The Head is Dead

by Tanya Landman

  “My wife was very keen on the project,” he’d explained tearfully to everyone. “She kept talking about it. It would be a fitting memorial to an extraordinary lady. Perhaps you could erect a plaque. Or something…” Then he’d turned, vanishing from the hall as rapidly as he’d appeared. Mr Piper had been left standing on the stage waving the flimsy piece of paper from side to side to dry the ink, looking absolutely astonished.

  But at the end of assembly he’d got Mrs Plumtree to put a phone call through to Mum, asking her to bring her plans up to the school as soon as possible. So instead of driving us home, she steered the car back towards Barnford.

  “It’s odd, really,” Mum said as we neared the school. “Making a memorial to someone who was so unpopular. It feels quite strange.”

  “Unpopular?” I echoed. It suddenly felt weird to hear Mrs King described in that way. Forceful? Yes. Bossy? Definitely. Overbearing? Absolutely. But I thought people had actually secretly admired her for it. It was the reason the governors had given her the job, wasn’t it? To sort out a failing school? Didn’t they need someone who didn’t mind making a few enemies?

  “Yes,” Mum continued. “Mrs Plumtree said on the phone just now that most of the teachers hated her. She was planning on sacking three of them. The letters were all typed and ready, but she died before she could sign them. Mr Piper was due for the chop. And yet here he is wanting me to start digging tomorrow.”

  “Did she mention which of the other teachers were going to go?” I asked Mum, attempting to sound casual.

  “Yes. That nice Mr Stuart, and the librarian, Miss Maris.”

  I didn’t ask anything else: my mind was working fast, trying to picture the three of them hatching a grand plan to save themselves by doing away with Mrs King. It was theoretically plausible, as Graham would say.

  Mum made a left turn at the roundabout. “Will you two be OK looking after yourselves today? I don’t like leaving you, really. I’ll give the B&B a quick call and let Marjorie know we’ll be staying on – you can go back there and read, can’t you?”

  Graham and I nodded and looked Trustworthy and Reliable.

  “Right,” said Mum, frowning anxiously. “Just don’t go finding any more dead bodies if you can help it. Oh – and don’t tell anyone what I just said about the teachers, will you? I don’t suppose Mrs Plumtree meant to tell me all that. She was just stressed about her neighbour. It was such a dreadful thing to happen! Poor Mrs Plumtree. She’ll be glad to retire, I should think.”

  Mum parked outside the school, grabbed her folder full of plans and headed up the drive towards reception. I watched her go, feeling a shiver of apprehension as Mr Piper came out to meet her, his hand clasping hers in a friendly greeting. Graham and I ambled in the other direction, towards the B&B. But as soon as we were safely out of sight, Graham pulled his mobile from his pocket and dialled the police station.

  We were genuinely trying to be helpful, but the way DCI Swan treated us, you’d have thought we’d rung to suggest starting our very own Crime Campaign.

  “All three teachers were there at the fayre,” I explained carefully. “And all three of them could have done it, either on their own or working together.”

  “Motive?” snapped DCI Swan.

  “Mrs King was going to sack them,” I said. “And—”

  “Do you think we’re so stupid that we haven’t looked into this?” the policewoman said, interrupting me before I could even mention Mr Piper. She didn’t appear to require an answer, so I kept quiet. “And before you go accusing anyone else, let me tell you that we’ve looked at Mrs King’s husband and her close friends and relatives. We’ve checked them all. We’ve arrested the right man, believe me.”

  “But Mrs Plumtree had typed up the letters!” I said bravely.

  “Did she tell you that?”

  “Er… No…” I said, because strictly speaking she hadn’t told me, she’d told my mum – and I’d promised not to say anything.

  “We’ve already been through the school computers,” snarled DCI Swan. “There’s no evidence whatsoever that the head was planning to lose any of her staff.”

  Graham – who’d had his ear pressed against the phone to listen in – now snatched it out of my hand. “They’ll have wiped it!” he said eagerly. “Someone – maybe Mr Piper – had already hacked in and put the money in Mr Edwards’ bank account. It would be easy to wipe letters from the system.”

  “You think someone hacked into the school computer?” DCI Swan’s voice was quiet, but she sounded deadly – like a preying mantis about to strike.

  Graham hadn’t noticed. “I’m sure of it.”

  “You’re wrong,” she said firmly. “Mr Edwards wrote a cheque on the school fund chequebook. His signature was there in big, bold letters when he paid it into his own account.”

  “It could have been a forgery!” protested Graham.

  “But it wasn’t. There was nothing hi-tech about this. It was a simple, old-fashioned crime, just like the mugging. You’ve leapt to a false conclusion, kids. You’re in that hamster wheel again, scurrying faster and faster and getting nowhere. You shouldn’t let your imaginations run away with you.”

  She hung up and we deflated like punctured balloons. All our certainty, all our theories, shrivelled up until we both felt like little limp, damp pieces of rubber lying helpless on the floor.

  foul language

  We weren’t the only ones feeling deflated that day.

  We spent the morning reading and watching TV, but by lunchtime we were going stir-crazy. We decided we couldn’t stand the B&B any longer, so we bought some sandwiches from the corner shop and took ourselves off to the park.

  The avenue of trees was sealed off with scene-of-crime tape, but the playground at the far end was open. We walked across the football pitch and sat on the swings. We hadn’t been there long when I noticed a boy standing beside the roundabout, listlessly spinning it first one way and then the other. Why wasn’t he at school? I took a closer look.

  “Isn’t that Craig Walters?” I said.

  “The boy who got excluded?” Graham peered at him. “Could be.”

  “Let’s go and talk to him.”

  “Do we have to?” Graham protested. But when I jumped off the swing and set off across the playground, he followed.

  Craig Walters looked terrible. I’d met his type before – we had plenty of kids like him in our school who thought it was wildly original to call my best mate “Gawky Graham” because he’s terrible at sport, or “Geeky Graham” because he’s good at computers. Craig was one of those boys who have a cocky swagger, a mocking grin and the sort of laugh that makes you feel hot and humiliated; he was a kid who’d bully anyone who showed the slightest sign of weakness. But all that noisy aggression had been wiped out of him by his dad’s arrest. I guess that having a parent in custody can do that to a child.

  When we approached him, his eyes seemed unnaturally big and he had a strange expression on his face. I was expecting to see bitterness, resentment, anger. I thought he might lash out at us.

  But in fact he just looked lost. Confused. Worse than that: he looked scared. When Graham cleared his throat, Craig practically leapt out of his skin and then flinched as if he’d been hit.

  “Is your name Craig?” I asked him.

  I reckon the old Craig might have stuck his chin out and demanded, “What’s it to you?” followed by a thump or a kick.

  But the new Craig sank to the ground, covered his face with his hands and started to cry. He was talking, too. For a while I couldn’t make out the words, but then he said, “I never did nothing. I never did!”

  Graham tutted loudly enough for Craig to raise his head.

  “I didn’t swear. I didn’t!” I realized he was talking about what had started it all – him being excluded from school for using bad language. He looked from Graham to me and his eyes were desperate. “You believe me, don’t you?”

  Graham put his hands on his hips and studied C
raig. I didn’t get a chance to answer, because Graham said, “Recent research shows that disruptive pupils like yourself frequently disown responsibility for their own actions. It’s a characteristic pattern of behaviour.”

  Personally, I thought Graham was taking his life in his hands. I expected a fist to fly through the air and land on Graham’s nose, but Craig didn’t do a thing. Fresh tears leaked out of his eyes and he said sorrowfully, “But I didn’t swear.”

  “Oh, really?” said Graham. He was looking as though Craig had just assured him that the earth was flat or the moon was made of cream cheese.

  “Nobody listens,” wailed Craig. “No one believes me. But I didn’t. Not this time. Honest.”

  He jumped up then, and ran off, and though I called after him he didn’t turn back.

  “Suppose he was telling the truth?” I asked Graham.

  “That would seem to be highly improbable, given that he was on the verge of being permanently excluded,” Graham said. “I think the chances that he was being sincere are very slim.”

  I wasn’t so sure. “But why would he say it?”

  “Perhaps he’s in denial. It’s a well-documented psychological phenomenon.”

  “OK.” I shrugged. “But the last person you said was in denial was Craig’s dad, and we both reckon he’s innocent.” I didn’t push it because it was mostly true, what Graham said: Craig really was the bullying, lying type – it was clearly written all over him in big, block capitals. He practically had the word NASTY tattooed on his forehead. So why did I have the feeling that there was more to it? That Craig Walters might somehow be the key to the whole thing?

  I didn’t say any more about it, but it nagged away inside me like a stomachache. I kept thinking I was missing something. That if I could find just one extra piece, the confusing puzzle would fall into place. But it was worse than trying to grab a slippery bar of soap in a hot bath: I just couldn’t get hold of it that day.

  And by the time I did, my mum had reached the top of the murderer’s To Kill list.

  building site

  The next morning, Mum was ready to start work on the environmental area. Graham and I didn’t have anything better to do, so we volunteered our services as under-gardeners. I was really wound up, and although DCI Swan didn’t believe us, I was still dead suspicious about the three teachers who’d been up for the sack. If Mum was going to be working near them with a load of pickaxes and other big, dangerous tools about, I wanted to be there to keep an eye on her. And them.

  When we reached the school, Mr Piper came down the path to meet us. He’d just taken Mum’s palm in both hands, when I had that horrible feeling of lurking evil again: it swept over me like a sudden frost.

  I stared at Mr Piper. He was smiling at Mum, that was all. I looked around. Kids were starting to arrive. There was a stream of parents coming and going up the drive. A man in a helmet, fluorescent coat and protective mask was standing in the car park with a pneumatic drill, waiting to strip the tarmac off so Mum could start work. Everything looked fine, and yet my teeth were on edge as if someone was scraping away at a badly tuned violin.

  “Goodness, he’s here already,” Mum said, looking at the workman. “I’d better get going. You two can wait in reception. I’ll give you a shout when I need a hand.”

  Graham and I followed Mr Piper into the building. I didn’t hear Mum greet the workman or give him directions about where to begin. I hardly registered the sound of the drill starting. But two seconds later, I heard her scream. It cut right through the noise of kids arriving and stuck in my chest like a spear. Before I knew it, I was running outside. Into the car park. To Mum.

  By the time I reached her, she had stopped screaming. She was unconscious. Her silence was even more frightening. That, and all the blood.

  Graham had followed me, tapping 999 into his phone as he ran. Mr Piper had appeared from nowhere and was on his knees, fingers pressed against Mum’s arm, trying to stem the bleeding.

  And me? I was completely useless. I just stood there, cold with fear, sick with shock, not even asking the workman what had happened. I had no idea whether Mr Piper was saving Mum’s life or killing her; didn’t know whether I should beat him off or help him. The sight of so much blood paralysed me and I couldn’t speak.

  Then I felt comforting arms around me, pressing me to a capacious bosom, and I was breathing in Mrs Plumtree’s floral perfume as she said, “Don’t worry, Poppy, your mum’ll be fine. She’ll be all right.”

  The ambulance came, and the paramedics put Mum on a stretcher and loaded her in. Graham and I squeezed in too, trying to keep out of the way while they attended to her.

  In my weird numbed state I looked at the faces looking back at me. It was like staring at an old photograph. There was Mr Piper: shirt stained scarlet, eyes shocked and worried. Mrs Plumtree: oozing sympathy and concern. And the workman, his face still covered by the mask, his eyes… There was something about his eyes…

  Then the door slammed shut and the siren screamed so loudly, it hit me like a fist to the chest, jerking my brain into working order.

  As the ambulance pulled away, I realized I’d seen that workman somewhere before.

  a & e

  About five horrendously anxious minutes after we’d zoomed away from the school, Mum woke up enough to say, “Don’t cry, Poppy. I’ll be fine.” Then she passed out again, and I must have made some sort of faint whimpering noise, because the paramedic said, “She’s right, you know. Thank heavens that teacher got to her so quickly – he did a good job stopping the blood flow from her arm. She’s not mortally wounded. It’s a nasty cut but it’s not going to kill her.”

  Just before we reached the hospital, Mum revived enough for me to ask, “What happened?”

  “Oh, I don’t know, really. What a stupid accident! I was pointing out exactly where the workman should start drilling. I bent down just as he stepped forward, and caught my bum on his knee. Then I overbalanced and he got my arm with the edge of the drill.”

  “It could have been worse,” said the paramedic.

  “It could have been a lot worse,” agreed Mum. “If I’d fallen the other way, it would have been my head under that drill, not my arm. I had a lucky escape.”

  The thought was enough to make me feel queasy.

  When we got out of the ambulance, my knees had trouble holding me up, so it was just as well Graham and I had to do so much sitting around. We waited for Mum to go into X-ray and then be stitched and bandaged. By the time they’d finished, all the beds in the main ward were full, so Mum ended up in what they said was a disused office and Mum said was a broom cupboard.

  “It’s not very salubrious, I know,” the nurse said. “But needs must. We’re still going to keep you in for the night.”

  “But you can’t,” Mum protested weakly. “What about Poppy and Graham?”

  “Don’t worry,” the nurse told her. “The hospital social worker will sort that out. You’re going to need some pretty hefty painkillers; it’s a nasty injury. You’ll be in no fit state to look after them.”

  It turned out the nurse was right, because the minute she left the room, Mum started to doze off.

  “That workman looked familiar,” I said to Graham.

  “Did he? I didn’t notice.”

  We sat in silence for a while. I shut my eyes, trying to recall the workman’s face. The first thing that floated into my head was an image of the Inca ruins of Machu Picchu. Weird, I thought. I opened my eyes, gave my head a little shake and tried again. This time the Eiffel Tower floated across the inside of my closed lids. Thinking that my brain had been affected by the shock of seeing Mum apparently lifeless on the tarmac, I tried again. Pyramids marched through my head like a train of camels.

  For a moment I was tempted to give up. Then something stirred deep in the recesses of my memory. Photos. Snapshots on the wall. Exotic locations. A good-looking man smiling in all of them.

  Davy.

  Ricky’s brother. Mrs Pl
umtree’s other son.

  That workman had the same brilliant blue eyes as Davy. Impossible! It couldn’t really be him. Could it?

  “He looked like Davy,” I said to Graham.

  “No! But he’s in Peru, isn’t he?”

  “That’s what I thought. There was that photo of him…”

  Just then, Mum stirred and I said to her, as calmly as I could, “Where did the workman come from?”

  “I don’t know. Mrs Plumtree made the arrangements.”

  She fell asleep again.

  “It can’t have been Davy,” I said to Graham. “Mrs Plumtree would have said something. I’m being stupid. I must have got it wrong.”

  Graham didn’t answer. His face was showing signs of Deep Thought, so I just sat there and turned everything over in my head right from the beginning. I couldn’t make sense of it. Nothing tied up.

  Ricky. Brain-damaged since birth. Stayed at home while Davy travelled the world. But something snagged in my memory.

  Pearl had liked him. Loved him, even. She’d come over all wistful when she’d been talking about Ricky. And the way she’d spoken – it was the way Mum talked about me in old photographs taken when I was small – as if the baby and the toddler in the pictures was lost for ever. It was almost as if the child the old lady had known had disappeared. Vanished. I remembered her exact words: “Ricky changed the day Davy went travelling.” And then I’d had that weird feeling of lurking evil. I’d thought it was something to do with Mr Piper. Suppose I was wrong?

  At last Graham spoke. “It was curious that the workman was wearing that kind of mask,” he said thoughtfully. “They’re normally used where there’s asbestos. And there can’t possibly have been any of that in the car park. Which might suggest he was wearing it to conceal his true identity.”

  “But Davy’s in Peru. We saw the photograph.”

  Graham sighed. “Machu Picchu! I’d love to see the Inca ruins. They must be fascinating. They’re unofficially rated as the eighth Wonder of the World. I keep trying to persuade my mother to take me to South America, but she says it’s too expensive.”