Head Wound

by Judith Cutler

  Until the screaming started again. The vixen, I told myself. I couldn’t see her anywhere, but hoped, when a sudden, blessed silence fell, that Enid had been accurate with her hosepipe.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Jess was less assured in her position as my deputy than Tom, but since she’d been in the Wrayford Episcopi school for such a very short time, I was sure she’d grow in confidence soon enough – and what better way to find what you can do than to be dropped into the deep end? Not that she’d be there very long – but whereas she could have contacted me while I was in those endless meetings, my phone would be out of bounds while I was seeing the specialist support officer I’d been allocated.

  The education department hadn’t been over the moon to learn I was having what the irritating woman at the end of the phone referred to as mental health issues, but I assured her that the governors of both schools had promised to be supportive in any way necessary.

  I wasn’t a stranger to the therapy process, of course, which I always found a bit like root canal work for the psyche – not nice but very necessary. I left feeling wrung out but knowing I could deal with what had happened.

  What about Lules? How would she deal with it all? I just hoped her father wouldn’t turn the process into being about him and his money rather than the expertise of whoever was treating her. I also hoped her friends wouldn’t lure her into joining them in some of the stupid behaviour they’d indulged in a couple of days ago. But whatever they were up to wasn’t my problem for the next hour or so.

  It was dusk when I set out for Little Orchard Close, which I did with startlingly little enthusiasm. As always I slowed down when I headed into the village, with or without the promptings of the Speed Watch team. Had those attacked by the van yobs the other day recovered? Once again I metaphorically hung my head in shame: an email to them wouldn’t have cost much effort.

  It might cost some effort to stop and speak to Izzie, who was standing at the gate of the vicarage looking hopefully up and down the road. But I did.

  ‘You look frozen.’

  ‘I am, I am. And goodness knows where Graham’s got to. I came to see how things were going. At least it’s empty now, quite empty. The cleaners will start work soon, and they say we can move at the end of next week, maybe. And the police have finished with the garden – one of the team says she knows a man who’ll dig the rest of it to match and lay a lawn and stuff. And I dare say everything will be fine when our furniture and bits and pieces are in.’

  ‘I’m glad you’re feeling so positive.’

  ‘You’ve no idea how hard it is.’

  ‘It is hard. Very hard. As I know all too well.’

  ‘Yes, but it was a tree that damaged yours.’

  ‘There was a police investigation there too,’ I said gently. ‘Now, why not phone or text Graham and come and wait in the warm in my temporary base? It’s only five minutes down the road.’

  Her lips thinned. ‘I said I’d wait for him here so here I must be.’

  I was just getting back into my car when a text came through from Jess. Could I drop by if I had a moment?

  Sighing, I replied that I was on my way. At least I didn’t have to go back to that empty house for a bit longer.

  Jess was sitting in my office with Cecily and Kayleigh when I arrived. Jess personified calm, implacable authority. The girls, ostensibly demure and penitent, actually exuded the opposite, with latent smirks on their faces. Jess stood immediately, offering me her seat. The girls, against all the school rules, didn’t.

  Jess challenged them with a silent eyebrow. They stood.

  ‘Good afternoon, Ms Rhodes. Good afternoon, girls. Cecily, will you move that chair to this side of the table, please, so Ms Rhodes can sit down. Thank you.’

  ‘That only leaves one chair between us,’ Kayleigh protested.

  ‘So it does. But it won’t be a problem, will it, because you can both stand while you tell Ms Cowan what you’ve been doing wrong.’

  ‘But—’ A nudge from her friend silenced Kayleigh.

  Very well, divide and rule time.

  Jess had the same idea. ‘So, Cecily, let’s start with you. What have you done and why?’

  Tears started to well up. Big, convincing tears – but some girls could produce them as a party trick.

  ‘Would you like me to invite your parents in now − they’re waiting in my classroom, Ms Cowan, with Hazel Roberts and another governor − or would you prefer to explain in private?’ Jess managed to combine steely with sympathetic.

  ‘I’m very sorry, Ms Cowan.’

  ‘Thank you, Cecily. Could you tell me what you’re sorry for?’

  To my amazement Jess gripped my hand under the desk. But it was good to have someone beside me. This was bad news for everyone, not least the perpetrators.

  ‘Getting my sister to tweet, Ms Cowan. About you. But Ms Rhodes made me tell her to take it down. So I did. Then she took away my phone.’

  Which she wasn’t supposed to bring to school anyway.

  ‘What about me?’

  ‘About you being mad. Like Lules.’

  ‘Lules is mad?’ I asked quietly.

  ‘Must be, if she’s seeing a shrink. And you’re seeing the same one.’

  I folded my hands on the desk. ‘Tell me, Cecily, if Lulabelle had a sore throat and been taken to a doctor, would you have tweeted about that? If I’d twisted my ankle on our morning run, would you have tweeted about that? Would you, Kayleigh? Why not?’

  Kayleigh broke first. ‘Cos that’s boring stuff, miss − Ms Cowan,’ she said, with insulting emphasis. ‘Not like being mad, is it?’

  ‘Your best friend has had an experience no one, child or adult, should have to endure, and is now being supported by specialist police officers. And you think you should tell the world she’s mad?’

  Cecily put in, ‘Not Lules, miss. She’s our friend. You. Only you’re not really crazy, are you? I suppose.’

  ‘You’d have to ask the police officer whom I spoke to this afternoon. I think the term for what both of us are experiencing is post-traumatic stress. Meanwhile I think we should talk to your families. There’s not enough room here so we’ll adjourn to the classroom where they’re waiting. After you, Ms Rhodes.’

  ‘It was a joke, wasn’t it?’ Kayleigh’s mother said, her middle-class vowels and smart outfit clearly used to winning each battle. ‘And in any case, I can’t see why you’ve got a problem with my daughter because it was Cecily that did it.’

  ‘I’m not sure the police will see it that way,’ Hazel Roberts said, who had taken the teacher’s chair. I was happy for her to take the lead. The whole business had rocked me, because I could see all sorts of repercussions for the children. And, let’s face it, for me. So I sat on like the others on undersized chairs around a bank of child-sized tables hastily gathered into the middle of a room bright with charts and children’s artwork, all far too happy and normal for the current scene.

  ‘Police? Why the fucking police?’ Cecily’s father demanded.

  Me too, silently. Police? Overkill, surely!

  ‘Because both Ms Cowan and Lulabelle were affected by seeing the result of a most terrible crime, the perpetrators of which will one day come to court, we hope. And having’ – Hazel spread her hand as if physically grasping for the right word – ‘having this appalling tripe put into the public domain may affect the way the trial proceeds.’ Hazel might look like an archetypal sweet old lady, but her delivery was steely.

  ‘No, we can keep the cops out of it!’ he insisted.

  Hazel shook her head, calmly and quietly ignoring sundry interjections as she spoke. ‘I have to notify them, though technically I believe any charges would be against Cecily’s sister, whom I should imagine will hear from Ms Cowan’s lawyers too. Meanwhile, it goes without saying that both girls are suspended till we discover the extent of the damage they’ve done. They must not speak about this in public or even to their friends – is that clear? And especially
not on social media or to the press or TV. The education department legal team may well be involved too, on Ms Cowan’s behalf.’

  I nodded: yes, I understood all too well that my employers might seek to cut me off to protect themselves. But all they would learn from my face was that I was coldly infuriated.

  Hazel hadn’t finished. ‘There will also be bills for repair to the school fabric, which has already been defaced with disgusting graffiti. This is more serious than you can possibly imagine, I’m afraid. I think that that is all we can achieve today.’ She rose slowly, but as if she meant to, not because she was waiting for a second hip transplant. I knew she was in pain, but not so much as a flicker of a grimace crossed her face. ‘I was mistaken: girls, I don’t believe we’ve heard your apologies yet.’

  Back in my office, Hazel and I sipped green tea: Donna had forbidden either of us caffeine. Jess, on the other hand, drank coffee that smelt like nectar.

  I found myself pacing. ‘There’s something else, isn’t there? The girls might have had their primmest faces on when they were with their parents, but there’s something else. Something they know and we don’t. Any ideas, Jess?’

  ‘Now you mention it, I’m sure you’re right. They were just too innocent, weren’t they? Got to be faked, hasn’t it?’

  Hazel looked from Jess to me, clearly aghast. ‘Isn’t what they’ve done bad enough?’

  ‘It’s bad. But Jane – Ms Cowan’s – been a teacher long enough to smell a rat.’ She nodded as I flapped a hand: I was happy to be Jane. ‘Now she mentions it, they were just too good. No sign of them backing up their parents’ objections. But equally no sign of them looking truly penitent. What the hell are they planning?’

  ‘What would you do?’ I asked. ‘If you were a ten-year-old with hormones,’ I added with a sad grin at both women.

  ‘Something like planting a computer virus with long-term consequences?’ Hazel said. ‘Except I should imagine your computers and the schools have every anti-viral program going.’

  ‘Absolutely,’ Jess and I said together.

  ‘But,’ Jess mused, ‘I think you’re right. Something like that. Something that might emerge when they’re suspended – they weren’t at all surprised by that, were they? – so they can’t be blamed.’

  ‘You’re already had a rat invasion at Wrayford School, haven’t you?’ Hazel said. ‘So something like that?’

  ‘Cockroaches? Ugh!’ Jess shuddered.

  ‘How would they get hold of them? No, you don’t just pop into a shop and ask for enough to infest a school kitchen … Except they might have done something to the kitchen, mightn’t they? I’ll ask the long-suffering cleaners to be even more thorough.’

  ‘The coffers are bare, but I’ll pay for a deep clean myself if necessary,’ Hazel said. ‘Anything, so long as we don’t have to close the school. We need to keep parents on our side. And the best way to alienate them is to rob them of childcare.’

  I sat down on one of the vicious visitor chairs, wincing. ‘Is there a way we can question them? Now they’re off-site?’

  ‘Talk to the lawyers,’ Hazel said. ‘Have they sent you the statement they want you to read to the media yet?’

  ‘Excuse me.’ I checked my phone. There was certainly an email from them, plus a text from Joy, imploring me to stay the night with her since Ken was away. ‘Let’s print it off and see what they advise.’ As for Joy, I was very tempted to accept her invitation. If, as was likely, the media had decamped to my house, then it would be nice to avoid them. On the other hand, I had a spine that ought to be stiffened: scared out of my own (if temporary) territory as a result of the actions of silly children? No. I’d text her back later.

  ‘If only there were a back door we could spirit you out of,’ Hazel said, hugging me as the printer drooled out a stream of paper. ‘There’ll be a media embargo on photos of the miscreants since they’re so young, but sadly they can use anything they take of you – preferably one of you looking dishevelled and deranged.’ She looked at me meaningfully: I was to spruce myself up before I left the building, wasn’t I?

  I nodded. ‘Then all I’ve got to do is stick to reading them this text.’

  ‘Of course, you mustn’t go home. There must be someone you could stay with – Jo and her husband, perhaps? She’s told me she’s expecting you. Oh, and she says I’m to tell you her techie kids are already on to the tweet and dealing with it, whatever that involves.’

  ‘Thanks. They’re brilliant at things like that. But I’ll be turning down her invitation, Hazel. And one from another friend. It’s not my permanent home, I know, but the house in the close is my base, and I’m damned if I should be forced out of it. I’ll print off enough copies of this to give to anyone who turns up, not just the guys outside here.’

  Hazel shook her head. ‘Half of me applauds your guts, Jane – but the other half wants to wring your neck for your stubbornness.’

  Jess grinned. ‘That’s my gaffer for you. Jane, do you want us all to walk out together? Shoulder to shoulder?’

  ‘Once I’ve combed my hair and applied some slap, I’d love that – hang on. I’ve got a text from Brian Dawes I’d better respond to.’

  ‘We’ll wait,’ Hazel said. ‘But I think we’ll sit on the chairs in the office, Jess, don’t you?’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  ‘I insist,’ Brian declared, an hour later. ‘If necessary you can leave your car here and take a taxi home.’

  We were in his brightly lit, anonymous living room, dominated by those gloomy oil paintings. The stiff G & T Brian was waving in front of me was very tempting. I took it, with one flailing grasp at common sense. ‘If my car sits on your drive all night it’ll be all over the village.’

  ‘With every torrid conclusion in the book being drawn. Jane, my dear, the car can go in my garage. Sit and drink. You’ve been through tough times in your life, and I’ve put you through some of them myself.’

  This sounded so like an apology I opened my mouth to protest.

  But he was shaking his head. ‘There are times when one needs to clean one’s slate, and this evening is one of them. Any day now I take my overnight bag and head for the cardiac unit. Triple-bypass time. No, it’s not that I’m at death’s door; it’s that I’ve decided to go private. I want to get it over with. You see, I have to confess, Jane, I’m mortally afraid.’ He looked me in the eye. ‘Statistically the operation is very safe, with transformative results. But one always has a lingering fear. No, I wouldn’t mind dying under anaesthetic. It’s—’

  ‘It’s worrying you’ll end up like Will?’

  He managed to look both guilty and frightened. ‘I’m afraid – yes, you’re right. I thought of talking to Graham West about it, but he … he’s not terribly user-friendly, is he?’

  ‘It must be hard for him, knowing what happened to his predecessor. I just hope he’ll grow into his role here. And his wife, too. Izzie.’

  ‘That woman who looks like a witch? Or a gorgon, with barbed wire instead of snakes for hair! I’m sorry, it’s not very PC of me to use such terms.’

  But that didn’t stop him, did it? Supinely I said, ‘We’re just having a good gossip, Brian: it’s not going to leave these four walls, is it?’

  ‘And nor will anything you say, Jane – I hope you know that.’ He stared into his glass, and drank deeply.

  Before either of us could embark on anything like a personal revelation, however, he turned the talk to school. Both schools. The tweets, of course.

  I talked him through everything Jess, Hazel and I had done. I showed him the press release.

  Only then did he say what I really needed to hear: ‘The governors – all those I’ve spoken to thus far – will support you to the hilt.’ Suddenly he produced a most unBrian-like grin. ‘Though I’ve not yet forced myself to have the pleasure of consulting West. He’s not the person, incidentally, I’ve asked to deputise for me while I’m hors de combat: I’ve asked one of the parent governors – the one
who’s taken over the cricket club. His name escapes me just now – do you know, I can only think of one thing?’

  Very soon, however, he had to drag his mind to something else. A call from a business associate came through, obviously urgent and important or both. Brian seemed flustered, promising to phone back later. It was clear his interlocutor wasn’t keen on any delay.

  Despite Brian’s protestations I slipped off, abandoning the gin just in time to stop myself kissing him farewell. Waving goodbye, I made him promise to tell me when he had the call to the hospital, where I’d visit him as soon as he was allowed company. Probably I shouldn’t have driven, but I did, arriving in the close without incident.

  Fortunately, the night was cold enough to keep the waiting press in their cars, so I was able to pop the car into the garage, rolling down the automatic door before they realised what was happening. Then it was time to take a risk. I took a tray of hot chocolate out to them, along with a sheaf of press releases. I pointed to these, miming a zip across my mouth, as I beat a retreat. Mercifully they took the hint, the only sign of them ten minutes later being a row of empty mugs on the front step. I could make some supper, drink some more, have a hot bath and retire to sleep in my own bed – or what passed for it these days.

  Until the screams started, that is. Bloody incontinent foxes. I’d give them screaming when I needed peace and quiet. If only I had a hosepipe handy. Or even a bucket of water would do.

  So there I was, bucket in hand, standing on my front-door step. The randy vermin would regret this.

  Except I couldn’t see any of them, and I was more sure than ever that what I’d heard was a terrified woman.

  999 time.

  The call handler took my plea for help very seriously, but even as I asked for help I realised I had a problem. I wasn’t sure where the scream had come from. All the same, she promised to despatch a rapid response vehicle ‘to cruise around a bit’, as she put it. Could I possibly stay alert and let her know immediately if I heard the sound again? I could. I had plenty of missed work to catch up on, after all.