Free Mr Campion's Fault by Mike Ripley Page B

couldn’t muster a fig leaf between them, but at least they didn’t move. Hilda was much taken with the production, almost smitten you might say, but then she’d had a thing about
Faustus
since she saw the film the year before. You know, the one with Richard Burton and Liz Taylor. I don’t know if Liz was starkers in it. Never saw it meself.’
    Bland leaned back in his chair with the air of a man who has put down a heavy suitcase and looked up at Perdita, mildly surprised to see that she was still there.
    ‘You know what women can be like,’ he said patronizingly. ‘They get totally obsessed by things. Hilda nagged Bertie until he agreed to do the damn play, and once he’d agreed she appropriated the role of Helen for herself. The headmaster laid down the law, though: no nudity, so she won’t be starkers, thank God!’
    ‘She wants to go ahead despite her brother’s death?’ Rupert asked quickly, sensing that the steam valve controlling Perdita’s temper was close to bursting.
    ‘More so than ever. I told you, the woman’s obsessed. She wants the show dedicated to Bertie’s memory. Not much of a legacy if you ask me.’
    ‘I’m sure no one will,’ interjected Celia Armitage, riding to the rescue once more. ‘Now I really must drag Perdita away as Mr Cawthorne needs a word and you’ll be wanting to get off home, Raymond, won’t you?’
    She emphasized her point by tapping a fingernail against the face of her wristwatch.
    ‘Quite right, Celia,’ agreed the wing commander, getting sharply to his feet. ‘Mustn’t keep the memsahib waiting; always has my tea on the table bang on half-past five.’
    Perdita gratefully allowed herself to be pulled out of the wing commander’s orbit and she acknowledged Mrs Armitage’s gentle squeezing of her arm by leaning even closer into her and whispering, ‘I just knew there had to be a memsahib …’
    Celia Armitage offered a complicit smile and steered her towards the Cawthornes. Rupert said a polite goodbye to the wing commander, who was more interested in delving into his pockets to locate his car keys, and followed his wife, only to have his arm gently touched – blessed, almost – by the Rev. Huxtable.
    ‘Can I have a word, Campion?’
    ‘Of course, as long as it’s not about the
Faustus
production or …’ He had been about to say ‘naked spinsters’ but checked himself at the sight of a looming dog collar.
    ‘Oh, no, my concerns are not theatrical,’ said the beaming dog collar, ‘more pastoral, really. I want to give you some advice, or perhaps it is a favour I’m asking.’
    ‘Any and all advice would be gratefully received,’ Rupert said politely, though secretly dreading a lecture on schoolboy morals.
    ‘It’s about a boy.’ The Rev. Huxtable gently tapped his right temple with the stem of his pipe as though dislodging a memory. ‘He’s in my Form but you’ll have him out on the rugby field – his name is Andrew Ramsden and he’s pleasant enough and certainly bright enough. I’d like you to keep an eye on him.’
    ‘So what’s wrong with him?’
    ‘Nothing at all – he’s a fine boy. It could be, though, that he’s being …’
    ‘Bullied?’ suggested Rupert.
    ‘Oh, no, not bullied.’ Mr Huxtable now used his pipe, thankfully unlit, as a conductor’s baton to make a more emphatic finger-wagging gesture. ‘I think the word is “shunned”, by the other boys and the villagers and – dare I say? – perhaps by one or two of the more left-wing masters as well.’
    Rupert remembered he was supposed to be an actor and managed to suppress his imagination running away with the image of a socialist fifth column inside Ash Grange.
    ‘What has he done?’
    ‘Andrew? Nothing, poor lad. It’s his father, who’s a policeman, who has been snooping around the village and the school recently, asking a lot of silly questions. People don’t like that sort of thing.’
    ‘He’s not investigating Bertram Browne’s death, is