Afterwards

‘It’s Jen-Jen’s,’ Maisie says. ‘A teacher found it outside the school. Knew she’d like it back.’

Maybe she calls her ‘Jen-Jen’ to show Sarah how close she is to the family, maybe to show her right to be here, and I’m touched by that; a sign of the old, more assertive Maisie.

Sarah picks up the phone and Jenny is on tenterhooks. But Sarah puts it in her pocket.

‘I’ll be in the garden,’ Jenny says, her frustration and upset clear. ‘And it’s Jenny now. And I should have my phone, not Aunt Sarah.’

For some reason I’m glad of her adolescent strop; her indignant energy.

I follow Sarah and Maisie towards the cafeteria. Do you think anyone’ll discover Sarah’s turning their relatives’ rooms and cafeterias into interview rooms?

The Palms Cafe is empty and the striplights turned off, but the door’s open and the hot-drinks machine is working. Sarah gets styrofoam cups of something masquerading as tea and they sit together at a Formica table.

The only light now is from the corridor, making this institutional room shadowy and strange.

‘I’m trying to find out a little more about what happened,’ Sarah says.

‘Grace told me that you’re a policewoman.’

Once, Sarah would have brusquely corrected her, ‘police officer’.

‘Right now, I’m just Grace’s sister-in-law and Jenny’s aunt. Would you mind telling me what you remember about yesterday afternoon?’

‘Of course. But I’m not sure I can help much. I mean, I already told the police.’

‘As I said, I’m just talking to you as family.’

‘I’d come to pick Rowena up from school. Well, I should say work, because she’s a teaching assistant, not a pupil now. I was really chuffed when she asked me to give her a lift home. I hadn’t seen much of her lately, you see. You know what teenage girls are like.’ She trails off. ‘Sorry, this isn’t important, sorry.’

Sarah smiles at her, encouraging her to continue.

‘I thought she’d be out on the playing field helping with sports day. But Gracie told me she’d gone into the school with Addie, to get his cake. A trench cake that they’d made together-’ She breaks off, putting her knuckle into her mouth to bite away a sob. ‘I just can’t think about it, not properly, about Addie, with his mum so… I just can’t…’

‘That’s alright. Take your time.’

Maisie stirs her tea, as if the flimsy plastic spoon gives her something to grip onto; determined to continue.

‘I went to find her. When I got to the school I popped to the loo, the grown-up one. I’d just gone in, when I heard a noise, really loud, like an air-raid siren or something. Nothing like the fire alarms we had at school so it took me a few moments to realise what it was.

‘I hurried out, worried about Rowena. Then I saw her coming out of the secretary’s office.’

As she stirs, tea slops out of her cup onto the Formica table.

‘Through the office window I saw Adam was safely outside by the statue. I thought everything was OK. But I didn’t know about Jenny. Didn’t even call for her. I didn’t know to do that.’

‘Which floor is the secretary’s office?’ Sarah asks.

‘The upper ground. Just next to the main door. I told Rowena to look after Addie and I went to help the reception children. Mrs Healey thinks they’re too young to be at sports day, you see. Sorry. What I mean is, I knew that they’d be in the school.’

Sarah mops up Maisie’s spilt tea with her napkin, and this simple act of kindness seems to relax Maisie. Dragons don’t mop up your spilt tea.

‘And then?’ Sarah asks.

‘I went down to the lower ground floor where their classroom is. It wasn’t so smoky down there and they have their own exit with a ramp leading back up to the area outside the school. Tilly – Miss Rogers – was getting all the children out. I helped her calm them down. I know them all, you see. I read with them once a week so I could help reassure them.’

Her voice is suddenly warm and I know she’s thinking of those four-year-old children; their outline still fuzzy somehow, as if you’ll touch their aura before you can touch the quietness of their silky hair or peachy-soft faces. Beautiful baby creatures still. I used to think she still read with them, after Rowena had grown up, because she missed her own daughter being a tiny girl. But maybe, for one afternoon a week, she was trying to go back to a time before the abuse; to when she and Rowena were happy; a time when she really didn’t give a hoot!

‘Did you see anyone other than Rowena and Adam and the reception teacher?’

‘No. Well, not in the school, if that’s what you mean? But about five minutes later the new secretary came outside. There was a lot of smoke by then but she was smiling, like she was enjoying it, or at least she was not at all upset and she had lipstick on. Sorry. Silly.’

‘It was five minutes after the alarm that she came out? You’re sure?’

‘No, I mean, I can’t be totally sure. Never very good at timings. But we’d got the children out and lined them up, counted them at least five times. She brought Tilly the register to officially check they were all accounted for, but we knew they were.

‘Just after the secretary came out, the fire got worse. There was a huge bang, and flames, and smoke was pouring out of the windows.’

‘Did you see anyone else?’

‘No.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘Yes. I’ve been trying to remember but I really don’t think I saw anyone else. But there easily could have been other people there. I mean, it’s a big building.’

Sarah hasn’t drunk her tea, concentrating every ounce of attention on Maisie, while not letting her feel it.

‘And then?’

‘A few minutes later, I think it was that, I saw Gracie running towards the school, I think she was screaming, but the fire alarm was so loud I can’t be sure.’

She pauses a moment, as if she’s watching me running full tilt towards the school.

‘I knew she’d be so relieved when she saw Adam, and she was, and I thought that everything was alright. But then she was yelling for Jenny, over and over, and I realised that Jenny must be inside. And Gracie ran in.’

I see the pressure of tears building behind Maisie’s face. She presses her fingerpads, hard, against the skin on her temple as if it’ll force the tears to stay inside.

Sarah is looking at her intently now.

‘Did you know that Adam has been accused of starting the fire?’ she asks.

Maisie is astonished. Is that why Sarah told her – in order to gauge her response? She must clearly see now that Maisie’s astonishment is genuine.

‘Oh God, that poor family.’

Tears break free and stream down her face. ‘Sorry, selfish. I’ve no right to cry, have I, not when Gracie and Jenny…’

Sarah picks up Maisie’s cup. ‘I’ll get you another?’

‘Thank you.’

And this small act of kindness again seems to relax Maisie a little.

‘What do you know about Silas Hyman?’ Sarah asks as she goes to the drinks machine.

‘He’s dangerous,’ Maisie says immediately. ‘Violent. But you’d never guess that. I mean, that he’s a sham. And he gets people to love him. Young people. Exploits their feelings for him.’

I am taken aback by her vehemence, and how sure she is about him. How does she know?

‘In what way is he a sham?’ Sarah asks.

‘I thought he was kind, really caring,’ Maisie says. ‘Wonderful, actually. When I read with the little children, I take one at a time out of their classroom up to the first floor where they have the lower school reading books, and we sit on the rug together.’

Maisie is talking to her across the shadowy expanse, as if it’s a relief to talk about it, her words tumbling out.