12.

Alfred Abbott settled back in his chair. “Actually, it’s something of a coincidence.”

“What is?” said Stevens.

“All this business with the pentagrams.”

“This business, as you put it,” said Pattimore, “is the murder of three individuals.”

“Quite. I am not being dismissive. I just find it curious that the stars are appearing now, right at the time when I am about to launch my blog.”

“What blog?” said Stevens.

“I have written, gentlemen, the definitive history of the school. Alas, so far I have been unable to arouse the interest of a publisher.”

“You don’t fucking say,” said Stevens. Abbott ignored him.

“And so, rather than taking the vanity route and publishing the book myself, I am putting it out there, into the ether, so that it might attract a global audience. When I approach the publishers with the figures - how many ‘hits’ I’m getting, as I believe the phrasing is, they will be falling over themselves to make me a deal.”

There was a light in his eyes, a mixture of passion and delusion - and perhaps pound signs too. Pattimore and Stevens exchanged sidelong glances.

“Go on, then,” said Pattimore. “Tell us. Tell us why the stars are so important to the school.”

Alfred Abbott pursed his lips. He relished the opportunity to speak of his favourite subject.

“Are you sitting comfortably, gentlemen?”

“Oh, just fucking get on with it,” said Stevens.

***

The school was founded in the middle of the sixteenth century in a modest, wooden hut on the hill overlooking the priory. Up until then, the education of the town’s boys had been the preserve of the resident religious order, who selected the sons of the well-to-do - boys who were never destined to toil in the fields or to scrape a living from the open-cast mines. Some of the boys stayed on, taking holy orders while others furthered their studies at university.

But then, Henry VIII decreed that monasteries, abbeys and indeed priories were to be disbanded and in most cases demolished. The prior at the time submitted an appeal, a stay of execution, if you will. He argued that the building should be allowed to stand and his order to continue its important work as educators.

It might have worked, were it not for the emergence of one man, one Baxter Emmanuel, ironically himself a former student of the priory. Freshly returned from Oxford and a grand tour of Europe, he saw which way the wind was blowing and built his hut on land leased from the Earl of Dedley. With his new-fangled, puritanical ways, he lured the sons of the merchants away from the priory with the promise that there was no risk of the boys ending up as monks or friars. He would educate them in the ways of the world and in commerce - especially commerce.

The intake grew. The hut was extended, then rebuilt in brick and stone. Meanwhile, at the foot of the hill, the priory was being sacked and looted and its inhabitants driven out. The prior went to see the headmaster and pleaded for employment. He had the knowledge, he argued, the skills and the expertise, to be a valuable addition to the teaching staff.

“And will you renounce your robes?” Baxter Emmanuel asked. “Will you forsake your papist ways?”

“Aye,” said the prior. “For we have never been an ostentatious order. Living frugal lives and eschewing the pomp and ceremony of high church.”

For a time, it worked. The former prior taught the boys Latin and penmanship while the status of the headmaster grew around the town and beyond.

Rather than pay fees for their sons’ education, the merchants were encouraged to make donations to the school fund. Seeing the headmaster parade around in cloth of gold and ermine, the former prior began to suspect that not all of the school fund was being spent on the building or on the boys.

Matters came to a head - so to speak - when the Latin master petitioned for new thatch for the roof of his classroom.

“There simply is not the money,” Baxter Emmanuel sighed. “What funds we have are spent on teaching the boys. Now, if you were to agree to a reduction in salary...”

“You mean pay for the roof myself!”

“It would be in the interests of school spirit.”

“Good day to you, Headmaster.”

The Latin master stormed from the school. His angry strides took him to the recently ruined priory, where he fell to his knees and wept. Once he had had direction in his life, and purpose. Serve God and civilise the boys of Dedley so that they too might serve the Lord. As prior, he had been a stone dropped in a pond and his work the ripples, stretching out, reaching farther and farther. But now that pond was stagnating - or something of that nature - he had not fully realised his metaphor.

He reached inside his shirt of coarse cloth and closed his fist around his wooden crucifix.

“I have done nothing but in service of thee,” he spat, “and you bring me down thusly. Each man must have his trials - this much I know - but that, that hypocrite would surely drive Job to distraction and dark thoughts of - of...”

His voice trailed off. He tore the tiny cross from his neck and hurled it across the rubble. From his pocket he took another amulet, a pentacle fashioned from silver, his only possession of any material worth.

I could sell this... it occurred to him. My schoolroom could have its new roof and there would be enough for cakes for the boys come Lammastide...

The metal star grew hot in his hand and seemed to sting him like a wasp.

No.

A murky thought surfaced from the deepest recesses of his mind. This star has other uses...

He held it to the sky so that it framed the sun. Then he inverted the amulet. One point down, two points up...

“Very well,” the former prior resolved. “I shall serve you instead, my Lord.”

***

Stevens was on the edge of his seat. Alfred Abbott, gratified by the effect he had had on his audience, took a sip from a cup of tea, tepid now from neglect.

“So,” Stevens spoke animatedly, “the old prior turned to the dark side and - and - what? Bet he gave that stuck-up headmaster what fucking for.”

Alfred Abbott smirked. “Not exactly, but I believe that what happened next will be more directly pertinent to your investigation...”