Rainbow's End

money and kudos, or for a woman like Barbara. And that same old shoe might well have ventured higher, even if it couldn’t be certainly identified above. Naturally, too, Evan Joyce would fail to identify any voice in such circumstances, unless he could be sure it was not that of a native. He was part of the same landscape. That puts us alongside all the rest, Willie the Twig had said cheerfully, even if we do happen to be telling the truth.

In any case, where else would any of them want to be?

At evensong that Sunday the trebles of St Eata’s were unusually circumspect and serious, too thoughtful even to play noughts and crosses. Spuggy Price sang Bossie’s solo as though his heart was not in it. And the only message that passed along the choirstalls during the sermon was a note saying:

‘Deliggation to Bossie’s after serviss. Voluntears sine here.’ Toffee Bill had written it, and spelling was not his strong point.

By the time they foregathered in the furnace room, to the rolling sounds of a Buxtehude prelude played by Miss de la Pole, they had six volunteers, which all agreed was too many to be welcome to Mrs Jarvis at this time of night. In the end, Ginger, Toffee Bill and Jimmy Grocott were deputised to represent all, and report back next day on the school bus.

Jenny was neither surprised nor disconcerted to receive three solemn delegates asking after her son’s progress and requesting to see him. She let them in and sent them trooping up to Bossie’s bedroom, where the casualty sat enthroned, surrounded by books and puzzles, enjoying his notoriety. He looked in remarkably good shape, but for his grazes and the hint of a black eye, and his parents were comfortably sure by then that his constitution had survived the shock without damage, and there was no reason why he should not get up next day, and return to school in another day or two. Bossie himself was expecting as much; school was no penance to him. And the great thing was, as his parents had agreed privately, to go on living as normally as possible, and avoid giving him the idea that anyone was keeping a close eye on in him. Though, of course, they were!

Bossie shoved the accumulation of books into a single pile, and hoisted them to his bedside table to make room for his henchmen on the bed. ‘I thought you’d be along,’ he said complacently.

‘Things can’t very well be left as they are, can they?’ said Ginger emphatically. ‘Because, even if it was only Rainbow, murderers ought to be caught. And anyway, if he isn’t, he’s liable to have another go at knocking you off. Because he did, didn’t he?’

‘That’s what I think,’ agreed Bossie firmly, ‘and if you ask me, it’s what the police think, too. I’m sure they believed me.’

‘How much did you tell them?’ asked Toffee Bill.

‘Everything I could, everything that only drops us in the muck – not that anybody seems at all bothered about what we did. But you know I couldn’t tell them how I really got that parchment.’

‘No,’ they agreed, very gravely and resolutely, ‘of course you couldn’t.’

‘So we can’t leave it to the police,’ pointed out Ginger reasonably, ‘because they’ve only got half a tale. Where do you reckon that thing is now? You think he’s got it?’

‘Of course he has. Rainbow must have had it on him, he was cagey enough about it, and nobody’s found it since. He’s got it, all right. And by now he’s had time to study it, too.’

‘But there was nothing on it, not really,’ objected Jimmy. ‘Nothing for him to get excited about.’

‘That’s what we thought! But there was, there must have been. Something he could find in that old writing that was on it, even if it was faint. We knew where the parchment came from, he’s had to find out by studying it, but there must have been some clue there for him to decypher. I bet you anything he’s got a fair idea now where to look, to see if there’s any more of it to find.’

‘It must be something pretty marvellous,’ said Toffee Bill, staring round-eyed at treasures in his mind. ‘I mean, to make him want to steal the paper in the first place, let alone what he did to Rainbow. There could be a clue in it, couldn’t there, to some place where they buried the church plate, when those chaps came to dissolve the monasteries. Or perhaps where the prior hid all the money that was left, when he was shoved out on to the roads, so he or somebody else could sneak back and collect it. Only maybe they killed him, and he couldn’t come back for it.’

‘We don’t know what it is,’ said Ginger firmly, ‘but we do know it must be something important. What matters is, what do we do about it? We can’t tip off the police! If it was only us it would be all right, but it isn’t only us. And still we can’t just do nothing. So what do we do?’

‘We tackle it ourselves.’ Bossie squinted ferociously through his corrective lenses, and scrubbed at his grazes, which were beginning to itch. ‘Even if he’s found a clue to the general area where he has to look, it’s still a whacking great barracks of a place, unless he knows just where to search he could spend months going over the whole show. But I know exactly where the leaf came from, we can start looking right there. What we’ve got to do is beat him to the treasure, whatever it is, and then, when we’ve got something to show, we can hand over to the police, and let them do the rest. We can easily make up a cover story for how we happened to hit on the right spot. It could be just plain luck, we don’t have to split on anybody. If we simply say: Just look what we found, and look where we found it – all innocent! – they’d have to accept that.’

‘All right,’ said Ginger, unimpressed but willing. ‘When, and how, and how many of us? You’ve been thinking it out, now let’s hear it.’

‘It’s got to be safety in numbers, or I don’t get to go anywhere for a bit,’ said Bossie, displaying a comprehension of his elders’ states of mind which would not have surprised his parents to any great extent. ‘So look, as soon as I’m back at school we work this together, the whole gang of us…’

He leaned forward and sank his voice to a conspiratorial whisper, and all the young heads drew together over the quilted coverlet in profound session.

They were just about clear and agreed when Jenny, almost excessively discreet, tapped at the door before entering, and opened it slowly to give them time to take in the invading vision.

‘You’ve got another visitor, Bossie. Mrs Rainbow’s enquiring how you’re progressing. I don’t suppose you ever had time to thank her for rushing you into hospital. Now’s your chance!’

Bossie shot upright against his pillows, rushed a fist rapidly over his fell of hair, and put on his most adult face. It squinted rather more than was now usual with him, out of pure excitement, but happily he was unaware of that. His dignity was monumental. He hardly needed to cast a glance at his henchmen. They all said goodnight submissively, and trooped away downstairs as if in response to an order. And Bossie and Barbara were left alone.