“In advance of the list, is there anyone working at school who’s given you cause for concern lately, in terms of their behavior or in any other way?” I asked him.
He shook his head. The frown on his forehead seemed to deepen by the minute.
“Obviously I’ve been racking my brain since this happened,” he said. “But I should say that I am stressing to parents that it didn’t happen in or near school property. I think that’s worth bearing in mind, Inspector, when you’re looking for suspects.”
“As is the fact that this place is the single biggest opportunity for Ben Finch to come into contact with a wide range of adults.”
“All of whom are CRB checked.”
“There’s no need to be defensive, Mr. Allen. You know as well as I do that the CRB check is only a reliable check of previous convictions, not of possible impulses or intentions.”
“I’m simply keen that the school doesn’t become a particular focus of the investigation.”
That wasn’t worth responding to; it was the kind of bureaucratic comment that made me want to slap a pair of handcuffs on him. I swallowed my annoyance, because I wanted to press him some more on Ben’s possible contacts.
“Is there any adult at school who you feel that Ben might have formed an attachment to?”
“Miss May?” asked the head. “You’ll know best.”
“Well, there’s me,” she said. The palm of her hand was on her chest, rising and falling with her breathing. “I’ve been his teacher for just over a year now, I had him last year too; and I work with a teaching assistant called Lucas Grantham, who comes in part-time. He’s new this year. The children like him; Ben likes him. We’re the ones with the most contact with him.”
“We’ll definitely need to speak to Mr. Grantham,” I said.
“He’s here today if you’d like to meet him.”
“That would be useful. Anybody else?”
She shook her head.
“Nobody springs to mind, but there are lots of other people Ben comes into contact with on a daily basis.”
“And, can I ask, have you noticed anything unusual about Ben’s behavior lately?”
“No. If anything I’d say he’s been having a good year. Last year was much harder for him, after his parents split up.”
“In what way?”
“He didn’t know how to react to the separation. We talked about it sometimes at school. He’s not the only one in my class going through it, of course, but it’s a sad and confusing situation for any child, and I think parents sometimes don’t understand how hard the children take it.”
“It often falls to the school to deal with the emotional fallout in these situations,” said the head.
“Do you think Ben was more affected than you might expect?”
“I couldn’t say,” said the head. “I’d be lying if I said I knew him well because I’ve only been here a few weeks, as I said.”
I wasn’t directing the question at him, but I let it go. The man had an ego. Miss May answered.
“No,” she said. “He was affected quite badly, but he’s a very sensitive boy so that’s what you might expect if you knew him.”
The head cleared his throat. “There’s one thing on file we thought we should mention. Last spring, when Ben was in Year Four, he had a fall as he arrived in the playground with his mother. It was before school. He came off his scooter and landed badly on his arm. Do you want to tell it from there, Miss May, as you were there?”
“I wasn’t actually there when he fell. One of the other teachers saw it happen,” she said. “Apparently Ms. Jenner helped Ben up and put him back on his feet and brushed him off. He was crying a bit, because his arm hurt, but she was talking to him and he did calm down.”
She paused and looked anxiously at the head.
“And?” I said.
He took over. “And the file says that Ms. Jenner left Benedict at school even though he was complaining of pain in his arm. It turned out that it was fractured.”
“So this was when he was in your class?” I asked Miss May.
She nodded. “I’ve got to say I took one look at him when I was doing registration and I could see there was something very wrong. He was white as a sheet. As soon as he said what had happened I called an ambulance immediately.”
“Was he in obvious distress at that point, or when his mother left him?”
“Not obvious distress; he was being very brave.”
“Were there signs that the arm was fractured?”
“It was a buckle fracture so there were no snapped bones, or swelling, and he could move his hand. His mother did check all that, but she didn’t notice how much pain he was in.”
“Did Ms. Jenner return when you realized he needed treatment?”
“Yes, of course, and she went with him to the hospital.”
“So it’s possible she didn’t realize how badly he was hurt?”
“No. She didn’t realize.” Something in her expression wasn’t happy.
“Do you think she should have realized?”
“I do. I really do. And I suppose what’s always on my mind is: why did Ben feel he had to be so stoical in front of her? He was only seven years old. And why didn’t his mother get him properly checked up right away? Why didn’t she see what I saw?”
“We had a similar incident in my old school,” said the head. “It’s not uncommon for minor fractures to go unnoticed.”
“I do know that,” said Miss May. “It’s just that she always looked so depressed at the time, as if she couldn’t cope. This was after the separation. I wondered if it was all getting a bit much for her. Ben always seemed so worried about upsetting her.”
“Were there any other signs?” I asked.
Miss May took a deep breath. “No,” she said. “Hand on heart, no there weren’t.”
“Says here she forgot to collect him one day.” The head held up a piece of paper from Ben’s file.
“Oh! Yes, she did. I’d forgotten that,” Miss May said. “Yes, that’s true. It was the last day of the spring term, last year, and the children were supposed to be collected at midday instead of at the usual time, so it was understandable.”
“Was she commonly forgetful?”
“No, no, it happened just the once, but Ben was very upset. He was inconsolable, actually. It was the last thing he needed at the time. He’d only just moved out of their family home into the new house with just his mum. He was feeling very insecure about the new arrangements, and it was a time when it was important for him to feel wanted, to know that he was their priority.”
“So, just to confirm, it wasn’t typical of Ben’s mother to forget him?”
“No. It wasn’t typical, but when it happened I suppose I did think it might be a symptom of how difficult things might be at home.”
“So this was last year, and have things improved since then?” I asked. “Any more incidents?”
“No. Nothing else. He’s been better generally this year. I think he’s settled in the new house with his mum now and things are hopefully a teensy bit calmer.” Her inflection at the end of this sentence made it sound like a question.
I looked at the head. “What’s your view?”
“Well, I defer to Miss May on this, because, as I said, I don’t know Ben very well yet, and I haven’t met his mother at all so I can’t comment on her. From what I’m hearing, I suspect it’s been a hard time for Ben and his mum, but also fantastic continuity for him that he’s had Miss May for two years running.”
She smiled at him.
“Well, thank you both,” I said, “and if you think of anything else we should know then please get in contact.” I got up, grateful to be out of the chair.
“We shall,” the head said. He looked even more weary as he stood and, in spite of his attitude earlier, I felt sorry for both of them, having to go back out of this room and deal with the confusion and fear of a school full of traumatized children. He smoothed his tie against his shirt and treated me to the same loose handshake as before.
“Could we have a quick word with Ben’s teaching assistant before we leave?” I asked. “Mr… . ?”
“Lucas Grantham,” said the head. “Miss May, could you show the officers where to find him?”
She walked with us down the corridor. On either side, the walls were plastered with work that the children had done.
“Lucas is in the classroom,” she said. “Right here.”
Before I could ask her to fetch him discreetly, she pushed open the door. A class of kids was working at low tables, in groups of four, sitting in those miniature chairs that you forget you ever fitted into. A young man was overseeing them from the front of the room. He looked early twenties at a guess. He had thick tufty ginger hair, and his face was pretty much one big freckle with a bit of white skin peeking through here and there. He was perched on the desk.
The children’s eyes turned to us and they started to get to their feet. Chairs scraped and papers fell off tables as they stood.
“This is Mr. Clemo and Mr. Woodley,” said Miss May. She whispered to me, “I’m not going to tell them you’re policemen.” Then she addressed them again: “What do we say, children?”
“Good afternoon, Mr. Clemo, good afternoon, Mr. Woodley,” they chanted.
“Well done, class,” said Miss May, and she favored them with a big smile. “Sit down and carry on.”
They sat down with a collective bump, duty done. The young man came to the door. “This is Lucas,” said Miss May. “Or Mr. Grantham, as the children call him. He’s our teaching assistant for Oak Class.”
“Nice to meet you,” he said. No handshake; instead he held his hands in front of him, fingers interlocked, and in motion, as if he were working his way along a set of prayer beads. “It’s just awful, I can’t believe it.” He had freckles on the back of his hands too.
“We’ll need to have a word with you at some point very soon,” I said.
“Right! Of course, whenever,” he said. Close up, he looked tired and slack-jawed. He had a weak chin and he hadn’t shaved for a couple of days.
“Have you noticed anything different from usual about Benedict Finch’s behavior lately?” I asked him. I kept my voice down so the kids didn’t hear me.
“No,” he said. “Nothing at all.”
Behind him a space at one of the tables caught my eye, an empty chair where presumably Ben Finch should have been sitting, surrounded by his schoolmates, having an ordinary day.
“Nothing? Are you sure?” I said. He was starting to irritate me.
“No,” he said. He shook his head slowly, his lips tucked in between his teeth. I felt my phone buzz in my pocket.
“We have to get going,” I said. “Though we’ll need to interview you as soon as possible. Somebody will be in touch to arrange that.”
The children were starting to fidget and talk. Miss May hushed them gently.
“Whenever you like,” said Lucas Grantham. “Of course. If it’ll help.”
In the car, Woodley said, “It’s a bloody nightmare how many people could have had contact with him.”
“I know, and we’re going to need background and alibis on every single one of them. Plus we need to check out the incident with the broken arm with the hospital.”
“Do you think there’s anything in it?”
“No, because it seems completely clear that Rachel Jenner didn’t inflict the injury on him. It was an accident. But we’ll check it out anyway and I think we should take the possibility that she was depressed seriously. We’ll pass that on to Fraser and Zhang straightaway.”
“What did you think of the teaching assistant?”
“Of interest,” I said. “Definitely.”
“Yeah, I thought he was a bit shifty.”
Woodley sat in silence for a few moments, then he said, “Strange, isn’t it? Being back at school?”
The car was poised at the school entrance, indicator light ticking.
“Why do you say that?”
“You forget how small you were once. Don’t you think?”
“I suppose so. When did you leave primary school then? Last week? Short memory you’ve got. Is that why they kicked you out? Couldn’t remember your times tables?”
It was a sport in the office, ribbing Woodley because he looked young, or because he had a nose you could ski off.
“Ha ha, boss,” he said, but he shut up then and I was glad because I was actually thinking about how vivid my memories of being primary-school age were, and it was making me scared for Benedict Finch, because of all the bad things that can be done to a child that age, so very easily.
RACHEL
Laura and Nicky wouldn’t let me go online. They said I shouldn’t read the stuff people were saying, that it would upset me. They were united in this. I was still in denial, still sure that people wouldn’t actually, really accuse me. Even then, in those first hours after the press conference, I was naïve enough to retain a delicate mesh of middle-class confidence around me. I’m a good citizen, I thought. People will know that. I used to be married to a doctor.
I should have had more sense though, because outside the house the journalists were gathering in greater numbers than before, drawn there since the press conference.
Inside, we’d had to take the phone off the hook, and seal the letter flap with masking tape. I stayed in the back of the house, as far away from them as possible.
Nicky went out for supplies and bustled back into the house within minutes, holding bags from the local corner shop. “I couldn’t get any farther,” she said. “They followed me. And they’ve dropped rubbish everywhere.”
She found a black bin liner under my sink and took it back out to the front of the house, where, in tones strident enough for me to hear, she ordered the journalists to clear up what they’d dropped in the street and in my postage-stamp-sized front garden.
Back inside, still bristling, she started to unpack a selection of canned food. “They’re lovely in the shop,” she said, “aren’t they? They locked the door so I could shop without the journalists and then they gave me this to give to you.”
It was an envelope. On the front was handwritten “To Benedict and His Mother.”
“They said they can order in anything you want,” Nicky went on, shoving the cans into cupboards. “Or if we can’t get to the supermarket they said they can get stuff for us that we can pick up, which might be nice because we can’t live off this.” She held up a loaf of sliced white bread.
I opened the envelope. Inside was a small card. An elegant pair of hands was drawn on the front, with tapered fingers and palms together, in prayer. Beaded bracelets hung around the wrists.