Isaac had known Ben was up to no good. He’d challenged him on it the first time Ben had volunteered to help in the chapel, all those weeks ago when the two of them had been alone together in this very room. And since that day, Isaac had been watching. He’d tried to be kind; to think generously, the way Father Steiner always did. Maybe Ben truly believed in God – or wanted to, at least. Maybe he hated boarding school as much as Isaac did, and – exactly as it had for Isaac – the chapel had become a sort of haven, a place he didn’t feel quite so alone. But every time Isaac tried to give Ben the benefit of the doubt, something would happen that would revive his initial instincts. Isaac had seen Ben sneaking out of the dorm in the middle of the night, clearly up to no good. He’d watched the way Ben talked to Father Steiner, pretending to hang on to the chaplain’s every word, when it was perfectly obvious he was faking. Like the time he’d asked Father Steiner to sign that stupid book. Isaac had seen that, too, peering out from behind the vestry door.

And he knew Ben’s type. One of the benefits of not having any friends himself – other than Father Steiner – was that Isaac had plenty of time to watch everyone else, and he’d come to learn everybody’s type. Ben was a misfit. A troublemaker. Someone who caused nothing but mayhem wherever he went. You only had to look at the state of the vestry.

So what was he up to? Was he stealing? Or was it something worse? Was he trying to get Father Steiner in trouble? Was that why the vestry had been ransacked, and the photographs left on the floor? So that the police would be called to investigate a burglary, but when they came they would discover something else?

The very thought made Isaac boil with anger. Father Steiner was the only good thing about this place. Isaac would never have admitted it, least of all to Father Steiner himself, but the chaplain had become like a father to him. A real father. Not like his actual dad, who went out of his way to act as though Isaac didn’t exist. Who’d even made Isaac enrol at Beaconsfield under his mother’s name, to ensure none of the other pupils found out they were related!

Thinking about his father twisted Isaac’s stomach into knots, but it was nothing compared to how he felt at that moment about Ben. Whatever he was up to, he wouldn’t get away with it. Not if Isaac could help it.

He spun away from the vestry.