I have to admit, I was surprised. It’s not every day you come across a cleaner who knows Latin. But Winter is a far cry from Jimmy Watt, the Porter. For a start, he is intelligent—I can tell that from his voice and by the way he expresses himself. And he sees things—my fatigue, my anger with the management—that even my colleagues do not see.

“But who teaches the teachers?” he said.

Certainly not men like Markowicz, I thought, or administrators like Thing One and Thing Two: stuck all day in their offices, going on courses every week, drinking their coffee from the Headmaster’s cups, and having as little to do with boys as possible.

“Who, indeed?” I said.

He smiled. His smile is curiously endearing, although there is something odd there too. He reminds me of a boy I once taught, a quiet, self-possessed young man called Joseph Apple, who, ten years after leaving St. Oswald’s, raped and stabbed a girl of sixteen, before lapsing into a fugue state from which he never recovered. I’m not sure why my cleaner should remind me of that troubled young man, but there’s something in his eyes that seems to look into the shadows. Or maybe I’m just imagining it. After all, I have shadows of my own.

“I hope I’m not speaking out of turn.” His voice was slightly hesitant, and once again I wondered whether he’d stuttered as a boy. “But I know how you feel about the Honours Boards being taken down, and I thought perhaps you ought to know.”

“Know what?”

“They’re stacked up outside the Porter’s Lodge. I think they’re going to get rid of them.” Once more, Winter looked awkward. “I don’t think I’m supposed to know. But a hundred and fifty Honours Boards take up a lot of storage space. And I heard the Head talking to Jimmy Watt—”

I stood up. “What did you hear?”

He shrugged. “I got the impression he meant to sell them to a building merchant. You know, those people who reclaim things from condemned buildings and churches? There’s quite a market for old school memorabilia. They use them for theme pubs and things like that.”

“Theme pubs?”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t know what I expected you to be able to do about it.”

I frowned at him. “Why do you care? You were never a pupil here. Were you?” I suppose I was remembering last year’s Mole, whose initial devotion to St. Oswald’s had turned into an obsessive desire for revenge.

Winter shook his head. “I suppose I’m just sentimental. Those boards belong to St. Oswald’s. They don’t belong in a theme pub.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” I said. Then I had a brain wave. “Do you have a car?”

“Yes.”

“Then—shall we call it—fifty quid?”