Head Count

by Judith Cutler

  The gush of children from the playground had slowed to a tiny trickle when a car approached so fast I’d certainly have a word with the parent. But it was the driver who wanted a word with me: Matt Storm, already apologising for his speed so near to vulnerable pedestrians.

  ‘It was just that I wanted to catch you before you left,’ he said.

  ‘In that case you arrived with two or three hours to spare,’ I replied dryly. Waving the last child goodbye, I turned to usher him into the school. Rightly, Donna asked him to sign in.

  He raised a disdainful eyebrow. ‘At this time of day?’

  ‘It’s school policy for every visitor whatever time of the working day. Which lasts till at least five-thirty,’ she added, unconsciously echoing me.

  The point was made further by a burst of laughter from the staffroom as we walked past.

  He looked approvingly round my office. ‘Lady Preston said you’d had this done up.’

  ‘Correction: I did it up. It’s not exactly the Sistine Chapel so I thought I could manage it. Take a seat and tell me how I can help you.’

  ‘Lady Preston was so impressed by what you were doing with the children yesterday she’s told me she’d like to help. The running. I think we can get permission to mow just a swathe of the meadowland short enough for them to use. I’m looking into it, anyway.’

  ‘Thank you. And thank Lady Preston.’ I got to my feet. ‘Sadly there’s still no sign of her paintings.’

  He got to his. ‘Tell you what, Jane – I’ve never been in a village school like this: would you mind if I wandered round?’

  I would. Very much. This was teachers’ private time. On the other hand, good community relations were always worth cultivating, so I turned on my most public smile. ‘Let’s start with the hall, shall we?’

  ‘It’s all very plain,’ he said as I led the way. ‘I always thought there’d be children’s paintings on the walls everywhere. There were at my prep school.’

  ‘There will be here, soon. But as you can see the walls everywhere have recently been painted, and there’s no new artwork ready yet. Having your work put up has to be an honour to be worked for, not just routine. That’d make it too like their kitchen at home.’ We shared a non-parental laugh.

  ‘No photos of the children either.’

  ‘There will be.’

  He clicked his fingers. ‘I could do that for you. Take the snaps. And print them off. Tomorrow?’

  ‘Brilliant! Hang on, better make it – say – next Monday, so the parents can make sure they’re all spruce in their cleanest bibs and tuckers. Do you need any equipment?’ I was thinking of the backdrops and other paraphernalia other photographers had always had to drag into school.

  ‘I’ll bring everything. No problem. Nine?’

  ‘That’d be terrific. Just one thing,’ I added, as I moved him gently but inexorably to the front door, ‘can you bring your DBS certificate with you when you come?’

  ‘Sure. Er … not quite sure where it is.’

  Or even what it was, I’d be bound. ‘You could probably get a copy from the Disclosure and Barring Service,’ I said brightly, ‘though they’d probably want to you pay for it.’

  ‘Surely I don’t need it just for an hour’s work?’

  He probably didn’t. ‘I’ll check and text you.’ Why was I being awkward? ‘What’s your number?’

  Now he was the one playing games. He made a great show of patting down his shirt and jeans. ‘Look. I’ll call Donna and fix it with her, shall I?’

  ‘That’d be great. Just to warn you, first thing in the morning’s always best – before cuts and bruises and torn trousers. See you – and thanks again!’

  Donna, who’d have been able to hear everything I’d said, looked at me quizzically when I popped back into her office. ‘DBS certificate for taking a few photos? Are you sure? Even Maggie Hale wasn’t that punctilious. Not always, anyway.’

  ‘After the stuff that went on back in Wrayford, I want every “i” dotted, Donna. Especially when I don’t know anyone properly. Mind you, even knowing someone and liking them doesn’t mean they’re not villains.’

  ‘Doesn’t Hamlet say something like that?’ she asked sunnily.

  How many school secretaries would ask a question like that?

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  I’d never had a Twitter account or Facebook page, lest I drop the slightest clue that could alert Simon to my whereabouts. But if ever a woman needed one I did now. On the other hand, aged umpires probably didn’t tweet either, so I needn’t waste time repining. Or should I do the obvious thing and get young Geraint and Carys on to the case for me? I sent a conventional email explaining the situation to Jo and Lloyd, with a further apology for dropping in on them so precipitately last night.

  Before Jo could even receive it, however, she buzzed at the school door, and Donna, on her way out, let her in.

  ‘What’s all this about you and Will, then?’ she asked, plonking herself in one of the visitors’ chairs.

  ‘Like Pat, he’s a serving officer working on a case in which I’m involved, just about possibly as a perpetrator, but more likely as a victim. So what else can I say? I know,’ I added in response to her cynically raised eyebrow, ‘that you’d love me to gush about roses round my new front door. Actually, that’s a good idea – I’ll ask Ed to plant some when he gets to landscape my garden.’

  Her eyes rounded: ‘Two eligible young men!’

  ‘Possibly three. A fellow umpire invited me over to his place down in Churcham. Speaking of umpires—’

  ‘Wow. And what does Brian Dawes have to say about that?’

  ‘Would it sound terribly pompous to say I neither know nor care? Actually, he’s kept a very low profile recently – maybe he’s given up on me. But about umpires, Jo – I’ve just emailed you, first to grovel about my bedtime arrival last night and secondly to ask you to enlist Carys and Geraint in a search for one for Saturday.’

  ‘Is it all in the email? Right, I’m sure they’ll do it. You might be elderly and worst of all a friend of ours, but they reckon you’re OK. But tell me about Will.’

  ‘I like him. I’d like him even more if he told me what was going on at the bungalow after the fire last night. Nothing all day.’

  ‘It’s possible he doesn’t know. There’s some big meeting today for DIs and above about budgets and mergers of ranks and all sorts: he’s probably doing Elaine’s job as well as his. Lloyd’s just glad he’s lowly enough to be out of it.’ She stared at a point midway between us. ‘The thing is, Jane, if he ever were made redundant or anything, I’d have to look for a full-time post.’

  ‘I don’t think you’d have to look far, Jo. An experienced maths teacher on the loose? You’d be fending off a dozen head teachers at least. Actually,’ I said seriously, ‘would it help if I found you some more hours? I could certainly justify them in terms of educational need – here at Episcopi if not at Wrayford. One of the areas the inspectors picked up on was weak maths teaching. We’re doing our best. But if small schools like this are to stand a chance of surviving, we need to be considered outstanding in as many areas as possible.’

  ‘We’re OK, just now. No worries at all. But … What age group?’

  ‘All! Year One and Year Five particularly. Whichever would help your CV most.’

  ‘I’ll talk to Lloyd. So really no good news about you and Will?’ She looked genuinely disappointed.

  It would be wonderful to be straight and honest with her. And why not? ‘We get on. We like each other. But he’s so … He seems very careful what he talks about. It’s a very present tense relationship, with no mention of his past and no speculation about a future. I know I’m cagey, Jo, but I’m an amateur compared with him.’

  Her face was as serious as mine. ‘I could ask Lloyd for all the gossip – and I’m sure there’s plenty. But I guess you’d rather hear everything from Will himself? ’Course you would. OK, I’ll have to fix another curry night! Or not?’


  I spread my hands. ‘Not just yet. I don’t think either of us would want to be railroaded into anything. Let’s just wait till this particular case is over, and we’ll see what happens then.’

  She threw her head back in an uninhibited roar. ‘Oh, Jane, I’m sure all sorts of things will happen, and you may see a lot more of Will. A lot! But you may still know nothing at all about his past!’

  Pam was just letting herself into her house as I drove past it on the way home. A cup of tea was clearly on the cards, so long, as she said herself, we could talk as the kettle boiled – though most of what she said concerned the less than perfect state of her kitchen. And then the mess in her living room.

  ‘I’m not some inspector!’ Privately I thought she would have to deal with unwashed dishes and a pile of old Daily Mails before she’d want any social workers to come and assess her.

  At last we sat down.

  ‘He’s better. There’s no need for me to stay over with him tonight, because he’s agreed to stay with a really nice woman. Just for a bit, we’re both saying. Zunaid and me, that is. Until I can get this place childproof, for a start. But Dawud – he had me in tears last night, after Zunaid was settled – was saying he really thought he’d be better long term with an Arab family. “Nothing against you, Pam,” he said, “but round here they just don’t get the culture. So he’d be fine at home with you and at school, and I’m dead sure everyone would be nice to him – but he needs to know about his roots and his religion and know about them from people who live and breathe them, not just read about them in books.”’

  I held her hand. ‘But this would mean—?’

  ‘In the short term, they promise that Zunaid can keep coming to this school and start staying overnight when I’ve got a bed and everything for him. And a social worker, not that Marina Foster woman, says she knows of a charity that might give me a small grant for that, not that I won’t find the money myself if I have to. Meanwhile, they’ll try and find out if he’s got any extended family – is that the right word? – here in England. If he has, and they can take him in, then – well, if it’s best for Zunaid, I’ll just have to live with it, won’t I? Because I love him.’ She stopped to gulp tea. I found tissues for us both in my bag. ‘Anyway, I’ll make a start clearing out that room tonight, so we can make the best of it till he has to go to Leeds or Manchester or wherever.’ She made them sound as if they were in deep space. ‘And maybe he’ll be able to come and see me – in the school holidays or whatever.’

  ‘Of course he will. Did he say anything,’ I asked at last, ‘about how he came to be injured? Not to mention how Georgy came to be with him?’

  ‘I tried, Jane, don’t think I didn’t try. And Dawud – he had quite a go at him. All he’d say was what we know: that a dog went for him and Georgy hit the dog with a stone and a kind woman stopped to help. And nothing more could we get out of him. He denies knowing the third little boy at all, so he’s just been taken off to a ready-made foster home, if you see what I mean. Zunaid got really upset – we had to stop. And then he had nightmares about it – it’s a good job I was beside him really to love him better. But someone, if you ask me, has put the frighteners on him.’

  ‘Who on earth—? He’s just a child!’

  She gave a shrug a Frenchwoman would have been proud of.

  ‘Did he say anything about his family?’

  ‘Not a lot. Dawud and I thought he was trying to avoid answering. As if he was afraid that if he said anything they’d come to harm. Dawud said that this had happened to him. If he complained about the people-smugglers, his folk back in Syria would suffer. Oh, Jane, what that poor lad has endured. Dawud, I mean. I wish I could be his granny too. People should be ashamed, treating humans like so many animals – no, worse than animals. Putting them in boats and towing them out to sea and leaving them to hope they’re picked up. Terrible. And then getting here – no money, just a bare living … It’s been an eye-opener to me, I tell you. I thought’ – she glanced at the papers – ‘that they were like that man Paine said, scroungers, coming here to find a cushy number at our expense. Well, if I see that bugger again, pardon my French, I shall give him what for!’ She drained her tea. ‘Now, this sounds very rude, Jane, but just now I prefer room to your company. I’ve got work to do. That bedroom.’

  I thought of all the admin I had to complete for tomorrow, not to mention the food shop that was becoming quite urgent. I thought of my smart work suit and good shoes. ‘Come on, I’ll give you a hand.’

  Which is how I came to run into Will by the chilled meals section in Ashford Sainsbury’s at ten o’clock at night.

  We fetched up in an Indian restaurant where Will said the food was usually respectable. Sadly on this occasion our fellow diners were not – not in their present boozy state, anyway. We didn’t even want to hang around for a takeaway, so bowed out to a series of catcalls. Eventually we picked up fish and chips, which we ate in Will’s car in the Vicarage Lane car park. He made a couple of calls to suggest someone might want to breathalyse the boozers, but, as he said, more in hope than expectation. ‘We simply don’t have enough boots on the ground to deal with every set of pissheads. Not in towns like this, anyway. And things aren’t going to get any better. Not that I’m supposed to say that. Maintaining public trust and morale are paramount. No, is paramount. Sorry. Christ, Jane, I joined the police to catch criminals, not spout fatuous policy. And now we seem to be talking shop again, I can tell you that a lot of accelerant was found all over the bungalow site, but no sign of any bodies. Not so far. There’ll be a further examination tomorrow, with luck, to see if any bodies were buried in the garden. And I have to warn you that Harry’s Fiesta hasn’t been picked up by any cameras since the day you went back to thank them. That’s a long time. Sorry.’

  ‘So am I. They seemed to be decent people. And they were kind to me.’ I scrunched up my chip paper. ‘It’s too late to update you on Zunaid now, Will, but I’m happy to at a more civilised time.’

  ‘Saturday? Lots arising from today’s meeting …’

  ‘Saturday’s fine. Except in the afternoon I shall be umpiring the last cricket match for our village team this season. Provided they find another umpire to stand with me. I don’t suppose you know any masochist who’d like to join me?’

  ‘I might. I just might.’

  ‘In that case you can both come to the party at the pub afterwards.’

  ‘Deal. I’ll be in touch. And before you argue, you’ll find I’m tailing you home. Just in case. OK?’

  ‘OK. Thanks. Really. Thank you.’

  What if he kissed me?

  What if I kissed him?

  Too late. Too complicated.

  To be honest, too tired.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  The weekend at last. And, with no thanks to Ed and the team who were supposed to be on the case, and actually no thanks to Carys and Geraint’s undoubted efforts, we had the right number of umpires. We owed everything to a police contact of Will’s, who gave up chasing online paedophiles for a day to officiate with me. Not that anyone was to know his daytime job: if anyone asked he was ‘something to do with computers’. Which had the benefit of being true, of course. Robin was Mr Average in everything – height, build, somewhere between forty and fifty, and with a vaguely Midlands accent. And it turned out he was Mr Elaine Carberry, the officer who’d been in charge of the Glebe Wood operation.

  So the match was going ahead. And with fine September weather forecast, and the promise of a party afterwards, we expected more than the one man and his dog that often made up the entire crowd. The loos apart, the school was out of bounds, but since I had all the keys I could invite Robin to my office – Tom’s office too, of course – to check all the paraphernalia umpires carry, from scissors to trim bits of frayed leather from the ball to tissues to remove flies from eyes. I counted the six smooth pebbles I always transfer from one pocket to another each time a ball is bowled: I didn’t want five- or seven-bowl overs on my
watch. He did the same, asking for a pencil sharpener to improve the stub of pencil for his notebook. He passed it to me to do the same. Mobile phones – just in case. Properly equipped, we could establish our general policy with regard to lbw and other possibly contentious decisions.

  ‘What’s your rule of thumb?’ he asked, eyeing our wall-planner. ‘Golly, you work some hours, don’t you?’

  ‘If in doubt, give not out. And the umpire’s decision is final, unless my fellow umpire thinks I’ve called it wrong. I make a point of conferring so long as my fellow umpire does me the same courtesy.’

  ‘Some don’t, I take it? No, I needn’t ask. How do you deal with dissent?’

  ‘Tell the captain to stop it. If it’s the captain complaining, then I have been known to threaten to abort the match. Just the once. Horrible.’

  He nodded glumly. ‘It’s time cricket had the same red and yellow card system as other games, if you ask me. I had this guy grab me by the shirt collar the other week – nigh on choked me. No, no one tried to intervene. And I won’t do kids’ games any more, not after this parent landed me in hospital for giving his lad out one short of his fifty.’

  I commiserated with tales of my own experiences: not just generally patronising language but some highly sexist behaviour alongside physical threat. ‘Why do we do it, Robin?’

  ‘Love of the game,’ he said with a smile that lit up his whole face.

  A lot of team members’ partners were sitting round the boundary. If he counted as such, Will was sitting next to Elaine. Surrounded by cool bags, a gaggle of women – the tea crew was almost inevitably female – had set up tables near the school building, ready to lay out food and brew up. Others looked after children, many of whom were already bored with the concept of cricket and shinning all over our playground equipment, bought with funds raised by our PTA. It would be good if the Episcopi PTA could make a similar effort, because whichever way I looked at our budget I couldn’t see it stretching to that sort of non-essential expenditure – but that would probably mean an unlikely truce between me and Gerry Paine. Meanwhile, of course, I had the pleasure of umpiring his brother Dennis to look forward to. At least it was someone else’s job to worry about prioritising parking in our small staff car park and on the road outside. Predictably ordinary saloons were outnumbered probably four to one by 4x4s of various makes. SUVs? Yes, three of them, too. I was too far away to check if one bore the scar left by my bike; in any case, surely that would have been resprayed long ago. Meanwhile, St Luke’s Bay were just arriving in three minibuses – quite a lot of support, then.