Well, not quite as usual. The fact was that we’d had a shock. One of our own had disappeared, and so far, the grapevine had failed us. But one of the things about a school is that nothing stays secret forever. Knowledge filters through in the end, searching out the weak links, following the path of least resistance. And our particular weak link was the Chaplain of St. Oswald’s; a man whose goodwill was never in doubt, but whose ability to keep a secret, even when given in confidence, was very far from reliable.

St. Oswald’s Chaplain has never been what you’d call a firebrand. Even twenty-four years ago, Dr. Burke was more of a liberal than anything else, although this may have been because he never really believed in the world outside St. Oswald’s. Devine, a Methodist who disapproves of the Chaplain’s High Church leanings, has been known to call him “that old Papist,” which is slightly unfair, given that he and Devine have only a few years between them. Nor is the Chaplain a Catholic, although his penchant for incense and candles might seem a little too florid for a plain old School Chaplain.

But this is perhaps what made Harry Clarke come to him with his secret: that comforting sense of authority; that whiff of the confessional. Harry had been a Catholic, once—he still took comfort in the Church, even though she had proved to be a rather judgmental parent. And the Chaplain kept his mouth shut for fully two weeks before he slipped—after which the news had spread all around St. Oswald’s. Not only was Harry Clarke a practicing homosexual, but for the few weeks preceding the Christmas break, he had befriended Nutter, talking to him, lending him books, even inviting him to his house. And that was where the boy had been found, a week after his disappearance . . .

Chapter 6

6

January 1982

Harry told me the story himself. Of course I heard it later, in court, but by then it had bloated and festered, poisoned by time and circumstance. What Harry told me was simple: a single sequence of events, as yet untainted by the press. I had no reason to think it anything other than the truth: whatever else he may have been, Harry Clarke wasn’t a liar.

He’d come home late on New Year’s Eve to discover there’d been a break-in. A pane in his back door had been smashed, though there were no signs of a burglary. However, on entering the house, he found someone on the sofa: it was Charlie Nutter, asleep and bundled in a parka.

“Why didn’t you phone the boy’s parents?” It was the obvious question.

“I knew there was trouble at home,” Harry said. “I didn’t want to wake him.”

“What kind of trouble?”