The White Devil by Justin Evans Read Free Book Online Page A

Urals, but a set of shoulders hunched against the downpour and the winds. Black umbrellas appeared in profusion; skinny-legged boys clutched them earnestly while balancing books and trying to keep hats on their heads; laughter vanished from the High Street, replaced by coughing. Temperatures dropped; chills invaded. As if in sympathy with their dead friend, boys became sick, dry-coughed or wet-coughed through the night, sprouted fevers. Older boys grumbled as rugger practices were canceled. It’s like there’s nothing to do but sit and think of Theo , griped Roddy, voicing the sentiments of many: forced bloody mourning . On the day of the memorial service for Theo—presided over by Father Peter in the chapel, and thronged with Lottites—it was the blackest day of all, cloud cover like a steel ceiling and gushing, pouring rain, an absurdly tragic scene; alleviated, momentarily, by the bright rhetoric and charm of the many speakers, but ruined again by the wet sobs of the smaller boys, the vindictive downpour awaiting them outside, their need to puddle-hop, without dignity, to dining hall after. And in the Lot, even the boy with the plummiest accent, a Fifth Former named Clegg-Bowra (who, it was known, personally owned a share in a Formula One team and took nothing, not lessons, not sport, seriously), began holding court in the snooker room and gossiping like a charwoman. There’s a curse on the school, he drawled nasally. It’s never rained like this in the history of Harrow. At this rate it will still be raining by Speech Day, and we’ll all be here with our parents, sneezing. People are getting sick. Theo Ryder was just the first victim. I think they should close the school, personally, he continued. And where’s the communication? No one’s saying what killed Theo. For all we know it was a murder and some psychopath up in the church graveyard is lying in wait to throttle more Harrovians. They hate us, you know, the Kevins , he said, using the school lingo—an Irish slur—for local, townie. Due to the chill, the heat was turned on, unseasonally; the pipes clanked and hissed. No one could get the damp out of their shoes. The felt in the snooker tables buckled.
    No explanations were forthcoming about Theo’s death. Only a terse note, posted on the bulletin board in the Lot and signed by the assistant master, Macrae, requesting that everyone soldier on with their work while the coroner did his, and that anyone who desired to speak to a counselor should avail themselves of Mr. Macrae or Matron or Father Peter. Piers Fawkes was conspicuously missing from the list, and from sight; Matron suggested to some that he was busy with arrangements with the family, who were in South Africa, and with the police and coroner. Macrae seemed to be enjoying the spotlight, and Andrew suspected that the assistant master was using Fawkes’s absence as an opportunity to ingratiate himself with the boys, especially the older, more influential ones—St. John and Vaz and their fawning crew, with teas and bull sessions, visible through the window in Macrae’s kitchen, just to the side of the Lot in the assistant housemaster’s residence. Once Andrew passed under this window on his way to Mr. Montague’s lesson, and all the faces turned to him. Vaz, St. John, and Macrae in a tall-backed chair, with a smug but guilty look, like a duke caught trying out the king’s throne. There was a moment of mutual apprehension. Andrew suspected they were talking about him. He moved on, ducking his head against the rain.
    Andrew avoided these gatherings; he avoided the common room, the dining hall; any place the whispers might arise, there’s the American, the one who found Theo , or the questions might resume did you see what killed him? was there any blood ? He went straight to his room after lessons, even skipping meals, getting by on a handful of the biscuits Matron left for the boys in a wicker basket in the snooker room. He would sit cross-legged