all,” he chirruped. “A breed in decline, sadly. Streetly-Standish? He was fading somewhat by the time I arrived, but I served for three years under him. Excellent scholar. Though he was not a humanist—the natural sciences were his forte. Strict. Fine leader. Dr. Sutton, his successor? No, I’m perfectly sure he was not known and not related to the previous head. This is not an Oxford college. The heads are chosen by a committee and the most suitable one selected. The position is not passed down. Dr. Sutton also was an
excellent headmaster. Differing from the others in that he was, in fact, a family man. Charming wife and three daughters all of whom lived on the premises. Mrs. Sutton doubled as Matron. And the present holder of the post?” Godwit fell silent and marshaled his thoughts. When he was quite ready, out they trooped: “These are straitened times. Many talented men, scholars as well as others, were wasted in the war, of course. The school was lucky to have acquired the services of Mr. Farman. He has been kind to me.”

Joe smiled his encouragement and his understanding. “I’m going to repeat a request,” he began.

“Ah! You’re still looking for the common denominator, Sandilands! And I have, once again, to tell you—there isn’t an obvious one. Or even an obscure one. Three different men from three different backgrounds. Different subjects and universities. Different views of life. Different proclivities.”

“Their religious beliefs?” Joe asked.

“I use the word again: different. Streetly-Standish was a declared atheist. A very fashionable thing to be in those days, but he didn’t impose his views on the school. He was thought modern and innovative even though some of his ideas were a bit ahead of the morality of the time. His successor, Sutton, had been a clergyman. Farman? Who can tell? Overtly, he’s Church of England and preaches to us all in the accepted manner. I don’t believe these three men knew each other. All they have in common is a stint at the same school. There is nothing else that linked them.” Godwit thought hard for a moment. “Except perhaps—” He shook his head, an elusive memory fluttering past him and escaping.

Getting to his feet, he added: “I shall turn this, whatever it is—I’ll call it ‘your quest’—over in my mind. Or what remains of my mind. I shall not forget. If anything stirs in the depth of this turgid pond of memory, I shall hurry to confide in you or young Gosling here. I take it he carries your seal of approval?”

“You may speak freely to Gosling. We’re working together on this. Working to right an ancient wrong.” It sounded overly dramatic but expressed Joe’s increasing determination to restore the lost boys, if only to memory. The words were received with an approving nod.

A hand as brown and fragile as a dead leaf reached out and tenderly touched the plump little face of John Peterkin. Godwit murmured a few words in ancient Greek, made the sign of the cross over the photograph, and left the room.

Joe turned to Gosling. “When it comes to Greek, I can claim, as with Shakespeare, that I have little Latin and even less—”

Gosling cut short his embarrassment. “Euripides, sir. It’s from one of his tragedies.
Alcestis
. We put it on in my second year at Oxford. Outdoors in a meadow on the banks of the Isis. That wonderful summer!” Seeing Joe’s puzzled look, he went on with the quiet tact of a courtier. “You’ll remember, sir, that, in the play, our hero, Hercules, is trying to snatch back the recently dead Greek princess, Alcestis, from Death?”

Gosling paused to give Joe a chance to say: “Ah, yes, of course. Familiar with the situation, not the injured party. Go on.”

“The deceased is the lovely wife of his friend Admetus. He, Admetus, is a bounder and a cad, as all agree. He’s destined to die according to a whim of the gods unless some other poor so-and-so can be persuaded to die in his place. His selfish old parents, though tottering at death’s door, refuse. The only one to offer is his dutiful wife, Alcestis.”

“Far too good for him,” Joe remarked. “Wives usually are.”

“Her husband—what a shit!—says thank you very much, and the lady prepares herself for death. Tearful farewells to the children and all that going on. In the middle of all this, Hercules, taking a break between two of his labours, turns up for dinner—”

“And senses there’s a bit of an atmosphere?”

“Nobody’s fool, Hercules! Our hero decides, unlike the caddish husband, that he’s not going to let this sacrifice be made, and although by now the lady has actually done the deed and her soul is practically in the clutches of the old boatman, Charon, Hercules piles in with a last-minute, god-defying plan.

“Being a stout-hearted and enterprising lad, he brings it off. After a bit of a dustup.” Gosling grinned. “Something of a brawler, Hercules. A dirty fighter. Used his brain as well as his brawn. He sneaked up on Death himself at the key moment of the burial ceremony and got him in a neck-lock. Went one round with the Infernal Lord and won. He rescued the lady from Charon before he could punt her soul across the river to Hades.”

“Whence there is no return,” Joe muttered.

“That’s right. He brought Alcestis home again to her husband, sound in wind and limb.”

“I don’t like to think how the ensuing conversation went, Gosling! Now, in a good Victorian melodrama of the kind I like, the husband would have killed himself in remorse and Hercules would have gone off with the girl. And she’d have been well pleased with her bargain. Quite a man, Hercules! Your sort of bloke, Gosling?” Joe said, trying to hide his amusement.

“Oh, yes. Half-man, half-god, remember. I’d have liked to have him in my crew! At my back, sir, rowing at bow.”

Joe didn’t need to ask which of the characters the young man had played on stage and hoped that the attractively pugilistic features had not been obscured by the traditional mask. “No last-minute rescue of Peterkin, in this case, I fear. Not even a decent burial as far as anyone’s aware. Did you catch Godwit’s words?”

“Yes. Memory not wonderful, but I’ll give it a go. At one point the Chorus says something like … 
Oh, that I had the strength to bring you back to light from the dark of death, rowing back across the sacred river
.”

The words hung between them, ancient, guttural and full of
grief. Joe left a silence before he spoke softly. “I’ll echo that sentiment, Gosling. We’ll find old Charon and give him a bad time, shall we? We may not return with the bodies, but we can snatch back the souls from oblivion, perhaps.”

“We’ll take our seats at the oar, sir, and give it ten!”

“M
iss Joliffe! I lent you a pair of my twins last year, I believe?” Mr. Farman had placed Dorcas on his left and Joe on his right at the top table for lunch. His comment silenced Joe and the other diners but appeared not to disconcert Dorcas.

“That’s quite right, headmaster. I wondered if you’d remember the name. We’ve not met before but I did send you a letter of thanks, following on my research program at St. Raphael.”

“I hope the brothers Simpson were of some use?” His tone was jovial, expansive, and Dorcas replied with equal warmth.