"Smith, Guy N - The Lurkers" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith Guy N)

5

Malcolm Hughes had been headmaster of Woodside school for the past twenty-five years. He had lived in the village from an early age, and he had studied there himself before progressing to university. A number of postings had followed but in the end the trail had led back to Woodside because that was his ambition. At fifty-five they would let him see his retirement there and even afterwards, he told himself, his presence would be indispensable, for truly no outsider could fully understand the people of this place.

Well-built and balding, the schoolmaster had a reputation for being bad-tempered and a law unto himself. Miss Haverill, who taught the infant class, lived in fear and trembling of the headmaster but, Malcolm decided, that was the way it should be. Had not assistant teachers in his own schooldays feared the headmaster? Of course they had. There was one word to sum it all up - discipline! And discipline stemmed from the top of the tree, found its way right down to the roots and ensured a strong and healthy growth throughout. That was the trouble with society today: no discipline. The blame for recent city rioting and looting lay with parents and school teachers, principally the latter. A schoolmaster did not simply discipline his pupils, he disciplined the parents as well.

Malcolm Hughes took his time lighting his large rustic pipe as he weighed up this young man who had deemed to presume upon his valuable time first thing on a Monday morning. Outsiders could cause problems because they had not had the Woodside upbringing and looked for psychological reasons behind their children's inability to conform to what this small society demanded. They did not accept what you told them; they came up with ideas of their own which were all nonsense anyway. This fellow sitting before him was a writer; well, he'd written a book, put it that way. Mass market fiction, a sacrilege to the English language, laced with bad grammar and even worse language. It was all a con-trick, damaging to the tradition of English literature. A semi-hippy, he had not even bothered to put a suit on to consult his son's headmaster. Certainly discipline was lacking here. Hughes sighed audibly.

'My son is afraid of being bullied,' Peter Fogg said, moving his head slightly in an attempt to dodge a drifting cloud of scented tobacco smoke.

'But he hasn't actually been bullied.' Hughes knitted his bushy eyebrows into a stern countenance, which in his younger days he had practised in front of a mirror. 'Young boys are prone to many fears, their imaginations are fertile and often play-ground quarrels are magnified out of all proportion.'

'He's frightened of the Wilson boys.' Peter watched the other closely for a reaction, and saw the grey eyes beneath the brows narrow slightly.

'Oh, the Wilsons . . . ' The schoolmaster drew heavily on his pipe and took his time expelling the smoke. They can be a bit over rumbustuous at times but there's no harm in the lads. I've had to stamp down on them on the odd occasion in the past, mind you.'

Their elder brothers tried to run Gavin down on their motorbikes.' Peter sensed Hughes erecting barricades, a kind of stonewall psychological defence. They could have killed him. I sent them packing but the younger ones are threatening to beat Gavin up today, because his parents aren't Welsh!'

That's nonsense.'

'Precisely. That's why I'm here now.'

'I assure you Mr - er - um - Fogg, that no such thing could take place on the premises of this school. I would not allow anything more than an exuberant friendly brawl on the playground, I promise you.'

Then how is it,' Peter spoke slowly, his words seeming to cut a path through the thick haze of pipe smoke which enshrouded the big man on the other side of the desk, 'that these two young hooligans blacked Kevin Arnold's eye and got him down on the ground and kicked hell out of him?'

Malcolm Hughes started visibly. 'Come now, Mr Fogg, that really is taking it too far. I know the incident which you are referring to, of course. The Wilsons and young Arnold quarrelled over something during playtime one day last week. There was an argument and I believe a blow was struck but Miss Haverill was quick to intervene and - '

'But she didn't intervene quite quickly enough,' Peter snapped, 'Look, Mr Hughes, suppose you drop all this facade you've built up about school discipline and the like. I know as well as you do that the Wilsons and probably some of the other kids are hooligans, given the chance. I'm not here to complain about young Arnold's black eye, just to tell you that it's not to happen to my boy. If it does. . . '

'Is - is this some kind of threat, Mr Fogg?' Malcolm Hughes leaned forward, the veins in his thick neck standing out like lengths of blue cord.

'It depends.' The other stood up. 'On whether anything happens to my boy. It's your responsibility to see that it doesn't.'

Hughes was puffing steadily on his pipe. How dare this upstart of an outsider come here and talk to him like this. He thought of the Wilsons and remembered how the tyres on his car had been slashed. There were things that were best left alone, but when parents complained it made life very difficult, especially if you weren't Welsh! Malcolm Hughes was English. With a Welsh name but born in Stoke-on-Trent, he'd come to Woodside with his parents at the age of three. Most people thought he was Welsh - except the Wilsons! Somehow they'd found out and life was a kind of brinkmanship. You never knew for sure what they would do, and if they did anything you never found out until it was too late. You could never prove anything. They were a kind of private terrorist organisation that you couldn't get to grips with, fighting you under the cover of darkness. They had obviously got it in for the Foggs, which wasn't surprising. Mark and Jon would rough the young kid up at school, the elder twins would - well, there was no way of guessing to what lengths they would go. The holiday cottage that had been burned down one night last winter, that was the Wilsons' doing for sure. You had to tread carefully. Run with the hare and the hounds.

'Leave it to me.' The headmaster blew out a thick cloud of smoke, which he hoped would hide the flicker of fear in his eyes, the slight trembling of his lower lip. I'll see that no harm comes to your boy.'

'Good.' Peter smiled. 'In which case I'll not take up any more of your valuable time, Mr Hughes. Good day to you.'

Peter had not missed that brief expression of fear on the schoolmaster's face. He's shit-scared of the Wilsons, Peter thought. In fact he's scared of everything, including his own shadow. A big bluffing coward, another breed of the bullying species.

He drove slowly back to Hodre, a kind of unwillingness to go home because Janie would be waiting for him, demanding a word-for-word report of his meeting at the school. OK, he'd tell her. But it wouldn't satisfy her. It didn't really satisfy him, because Malcolm Hughes was just stalling, hoping that the Wilson boys wouldn't beat Gavin up and that everything would be all right.

Peter was surprised to see that Janie's Mini was not parked on the verge adjoining the cottage. In a way he was relieved, because it would give him a respite from her continual nagging barrage that there was something odd going on. After a while he almost believed that there was, but he must not believe it, or they would never stick it out for a year. It was just the sudden contrast between town and country life, that was all. Janie would get used to this place in due course and in the meantime he just had to show a little forbearance.

He had intended to go straight back to work on that difficult chapter conclusion. Now, suddenly, he wasn't in the mood. He needed to wind down, to relax for an hour or so and get Malcolm Hughes and the Wilsons out of his system.

A walk, maybe. He remembered the missing cat. Not that he was bothered much about it himself; it was only a stray that had appeared from somewhere and taken up residence at Hodre, and he had never liked cats. But Snowy would reduce the mice and rat population and save an awful lot of trouble where Janie was concerned. Also, it kept Gavin happy. So the sooner it was found the better, and the search offered the chance of a walk and some much-needed fresh air. He could still smell that schoolmaster's rank pipe.