She gave a brittle smile. “Thank you. Charlie’s resting, but he’s well. I’ll tell him you called. I’m sure he’ll be glad. I’d ask you in for coffee, but—” She gave an abstract little wave that took in Mrs. Harrington, the drawing room beyond the hall, the shapeless garment she was wearing—a caftan? a housecoat?—while at the same time conveying the impossibility of receiving guests.

Mrs. Harrington looked at me. Her eyes were like her son’s, a brown so dark that it might have been black. “We were praying,” she told me. Prayer, that get-out-of-jail-free card to every social embarrassment.

“Of course,” I said. “I won’t intrude. I just wanted to make sure that Charlie was all right. If there’s anything I can do to help—if there’s been any trouble at School—”

“No, there’s nothing, thank you,” said Mrs. Nutter. I noticed that her hands were like her son’s, red with patches of eczema. She lingered in the doorway, waiting for me to leave.

I said: “It’s just that if there’s something at School—bullying, or anything else . . .”

“No.” Her voice was thin and sharp. “Thank you, Mr. Straitley. But none of this has anything to do with St. Oswald’s. Charlie’s a little highly strung. He’s been under the weather. My husband’s work, the pressures, you know . . .” She let the sentence trail off.

I nodded. “Of course. I do understand.” And then I touched my hat again and went back down the long drive.

I turned once, and thought I saw a face at one of the upstairs windows, blurry with condensation. I think it might have been Charlie, although I could not be certain.

If so, it was the last time I was to see him for seven years.

Chapter 4

4

December 1981

Drowning is quiet, Mousey. A man who can struggle can also breathe. A man—or in this case, a boy—who can scream is not running short of air. St. Oswald’s has a swimming pool, which pupils visit once a week.

But Ratboy was a Sunnybanker. Sunnybankers don’t have a pool. Ratboy could paddle a bit, but that was it. And it was cold; the Pit Shaft glazed with a film of ice. Not enough to slow his fall; but enough to make sure that his struggle was brief. They say all your life passes before your eyes at the moment of drowning. Ratboy’s life can’t have been much. A couple of gulps, and he was gone. Still, what a feeling, Mousey. This must be what God feels like all the time.