Gentlemen And Players Part 24

And if I killed him now, it would not feel like victory.

A draw, then, magister. I can live with that.

Besides, there was one last thing that troubled me; one question left unanswered before I could declare an end to the game. It occurred to me then that I might not like the answer. All the same, I needed to know.

'Tell me, sir. If you saw me push Leon, why didn't you say so at the time? Why protect me when you knew what I'd done?'

I knew, of course, what I wanted him to say. And silently, I faced him now, squatting low enough at his side to catch even the smallest of whispers.

'Talk to me, sir. Why didn't you tell?'

For a time, there was silence, but for his breathing that rattled slow and shallow in his throat. I wondered then if I'd left it too late; if he planned to expire out of sheer spite. Then he spoke, and his voice was faint, but I heard him well. And he said: 'St Oswald's.'

She'd said no lies. Well, I gave her the truth. As much of it as I could, anyway, though I was never sure afterwards how much of it I had spoken aloud. That's why I kept the secret for all these years; never told the police what I'd seen on the roof; allowed the business to die with John Snyde. You have to understand; Leon's death on School premises was terrible enough. The Porter's suicide made it worse. But to involve a child - to accuse a child - that would have catapulted the sorry affair into tabloid territory for ever. St Oswald's didn't deserve that. My colleagues, my boys - the damage to them would have been incalculable.

And besides, what precisely had I witnessed? A face, glimpsed for a split second in treacherous light. A hand on Leon's shoulder. The figure of a Porter blocking the scene. It wasn't enough.

And so I'd let the matter lie. It was barely dishonest, I told myself - after all I hardly trusted my own testimony as it was. But now here was the truth at last, returning like a juggernaut to crush me, my friends - everything I'd hoped to protect - beneath its giant wheels.

'St Oswald's.' Her voice was reflective, barely audible across a cavernous distance.

I nodded, pleased she'd understood. After all, how could she not? She knew St Oswald's as well as I did; knew its ways and its dark secrets; its comforts and its little conceits. It's hard to explain a place like St Oswald's. Like teaching, you're either born to it or you're not. Drawn in, too many find themselves unable to leave - at least until the day the old place decides to spit them out (with or without a small honorarium taken from Common Room Committee funds). I have been so many years in St Oswald's that nothing else exists; I have no friends outside the Common Room; no hopes beyond my boys, no life beyond-- 'St Oswald's,' she repeated. 'Of course it was. It's funny, sir. I thought maybe you'd done it for me.'

'For you?" I said. 'Why?'

Something splashed against my hand; a droplet from the nearby trees, or something else, I wasn't sure. I suddenly felt a surge of pity - surely inappropriate, but I felt it nevertheless. Could she really have thought that I had kept silent all these years for the sake of some unimagined relationship between us? That might explain a number of things: her pursuit of me; her all-consuming need for approval; her ever more baroque ways of gaining my attention. Oh, she was a monster; but in that moment I felt for her, and I reached out my clumsy old hand towards her in the darkness.

She took it. 'b.l.o.o.d.y St Oswald's. b.l.o.o.d.y vampire.'

I knew what she meant. You can give, and give and give - but St Oswald's is always hungry, devouring everything love, lives, loyalty - without ever sating its interminable appet.i.te.

'How can you bear it, sir? What's in it for you7.'

Good point, Miss Dare. The fact is I have no choice; I am like a mother bird faced with a chick of monstrous proportions and insatiable greed. 'The truth is that many of us -- the old guard, at least - would lie or even die for St Oswald's if duty demanded it.' I didn't add that I felt as if I might actually be dying there and then, but that was because my mouth was dry.

She gave an unexpected chuckle. 'You old drama queen. You know, I feel half inclined to give you your wish - to let you die for dear St Oswald's and see how much grat.i.tude you get for it.'

'No grat.i.tude,' I said, 'but the tax benefits are enormous.' It was a lame quip, as last words go, but in the circ.u.mstances it was the best I could do.

'Don't be an a.s.s, sir. You're not going to die.'

'I'm turned sixty-five, and can do as I please.'

'What, and miss your Century?'

'It is the game,' I misquoted from somewhere or other. 'Not he who plays it.'

'That depends what side you're on.'

I laughed. She was a clever girl, I thought, but I defy anyone to find a woman who really understands cricket. 'I need to sleep now,' I told her drowsily. 'Up stumps and back to the Pavilion. Scis quid dicant--'

'Not yet, sir,' she said. 'You can't sleep now--'

'Watch me,' I said, and closed my eyes.

There was a long silence. Then I heard her voice, receding now like her footsteps as the cold drew in.

'Happy birthday, magister.'

Those last words sounded very distant, very final in the dark. The Last Veil, I told myself glumly - at any point now I could expect to see the Tunnel of Light Penny Nation's always talking about, with its celestial cheerleaders urging me on.

To be honest I've always thought it sounded a bit ghastly, but now I thought I could actually see the light - a rather eerie greenish glow - and hear the voices of departed friends whispering my name.

'Mr Straitley?'

Funny, I thought: I'd expected celestial beings to be rather less formal in their address. But I could hear it clearly now, and in the green glow I could see that Miss Dare had gone, and that what I had taken for a fallen branch in the darkness was in fact a huddled figure, lying on the ground not ten feet away.

'Mr Straitley,' it whispered again, in a voice as rusty and as human -- as my own.

Now I could see an outstretched hand; a crescent of face behind the furred hood of a parka; then a small greenish light, which I recognized at last as the display screen of a mobile phone, illuminating his face. And it was a familiar face; the expression strained but calm as he began, patiently, still holding the phone with what looked like an agonizing effort, to crawl across the gra.s.s towards me.

'Keane?' I said.

Paris. 5ieme arrondiss.e.m.e.nt Friday, 12th November I CALLED THE AMBULANCE. THERE'S ALWAYS ONE NEAR THE park on Bonfire Night in case of accidents, fights and general misadventure, and all I had to do was phone in (using Knight's phone for the last time), reporting that an old man had collapsed and leaving instructions that would be at the same time precise enough to allow them to find him and vague enough to give me a chance to get away in comfort.

It didn't take long. Over the years I have become rather an expert at quick getaways. I got back to my flat by ten; at ten fifteen I was packed and ready. I left the hire car (keys in the ignition) on the Abbey Road estate; by ten thirty I was fairly certain it would have been stolen and torched. I'd already wiped my computer and removed the hard drive, and now I disposed of what was left along the railway tracks on my way to the station. By then I had only a small case of Miss Dare's clothes to carry; I left them in a charity bin where they would be laundered and sent to the Third World. Finally I dumped the few doc.u.ments still pertaining to my old ident.i.ty into a skip and bought myself a night at a cheap motel and a single rail ticket home.

I have to say, I've missed Paris. Fifteen years ago, I never would have believed it possible; but now I like it very much. I am free of my mother (such a sad business, two burnt to death in an apartment fire); and as a result I am the sole beneficiary of rather a neat little inheritance. I've changed my name as my mother did hers, and I've been teaching English for the last two years at a comfortably suburban lycie, from which I have recently taken a short sabbatical to complete the research that will, I am a.s.sured, lead to my rapid promotion. I do hope so; in fact I happen to know that a little scandal is about to erupt (regarding my immediate superior's on-line-gambling problem) which may offer me a suitable vacancy. It isn't St Oswald's, of course; but it will do. For now, at least.

As for Straitley, I hope he survives. No other teacher has earned my respect - certainly not the staff at Sunnybank Park,, or at the dull Paris lycie that succeeded it. No one K Wsc -- teacher, parent, a.n.a.lyst - has ever taught me any thing worth knowing. Perhaps this is why I let him live. 3 pounds perhaps it was to prove to myself that I have finally pa.s.sed my old magister - though in his case survival ries its own double-edged responsibilities, and what his testimony will mean to St Oswald's is hard to tell. Certainly, if he wishes to save his colleagues from the present scandal, I see no alternative but to raise the spectre of the Snyde affair. There will be unpleasantness. My name will be mentioned.

I have little anxiety on that front, however; my tracks are well hidden, and unlike St Oswald's, I will emerge from this once again unseen and undamaged. But the School has weathered scandals before; and although this new development is likely to raise its profile in a most disagreeable way, I imagine it may endure. In a way, perversely, I hope it does. After all, a sizeable part of me belongs there.

Now, sitting in my favourite cafe (no, I won't tell you where it is), with my demita.s.se and croissants on the vinyl tabletop in front of me and the November wind snickering and sobbing along the broad boulevard, I could almost be on holiday. There's the same sense of promise in the air; of plans to be made. I should be enjoying myself. Another two months of sabbatical to go, a new, exciting little project to begin, and, best of all, strangest of all, I am free.

But I have dragged this revenge of mine behind me for so long that I almost miss the weight of it; the certainty of having something to chase. For the present, it seems, my momentum is spent. It's a curious feeling, and spoils the moment. For the first time in many years, I find myself thinking of Leon. I know that sounds strange - hasn't he been with me all this time? -- but I mean the real Leon, rather than the figure that time and distance have made of him. He'd be nearly thirty now. I remember him saying: Thirty, that's old. For Christ's sake, kill me before I get there.

I never could before, but now I can see Leon at thirty; Leon married; getting a paunch; Leon with a job; Leon with a child. And now, after all, I can see how ordinary he looks, eclipsed by time; reduced to a series of old snapshots, colours faded, now-comic images of fashions long dead my G.o.d, they used to wear that gear? - and suddenly and ridiculously I begin to weep. Not for the Leon of my imagination, but for my own self, little Queenie as was, now twenty-eight years old and heading full-tilt and for ever into who knows what new darkness. Can I bear it? I ask. And will I ever stop?

'Hi, la Reinette. Ca va pas?' That's Andre Joubert, the cafe owner; a man in his sixties, whip-thin and dark. He knows me -- or thinks he does -- and there is concern in his angular face as he sees my expression. I make a shooing gesture - 'Tout va bien' - leave a couple of coins on the table and step out on to the boulevard, where my tears will dry in the gritty wind. Perhaps I will mention this to my a.n.a.lyst at our next appointment. On the other hand, perhaps I will miss the appointment altogether.

My a.n.a.lyst is called Zara, and wears chunky knitwear and I'Air du Temps. She knows nothing of me but my fictions, and gives me homeopathic tinctures of sepia and iodine to calm my nerves. She is full of sympathy for my troubled childhood and for the tragedies that robbed me, first of my father, then of my mother, stepfather and baby sister at such an early age. She feels concern for my shyness, my boyishness, and for the fact that I have never been intimate with a man. She blames my father - whom I have presented to her in the garb of Roy Straitley - and urges me to seek closure, catharsis, self-determination.

It occurs to me that perhaps I have.

Across the boulevard, Paris is bright and sharp around the edges, stripped raw by the November wind. It makes me restless; makes me want to see precisely where that wind is blowing; makes me curious as to the colour of the light just over the far horizon.

My suburban lycee seems ba.n.a.l next to St Oswald's. My little project has been done before; and the prospect of settling down, of accepting the promotion, of fitting into the niche, now seems altogether too easy. After St Oswald's I want more. I still want to dare, to strive, to conquer -- now even Paris seems too small to contain my ambition.

Where, then? America might be nice; that land of reinvention, where just to be British confers automatic Gentleman status. A country of black-and-white values, America; of interesting contradictions. I feel that there might be considerable rewards to be gained for a talented player such as myself. Yes, I might enjoy America.

Or Italy, where every cathedral reminds me of St Oswald's and the light is golden on the dust and the squalor of those fabulous ancient cities. Or Portugal, or Spain - or further still, to India and j.a.pan - until one day I find myself back in front of St Oswald's main gates, like the serpent with its tail in its mouth, whose creeping ambition girdles the earth.

Now that I come to think a bout it, it seems inevitable. Not this year - maybe not even this decade - but some day I will find myself standing there, looking in at the cricket grounds and the rugby fields and the quads and arches and chimneys and portcullises of St Oswald's Grammar School for Boys. I find this a curiously comforting thought - like the image of a candle on a window-ledge burning just for me - as if the pa.s.sing of Time, which has been ever more present in my thoughts these past few years, were simply the pa.s.sing of clouds across those long golden rooftops. No one will know me. Years of reinvention have given me protective colours. Only one person would recognize me, and I do plan to wait until long after Roy Straitley has retired before I show my face -- any of my faces - around St Oswald's again. A pity, in a way. I might have enjoyed a final game. Still, when I come back to St Oswald's I'll make sure to look for his name on the Honours Board among the Old Centurions. I have a definite feeling it will be there.

14th November I THINK IT'S SUNDAY, BUT I'm NOT QUITE SURE. THE PINK haired nurse is here again, tidying up the ward, and I seem to remember Marlene here too, sitting quietly on the chair beside my bed, reading. But today is really the first day that time has run its natural course, and that the tides of unconsciousness which have ruled my days and nights for the past week have begun to recede.

Miss Dare, it seems, has vanished without trace. Her flat has been cleared; her car was found torched; her last pay packet remains untouched. Marlene, who divides her time between the ward and the School office, tells me that the certificates and letters submitted at the time of her application have been revealed to be fake, and that the 'real' Dianne Dare, to whom her Cambridge languages degree was offered five years ago, has been working at a small publisher's in London for the past three years, and has never even heard of St Oswald's.

Naturally, her description has been circulated. But appearances can be changed; new ident.i.ties forged; and my guess is that Miss Dare - or Miss Snyde, if that's still her name -- may be a long time in eluding us.

I fear that on this subject I have not been able to help the police as much as they would have liked. All I know is that she called the ambulance, and that the medics on board administered the on-the-spot care that saved my life. The next day, a young woman claiming to be my daughter delivered a gift-wrapped packet to the ward; inside they found an old-fashioned silver fob watch, nicely engraved.

No one seems to be able to remember the young woman's face; although it is true that 1 have no daughter, or any relative fitting that description. In any case, the woman never returned, and the watch is just an ordinary watch, rather old and slightly tarnished, but keeping excellent time in spite of its age and with a face that, if not precisely handsome, is certainly full of character.

It is not the only gift I have received this week. I've never seen so many flowers; you'd think I was a corpse already. Still, they mean well. There's a spiny cactus here from my Brodie Boys with the impudent message: Thinking of you. An African violet from Kitty Teague; yellow chrysanthemums from Pearman; a busy Lizzie from Jimmy; a mixed bouquet from the Common Room; a Jacob's Ladder from the sanctimonious Nations, a spider-plant from Monument (perhaps to replace the ones Devine removed from the Cla.s.sics office) and from Devine himself, a large castor oil plant that stands at my bedside with a kind of shiny disapproval, as if asking itself why I'm not dead yet.

It was close, so I've been told.

As for Keane, his operation lasted several hours and took six pints of donated blood. He came to see me the other day, and though his nurse insisted he remain in his wheelchair, he looked remarkably well for a man who has cheated death. He has been keeping a notebook of his time in hospital, with sketches of the nurses and caustic little observations on life on the ward. There may be a book in it some day, he says. Well, I'm glad it hasn't stifled his creativity, at least; though I've told him that nothing good ever comes of a teacher turned scribbler, and that if he wants a decent career he should stick to what he's really good at.

Pat Bishop has left the cardiac ward. The pink-haired nurse (whose name is Rosie) professes to be heartily relieved. 'Three Ozzies at the same time? It'll turn my hair grey,' she moans, although I have noticed that her manner has softened considerably towards me (a side-effect, I suppose, of Pat's charm) and that she spends more time with me now than with any of the other patients.

In the light of new evidence, the charges against Pat have been dropped, although he is still under a suspension order signed by the New Head. My other colleagues have a better chance; none of them were officially charged, and so may well return in due course. Jimmy has been reinstated officially for as long as it takes the School to find a replacement, but I suspect that he will continue to be a permanent fixture. Jimmy himself believes that he has me to thank for this second chance, although I have told him several times that I have nothing to do with it. A few words to Dr Tidy, that's all; as for the rest, just blame the approaching School Inspection, and the fact that without our dim-witted but mostly capable handyman, a great many of St Oswald's small but necessary cogs and wheels would have long since seized up completely.

As for my other colleagues, I hear that Isabelle has gone for good. Light, too, has left (apparently to begin a business management course, having found teaching too demanding). Pearman is back, to the secret disappointment of Eric Sc.o.o.nes, who saw himself running the department in Pearman's absence, and Kitty Teague has applied for a Head of Year job at St Henry's, which I have no doubt she will get. Further afield, Bob Strange is running things on a semi-permanent basis - though the grapevine tells me he has had to bear with a significant amount of indiscipline from the boys -- and there are rumours of a redundancy package being put together (a generous sum) to ensure that Pat stays away.

Marlene thinks Pat should fight - the Union would Certainly back his case - but a scandal is a scandal, regardless of its outcome, and there will always be people who Voice the usual cliches. Poor Pat. I suppose he could still get a Headship somewhere - or better still, a post of Chief Examiner - but his heart belongs to St Oswald's, and his heart has been broken. Not by the police investigation they were just doing their job, after all - but by a thousand cuts; the phone calls left unreturned, the embarra.s.sed chance meetings; the friends who changed sides when they saw the way the wind was blowing.

'I could go back,' he told me, as he prepared to leave. 'But it wouldn't be the same.' I know what he means. The magic circle, once broken, can never quite be restored. 'Besides,' he went on. 'I wouldn't do that to St Oswald's.'

'I don't see why not,' said Marlene, who was waiting. 'After all, where was St Oswald's when you needed help?'

Pat just shrugged. There's no explaining it, not to a woman; not even one in a million, like Marlene. I hope she'll take care of Pat, I thought; I hope she'll understand that some things can never be fully understood.

Knight?

Colin Knight remains missing, now presumed dead by everyone but the boy's parents. Mr Knight is planning to sue the School and has already thrown himself into a number of muscular, well-publicized campaigns - calling for a 'Colin's Law' to be pa.s.sed, including compulsory DNA-testing, psychological evaluation and stringent police checks on anyone planning to work with children -- to ensure, he says, that whatever happened to his boy can never happen again. Mrs Knight has lost weight and gained jewellery; her pictures in the newspaper and on the daily TV bulletins show a brittle, lacquered woman whose neck and hands seem barely capable of supporting the many chains, rings and bracelets that hang from her like Christmas baubles. For myself, I doubt her son's body will ever be found. Ponds and reservoirs have yielded no trace; appeals to the public have raised a great deal of well meaning response, many hopeful sightings, much goodwill but no result. There is still hope, says Mrs Knight on the TV news, but the reason the television is still running the story is not for the boy (whom everyone has written off) but for the riveting spectacle of Mrs Knight, rigid in Chanel and armoured in diamonds, still clinging to that delusion of hope as she stiffens and dies. Better than Big Brother. I never liked her in the old days - I have no reason to like her now - but I do pity her. Marlene had her job to sustain her as well as her affection for Pat; more importantly, Marlene had her daughter, Charlotte - no subst.i.tute for Leon, but all the same a child, a hope, a promise. Mrs Knight has nothing - nothing but a memory that grows ever less reliable as the days pa.s.s. Already the tale of Colin Knight has grown in the telling. Like all such victims, he has become a popular boy in retrospect, loved by his teachers, missed by his friends. An outstanding student who could have gone far. The photo in the paper shows him at a birthday party, aged eleven or maybe twelve; smiling brashly (I don't think I ever saw Knight smile); hair washed; eyes clear, skin as yet unblemished. I barely recognize him, and yet the reality of the boy no longer matters; this is the Knight we will all remember; that tragic image of littleboylost. 1 wonder what Marlene thinks of it all. After all, she too has lost a son. I asked her today, in pa.s.sing, as Pat was collecting his things (plants, books, cards, a barrage of Get Well balloons). And 1 asked her, too, a question that has remained unasked for so long that it took another murder to give it voice at last.

'Marlene,' I said. 'What happened to the baby?'

She was standing by the bed with her reading gla.s.ses on, scrutinizing the label on a potted palm. I meant Leon's child, of course - Leon's and Francesca's - and she must have known it, because her face became abruptly still, taking on a careful lack of expression that reminded me briefly of Mrs Knight.

'This plant's very dry,' she said. 'It needs watering. G.o.d knows, Roy, you'll never manage to look after them all.'

I looked at her. 'Marlene,' I said.

It would have been her grandchild, after all. Leon's child; the hopeful shoot; the living proof that he had lived, that life goes on, that spring comes round -- all cliches, I know, but such are the small wheels upon which the big wheels turn, and where would we be without them?

'Marlene,' I repeated.

Her eyes went to Bishop, who was talking to Rosie some distance away. Then, slowly, she nodded. 'I wanted to take him,' she said at last. 'He was Leon's son, and of course I wanted him. But I was divorced; too old to adopt; I had a daughter who needed me and a job that took time. Grandmother or not, they'd never let me take him. And I knew, too, that if I saw him - even once - I'd never be able to let him go.'

They had put the baby up for adoption. Marlene had never tried to find out where he'd gone. It could have been anywhere. No names, no addresses are exchanged. He could be anyone. We might even have seen him without knowing it, at an interschool cricket match, on a train, or just pa.s.sing in the street. He could be dead - it happens, you know - or he could be right here, right now, a fourteenyearold boy among a thousand others, a young half-familiar face, a flop of hair, a look-- 'It can't have been easy.'

'I managed,' she said.

'And now?'

A pause. Pat was ready to go. Now he approached my bedside, unfamiliar in jeans and T-shirt (St Oswald's masters wear a suit) and smiled.

'We'll manage,' said Marlene, and took Pat's hand. It was the first time I'd seen her do that; and it was then that I understood I'd never see either of them at St Oswald's again.

'Good luck,' I said, meaning goodbye.

For a moment they stood at the foot of my bed, hand in hand, looking down at me. 'Take care, old man,' said Pat. 'I'll see you around. G.o.d, I can hardly even see you now behind all those b.l.o.o.d.y flowers.'

Monday, 6th December APPARENTLY I'm NOT WANTED. OR SO BOB STRANGE TOLD ME when I turned up at work this morning. 'For G.o.d's sake, Roy. It won't kill the boys to miss a few Latin lessons!'

Well, maybe not; but I happen to care about my boys' results, I happen to care about the future of Cla.s.sics in School, and besides, I feel a lot better.

Oh, the doctor said what doctors usually say; but I remember Bevans when he was just a little round boy in my Latin cla.s.s, with a habit of perpetually removing one shoe during lessons, and I'll be d.a.m.ned if I'll let him order me about.

I found they'd put Meek in charge of my form. I could tell that from the noise that drifted down through the floor of the Quiet Room; an oddly nostalgic acc.u.mulation of sounds, among which Anderton-Pullitt's persistent treble and Brasenose's resonant boom were immediately recognizable. There was laughter, too, drifting down the stairwell, and for a moment it could have been any time -- any time at all -- with the sound of boys laughing, and Meek protesting and the smell of chalk and burnt toast coming up from the Middle Corridor and the distant blam of bells and doors and footsteps, and the peculiar slithering, sliding sound of satchels being dragged along the polished floor, and the heels of my colleagues tap-tapping their way to some office, some meeting, and the dusty golden air of the Bell Tower shining thick with motes.

I took a deep breath.

Ahhh.

It feels as if I have been away for years, but already I can feel the events of the past weeks dropping away, like some dream that happened to someone else a long, long time ago. Here at St Oswald's there are still battles to be fought; lessons to be taught; boys to be instructed on the subtleties of Horace and the perils of the ablative absolute. A Sisyphean task: but one with which, as long as I am still standing, I mean to continue. Mug of tea in one hand, copy of The Times (open at the crossword page) tucked neatly under one arm, gown flapping dustily against the polished floor, I make my way resolutely towards the Bell Tower.

'Ah. Straitley.' That'll be Devine. There's no mistaking that dry, disapproving voice, or the fact that he never calls me by my first name.

There he was, standing by the stairs; grey suit, pressed gown and blue silk tie. Starchy doesn't begin to describe his stiffness; his face wooden as a tobacconist's Indian in the morning sun. Of course, after the Dare business he is in my debt, and that, I suppose, makes it worse.

Behind him, two men, suited and shod for administrative action, stood like sentinels. Of course. The Inspectors. I'd forgotten, in all the excitement, that they were due today, although I had noticed an unusual degree of reserve and decorum amongst the boys as they arrived, and there were three disabled parking-s.p.a.ces in the visitors' car-park that I was sure hadn't been there the previous night.

'Ah. The Inquisition.' I sketched a vague salute.

Old Sourgrape gave me one of his looks. 'This is Mr Bramley,' he said, gesturing deferentially towards one of the visitors, 'and this is his colleague, Mr Flawn. They'll be following your lessons this morning.'

'I see,' I said. Trust Devine to arrange that on my first day back. Still, a man who will stoop to the Health and Safety manoeuvre will stop at nothing, and besides, I've been at St Oswald's for too long to be intimidated by a couple of Suits with clipboards. I gave them my heartiest smile, and riposted at once. 'Well, I'm just on my way to the Cla.s.sics office,' I said. 'It's so important to have a s.p.a.ce of one's own, don't you think? Oh, don't mind him,' I told the Inspectors, as Devine set off down the Middle Corridor like a clockwork gazelle. 'He's a bit excitable.'

Five minutes later we reached the office. A nice little s.p.a.ce, I have to say; I've always liked it, and now that Devine's lot have had it repainted, it looks even more welcoming. My spider-plants are back from whatever cupboard Devine had consigned them, and my books pleasingly arranged on a series of shelves behind my desk. Best of all, the printed sign saying 'German Office' has been replaced by a neat little plaque which reads simply, 'Cla.s.sics'.

Well, you know, some days you win, some days you lose. And it was with a certain sense of victory that I sailed into room 59 this morning, causing Meek's jaw to drop and a sudden silence to fall over the Bell Tower.

It lasted a few seconds; and then a sound began to rise from the floorboards, a rumbling sound like a rocket about to take off; and then they were on their feet, all of them; clapping and cheering and yelling and laughing. Pink and Niu; Allen-Jones and McNair; Sutcliff and Brasenose and Jackson and Anderton-Pullitt and Adamczyk and Tayler and Sykes. All my boys -- well, not quite all -- and as they stood there, laughing and clapping and yelling my name, I saw Meek stand too, his bearded face lighting up in a genuine smile.