I saw the jut of the older boy’s jaw. ‘It does to me.’ And he grabbed the spikes and pulled himself back on to the parapet.
Tam said, ‘Come on, Paddy, let’s just go home.’
Patrick dropped down on to the ledge. ‘Just start the fucking watch, will you?’
Danny looked at me as if there might be something I could do about it. I shrugged. I’d done my best. Catherine started the watch. ‘Go!’ she shouted, and Patrick set off, adopting my technique this time. But even from the start I could see that it wasn’t going to work for him. His shoes didn’t appear to be providing the same grip as mine. He stopped several times during the span of the first arch, fighting to regain his balance. Tam and Peter and I ran along beside him, jumping up every few feet to get a clearer view.
I could see the sweat beading across his forehead, catching the light of the moon, his freckles a dark splatter across the whiteness of his face. The fear in his eyes was clear, but displaced by his own desperate need for self- esteem. To prove himself not only to us, but to himself. I heard him gasp as he lost his footing, saw his hand grasping at fresh air, and thought for one awful moment that he was gone. But his hand found the curve of the parapet, and he steadied himself.
We were about halfway across when I heard Danny’s voice shouting from the Kirkbrae end. ‘Police!’ And almost at the same time I heard the sound of a car’s engine approaching from the direction of Randolph Place. He and Catherine ducked into the shadow of Kirkbrae House, but we were totally exposed out there on the bridge, me and Peter and Tam, with nowhere to hide.
‘Down!’ I shouted, and crouched against the wall, pulling Peter down with me. Tam dropped to his hunkers beside us. We could only hope that somehow the black patrol car would pass by without seeing us. For a moment we seemed caught in its headlights, before it appeared to accelerate past. I felt a huge wave of relief wash over me. And then there was a squeal of brakes, and the sound of tyres skidding on frosted tarmac. ‘Shit!’
‘Run for it!’ Tam shouted.
I could hear the whine of a car’s motor turning in reverse and didn’t need a second telling. I was on my feet in an instant and sprinting hard for Kirkbrae House and the escape route of Bell’s Brae. We hadn’t covered ten yards when I realized that Peter wasn’t with us. I heard Danny shouting from the far side. ‘What the fuck’s he doing?’ And Tam grabbed my arm.
We turned to see Peter crouched up on the parapet, hanging on to a spike with one hand, his other stretched out towards the panicked figure of Patrick Kelly, almost as if he had pushed him. Kelly’s arms were windmilling in a desperate attempt to retain his balance.
But it was already a lost cause. And without a sound he toppled into darkness. It was the silence of that moment that lives with me still. The boy never called out. Never cried, never screamed. Just fell soundlessly into the shadow of the bridge. Every fibre of me wanted to believe that somehow he would survive the fall. But I knew, beyond question, that he wouldn’t.
‘Fuck!’ I could feel Tam’s breath on my face. ‘He fucking pushed him!’
‘No!’ I knew how it looked. But I knew, too, that there was no way that Peter had done that.
Two uniformed police officers had jumped out of the patrol car now, and were running along the bridge towards us. I sprinted back to grab my brother and half drag him with me towards the others waiting at the south end. He was whimpering, desperate. His face wet and shining with tears. ‘He called for help,’ he said, gulping great lungfuls of air to feed his distress. ‘I tried to grab him, Johnny, honest I did.’
‘Hey!’ the voice of one of the police officers called out in the dark. ‘You boys! Stop! What are you doing out here on the bridge?’
It was the signal for us to scatter. I don’t know where the Kelly boys went, but me and Peter and Catherine went pellmell down Bell’s Brae, stumbling and sliding dangerously on the cobbles, hardly daring to look back. The darkness of the night, along with the shadows of buildings and trees, swallowed us into obscurity, and without a word spoken we climbed the hill at the other side towards the twin towers of The Dean.
I don’t know how, but everyone at The Dean seemed to know about Patrick Kelly’s fall from the bridge first thing the following morning. And then, when someone telephoned from the village to say that school had been cancelled for the day, everyone knew the worst. A boy had died falling from the bridge late the night before. None of the staff knew yet who it was. But there wasn’t a boy or girl at The Dean who didn’t.
Oddly, none of the others asked us what had happened. It was as if we were contaminated somehow, and no one wanted to catch what we had. All the inmates fell into their usual cliques, but gave Catherine, Peter and me a very wide berth.
We sat around in the dining room, the three of us, waiting for the inevitable. And it came just before midday.
A police car roared up the drive and pulled in at the foot of the steps. Two uniformed officers entered The Dean and were shown into Mr Anderson’s office. Only about ten minutes had passed before the janitor was sent to find us. He looked at us, concerned. ‘What have you kids been up to?’ he whispered.
Being the oldest, the others looked to me, but I just shrugged. ‘No idea,’ I said.
He marched us along the bottom corridor to Mr Anderson’s room, and we felt the eyes of all our peers upon us. It was as if time had stopped, standing still, like all the kids gathered in groups to watch the condemned going to meet their maker. Each and every one of them, no doubt, thanking the Lord that it wasn’t them.
Mr Anderson was standing behind his desk, his face as ashen as his hair. The jacket of his dark suit was all buttoned up, and he had his arms folded across his chest. The two officers, helmets in hand, stood to one side, Matron on the other. The three of us lined up in front of the desk. Mr Anderson glared at us. ‘I want one of you to speak for all of you.’
Catherine and Peter both looked at me.
‘All right, you, McBride.’ It was the first and only time I ever heard him call me by my name. He looked at the others. ‘If either of you disagree with anything he says, then speak up. Your silence will be taken as agreement.’ He drew a deep breath, then placed his fingertips on the desk in front of him, leaning slightly forward to let them take his weight. ‘You’re here because a boy died last night falling from the Dean Bridge. One Patrick Kelly. You know him?’
I nodded. ‘Yes, sir.’
‘It seems there were some shenanigans on the bridge around midnight. Several boys and a girl involved.’ He looked pointedly at Catherine. ‘And there are reports of two boys and a girl from The Dean being seen in the village shortly beforehand.’ He pulled himself up to his full height. ‘I don’t suppose you would have any idea who that was?’
‘No, sir.’ I knew there was no way they could prove it, unless they had eyewitnesses to come forward and identify us. And if they had, then surely they would have been there in Mr Anderson’s office to point their fingers. So I just denied everything. No, we hadn’t left The Dean. We had been in our beds all night. No, we hadn’t heard anything about Patrick Kelly’s fall until this morning. And no, we had no clue as to what he or anyone else might have been doing on the bridge at that time of night.
Of course, they knew I was lying. Someone must have told them something. One of the Kelly boys, perhaps. Or one of their friends.
Mr Anderson leaned forward on his knuckles now, and they glowed white, just like that first day almost a year before. ‘There is,’ he said, glancing at the two police officers, ‘some doubt about whether the boy fell, or was pushed. There will be an investigation, and anyone found guilty of pushing this boy to his death will be charged with murder. Manslaughter at the very least. This is a very, very grave matter indeed. And a dreadful blight on the reputation of The Dean, if any of its children are found to be involved. Do you understand?’
‘Yes, sir.’
Neither Peter nor Catherine had opened their mouths during the entire interview. Mr Anderson looked at them now. ‘Does either of you have anything to add?’
‘No, sir.’
It was half an hour after we had been ushered from the room that the police officers finally left, and Mr Anderson’s voice could be heard booming along the corridor. ‘Damned Catholics! I want them out of here.’
And finally Catherine’s prediction came true. The priest arrived to take us away the very next morning.
