67. Conundrum
But there was no fakery here. No sham painting, no kaftan hat, no pink trousers. Just a man who'd worked all his life, living by an iron discipline. On the table lay an old gray hardboard valise, the top open, with photographs and pages of thin yellowed paper spilling out.
"Please, sit," Pike said.
Sally and Liam sat.
"Tea?"
"We'd love to get to the question in hand, Mr. Pike," Sally said. "You may have noticed the increased police presence around Rye. There is a fear the killer's scale may have amplified."
Pike nodded. "Of course. And I do hate to disappoint." He gestured to the valise. "As you can see, I've brought my oldest records down from the attic." Sally pictured him at the top of a precarious ladder, reaching into the musty dark. "I began leafing through them before you arrived."
"And colleagues from that time?" Liam asked. "Anyone who actually taught Reginald Rook?"
"I made some calls, indeed," Pike said. "It has been a shocking morning for me, I'm afraid. All my predecessors at St. Botolph's, it seems, have passed away."
That statement went down poorly.
"All of them?"
"Many I knew of already," Pike said. "For the past 20 years, I have been attending funerals.
My mentors. My past headmasters. As for the colleagues I called today, I had simply let too long elapse between contact.
I spoke to a grandson. A nephew, himself in residential care.
To my knowledge, I may be the oldest remaining Botolph master. "
Sally and Liam exchanged looks.
"And what are these?" Liam asked, gesturing to the valise.
"Memories, though not my own. A friend's, who passed over 10 years ago. Stanley Albright." Pike leaned over his knees. "He gave this box to me, and I have kept it ever since. In many ways, he paved the way for me at St. Botolph's."
Sally let that sit for a moment, feeling the weight of it. She scanned the photographs around the room. No children. No women, either, except one, black and white, that she guessed to be a sister.
"You were close," she said.
Pike drew himself up. "Yes, Officer Rogers. It was another time. Nothing like the world of today. But Stanley and I, we…" He smiled; bravely, Sally thought. "He meant a great deal to me."
She just nodded. Nothing else needed to be said. "I'm sorry for your loss. Now, your friend, Stanley. He taught Reginald Rook?"
"He did. Most ably. He taught thousands of students."
"And have you found reference to Reginald Rook amongst his records?"
"Not yet. But I thought, if you wished, we could search them together?"
Sally looked at Liam.
"Of course, Mr. Pike," Liam said gently. "Thank you."
"Well," Pike lifted the box and held it out. "I suggest we each take a portion. Officer O'Connell."
Liam took the valise reverently, carefully lifted a tranche of papers from within, then passed it to Sally. Taking her share felt like joining some strange, sweet sacrament. She passed the remainder to Pike, and they began.
Sally's batch started with photographs. Classes in rows, black and white boys in caps and striped ties, all short trousers, sharp knees and unsmiling faces.
Then there were prize-giving programs; lists of names under the heading 'Cricket Elevens'; chapel orders of service; a school magazine printed on thin cream paper, the ink faded to the color of old bruises.
Stanley Albright had kept a little bit of everything, it seemed.
Not just the official things, either. There were theatre tickets pressed between term reports, handwritten seating plans for parents' evenings, lists of boys who had paid for school milk, lists of boys who had not, a folded sheet headed Minor Infractions, Lent Term, filled with offences so tiny they seemed almost holy now.
She scanned them until something stood out.
'Rook, R.: suspected theft of church collection money, unproven.'
Sally let out a little gasp. Here he was. Reginald Rook, across the generations. His criminal career just beginning.
"Stealing from God," Liam murmured, looking over her shoulder. "Charming from the start."
Pike gave a sad smile. "Reginald was considered spirited. Such a shame the way he turned out."
Sally turned the page. Albright's handwriting was everywhere: neat, sloped, dark blue ink. He had annotated margins, corrected spellings, added dates to photographs, cross-referenced boys with their fathers, trades, addresses. But there was no further mention of Rook.
"Not much in my batch so far," Liam said. "It's all punishment books and house lists. Points scored, points subtracted. The years are right, but there's no sign of Reg."
Edwin Pike sorted through his pile with aching slowness. He brought every small sepia photograph close to his face and scrutinized it closely, like a jeweler assessing facet and carat. Sally watched him for a moment, admiring his assiduousness, then returned to her own pile.
It became stranger the deeper she went. Less school memories, more post-school life: columns from the school newspaper on old boys who'd done well; transcripts of assembly speeches; letters from parents long after sons had left, appealing for references; requests for recommendations to firms, regiments, colleges; a note asking whether Stanley remembered a boy's stammer, because the army doctor had queried it; a Christmas card from 1979 with three children in matching jumpers.
She finished her stack and went back to the box, pulling out a small card index.
It was bound with perished elastic, each card typed at the top with a boy's name and dates, then filled beneath in Albright's exact blue script. She unraveled it carefully and flipped through names rapidly until:
'ROOK, REGINALD CYRIL
Entered: 1962. Left: 1967.
Father: Cyril Christopher Rook, haulage, Dungeness.
Mother: deceased.
Temperament: forceful, resentful, highly charismatic among weaker boys.
Future recommendation: not suitable for responsibility over others.'
"Liam," Sally said.
He leaned in and she flipped the card over. There was more writing. Later additions, by year. Not much. Just fragments in Albright's neat blue script. Then, the final entry:
'1965. Grave pastoral matter. See A/17. C.R. and Rev. Pritchard involved. No police. Girl removed to W. Hythe.'
For a moment the room went very quiet.
"Girl?" Liam asked.
"What's A-slash-seventeen?" Sally asked.
Pike was already searching, suddenly pale. "A correspondence code. Stanley filed private letters by drawer and number."
Liam was on his feet, lifting papers, careful and frantic at once.
Sally stayed seated, staring at the card.
No police.
Girl removed.
Reverend Pritchard.
C.R. had to be Cyril Rook, Reg's father. So this was a family matter? But also a church matter. A grave matter that required 'the girl' to be removed. A terrible feeling began building in her chest.
"It's not here," Liam said, finishing with his pile and splitting Pike's.
Sally began searching the remainder of the papers in her lap. It did not take long. There was no A/17. No further mention of Reginald Rook anywhere. She looked up at Liam, now double-checking his own pile.
Sally felt the reality settling over her. "It's lost."
"It seems so," Pike said. "And this is everything I have, I'm afraid. Perhaps in an attic somewhere, Stanley's full records remain? The school may have it. Although, I rather think those were destroyed when he passed."
The feeling swelled in Sally's chest. She searched Pike's eyes, then handed him the card. "Tell me, Edwin. Does this note mean what I think it means?"
Pike took the card and studied it for several moments. Then he nodded. "I fear it does. To my shame, I made records like it several times, over the years."
Sally's voice shook. "Girl removed. What does that mean?"
"Most likely, it's a forced adoption." His voice tremored.
"It was common, back then. As I said, these were different times.
Adoptions like these, they…" he trailed off.
"They continued until the mid-1970s. Across the country.
Unmarried mothers, often young. It was a grievous injustice.
A gross national shame. The mothers were punished.
The babies were placed. Hundreds of thousands of children… "
Sally felt her gorge rising. She checked the figures in her head. Reg Rook had been 72 when he died, three years ago. His birth year was 1951. In 1965, he would have been 14 years old.
"We've been looking for someone close to Reg," Sally said. Her voice sounded strange and distant. "Someone outside his circle, but trusted implicitly." She raised the card. "What if it's this person right here?"
Nobody spoke. Perhaps a minute passed. Outside, the rain suddenly began pelting the window with a violent drumbeat. The air darkened as gray clouds swallowed the sky.
"Born 1965," Liam breathed. "Maybe 66. The child would be around 61 now."
"Exactly what the Fates predicted."
"And ready built with a foundational wound," Liam said. "Forced apart from their parents at birth."
Sally slumped back in the sofa as the rain crashed down.
61 years old now. 31 when Tom Richter died. Reg Rook's secret son or daughter, swept away to another family via forced adoption, until the Gray Lady brought them back in on the tide. Traumatized on the very day of their birth.
Not some hired hitman.
The fifth Rook was actually a Rook. They were family.