Silent Noon by Trilby Kent Page B

drive. “Medlar boys.”
    “Get them to clear off, would you? On your way down.” This would be the second time this year that he’d have to be interviewed by the police superintendent. Pleming was tired
of Hastings’s face: the sallow cheeks and petulant mouth. “I imagine he won’t be much longer with the girl.”
    Recognizing Swift’s expression as he emerged from the main building, Robin tugged at Barney’s sleeve.
    “Buck up,” hissed Cowper, who had also seen the French master approaching. Immediately the others began to drift away from the police car – all except Opie.
    “Is it true, sir?” he said. “That there was a Jerrybag baby buried behind the old kitchens?”
    “For Christ’s sake, Opie,” muttered Shields.
    Swift planted himself in front of the group. In the excitement, Hughes’s rosacea had flared to a dazzling scarlet. Percy looked as if he was about to cry. Littlejohn was regarding him
sourly, as usual. The new boy was more interested in peering into the police vehicle.
    “Get away from there, Holland. Superintendent Hastings will be out soon, and he shouldn’t have to fight his way through your little mob to get to his car.”
    “Well, sir?”
    “Opie, whoever’s told you that is spouting a load of old rubbish.”
    “Was it really a mummy, sir? Like the Tollund Man? Is it true that babies mummify if they’ve not eaten anything before they die, sir?”
    “I shouldn’t think it’s any of your business, Cowper. All of you should have been back in Medlar half an hour ago. Where’s Mr Runcie?”
    “He’s gone into town, sir.”
    “It was Dolly’s daughter who found it, wasn’t it, sir?” said Robin.
    “I shouldn’t think it makes the slightest difference who found it, Littlejohn,” snapped Swift. “The next person who asks about it will be put straight on the Head’s
List. Get back to the house, all of you.”
    Watching them slouch off, he was tempted to call after Cowper to pull his hands out of his pockets – but he resisted. And it was because he decided not to raise his voice that he heard
Littlejohn mutter to the new boy, in a whisper that was meant to be heard, “Everyone knows a woman on board a ship is bad luck.”
    ~
    The joint had been stewed and gave off a rotten smell that drifted from the head of the table where Mr Runcie, in the housemaster’s weekly ceremonial, carved. The blade
struggled against the grain, working deep grooves into the meat before finally piercing down to bone. The meat was an anaemic colour and the size of a small dog or large cat, but without clear
signs of rib or socket it might have been anything. Perhaps this was intentional: perhaps someone in the kitchen had realized that, under the circumstances, there would be little appetite for
something identifiably dead before its time.
    Next to Barney, Opie’s mouth hinged open in unconcealed delight, his tongue flat and red and shining. He was watching the plate now approaching, passed hand to hand down the table.
“Lovely,” he murmured.
    According to Cowper, it had been a collaborator’s child. “Either that, or it came from one of the French tarts the Jerries brought over.”
    “Why shouldn’t it be one of ours?” asked Hughes.
    “That’s what I said,” Robin reminded the others. “I said that before – didn’t I, Holland?”
    Barney couldn’t remember, but he nodded anyway.
    “It could have been one of the girls who work in the laundries,” said Shields. “Affairs and that, you know.”
    “What do you know?” said Cowper. “
Non molto
, I’d say.”
    “More than you do.”
    “Oh, shut up.”
    Shields leant across Robin to present Cowper with a full view of the contents of his mouth: a glistening, sticky mess of half-chewed brisket and mash.
    “Stop that,” snapped Robin, who’d been in a mood all morning.
    “We weren’t talking to you, so put that in your cake-hole,” said Shields.
    Cowper reached across to grab the piccalilli. “With relish. The