It was five o’clock on the Friday before Christmas when Tom Firth left the carol service rehearsal. He stood on the Abbey steps in the misty evening, trying to make up his mind what to do. Should he go for a drink with some of the singers from the Abbey Chorus, or go back to Norbridge College where he was a student?

‘Cheerio, Tom.’

‘Bye, Tom.’

Frantic brightness buzzed from the shopping mall, cutting through the drizzle. Office parties spilt on to the pavement from the pub, despite the damp. But, set back from the High Street, the biscuit-brown Abbey seemed dunked in the wintry evening. The only lights were those sprinkled like sugar on the Christmas tree in the porch. Here, the unique hiatus of the holiday had already descended. Soon the rest of the world would press the pause button, and the special atmosphere of the Abbey would take over.

‘Goodnight, Tom!’

The last of the choristers were coming out now, testing the air. Some started wandering towards the Crown and Thistle pub, and others hurried away to the shops. The Chorus members were all enthusiastic amateurs who sang at special concerts as an adjunct to the Abbey choir. Most had taken the afternoon off work for the extra rehearsal. The carol service, traditionally held in the Abbey on Christmas Eve, would be the highlight of their winter schedule.

‘Not going for a drink, eh, Tom?’ a jeering older male voice called.

Tom shrugged and looked into the distance.

‘Got better things to do, eh? Is it a lass? Some girls will fancy anything!’ It was Morris Little, leader of the bass singers.

Robert Clark, another middle-aged bass, added quickly, ‘See you later, Tom, if you want to get away.’

The boy glanced gratefully at Robert Clark, but still looked indecisively towards the lane that ran round the Abbey to the college.

‘Suit yourself then!’ Morris Little called crabbily to Tom; then he turned to Robert and said loudly, ‘You’ve got to ask why he sings with us. How old is he? Eighteen or something? He must be up himself, or downright peculiar!’

‘No, Morris, you’re wrong,’ Robert said, aware that Tom was listening, and that Morris knew it. ‘Lots of kids have hobbies. My stepson has friends who are into all sorts of obscure things and plays jazz saxophone himself.’

‘Sax and drugs and rock and roll, eh?’ Morris sniggered. He started to walk away.

Tom Firth was mooching off in the opposite direction. The boy’s long legs seemed too thin to hold him up and his hunched shoulders were topped by a squashy hat pulled over his ears. He looked just like all the other gangly youths in the town, Robert Clark thought. But Tom had a remarkably mature tenor voice and he was a gifted sight reader, one of the best singers in the Abbey Chorus. Robert had noticed him in the corridors of Norbridge College. They would both nod briefly at each other, Tom pink with embarrassment in case his mates saw him being greeted by a lecturer.

Robert was waiting for Edwin Armstrong, the Chorus secretary, who was last to leave the rehearsal. Edwin stood on the steps, running his hands through his long dark hair. He decided it wasn’t wet enough for his umbrella, and pulled up the collar of his jacket.

‘Where’s Tom gone?’ he asked.

‘Back to the college, I think,’ Robert said.

‘Oh, that’s a pity.’

Edwin had been hoping for a word with Tom Firth. The boy had real ability but he wasn’t studying music. His parents had insisted he took subjects which they thought more practical. Edwin was Deputy Head of the Music Department at Norbridge College, and he would have liked to persuade Tom to change courses. But he had been slow to approach him. Despite being much younger, Edwin lacked Robert Clark’s easy manner with the students.

‘And has Morris gone too?’ Edwin asked warily.

‘He said something about having a drink, but I don’t know where.’

Edwin raised his eyebrows; Robert nodded in guilty collusion. They walked towards the lights of the Crown and Thistle, knowing that Morris Little preferred the smarter Norbridge Arms Hotel where the town’s business people went. Morris owned a thriving convenience store in Uplands village on the edge of the town, and everybody in Norbridge knew him. But as he had grown older and more successful, Morris had become increasingly intolerant, believing himself to be the greatest living expert on old Norbridge. Nowadays, even during the Christmas rush, he left his long-suffering wife to run their shop while he indulged in his interests – choral singing, local history and baiting people who he said were ‘up themselves’. That was one of Morris’s favourite phrases. Even poor young Tom Firth was taunted for his talent!

But with luck we’ve escaped from Morris tonight, Robert thought.

‘So you’ve got time for a pint?’ he asked Edwin.

‘A quick one.’

Edwin followed Robert through the wooden doors of the pub where the stained glass emblems joined England and Scotland in a rare warm glow. This was Border country. The Crown and Thistle had stood at the edge of the Abbey Close for over two hundred years, protected from invaders by the sandstone tower at the end of the high street. Norbridge Keep was now surrounded by neat civic parkland. But the town had a violent history. It had been built for defence, in a valley where the Tarn River broadened out, before melting into the muddy Solway plain to meet the Eden near Carlisle. There were views over flatlands on three sides, and shelter from the rocky Pennines in the east. The villages of Uplands to the south, Fellside to the west and Tarnfield to the north hung on to Norbridge’s skirts. It was the only place for miles with chain stores or a supermarket, but in winter the town centre still attracted a ghostly lingering fog, hardly dispersed by the bright lights.

But in the glow of the Crown and Thistle it was easy to forget the dank weather, or to enjoy the cosy contrast.

Robert sipped his half of bitter. ‘So you’re off out later?’ he asked Edwin.

‘Yes, the Cliffords have invited me over for supper. And I’m supposed to be giving someone a lift there. It’s a woman called Alex Gibson in the Finance Department at the college. Do you know her?’

‘No, never heard of her.’

‘She’s working late tonight so I’m going back to get her.’ Edwin smiled ruefully, hoping this unknown woman wasn’t another of his half-sister’s attempts at matchmaking. But Alex Gibson sounded more like one of Lynn Clifford’s lame ducks than a blind date. Lynn was always taking needy people under her wing. Even so Edwin was looking forward to the evening. He enjoyed the occasional exposure to family life which he got at the Cliffords’. He and Lynn had always been close, even though she was more than ten years older than he was. And a swift pint now was just what was needed after all that singing. Then he would walk back to the college, finish some last-minute work, pick up this Gibson woman and drive her over to Uplands, where Lynn and Neil Clifford lived.

Outside the pub in the Abbey Close, the mist was thickening. Young Tom Firth shambled out into the busy thoroughfare on the other side, towards the college. He pulled his brown woolly scarf around his throat and scurried between the cars that chugged into the town for last-minute attempts to park at the nearby multi-storey.

Dodging the shoppers, he hurried towards the college entrance, flashed his student ID card at the bored security guard, and tried to swipe his way in at the barrier before he realized it was open. What a plonker folk would think he was!

Not that he met many people. The Frost brothers, in their hooded jackets, were lurking in the stairwell with a couple of their gang, but Tom avoided them. A grumpy woman he recognized from the Finance office glared at him as she went past, clutching paperwork. He went upstairs to his department and sidled past the office to the smallest of the brightly lit computer labs. He was the only person in the place. Tom sat down and logged on.

Email blossomed on to the screen; he pounded in his password and pressed ‘enter’.

And he wasn’t a plonker after all! His skin cells tingled as they sang the ‘Hallelujah Chorus’. But the screen only told him that Chloe Clifford had replied. She had gone to university in September, while Tom stayed in Norbridge retaking his exams after a disastrous attempt in the summer. But now she was back for Christmas. They had both been singers as kids, in the church choir in Uplands village. Chloe was an all-round high-flyer from a middle-class background whereas Tom’s talent was a one-off. He wasn’t from a musical home unless you counted his dad’s passion for Waylon Jennings, and the posh kids had sometimes intimidated him. But he was getting braver these days.

So he had emailed Chloe Clifford in a moment of madness. Now that she was home for Christmas, maybe she would say yes to seeing him . . . weirder things had happened!

He pressed the button.

Un-stonking-believable!!!
She’d agreed. She’d love to meet. His head pounded with a Gloria.

My mum and dad are having a family dinner party tonight
with Uncle Edwin and some woman from the college
, Chloe had written,
so I’m grounded later, but I’m shopping with Poppy
Robinson and we’ll be in the Mitre Lounge at about five thirty
.

It was now five twenty. Tom stood up, sat down again, logged out, grabbed his coat, caught his scarf on the keyboard, and felt a familiar churning in his guts. It was the excitement. He left the computer lab, turned down the corridor past the Music Department and into the Gents. It wasn’t one he normally used because it was old and shabby; he liked the toilets on the ground floor better. But this was a bit of an emergency.

A few minutes later he was wiping his hands on his trousers, despairing of the stupid hot air dryer, when the lights went out.

He stumbled towards the door, catching his hip on the angle of a basin. He felt the darkness press on him as if someone had wrapped a scarf round his eyes and blindfolded him. He had never before experienced total lack of light and he knew his eyes were working feverishly to find a pinprick.

When he pulled the door open, there was still no light source. Tom felt a need to shout for help, but at the same time he told himself not to be stupid: it was just a power cut. He was unnerved by how disorientated he felt.

To his surprise, as he probed along the wall, he found a doorway he’d either forgotten about or ignored in the past. He had a vague idea it might lead to the Music Department. He’d once thought of applying to study there, but his dad had laughed at him. Perhaps the lights would be on in there.

‘Hello?’ he called nervously. His voice sounded like a stupid kid’s.

Why did this have to happen when he was in a hurry? He stretched out his long thin arm. The door opened, giving him a scary sense of falling into space. Then his foot hit something soft but heavy, like a bag of clothes. As his boot impacted he became aware of a sweetish but unpleasant smell. Perhaps the best thing to do was to bend down and move the bundle out of the way – probably someone had left a backpack. But his hand hit something which he knew at once was warm, wet skin. And he cried out, an involuntary yelp.

The lights burst on in the corridor and he found himself looking down at his hand, covered in bright red blood.

This time Tom yelled as loud as he could.

BOOK: The Chorister at the Abbey

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