The Missing by Jane Casey Page B

maybe not .
    I started to walk towards the school, but of course she wasn’t finished. ‘I’ve heard from sources in the police that the body was found by one of the teachers from this school. That wasn’t you, was it?’
    I stopped and turned, mind racing. Obviously I didn’t want her to know that it had been me, but I wasn’t sure I could get away with an out-and-out lie. ‘God, how awful,’ I said in the end.
    ‘Yeah, dreadful,’ the journalist said, looking anything but bothered.
    I gave Carol another meaningless little smile and half-shrug, then headed for the staffroom, aware of her eyes on me as I crossed the car park. I had to hope that Carol would categorise me as bland, unquotable, totally uninteresting, because if she started to dig, there was every chance that she might put it all together. And not just about Jenny. If she was looking for an angle for a follow-up piece on what was undoubtedly going to be the story of the year, she might think to compare the circumstances of Jenny’s death with other local murders and mysteries. Charlie’s disappearance was an obvious one to drag up out of the archives. Not for the first time, I was glad I had changed my surname and that none of my colleagues knew anything about Charlie. It wouldn’t be so easy for Carol to make the connection. And after all , why should she? The only thing the two cases had in common was me.
    Even though the staffroom was as crowded as I’d ever seen it, the assembled teachers and staff were almost silent. It seemed every employee of Edgeworth School was there. Everyone was on time today. I looked at the drawn, worried faces that surrounded me and felt unutterably wretched. We were all involved in this now; there was no way to opt out.
    Elaine Pennington stood at one end of the room, DCI Vickers beside her. Next to him there was a young woman with a clipboard and immaculate make-up, who had introduced herself as the police press officer. The head teacher had been talking for some time now about Jenny, cooperation with the police and answering parents’ questions. She was making a brave attempt to seem as decisive and in control as normal, but the piece of paper she was using as a prompt sheet vibrated in her hands. One side of her narrow face looked frozen, palsied, with a twitch that tugged at her eyelid intermittently. I hoped she was planning to stay away from the media until she’d clawed back some of her composure. Her voice was uncharacteristically reedy, and as she spoke her eyes slid about the room. I forced myself to pay attention to what she was saying.
    ‘So in consultation with the police, bearing in mind the disruption that is likely to affect all of us in the coming days, I have decided to suspend classes for the time being.’
    A ripple of disturbance ran through the assembled teachers. Elaine’s neck became mottled with pink patches, the traditional sign that she was about to lose her temper.
    Stephen Smith, a sweet-natured man and one of the longest-serving teachers at the school, raised his hand.
    ‘Elaine, don’t you think the girls might need the routine of classes and work to keep their minds off what has happened?’
    ‘I did consider that, Stephen, thank you. But I am led to believe that the next couple of days are going to be a write-off from the point of view of concentration. Already it is impossible to work with all the noise and disruption that is going on.’
    As one, we turned to look out of the window, to where the news crews were setting up, their vans parked along the school wall. They had started to move on from the woods. The media would need a new backdrop for the lunchtime news and it looked like the school was it.
    ‘I don’t know if any of you have been in the school office this morning, but it has been chaotic to say the least. Janet has been fielding calls from worried parents since she arrived. They are concerned about their children’s safety, even though no one has suggested that