Afterwards

heart.

I don’t think you’ll tell anyone because saying the words will make the facts more solid. I think you’ll justify this as waiting until you can tell everyone that a donor heart has been found; that everything will be alright. No need to worry. You always tell me of potential calamities after you’ve sorted out a solution. Calamities. As if walking out of an A-level exam early or pranging the car get any rating on a calamity scale.

But I still believe in your hope for her; I’m still clinging onto it.

* * *

As we reach the office on the ground floor, Jenny stops.

‘Do you think it could be Donald who started the fire?’ she asks.

‘No’, I say immediately.

‘Maisie and Rowena were almost the only people in the school at the time,’ she says. ‘Maybe it was aimed at them.’

‘He couldn’t possibly have known that,’ I counter.

I’m not arguing with logic but from emotion. I cannot bear to think a father and a husband can be that evil. And surely there’s a world of difference between bruises and trying to burn someone alive.

But I remember that figure I saw yesterday afternoon on the periphery of the playing field: an innocent bystander, most probably, but just conceivably Donald.

And earlier with the nurse. Could he have been pretending that this was the first time he’d been to the burns unit? Could he have come last night in a long dark coat? Though God knows why he’d want to hurt Jenny.

It was only eight weeks ago that I looked into my dressing-table mirror and saw connections between instances of possible abuse, connecting underground in a dense mass. Just eight weeks.

Would anything be different if I hadn’t turned away?

We go into the office, which is oppressively hot and airless. Like the family rooms and the doctors’ offices it has peeling institutional green paint and ugly carpet-tiles and a clock. Always a clock.

DI Baker doesn’t get up from his chair when you come in.

‘I know you don’t want to go far from your daughter and wife,’ he says to you. ‘Which is why we’re having our meeting here.’

You nod your thanks, surprised by his demonstration of thoughtfulness. Like me, you think we may have misjudged him.

‘A new witness came forward shortly after we met,’ he continues.

Sarah barges into the room, uncharacteristically flustered. No, flustered is wrong. She’s angry and she’s been running. Her blouse has dark patches under the arms, her forehead filmed with sweat.

‘I’ve just come from the station,’ she says to DI Baker. ‘They told me-’

‘No one should be telling you anything,’ he says curtly. ‘I’ve given you a week of compassionate leave, so take it.’

‘It’s a mistake,’ she says to DI Baker. ‘Or deliberate misinformation.’

‘The witness is entirely credible.’

‘So why wait till now to report it?’ she asks.

‘Because this person knows how much the Covey family are dealing with and didn’t want to add to their distress. But with the press accusations felt it was their duty to come forward.’

Sarah is more emotional than I’ve ever seen her.

‘Who is “this person”?’ she asks.

He looks at her with silent rebuke, and then he continues.

‘They have asked for their identity not to be revealed, which is a request I granted. There will be no trial so no need for identification. Neither we nor the school will be pressing charges.’

You look stunned. But also, I think, relieved. As I am. This wasn’t done maliciously. It can’t be, if there aren’t going to be any charges. It’s no longer necessary to have this ghastly hostile suspicion to the world. It isn’t the hate-mailer or Silas Hyman or Donald. Thank God.

But why is Sarah so upset?

DI Baker’s face shows no emotion. He pauses a moment, before he speaks to you.

‘Your son was seen leaving the school Art room moments before the automatic smoke detector went off. He was holding matches. There is no doubt in our mind that it was Adam who started the fire.’

Adam? For God’s sake, how can he say that? How?

‘Is this some kind of sick joke?’ you ask.

‘Whoever told you that is lying,’ Sarah says. ‘I’ve known Adam all his life and he’s the most gentle, kind child imaginable. There’s not an iota of violence in him.’

DI Baker looks irritated. ‘Sarah…’

‘He likes reading,’ Sarah continues. ‘He plays with his knights and he has two guinea pigs. They are the parameters of Adam’s world. He doesn’t play truant, he doesn’t graffiti, he doesn’t get into trouble. Reading, knights, two guinea pigs. Have you got that?’

Our gentle boy accused of this.

Madness.

‘It was Hyman, not a child,’ you say.

‘Mr Covey-’

‘How the hell did he persuade you?’

‘The witness is nothing to do with Mr Hyman.’

‘You’re saying that a child took white spirit into the Art room?’

‘I think we were too hasty to see certain occurrences as significant. The Art teacher may well have been mistaken about the quantity of white spirit kept in the Art room. After all, if she wasn’t following the regulations to the letter she was hardly going to tell us that, was she? I had a brief talk with her earlier and she admitted it was possible she’d been mistaken. She’s not one hundred per cent certain at all.’

I think of Miss Pearcy, sensitive, artistic Miss Pearcy, who’d be so easily intimidated by DI Baker.

‘Of course she’s not one hundred per cent certain,’ Sarah says. ‘Are you one hundred per cent certain when you go on holiday that you didn’t leave the oven on? Or when there’s a crash are you one hundred per cent certain you checked your mirror first before turning? It just means that this Art teacher has a conscience and the courage to admit to her fallibility. Especially when a policeman tells her she might have done something wrong.’

‘I understand your loyalty to your nephew but-’

She interrupts, sparks flying off her words.

‘You can’t think a child had the knowledge of fires and the premeditation to open the windows at the top of the school?’

‘It was a hot day,’ DI Baker replies. ‘A teacher or child could easily have opened the windows to let in the breeze, despite it being against the rules.’

You have been stunned into silence and stillness, but now you move towards DI Baker and I think you’re going to hit him.

‘Have you ever seen Adam?’ you ask, then gesture to beneath DI Baker’s breast pocket. ‘He’d come up to about here on you. He’s eight, for fuck’s sake, just eight. His birthday was yesterday. A little boy.’

‘Yes, we’re aware of his birthday.’

His words sounded menacing, but why?

‘Hyman’s lied about him,’ you say.

Sarah turns to you. ‘Silas Hyman can’t be the witness, Mike. It would look too strange if he was in the school at the time.’

‘So he must have had an accomplice and-’

‘I appreciate it’s hard to believe an eight-year-old child could do this,’ DI Baker interrupts. ‘But according to fire-brigade records, children were responsible for ninety-three per cent of all intentionally started school-time