I wondered if I should tell the police this aspect of Mike’s history, but was it my place? There was no suggestion that money had been involved in the crime itself, and I didn’t even know if he was still gambling. Maybe our break-up had been the catalyst he had needed to stop for good, and I would be maligning him by bringing it all up again.
I looked around the entrance hall and wondered what would happen to the school now. Such a major failure in safeguarding procedures could put the whole place at risk. It would be a huge blow if it closed, both for the past students who remembered it fondly and for those potential future students who wouldn’t get the benefit of its existence. Schools for the deaf were becoming rarer, with most deaf children attending their local mainstream school, but I felt there should always be an option, an alternative choice for deaf children and their parents. Many children could thrive in their local schools, but others needed the tailored curriculum and environment a school like this could offer. Where would the current students go if it closed? Would they go to their local schools? Would the five students in care end up in a children’s home, in an environment where others struggled to communicate with them?
I didn’t want to shatter Anna’s memories of the school by telling her about the safeguarding concerns, but I knew she would probably read it herself soon enough, so I decided to be proactive and sent her the link before I set off.
Almost immediately, I got a text back from her.
I’ve already seen it. I need to talk to you when you get home.
I was about to send a reply when Samira appeared in the doorway, her eyes wide with distress.
Please could you come over to the residence? she asked, looking at Singh. Something’s happened.
Chapter 24
Singh and I hurried after Samira, wondering what had happened. Was one of the students hurt? Sasha was there and she let us in, then she and Samira led us upstairs to Leon’s room. The door was ajar, and when we looked inside the room was in a state. Drawers had been opened and their contents strewn everywhere, the mattress was tipped on its side and the bed had been moved away from the wall.
Samira found Leon’s room like this, Sasha explained.
‘Who has access to the residence during the school day?’ Singh asked.
All the staff, and the students who live here, though strictly speaking they shouldn’t be here between nine and three.
‘Is there any way of knowing who entered the building?’
Sasha frowned. I think there are CCTV cameras. You’d better ask Liz about that.
Singh nodded. ‘I will.’
He went into Leon’s room and started having a look around, leaving me out on the landing.
I haven’t told Miss Marcek, Samira told me, looking flustered. I was coming to tell her when I saw you, so obviously I told you first.
I stuck my head in the door and asked Singh if Samira could go. He came back out and fixed her with a stern look.
‘Why were you here, Samira? You don’t board, so you shouldn’t even be in the residence.’
The girl shrugged and wouldn’t look at him. I wanted to have a look in Leon’s room, see if I could work out where he might have gone. I miss him.
‘How did you get in?’ he asked.
Samira blinked at him then looked down at her feet. The door was open. Whoever left last must not have closed it properly.
Singh didn’t look convinced, but he nodded anyway.
‘You can go and tell Miss Marcek now. We’ll find you if we need to speak to you again.’
Samira glanced at Sasha before she left, but the social worker was busy looking past me into Leon’s room. While I waited for Singh, I wandered over to the window on the landing and looked outside. The back of the residence was next to the sports field, and as I watched I saw a group of students approaching. It must have been break time, unless Kian, Bradley, Courtney and Cassie had all decided to skip classes at the same time.
The four of them stopped a short distance away, but a little too far away for me to pick up everything they were signing.
… Joe? Courtney signed.
I only told them a little bit, Kian replied.
Don’t have a go at him, how was he to know? Bradley interjected.
I couldn’t see Courtney’s reply, and Cassie was just standing and watching the rest of them before getting involved in the conversation.
… tomorrow, she signed. I kicked myself for not being able to catch what she’d said.
That’s stupid, Bradley responded.
Cassie turned as she replied to him. Don’t call me stupid. I’m the least stupid person here.
Yeah, whatever.
The older girl shook her head and turned back to Courtney and Kian.
Mr Wilkinson didn’t …
Yes he did, Kian replied. We all know he did. We need to tell someone.
No, Courtney replied. That’s a bad idea. We’ll all be in trouble.
I was wrenched away from observing the rest of the conversation by the arrival of the deputy head. She looked past me, out of the window, and frowned when she saw the four students standing together.
Sasha, go and chase those four back to class, please. I don’t know what they’re doing there but it’s probably nothing useful.
Sasha looked like she was about to protest, but then glanced out of the window to see who Liz was talking about. When she realised which four students it was she sighed then headed down the stairs, and Liz went into Leon’s room to see DS Singh. I followed.
What on earth happened in here? she asked, her eyes roving over the disarray. Did someone break in?
‘That’s what we want to ask you,’ Singh replied. ‘We need to check the CCTV from outside the building. There are no obvious signs of a break-in, so we assume it was someone with authorised access to the building. Does the school keep a log of who has entered the building and when?’
No, we can probably see when someone used a fob, but they’re not individually identifiable. The deputy head wore a concerned frown. How do we know if anything has been taken?
‘I don’t think we can, without asking Leon himself.’
Could it have been Leon? Miss Marcek asked. Could he have crept back in here to get something from his room?
‘I doubt he would have left it in such a mess,’ Singh replied. ‘Even if he didn’t know where he’d left whatever he was looking for, he probably wouldn’t have wanted to leave any trace of himself. No, I think this is most likely someone else.’ He looked around him, hands on his hips. ‘Can we find out if any students were out of class today?’
I’m sure I would have been informed of any truancy, but I’ll check, Liz replied.
I thought about Cassie and Mike talking earlier and wondered if it was connected. Could one of them be responsible for this? I remembered the look on Mike’s face when I had interfered and decided I wouldn’t mention it just yet; I didn’t want to wind him up unnecessarily. I didn’t trust him not to retaliate.
The three of us left Leon’s room and I had a quick glance out of the window again before we went downstairs. The four students were still there, but they’d moved, and Sasha was now with them. She was signing something to them, but they didn’t seem to be taking much notice of her. I wished I’d been able to observe more of their conversation; I was sure there was something they were keeping from the police, something to do with Joe.
‘Hi Paige.’
I turned to see Mike behind me as I was walking to my car.
‘Hi. Sorry, I can’t talk. I’m not needed any more so I’m going home.’
‘You can’t be earning very much if they waste your time like this,’ he said, continuing to walk towards me. ‘I was surprised when I heard you’d gone freelance. How are you managing, doing it all yourself?’
‘Perfectly well.’ I had to resist telling him I had months when I was scraping around for every penny, but I bit my tongue. My financial difficulties were his doing, and part of me wanted to throw that in h
is face, but my current situation was nothing to do with him, and I didn’t want him to have any information that he could somehow twist to use against me if he wanted to.
‘What’s up, Paige? Why are you being so rude?’
‘I’m sorry you interpret my attitude as rude,’ I said, ‘but I just told you, I’m leaving.’
‘I thought if you’d finished work for the day we’d finally be able to talk. You owe me that at least.’
I turned to face him, arms folded. ‘What do you mean, I owe you?’
‘I know we didn’t have the best break-up, but you have to admit that I came off worse. You made me homeless and left me with nothing, when I had no idea you were even unhappy. If we’d talked about it, maybe things could have been different. I’m sure you’ve moved on now, but I thought we could at least be friendly, show an interest in each other’s lives.’
I couldn’t stop myself from rolling my eyes, and the moment I did I knew I’d made a mistake, because he took a step closer to me, making me uncomfortable.
‘Don’t roll your eyes at me, Paige, it’s rude. I’ve apologised and I’m trying to understand things from your perspective, but you’re not helping.’
I refused to rise to the bait and didn’t respond other than by raising my eyebrows. For a moment we stood there, almost nose to nose, until he laughed and turned away.
‘Good to see you’re even more spirited than you used to be. I’ve missed that about you,’ he said, reaching out as if to touch my face. I deflected his hand before he could reach me, and he laughed again. It wasn’t a pleasant sound.
‘Don’t touch me,’ I said, hoping the tone of my voice was warning enough. I regretted it instantly; I should have realised someone like Mike would take that as a challenge.
He smirked. ‘You’re probably used to having men touch you, I’m sure.’
I didn’t respond. I wasn’t going to rise to it. Looking over his shoulder, I hoped Singh or even Liz Marcek would appear again soon and give me an excuse to get away from him.
Following my line of sight, Mike stepped back for a moment and leant on my car.
‘So, what are you actually doing here?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I’m sure the police are able to employ better qualified people to interpret for them. That’s the thing about you CODAs, you all assume you’re better than other hearing people who can sign.’
Before he met me, Mike wouldn’t have known what a CODA was – a child of deaf adults, meaning a hearing child brought up in a deaf family, usually using BSL. The part of me that wasn’t desperately thinking of a way to get away from him was interested that he’d now picked up on this as a way to insult and undermine me.
‘I’m here because I’m on the contact list should Humberside police need a qualified interpreter.’
I couldn’t resist the dig about being qualified, after what he’d said. He was the sort of person who always assumed he was better at everything than the next man or woman, even if that person had spent years training and gained far more experience than he had.
He nodded slowly. ‘I see, I see. Fine, don’t tell me what it’s really about.’
I took a step to the side and looked round him again. For a moment I considered going inside to look for someone, anyone, but Mike would follow me in there and he knew the building far better than me. He was leaning on the driver’s side door, so I couldn’t just get in my car and drive away.
‘How long have you been working here, then?’ I asked him. Several years ago I had learnt that the best way to deflect Mike was to ask him to talk about himself.
‘Three years,’ he replied. As long as we’d been broken up, then. ‘I thought I might as well put my skills to good use. I’ve always been good with kids, I’m the sort of person they look up to.’ He beamed at me, and I could see him puff his chest out a little. God he was self-centred. And he honestly believed every word he said about himself.
‘I hadn’t taken any BSL exams before I started, but the head at the time could see how good a candidate I was. I did them as a formality, really.’
No mention of who it was that taught him to sign in the first place, then. I was surprised that someone as astute as Jane Villiers hadn’t seen through Mike’s arrogance, but maybe she’d hoped there was buried potential.
‘But enough about me,’ he continued. ‘What about you? Are you seeing anyone?’
The sudden switch of topic startled me. ‘I’d rather not talk about my personal life,’ I replied, not making eye contact with him.
‘So, you are seeing someone. Otherwise you would have just said no.’
I did my best to keep my face neutral. I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of reacting to his comments.
‘Who is he?’
I ignored him and continued to look past him, but he moved so his face was right in front of mine.
‘I said, who is he? You know I’ll find out, so it’s easier if you tell me now.’
For once, I looked him in the eyes, and tried to stare him down. The last three years had strengthened me far more than I had realised, and I held his gaze for a full five seconds before I couldn’t stand it any more. Dropping my eyes, I shook my head, refusing to answer.
He made an exasperated noise, then turned to see Singh walking towards us.
‘Good to catch up with you,’ Mike said to me, flashing me his most charming smile, which he then turned on the DS. Before he reached us, Mike turned round and sauntered away, shooting a look back at me over his shoulder that made me shiver.
‘What was that all about?’ Singh asked in a low voice, and I wondered how much he’d heard.
I shook my head. ‘Nothing.’
‘It didn’t look like nothing.’
‘It’s fine. I can handle him.’
‘Paige, if there’s anything you want to talk about …’ Singh didn’t finish the sentence, but I knew what he was thinking.
I took a deep breath. ‘It’s fine,’ I repeated, remembering Mike’s apology. Was he genuinely trying to make amends, but lapsing back into old patterns of behaviour, or was it all a calculated plan to suck me back in? I wasn’t sure any more.
Nine hours before the murder
Steve’s phone vibrated on the table, and a smile spread across his face as he read the message from Jess. It went completely against his own better judgement to date a member of staff, but he couldn’t help himself around her. Sometimes he felt like he’d been powerless to resist her, though she insisted he was the one who’d seduced her.
‘Someone’s popular,’ Mike commented. He’d been hunched over on one of the sofas all evening, and now the students were in bed Steve had been hoping Mike would disappear as well. He didn’t like the man, found his attitude disturbing at times, and was hoping he could find a way to reallocate his role. Though if he really had caught Mike stealing from the students earlier, that would give him the perfect excuse to fire him on the spot. He needed more proof.
Mike got up and came to stand next to Steve. ‘Who keeps texting you then? Girlfriend?’
Steve made a non-committal noise and carried on with the paperwork he’d brought with him. The phone buzzed again, and his hand shot out, but Mike was faster.
‘What the fuck? Jess? Are you sleeping with Jess?’
‘What I do on my own time is none of your business,’ Steve replied, keeping his voice as mild as he could.
‘It is when you’re sleeping with my fucking girlfriend.’
‘Please will you mind your language while we’re on a school trip.’
‘The kids are in bed, now answer my fucking question.’ Mike was standing too close to him, arms folded, jaw clenched. This was the last thing Steve needed, but he wasn’t going to let the man intimidate him.
Standing and facing up to Mike, he looked him straight in the eye. ‘Your relationship with Jess was over some time ago. You have no right to know what she or I are doing.’
‘So, you are sleeping with her. You
bastard.’
Steve ducked as Mike swung for him, but grabbed his arm and knocked him off balance.
‘Remember who you’re speaking to,’ Steve growled. ‘Attempt to hit me again and I’ll have you arrested. As it is, you’d better start looking for another job.’
Mike snarled at him but didn’t reply, instead turning on his heel and walking out of the cabin’s front door, into the night.
Chapter 25
Saturday 1st December
When I arrived home the previous afternoon, Anna had flown at me the moment I walked through the door.
Who was it? Which member of staff?
You know I can’t talk to you about this, I told her, weary from the last few days. Is that what you wanted to talk to me about?
Was it Mike? she asked, her eyes gleaming.
What? No! He’s not a paedophile. How can you even suggest that?
She shrugged. As far as I’m concerned he’s a complete and utter bastard, so I wouldn’t put anything past him.
I sat down and pulled my shoes off, taking a deep breath before I replied. I was reminded of how Jess had reacted to the suggestion that Steve had been grooming Leon. Was I doing the same thing?
It wasn’t Mike, I told her. Is that what you needed me to talk about?
She shook her head. I sent the story to Jane Villiers, and she asked if you would go and see her again tomorrow.
Just me? I asked, puzzled.
That’s what she said, Anna replied with a shrug. Maybe she knows something and wants you to pass it on to the police.
If she’s got something to report to the police she should contact them herself, I replied. I’m not a go-between.
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