Part 22 (2/2)

]ulia Snyde.

Such a long time since I'd heard that name. Such a long time since I'd even thought of her. And yet here she was again, looking just like Dianne Dare, looking at me with affection - and a touch of humour -- in her bright brown eyes.

'You changed your name?' I said at last.

She smiled. 'Under the circ.u.mstances, yes.'

That I could understand. She'd gone to France - 'Paris, was it? I suppose that's where you learned your French.'

'I was an apt pupil.'

Now I recalled that day in the Gatehouse. Her dark hair, cut shorter than it is now, the neat, girlish outfit, pleated skirt and pastel sweater. The way she'd smiled at me, shyly then, but with knowledge in her eyes. How I'd been sure she'd known something-- I looked at her now in the uncanny light and wondered how I could have failed to miss her. I wondered what she was doing here now, and how she had changed from Porter's girl to the a.s.sured young woman she was today. Most of all I wondered just how much she had known, and why she had hidden it from me, now and all those years ago.

'You did know Pinchbeck, didn't you?' I said.

Silently she nodded.

'But then - what about Keane?' She smiled. 'As I said. He had to go.'

Well, serve him right, the little sneak. Him and his notebooks. My first glance should have warned me; those lines, those drawings, those whimsical little observations on the nature and history of St Oswald's. I remember asking myself then whether it wouldn't have been better to deal with him straight away; but 1 had a lot on my mind at the time, and anyway, there wasn't much - besides that photograph - to incriminate me.

You'd think a budding author would have been far too busy with his Muse to go messing with such ancient history. But he had -- plus he'd spent time at Sunnybank Park, though he was three or four years ahead of me, and wouldn't have made the connection immediately.

I hadn't myself for a while, you know; but somewhere along the line, I must have recognized his face. I'd known it before I joined Sunnybank Park; remembered watching as a gang of boys cornered him after school; remembered his neat clothes -- suspicious for a Sunnybanker - and, most of all, the library books under his arm that proclaimed him a target. I'd known right then it could have been me.

It had taught me a lesson, watching that boy. Be invisible, I'd warned myself. Don't look too smart. Don't carry books.

And if in doubt, run like h.e.l.l. Keane hadn't run. That had always been his problem.

In a way I'm sorry. Still, after the notebook, I knew I couldn't let him live. He'd already found the St Oswald's picture; he'd talked to Marlene, and most of all there was that photograph, taken from G.o.d knows what Sports Day at Sunnybank, with Yours Truly at the back (the Thunderpants mercifully out of sight). Once he'd made that connection (and he would have done, sooner or later), it would have been a simple matter of going through Sunny bank's photo archive until he found what he was looking for.

I'd bought the knife some months before - 24 pounds 99 from Army Stores - and I have to say it was a good one; sharp, slim, double-edged and lethal. Rather like myself, in fact. A pity I had to leave it, really - I'd meant it for Straitley - but retrieving it would have been a messy business, and besides, I didn't want to be wandering around a public park with a murder weapon in my pocket. No chance of finding any prints on the knife, either. I was wearing gloves.

I'd followed him to the cordoned area, just as the fireworks were starting. Here there were trees, and in their shelter the shadows were doubly dark. There were people all around, of course; but most of them were watching the sky, nd in the false light of all those rockets, n.o.body saw the I quick little drama that played out under the trees.

It takes a surprising amount of skill to stab someone ; between the ribs. It's the intercostal muscles that are the I trickiest part; they contract, you know, so that even if you don't strike a rib by accident, you have to get through a layer of tensed muscle before you do any real damage. Going for the heart is equally risky; it's the breastbone, you see, that gets in the way. The ideal method is through the spinal cord, between the third and fourth vertebrae, but you tell me how I was expected to locate the spot, in the dark, and with most of him hidden under a great big Army Surplus parka?

I might have cut his throat, of course, but those of us who have actually tried it, rather than just watching the movies, will tell you that it's not as easy as it looks. I settled for an upward thrust from the diaphragm, just below the wishbone. I dumped him under the trees, where anyone seeing him would a.s.sume he was drunk, and leave him well alone. I'm not a biology teacher, so I can only guess - blood loss or a collapsed lung -- as to the technical cause of death, but he was pretty d.a.m.n surprised about it, I can tell you.

'You killed him?'

'Yes, sir. Nothing personal.'

It occurred to me that perhaps I was genuinely ill; that all this was a kind of hallucination that said more about my subconscious than I wanted to know. Certainly I'd felt better. A sudden st.i.tch dug painfully into my left armpit. The invisible finger had become an entire hand; a firm, constant pressure against my breastbone that made me gasp.

'Mr Straitley?' There was concern in Miss Dare's voice.

'Just a st.i.tch,' I said, and sat down abruptly. The muddy ground, though soft, seemed astonis.h.i.+ngly cold; a cold that pulsed up through the gra.s.s like a dying heartbeat. 'You killed him?' I repeated.

'He was a loose end, sir. As I said, he had to go.'

'And Knight?'

There was a pause. 'And Knight,' said Miss Dare.

For a moment, an awful moment, my breath caught. I hadn't liked the boy, but he was one of mine, and in spite of everything I suppose I'd hoped-- 'Mr Straitley, please. I can't have this now. Come on, stand up--' She put a shoulder under my arm - she was stronger than she looked - and hauled me upright.

'Knight's dead?' I said numbly.

'Don't worry, sir. It was quick.' She wedged a hip against my ribs, half-hoisting me to my feet. 'But I needed a victim, and not just a body, either. I needed a story. A murdered schoolboy makes front-page news - on a slow day - but a missing boy just keeps on giving. Searches; speculation; tearful appeals from the distracted mother; interviews with friends; then as hope dwindles, the dragging of local ponds and reservoirs, the discovery of an item of clothing and the Inevitable DNA testing of listed paedophiles in the area. You know how it is, sir. They know, but they don't know. : Vkad until they know for certain--'

The cramp in my side came again, and I gave a ^tenothered gasp. Miss Dare broke off at once. 'I'm sorry, sir,'

%he said in a gentler voice. 'None of that's important now.

Knight can wait. It's not as if he's going anywhere, is it? Just breathe slowly. Keep walking. And for G.o.d's sake, look at me. We don't have much time.'

And so I breathed, and I looked, and I kept walking, and slowly we limped, I hanging like an albatross around Miss Dare's neck, towards the sheltering trees.

Friday, 5th November 9.30 p.m.

THERE WAS A BENCH UNDER THE TREES. WE STAGGERED there together across the muddy gra.s.s, and I collapsed on to the seat with a jolt that set my old heart tw.a.n.ging like a broken spring.

Miss Dare was trying to tell me something. I tried to explain that I had other things on my mind. Oh, it comes f us all in the end, I know; but I'd expected something tnore than this madness in a muddy field. But Keane was fc'iksad; Knight was dead; Miss Dare was someone else, and

npw I could no longer pretend to myself that the agony at flared and clawed at my side was anything remotely embling a st.i.tch. Old age is so undignified, I thought. : for us the glories of the Senate, but a rushed exit in the : of an ambulance - or worse, a doddering decline. And still I fought it. I could hear my heart straining to keep moving, to keep the old body going for just a little longer, and 1 thought to myself; are we ever ready? And do we ever, really believe?

'Please, Mr Straitley. 1 need you to concentrate.'

Concentrate, forsooth! ”I happen to be rather preoccupied at the moment,' I said. 'The small matter of my imminent demise. Maybe later--'

But now that memory came again, closer now, almost close enough to touch. A face, half-blue, half-red, turning towards me, a young face raw with distress and harsh with resolve, a face, glimpsed once, fifteen years ago-- 'Shh,' said Miss Dare. 'Can you see me now?'

And then, suddenly, I did.

A rare moment of overwhelming clarity. Dominoes in line, rattling furiously towards the mystic centre. Black-and white pictures leaping into sudden relief; a vase becomes lovers; a familiar face disintegrates and becomes something else altogether.

I looked; and in that moment I saw Pinchbeck; his face upturned, his gla.s.ses strobing in the emergency lights. And at the same time I saw Julia Snyde with her neat black fringe; and Miss Dare's grey eyes under her schoolboy's cap, the flashes of the fireworks illuminating her face and suddenly, like that, I just knew.

Do you see me now?

Yes, I do.

I caught the moment. His jaw dropped. His face seemed to slacken; it was like watching rapid decay through time-lapse photography. Suddenly he looked far older than his sixty five years; in fact in that moment he looked every bit the Centurion.

Catharsis. It's what my a nalyst keeps talking about; but I'd never experienced anything like it until then. That look on Straitley's face. The understanding -- the horror -- and behind it, I thought perhaps, the pity.

'Julian Pinchbeck. Julia Snyde.'

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