‘That’s exactly what I mean, Father. The plain fact of it is, the boy is dead. There is nothing we can do to change that. If we could turn back time, we would. But we can’t. And at the risk of sounding cynical, I think we have to ask ourselves now how it would serve any of us, and I include in that the boy’s family, to bring the police into this. The benefits, as I see them, are pretty few. On the other hand, the cost, to the school as well as to his family, would be enormous.’
Howard starts. ‘Wait, are you proposing we just brush this under the carpet?’
‘Damn it, Howard, just listen to me for five seconds, can’t you? There’s more to think of here than just some abstract notion of justice. This kind of thing can ruin a school. I’ve seen it happen. Even as it is I’ve got four sets of parents threatening to pull out their kids. This comes out and they’ll leave in their droves. Every boy who’s ever stubbed his toe here’ll be filing a lawsuit. As for the media, they’ll have a field day. They’ve been waiting a lifetime for something like this. We’ll be lucky if we’re left with so much as a blackboard by the end of it. So before you get up on your high horse, you tell me, Howard, who gains, exactly, from dragging this whole thing into the open? Juster’s parents? You think this is going to help them at all? His sick mother? Or the boys, think it’ll be good for them?’
Howard does not reply, just scowls.
‘When these matters arose in the past–’ the foxy, delicate priest, when he speaks, has exactly the voice that Howard would have guessed: high and feminine, dry and friable as tissue-paper ‘– we always found it more satisfactory to handle them in private.’
‘I agree with Father Casey here,’ the Automator says. ‘It seems to me that the best way to deal with this is internally, through our own existing disciplinary channels.’
‘As we started, so shall we go on, is that it?’ Father Green addresses the dapper little man, who only laughs mirthlessly and places a hand on his companion’s knee.
‘Ah, Jerome, if it were up to you who of us would not be clapped in irons?’
Something grotesque about his laughter sets off a trigger inside Howard; while the conversation flows back and forth around him, he stumbles unhearing through it, nauseous and dizzy as if he’s been drugged, until he sees his own hand rising in front of him and hears his voice say, ‘Wait, wait… a boy is dead. Juster is dead. It doesn’t matter what the school has to gain or not gain. We can’t let –’ absurdly, he turns to Tom here ‘– no offence, Tom – but we can’t just let this… go.’
The silver-haired president starts making noises about reviews and hearings and sanctions, but the Automator hushes him with a hand: ‘Howard –’
‘He’s right,’ Father Green interjects.
‘Excuse me, Father, he’s not right – Howard, no one’s saying we’re letting this go. No one’s saying we should forget about Juster. But if Tom goes to trial it’ll be a kangaroo court and you know it. They’ll send him down without a second thought even though the facts are in actuality far from clear –’
‘The facts are perfectly clear, Greg, he made a full confession.’
‘I mean the facts, the circumstances of Daniel Juster’s death. We don’t know what was going through that kid’s mind, we’ll never know. Who of us can say for certain that these events that took place involving Tom were finally and definitively what pushed him over the edge? We know that he had other things bothering him. His sick mother, for instance, and this girl, this business with the girl.’
‘Yes, but –’
‘And the fact of the matter is that these pills that Tom allegedly gave him, there’s a question mark over whether he had any awareness at all of what happened, so setting aside the rights and the wrongs of it, can we genuinely –’
‘Jesus, Greg, he took him into his room and drugged him and abused him, how can you even –’
‘You settle down there!’ the Automator cuts him off. ‘Settle down, mister. Here at Seabrook, we judge a man by the sum of his actions, the sum. In this case we have a man with an unparalleled dedication to this school and to the boys of this school. Does one error of judgement, however grievous, does that cancel out at a stroke all the good he’s done? The good of that care?’
‘An error of judgement?’ Howard says, dumbfounded.
‘That’s right, any one of us –’
‘An error of judgement?’
‘That’s what I said, damn it,’ the Automator bellows, flaring brick-red. ‘You had one of your own, or don’t you remember? Three and a half million pounds down the swanny in under a minute – under a minute! When you came here you were the laughing stock of the City of London! Unemployable! But who took you in? Who took you in when no one else would? This school, that’s who, because we look after our own! That’s what care means!’
‘How the hell –’ Howard on his feet ‘– does losing money compare with physically drugging and abusing –’
‘I’ll tell you how!’ the Automator rising too to tower above him. ‘You take a look at this man, Howard! Before you start laying blame, you take a good look at him! This man was a hero! This man was going to be one of the all-time sporting greats of his country! Instead, he’s a cripple, in constant physical pain, because of you! Because of your cowardice! You talk about justice. If there were any justice, you would have been at the bottom of that quarry, not him!’ This silences Howard all right. Beside the Acting Principal, the president nods ruefully. ‘Any other man, that kind of blow he might have retreated into his shell for ever. Not Tom Roche. Instead he has devoted himself to the education of these boys. I would even argue – you won’t like it, but I would even argue that it’s his very devotion that has led him to make this terrible mistake. But that’s beside the point, which is, when he tried to do the right thing, when he came to you of all people and confessed – when otherwise, no one would ever have found out – you just want to have him strung up! Well, let me tell you, you’re up to your neck in this too!’
‘Me?’
‘I sent you to talk to Juster. This is a troubled boy, I said, go and talk to him, and you came back with diddly-squat!’
‘Was I supposed to hold a gun to his head? Was I supposed to hold a gun to his head, and say, Okay, Juster, start talking –’
‘Daniel,’ Tom mumbles.
‘What’s that?’ The Automator snaps round.
‘He preferred to be called Daniel,’ Tom, tilted forward awkwardly in his chair like a classical sculpture in transit, repeats through a patina of tears and mucus.
The men lapse into a simmering silence.
‘The question is, how difficult would it be to keep the matter internal?’ the foxy priest remarks eventually. ‘From what I hear, the boy’s father doesn’t seem the type to cause trouble.’
‘Is he one of ours?’ the jowly president inquires blandly.
‘Class of ’84,’ the Automator says. ‘Went in for tennis mostly. Pretty decent team back then. Yes, he’s got enough on his plate with the wife’s cancer, I’d say.’
‘Nevertheless, it might be to our benefit to be seen pursuing some definite line of inquiry,’ the foxy priest counsels.
‘Well, he was upset about this girl,’ the president says. ‘Isn’t that the perfect alibi right there?’
‘I don’t want to encourage this Romeo and Juliet claptrap,’ the Automator says. ‘Otherwise they’ll all be at it like lemmings.’
‘The mother might be the angle to take, then,’ the foxy priest says.
‘That’d be my preference. Mum’s dying, boy can’t take it, game over. Press haven’t found out about her yet. We can throw them a few hints, at this end amp up the counselling service, maybe.’ He makes a note on a pad. ‘Well, gentlemen, I think we’re all agreed that the best thing is to sit tight. If Desmond Furlong were here, I’m sure he’d say the same.’ The board members around the table nod donkey-like, with the exception of Father Green, whose head is cocked at a contemplative angle, as if he’s savouring the fragrance of a spring meadow, and the unknown bald man, who catches the Automator’s eye.