distracted people’s
attention from him or some such nonsense, and he hadn’t done anything really.
She wouldn’t admit what he was, you see. She wanted to believe he was just a
boy.”
“But
what was he?” Clare said, frustrated. “Did anyone know why he was like that?”
“Three
people did.” She suppressed a giggle; it was like a banal thriller—perhaps
written by Edmund.
“The head,” he said, “and Kelly’s class master, and his
grandmother. It was she who told them all about him. One of my
colleagues asked the head afterwards what she’d had to say, but he made it
clear that was none of their business. As for the class master, he was off a
week recovering; no one needed to be told not to question him. He never
recovered completely. He used to run away from the sight of blood, and once I
had almost to carry him into the school just because he’d seen an expectant
mother going by. I’ve no idea what that meant to him. But as for Kelly, I
believe he was possessed. Such things do still happen, you know. Science has
yet to find a cure for them.”
Perhaps,
perhaps, Clare was interrupting. Five to one. “Is
Kelly’s class master here now?” she said.
“Dear me, no. He left years ago; he could never teach
properly after that. He never trusted the children again, once he knew what
Kelly had been hiding. You wanted to question him, did you?”
Question? Did he know why she was here, after all? She
snatched at the only thought left in her suddenly dull mind. Records. “I was just thinking how much trouble he must have had filling in Kelly’s
record card,” she said.
“Yes
indeed. I recall he was very glad to see the record go.”
“Go
where?”
“To
the Vale School, when Kelly went there, of course.”
“Yes,
of course,” Clare said dully. “You wouldn’t have kept any record of him here at
all.”
The
clock’s hands twitched, a nervous upturned moustache.
At least she could leave, knowing she’d teased out all the information to be
had. “I think I’ll go down and wait for David,” she said. “It’s too nice to be
inside.”
“I
imagine he’s on his way up now. That clock is slow. It’s well past one.”
When
she grabbed its strap her handbag almost vomited its contents; she knew how it
felt. “I’ll catch him on the stairs,” she said. “I must get back to work. To
school, I mean. Where I work.” She was at the door
when the grey-haired master said, “Odd you should mention Kelly. I bumped into
a friend of his grandmother’s only a few weeks ago.”
“Which
friend was that?” Don’t sound so eager, don’t waste time, don’t wait, run, it’s
past one.
“A woman who would sometimes collect Kelly from school. I’ve
no idea of her name. She works in a launderette on Lodge Lane.”
But
Clare drove that way to work! “Which, the one on the corner of, of”—oh God,
David would open the door in a minute, the door was too thick for her to hear
him coming—”of Cedar Grove?”
“No, the one next to the Bingo hall.” He turned toward the
window as a motorcycle roared below. “Here’s David now,” he said. “David!” he
called.
He
was calling, “Your friend is here!” as she ran stumbling downstairs, her heel
slipping from a stone edge. A young man appeared in the doorway from the
playground, unstudding his crash helmet, as she
caught herself back by the railing from the sharp stone edges below. He glanced
curiously at her, seemed about to speak—but she was past him and out, across
the playground and through the gates with a
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