Part 16 (1/2)

Half an hour later, two of the officers departed, carrying Bishop's computer. When Marlene asked why, no answer was given. The three remaining officers stayed to carry out further inquiries, mostly in the Computer Science Suite, which has now been closed to all members of the School. One of the officers (the woman) came into my form-room during Period 8 and asked me when I had last used my workstation there. I informed her curtly that I never used the computers, having no interest at all in electronic games, and she left, looking like a School Inspector about to write an unfriendly report.

The cla.s.s was completely uncontrollable after that, so we played hangman in Latin for the last ten minutes of the lesson, while my mind raced and the invisible finger (never far away) jabbed at my breastbone with ever-increasing persistence.

At the end of the lesson I went in search of Mr Beard, but I found him evasive, speaking of viruses in the School computer network, of workstations and pa.s.sword protections and internet downloads -- all subjects which hold as little fascination for me as do the works of Tacitus for Mr Beard.

As a result, I now know as little about the matter as I did at lunch-time, and was forced to leave School (after waiting over an hour, without success, for Bob Strange to emerge from his office), feeling frustrated and horribly anxious. This isn't over, whatever it is. November it may be, but I have a feeling the Ides of March have just begun.

Tuesday, 2nd November MY PUPIL MADE THE PAPERS AGAIN. THE NATIONALS THIS time, I am proud to say (of course, Mole had a little something to do with that, but he would have found his way in there sooner or later).

The Daily Mail blames the parents; the Guardian sees a victim; and the Telegraph included an editorial on vandalism, and how it should be tackled. All very gratifying: plus Knight's mother has launched a tearful TV appeal to Colin saying that he isn't in any trouble and begging him please to come home.

Bishop has been suspended, pending further inquiry. I'm not surprised; what they found on his computer must certainly have helped. Gerry Grachvogel, too, must have been arrested by now, and very soon, others will follow. The news has. .h.i.t the School like a bomb - the same time-bomb, as it happens, that I put in place during half-term.

A virus to immobilize the system's defences. A carefully planted set of internet links. A log of e-mails sent to and from Knight's personal station to a hotmail address accessible from the School. A selection of images, mostly stills but with a few interesting webcam clips, sent to a number of staff addresses and downloaded into pa.s.sword protected files.

Of course, none of this would have come to light if the police had not investigated Colin Knight's e-mail correspondence. But in these days of internet chat-rooms and virtual predators, it pays to cover all the bases.

Knight fitted the victim profile - a solitary youngster, unpopular at school. I knew they would hit upon the idea sooner or later. As it happens, it was sooner. Mr Beard helped it along, going through the systems after the crash, and after that it was just a question of following the thread.

The rest is simple. It's a lesson they still'have to learn, the folk of St Oswald's; a lesson I learned over ten years ago. They are so complacent, these people; so arrogant and naive. They need to understand what I understood in front of the big NO TRESPa.s.sERS sign; that the rules and legislations of the world are all held in place by the same precarious fabric of bluff and complacency; that any rule can be broken; that trespa.s.s, like any crime, goes unpunished when there's no one to see it. It's an important lesson in any child's education - and, as my father always said, your education's the most precious thing in the world.

But why? I hear you ask. Sometimes I still ask it myself. Why do I do it? Why so dogged, after all these years?

Simple revenge? I only wish it were that easy. But you and I both know that it goes deeper than that. Revenge, I'll admit, is a part of it. For Julian Pinchbeck, perhaps - for the whingeing, cringing child I was, hiding in the shadows and wis.h.i.+ng desperately to be someone else.

But for myself? Nowadays I'm happy with who I am. I'm a solid citizen. I have a job - a job at which I have proved myself unexpectedly talented. I may still be the Invisible Man as far as St Oswald's is concerned, but I have refined my role far beyond that of mere impostor. For the first time I wonder if I could stay here longer.

It's certainly a temptation. I have already made a promising start; and in times of revolution, field officers are quickly promoted. I could be one of those officers. I could have it all - all St Oswald's has to offer: bricks, guns and glory.

Should I take it? I wonder.

Pinchbeck would have jumped at the chance. Of course, Pinchbeck was content, if not happy, to pa.s.s unseen. But I am not he.

What do I want, then?

What have I always wanted?

If it were simply a matter of revenge, then I could simply have set fire to the main building instead of just the Gatehouse and let the whole wasps' nest go up in flames. I could have put a.r.s.enic in the staff tea urn or cocaine in the First Eleven's orange squash. But there wouldn't have been much fun in that, would there? Anyone can do those things. But no one can do what I have done; no one has ever done what I am doing. Still, one thing is missing from the victory tableau. My own face. The face of the artist among the crowd of extras. And as time pa.s.ses, that small absence looms larger and larger.

Regard. In English it implies respect and admiration. In French it simply means 'a look'. That - to be seen - is all I ever wanted; to be more than just a fleeting glimpse, a twelfth man in this game of Gentlemen and Players. Even an invisible man may cast a shadow; but my shadow, grown long over years, has been lost among the dark corridors of St Oswald's.

No more. Already it has begun. The name of Snyde has already been mentioned. Pinchbeck, too. And before it ends, as St Oswald's spirals to its inevitable fate, I promise you: I will be seen.

Until then, I am content, for a time, to be an educator. But there are no exams to be pa.s.sed in my subject. The only test is survival. In this I have a certain experience - Sunny bank Park must have taught me something, after all - but I like to think that the rest comes from natural talent. As a pupil of St Oswald's, that skill would have been refined out of me, to be replaced by Latin, Shakespeare and all the comfortable a.s.surances of that very privileged world. For most of all, St Oswald's teaches conformity; team spirit; playing the game. A game in which Pat Bishop excels; which makes it all the more appropriate that he should be the first real casualty.

As I said before, the way to bring down St Oswald's is a blow to the heart, not the Head. And Bishop is the heart of the Sch ool; well-meaning; honest; respected and loved by boys and staff. A friend to those in trouble; a strong arm to the weak; a conscience; a coach; an inspiration. A man's man; a sportsman; a gentleman; a man who never delegates a single task, but works tirelessly and with joy for the good of St Oswald's. He has never married - how could he? Like Straitley, his devotion to the School precludes a normal family life. Base persons might suspect him of having other preferences. Especially in the current climate, where simply the desire to work with children is seen as legitimate cause for suspicion. But Bishop? Bishop?

No one believes it; and yet the staff room is already curiously divided. Some speak with bold indignation against the unthinkable charge (Straitley amongst them). Others (Bob Strange, the Nations, Jeff Light, Paddy McDonaugh) converse in lowered voices. Sc.r.a.ps of overheard cliche and conjecture - There's no smoke without fire; Always thought he was too good to be true; A bit too friendly with the boys, know what I mean -- overhang the Common Room like smoke signals.

It's astonis.h.i.+ng, once fear or self-interest has stripped away the veneer of comrades.h.i.+p, how easily one's friends may turn. I should know; and by now it must have begun to dawn on him, too.

There are three stages of reaction to such an accusation. One, denial. Two, anger. Three, capitulation. My father, of course, acted guilty from the start. Inarticulate; angry; confused. Pat Bishop must have given them a better performance. The Second Master of St Oswald's is not a man to be intimidated easily. But the proofs were there, undeniable. Logs of chat-room conversations conducted after hours from his pa.s.sword-protected station at St Oswald's. A text message sent from Knight's phone to Bishop's own mobile on the evening of the fire. Pictures stored in his computer's memory. Many pictures, all of boys: some showing practices of which Pat, in his innocence, had never even heard.

Of course he denied it. First, with a kind of grim amus.e.m.e.nt. Then with shock; indignation; rage; and finally a tearful confusion that did more to condemn him than anything else the police had found.

They'd searched his house. A number of photographs had been removed as evidence. School photographs; rugby teams; Bishop's boys throughout the years, smiling from the walls, all unaware that they would one day be used as evidence. Then there were the alb.u.ms. Dozens of them, filled with boys; school trips, away matches, last-days-of term, boys paddling in a Welsh stream, boys bare-chested on a day by the sea, lined up, limbs sleek, hair unkempt, young faces grinning at the camera.

So many boys, they'd said. Wasn't that a little - unusual.

Of course he'd protested. He was a teacher; all teachers keep such things. Straitley could have told them that; how year after year no one is forgotten, how certain faces linger unexpectedly. So many boys, pa.s.sing like the seasons. It was natural to feel a certain nostalgia; more natural still, in the absence of family, to develop affection for the boys one taught, affection and-- What kind of affection? Here was the dirt. They sensed it, despite his protests, closing in like hyenas. He denied it with disgust. But they were gentle; spoke of stress; a breakdown; an offer of help.

His computer had been pa.s.sword-protected. Of course, someone else might have learned the pa.s.sword. Someone else might have used his computer. Someone else might even have planted the pictures. But the credit card that had been used to pay for them was his. The bank confirmed it; and Bishop was at a loss to explain how his own card could have been used to download hundreds of pictures on to the hard drive of his office PC.

Let us help you, Mr Bishop.

Ha. I know the type. And now they'd found his Achilles' heel; not lewdness as they'd suspected, but something infinitely more dangerous -- his desire for approval. His fatal eagerness to please.

Tell us about the boys, Pat.

Most people don't see this in him at first. They see his size, his strength, his giant devotion. Underneath all that he is a pitiful creature; anxious; insecure; running his endless laps in an eternal effort to get ahead. But St Oswald's is a demanding master, and its memory is long. Nothing is forgotten, nothing put aside. Even in a career such as Bishop's there have been failures; errors of judgement. He knows it, as do I; but the boys are his security. Their happy faces remind him that he is a success. Their youth stimulates him-- Dirty laughter from the wings.

No, that wasn't what he'd meant.

Then what exactly had he meant? Crowding round now, like dogs around a bear. Like the little boys around my father as he cursed and swore, his big bear's rump hanging off the seat of the Mean Machine as they squealed and danced.

Tell us about the boys, Pat.

Tell us about Knight.

'Talk about daft,' said Roach today in the Common Room. 'I mean, how stupid can you get, using your own name and credit card?'

Though he does not know it, Roach himself is in imminent danger of discovery. Several threads lead to him already, and his intimacy with Jeff Light and Gerry Grachvogel is well established. Poor Gerry, so I hear, is already under investigation, although his excessively nervous state makes him a less than reliable witness. Internet p.o.r.nography has also been found on his workstation, paid for on his credit card.

'I always knew he was a funny b.u.g.g.e.r,' said Light. 'Bit too chummy with the lads, know what I mean?'

Roach nodded. 'Just goes to show,' he said. 'You can't be sure of anyone these days.'

How true that was. I followed the conversation from afar, with a certain sense of ironic amus.e.m.e.nt. The gentlemen of St Oswald's are a trusting lot; keys left in jacket pockets slung over chairs; wallets in desk drawers; offices left unlocked. The theft of a credit-card number is the work of a moment; no skill is required; and the card can usually be replaced before the owner even suspects it is missing.

Roach's card was the only one I failed to return - he reported it missing before I could act - but Bishop, Light and Grachvogel have no such excuse. My one regret is that I failed to catch Roy Straitley - it would have been elegant to have sent them all to h.e.l.l in the same handbasket - but the sly old fox doesn't even own a credit card, and besides, I don't think anyone would believe that he is computer literate enough to turn on a PC.

Still, that can change. We've only just begun, he and I, and I've planned this game for so long that I really don't want it all to end too quickly. Already he is poised on the brink of dismissal; he remains only in the absence of the Second Master and because the desperate lack of staff members in his department makes him - but only for the duration of the crisis -- indispensable.

It's his birthday on Friday. Bonfire Night: I imagine he's dreading it; old people so often do. I should send him a present; something nice to take his mind off the week's unpleasantness. So far I haven't had any ideas, but then again, I've had a lot on my plate recently.

Give me time.

I WE NEVER LIKED BIRTHDAYS SINCE, YOU KNOW. TOYS, CAKE, paper hats and friends to tea; for years I longed for those things without ever getting them, just as I longed for St Oswald's and its enviable patina of wealth and respectability. For his birthdays, Leon went to restaurants, where he was allowed wine and had to wear a tie. Until 1 was thirteen I had never even been to a restaurant. Waste of money, grumbled John Snyde. Even before my mother left, my birthdays had been hasty occasions; shop-bought cakes and candles that were put away carefully in an old tobacco tin (with last year's icing-sugar crumbs still clinging to the pastel stubs) for next time. My presents came in Woolworth's bags, with the labels still on them; we sometimes sang 'Happy Birthday To You', but with the dogged, undemonstrative embarra.s.sment of the working cla.s.s.

When she left, of course, even that stopped. If he remembered, my father would give me money for my birthdays, telling me to get summat you really want - but I had no friends, no cards, no parties. Once Pepsi made an effort; pizza with birthday candles on it, and a chocolate cake that had sunk along one side. I tried to be grateful, but I knew I'd been cheated; in a way Pepsi's simpleminded endeavour was even worse than nothing at all. When there was nothing, I could at least forget what day it was.