Will stretched his arms out wide to keep himself awake, then stopped. He could have sworn he heard a loud whirring noise outside the window. It sounded like a helicopter. But that was impossible. Not at this time of night. And not so close to the school.
As he forced himself to focus on the next essay, a particularly lacklustre effort covered in coffee stains, the staff room door flew open and Grace Foley strode in. Grace was the deputy head, cool as a cucumber and one of the few members of staff with the nerve to stand up to the governors. Even though it was nearly eleven Grace looked immaculate. Most of the other women teachers chose practicality over style. Grace was the exact opposite. She wouldn’t have been seen dead in a frumpy skirt and cardigan. She always wore heels, had her auburn hair cut in a chic bob every six weeks and had a fondness for designer suits that clung to every curve. Will had spent enough time over the last few months working on fashion accounts to spot a Stella McCartney outfit at twenty paces. He knew there was no way Grace’s clothes came from the high street.
‘Did you hear that?’ he asked.
‘What?’
‘Outside. That noise. It sounded just like a chopper to me.’
‘Oh God. He hasn’t started that caper again, has he?’ groaned Grace, her irritation clear. ‘We’ve had so many complaints from the locals and I’ve told him countless times it’s got to stop. He’s the most arrogant man on the planet, but I really thought he’d taken notice after last time.’
Will frowned in frustration. He’d been at Downthorpe for a week and it felt like a foreign country. ‘I’m sorry, Grace, but I haven’t got a bloody clue what you’re talking about. Can you do me a favour and start from the beginning?’
Grace plonked her industrial-sized torch and notebook on a desk and marched across to the window. She pulled up the tattered blind and peered into the gloom.
‘Yep. I knew it. It’s Josef Bogdanov. What on earth are we going to do with the man? He thinks he can do anything, just because he owns half of Mayfair.’
Utterly bemused, Will rose from his chair and joined Grace at the window. Staring out into the pitch black, it was easy to spot the helicopter lights. The chopper was high above the school now, heading south east in the direction of Oxford.
‘What the hell’s going on?’ he muttered. He’d seen some odd things in his career but this beat the lot.
Grace slumped into a battered armchair next to the coffee urn. She loathed being on duty at night. The senior management team, all eight of them, shared the task but even so, her turn came round depressingly often. It wasn’t so bad in the winter when the pupils were less keen on venturing out after dark. But at this time of year the daring ones were always trying their luck. So far tonight she’d found a couple of sixth formers having a fag in the bushes beyond the front lawn, a dormitory of fourteen-year-olds tucking into a midnight feast (‘very Enid Blyton,’ she’d told them drily before confiscating the lot) and the head boy in flagrante with his new girlfriend.
She glanced at Will, wondering how much of this to tell him. Grace prided herself on being a shrewd judge of character but she hadn’t fathomed him out yet. She couldn’t work out whether he was going to be a tough boss or a laid-back one. Whether he’d leave the day-to-day running of the school to her, like the old head, or whether he’d want to micro-manage every last thing.
Will’s appointment as acting head halfway through the long summer holiday had surprised everyone at Downthorpe. For a start, no one had suspected that the previous headmaster’s life was unravelling at breakneck speed. Jono Rawlinson had been head at Downthorpe for ten years and was the sort of man everyone, staff and pupils alike, looked up to. They’d all thought his marriage was rock-solid too. But it turned out that his wife Rachel had been having an affair with the head of the history department for eighteen months. Rachel had told Jono she was leaving him on the last night of the summer term and she was gone by the next morning.
When Jono broke the news to the Downthorpe staff he’d insisted that Rachel’s departure wouldn’t affect his work and that it would be business as usual. But just a few days later Grace had bumped into him in the Co-op supermarket in Chipping Badcombe and he was a broken man.
Worse still, the governors convened an emergency meeting and voted to replace him. They set about finding an acting head fast and, deep down, Grace had hoped the governors would appoint her in Jono’s place. She’d been his deputy for two years after all and knew Downthorpe like the back of her hand. But, after days of deliberation, the governing body had called in a firm of city headhunters who’d recommended bringing in someone completely new. They’d certainly done that all right, thought Grace. Not only was Will Hughes new, but he had a CV that didn’t make any sense. He’d taught at comprehensive schools for years, working his way up from newly qualified teacher to deputy head. But then for some unknown reason he’d chucked it all in for a job in advertising. It was completely bizarre.
‘Look, Grace, I think we need to get a few things straight,’ said Will, his voice terse.
Grace stared at him, an insouciant expression on her face.
‘Sure. What sort of things?’
‘Well, if we’re going to stand a chance of getting this place back on track after the Jono Rawlinson affair, then you and I have to work as a team. You may think I’m a rough and ready outsider from London and you may not like the way I do things - but that’s tough. You’re going to have to grit your teeth and put up with me. So for starters, I want to know who’s flying that bloody helicopter over my school at this time of night. And why.’
Blimey, thought Grace. Maybe this was why the governors had appointed him in Jono’s place. He might have a charming exterior, but he was steelier than she’d realised. He was good looking too - tall and dark haired, with broad shoulders and a firm handshake. Will Hughes was going to stir things up around here. That was for sure.
‘You must have heard of Josef Bogdanov,’ said Grace. ‘He’s a multi-millionaire. Made his money from property. Anyway, his daughter Tatiana started at Downthorpe last year. She’s a sweet girl but she gets terribly homesick, so every now and again Bogdanov lands his helicopter on the playing fields and she goes rushing out to see him.’
Will’s face was grim. ‘Not any more,’ he said. ‘Not any more he doesn’t.’
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