The Students of Barrenmoor Ridge

  The Students of Barrenmoor Ridge

  by

  Jackson Marsh

  First published in Great Britain in 2020

  Copyright © Jackson Marsh 2020

  The right of Jackson Marsh to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Proofread by Ann Attwood

  Cover Design by Andjela K

  Printed by CreateSpace, an Amazon.com company.

  ISBN- 9781658900362

  Available from Amazon.com, CreateSpace.com, and other retail outlets. Available on Kindle and other devices.

  Also by Jackson Marsh

  Other People’s Dreams

  In School and Out

  The Blake Inheritance

  The Stoker Connection

  Curious Moonlight

  The Mentor of Wildhill Farm

  The Mentor of Barrenmoor Ridge

  The Mentor of Lonemarsh House

  The Mentor of Lostwood Hall

  The Clearwater Mysteries

  Deviant Desire

  Twisted Tracks

  Unspeakable Acts

  Fallen Splendour

  Bitter Bloodline

  One

  Liam Dent was wondering if the time was right to come out to his best friend when the man who would nearly kill them stepped on his foot. He was just another passenger on the station platform, and the only notable thing about him was his rucksack, identical to the one Casper rested his feet on. Apart from moving his own bag out of the way, Liam paid the man no notice. His mind and his eyes were on his best friend, sitting beside him on the bench yawning.

  ‘How much longer?’ Casper asked when he noticed Liam staring.

  The digital display told them the train was due twenty-five minutes ago, and Liam shrugged as he rubbed his gloved hands together for warmth.

  ‘Yeah. Bloody freezing,’ Casper agreed as he pulled his jacket tighter.

  ‘Be here in a minute.’

  ‘Hope so. My feet are numb.’

  ‘Put your hiking socks on.’

  ‘I’ll be alright.’

  ‘Walk around a bit.’

  ‘No, you’re okay.’ Casper rearranged his rucksack to cover his feet.

  ‘Didn’t expect it to be so cold,’ Liam said, his words floating away in grey cloud. ‘Forecast said it was going to warm up.’

  ‘In November?’

  ‘Clear and sunny, it said.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Casper complained. ‘And you said we’d be there by now.’

  ‘Train cancellations have nothing to do with me, mate. Blame the fucking Tories. We’ll get there.’

  ‘Before dark?’

  Shrugging, Liam looked into Casper’s eyes as he squinted against the breeze and saw in them the same doubt. Putting on a smile born from hope rather than belief, he said, ‘An hour or so to Bentham, an hour’s fast walk to Inglestone. We’ll get to the hostel before seven.’

  ‘Can’t we take a taxi?’

  ‘You got the cash?’

  ‘No, but you have.’

  ‘For other things. We’ll get a cab if you want, but the idea was to walk.’

  ‘Whatever you want.’ Casper clutched his hands between his knees, rocking.

  Liam glanced back to the display. ‘That’s an improvement,’ he said, nodding towards the arrival time which now read one minute.

  Casper yawned. ‘Better be heated.’

  It wasn’t like Casper to be negative, and again, Liam wondered if by persuading him to come on the trip, he had pushed his friend’s loyalty too far.

  The day had started well when the train from Dover to London left as scheduled, and better, delivered them to St Pancras in plenty of time to catch their connection to Lancaster. The instructions from Trainline had told them to take the underground from one station to the next, but Liam had known from research that it was only one stop, and by the time they’d walked down to the platform, bought tickets, waited for a train and climbed up at the other end, it was just as fast on foot.

  Liam was the adventurer of the pair, a planner and the one more inclined to use his head and his feet rather than rely on public services.

  Casper’s jacket rustled as he leant forward, resting his forearms on his thighs and hanging his head, yawning again.

  ‘Are you sure you’re alright with this?’ Liam asked, copying his friend and looking sideways.

  ‘Bit late now if I’m not.’ Casper sighed. ‘Yes, mate. I’m happy being here. Well, I’ll be happier when we’re there rather than stuck here, but if you mean, am I happy to be here with you, then yeah.’ Giving Liam an elbow-nudge, he added, ‘It’s what mates do,’ but it didn’t sound convincing.

  ‘Cheers. I appreciate it.’

  ‘So you keep saying.’

  Liam appreciated Casper more than he had ever let on. They had been friends since Casper changed schools and joined Liam’s at sixteen. Until then, Liam’s social life had been best illustrated by two circles a huge distance apart. Now, he saw it as a Venn diagram. The same two circles but with an isthmus of crossover, and in that tiny space, only Casper.

  In one circle were the arty set, the painters, musicians and theatre lot he hung out with when rain meant indoor breaktimes and those studying A Level music were allowed to shelter in the music room. There were only three of them to start with, but over time the group expanded to include other students who took lessons in piano, strings and the ubiquitous clarinet. Casper had turned up at the grammar school from a comprehensive in north Kent, and to the music teachers’ surprise and Liam’s delight, was an oboe player. Although he was a talented musician, he was studying sciences and two kinds of maths, subjects way over Liam’s head. He took oboe lessons out of school hours, fitting them in between competing for the athletics teams as if he couldn’t bear to have an unused minute in his life.

  The other circle contained people with whom Liam had little in common apart from the Wednesday afternoon Exploration Group, a grand title for an excuse to get away from campus and games. These were mainly boys, from year eleven who had a taste for adventure rather than field sports. Every Wednesday afternoon, two teachers led the group either on a long hike over the cliffs or inland to the hills, and the following week, took them across the county to learn rock climbing. Liam, having never been a fan of sports, joined the group as a way of avoiding football, found he had an aptitude for and love of climbing (though abseiling terrified him), and had opted to continue the activity into his last two years at school, as, to his delight, did Casper. His music mates spent the time at practice, but for Liam, the chance to break his academic routine and be out in the fresh air was hard to resist. Instead, he put in the hours needed for his grade eight piano and violin at weekends.

  It was during the long walks that he and Casper bonded, discovering they shared interests not only in music and outdoor pursuits but also in films, the more obscure, the better. Casper had soon become
the sixth form’s golden boy, a title award by the Head of Year and one which Liam, being more pedantic than most, had never been able to accept. Casper had black hair, olive skin, and eyes the colour of rosewood. He had inherited the looks from his Greek mother, while all he had been left by his absent father was his surname, Spectre, a title which led to his nickname. His given name, George, was far more prosaic. Apart from his permanently tanned appearance, the name suited him as he was both friendly, and at times, ethereal, or at least mysterious as he flitted from one class to the next silently assured and unreadable.

  The train delay was in danger of sending them both into a downer when Casper nudged him again, and Liam heard the electric clicking of the tracks. The other waiting passengers rose from the benches, pushed themselves away from the walls where they had been slouching, and shuffled towards the edge of the platform.

  ‘Finally!’ Casper sighed, dragging his rucksack from the ground. ‘Have we got reserved seats?’

  ‘It’s only an hour, Cass,’ Liam said, tightening his scarf. ‘We can always stand.’

  ‘Yeah, but there’s a long trek after. Want to conserve my strength.’

  Liam laughed. ‘And tomorrow, a four-hour hike which will probably only take you twenty minutes.’ Casper had more stamina than anyone he knew.

  ‘And four days camping, walking and eating baked beans and Spam,’ Casper said. ‘Come on, mate. I just want to get there, check in and find a pub.’

  ‘We won’t get there any faster for your moaning.’ Liam collected his bag and made sure they hadn’t left anything on the bench.

  When Liam joined him, Casper was looking at the sky. ‘You sure about the weather?’ he asked.

  ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘Just wondering if I brought the right clothes,’ Casper admitted. ‘I’ve got wet weather gear but nothing thermal.’

  ‘Do you see clouds?’

  The sky was a wash of white that in summer would have been blue, and the grey stone buildings, the dull steel of the footbridge and the bare trees added to the chilly desolation, but Liam remained positive. There were no rainclouds, and snow had not been forecast. The weather on the south coast had been similarly promising when they set out that morning, but they were over three hundred miles further north, and as the sun slid behind the horizon, the drop in temperature was marked.

  Casper hadn’t replied, but he had grunted as if he wasn’t convinced.

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ Liam said, jollying him along. ‘We’re not going far from civilisation, and we’ve got phones. If it turns bad, I’ll call Dad and get him to check us into a hotel. Of course, when we get back, we’ll have to pretend we spent the week in dire conditions out on the hills and thought nothing of it. I have my macho reputation to consider.’

  ‘A hotel would be a warmer way to celebrate your eighteenth,’ Casper said, missing Liam’s irony as the train pulled in. ‘But I made a promise. With you all the way, Mozart. Now get on and grab us a seat.’

  The train was only two carriages long, but there were spare seats, and having tossed their rucksacks into the overhead rack, they slid into one each, side by side with Casper at the window.

  ‘I’m too warm now,’ he moaned, struggling out of his puffer jacket and accidentally elbowing Liam in the face.

  Liam was too busy checking the proximity of other passengers to complain. Coming out to Casper had been on his mind all through the first half of term and all of today’s journey, and he had promised himself that his friend would know by the time Liam turned eighteen, it was just a question of finding the right moment. Casper would be the first to know. Rather, he would be the first to whom Liam would have voluntarily admitted the fact, his father included. The boy he’d played around with along the path to self-acceptance didn’t count. Jason had been an adventure in curiosity-land, water in which toes had been dipped, or if Liam was to strain his powers of metaphor, a giveaway at a rather disappointing wine tasting. Casper was going to be the first to know because in him, Liam had found someone he could trust, but the time had to be right. Even though they were sitting among strangers who didn’t know him from Adam, some were close enough to overhear, and he wanted the moment to be special. Intimate would be ideal, but not because he was expecting or wanted Casper to be thrilled and declare undying, erotic love in return, but because he didn’t want to cause him embarrassment.

  Being honest, he thought, as he unzipped his nylon jacket, it was because he was a romantic, and wanted the moment to be memorable for them both. For him, because it would cement his confidence, and for Casper, because it would prove how trusted he was.

  Squashed together on an overheated train with misted and graffitied windows was not the place for their friendship to enter a new phase.

  ‘Got the map?’ Casper asked once he’d done fidgeting.

  Liam pulled it from his jacket before shoving the garment between his knees. ‘It’s folded to the right place,’ he said, handing it over.

  ‘Wouldn’t expect anything less.’ Casper took the map and opened it on his lap.

  ‘It’s one road,’ Liam said, shoulder to shoulder and pointing. ‘Here to here, Robin Lane and Bentham Road. Looks pretty flat, three and a half miles. Through the village and left for the hostel.’

  ‘Did you reserve?’

  ‘Don’t be daft, Cass. Who goes hostelling at this time of year?’

  ‘We do. What if it’s shut?’

  Liam pointed to his rucksack. ‘Er, tent?’

  Casper turned the map to the fading light of day and wiped the window with his arm. ‘Then what?’

  ‘Tomorrow it’s up Fellborough, and the day after, about six miles to the Ribblehead Viaduct. Got to see that. Then on to Whernside, turn right and out onto the Dales. Wander around there for a couple of days as we make our way back.’

  ‘You want to do both hills?’

  ‘Don’t see why not. They’re only seven hundred feet or so.’

  ‘You’ve been before?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I can tell because it’s meters, not feet.’

  ‘I meant meters.’

  Casper looked at him doubtfully, their faces an inch apart, and playfully pushed Liam away with his shoulder. ‘I hope you bought a bottle of something for the big day.’

  ‘We can get some Cava in the morning.’

  ‘Got a corkscrew?’

  ‘You don’t need a corkscrew, Einstein. It’s fizzy wine.’

  ‘How am I meant to know?’ Casper protested. ‘I’m not posh like you.’

  They studied the map without speaking, accompanied only by the sound of the clattering carriage and some prat in the seat behind shouting to the world that he was “On the train!” and he would be “Back in time for EastEnders” before going on to tell the entire carriage what he had done that day, which, by the sound of it, was nothing special.

  ‘You’re sure about this hike?’ Casper asked, folding away the map and peering at the gathering dusk.

  ‘It’s nothing difficult, mate. Like I said, we’ve got phones, I’ve got money and food, and the tickets back are paid for. We’re not going to be far from anywhere. What are you worried about?’

  Casper grinned at him and pulled his beanie hat from his head, letting loose a cascade of raven hair.

  ‘I’m not worried,’ he said. ‘Looking forward to it. Only hope it turns out to be exactly what you wanted. Most people spend their eighteenth in the pub or at a party getting shagged and not remembering a thing about it. You? You want to spend yours on top of a bloody hill in the freezing cold, digging a hole to shit in, and drinking cheap fizz.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Liam smiled. ‘But with my bestie.’

  Liam used the term because he was worried Casper needed reminding. Despite being the ‘golden boy’ of their year, he was st
ill the newcomer, and as far as Liam knew, had no other close friends. He spent his life studying, practising or running, had little time for socialising, had not yet found a girlfriend, and apart from the Wednesday Exploration Group, didn’t have any other interests. Although it sounded patronising to think it, Liam had taken Casper under his wing, and where few others their age bothered with the half-Greek, half-English enigma, he saw him as someone who deserved and needed friends.

  ‘So what are we eating while we’re out there?’ Casper asked once he had rolled his eyes, something he always did when Liam called him dopey things like his bestie or dearest friend.

  ‘Tell you what we’re not going to eat,’ Liam said. ‘What we had last summer in Wales.’

  ‘Oh, my God, that was rank.’

  They laughed and fell to reminiscing about the school climbing trip to Snowdonia the previous June. How Nathan’s team had mistaken semolina for dried potato powder and didn’t notice until they heated the tinned sausages and beans, and how, when Jason’s team had been the last three to set up their tent, they’d had to cook their meal in the dark, and it had rained. Liam was in that group and not where he wanted to be, in Casper’s tent. They relived their amateur attempts at roping on and crossing Crib Goch because Nathan was so scared, he said he’d shit himself if he didn’t. They laughed at the time Mr Mazur played a trick on Dumpy (real name Barry Dumpher, but due to his large size, an apt diminutive). The instructor shouted up that William “Weedy” Wood had taken over belaying the hefty seventeen-year-old when he was six feet from the top of a fifty-foot cliff and told him not to fall or he’d hit the ground as Weedy reached the top.

  By the time the train crept into Bentham, they were sweating, and red-faced, more from laughter than the oppressive heat of the delayed train, and Liam was so happy Casper had lightened up, he hadn’t noticed the change in the weather.