hadn’t been briefed. The request to let the family grieve privately . . . to honor the dead by keeping up the mission of the school . . . just wasn’t working. Somebody must have told the headmaster it was getting absurd—nothing was getting done.
On the third day, a school meeting was called, in Speech Room.
SPEECH ROOM WERE words spoken with special emphasis at Harrow. They conveyed gravitas and pride. Speech Room, tucked into the hillside, was the heart of the school. The site of the main school plays, school meetings; in the summer it would be host to Speech Day, an annual event where Sixth Formers, about to matriculate, addressed students, parents, and important guests with prepared speeches, poetry, and soliloquies—a kind of valedictory-address-as-entertainment; a display of their maturity through oratory.
The day of the meeting, clumps of students pushed their way into Speech Room. Andrew entered alone. As he shuffled his way to a seat, he felt that silence descend again. Cold, inquisitive eyes bore into him. He wished he had waited for Roddy.
Speech Room was not a room, in fact, but an amphitheater, seating five hundred in tightly packed, high-backed chairs. Stairs climbed to the back walls and their stained-glass windows; slender columns rose to an ornate paneled ceiling. At the front rose a stage, and on it stood a podium. On this day, a day with a darkening sky, at eleven in the morning, the headmaster, Colin Jute, took the podium, draped in his black robes. Ramrod straight with a vigorous chin, light hair going grey swept in a side part, and a cauliflower ear (he’d been a rugby player, part of his personal legend). His jowls hung balefully. Next to him slumped Piers Fawkes, legs crossed, with several long nights written on his face. Next to Fawkes sat a thin man, just forty, with wavy brown hair and tortoiseshell glasses. He was the only person onstage not in beak’s robes, and the only one in the room not dressed in dark colors: he wore a seasonal light green sport coat and slacks. He held a thick folder. Not a detective. Too skinny and professional. A doctor? The man pivoted his head, birdlike, not masking his curiosity at the sight before him: several hundred boys, washed and unwashed, beefy, prepubescent, peach-skinned, brown, the full diversity of schoolboys despite their identical dress and narrow range of social class, fidgeting in unaccustomed silence. The great semicircular room—which usually bounced with joshing and chatter—sounded only with coughs and whispers and creaking chairs. The headmaster stepped forward to speak. The whispers faded instantly. Andrew sank into his seat. He felt sick. He closed his eyes and waited for the words. Theo Ryder was strangled on the morning of September 9th. . . . If only someone had spotted his assailant, we might be safe today, and his killer brought to justice. . . .
The headmaster lifted his chin and started confirming the key facts: that Theodore Ryder, a Sixth Former in the Lot, died on the morning of September 9. Ryder appeared to have been ill, and he appeared to have died of that illness. The inquest doctor (the headmaster gestured to the man in the sport coat) had graciously agreed to join the meeting; Dr. Sloane . . . (even in mourning, the five hundred boys could not resist a ripple of amusement: Oh, WELL, Dr. Sloane, Mrrrowww ; Dr. Sloane peered at the crowd, puzzled and curious why his name would cause a stir, not realizing that to a pack of toffs, having a name shared with London’s tony Sloane Square, but not being of Sloane Square, was pretention itself) . . . Dr. Sloane would speak shortly and allow the boys to hear the details firsthand, to ask questions, and to satisfy themselves with the answers. This would be the first time and, the headmaster sincerely hoped, the last that he would be forced to report the death of a boy at school.
Theodore Ryder . . . the doctor was speaking now. He gazed from his glasses—thick
On the third day, a school meeting was called, in Speech Room.
SPEECH ROOM WERE words spoken with special emphasis at Harrow. They conveyed gravitas and pride. Speech Room, tucked into the hillside, was the heart of the school. The site of the main school plays, school meetings; in the summer it would be host to Speech Day, an annual event where Sixth Formers, about to matriculate, addressed students, parents, and important guests with prepared speeches, poetry, and soliloquies—a kind of valedictory-address-as-entertainment; a display of their maturity through oratory.
The day of the meeting, clumps of students pushed their way into Speech Room. Andrew entered alone. As he shuffled his way to a seat, he felt that silence descend again. Cold, inquisitive eyes bore into him. He wished he had waited for Roddy.
Speech Room was not a room, in fact, but an amphitheater, seating five hundred in tightly packed, high-backed chairs. Stairs climbed to the back walls and their stained-glass windows; slender columns rose to an ornate paneled ceiling. At the front rose a stage, and on it stood a podium. On this day, a day with a darkening sky, at eleven in the morning, the headmaster, Colin Jute, took the podium, draped in his black robes. Ramrod straight with a vigorous chin, light hair going grey swept in a side part, and a cauliflower ear (he’d been a rugby player, part of his personal legend). His jowls hung balefully. Next to him slumped Piers Fawkes, legs crossed, with several long nights written on his face. Next to Fawkes sat a thin man, just forty, with wavy brown hair and tortoiseshell glasses. He was the only person onstage not in beak’s robes, and the only one in the room not dressed in dark colors: he wore a seasonal light green sport coat and slacks. He held a thick folder. Not a detective. Too skinny and professional. A doctor? The man pivoted his head, birdlike, not masking his curiosity at the sight before him: several hundred boys, washed and unwashed, beefy, prepubescent, peach-skinned, brown, the full diversity of schoolboys despite their identical dress and narrow range of social class, fidgeting in unaccustomed silence. The great semicircular room—which usually bounced with joshing and chatter—sounded only with coughs and whispers and creaking chairs. The headmaster stepped forward to speak. The whispers faded instantly. Andrew sank into his seat. He felt sick. He closed his eyes and waited for the words. Theo Ryder was strangled on the morning of September 9th. . . . If only someone had spotted his assailant, we might be safe today, and his killer brought to justice. . . .
The headmaster lifted his chin and started confirming the key facts: that Theodore Ryder, a Sixth Former in the Lot, died on the morning of September 9. Ryder appeared to have been ill, and he appeared to have died of that illness. The inquest doctor (the headmaster gestured to the man in the sport coat) had graciously agreed to join the meeting; Dr. Sloane . . . (even in mourning, the five hundred boys could not resist a ripple of amusement: Oh, WELL, Dr. Sloane, Mrrrowww ; Dr. Sloane peered at the crowd, puzzled and curious why his name would cause a stir, not realizing that to a pack of toffs, having a name shared with London’s tony Sloane Square, but not being of Sloane Square, was pretention itself) . . . Dr. Sloane would speak shortly and allow the boys to hear the details firsthand, to ask questions, and to satisfy themselves with the answers. This would be the first time and, the headmaster sincerely hoped, the last that he would be forced to report the death of a boy at school.
Theodore Ryder . . . the doctor was speaking now. He gazed from his glasses—thick
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