The Mistress - Jill Childs Page 0,17

non-teaching time but, if a clash proves unavoidable, please contact Jayne (Lower School) or Matilda (Upper School) to arrange temporary cover. The police emphasise that even minor observations about Mr Wilson’s recent behaviour and state of mind may prove valuable. I’m sure we will all be keen to assist them in whatever way we can at this difficult time.

Olivia Fry pushed me into it. She booked a slot with a Lower School teaching assistant who’d also attended some of Ralph’s writing group meetings and suggested I should come too. No, not suggested, insisted.

‘What if there was something, some snippet of information, that helped?’ she said, cornering me in the Lower School playground when we were both on lunch duty. Her large eyes were earnest and moist with emotion. ‘It would be awful if we didn’t. Think of his poor wife.’

I wriggled and squirmed. She had no idea how much I thought of his poor wife. Her face, stony and set, haunted me almost as much as the memory of her dead husband.

I shrugged. ‘I’d be wasting their time, though. I hardly knew him.’

She pursed her lips. ‘I know. I’m the same. But we must. We’ll go together, get it over with.’

One of the girls came running over, unbuttoned coat flying, face blotchy with angry crying, demanding justice in some squabble with another girl. Olivia turned away from me to stoop to her and sort it out.

I broke the rules and strode quickly across the playground towards the school building and the staff toilets. The swirl of dodging, swerving children, the shrieks and screams blurred and shook. I was hot with fear. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t sit in the same room as an investigating officer and feel their eyes on my face. I couldn’t hold it together and answer questions. They’d know. I’d give myself away. Guilt would radiate from me in waves. How could they not feel it?

But how could I refuse to go along with the others without looking suspicious?

The night before the interview, I didn’t sleep. I paced, numb, up and down the flat, frightened of closing my eyes. Sleep wouldn’t come. All I saw that night was the knowing face of a detective, his eyes on mine, reading my mind.

Thirteen

They let the police officers borrow Sarah Baldini’s interview room, annexed to her office.

Three of us – Olivia, a plump, motherly teaching assistant and I – sat in a line on a row of chairs along the wall outside Sarah’s office, hands on our knees, waiting for our slot.

My palms itched with sweat. I wiped them off inside my pocket every now and then on a clean handkerchief, fearful of giving myself away. Olivia too looked pale and tense.

The teaching assistant, who liked to chatter, made nervous jokes. ‘I feel as if we’ve been sent for, stuck here, like this.’ Awkward silence. ‘This must be what the naughty boys feel like.’

The door opened and an Upper School teacher came out, the bearded science teacher who also attended the writing groups and always went cheerily to the pub afterwards. Now, he looked unusually solemn.

The teaching assistant whispered, ‘How’d it go? What’re they like?’

He shrugged. ‘Good luck.’

Already a young constable with a clipboard had emerged from behind him and stood in front of us, checking our names and contact details on her list. She looked barely twenty, younger even than Olivia. Her hair was twisted into a tight bun at the back of her head, held with a dark net and about a hundred clips.

As we got to our feet and made to follow her in, my stomach fell away. My knees buckled and I dropped back down to my chair with a bump.

The teaching assistant, all mother, bent over me. ‘You all right?’

I couldn’t answer. My heart raced. My hands, gripping the sides of the chair for support, felt cold and slippery.

‘You’re white as a ghost.’ The teaching assistant hesitated. ‘Shall I tell them you’re not well?’

She started to turn towards the office which had already swallowed up Olivia and the young constable. I shot out a hand to grab her arm and struggled to my feet.

‘I’m fine. Sorry. Just got up too quickly.’ I lowered my voice and managed to whisper. ‘Time of the month, you know.’

She nodded and smiled and I managed to follow her in, my legs wobbling beneath me.

I saw at once, as soon as we entered the office, that it wasn’t at all what I’d expected. My mind, playing tricks during the