Head Start

by Judith Cutler

  ‘What if I’m spotted by the media? Tragedy School head shops while pupils die?’

  ‘First up we get dark glasses. And one of those big fur hats. You’ll look like Jackie Onassis.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  I was pretty well shopped-out by the time we reached the Outlet. Pat had already propelled us round Canterbury’s full-price shops, both of us shopping for England, though I’d easily have won if medals had been involved. Fenwicks, Next, Marks and Spencer – all proved conclusively I’d dropped a dress size since I’d arrived in Kent. But, he insisted, it wasn’t just clothing I needed – and some very good shoes too, he conceded – but that vital technological alibi. It wasn’t just receipts, either – he wanted CCTV coverage. He made me drop money by the Outlet parking ticket machine, stumble by a crossing, appear to lose my purse by a coffee shop. Little Miss Ditzy, that was me. What did we talk about? The governors? Not a chance. Relative prices and sizes. Was he trying to hide something? Tiredness and hunger apart, I was getting tetchy.

  At last he allowed me to collapse in the food area, a huge space crammed with families taking advantage of a vast range of food suppliers. My guess was that the majority of the kids had consumed so much sugar they wouldn’t sleep for hours – though most of them should, in my book, have been in bed hours ago.

  Although Pat picked a table for four, his body language clearly warned anyone against intruding. He despatched me to buy green tea for both of us, using my credit card, as I had had to do throughout our excursion, for all my purchases, no matter how trivial. Once we were settled, he produced his smartphone.

  ‘Reason two for us to need our space,’ he said quietly. ‘The low-down I promised on your governors.’

  ‘About bloody time,’ I said, mopping tea from my coat where a three-year-old had cannoned into me. ‘Pat, I’m tired and hungry and—’

  ‘I daresay. But I’d like you to smile a lot, and gesticulate, as if I was showing you family photos. Right?’

  ‘Right.’ I prepared to look amused and excited.

  ‘Let’s start with the women, shall we? And—’

  ‘Must we? I can’t imagine any woman could do such harm.’

  ‘Myra Hindley? Rosemary West?’

  ‘We’re talking about decent middle-class women,’ I countered. ‘Felicity Walker. Alison Tibbs. We have a decent working relationship these days, but I don’t think we’ll ever actually like each other. Are you going to cast Alison as a wicked woman?’

  ‘She’s a very rich one. She owns half of Canterbury – just think, a couple of hours ago you were prancing around on her territory.’

  ‘I’d have kicked my heels higher, then. Despite my socialist upbringing, however, I can’t say that being rich is necessarily a hanging offence.’

  ‘Just a guillotining offence. OK, she came from a wealthy family and then she married money. There’s a lot of it about in your village. And although you clearly don’t know it, a lot of the villagers are related by blood or by marriage.’

  ‘I suppose that could explain why they don’t like people who aren’t part of their tribe – incomers … But who in particular is related to whom? Alison Tibbs, for a start?’

  I sensed rather than heard his chuckle. ‘Now why should you pick on her? I thought you decided she wasn’t wicked.’

  ‘Wicked or not, she can see into the school grounds and she spies on the playground staff. And she complained about my working late at night, remember, using school fuel not my own. It was probably Mrs Tibbs who told the police I was a burglar, though I’ve no way of proving that, or that she deliberately hijacked my oil delivery. But she’s fiercely loyal to the school itself. On the other hand, I acquit her of crawling into the caretaker’s house loft and making off with the insulation.’

  ‘Do you? Why? You’re not being ageist, are you? Because my mum was seventy when she lagged her loft herself. Yeah, it was supposed to be me, but I was called out urgently, wasn’t I?’

  ‘I suppose Alison’s house would be conveniently close to dump the rubbish. And I can’t imagine any sensible police officer knocking on her door and asking her if she knew anything about it.’

  The staff began a concerted clearing up operation.

  ‘They’re thinking about closing, aren’t they?’ Pat checked his watch. ‘We’ll go back via the M20 – lots of cameras on that. And we can keep on talking.’

  ‘Keep on? Pat, so far we’ve spoken about one governor. This was supposed to give you the chance to tell me everything you’ve found out. You even had Mandy’s blessing. OK, I’ve shopped till I dropped – but what are clothes when my next pad is likely to explode or be spirited by aliens into outer space?’

  He laughed as if I was being genuinely funny. ‘Mrs Tibbs has a nephew,’ he said. ‘It turns out … you’re not even listening, are you?’ he added sharply.

  ‘Prudence. I’m sure I’ve just seen Prudence. Don’t look. Not just yet. She’s over by that cookie place. Looks a weird mixture of sixteen and seven. Purple coat. Black leggings. Pixie boots.’

  ‘The pale kid with dark red hair? Now what are you doing?’

  It ought to have been obvious. I was going to speak to her. Kindly. Because if ever a kid looked waif-like and lost, it was Prudence. There was no sign of her parents. A couple of youths lounged nearby. She was drifting close to a table where someone had apparently abandoned a pack of sandwiches. Next moment, she was drifting away again, and there was no food on the table. If ever she had financial problems later in life, she’d clearly make an excellent shoplifter. However, she’d picked the wrong table. The people sitting there had merely gone back to the counter to get more food. There was an almost comic moment that I could only see as a mime as the man and woman in their twenties realised they had lost their sandwich. Clearly they were not pleased.

  A male security guard reached her before I did. She took flight. I was in her way: I don’t even think she recognised me as she kicked my shin and elbowed me in the stomach. Then she did a stupid thing. She ran into one place she could easily be trapped: the ladies’ loo.

  I turned to face her pursuers – two other security staff, both women, had joined their colleague. All were jabbering into radios.

  Holding up my hands for silence, I eye-contacted the loudest. ‘I know the girl. I’m the head teacher at her school. I’ll deal with this, if you can ask the other users to leave.’

  ‘It’s our job, if you don’t mind.’

  ‘Of course it is, and you’re trained. But I know the child and I know what problems she’s having at the moment. Just let me talk her out.’

  ‘We have procedures.’

  ‘She can’t just get away with stuff like that.’

  The women were more hostile; their male colleague temporised: ‘If you can get her out quietly you can stay with her while we talk to her. OK?’

  It was the best I could hope for.

  I rejected the idea of using my authority as being one thing to guarantee that Prudence would not co-operate. Neither would I wheedle. I spoke firmly to the bolted door. ‘Prudence, I’d like you to come out now because if you don’t you’ll have the humiliating experience of having the cubicle door unlocked and you’ll be hauled out kicking and screaming if necessary. There’ll be nothing that either of us can do about it. If you walk out of your own accord and offer a dignified apology, then I’ll see what I can do to help.’

  There was no response at all. Not so much as a sniffle – but then, I didn’t have Prudence down as one who would weep unseen. She’d consider it a waste of effort.

  ‘What on earth brought you out here? It’s not the milieu I’d have expected you to enjoy.’ Nor was it. Whatever the attractions of heavily discounted designer goods for adults, she’d consider herself worldly and sophisticated, she’d not go for the shops targeting pocket money-laden teenagers. I’d see her as a retro-shop girl. In her eyes she was certainly too old for the children’s play area.

  There was still no response. By now I w
as getting anxious. How much damage could a child do to herself in the course of three minutes? Then I remembered her capacity for holding her breath until she got her own way.

  ‘Very well, if you won’t do the mature thing and emerge of your own free will, I shall have to let the security men do what they’re supposed to do.’ I added coldly, ‘Do make sure you’ve flushed the loo and pulled your knickers up, won’t you? And wash your hands before they take you away. I’ll see you in school on Monday.’ Hardening my heart, because this time I did think I heard a sob – though it might simply have been a gasp as she breathed again – I walked out.

  It wasn’t just security staff waiting outside, however – it was the police. Pat was standing alongside two women officers. He raised an apologetic hand. ‘Don’t look at me like that. I had to call it in, didn’t I? And at least they’re trained to deal with children. And they’ve asked for you to go along too.’

  ‘Why should I need a responsible adult?’ Prudence demanded. ‘All I did was pick up a sandwich that someone had walked away from. Probably not a very good sandwich. If instead of chasing me halfway round the Outlet, they’d asked me to return it or to pay I would of course have done so.’

  Her self-assurance was not going down well with PC Toni Lowe, the jeans-clad woman waiting for her at Canterbury police station, where we’d been taken, separately, despite my protests. Someone she knew should have been with her even for the comparatively short journey, surely. But perhaps the two PCSOs didn’t feel they had the authority to make that sort of decision. If only one of them had been Ian Cooper things wold have been different. At least I was in a soft interview room with her now. I was seated, trying to look calm; she was on her feet, legs braced like a terrier’s.

  ‘Am I under arrest?’ Prudence pursued. ‘For the so-called theft of a sandwich? This sounds like something from Dickens! What will you do with me? Have me transported to the colonies?’

  It was impossible to fault the liberal education she was getting at home, but her social skills didn’t include realising the effect she was having on someone who’d probably been hoping for a quiet evening with a drink and a pizza at the end of it. Actually I did fault her education: what on earth had her parents been doing to let her speak to people like this?

  She turned to me – turned on, would perhaps be a more accurate way of putting it. ‘And her! What is she supposed to be doing?’

  My mother would have demanded who she was – the cat’s grandmother? Toni’s might have done too: she flushed angrily on my behalf. ‘Any young person being questioned by the police needs someone in loco parentis – in the place of their parent. We call them a responsible adult.’

  Prudence shrugged grandly. ‘I suppose she could be a responsible adult, since she’s here.’ As if making a concession, she sat down.

  The room seemed strangely familiar, though I’d never been in it before. Perhaps there was a countrywide model for soft interview rooms, complete with standard-issue soft toys. Absent-mindedly I pulled the nearest, a plump brown bear, on to my lap. The last one in my life, very similar to this, had ended up sliced apart and stuffed into the dustbin. Better that than a living dog or cat, I supposed.

  ‘You never answered my original question, Prudence,’ I said quietly, since Toni Lowe seemed to be hanging back. ‘What on earth were you doing in the Outlet? And – something I should have asked earlier, perhaps – where are your parents?’

  She looked at her watch. ‘In Paris. They had tickets for the opera.’

  I tried not to look too taken aback, though I could see Lowe’s eyes widen.

  ‘So where and with whom are you supposed to be this evening?’

  ‘With Jinty. She used to be my nanny.’

  ‘But you’re not with her.’

  ‘She’s got this foul husband. Dwayne. He sits and watches football on the TV and drinks lager. At least he goes outside to smoke, but the smell sticks to his clothes. Like you smell of smoke,’ she said. ‘Tonight, at least.’

  Pat had been right: I should have changed into some of the clothes I’d bought earlier. But I wasn’t the one supposed to explain herself.

  ‘I can understand why you don’t like his company. But won’t Jinty be worried you’re not there?’

  She regarded me scornfully. ‘I used my mother’s phone to text her that I didn’t need to go after all. And then deleted the message.’

  Of course. Though the police would still be able to check if they cared to. ‘So you planned to spend the night at home on your own. But you fetched up in a food hall.’

  For the first time, I thought her composure cracked. ‘There was a problem.’

  ‘Which was?’

  ‘The usual thing.’ Her voice dripped with adult ennui. ‘Money. I got to Ashford and then the hospital all right, and asked to see Emma, but they kept me waiting for ages so I had to buy some food and it cost more than I’d bargained for. And then they wouldn’t let me see her anyway! And she’s my best friend!’ The last two words made her a little girl again.

  Toni spoke for the first time. I feared she knew something I didn’t. ‘Sometimes they only let family see patients, you know. But you must have been very … very frustrated.’ Good for her: she’d got Prudence’s measure.

  ‘I was. All that effort. Anyway, I had to come away. But I got on the wrong bus. And then I missed my train. And I was terribly hungry. But there will be enough money at home to pay for the sandwich if you care to take me there, PC Lowe. I’m not a thief really.’ Her lower lip trembled.

  I wasn’t entirely convinced. I was fairly sure if she could hold her breath to order she’d be able to weep at will.

  Lowe, however, was very kind. ‘Of course you’re not. And I’ll make sure we pass the money on to the people concerned.’

  I fished in my purse. ‘I can lend Prudence the money. You can pay me back on Monday, can’t you?’ My smile suggested that I had no doubt whatever of her being in school. ‘But I should imagine you’re still pretty hungry. I am.’

  Lowe went to the door and spoke quietly into her phone. If I registered that she didn’t leave the room I was sure Prudence would.

  ‘There: food will be on its way shortly. Then we’ll have a proper talk, if you’re still happy to have Ms Cowan as your responsible adult. Otherwise we can bring in someone from Social Services.’

  ‘What do you want to talk about? I’ve offered to pay.’ Her chin went up.

  Toni Lowe’s voice was very calm. ‘What I really need to talk about is not why you went to William Harvey but why Emma had to.’

  ‘At this time of night?’ I interjected. ‘Prudence is a child and ought to be in bed. And surely she ought to have legal representation?’

  Prudence raised a scathing eyebrow. ‘We pupils understand that there was a tragic accident in school. We’ve heard precious little since, Miss Cowan. Sorry, Ms Cowan.’ Her apologetic smile openly admitted that it was not sincere.

  If that was how she wanted to play it … But I was an adult, and supposed to be responsible. So I tried once more. ‘Prudence has had a shocking day, by the sound of it. I do feel it would be more appropriate to wait till the morning to question her.’

  ‘I am quite sure I can deal with a few questions. This accident, Ms Cowan? To Emma?’

  ‘Had you been in assembly this morning, you could have prayed for her recovery,’ I said as mildly as I could. ‘However, as I’m sure you know, accidents rarely just happen. They are usually caused by something.’

  She turned to me superbly. ‘I was under the impression that you were here to support me, not interrogate me.’

  Fortunately for me, a tap on the door announced the arrival of our supper. ‘Burgers and chips for two,’ announced what I suspected was another plain-clothes officer; she came and sat beside Toni.

  ‘I don’t eat junk food. Especially MacDonald’s.’

  ‘No problem. We’ll just leave the chips there in case the rest of us get hungry. I’m Barbara, by the way.’ And, I’d b
et a year’s salary, the capable mother of at least one toddler.

  I tucked in, hoping Prudence would forget my gaffe. I was no more a burger and chips fan than Prudence, but these came with the best sauce: hunger.

  ‘So you’ve heard no hard facts about poor Emma’s accidents,’ Toni observed. ‘But you might have heard rumours.’

  ‘That would be hearsay.’

  ‘We’re not putting anyone on trial, here, Prudence: we just want to clear up any misinformation you might have. So what have you heard?’

  I wanted to tell her to beware of Greeks bearing gifts, and of police bringing food. But I didn’t. And then I discovered I didn’t want to, after all. I wanted some truth, no matter how it was extracted.

  ‘We heard that once again there was a lack of supervision at the school. There was an accident last week caused by the fact that no teachers supervise the children. On Thursday, although the building was supposed to be closed because it had been invaded by rats, someone left all the doors open.’

  The only way to stop myself screaming with rage was to help myself to another chip.

  Barbara had the measure of her, however. ‘So why do people say Emma went inside if she knew she wasn’t supposed to? You were all in the village hall for the day, I understand.’

  ‘All I know is that she was involved in an accident. Perhaps she fell on the ice and managed to crawl inside looking for help. Is that what happened?’

  She looked at me. In turn I sought the officers’ eyes. Could that plausible scenario really be an explanation?

  ‘The trouble is,’ Barbara said, ‘if that happened, Emma would have certain types of injury. She doesn’t. She has injuries that make the doctors think that something happened inside. Inside a room that was out of bounds. That no one was allowed into.’