Free The Perils and Dangers of this Night by Stephen Gregory

of
the Christmas tree threw splashes of colour on the
photographs and trophy cupboards and honours boards
on the walls. 'What is this, Martin?' the girl whispered,
but he silenced her by lifting a finger to his lips. He took
her by the wrist and led her into the hall, in the direction
of the piano.
    'Let's have a bit of fun,' he said.
    I moved off towards the corridor, which, lightless, led
off the hall like a tunnel. Although I was intrigued by the
two visitors and the extraordinary way in which they'd
arrived at Foxwood, I knew from my years of training at
the school that I should keep out of the way: I was only
a boy and they were grown-ups who had business which
did not concern me at all. In any case, I was wearing my
outdoor coat and scarf and shoes, all bespattered with
mud from the chase through the forest, so I thought I
should hurry along to the changing-room and take them
off and get back into my indoor shoes. I plunged into the
tunnel, feeling with my feet for the ramps, touching with
my cold fingers the door of the library, the staffroom, the
gun-room, through every twist and corner of the pitch-black
corridor.
    But then I stopped in the darkness and listened. Indeed,
at that moment, three people inside the building stopped
what they were doing and listened to the sounds of the
piano which were coming from the far corner of the great
hall.
    Dr Kemp was in his study. He must have heard the
notes from the piano, and of course he knew it was the
stranger who'd just arrived at his front door who was
playing. I stood at the further end of the downstairs
corridor and listened, and I too knew that the young man
who'd burst into my unhappy world was playing the
piano. Mrs Kemp, just then coming down in one of the
lifts, heard someone playing the piano in the hall, and she
could tell it wasn't her husband. She knew that, unexpectedly,
someone else was in the house, and she didn't
know who it was.
    It was the way the music changed in just the first
minute of playing that made the three of us cock our ears
so curiously.
    The pianist had started with a few stately chords, then
a scale embroidered into an elegant arpeggio. Clearly he
was a competent musician, whose style at the keyboard
was easy and unhurried. He essayed the style of the piano
tuner for whom he'd been mistaken. He sat in the
shadows of the corner of the hall, having stationed the
girl behind him so that she was lost in the darkness, and
he caressed the keys with a lover's touch. And then,
slowly, so gradually that it was impossible to say where
or when it was happening, the sound altered – a blurry
chord here, a stealthy syncopation there – and the piano
tuner's respectful appraisal of a tired and neglected
instrument became the dirty sound of the blues.
    I turned back towards the hall. I heard in front of me
one of the lift doors clanging open and I saw Mrs Kemp
propelling herself out backwards. Without bothering to
close the door, she spun the wheels of her chair and
accelerated as hard as she could ahead of me, towards the
hall, from where, now, there came a kind of music that
the house had never heard before. The sleazy blues had
become a full-blown boogie-woogie, with a rollicking
bass and a hammering right hand and even the ridiculous,
random scrubbing of the pianist's elbow.
    Dr Kemp and Mrs Kemp burst into the hall at exactly
the same time, myself a second later. The headmaster,
who'd listened approvingly to the first minute of playing,
had leaped from his desk with such anger at the
progression of the music that he had shoved a pile of
paperwork onto the floor. Now he exploded from the
door of his study. Mrs Kemp whirled into the hall at the
same moment, and I slithered to a standstill behind her.
    'What is that noise?' Dr Kemp shouted.
    In the same breath as her husband, Mrs Kemp's high
little voice said, 'Who is that?'
    The playing stopped. Not immediately. The fingers on
the keyboard could not resist an insolent coda, like the
signature of a