Head Start

by Judith Cutler

  ‘Who are probably highly respected school governors, if not necessarily here in Kent,’ she summed up neatly.

  I’d leave it to Pat to tell her who he had been illicitly checking up on last night.

  She looked at her watch and gasped. ‘I’ve got a meeting five minutes ago. You know we’ve commandeered your staffroom: is that OK?’

  Better late than never. ‘Fine by me. But I really would co-opt Pat, if I were you. If he’s awake yet.’ She copied his details into her phone. ‘Not to mention that Pardew guy, who must be completely awash with caffeine by now.’

  Her official nod of appreciation was soon replaced by something else. ‘How are you really surviving? No sleep, no food by the look of it?’

  ‘The way you manage. Now I must go and see how the kids are faring over the road.’

  She had reached for her phone: ‘By the way, I’m calling in the techies immediately. I’ll also get them to process those cassettes ASAP. And the crime scene team can come and look at both stockrooms. And we’ll need school records going back to the year dot.’

  ‘You need Melanie. She’s a genius with coffee, remember, and has everything at her fingertips. And if she doesn’t, she’ll know someone who does.’

  ‘Do you think she’ll have bought any more pikelets?’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  I was glad I had made the decision to keep the school open. It wouldn’t have been possible without the support of the staff, of course, and I might not even still have a job without their intervention. It was wonderful to see them going purposefully about their work in the village hall. The kids, in small mixed-age groups, seemed totally absorbed in what they were doing.

  At a lift of my eyebrow, Tom left his group and slipped unobtrusively towards me. We edged back out of the front door into the cold sunlight. Suddenly I longed for a thaw.

  ‘Thanks for doing all this – without even being asked. I really appreciate what everyone is doing, you know.’ If I continued in that vein my voice would crack. ‘I meant to be here well before registration but I got delayed by the insurance assessor and then by the police,’ I said dryly.

  ‘Yeah – we were shocked by that fire. Is that mate of yours OK?’

  ‘Sleeping off the smoke down at the Cricketers. How did your encounter with the governors go last night?’

  ‘Surprisingly well. We gave it as our professional opinion that even though some parents might want to keep their children at home, the kids needed familiar routine, and that it was the school’s function to provide them with a framework. And we said we thought you were the one to give it ongoing stability and purpose. No one seemed inclined to argue, though there were one or two who thought you were too accident prone. As if that was your fault, somehow. And then we got news of the fire at your cottage, and an ambulance on-site there—’

  ‘But how did anyone know? It’s not even in the village.’

  ‘Two of the retained firemen called out to the blaze live near the Cricketers. Anyway, people suddenly grew consciences when they thought it might be you.’

  ‘I’d rather they’d had them before poor Emma’s accident. Or whatever it was. She’s stable, by the way.’ For the time being he and the others didn’t need to know the precariousness of her grip on life. Who could have dreamt of such a thing, let alone carry it out? How? Most of all, why? As soon as there was a second’s silence, my head was filled with questions I simply couldn’t answer. Of course it was the job of the police to find out all the answers – but a child on my premises was my responsibility.

  However Tom was speaking. ‘Thank God for that.’

  He’d expect a snappy response. ‘Speaking of God, how did Mark Stephens’ special assembly go?’

  He rolled his eyes.

  ‘That well?’

  ‘We couldn’t understand it, Jane: he deals with these kids all the time. But today he just didn’t seem able to hack it. Perhaps he could imagine himself having to take poor Emma’s funeral … Anyway, we prayed a bit, and sang a couple of really inappropriate hymns. I mean, My God is a great Big God is great for kids, with all the actions and such, but not when everyone who could understand was bruised with shock and grief and the littlies were just bemused.’ He shook his head. ‘He left you this note, by the way.’

  It was my turn to be bemused, but I’d open the folded slip of paper later.

  Tom continued, ‘If it’s all right with you, instead of letting them loose in the playground at break, we thought we’d take the kids for a walk. A nice crocodile-type walk. Some of the Open the Book team have agreed to ride herd for us so there’s no chance of anyone slipping away.’

  ‘And you’ve organised all this? Well done, Tom.’

  He flushed. ‘Not just me. All of us. Fearn, too – bringing in the OTB team was her idea, actually.’

  ‘Well done all of you.’ It was time to ask the question I’d been dreading. ‘Any notable absentees?’

  ‘Funnily enough,’ he said, his voice dripping with irony, ‘Sophia and Prudence. Though Robert is here. If ever a parent frogmarched her child it was Mrs Bowman.’

  We both laughed grimly. ‘Sophia and Prudence?’ I prompted him. ‘Phone calls from their parents?’

  ‘Zilch. I’m afraid – you know we had no option – we had to tell the police when they asked. They said they’d send special officers to find out where they were and talk to them. I know they’ll have a responsible adult alongside, but do you think one of us ought to be there? A familiar face?’

  ‘The way you and I feel about one of them at least, I’d say absolutely not!’

  He hung his head, like a shamefaced child.

  My phone whistled cheerfully to announce a text. Pat. ‘I’m going to have to leave you to it, I’m afraid. Sorry.’

  ‘No problem. Er … Jane … are you getting on OK with the police? They’re …’

  ‘They’re not going to send me to the Tower of London yet,’ I said. ‘Look, somehow I’m going to have to bring in a succession of supply teachers to give you good people a break. You can’t go on like this.’

  He looked me straight in the eye. ‘And neither, Jane, can you.’

  Tom was right, of course, just as Mandy had been. How much sleep had I had over the last two weeks? How many meals had I skipped? I must tell myself that this nightmare would soon be over, that all I had to do was keep my head down and wait for the experts to deal with everything. Then I would have time to live like a normal human being, or as much like a human as anyone working in a school could hope to live. In the meantime, I would have to text an apology to Mark: unfortunately I wouldn’t be able to meet him face to face to discuss the arrangements for Sunday’s service in the school hall. In fact, I had no power over the building at the moment, and I suggested he contact DCI Carpenter direct to see when it might be open. I toyed with adding her number, but decided against: she was at least as busy as I was, and must surely have a junior officer briefed to deal with such enquiries.

  Texts were more than useful, of course, but sometimes I still preferred to hear a voice, so I responded to the next incoming message with a phone call. It transpired that all Pat had wanted to know was if I was all right. He was: he’d been invited to go and chafe the fat with Mandy and her mates. At least he wouldn’t need a translation of the Black Country idiom to know she wanted a chinwag. He was delighted: he had a lot of information to share with her from his research last night, he said.

  ‘Am I going to be party to it too?’ To my own ears I sounded petty. On the other hand, if it was relevant information, I needed to know it, and it might as well be sooner rather than later.

  ‘I thought you’d be too busy headmistressing. Or looking for new accommodation. Or buying new clothes. Yes, you need them. Stuff rescued from a fire always smells kippered. If you’ve got a spare hour, treat yourself to a trip to Canterbury – outside the village the main roads are OK.’ Yes, I’d driven down them fast enough last night. ‘Talk later – right?’

  ‘Righ
t.’ But a buzz from Melanie told me my shopping spree was over before it was started. I had another visitor.

  James Ford, smiling across my desk at me and holding a mug of green tea, had already lined up fresh accommodation. But he was clearly nonplussed by my cautious response.

  ‘Who owns it? Ms Cowan, I really can’t tell you that!’

  ‘Very well. I will tell you whose properties I will not move into and you can act accordingly. I have had two very bad experiences in properties owned by Mr Brian Dawes and wish to have another landlord next time. I want a home with no plumbing or electrical problems. Mr Dawes is an excellent governor and a model citizen, but he employs a poor maintenance team. In my opinion,’ I added. Until James found what was previously so elusive, I would simply take up Diane’s offer to hole up at The Jolly Cricketers.

  He thrust back into his bag a bunch of printouts (Dawes must have an extensive portfolio!), producing instead the very latest in smartphones. ‘Ah! We do have a vacancy in another holiday let. Honeysuckle Cottage. Yes, I know it’s a cliché, but it’s what clients like – a pretty name. It’s in the village too, not far from where you’re based now. I believe it’s owned by a young couple. Incomers, I think,’ he added dubiously. ‘Bear with me.’ He sent the details to my own mobile.

  The photos and the details were indeed impressive.

  ‘Who would be my landlord?’

  ‘Oh, Ms Cowan, you know I can’t tell you that, either. What I will say is that it isn’t Mr Dawes. It really is five-star accommodation, you know.’

  It certainly looked it. I was just about to agree when I thought of another question, but one I might not ask aloud. How had it just come about that a place was free, when a week ago there was nothing to be had anywhere? Was I really getting paranoid now? I dug deep into the assertiveness training that was part of my original therapy. ‘Could you arrange for me to see it before I make any decisions? I’m sure you’re free on Saturdays, and I can’t imagine that in this weather people are queuing up for a sojourn in rural Kent.’ Now Mandy was less inclined to suspect me, with luck she would detail one of her technical officers to check it. ‘Meanwhile, I need to retrieve all my belongings from Dove Cottage. Will you clear that with the assessors for me? It’s a good job I travel light, isn’t it?’

  ‘Actually, it’s not just you wanting access to the cottage. You’ll have to wait, I’m afraid, until some guys from the Fire Service have poked round. Goodness knows why – it wasn’t all that serious a fire.’

  Arson – that would be what they were looking for, surely. Traces of accelerant, like the time Simon tried to set fire to the flat the refuge had found me. I said soberly, ‘All fires could be serious. Smoke inhalation apart from anything else. All those nasty fumes … I’m sure you’re aware that a friend of mine ended up in William Harvey A&E? Has Mr Dawes told you anything about it?’

  ‘Only that it had started in the kitchen. A chip pan, that sort of thing – very common.’

  Perhaps a chip pan was one up from a toasted tea towel. But as far as I knew there was no such low-tech thing in the kitchen. I wonder if Dawes just meant to smoke me out or to destroy something. If so, what was he after? Was it something very small that came with a miniature lens? Before that, however, he wanted to offer me his hospitality: a text arrived – from a man I’d expected to be socially punctilious – inviting me to dinner on Saturday. He made no mention of Pat. I’d reply when I felt like it.

  To my delight, Mandy Carpenter was one step ahead of me: she had already detailed her technical team to check out Dove Cottage and said she’d be delighted to get them to scan the latest property I’d been offered.

  ‘I couldn’t ask another favour, could I?’ I asked as she collapsed on to one of my spare chairs. ‘They won’t tell me who owns this Honeysuckle Cottage, and after two Brian Dawes’s properties I’d really like to know.’

  She made a note, then looked me straight in the eye. ‘What you really want to know is if Dawes installed the cameras in the school, the caretaker’s house and Dove Cottage. Right?’

  I nodded. ‘I had him down as my arch-enemy from the start, but he’s been an excellent governor in many, many respects. I don’t want him to be a villain.’

  ‘Oh, God, you’ve not fallen for his old-world charm, have you? Some of the most attractive men I’ve ever met have committed vile crimes.’

  ‘Tell me about it,’ I said ruefully. ‘I married Simon.’

  A young crime scene investigator popped his head round the door. ‘Boss? Something you should see.’

  I was on my feet in an instant.

  ‘Sorry, Jane – this means just me. For now,’ she conceded.

  However important the work I ought to do, I simply couldn’t concentrate. Perhaps green tea would be safer than coffee. Melanie shook her head: ‘Sorry – young James brought his own. I can get some this weekend.’ She jotted.

  ‘Melanie, this is worse for you than it is for me. You know not just the kids but the families, don’t you?’

  She pointed to a new poster on her wall – one of the Keep Calm series. ‘It’s all you can do, isn’t it? Carry on? Though I did fancy one of the ruder ones.’ Her smile segued from brave to sympathetic. ‘At least I’ve got my family around me, Jane. At times – a lot of times, to be honest – they can be a pain. But they’ve rallied round well – would you believe it, they’re cooking me meals instead of expecting to be waited on? But you’re on your own, aren’t you? And you’re quite right, you are drinking far too much coffee.’ She looked round conspiratorially, and reached something from her desk. ‘I told those gannets of police officers I’d run out. Pikelets, indeed. Have a good old-fashioned crumpet, Jane.’

  ‘They’re called pikelets where I come from too,’ I said mildly. ‘My grandmother used to make her own. Maybe I ought to learn. When all this is over.’

  ‘It’s a bugger, isn’t it?’ Pat observed. ‘All this going down and you can’t be part of it. I wonder what they’ve found. Hey, are you OK?’

  ‘Only half-dead with shock. I didn’t hear you come in.’

  He perched on the edge of my desk, swinging his feet and wafting imaginary smoke from under his nose. ‘Look, there’s that huge Outlet at Ashford. I bet it’s late night opening on a Friday. We’ll go and kit you out. I might get myself a few more socks too. Tell you what, isn’t it time they’d sorted out that car of yours? How long can it take to shift a bit of glue?’

  As a diversion it worked quite well. Losing my temper with the garage for not telling me my car was likely to be written off – except it turned out it wasn’t my car but one belonging to someone called Cohen – felt quite good. The information that it would be another four days before they could even look at mine elicited another therapeutic temper tantrum. Pat always knew what I needed.

  He followed it with another suggestion – that we go and check out whatever it was that Mandy hadn’t invited us to see. This turned out to be the hall, where she stood arms akimbo in organised chaos. Stacked by the back door was a mound of bagged material – the entire contents of both stockrooms, by the look of it.

  ‘Some spring-clean,’ he observed.

  ‘We’ll take all the stuff you threw away last night, too, Pat,’ Mandy said, not questioning our arrival, but having a little dig at us to make up for her restraint. ‘If only you’d told us the other stockroom was a crime scene.’ She spoke as if I were her most junior officer, not someone with whom she’s had civilised conversations on equal terms.

  Any moment now I’d have another tantrum. ‘I think I might have hinted it could be,’ I said coldly. How on earth had she forgotten the conversation we’d had about it? Stress, fatigue and overwork, I suppose. But I needed her on my side, so I wouldn’t adopt the tone I habitually used when a child had forgotten its homework. And maybe if I empathised a bit more I could understand that she needed a bit of female support. ‘Mandy, have you had to bring in the MIT big guns?’

  I was rewarded with a brief smile. ‘Not yet
. There’s a lot of work going on with the people we used to call CEOPS, the child protection people trying to stop online exploitation of children. Our technical people are trying to trace the link between active cameras – those in the stockrooms are dead – and whoever is receiving the images. All the children will be interviewed as witnesses sometime soon, when we can round up their parents or carers. Now, thanks to that saint of yours, Melanie, we know who is absent today, and we’re trying to locate them and their parents. In their case, specifically parents. I gather from your deputy, Tom whatever his name is, that a couple of them have been … difficult this term.’

  I ignored Tom’s sudden and unpaid promotion: in any case, it would be good to be able to make it official, wouldn’t it? Even if it was only a temporary upgrade. ‘One or two children have been very difficult. It was partly their behaviour that made me invite PCSO Ian Cooper in to give an assembly talk on the importance of morality.’

  Her eyebrows disappeared into her hair. ‘A bit heavy for five-year-olds, I’d have thought.’

  ‘Not the way he did it. He’s got a rare talent, Mandy – look out for him. It’s a requirement that when children establish a pattern of bad behaviour the school has to implement programmes to improve it. My hope was that some unofficial input would improve matters so that we didn’t have to go down the official route.’ I had to say it before the others could: ‘But it certainly didn’t have the effect I hoped for, if a child like Emma Hamilton can immediately take herself off into a banned area. If she took herself, of course. If she didn’t, Mandy, who took her?’

  Suddenly I was praying that it was an adult, not another child. Had I not been all along? Perhaps the police had too: they’d rather it had been me or Pat, wouldn’t they? And who could blame them? It was the children themselves, in the Rosie incident, who blamed the problem on lack of proper supervision, including CCTV. They might have been parroting an adult’s words, but it had only been my own wish, clearly expressed to the governors.