All schools have their skeletons. St. Oswald’s is no exception. Most of the time, we try our best to keep them in the closet. But this time, the only recourse we have is to throw open all the closets, light as many bulbs as we can, and catch the vermin as it comes out.

• • •

Winter agreed to stop by later this evening, after work. He told me he’d look up Harrington, using my staff workstation. I wasn’t entirely convinced that the Internet was the means of snaring Harrington, but Winter has a way with technology, and I cannot afford to overlook anything that may be useful. To whom was Harrington speaking last night on his flashy cell phone? And where did he go afterward?

Winter arrived at seven o’clock, by which time it was already dark. I forget how fast the nights draw in at this time of year; how much earlier autumn starts than it always used to. My partner-in-crime was carrying a blue folder containing a number of printed sheets.

“You found all that today?” I said.

Winter shrugged. “It isn’t much. The New Head’s online profile is very clean. He doesn’t use social networking sites—at least, not under his own name. He doesn’t have a MySpace, or a blog. He doesn’t use Friends Reunited, although he is mentioned there once or twice. He sometimes buys books on Amazon, but never leaves a review. As for Google—”

I stopped him there, and explained that he’d lost me at “online.”

He grinned at that. “Sorry. I’ll start again.”

Half an hour later I was, if not fluent, then at least vaguely conversant in the language of the Internet. Winter is, of course, a native speaker. He tells me he spends hours online every night, “posting” and “blogging” and so on.

“But what does it achieve?” I said, genuinely mystified.

He shrugged. “It’s a community. People online interact in much the same way they do in any other community, except that they get to choose who they meet and who they interact with. In real life, you might never meet the handful of compatible people who share your specific interests. Online, you can find them in seconds. You can engage. You can be someone else. You can pretend, for an hour or two, that you’re not stuck here in Malbry.”

How interesting. I had no idea. I wonder if Winter has any friends outside of his virtual community. I suspect his social skills may be lacking; or maybe he simply prefers to be “someone else,” as he puts it.

“Where would you rather be?” I said.

Winter gave a wry smile. “I sometimes think of Hawaii,” he said. “Did you know the Hawaiian archipelago is the longest island chain in the world?”