character which for a long time I had so skillfully played – there was never any doubt that he did not wish to see us in our entirety, or see us, in fact, in anything other than the magnificent roles he had invented for us: genis grains, corpore glabelliis, arte multiscius, et fortuna opulentus – smooth-cheeked, soft-skinned, welleducated, and rich. It was his odd blindness, I think, to all problems of a personal nature which made him able at the end to transmute even Bunny's highly substantive troubles into spiritual ones.
I knew then, and know now, virtually nothing about Julian's life outside of the classroom, which is perhaps what lent such a tantalizing breath of mystery to everything he said or did. No doubt his personal life was as flawed as anyone's, but the only side of himself he ever allowed us to see was polished to such a high gloss of perfection that it seemed when he was away from us he must lead an existence too rarefied for me to even imagine.
So, naturally, I was curious to see where he lived. It was a large stone house, set on a hill, miles off the main road and nothing but trees and snow as far as one could see – imposing enough, but not half so Gothic and monstrous as Francis's. I had heard marvelous tales of his garden, also of the inside of the house – Attic vases, Meissen porcelain, paintings by Alma-Tadema and Frith. But the garden was covered with snow, and Julian, apparently, was not at home; at least he didn't answer the door.
Henry looked back down the hill to where we waited in the car. He reached into his pocket for a piece of paper and scribbled a note that he folded and wedged in the crack of the door.
'Are there students out with the search parties?' Henry asked on the way back to Hampden. 'I don't want to go down there if we'll be making ourselves conspicuous. But on the other hand, it does seem rather callous, don't you think, to just go home?'
He was quiet a moment, thinking. 'Maybe we should have a look,' he said. 'Charles, you've done quite enough for one day.
Maybe you should just go home.'
After we dropped the twins off, the three of us went on to campus. I had expected that by now the search party would have grown tired and gone home but I was surprised to find the enterprise busier than ever. There were policemen, college administrators, Boy Scouts, maintenance workers and security guards, about thirty Hampden students (some in an official, student-councily-looking group, the rest just along for the ride), and mobs of townspeople. It was a large assembly, but as the three of us looked down at it from the top of the rise, it seemed oddly muffled and small in the great expanse of snow.
We went down the hill – Francis, sulky because he hadn't wanted to come, followed two or three paces behind – and wandered through the crowd. No one paid us the least bit of attention.
Behind me I heard the indistinct, aborted garble of a walkie-talkie; and, startled, I walked backwards into the Chief of Security.
'Watch it,' he shouted. He was a squat, bulldoggish man with liver spots on his nose and jowls.
'Sorry,' I said hastily. 'Can you tell me what '
'College kids,' he muttered, turning his head away as if to spit.
'Stumbling around, getting in the way, don't know what the hell you're supposed to do.'
'Well, that's what we're trying to find out,' snapped Henry.
The guard turned quickly, and somehow his gaze landed not on Henry but on Francis, who was standing staring into space.
'So it's you, is it?' he said with venom. 'Mr Off-Campus who thinks he can park in the faculty parking lot.'
Francis started, a wild look in his eye.
'Yes, you. You know how many unpaid violations you're carrying? Nine. I turned your registration in to the Dean just last week. They can put you on probation, hold your transcripts, what have you. Suspend your library privileges. If it was up to me they'd put you in jail.'
Francis gaped at him. Henry caught him by the sleeve and pulled him away.
A long, straggly line of townspeople was crunching through the snow, some of them swiping listlessly at the ground with sticks. We walked to the end of the queue, then fell into step with them.
The knowledge that Bunny's body actually lay about two miles to the southwest did not lend much interest or urgency to the search, and I plodded along in a daze, my eyes on the ground.
At the front of the rank an authoritative cluster of state troopers and policemen marched ahead, heads bent, talking in low voices as a barking German shepherd dog circled around them at a trot.
The air had a heavy quality and the sky over the mountains was overcast and stormy. Francis's coat whipped out behind him in theatrical billows; he kept glancing furtively around to see if his inquisitor was anywhere nearby and from time to time he emitted a faint, self-pitying cough.
'Why the hell haven't you paid those parking tickets?' Henry whispered to him.
'Leave me alone.'
We crept through the snow for what seemed like hours, until the energetic needle pricks in my feet subsided to an uncomfortable numbness; heavy boots of policemen, crunching black in the snow, night sticks swinging ponderously from heavy belts. A helicopter overhead swooped in with a roar over the trees, hovered above us for a moment, then darted back the way it had come. The light was thinning and people were trailing up the trampled hillside towards home.
'Let's go,' said Francis, for the fourth or fifth time.
We were starting away at last when a strolling policeman stopped in front of our path. 'Had enough?' he said, smiling, a big red-faced guy with a red moustache.
'I believe so,' said Henry.
'You kids know that boy?'
'As a matter of fact, we do.'
'No ideas where he might of went off to?'
If this was a movie, I thought, looking pleasantly into the pleasant beefy face of the policeman – if this was a movie, we'd all be fidgeting and acting really suspicious.
'How much does a television cost?' said Henry on the way home.
'Why?'
'Because I'd like to see the news tonight.'
'I think they're kind of expensive,' said Francis.
'There's a television in the attic of Monmouth,' I said.
'Does it belong to anyone?'
'I'm sure it does.'
'Well,' said Henry, 'we'll take it back when we're finished with it.'
Francis kept watch while Henry and I went up to the attic and searched through broken lamps, cardboard boxes, ugly Art I oil paintings. Finally we found the television behind an old rabbit hutch and carried it down the stairs to Henry's car. On the way over to Francis's, we stopped by for the twins.
'The Corcorans have been trying to get in touch with you this afternoon,' said Camilla to Henry.
'Mr Corcoran's called half a dozen times.'
'Julian called, too. He's very upset.'
'And Cloke,' said Charles.
Henry stopped. 'What did he want?'
'He wanted to make sure that you and I hadn't said anything about drugs when we talked to the police this morning.'
'What did you tell him?'
'I said I hadn't, but I didn't know about you.'
'Come on,' said Francis, glancing at his watch. 'We're going to miss it if you don't hurry.'
We put the television on Francis's dining room table and fooled around with it until we got a decent picture. The final credits of 'Petticoat Junction' were rolling past, over shots of the Hooter ville water tower, the Cannonball express.
The news was next. As the theme song died away, a small circle appeared in the left-hand corner of the newscaster's desk; within it was a stylized picture of a policeman shining a flashlight and holding a straining dog back by a leash and, underneath, the word MANHUNT.
The newscaster looked at the camera. 'Hundreds search and thousands pray,' she said, 'as the hunt for
