Out of the Depths (3 page)

I noticed then that Aisha's cheeks had flushed red. She definitely fancied one of them.

‘They've been great,' I said.

‘As we always are,' Aisha said, trying to sound normal.

‘This ugly-looking creature,' Adam punched the Asian boy, ‘is Mahmoud.' He pronounced Mahmoud as if he belonged to a Scottish clan. MacDuff, Macleod, Macmoud. ‘But everybody calls him Mac.'

Mac suited him. He sounded more Scottish than Adam. ‘So, what do you think of it so far?'

Then both him and Adam said at once, ‘Rubbish!'

Jazz raised her eyes. ‘Just ignore them, Tyler. Hey, what do you think of Mr O'Hara? Dishy, isn't he?'

‘He is really good-looking, for an old guy,' I agreed.

Jazz pointed to her third finger, left hand. ‘Have you noticed his ring? Married. Very married.'

Callum spoke through a mouthful of broccoli. ‘He was a pupil here at the time of the murder.'

‘He was in the same class as the victim,' Jazz said. ‘In fact, he was his best friend.'

‘But they'd fallen out. I think it was over a lassie,' Mac said, then he added wisely, ‘Lassies are nothing but trouble. O'Hara never talks about it anyway.'

Adam agreed. ‘We asked him to tell us about it once but he just clammed up. “It's in the past” was all he would say.'

‘Let the dead stay dead.' Mac put on an eerie voice.

‘But they don't, do they? Not in this school.' Jazz leaned closer. ‘The school's supposed to be haunted.'

‘Don't tell me any more,' I wanted to say. But I couldn't find my voice. Couldn't stop listening.

‘People have heard strange noises in the night,' Aisha said.

‘Classroom doors opening of their own accord,' Callum added.

‘Don't believe you,' I said. ‘You're just trying to frighten me.'

Jazz shrugged. ‘Ask the cleaners. They will only work in pairs in this school.'

‘Yeah,' Adam agreed. ‘They could tell you a thing or two about what goes on here.'

And I had to ask. Could not wait a moment longer. ‘Who was murdered?'

Jazz answered me eagerly. ‘One of the pupils. A boy. Ben Kincaid. They say he was a bad lot, always in trouble. Nobody really liked him. Not the teachers, not the pupils. Well, even his best mate had fallen out with him. And Mr O'Hara's really nice. He wouldn't fall out with anybody unless it was over something really serious. That tells you a lot, doesn't it?'

Callum took up the story. ‘But one of the teachers … a priest, Father Michael, he was always on Ben Kincaid's case. Dragging him to the Rector's office. Ranting at him in the classroom. They hated each other. Ben Kincaid was always threatening to get him. And then somebody heard the priest say, “Not if I get you first.” Everybody knew there was going to be trouble one day, and then, one night, it seems Ben Kincaid broke into the school. And Father Michael caught him. It was the last straw. The priest really lost it. Grabbed a knife and chased him to the old chapel.'

I looked at Jazz. ‘The old chapel?'

‘It's at the other end of the school. Very atmospheric,'
Jazz informed me. ‘It's never used now.'

Callum broke in, a bit annoyed at being interrupted. ‘Hey, who's telling this story!' Jazz just grinned and, after a pause, Callum went on. ‘In the morning, all they found was blood on the chapel floor, but no Ben Kincaid.'

‘And they never found his body?' I asked.

‘Never.'

‘Searched everywhere,' Mac added. ‘Even dragged the lake.' He looked to the windows then, as if we could see the lake from there. Through the thick walls, through the trees. But I could picture it. I had noticed it this morning through the line of elms as Mum drove us up the long gravel drive to the school. A morning mist hovered over the dark water and I'd thought even then it looked mysterious.

‘But they never found Ben Kincaid,' Mac said.

By this time I was completely caught up in the story. ‘Maybe he just ran away.'

‘They thought of that. But Kincaid had a mother,' Jazz said. ‘She was dying about him, spoiled him rotten. They say that was half his problem. He got everything he wanted from his mum. So, why would he run away and not get in touch with her?'

Aisha said softly, ‘People say the poor woman died of a broken heart just a year after the murder.'

‘She was run over by a bus, Aisha!' Mac said.

Aisha shook her head. ‘They say she walked in front of it. Couldn't face life any more.' She let out a big sigh of empathy for the ‘poor woman'.

‘They found Father Michael in his study the morning after the murder. His face was ashen,' Jazz said dramatically. ‘There was blood on his robes, Ben Kincaid's blood. And it turned out the knife that killed Ben Kincaid was in his pocket. His fingerprints were all over it.'

‘What they call an open and shut case.' Jazz counted on her fingers. ‘Motive, means and opportunity.'

‘Did he confess?'

Jazz shook her head. ‘Nope. Never did. All he said was, “I am innocent.” Said he'd found the knife in the old chapel. But he was arrested and found guilty. He died in prison, still saying he was innocent. Nobody believed him.'

‘And now he haunts the school?' I said.

‘Nobody knows who haunts the school.'

‘I think it's just draughty myself,' Mac said.

‘All a load of rubbish,' Callum said. ‘And, as Jazz
pointed out, I am the smartest boy in the school.'

Everyone laughed.

‘I have sensed things,' Jazz said, and I wondered if she was winding me up.

‘Have you?' I asked.

‘Oh yeah, I'm very open to suggestion.'

‘Well, I suggest you shut up,' Mac said, and after that it all descended into jokes and fun and laughter.

I still wasn't sure if they'd made the whole thing up, taking the mickey, in a nice way, out of the new girl. But as I left the school that day and I passed the corridor where Mr Hyslop's office was, I steeled myself and cast a glance at St Joseph. His hand raised in prayer. The child still in his arms, and his eyes … I let out a long sigh of relief. His eyes were set on the baby.

All my imagination, I told myself. By tomorrow, I would have forgotten all about it.

‘You made friends then? Your first day? I'm so pleased about that,' Mum said.

I'd had to go over my whole day for Mum and Dad that night at dinner. I knew they so much wanted things to work out for me in this school. So I told them all the things they wanted to hear. How helpful the teachers were, who was in my class. Told them about Jazz and Aisha and the boys too. I told them everything, except about the murder. And of course, I didn't mention the fact I had knocked myself out in the first five minutes of being there. And I certainly didn't say anything about the statue. Especially not to Mum. It seemed to really freak her out that I thought I had seen someone who was dead. To tell her a statue had moved? That was even more spooky.

‘They made me feel as if I'd been their friend for ages.'

‘Well, you'd do the same for a new girl, wouldn't you? You're a nice, friendly girl yourself, Tyler.' Dad beamed at me. I could wind Dad round my finger like a piece of string. He would say that with my fair hair and blue eyes I looked like an angel. His little angel, he called me. And Steven would remind him that the devil had been an angel too. Lucifer.

‘You're better off out of that other school. You let your imagination run away with you there,' Dad said. ‘You keep out of trouble in this school, and you'll be fine.'

Of course, he was right. I
had
let my imagination run away with me in the other school.

Miss Baxter was dead. There are no such things as ghosts. And statues can't move.

End of story.

Over the next couple of days it seemed there was nothing for me to worry about anyway. I got to know more people in my class, from the friendly to the not so friendly. The morose girl who sat beside me never smiled once and complained about everything. The pale boy at the back of the class never spoke a word, always sitting in silence. And he never seemed to take his eyes
off me. There was another boy with dark hair who was always bent across his desk. I hadn't even seen his face yet. I think he was asleep half the time. I couldn't get their names sorted out in my head. Not yet.

I began to fit in. I felt as if I had been there for ever.

‘So, which one do you fancy?' I asked Aisha one day, just as Adam and Mac had walked past us and her cheeks had flushed bright red again.

She was totally shocked by the question. ‘I don't fancy either of them,' she insisted. ‘I'm too busy to think about boys!'

‘Come on, Aisha, you can tell me!' Jazz called out to her as she stormed off. ‘I'm your best friend.'

Aisha ignored her. Jazz slipped her arm in mine. ‘Who says we'll make it our life's mission to find out which one it is? My money's on Mac.'

‘I don't know, Jazz. There's something really cute about Adam.'

Now she was the one who was shocked. ‘Stands back in amazement! Don't tell me you fancy
him
?'

‘No. Don't be daft. I'm only saying … it just might be Adam. A lot of the girls in school fancy him.'

Jazz looked even more staggered. ‘He's a ginger!' she snapped.

I smiled. ‘He's a gorgeous ginger.' I had seen that written in black above the mirror in the toilets.

And there
was
something roguish about Adam. The kind of boy you could imagine as a highwayman, or a cowboy, or a buccaneer.

‘Adam!' Jazz dragged me on. ‘If it is Adam, I am having Aisha analysed.'

So the days went on and I forgot about murder and ghosts and the statue that had moved …

Until, that is, the day that Mr O'Hara sent me to collect some books he had left in the library on the first floor.

It was a dark day. Rain battered against the stained-glass windows, mist cloaked the stark trees in the grounds and hung over the lake. I left the classroom, assuring Mr O'Hara that I knew where to go. I'd never been in the school library but I had passed it on the way to other classes. I was rather pleased that he'd asked me, out of the whole class, to run this errand for him.

I barely glanced at the statues as I passed them on my way up the corridor. In fact, it wasn't until I reached the upper floor that I even thought about them.

But it was darker here, and the stained glass sent shafts of eerie green and red lights along the floor and up the walls. The only sounds I could hear were my own footsteps.

It's a curse having an imagination like mine. I tried to push it down, stifle it. Lock it in that box again.
Determined only to concentrate on the library door at the end of the corridor.

The library seemed to be guarded by the statue of a long dead cardinal, his hands clasped around a Bible.
Pray for me
, I thought, as I passed him. For I felt as if the dark, grey day was closing in on me.

I knocked on the door but there was no answer. Finally, I pushed it open and stepped inside. Here, in the library, there were more wooden pillars lining the walls, holding up the ornate ceiling.

‘Mrs Devoy?' I called out for the librarian and my voice seemed to echo into the high roof. There was no answer. There was no one but me in the library. The books Mr O'Hara had asked me to collect were on a table by the door, just as he'd said. I picked them up but I didn't want to take them without letting Mrs Devoy know I'd been there. I walked between the bookshelves to the study room at the back of the library.

I pushed open the door. ‘Mrs Devoy?'

You know when a room is empty, don't you? You know when there is no one but you there.

No one but me.

The library grew darker. Heavy grey clouds seemed to settle themselves in the sky; the wind
whined through the old windows.

No statues at least in here
, I thought.

Only wooden bookshelves and stacks of books, and pillars that stretched to the ceiling. Carved at the top of each pillar was an angel. Some praying and looking up to heaven, others gazing down to earth. Some with fingers twined and yet others with their hands held open.

I looked up to the top of one pillar. This angel seemed to be watching the door, as if she too was waiting for Mrs Devoy to come back. Her hands were held together. Fingers linked.

There was a footstep in the corridor. I was sure I heard it. Mrs Devoy, perhaps, on her way here. I looked quickly at the door, waiting for it to open, and the librarian to step inside, laden with books. The only way I ever saw her.

No one came in. The door stayed shut. There was no other sound. And after a moment, I looked back to the angel.

And she was staring at me.

At me.

This wasn't a mistake. She was looking right at me. Her blank eyes seemed alive. And her hands were no longer linked in prayer. They were open, her fingers
stretched towards me. I began to tremble. It seemed the library was growing darker by the second. And I turned my eyes, my terrified eyes, on the angels at the top of each of the pillars.

They were all looking at me.

Every angel eye had searched me out.

Every angel eye was watching me.

I backed away. I wanted to call again for the librarian, scream for her, but my voice was stuck in my throat.

All I wanted was out of that library.

I grabbed at the brass handle of the door and pulled. It seemed stiff and for another terrified moment I was sure I wouldn't be able to get it open. I'd be trapped in there. I didn't even dare look back. So afraid those angels would suddenly wrench themselves from the pillars and fly towards me.

At last, I managed to prise the door open, and I stumbled back into the corridor. I was sure the statue of the cardinal outside the library had been looking up to heaven. Now, his head was bent towards me. His eyes looked alive now, and they were watching me. He seemed to have moved closer too. He was no longer holding the Bible. His stone hand was held out, his finger pointing.