The White Devil (24 page)

“And you think . . .”

“I think Harness is infecting people!” Andrew declared. “We have to
do
something. Roddy’s really, really bad. And Harness will infect someone else next. There’s only me and Rhys left on the floor!”

“But . . . do what?” Fawkes asked him.

“Remember? Find out who Harness killed and why. We have nothing else to go on. Have you spoken to Father Peter?”

Fawkes’s intestines squelched with guilt. “I have. I visited him.”

“And?”

“He’s getting dispensation from the Church of England to do it. Some special ritual. It’s not the kind of thing he’s trained on.”

“How soon can he do . . . whatever it is he needs to do?”

“Not sure,” Fawkes said, looking out the window.
Say something. Tell him. Come clean. My God what if he gets it and dies; you’ll have it on your conscience.
“Andrew . . . ,” he began.

“Piers.”

“I . . . I haven’t been straight with you. I’ve been selfish.” Andrew just stared at him. Fawkes continued. “I’ve been more interested in the outcome of our little investigation, than in your welfare. My publisher . . .” He stopped. “Oh for fuck’s sake, can I have a fag in here?” he shouted to the driver. The driver said yes.

“
Sir
,” objected Rhys, “we might have
TB
. That’s a lung disease.”

“It’s only one fag.”

“No!”

Rhys locked eyes with his housemaster. Then broke into a wide grin. Then started laughing; Andrew joined in next, and for the first time that day, all three of them broke into hysterical, grateful laughter. When it subsided, Fawkes hurried to finish his confession while he still had the cover of good humor.

“I told my publisher I could package the play with a sort of literary discovery,” he blurted. “If I give it to her with a story about Byron’s lover committing murder, she’ll publish it. If I don’t . . . she won’t.”

“So that’s great. Our research will help you.”

And I sort of told Father Peter to slow down.

I decided you and Rhys and Roddy dying was less important than my work.

Go on, say it.

They had reached the highway. Fawkes stared out the window, watching the apartment complexes whir past. At last he spoke:

“So I’ve been more focused on the research,” he stammered, “than on the effect all this has on you.” He was sweating. The boys were staring at him with uncloaked curiosity.

“But that’s exactly what we need,” said Andrew.

“It is?”

“Of course! I need to finish my research faster.”

“What have you found so far?”

“I found some letters in the cistern room. Old letters. I gave them to Dr. Kahn.”

“Oh, right,” Fawkes said, downplaying his surprise and excitement. “And?”

“They were damaged. Dr. Kahn sent them to Trinity College, Cambridge, to some research people she knows at the Wren Library.” Andrew thought a moment. “How long does it take to get to Cambridge?”

“About an hour on the train.” Fawkes knew why Andrew was asking. “You really think the letters will help our cause?”

“I think Harness
wanted
me to find them.”

Fawkes chewed his nail. “Trinity, is it?” Fawkes glanced nervously at Rhys before addressing Andrew. “There are lessons tomorrow,” he said dubiously.

“Roddy can’t wait.”

“You’re supposed to be lying low. No public transport. By order of the Health Protection Agency.”

“All right, so
you
go.”

“I have a house of eighty boys to look after.
And
I’m on probation. I have a daily meeting with Sir Alan. If I miss it, I’m sacked. Then I’m no good to anyone.”

Rhys looked at Fawkes in surprise. “Are you serious, sir?”

“You can stop calling me bloody
sir
, and yes, I’m serious. I may be the worst housemaster of all time, as far as I can tell. Look at all this mess.”

“If it’s only an hour,” continued Andrew, “I can leave first thing tomorrow and be back by lunchtime. You can say I slept in, after a trying day.”

“Right,” Fawkes said, uncertainly.

“Why are you hesitating?” asked Andrew. “You know I need to go.”

Fawkes tried to hide the raw emotion he’d been swept with earlier in the day. “With Roddy getting sick, I feel more protective of you boys. That’s all. You especially, Andrew.”

“This is my job. You and Dr. Kahn assigned this part to me: do the research on Harness, and write it up for Essay Club. I can’t wait anymore.”

“I’m going to say no,” Fawkes said at last.

“Are you kidding?”

“I’m not. When we get back, I’ll find Father Peter. We’ll do the ritual. We’ll be rid of John Harness. And then, you know,” he waved his hand vaguely. “All this will clear up. We don’t need to know what any letters say, or what some long-forgotten murder was about. All right?”

Andrew frowned. He had seen Harness’s violence, his determination. He wasn’t at all convinced that a simple ritual was going to make him go away.

He tried again. “What if I went with someone? Rhys could go with me.”

Rhys made a face.

“No. I’m sorry,” said Fawkes. “Your safety is more important.”

The words sounded pretty good. Or they would have, coming from someone else. Fawkes wrestled with himself. This was the right thing to do, wasn’t it? He had made a resolution, now, to be
better
; to help Andrew, first and foremost. Keeping him at school, under his protection, was the most important thing. Yet as he watched Andrew, he saw that the boy’s gaze had grown distant; anger darkened his eyes, and he had reclaimed that lonely sulk Fawkes had first observed in him.
My God,
Fawkes wondered,
is this what it’s like to be a real authority figure? To chafe people? Have them resent you? Question your decisions? Maybe this is what Colin Jute feels like all the time.

“I think you’re all completely mad,” said Rhys.

17

Tears at Trinity

ANDREW MADE THE
decision to sneak away to Cambridge almost immediately. But he did not intend to bring Persephone. That part just happened.

He found several texts waiting for him when they arrived back at school, time-stamped several minutes apart between the time he left the hospital and the time they reached the Lot.

U were supposed to call to say u will die without hearing my voice for another hour.

U neglected to do this.

A weaker woman would be rending garments etc

I however am doing toenails.

A lot happened today
, he texted back.

Really ur awfully important do tell

So he called her and told her.

“My God, Andrew, they think you have TB? That’s very operatic of you. Or is it Russian? Either way . . .” Her voice grew more serious. “You must be petrified.”

“It’s caused by the ghost.”

“Be serious.”

He explained his rationale. She listened quietly.

“So what are you going to do?” she asked after a time.

“I’m going to Cambridge.”

“Cambridge? What for?”

“To get the letters I found. A researcher has them. Someone Dr. Kahn knows. An archivist. I need to find out what they say. They have a connection to John Harness. I just know it.”

“When are you going?”

“In the morning. Early. Before anyone sees me.”

Persephone grew quiet. “Why don’t we go tonight?” she said. “Together?”

“
Tonight?
Where would we stay?”

“Agatha goes to Trinity, you forget. She’ll lend us her rooms. She spends most nights with Vivek in any case.”

“What about Sir Alan? Would he let you go?”

“I’ll sneak out,” she said, as if this were obvious.

“Won’t he notice?”

“I’ll make an excuse.”

“Like what?” Andrew grew anxious at the thought of involving Sir Alan.

“Oh Andrew,” she replied. “He’s got you scared like everyone else. I know how to handle Daddy.”

Andrew gave her more reasons not to come. He thought it was Harness causing the disease; but what if he was wrong? What if he got her sick?

“No kissing, then,” she said.

And she couldn’t tell Fawkes, who had forbidden him from going.

“I promise,” Persephone said somberly.

And what about lessons?

“I told you,” she said. “I’ll manage it. All right?”

“It doesn’t sound like you need my permission.”

“I’ll text Agatha. She’ll be so excited.”

THEY MET AT
King’s Cross. All the cafés and newsstands stood shuttered; the platforms were vacant of their weekday rush-hour bodies. The station echoed.
The eight forty-one train for . . . Cambridge . . . is now boarding on Track . . . Eight.
Persephone wore a soft pair of jeans and a scarf and she smelled like honeysuckle. Andrew smiled when she approached.

“You made it,” he said.

Almost before the words were out of his mouth, she wrapped her arms around him and kissed him; long, deep, intense.

“We said no kissing!” he said when he came up for air.

“Now we have the same diseases,” she grinned.

“Same haircuts. Same diseases.”

“Nothing can separate us.” She wrapped her fingers in his.

Their train car was deserted. Persephone leaned against the window and threw her legs over Andrew. The lights in the car flickered out. They watched London flick past; then the small towns, small clusters of orange and yellow lights. Then the country night.

“I had an abortion.”

Andrew blinked. “What? When?”

“Last year. It was Simon’s.”

Andrew felt a squeezing in his chest.

“That’s what Rebecca was oh-so-obliquely referring to. Now you know.”

Andrew sat stunned a moment. All the questions he wanted to ask—
What is that like? Does it hurt? Do you feel relieved afterward, or terrible, like the abortion protestors say: like you just killed something?
—seemed invasive, all wrong. And part of him yearned for answers he knew she couldn’t give. Did that mean Simon would always have some special, unerasable place in her life, her history, that he might never achieve? It was a craven, childish thought. Yet it wounded him.

“Okay,” he managed.

“Do you still want to be with me?”

“Yes.”

“All right then.”

“Anything else?” he asked.

“That’s all for now.”

The train plunged through an empty station without stopping. Andrew caught a glimpse of her face in the passing lights. Mournful. Maybe he already had an answer to one of his questions.

“I hope we find something in the letters,” he said, changing the subject. “Roddy’s condition is serious. And I’m responsible.”

“Why? It’s not like you raised the spirit with witchcraft.”

“But what if I hadn’t come to Harrow? Hadn’t been in the Lot? Maybe Theo would be alive now. And Roddy wouldn’t be sick.”

“But then you wouldn’t have met me, would you?” she said. “I’m cold.”

She leaned forward and nuzzled against him, and he held her.

THE COMPARATIVELY TINY
Cambridge station ejected them onto a roundabout where hundreds of student bicycles stood chained to stands. They walked hand in hand, nearly running, up the long boulevards. Persephone knew her way, having visited Agatha before. They stopped and kissed as they went, finding nooks in the bank foyers, or outside the windows of shops that had closed for the night, their anticipation rising, Andrew willfully giving into it, allowing himself to escape in it, vaguely aware that the streets were narrowing, giving way to stone, to Gothic windows, to tiny lanes. Persephone took his hands, placed them under her shirt.

“Oh my God, you’re not wearing a bra. I’m going to lose it.”

“Not yet,” she breathed. “Right upstairs.”

“We’re here?”

Persephone produced a key, and they ran up an echoing stone stair, into a tiled corridor. Agatha’s room bloomed with dusty radiator heat. Andrew took the place in with a glance: heaping duvet, snapshots of pretty smiling pals in frames, a desktop computer, bay windows overlooking Trinity Street. Then Persephone turned off the light. So much for the room. They kissed; their clothes were tossed to the floor. Persephone pressed Andrew down on the bed. They were solicitous of each other.
Is this right? Do I need to move over?
Persephone eased on top of him with a wince. She started slowly. Andrew watched her face. Her eyes closed; her mouth tightened in concentration. She shimmered there in the light from the street, a winter nymph; slim, fair, sad.
I love you
, he said. This made her pause, but not long; she ignored him. She was intent on getting something from him with her body; solving some puzzle; capturing some prize. She leaned over him, her hair tickling his face, her movements deeper and tighter on him. She took his hands and placed them on her breasts. She ground against him. Then a shudder, a prolonged gasp. She threw herself forward, burying her face in his neck.
You okay?
She nestled deeper into him, letting her shoulders quiver. He realized she was crying. Her tears wet his neck and ears and cheeks.

A few moments later she sat up, bare-breasted and laughing, wiping her tears. Her body was smooth under his hands, with the sandy smoothness of an Attic statue.

She sighed. “I did it,” she announced. Then, in a small, embarrassed voice: “I came!” Her cat’s-eyes glinted. She giggled, then hurled herself on the bed next to him. The light from the street spilled over her face. She gazed at the ceiling as if it were the night sky.

“It feels
really good
,” she informed him, a touch of surprise in her voice.

“I know,” he laughed.

She leapt up. “I’m going to call Agatha.” She began to rummage through her bag for her cell phone.

“Wait. Are you kidding? Now?” He propped himself up on an elbow. “What about me?”

She flipped open the phone.

“I have to tell her,” she explained, as if she were stating the obvious. “It
was
in her room.”

THEY SLUMBERED, ANIMALS
hibernating, the wind whipping around the old-fashioned panel windows, the coil radiators spitting heat, the single bed heaped with Agatha’s embroidered pillows. Andrew might have reflected with interest that rooms such as these had been occupied by Lord Byron two hundred years before, but he did not. Eight hours before he had wandered from the mouth of the Royal Tredway Hospital, battered and disgusted with himself; and now here he lay, happy, safe, replete, entwined in Persephone, in a secret spot. He shut his eyes. He slept richly; he was a submarine, plumbing a placid ocean, passing through fronds of primitive seaweeds; aware of great golden fish with shimmering scales just out of sight in the murk; of treasure chests in the mud below.

When he woke, the dark in the room swirled thick like the ocean, pricked only by a single point of light, small, hot, and orange. Andrew stared at it, blearily trying to distinguish if it were part of his dream. Or was it a light coming in from the street? Only when it came closer did he feel a thrill of fear. It was a candle. Behind it, a person. In the room. Agatha? Had she forgotten something?
She would not need a candle
, his mind answered firmly.

Then Andrew saw him. He was naked again. This time white, gaunt, his fingers wrapped around the candleholder like white sticks, his stomach a frail white tent of flesh hanging from his bony rib cage. He stooped and moved slowly, inching forward. His lips were chapped and splitting and bore red stains. The eyes had sunk into the skull, and each breath was won with shuddering toil.
He must be so cold
, Andrew thought, in an instant of sympathy. Harness stared at them. These were the eyes of someone finding his lover in bed with another, but not unexpectedly. Then, slowly, the eyes dragged toward Andrew. Andrew shivered.
He was aware of him
. Andrew struggled to move but he was paralyzed. Harness set the candle on the floor. Then the mattress squeaked as a weight came on it.
He can’t be getting in the bed with us!
Andrew protested in his mind. Another squeak. Weaker than Andrew would have guessed: he must weigh next to nothing. Harness had crawled up onto the bed and was now straddling Persephone, his arm planted next to Andrew in the bed, the hinge of his hipbone casting a stark and emaciated shadow. He stank of urine, like a homeless man, and a kind of savory, fleshy rot, like the sidewalk outside a meatpacker’s. That white head was just inches from Andrew now, and Andrew smelled the butchery breath. Harness crouched low over Persephone. His limp penis dragged on the duvet over her. Andrew writhed. Fought himself out of his paralysis, or tried to, but could do nothing, merely screamed inside his head, because he knew what Harness was doing. Harness held Persephone’s sleeping face; parted those lips with his bony hands; and breathed into her mouth long, wet gusts, each one rattling inside him like wind through a catacombs. Then he coughed. It was a sickening sight. The cough seemed to begin in the hips, then curl its way forward like a wave, ending with a shudder in the head. Harness turned away, placed his hand to his mouth, as if in pain. Then the wave came again, hips, stomach, chest, and finally, with a snap of his neck, Harness unleashed a sound like someone ripping wet towels, and vomited a viscous fluid into Persephone’s open mouth, spilling it all over her face. In the candle glow, Andrew glimpsed the fluid’s color, a rich ruby red. Harness closed his eyes, grimacing with pain again. Then he opened them and met Andrew’s eyes. His lips were coated with blood. His gaunt eyes stared at Andrew, forlorn, as if all this were
his
doing; it was
his
infidelity, and these were the sad consequences, Harness the mere deliverer. A squeak. The presence retreated from the bed. The mattress raised again. The candlelight faded. Andrew’s mind whirled in terror, and went black.