I don’t suppose I shall sleep tonight. Harry’s box has been calling me. I’ve already spent an hour or two sorting out his photographs, the newspaper clippings he’d kept, the old copies of the School Magazine—including a review of Antigone, showing Ms. Buckfast as a young girl, leggy in sandals and a sheet, smiling at the camera . . .

I think I’d been expecting some kind of epiphany. A fifth-act denouement that would simultaneously unravel the mystery, expose the villain, reveal the plot, and vindicate the hero, all in one neat maneuver. Instead, there’s nothing but fragments: memories of times gone by; snapshots; clippings; notebooks; scraps; the litter of a human life. Oh, Harry. I’d always assumed that you left me the box for a purpose. I’d expected the contents to lead me to some kind of revelation. But now, picking through those forgotten things—a button; a ring; a notebook filled with class notes from another school—I realize that you left them to me, not because they were important, but because you didn’t have anyone else.

I wonder, when my time comes, to whom will I leave my possessions? The clock I had from my parents’ house that sits upon my mantelpiece; my modest library of books; my radio; my photographs? Will someone take them in, or will my house be cleared by a dealer, to be sold off at a series of flea markets and jumble sales, or worse: to be dumped in some desolate spot like the old clay pits of yesteryear, the photographs washed white in the rain, the books gnawed by rats; my School gown falling into rags by the dark and lonely water.

I know. I’m getting maudlin. But sometimes, the futility of everything falls in on me. What have I really achieved in life? Who would really remember me if I died tomorrow? I have no family, no friends. Only my pupils and colleagues. Outside of St. Oswald’s, I am nothing but an old house awaiting clearance. Whether I fight back or not, tomorrow, or next week, or next month, Harrington will make his move to sweep me from the chessboard. I cannot stand against him for long. He has all the artillery. He has youth on his side; youth and influence and guile. Who am I? Just an old man, so far behind the times that even a cleaner knows more about the rules of this strange and scornful new world.