Out of the Depths Page 2

  There was an Asian-looking boy sitting beside her, all gangly, and beside him a red-haired boy. He leaned across and whispered something and the Asian boy glanced at me, nodded and laughed. Were they laughing at me? I was sure they were. Why did I always think people were laughing at me? I hadn’t done anything yet.

  My eyes moved behind them to a fat boy who studied me with a cold stare. Right at the back, a pale-skinned boy just watched me curiously. An Asian girl caught my eye too. She wasn’t the least bit interested in me. She couldn’t take her eyes off the boys at the front. Fancied one of them probably.

  I took all this in while Mr O’Hara kept right on talking. Didn’t listen to a word he was saying, so when he finished and said, ‘So what do you think, Tyler?’ I realised I didn’t know what he was talking about. That’s always my problem too. Letting my mind wander. Not listening.

  I must have looked blank.

  ‘Never mind.’ He patted me on the shoulder. ‘It’s a lot to take in at once.’

  He showed me my seat. It was in the row by the window and before too long I was forgotten. The lesson continued.

  There were statues in this classroom too. A small one on the windowsill, and a larger one in the corner. I recognised this as St Francis. Everyone knows him. Birds on his shoulder, and on his outstretched hand. And by his feet, a fawn. I couldn’t be afraid of him.

  It made what I had imagined earlier seem even more stupid now.

  As soon as the lesson ended, the spiky-haired girl came up to me, put a hand on my shoulder. ‘So you took one look at old Hyslop and you fainted then?’

  I was flabbergasted. ‘How did you know?’

  She laughed. ‘Heard him whispering to O’Hara to keep his eye on you. You can’t keep a secret in this place.’ She giggled and nodded at the statue. ‘Saw you staring at the statues. You’re no’ a Catholic?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘But I don’t mind the statues,’ I added quickly. I didn’t want to offend her.

  ‘This is St Francis,’ she informed me, touching his foot as she passed. I noticed that his foot was worn, as if many people had touched it before her.

  ‘I know,’ I said.

  ‘I’ll keep you right about the statues.’ She grinned at me. ‘I’m Jasmine, by the way,’ she said. ‘But everybody calls me Jazz.’ She held out a packet of chewing gum. I took a piece just to be polite, and she popped another into her mouth.

  ‘Jazz? That’s nice.’

  She flashed me another of those brilliant smiles and pulled the Asian girl towards her. ‘This is Aisha.’

  Aisha shrugged herself free. ‘I can speak for myself, Jazz.’ Then she smiled too. ‘Aisha Saleem. Where did you get an exotic name like Tyler Lawless from?’ She said it as if Aisha Saleem wasn’t equally exotic.

  ‘Yeah, wi’ a name like that you should be a writer,’ Jazz said.

  I beamed at her. Couldn’t help it. ‘That’s exactly what I want to be … a writer.’

  As soon as I said it, I remembered I had promised myself not to tell anyone about my ambition in this school. It would be my secret. So much for that promise.

  Jazz slipped her arm in mine. ‘Great! At last, Aisha, somebody to help us with our English homework.’

  She was pulling me along the corridor, which was jammed with pupils hurrying to their next class. ‘Well, Tyler, if you’re looking for a story, you came to the right school.’ It was difficult to hear what she was saying there was so much noise. Yet, even as her voice became a whisper, I could suddenly make out every word. ‘There was a murder here, years ago … in this school … and they never found the body.’

  4

  I wouldn’t ask. I would pretend I wasn’t the least bit curious, even though I was dying to know all about it.

  A murder, at this school? A mystery, a body never found … a writer’s dream.

  But this was my new beginning. Things were going to be different, and if I showed too much interest they would begin to grow suspicious of me.

  There was no more time to talk about it anyway. Rushing from one class to another, getting to know new teachers and classrooms. It was lunchtime before we had any chance to talk, and I promised myself I wouldn’t be the first one to mention it.

  Jazz collected her tray and swaggered down the school cafe. I followed in her wake. Everyone noticed her. She knew it. She expected it. She had so much confidence I envied her. Then she stopped at one of the tables and sprawled herself across it. ‘Our table, Tyler,’ she told me, and I was pleased that I was included in the ‘our’ she was talking about. She put down her tray and plonked herself on to a seat. ‘Come on, Aisha!’ she called out, and Aisha was there beside her.

  ‘Do you think you’ll like it here?’ she asked me as she sat down.

  ‘Yes, I hope so …’ I looked around the cafe as I spoke.

  ‘The school cafe’. The name didn’t suit this dining hall. It was a massive room with high ceilings and tall windows and, even in here, more statues. An imposing stone fireplace dominated the room, and above it were words carved in an ancient script:

  DOMINUS VOBISCUM

  ‘It means “The Lord be with you”,’ Jazz said, following my gaze.

  The plastic tables and chairs looked even more out of place here. There should have been long wooden tables in this hall, and high-backed oak chairs, and torches burning in brass holders on the walls. Once there would have been. I could imagine the candlelight flickering on the tables, almost hear the low hum of monks in prayer, picture row upon row of boys, heads bent, eating silently.

  ‘Hi, Callum, come and join us.’ Jazz broke into my thoughts. She was calling out to the fat boy as he walked past with his tray. He didn’t have to be asked twice.

  ‘Hi, Tyler, how’s it going?’ Callum asked.

  ‘This here Callum,’ Jazz said, poking Callum in the shoulder, ‘is the smartest boy in the school … at least, according to him.’

  Jazz laughed. So did Callum. ‘Nothing wrong with blowing your own trumpet, eh, Tyler? So what are you good at?’

  ‘Tyler’s a writer,’ Aisha said, before I could open my mouth to answer.

  Callum leaned over the table at me, and I knew what he was going to say before he said it. ‘You’ll get a great story here. Have you heard about the murder?’

  ‘Too late, Callum. I’ve told her all about it … you can add the gory details I missed later.’ Jazz peered above my head. ‘Oh, look, here come Laurel and Hardy.

  Laurel and Hardy were the Asian boy and the redhead. They were heading right for us. As soon as they reached the table, they swung their legs over the chairs and planted their trays on the table, as if they were staking their claim. Seemed everyone was welcome at ‘our’ table.

  The redhead introduced himself. ‘I’m Adam Drummond. Sorry Jazz is the first person you’ve met in the school. She always gives a bad impression.’

  ‘Me and Aisha have been really nice, haven’t we, Tyler?’

  I noticed then that Aisha’s cheeks had flushed red. She definitely fancied one of them.

  ‘They’ve been great,’ I said.

  ‘As we always are,’ Aisha said, trying to sound normal.

  ‘This ugly-looking creature,’ Adam punched the Asian boy, ‘is Mahmoud.’ He pronounced Mahmoud as if he belonged to a Scottish clan. MacDuff, Macleod, Macmoud. ‘But everybody calls him Mac.’

  Mac suited him. He sounded more Scottish than Adam. ‘So, what do you think of it so far?’

  Then both him and Adam said at once, ‘Rubbish!’

  Jazz raised her eyes. ‘Just ignore them, Tyler. Hey, what do you think of Mr O’Hara? Dishy, isn’t he?’

  ‘He is really good-looking, for an old guy,’ I agreed.

  Jazz pointed to her third finger, left hand. ‘Have you noticed his ring? Married. Very married.’

  Callum spoke through a mouthful of broccoli. ‘He was a pupil here at the time of the murder.’

  ‘He was in the same class as the victim,’ Jazz said. ‘In fact, he was h
is best friend.’

  ‘But they’d fallen out. I think it was over a lassie,’ Mac said, then he added wisely, ‘Lassies are nothing but trouble. O’Hara never talks about it anyway.’

  Adam agreed. ‘We asked him to tell us about it once but he just clammed up. “It’s in the past” was all he would say.’

  ‘Let the dead stay dead.’ Mac put on an eerie voice.

  ‘But they don’t, do they? Not in this school.’ Jazz leaned closer. ‘The school’s supposed to be haunted.’

  ‘Don’t tell me any more,’ I wanted to say. But I couldn’t find my voice. Couldn’t stop listening.

  ‘People have heard strange noises in the night,’ Aisha said.

  ‘Classroom doors opening of their own accord,’ Callum added.

  ‘Don’t believe you,’ I said. ‘You’re just trying to frighten me.’

  Jazz shrugged. ‘Ask the cleaners. They will only work in pairs in this school.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Adam agreed. ‘They could tell you a thing or two about what goes on here.’

  And I had to ask. Could not wait a moment longer. ‘Who was murdered?’

  Jazz answered me eagerly. ‘One of the pupils. A boy. Ben Kincaid. They say he was a bad lot, always in trouble. Nobody really liked him. Not the teachers, not the pupils. Well, even his best mate had fallen out with him. And Mr O’Hara’s really nice. He wouldn’t fall out with anybody unless it was over something really serious. That tells you a lot, doesn’t it?’

  Callum took up the story. ‘But one of the teachers … a priest, Father Michael, he was always on Ben Kincaid’s case. Dragging him to the Rector’s office. Ranting at him in the classroom. They hated each other. Ben Kincaid was always threatening to get him. And then somebody heard the priest say, “Not if I get you first.” Everybody knew there was going to be trouble one day, and then, one night, it seems Ben Kincaid broke into the school. And Father Michael caught him. It was the last straw. The priest really lost it. Grabbed a knife and chased him to the old chapel.’

  I looked at Jazz. ‘The old chapel?’

  ‘It’s at the other end of the school. Very atmospheric,’ Jazz informed me. ‘It’s never used now.’

  Callum broke in, a bit annoyed at being interrupted. ‘Hey, who’s telling this story!’ Jazz just grinned and, after a pause, Callum went on. ‘In the morning, all they found was blood on the chapel floor, but no Ben Kincaid.’

  ‘And they never found his body?’ I asked.

  ‘Never.’

  ‘Searched everywhere,’ Mac added. ‘Even dragged the lake.’ He looked to the windows then, as if we could see the lake from there. Through the thick walls, through the trees. But I could picture it. I had noticed it this morning through the line of elms as Mum drove us up the long gravel drive to the school. A morning mist hovered over the dark water and I’d thought even then it looked mysterious.

  ‘But they never found Ben Kincaid,’ Mac said.

  By this time I was completely caught up in the story. ‘Maybe he just ran away.’

  ‘They thought of that. But Kincaid had a mother,’ Jazz said. ‘She was dying about him, spoiled him rotten. They say that was half his problem. He got everything he wanted from his mum. So, why would he run away and not get in touch with her?’

  Aisha said softly, ‘People say the poor woman died of a broken heart just a year after the murder.’

  ‘She was run over by a bus, Aisha!’ Mac said.

  Aisha shook her head. ‘They say she walked in front of it. Couldn’t face life any more.’ She let out a big sigh of empathy for the ‘poor woman’.

  ‘They found Father Michael in his study the morning after the murder. His face was ashen,’ Jazz said dramatically. ‘There was blood on his robes, Ben Kincaid’s blood. And it turned out the knife that killed Ben Kincaid was in his pocket. His fingerprints were all over it.’

  ‘What they call an open and shut case.’ Jazz counted on her fingers. ‘Motive, means and opportunity.’

  ‘Did he confess?’

  Jazz shook her head. ‘Nope. Never did. All he said was, “I am innocent.” Said he’d found the knife in the old chapel. But he was arrested and found guilty. He died in prison, still saying he was innocent. Nobody believed him.’

  ‘And now he haunts the school?’ I said.

  ‘Nobody knows who haunts the school.’

  ‘I think it’s just draughty myself,’ Mac said.

  ‘All a load of rubbish,’ Callum said. ‘And, as Jazz pointed out, I am the smartest boy in the school.’

  Everyone laughed.

  ‘I have sensed things,’ Jazz said, and I wondered if she was winding me up.

  ‘Have you?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh yeah, I’m very open to suggestion.’

  ‘Well, I suggest you shut up,’ Mac said, and after that it all descended into jokes and fun and laughter.

  I still wasn’t sure if they’d made the whole thing up, taking the mickey, in a nice way, out of the new girl. But as I left the school that day and I passed the corridor where Mr Hyslop’s office was, I steeled myself and cast a glance at St Joseph. His hand raised in prayer. The child still in his arms, and his eyes … I let out a long sigh of relief. His eyes were set on the baby.

  All my imagination, I told myself. By tomorrow, I would have forgotten all about it.

  5

  ‘You made friends then? Your first day? I’m so pleased about that,’ Mum said.

  I’d had to go over my whole day for Mum and Dad that night at dinner. I knew they so much wanted things to work out for me in this school. So I told them all the things they wanted to hear. How helpful the teachers were, who was in my class. Told them about Jazz and Aisha and the boys too. I told them everything, except about the murder. And of course, I didn’t mention the fact I had knocked myself out in the first five minutes of being there. And I certainly didn’t say anything about the statue. Especially not to Mum. It seemed to really freak her out that I thought I had seen someone who was dead. To tell her a statue had moved? That was even more spooky.

  ‘They made me feel as if I’d been their friend for ages.’

  ‘Well, you’d do the same for a new girl, wouldn’t you? You’re a nice, friendly girl yourself, Tyler.’ Dad beamed at me. I could wind Dad round my finger like a piece of string. He would say that with my fair hair and blue eyes I looked like an angel. His little angel, he called me. And Steven would remind him that the devil had been an angel too. Lucifer.

  ‘You’re better off out of that other school. You let your imagination run away with you there,’ Dad said. ‘You keep out of trouble in this school, and you’ll be fine.’

  Of course, he was right. I had let my imagination run away with me in the other school.

  Miss Baxter was dead. There are no such things as ghosts. And statues can’t move.

  End of story.

  Over the next couple of days it seemed there was nothing for me to worry about anyway. I got to know more people in my class, from the friendly to the not so friendly. The morose girl who sat beside me never smiled once and complained about everything. The pale boy at the back of the class never spoke a word, always sitting in silence. And he never seemed to take his eyes off me. There was another boy with dark hair who was always bent across his desk. I hadn’t even seen his face yet. I think he was asleep half the time. I couldn’t get their names sorted out in my head. Not yet.

  I began to fit in. I felt as if I had been there for ever.

  ‘So, which one do you fancy?’ I asked Aisha one day, just as Adam and Mac had walked past us and her cheeks had flushed bright red again.

  She was totally shocked by the question. ‘I don’t fancy either of them,’ she insisted. ‘I’m too busy to think about boys!’

  ‘Come on, Aisha, you can tell me!’ Jazz called out to her as she stormed off. ‘I’m your best friend.’

  Aisha ignored her. Jazz slipped her arm in mine. ‘Who says we’ll make it our life’s mission to find out which one it is? My money
’s on Mac.’

  ‘I don’t know, Jazz. There’s something really cute about Adam.’

  Now she was the one who was shocked. ‘Stands back in amazement! Don’t tell me you fancy him?’

  ‘No. Don’t be daft. I’m only saying … it just might be Adam. A lot of the girls in school fancy him.’

  Jazz looked even more staggered. ‘He’s a ginger!’ she snapped.

  I smiled. ‘He’s a gorgeous ginger.’ I had seen that written in black above the mirror in the toilets.

  Adam the gorgeous ginger

  And there was something roguish about Adam. The kind of boy you could imagine as a highwayman, or a cowboy, or a buccaneer.

  ‘Adam!’ Jazz dragged me on. ‘If it is Adam, I am having Aisha analysed.’

  So the days went on and I forgot about murder and ghosts and the statue that had moved …

  Until, that is, the day that Mr O’Hara sent me to collect some books he had left in the library on the first floor.

  6

  It was a dark day. Rain battered against the stained-glass windows, mist cloaked the stark trees in the grounds and hung over the lake. I left the classroom, assuring Mr O’Hara that I knew where to go. I’d never been in the school library but I had passed it on the way to other classes. I was rather pleased that he’d asked me, out of the whole class, to run this errand for him.

  I barely glanced at the statues as I passed them on my way up the corridor. In fact, it wasn’t until I reached the upper floor that I even thought about them.

  But it was darker here, and the stained glass sent shafts of eerie green and red lights along the floor and up the walls. The only sounds I could hear were my own footsteps.