Ambitious, intelligent and ruthless, Rebecca Buckfast has finally achieved her ultimate goal, and has many plans for the improvement of St Oswald's, of which the traditionalist Straitley disapproves.
[7] Thus follows an account, delivered in sessions over several weeks, of Buckfast's troubled childhood, including the disappearance of her brother Conrad, who vanished from school when he was fourteen and she was five, a trauma from which neither the young Rebecca (who was present at the time of the incident), nor her parents have fully recovered.
He disapproves of Rebecca's decision to take a job at the same boys' grammar school from which her brother vanished, years ago, and shows little sympathy for her struggle with its patriarchal authorities.
Every time Straitley tells himself that he must investigate the find, he discovers a new reason to hold back, not least because he knows that a further scandal might destroy the school he loves, and which has been his entire life.
We also discover that the imposter pretending to be Conrad in order to extract money from her parents was applying for a post as a teacher at St Oswald's, and that the young Rebecca killed him opportunistically before disposing of his body in the grounds.
Buckfast persuades him to listen to the end of her story, and they meet in his classroom after school, where Straitley's Brodie Boys have created a gargoyle in his image, on the balcony of his form room.
Buckfast arrives to tell the rest of her story, not knowing that Straitley has left a document addressed to his Brodie Boys next to the gargoyle, with details of everything that she has told him, along with the King Henry's badge.
[2] In 2022 Harris turned down a US book club deal for A Narrow Door over demands to edit out instances of the "f-bomb" from the text, saying on Twitter: "I refused for two reasons: one, because I don’t use words accidentally.
And second, because I don’t believe my use of the word ‘fuck’ harms anyone.”[15][16] Underlying the narrative is the theme of the treatment of women in academia[17] and the entitlement of male-dominated institutions,[9] as well as the concept of memories,[2] both false and true,[18] and how "lies and deceit are viewed differently through the prism of time.