Afterwards

could to the school. By the time I arrived all the reception children had been safely evacuated.’

‘And Jennifer Covey?’

She folds a piece of paper hurriedly; no neat ridged lines.

‘She hadn’t followed our procedure. She had signed herself out of the school but not signed herself back in. There was no way anyone could have known she was still in the building.’

‘Did you see the register in which she signed herself out?’

‘No.’

‘So how did you know that she had?’

‘Our school secretary, Annette Jenks, told me.’

‘And you believed her?’

‘I am not a policewoman but a head teacher. I tend to trust what people tell me.’

Her moment of antagonism is met with Sarah’s.

‘Why didn’t you tell us about Silas Hyman at the prize-giving?’

Mrs Healey looks thrown by this abrupt change of subject. Or is it Silas Hyman’s name?

‘Why didn’t you tell the police that Silas Hyman had threatened revenge on the school?’

‘Because he didn’t mean it.’

‘A school burns down, two people are left critically injured and a man has threatened revenge but-’

‘I know that he didn’t mean it.’

‘Have you any evidence for that?’

She’s silent. One of her fingers has a paper cut and each white Conqueror Weave envelope has a thin line of red.

‘Did a parent phone you after the prize-giving?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did they ask you to inform the police and get a restraining order or injunction against him to make sure he couldn’t come near the school again?’

‘You mean, Maisie White?’

‘Just answer the question.’

‘Yes.’

‘So why didn’t you do as she asked?’

‘Because her husband phoned me an hour later and said his wife was overwrought and that there was no need to contact the police. Like me, and the rest of the staff and parents, he knew Silas was all hot air and bluster, that he didn’t mean any of it.’

Why had Donald countermanded Maisie? Why would he protect Silas Hyman?

‘So you didn’t even report it?’

‘No.’

‘You weren’t worried, at all?’

‘Yes. I was. But not about Silas doing something violent. I’d spent months, months, building up a good reputation for Sidley House after the playground fiasco and I thought that in five minutes of drunken idiocy he could have destroyed it. But apart from Mrs White, nobody took him seriously. He’d made an idiotic spectacle of himself, that was all.’

‘Can you tell me about that “playground fiasco”?’

‘A child was seriously injured when he fell from the fire escape. He broke both his legs. We were lucky it wasn’t worse. Silas Hyman was meant to be supervising the playground but he wasn’t.’

‘So you fired him?’

‘I didn’t have any alternative.’

‘Did you fire him before or after the article about the incident in the Richmond Post?’

‘Clearly the article increased the pressure from parents.’ She pauses a moment as if pained by the memory. ‘I had to fire him three days later. Without the article he could have stayed in post till the end of that term.’

‘Do you have a system of warnings?’

‘I’d already given him one warning when he called a child “wicked”. Naturally, the parents complained. His language and attitude towards the child were unacceptable.’

I think of Robert Fleming’s callous cruelty.

‘Do you know how the Richmond Post found out about the playground incident?’

‘No.’

‘Was it from someone at the school?’

‘I really don’t know who told the press.’

‘Did Silas have any enemies at the school?’

‘None that I know of, no.’

‘What effect did this playground accident have on the school?’

‘It was very hard for a while. I don’t deny that. Parents put their children into our care and one of them was badly injured. I understood their anger and upset about that. I could completely understand why a few parents wanted to withdraw their children. I spoke to all the parents, class by class at special meetings. If parents were still anxious I met with them individually and gave personal reassurances and guarantees that it would never happen again. And we weathered the storm, no parents took their children away – not a single one. On sports day there were two hundred and seventy nine children in school. There is just one place free in a year-three class because a family relocated to Canada at the end of last term.’

I know she’s telling the truth. At sports day every class each had twenty children, the maximum Sidley House allows.

‘What is your own opinion of Silas Hyman?’ Sarah asks.

‘A brilliant teacher. Gifted. The best I’ve come across in my career. But too unorthodox for a private school.’

‘And as a man?’

‘I didn’t get to know him socially.’

‘Was he having a relationship with anyone at the school?’

She hesitates a moment. ‘Not that I know of.’

A careful answer.

‘Was there any gossip?’

‘I don’t listen to gossip. I try and discourage it by example.’

‘Can you tell me what the code was on the gate on Wednesday?’

‘Seven-seven-two-three,’ she replies. I think she looks wary of Sarah now. ‘I told another officer that already.’

‘I wanted to confirm it for myself,’ Sarah says coolly, and for the moment Mrs Healey is pacified. But surely she’ll suspect something as this illegal interview continues. That ice Sarah told you about seems perilously thin.

‘Why did you get rid of Elizabeth Fisher?’

Sally Healey looks startled and tries to hide it. She is silent as Sarah looks at her and the sound of the printer is loud in the Portakabin, spewing another letter out onto the dusty floor.

‘Mrs Healey?’

24

Mrs Healey’s normally powder-dry face is sweating profusely now, the sweat glistening in the too-bright Portakabin.

‘She was too old to do the job. I already told the police that.’

Mrs Healey is kneeling on the floor, but has stopped putting the letters into envelopes – is it because she can’t multitask with lying?