Ribblestrop by Andy Mulligan Read Free Book Online Page A

on his own son in the family bathroom, but it was used against him and provoked a vote of no confidence. The next morning, his wife left him, taking his son with her, and he was dismissed.
    â€œOne cannot plan for triumph or disaster,” he said, at a press conference on Reading station, attended by a single reporter who’d stopped by for a sandwich. Dr. Norcross-Webb was on his way to the West Country, to see an elderly aunt, and his plans had been forming all morning. “In a way,” he said, “this is what I have always wanted. The opportunity’s arrived and I am going to start my own school. Education in this country is about to change.”
    News was slow that week in The Reading Advertiser , and the journalist managed five hundred words of cheery optimism. Sacked head says revolutionary new school opening soon! ran the headline and, though Dr. Norcross-Webb had only got as far as designing the blazers, the newspaper gave the impression that the school already had a waiting list. How fortunate, then, that in the Station Hotel opposite, a certain South American businessman was—that very evening—taking delivery of a large stash of banknotes. Howextraordinary that he was planning to confuse the X-ray machines of the local airport by wrapping his bundles of fifties in a newspaper he’d taken from the hotel bar. Mr. Sanchez saw the headline and the beaming face of the headmaster. The very next day, at an exclusive wine bar known as Benders, a deal was done and a suitcase full of money changed hands. Mr. Sanchez had decided not to smuggle the cash out of the country, but to invest it in concealing his recently injured son.
    â€œTo get to me, they take him. You see? Andreas, show this man.”
    Dr. Norcross-Webb peered sympathetically at the boy’s foot, swathed in bandages.
    â€œYou see what they do? To a child, uh? To a child! Start your school, Headmaster. Keep Andreas safe for me.”
    â€œNow?” said the doctor. “Right away?”
    â€œHis mother is dead.” The man had tears in his eyes. “The shock, you understand? It was all too much, and now I want him safe !”
    â€œI’m actually looking for premises at the moment. We’ve narrowed it down, but—”
    â€œLook hard, Doctor. Look fast. You need a down payment, yes? How much?”
    Dr. Norcross-Webb visited Ribblestrop Towers on Tuesday morning. He put in his offer just before lunch and paid cash half an hour later. A one-year lease, renewable. Ribblestrop Towers, with its guest in the south tower, was his.
    *
    â€œThere are new pupils on their way, Lady Vyner—they’re all listed in that document. The future is looking good and the money will be flooding in very soon.”
    Little Caspar pulled the flint of his pistol back on its wheel. “If this was loaded,” he whispered, “I could blind you.”
    â€œHush, darling. Let the man do the one thing he’s good at: let him talk.”
    â€œWe have a new PE teacher,” he said. He was trying to smilerather than flinch, acutely aware of the child leaning toward him and the dead, fishlike eyes of his landlady. He watched as Lady Vyner picked up the document and put her long gray nose over it. “Captain Routon’s ex-army,” he continued. “He does PE—and a bit of building . . . he’s the one who helped me build the science lab. And Professor Worthington—page two—she’s to be our Scientist in Residence, starts in a day or two. Henry’s back—that’s the boy who broke the fountain. And the exciting news is we’ve struck a deal with an orphanage in the Himalayas, where I used to go climbing. I’m expecting a number of customers from there.”
    â€œOrphans again? Like the little boy you lost?”
    â€œWell, Tomaz wasn’t technically an orphan, and I’m ninety-nine percent certain he went home to an uncle. The boys arriving