Death in Devon. Ian Sansom
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sound of Ketèlbey’s self-aggrandising nonsense, the gathered crowd smoked and stared at us, breathing as one.
‘Oh don’t mind us!’ said Miriam, entirely undaunted, and indeed clearly relishing the attention. ‘At ease, at ease. We’re only the school inspectors.’ And then turning to me, in the sotto voce remarking manner that she had unfortunately inherited from her father, she said, ‘Not sure that we’ll pass them, eh, Sefton? Seem like rather a rum bunch, wouldn’t you say?’ Clearly meant as a joke, the silence that greeted these remarks might best be described as stony, and the atmosphere as icy – until, as the sound of Ketèlbey faded away, a man boldly separated himself from what was indeed a rum bunch and came towards us, like a tribal leader stepping forward to greet the arrival of Christian missionaries.
A sodality of pedagogues
‘I’m Alexander,’ he said, ‘but everyone calls me Alex. Delighted to meet you.’
Alex shook my hand in an appropriately brisk and friendly manner but he took Miriam’s hand with a rather theatrical flourish, I thought, and then he kissed it, lingering rather, bowing slightly – all entirely unnecessary. He then gave a quick glance to his colleagues, which seemed to be the signal for them to resume their conversations. Sherry glasses were once again raised, and someone set the Palm Court trio back upon their damned eternal gramophone scrapings. The natives were calmed and reassured.
Alex was tall, long-legged, dressed in a dark double-breasted suit, and had what one might call confiding eyes. Miriam – who knew the look – offered her confiding eyes back. I feared the worst. There was no doubt that Alex had a commanding presence: he rather resembled Rudolph Valentino, though with something disturbingly super-sepulchral about him that suggested not the Valentino of, say, The Sheikh, but rather a Valentino who had recently died and then been miraculously raised from the dead. He also had the kind of deep, capable voice that suggested to the listener that one had no choice but to trust and obey him, and an accompanying air of bold determination, of knight-errantry, one might say, as if having just returned from the court of King Arthur, in possession not only of the Holy Grail but of the blood of Christ itself. I conceived for him an immediate and most intense distaste. Miriam, on the other hand, was clearly instantly smitten and the two of them fell at once into deep conversation.
Feeling rather surplus to requirements, and dreading an evening of talking about the state of modern education with a group of teachers – having long since forsworn all such utterly pointless conversations – I excused myself to go and arrange for the unloading of the Lagonda.
Out in the school’s forecourt I lit a cigarette and gazed up at the building. The place had a medieval aspect about it, like some kind of monastery, rather ponderous in style, and yet also at the same time strangely promiscuous, self-fertile almost, appearing to consist of numerous buildings growing into and out of one another, clambering over and upon itself with gable upon gable upon turret upon high tiled roof, writhing and reaching up towards the dark heavens above.
As I glanced up and around I fancied that I was being watched – and indeed for a moment I thought I saw the small white faces of young boys pressed up against mullioned window panes in the furthest and highest corners of the buildings. But when I turned again, having stubbed out my cigarette, they had gone.
The sensation of being watched, however, strongly persisted: it was almost as if someone had clapped me on the shoulder, or slapped me on the back; I felt eyes upon me. The air felt cold, as if someone had rushed close by. I turned quickly again, this time looking down around the forecourt and out towards the fields – and there in the moonlight I saw a man. He stood by the hedge beyond the lane, under the shelter of a tree.
‘Hello?’ I said instinctively.
‘Hello,’ he replied softly, his voice carrying clearly across the still night air.
‘Are you watching me?’ I asked. I didn’t know what else to say.
He stepped forward then, out from the shade of the tree, and I saw that he was dressed in old, stained muddy clothes – pig-skin leggings and an old battledress coat – with an unlit lantern in his hand. He was perhaps in his early twenties, with a light beard fringing his cheeks, a grey cap upon his head.
‘You’re out walking?’ I asked.
‘No,’ he said.
‘Well, who are you and what are you doing?’ The man struck me as a reprobate.
‘Who am I? I might be asking you the same, sir. Who are you? And what you be dwain? You a parent?’
‘No.’
‘Teacher?’
‘No.’
‘Who are you then, sir, and what you be dwain? You’re not from round here.’
‘No. That’s correct. My name’s Stephen Sefton and I’m here with Mr Swanton Morley, who is giving the Founder’s Day speech tomorrow.’
‘Is that right?’
‘Yes. And you are?’
‘I,’ he said slowly, ‘am Abednego.’
‘Ha!’ I couldn’t help but laugh. ‘Really? And you don’t happen to have two brothers named Shadrach and Meshach I suppose?’ He did not answer. He now stood no more than a few feet away from me, staring at me hard. I could smell cider on his breath. ‘Well, and what’s your business here this evening, Abednego, if I might ask?’
‘I’m watching the comings and goings,’ he said.
‘I see. You’re the night watchman, then, or a porter?’
‘You might say that.’
‘So Dr Standish would be aware of your activities?’
‘Standish knows all about me. And we know all about him.’
‘Good,’ I said, not entirely reassured, but wishing to be in conversation with this odd young fellow no longer. ‘Well, I’m just unloading the car here …’
He had already turned and walked away.
The contents of the Lagonda eventually unloaded into the school entrance hall, I separated my own travelling items from Miriam’s and Morley’s and picked up the Leica, fancying that I might perhaps take some photographs of the buildings. But as I was about to do so a loud gong sounded, summoning the teachers to dinner. As they flooded through the hall I found myself caught up among them as they trooped towards the dining room. Alex, walking alongside Miriam, spotted me with the camera and paused on his way past.
‘Camera fiend are we, Mr Sefton?’
‘I just take a few photographs,’ I explained. ‘For Mr Morley’s books.’
‘I’m a keen photographer myself. We have a modest little darkroom down in the basement if you’d like to see it some time.’
‘Tomorrow perhaps.’
‘I think you’ll be impressed,’ he said confidingly. ‘I think we may have many interests in common, Mr Sefton.’ And then he swept Miriam before him into dinner.
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WE ENTERED A VAST HALL