Silent Noon Read Online Free PDF Page A

house when he returned as a master. His rooms were above the dormitories, so he was not bothered by the noise of pillow fights and scuffles over
toothpaste and undeclared tuck; he could choose not to hear raids between neighbouring dormitories unless there was sufficient commotion to risk disturbing Mr Runcie, whose rooms were on the ground
floor. In his little attic empire with the dormer windows framing two squares of sky, he might have been anywhere, far from here.
    He lay down on the bed and closed his eyes, but the muscles in his face would not relax and his eyes trembled against his eyelids. Downstairs, a door opened and slammed shut. Footsteps crunched
on the drive; someone yelled on the upper pitch. Swift rolled onto his side, torn between admitting defeat and getting up for a blanket and waiting out the draught until he was asleep and
wouldn’t care. It was to no avail. His meeting with Morrell had made him restless.
    He undressed and put on shorts and a vest and a jumper. His plimsolls waited by the door.
    He told himself that he wouldn’t bother planning a route; his runs with the boys always followed roughly the same course, and today he intended to indulge in the luxury of venturing off
school grounds. By the time he reached the lower pitch, there were no boys or masters in sight. He followed the towpath past the pumping station and over the footbridge into the adjoining field,
where cows trundled halfheartedly after him, knowing deep in their bovine hearts that he would not stop to feed them. He was officially on another man’s property now, though who that might be
and whether he was likely to mind remained as much a mystery to Swift today as five years, ten years, fifteen years ago. It did not matter terribly.
    Pausing to clamber over the stile at the far end of the meadow, he felt the sudden chill of being observed. Something on his blind side – not a movement so much as a presence.
If I
don’t look, I won’t have to see who it is
, he thought.
Then I can carry on
.
    He looked, and at first he saw nothing. The spaces between the trees at the other end of the meadow were dark and still. Only the uppermost branches moved, the leaves at the top flimsy against
the leaden sky. Down below, the cows had moved off, leaving a space where only moments ago he had been, his footsteps leaving impressions in the flattened grass. There, now, stood a grey figure,
watching him.
    Swift blinked, and still the figure remained. Then he turned, and Swift saw that he was holding something long and bladed. Some kind of farm implement.
    Krawiec had not been the school groundsman in Swift’s student days. One of the other masters had told him that the taciturn Pole had spent the months after the war wandering the island,
taking housewives by surprise when he pressed his face against their front windows to ask for food. Swift could not imagine why Mr Pleming should have offered Krawiec a job – perhaps out of
guilt.
    Now he was working his way across the field, using the long blade to slice the flattened grass, exposing layers of rock and rubble. Five years ago, he had found Swift in almost this precise
spot.
    Swift completed his climb over the stile, intent on resuming his run. Perspiration had turned cold against his skin; his heartbeat scooped into his stomach. Still Krawiec worked towards him,
swinging his blade to and fro, looking up from time to time to regard Swift with an unchanging expression.
    Swift waited until the groundsman stood within speaking distance.
    “Picking up some extra work,” he said. It was a statement from which the Pole was supposed to infer a question.
    “High time too,” continued Swift. “Whoever owns this bit left it far too long.”
    “Car needs a service.”
    “Expensive business.” Swift swallowed. “Of course. I don’t suppose the Head’s been terribly forthcoming.” He felt his pockets: sixpence. An insult.
“I’ll see what I can do,” he said. “This