Bryant & May 04; Ten Second Staircase

∨ Ten Second Staircase ∧

12

The Barrier of Youth

John May stood on the worn steps of St Crispin’s Boys’ School, St John Street, Clerkenwell, and studied the building’s façade: a fuss of railings and crenellations, stone urns, wreaths, garlands, ‘improving’ mottoes, and blunted statuary depicting Christian martyrs. Above the door, letters cut into a single block of white Portland stone read ‘Founded In The Year Of Our Lord 1685’. Through one of the double-height central windows, May could see a dozen pupils hunched in the pale light of their computer terminals.

“Hard to believe it’s been here for so long,” said Elliot Mason, echoing his thoughts. The teacher was still wearing his knitted beanie, and looked out of place. “Not on this site, of course – this building’s late Victorian. The coping stone was moved from the original site somewhere further east. For three centuries St Crispin’s was open to all devout Christians who had the will to learn. Now it’s reserved for the paying elite. There’s a five-year waiting list to attend. So much for progress. Sorry, I saw you at the art gallery this morning. Your sergeant interviewed me.” Mason introduced himself with a faint handshake.

May had been educated at a good grammar school in Vauxhall, a step above his partner’s experience in Whitechapel. He had reached maturity in a world of crow-black gowns and mortarboards. Consequently, the young teacher’s relaxed clothes and attitude came as a surprise to him. “Why do you choose to teach here?” he asked, surveying the exterior.

“The pay’s better than working in a state school, and there’s slightly less chance of getting stabbed. Sorry, there’s a limit to my altruism. In my book you can have a vocation and still meet your mortgage payments. It looks like it’s going to rain. The kids will be off soon. Are you coming in?”

“I wanted to talk to the class that visited the gallery yesterday,” said May. “I know they gave statements, but I wondered if we’d missed something. We’ve had trouble getting hold of your head teacher, Dr Westingham.”

“He likes the school to keep a low profile. Apparently he had kittens when he saw the afternoon news report. He’s an utter slave to parental demands, lives in fear of losing his exclusive status.”

“He has no reason to worry. We’re just gathering information.”

They climbed the worn steps together.

“He fears guilt by association. God forbid the idea of the big bad world intruding into these sepulchral halls, staining the innocence of his children. They might have fee-paying parents, but they’re the same as every other hormonal delinquent in the neighbourhood.

They nick stuff from a better class of store, and lie more professionally, but apart from that it’s business as usual: skinning up doobies in the kiln room, playing hockey with frozen mice in the biology lab, hanging around the girls’ school in Roseberry Avenue, shoving each other into strip clubs – they can get into Soho during their lunch hour and still be back in time for the first module of the afternoon.

Come on, I’ll dig them out for you. They won’t take any orders from me, of course, a lapsed socialist with a persecution complex and artistic aspirations. They smell my fear and play on it mercilessly.”

“Why were you taking the class?”

“I already explained to your sergeant. Their teacher, Mr Kingsmere, had an upset stomach and stayed home yesterday, so I had to take his place.”

“You were inside the County Hall Gallery while it happened – you didn’t see or hear anything unusual?”

“I walked through the main chamber a few minutes before the alarm was raised, then went to the café.”

“Why didn’t you stay with your class?”

“I needed to change into trainers. I was breaking in new shoes and they were killing me. Here we are. The element of surprise is the only weapon I have against them.”

Mason led the way through corridors built in the time of James II that had now been relaid for computer wiring, and stopped before a wide mahogany door, flinging it wide.

The pupils within were all working at their terminals, and barely bothered to look up. May had expected them to react by becoming statues, freezing in a variety of violent postures, their internecine cruelties caught in mid-brutalisation. It was what teenagers would have done in his day, had the demographic category been invented, but back then lessons had been focussed on blackboards and rote-learning, and any diversion had been welcomed.

“Would all of those boys in Mr Kingsmere’s art class please make themselves known?” asked Mason. A number of hands were desultorily raised. “Come on – Gosling, Parfitt, I know you were both there. You too, Jezzard, Tarkington, Billings, and the rest of you.”

Further hands crept up like unfurling ferns. Nobody was pleased about being drawn away from their screens. Adults – especially ones involved in law enforcement – would only ask pedantic, irrelevant questions, and would take ages doing so. “Outside, please; the remainder get on with your work.”

The boys might have been moving underwater. Their pantomimic exertions as they left the room suggested that they held little respect for the relief teacher.

“These are all Kingsmere’s lads,” explained Mason. “He’s the only teacher in the school who gets to pick his own pupils, and he takes the brightest ones for a single year for extracurricular activities.

Puts them through hell and they love him for it. Funny how some teachers can’t put a foot wrong. Of course, private all-male schools tend to become a trifle Hellenic when you’re dealing with this age group, too many hormones flying about, although these days the subject is avoided in case the parents come after us with burning torches.”

“So it’s just hero worship?”

“Oh, absolutely, there’s nothing in it. He’s a very charismatic man. Kingsmere takes art, gym, comparative beliefs, media, social studies, and IT. The loyalty of his class bothers Westingham, who always suspects teachers of trying to undermine his authority. But I’m sure you don’t want to hear about our petty intrigues. Okay, they’re all yours.”

May found himself facing fourteen boys who seemed between the ages of fifteen and seventeen, assembled in a ragged line around the main hall. “Where’s Luke Tripp?” he asked.

“Here, sir.” The tiny Luke stepped forward from behind the others. “How old are you?”

“Two months from thirteen, sir. Small for my age. What I lack in height I make up in genius.” The others snorted. “That’s why the King – Mr Kingsmere – takes me.”

“You’re the one who saw the horseman.”

“That’s right, sir.”

“Don’t you think it’s a bit of a long shot, trying to convince police officers that you saw someone gallop into the gallery and sweep Miss White off her feet?”

“Your sergeant asked for the truth, sir. I had the impression of a man on a horse. I wouldn’t say for certain that it was one.”

“I’m not sure I understand what you mean.”

“Neither am I, but it’s all I can tell you. He looked like a highwayman, straight out of the Alfred Noyes poem. You know, ‘He’d a French cocked-hat on his forehead, a bunch of lace at his chin,’ except he didn’t.”

“You’re so gay, Tripp,” muttered someone.

“Get back in your own gene pool, Tripp,” said someone else. “I drew a picture – ” the boy offered, ignoring his classmates. “I know, I saw it,” May told him. “Nobody else can shed any light on this, I suppose.”

The pupils looked at each other blankly. Eventually, the pustular Parfitt raised his hand. “Maybe he was in fancy dress, or performing some piece of terrorist art.”

“We didn’t see the horse, but we think we know who Tripp saw,” said the chubby, bat-eared Jezzard.

“How could you, if you didn’t see anyone in the chamber?”

“We all took a look at his drawing, sir. The sergeant showed it to us.”

“Well, who was it?”

Gosling glared at Jezzard, but finally spoke up. “We talked about it between ourselves, and we’d rather not say, sir, in case we’re wrong.” Silence settled on the group. This is going to be a long day, thought May.

♦

Elliot Mason walked with May across the school quadrangle as rain blackened the playground. “I know why they won’t talk to you,” he said. “It’s a private matter between the boys, and it’s a can of worms you don’t want to open. They can be very tight-lipped when it suits them.”

“I just want to get at the truth,” May told him. “If they’re holding something back, I’ll just keep returning until I find out what it is – unless you want to tell me.”

Mason gave the school a guilty backward glance, as if the masters had stopped to listen. “This has always been a pretty mixed area. The Roland Plumbe Community Estate is nearby. It’s better than it was, but it’s still pretty rough. The school doesn’t have its own playing fields, so it hires them, and the quickest way to get there is by cutting across the corner of the estate. The estate kids don’t take kindly to an invasion of their turf by posh boys. They’re members of a local gang that’s conducting a bit of a class war with St Crispin’s. It’s possible the attacker might be amongst them. I get the feeling the boys have a particular nemesis there, but they won’t be prepared to tell you who it is, simply because it would mean an escalation on both sides. We had a near-fatal stabbing some while back, and it took a lot of work to bring everyone back under control. Nobody wants to lose that.”

“Then it’s in everyone’s interests for them to provide the unit with a name. This is a murder investigation, Mr Mason.”

The relief teacher stuck his hands in his pockets. He looked uncomfortable. “If they start naming suspects on the estate, and your team head over there to take interviews, there’s going to be trouble. The boys will be blamed, and somebody here will end up getting hurt.”

“We’ll provide them with protection,” offered May, but Mason was already shaking his head vigorously.

“You don’t understand. These lads go through quite enough without facing an additional daily threat of violence, and you won’t be there when you’re needed. The police are never around when it really matters. Kids these days are far craftier than you or I can imagine. The last thing we need around here is a war.”

I’ve been telling Arthur I know how to handle the younger generation, May thought. Now it looks like I’m being put to the test.