I shook my head. I’ve been to France a couple of times (mostly on Eric’s insistence) to help out with School trips, but otherwise, St. Oswald’s has been my life’s adventure, remaining as exotic now as it was on the first day.

“Planning a holiday?” I said.

I thought Winter looked wistful. “Maybe someday. Not right now. The flights are pretty expensive.”

“Maybe you’ll win the Lottery.”

“Maybe one day I’ll get to play.”

I looked at the file. It contained all we had on little Johnny Harrington. A sparse, if spotless, record of online purchases (mostly books); membership in a golf club; donations to several charities, including Survivors and Save the Children; a stay-at-home wife called Elizabeth, prominent in local good works, who likes to buy cashmere sweaters and who lists her calories online. Both his parents are alive and living in the Cotswolds. He has no siblings, and as far as we know, no remaining ties with Malbry.

“Is that all you found?” I asked.

Winter opened the blue file. “No, sir. I also found this.” He passed me a printed facsimile of the Malbry Examiner.

Well, you know the page, I suppose. It’s the page everyone remembers; with Harry in that photograph. Not the most flattering picture, taken on a Sports Day in September ’81, with Harry in shorts and a running shirt, each of his arms flung around a boy. One of those boys was Harrington, impeccable even after his run, the parting in his hair as straight as if the Romans had built it, and even after all this time, I felt a stab of irrational rage at the boy; his loathsome smoothness. The other boy at Harry’s side was a third-year boy from Harry’s form called Tencel or Tessel, whom I’d never taught. Standing apart from the little group was Charlie Nutter, looking away as if at something beyond the frame. And in the background was David Spikely, whose asthma excluded him from competitive sports, grinning at the camera. I wondered how he’d managed to get into the picture at all. He certainly hadn’t run the race. Maybe he’d come to watch his friends. Probably the photographer hadn’t even noticed him.

Winter looked at me curiously. “You must have been aware of this,” he said. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

I sighed. “I meant to tell you,” I said. My heart was still pounding alarmingly. The invisible finger, having poked, moved on. “But not tonight, if you don’t mind. It’s rather a difficult story to tell, and I think we both need time to prepare.”

He nodded. “Another time, then, sir.”

“Thank you, Mr. Winter.”

• • •