The Floating Body (13 page)

The cathedral church, which loomed over our shoulders as we spoke, served as the school’s assembly hall, as well as the school’s chapel and the mother church of the diocese.

‘Not a problem, sir,’ I replied brightly. ‘I’ll see to it.’

‘Excellent, excellent.’

The Head raised his noble chin and sailed off across the close with all the dignity of a flag-bedecked battleship cruising into a harbour.

I turned around to discover that Jack and Warnie had turned up at my elbow.

They were just heading out to take a morning walk along the banks of the River Ness. Jack was sniffing the fresh morning breeze with delight and eager to get started, but Warnie wanted to give me a blow-by-blow account of his darts match of the night before.

‘Close fought thing, old man, very close. Went right down to the wire,’ he said, puffing out his moustache. ‘But I nailed him in the end. You see, what happened was . . .’

Warnie’s charming voice, soft and mellow, rolled on as my attention drifted to the clusters of schoolboys still hurrying across the quad, now close to being late for their classes.

‘We were level pegging at this point, you see . . .’ Warnie was saying as McKell came out of his flat and began walking briskly across the close.

‘. . . which gave him an extra fifty points,’ Warnie was explaining. ‘Then with my last missile I hit the twenty
in the triple ring
! Sixty points! Won again. How about that, young Morris?’

A smile as wide as the Strand spread across Warnie’s face, so I clapped him on the shoulder and told him that he’d done brilliantly.

McKell was now approaching and I saw there was something odd about his appearance.

As he drew nearer I realised what it was—he had a black eye! And not just an ordinary black eye but a real whopper, with significant swelling that was turning a vivid purple colour. We all stared. It was unavoidable. It was like looking at a familiar landscape and discovering that a mountain had popped up in the middle distance overnight.

We three were standing immediately in the path he was taking across the close, so he could hardly ignore us.

He came to a halt, nodded good morning and was about to proceed when I said, ‘What on earth’s happened to your eye, McKell?’

His face crumpled into a sour expression.

‘It’s nothing significant,’ he said.

‘That’s such a rich purple,’ Jack said playfully, ‘it’s almost Episcopal.’

‘Quite a blow you’ve had there, old chap,’ murmured Warnie sympathetically.

‘I had a fall, that’s all,’ McKell said through clenched teeth, clearly irritated that he had to offer any sort of explanation. ‘Nothing serious. A small tumble. It’ll clear up in a day or two.’

Then as he brushed past us and continued on his way I realised that he also had a cut down the side of his face and what looked like a graze on his chin.

As the Deputy Head moved out of earshot, I turned to Jack and Warnie and said, ‘Now that’s odd. In fact, it’s very odd.’

‘What’s so odd about it?’ Jack asked.

‘McKell,’ I explained, ‘is a mountain climber. If there’s one man in the school with an excellent sense of balance, one man who shouldn’t have a fall—or a fall as serious as this one appears to be—it’s McKell.’

Just then a small boy came scuttling out of the archway, hurrying towards the schoolrooms, with his cap askew on his head and his blazer flapping open as he hurried along. He was hurrying like a cockroach that has just heard the dreaded step of the pest exterminator on the stairs.

It was, I saw, young Stanhope—clearly once again running late for first school. His arms were loaded with books, and every few steps he dropped one and had to stop to pick it up. Which was how Conway and Wynyard caught up with him, although they only appeared to be sauntering with their hands in their pockets, entirely heedless of whether they would be late for class or not.

Wynyard stepped forward and scooped up the Latin dictionary that had fallen from the bundle in young Stanhope’s arms.

‘This what you’re looking for, Toffee Nose?’ he sneered.

‘Yes, please,’ said Stanhope, stepping forward and blinking furiously through his large, round spectacles.

As the younger boy reached out for the dictionary, Wynyard held it high above his head, well out of reach.

‘But I’m not sure if I should return it to you or not. What do think, Conway? Should I give this little squirt his dictionary?’

‘Well . . . just let me think about that for a moment,’ Conway snarled unpleasantly as he rested his chin on his hand in a schoolboy impersonation of Rodin’s Thinker.

‘Give me that dictionary,’ demanded Stanhope furiously. ‘I need it for second school.’

Wynyard held out the book as if to offer it to the smaller boy, but as soon as he reached for it, threw it to Conway.

‘Now let me see what it is,’ said Conway, turning the book over in his hand. ‘Latin? You don’t need a book on Latin, little Toffee Nose—you need a book on cricket. We got a wonderful laugh out of your performance at the nets, didn’t we, Wynyard?’

‘It was a hoot,’ chortled the other of the two School Bounders. ‘So it’s time you gave up on Latin and starting swotting cricket, little Lord Muck.’

‘Give me back my book!’ demanded Stanhope, stamping his foot furiously.

‘Then come and catch it,’ taunted Wynyard.

Conway and Wynyard then started throwing the Latin dictionary back and forth as Stanhope ran from one to the other, trying fruitlessly to catch the book in mid-flight.

I had watched this entire performance with increasing annoyance and now decided it was time for me to intervene.

‘Hey! You boys!’ I called out as I walked over to bring an end to this unpleasant farce. ‘Why aren’t you in class? First school is about to begin.’

Thus distracted, the two Bounders took their eyes off the book they had been juggling back and forth and it landed with a solid thud on the cobblestones of the cathedral close.

‘Conway and Wynyard, report to my study after third school. I’ll think of some suitable punishment for you. Now get off to class.’

‘Yes, sir,’ they both mumbled in surly undertones, and with that they slunk away.

‘Stanhope, pick up your book.’

‘Yes, sir,’ he said as he ran to where the battered tome was lying.

‘Has it been damaged?’ I asked.

‘No, sir,’ the boy replied, turning it over in his hands. ‘It seems to be intact.’

I turned to go, but I was stopped by the sound of Stanhope’s voice behind me.

‘Sir,’ he said.

‘Yes, Stanhope?’

‘They are wotters, sir. Conway and Wynyard are wotters of the first order, sir.’

‘I can’t disagree with you, Stanhope—they are thoroughly unpleasant boys. And they shouldn’t be picking on you the way they are.’

‘They are wotters, sir,’ he repeated. ‘And it’s not just what they did to me now, sir. I mean at the nets, sir. They twicked me—they gave me a bwocken cwicket bat, sir.’

‘Yes, we all saw that, young man,’ said Warnie, sympathetically, for he and Jack were still standing by my side. ‘We saw how the handle of the bat had been tampered with. A beastly thing to do.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ replied young Stanhope in his best lord-of-the-manor manner.

‘This is Major Lewis,’ I said, feeling obliged to make the introductions. ‘And this is his brother, my old Oxford tutor, C. S. Lewis—who is to be guest speaker at our Annual Speech Night tomorrow night.’

Stanhope replied in the well-mannered way he had been taught to reply to formal introductions.

Then Warnie said, ‘Would you like to get your own back on those two?’

This surprised me, and I wondered exactly what he had in mind. What he was thinking of quickly became clear.

‘You don’t have the hand-eye coordination to be a batsman, young fellah,’ Warnie continued. ‘You simply don’t have the makings of a Douglas Jardine. However, if I gave you a bit of coaching you just might make a bowler. Now if you succeeded in bowling out Conway or Wynyard—in the nets or in a match—that would be a triumph, wouldn’t it?’

Stanhope’s young face lit up, and his eyes opened as wide as saucers behind his large spectacles.

‘Do you think that’s weally possible, Major? Do you think I could do it?’

‘I don’t see why not,’ Warnie responded, beaming at the youngster’s enthusiasm. ‘It’s all a matter of practising the correct wrist action. You and I could set up the stumps down in the nets, and we could both bowl at them. With a bit of time I’m sure I could teach you a few tricks—show you how to turn the ball and put a really devious spin on it.’

‘Would you, Major?’ Stanhope was now beaming as well. ‘Twuly? You are twuly a gentleman as well as an officer.’

Warnie dug into the pocket of the jacket he was wearing and produced a cricket ball. He must have seen my look of surprise, for he explained, ‘The ball I was using yesterday, when I was coaching some of the boys. Somehow it ended up in my pocket and I never returned it. But now I think I can put it to good use with this young man here.’

Warnie tossed the ball from hand to hand a few times, then gripped it with his fingers over the top of the curve with the seam parallel to his palm.

Crouching down he said, ‘This is the grip for leg spin, young man. Off spin is easier, feels more natural and can by quite effective. But leg spin, well done, is deadly. That’s where the wickets are—in mastering leg spin. Now, if you and I could meet down the nets after third school and before lunch, I could show you . . .’

At these last words Stanhope’s face fell.

‘But everyone else will be there, watching me,’ he said hesitantly. ‘Could we get in some secret pwactice please? So that when I bowl to those two beasts, they’ll be caught completely by surprise?’

Warnie chuckled and looked at me. ‘That would be rather neat justice, wouldn’t it?’ he said. Turning back to Stanhope he continued, ‘But young fellah-me-lad, you’ve got a class to go to now and I’ve promised my brother to go for a walk with him.’

Stanhope looked at me, a silent plea in his eyes.

‘Very well, Stanhope,’ I said reluctantly, ‘you are excused from first school. You have one hour to spend with Major Lewis at the nets.’

‘Thank you, sir. That’s very good of you, sir.’

‘Sorry, Jack,’ Warnie began.

‘Don’t think twice. I see the value of what you’ve got planned,’ replied Jack warmly. ‘I’ll have a walk along the river and up the hill on the far side while you turn this boy into a demon bowler.’

I was excused from school lunch in the hall that day and allowed to join Jack and Warnie for a midday meal at the Deanery. Cowper’s good wife, Ellen, served a hearty lunch of roast lamb and potatoes that made the switch from the routine fodder of the school dining hall rather like switching from a comic book to Dickens.

‘Now, Jack,’ I said as I scooped more lamb and gravy onto my fork, ‘how is your investigation going?’

‘Explain yourself, young Morris,’ Jack demanded in an imitation of his old tutorial manner.

‘Your investigation,’ I explained, ‘into the mysterious murder of Dave Fowler.’

Jack chuckled as he replied, ‘I am here to lecture, not to investigate. Sexton Locke strikes me as an intelligent man and I am quite satisfied to leave the working of the case entirely in his capable hands.’

‘Well said, Mr Lewis,’ remarked the Dean. ‘It’s always best if we leave these distasteful matters in the hands of the professionals to clean up.’

‘But Jack,’ I protested, ‘you and I were eyewitnesses to what appeared to be an impossible murder—and then to the equally impossible disappearance and reappearance of the murdered corpse. Have you no curiosity as to how those oddities came about? Or why? Or by whose hand?’

Jack looked thoughtful so I plunged on. ‘And we are here, on the spot as it were, in the precincts of the school and the cathedral, in daily contact with the people and the place.’

‘Morris is right, Jack, absolutely spot on,’ Warnie volunteered. ‘You don’t lecture until tomorrow night, old chap. In the meantime, you ought to give Inspector Locke a helping hand by applying your giant brain to this puzzling problem.’

Jack didn’t respond immediately. Indeed, rather than applying himself to problem solving, he applied himself to his plate of roast lamb and potatoes with increased vigour.

It wasn’t until a good deal later, as he was pushing away the empty plate that had contained his bread and butter pudding, that he finally said, ‘Very well, young Morris. Do you have your afternoon free?’

‘I’m supervising prep at five, but until then I’m at your disposal.’

‘Then let us follow the sound advice given to us on another occasion by Inspector Crispin. Namely, that to understand a murder you must first understand the victim.’

‘Jolly good!’ wheezed Warnie, almost rubbing his hands together with glee. ‘Where do we begin?’

By way of reply Jack turned to me and asked, ‘Did Fowler have any particular friends? Was there anyone he was close to? Anyone he spent time with? You and he must have been of an age—did he spend much time with you?’

‘Now that you mention it, it’s odd. Most of the masters are middle aged; only Fowler, myself, Ryan Carleton and Dave Evans, the organist, are on the younger side. But Fowler spent almost no time with any of us.’

‘Who did he spend time with then?’

I closed my eyes and concentrated. Casting my mind back, I tried to picture Fowler as I had known him, letting him flash upon the inward eye in as many different situations as possible. Who could I most readily picture him speaking to? Who did he seem to spend time with? Those were the questions I asked myself. And the answer surprised me.

‘That’s odd,’ I muttered. ‘When I try to remember Dave Fowler, I seem to most often picture him speaking to McKell.’

‘What? Your Deputy Head?’ snorted Warnie. ‘A rather sour gentleman that one. At least, that’s how he strikes me, if you don’t mind my saying so. Why would a young man hang around with that grim-faced relic?’

‘Let’s see if we can find out,’ said Jack with a grin on his face.

Which is why, a short time later, Jack, Warnie and I were walking down the corridor towards the Senior Common Room in search of Gareth McKell.