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gleam from the high windows overhead.
    ‘Jesus,’ Asheton moaned. ‘It’s as cold as a witch’s tit in here,’ and he watched his breath smoke out.
    They heard their footfalls echo as they ambled past the cream-painted walls and the silent classrooms with their half- frosted windows. Somehow, impossibly over the years, the old indefinable smell was still there.
    ‘In Latin lessons,’ Muir’s voice was dark brown, ‘no one can hear you scream.’
    They all remembered the rows of ancient photos that once lined these walls. Faces long dead had stared back at them beneath tasselled, gold-laced caps and above striped jerseys. The First Eleven, the First Fifteen, Boxing Team A and Boxing Team B. The fives teams had been there and the Rowing Eight, proud and haughty and sure of themselves and their world. Then had come the Great War and the names of those who perished were gilded in the locked sanctums of the chapel. Bastard, E.F.L., Featherstonehaugh, B.F., Golighty, A.J.S., all lying together in foreign mud to prove there was a corner of a field that was forever Halliards.
    ‘The bell!’ Alphedge shouted. ‘I used to ring it when I was a prefect. Race you for it!’ And he shot off down the corridor, leaving the others in his wake.
    ‘Not bad for an out-of-work luvvie,’ Bingham commented, ‘that turn of speed.’
    Alphedge had spun on his heel in a pool of light at the bottom of the central staircase. In profile to the others, his jaw had dropped and his fists had clenched. To the Preacher, it seemed that the hairs on the back of his neck were standing on end.
    ‘Oh, my God.’
    Asheton laughed. ‘Don’t tell me. They’ve carpeted Big School.’
    But Alphedge wasn’t looking at Big School. He had his back to it, as they all knew, as Asheton should have known. One by one they reached him, and one by one they saw what he had seen. The body of a man twirled in the updraught, a half a twist to the left, another to the right, like some demented Newton’s cradle in Hannibal Lecter’s study.
    ‘Who is it?’ It was Bingham who gave voice to the question rising to all their throats.
    ‘It’s Quentin.’ The Preacher saw it first, mounting the worn stone of the steps so that he was on the dead man’s level.
    Bingham moved for the rope, lashed around the banisters.
    ‘Don’t touch it!’ Maxwell shouted. And they all looked at him.
    ‘For Christ’s sake, Max,’ Asheton screamed at him. ‘We must. That’s Quent up there – George Quentin. We can’t leave him like that.’
    Maxwell grabbed Bingham’s arm, staring steadily into his eyes. ‘We can and we must,’ he said.
    ‘He’s right,’ Bingham echoed, looking up at the bell rope creaking on its housings. ‘Old Harry will hold him till the police arrive.’
    The Preacher’s eyes were closed now and his lips were moving silently in prayer.
    ‘Yes,’ said Alphedge. ‘We must call the police.’
    But nobody moved. Nobody except George Quentin at the end of his tether.
    ‘Anybody got a mobile?’ Maxwell asked.
    Asheton shook himself free of the moment and flicked his from his pocket. ‘999?’ he asked them.
    Maxwell shook his head. ‘No, there’s one nearer than that.’
    The frost had gone by the time they took George Quentin’s body away. A line of blue-and-white tape fluttered across the open gateway and men in white hoods and galoshes tiptoed their way across the gravel to waiting vehicles.
    ‘Max.’ His head came up at the sound of Jacquie’s voice. ‘Max, are you all right?’
    He eased himself up off the fallen lime that lay sawn and trimmed at the end of the avenue of trees. ‘I’m fine.’ He held her hand briefly, sensing a figure at his elbow.
    ‘Max, this is DI Thomas, Warwickshire CID. Peter Maxwell.’
    Thomas nodded. He was the wrong side of forty-eight, Maxwell guessed, and could probably have given David Jason a run for the most slovenly clothed detective around. ‘You found the body?’ He also sounded like something