Page 12 of The Forgotten Boy

“I don’t—”

“Should be on the information the solicitors left for you. My surveying company did some work around Havencross when the investors were looking to buy. Mine is the contact number in case of fire or flood, that sort of thing.”

“Oh, right.”

He hesitated, one arm resting against the car’s back window. “In fact, they thought it a good idea if I dropped in every week or so and checked things over. Heating, plumbing, you know. Preventing problems beforehand. I’m based in Newcastle, but since I’m visiting home this weekend anyway, I could come by tomorrow?”

Juliet didn’t recall anything about weekly checks from surveyors. Could it be Noah simply wanted to see her? “Yes, of course. Anytime.”

With a pat to her car roof, as though seeing off a busload of kids, Noah said, “One o’clock, then. See you.”

Ghosts, she thought as she drove away from White Rose Farm. I was expecting ghosts. And the flu. And Clarissa Somersby. I was not expecting a man with beautiful eyes and a sexy accent who makes me want to forget that I thought my life was over.

CHAPTER TEN

DIANA

OCTOBER 1918

The tricks began in mid-October—or at least that was when Diana began to take note. At first she thought herself simply absent-minded when she couldn’t find her favorite fountain pen, only to locate it that night balanced precariously on the edge of the bathroom sink. And it wasn’t so odd to misplace a file for McArdle, James in the As instead of the Ms. When she found her tea tray on her desk with the cup smashed on the floor, Diana assumed one of the boys had been looking for her and, having broken it accidentally, fled the scene.

Ink flooded across her notebook, messages that never made it to her so that she missed meetings, even a long rip in her favorite skirt—all of it, though annoying, could be explained.

But when the knocking on her door started in the middle of the night, Diana knew she had to get things under control. It wasn’t that she was surprised; she’d grown up with two brothers and knew that putting ninety boys under one vast roof would entail a certain amount of high spirits and pranks. She also knew how quickly things could get out of hand in that same environment.

She brought it up in the weekly staff meeting, held every Sunday while the boys attended an evening service, presided over by a local priest in the dining hall. Present were all those who both worked and lived in Havencross: fifteen masters, Mrs. McCann the cook, Beth Willis taking notes, Diana herself, and Clarissa Somersby. Though she presided, Clarissa was not a dictatorial headmistress. She was also highly efficient: there was always a printed agenda never longer than one page handed out by Beth, and so far no meeting had lasted over an hour. Today’s agenda covered the upcoming half-term holiday and the activities planned for those boys not going home, behavioral reports from the six teachers who were resident supervisors of each dormitory wing, and academic issues, which were handled by Joshua Murray as Clarissa’s newly named second-in-command. Last was always Diana’s report of weekly infirmary visits.

Because Diana was last, she segued straight from her medical report into the knocking on her bedroom door at night. It had happened three of the previous four nights. After asking if anyone else had been a victim, she looked expectantly around the room.

There was silence.

Diana waited for Clarissa to take control, but she looked unusually remote, even for her. So Diana mentally shrugged and queried the dormitory supervisors herself. “Have any of you noticed a boy or several boys out of bed after hours?”

It had to be asked, though she was pretty sure if they had, they’d have mentioned it earlier. Sure enough, all six denied knowledge.

Luther Weston, who taught Latin and Greek, shot a question back at Diana: “Are you quite sure you didn’t …” he hesitated meaningfully. “That you weren’t dreaming?”

He spoke with an arrogance that could not be learned, only inherited. Diana knew everyone there heard his real question: “Are you quite sure you didn’t imagine it?”

“Once might have been dreaming. Not three times.”

“It would be very difficult for any of us to have missed seeing or hearing an out-of-bound’s pupil.” He would have been less offensive without the forced politeness or the condescending smile. “We do know our jobs.”

Little girl, he might as well have added.

Prick, she thought back. Army nursing had a way of expanding one’s vocabulary.

Joshua intervened. “We all know our jobs well enough to know how very ingenious the young can be when in pursuit of mischief. This is an old house. Surely you don’t pop out of bed to investigate every creak, Weston, or you’d never get any sleep. It’s not hard to believe that some of the older boys have learned the quickest and quietest methods of going where they want without being noticed.”

And vanishing afterward, Diana almost added. It was the part of all this she most disliked—that no matter how quickly she moved, by the time she heard the knocking and crossed the room, whoever it was had vanished out of sight in the corridor. Could they really hear her padding across the floor in her bare feet?

The alternative—that they could somehow see inside her room—she liked even less.

Beth Willis put down her pen and cleared her throat. “If you like …” she began, a little tentative since she rarely spoke in these meetings, “I can speak to my boys about any rumors going around.”

“We could do that,” said Weston insultingly.

Diana decided she liked him less every time he opened his mouth.

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