Free Silent Noon by Trilby Kent Page A

churning through an outdoor pipe and, beyond it, the steady trickle of rain pressed by the wind into rivulets against the windows. At
half-ten the last rustlings came from Opie, who was chewing at his fingernails and spitting the parings at the basin opposite his bed. By the time the clock struck a quarter to eleven, Barney could
make out the still shape of his head lolling against the iron bed frame, his breath whistling through his nose.
    Wincing at the creak of bedsprings, Barney pulled a jumper over his pyjama top and slipped his feet into his plimsolls. He crossed the drugget in three strides and managed to release the catch
on the door without making any sound at all.
    “All right, Holland?”
    Opie stared up at him through the ribbon of light from the corridor.
    “All right. Just going to the bog.”
    This appeared to satisfy the sentry, who gave a gentle grunt as he rolled onto his side. “To the bog,” he mumbled. “Foggy boggy. Dog in a bog…”
    Within seconds Barney descended the staircase and had his hand on the iron latch on the front door. Only then did he remember the housemaster turning the key in the lock on his first night.
    The clock chimed eleven as he tested the windows in the common room. Two were painted shut; the third was locked and took several moments to release. Dreading the telling-off he’d get from
Morrell if he were late even more than the thought of being caught breaking out of the boarding house, Barney shoved himself head first through the window and landed with a thump on the cold
ground. The rain had stopped, at least. Brushing the dirt from his elbows, he turned to confront the darkness.
    Normally, to get to Tern the boys would cut across the drive and pass over the green. Worried that he might be heard crunching on the gravel or spotted by some solitary master working late in
the library, Barney decided instead to go the other way, around the deserted east wing.
    He had just reached the bin hutch behind Tern when the rumble of an engine stopped him in his tracks. A car had braked outside the old kitchens, headlights dimmed so that the shadows only
reached halfway up the stone walls, thrusting the top half of the building into darkness. There was a distant beeping and the crackle of a radio signal. Perhaps it was the police. Maybe
they’d received a tip-off that there were other bodies buried here: not just babies but full-grown people too.
    He slid himself inside the hutch, a trickle of sweat beading up around the elastic of his pyjama bottoms. The only sound was the clattering of beetles he’d disturbed by shifting the bins:
flat, shiny bodies that rustled through the pile of dead leaves clogging the corners of the hutch. The stench was a blend of residual baked beans and lindane mousse. Something sharp struck the back
of his head.
    “Get a move on,” hissed Ivor, flicking his finger against Barney’s ear.
    “Did you see it?” whispered Barney. Ivor was wearing mufti, and immediately he felt ridiculous in his pyjamas and plimsolls. “The car…” He scrambled out from
behind the bins to follow Ivor, who was already making a beeline for the forest.
    “Never mind them. They’re not here for us.”
    By the time Barney caught up with him they had reached a part of the forest that was unfamiliar to him even in daylight. He followed Ivor blindly with arms outstretched. A steep mist hung in the
spaces between the trees, and the air was wet and cool on his fingers.
    “What took you so long?” demanded Ivor, when the school lights were no longer visible through the thicket. He remained focused on some point in the distance. Barney wondered if Ivor
could see something which he didn’t.
    “I had to wait until everyone was asleep. And Runcie had locked the front door—”
    “Luckily for you our little friend was also running late.”
    A branch snagged Barney’s jumper, and he winced at the thorns that caught his fingers as he pulled himself free. “You saw