Afterwards

Until then I won’t let go.

I walk with Sarah along the gravel path to the car park but the stones are no longer needle-sharp and the harsh midday sun doesn’t scald me yet, as if I’m building up some kind of protective covering for myself.

Sarah stays bang on the speed limits, sticking to one small law as she drives to break large ones.

My nanny voice tells me that my swimming image is ‘totally out of date!’ Jenny has told me to ‘cut my rope; she’s grown up! She doesn’t want it any more!’

I retort that underneath she still needs me as much as ever, especially now. All teenagers have to make an escape attempt from childhood, just to keep face to themselves, but I think that most, like Jen, hope to be caught before they’ve gone too far.

‘She didn’t come to you about the red paint, did she?’ my nanny voice says, rapping me harshly over the knuckles with a hard-edged fact. ‘She didn’t turn to you then; didn’t need you then.’

Maybe I was out all day.

It was the tenth of May. You know that date.

It was Adam’s class trip and although I’d cleared my diary for it, I hadn’t been allowed to go.

‘You’ve already been on three trips this year, Mrs Covey, better give another mother a chance.’ Like there were mothers queuing up with compasses in their Prada handbags to go orienteering in the pouring rain, rather than mean Miss Madden not wanting me around. (I glared at her when she shouted at them at the V &A.)

So I stayed at home and worried about Adam not finding due north and being partnerless. Not worrying about Jenny. Because we thought the hate mail had stopped.

I was at home all day.

Jenny came back that evening, later than she’d said, her long hair cut into a bob. She’d seemed anxious and I thought it was about her new haircut. I’d tried to reassure her that it suited her.

Even for Jen, she spent an absurdly long time on the phone and although I didn’t hear what she was saying (her door was closed), her tone sounded fraught.

If she’d come to me, I’d have washed her hair, got the paint out for her somehow and she wouldn’t have had to have it cut.

I’d have taken her coat to that really good but expensive dry-cleaner’s in Richmond that can get almost anything out.

If she’d come to me, I’d have reported the attack to the police and maybe she wouldn’t be in hospital now.

She still needs my rope around her, even if she doesn’t realise it.

‘What is it with this drowning thing?’ Nanny Voice demands. ‘Adam and his armbands, Jenny and the rope?’ Well, maybe it’s because swimming is the only thing in careful modern life you allow your children to do, on a regular Saturday basis, which is potentially life-threatening. Psychoanalysts put sexual content into water imagery; mothers imagine danger.

And then I imagine them safe.

Snared in thoughts about Jenny and arguments with myself, I’m shocked to see we’re driving up to the school. I’m afraid of seeing the site of the fire; nauseous with anxiety.

Sarah turns off along the small road towards the playing field and parks next to it.

There are three Portakabins on the playing field now. They make it look so different from sports day and I’m relieved. I don’t want to remember. But as we leave the car I see the painted white lines are still here, reflecting in the harsh overhead sun; I hurriedly look away.

I can smell grass; the heated air shot through with the scent of it, and I am being pulled back inside Wednesday afternoon, with teachers’ whistles glinting in the sun and little legs pounding the ground and Adam hurrying towards me, beaming.

Can you get a summer snow-globe instead of a winter one with green grass and flowering azalea bushes and blue sky? Because I’m here; inside it. If you shake it, perhaps it fills with black smoke, not swirling snowflakes.

Sarah knocks on a Portakabin door and the sound jolts me out of the memory snow-globe.

Mrs Healey answers the door. Her normally foundationed face is flushed; her linen skirt creased and covered in dust.

‘Detective Sergeant McBride,’ Sarah says, holding out her hand – disguising by default that she is related to us. I never understood why she didn’t keep her maiden name, but I think now it’s because she wants a public self – responsible, grown-up Detective Sergeant McBride, married to sensible stolid Roger – to keep teenage Sarah Covey safely hidden inside.

We go into the stifling Portakabin. Stale particles of Mrs Healey’s perfume, Chanel 19, float like scum in the hotly humid air.

‘On Monday we are getting ten more Portakabins plus toilet facilities,’ Mrs Healey says, her voice quick with uncharacteristic nervous energy. ‘The council have given us a temporary emergency licence. The children will need to bring packed lunches but I’m sure parents will understand that. Fortunately we use cloud computing so we’ve got a back-up of everything on the internet – contact details, lesson planning, children’s reports.’

‘That’s very organised.’

Sarah sounds politely interested, but I wonder if there’s a tougher reason for her observation.

‘One of the fathers is the CEO of a computing giant; he did it for us last term. Parents like to do things to help. It’s a godsend now. I’ve already been able to print out address labels for every family. They’ll all have a letter tomorrow morning outlining what’s happening and giving reassurances.’

A printer whirs, spitting out more letters. On the floor is a pile of addressed envelopes.

‘Wouldn’t it be easier just to email the parents?’ Sarah asks.

‘It looks better to send out a proper letter on decent paper. It’s a demonstration that we are on top of what’s happened. Will this take long? I have a huge amount to do, as you can see, and I have already spoken to the police.’

‘We can talk and you can carry on, if you like,’ Sarah says, as if benignly. But I remember washing up Sunday lunch with her once and her saying that she wished she could do the washing-up with a suspect – she’d wash, he’d dry – and he’d be far more likely to talk and tell the truth while occupied with a task. At the time I’d worried what she wanted out of me.

‘You were told Adam Covey was accused of starting the fire?’ Sarah says.

‘Yes. My decision not to press charges, or take it any further, has the full backing of the governors. From what I understand it was a prank that went wrong and poor Adam has been punished more than enough already. He must feel desperately guilty.’

‘Do you know him well?’

‘No. I’d recognise him, of course. But I don’t really know him. Head teachers are more like chief executives than teachers nowadays so, sadly, I don’t get to know very many of my pupils.’

When Jenny was at Sidley House, Mrs Healey’s door was always open with children wandering in and out of her office; she taught each class once a week herself to keep in touch. But Adam barely saw her.

‘You don’t think it odd that an eight-year-old – just eight – could commit arson?’ Sarah asks.

‘Apparently it happens relatively frequently. From my time as a teacher, with children this age, I am not surprised. It’s horrifying what children are capable of.’

I think of Robert Fleming.

‘Adam isn’t that kind of child,’ Sarah says.

‘He didn’t do it?’ asks Mrs Healey.

‘You seem concerned.’

‘Alright, yes. I am. I need this to be over with. Sorted out. So that we can all move on. For his sake though, I’m glad, of course. So is that why you’re here?’

‘I have some questions. I’m sorry if you have to go over old ground.’

Mrs Healey nods an acknowledgement. She’s folding the letters now and putting them into the envelopes; her paper folds neatly sharp.

‘Where were you when the fire started?’ Sarah asks.

‘I was at sports day, running the sack race for our year-two children. As soon as I knew what was happening, I made sure that the children I was in charge of were delegated to a form teacher, then made my way as quickly as I