See what I’m saying, Sir? If someone had been helping Dad (and he’s never admitted as much, even to me) then the camera wasn’t pointing in the right direction to catch them. It was watching young girls, instead. Maybe it was looking for trouble from them, but then again, you know better than that, don’t you, Sir? For guess what I found when I researched into our town’s CCTV company a little further? That’s right, a picture of you, stood with two other operators at the launch five years ago. You — unmistakably. Your name on the caption, everything. A big photo of all three of you smiling in front of loads of television screens, the article telling people how you could remotely direct and move all these little cameras to catch criminals and keep us safer. Sort of like playing Big Brother, wasn’t it, Sir? But not the crappy programme on the telly — the book by George Orwell. Like I say, I read a lot, I really do.
And once I found out about your ‘preferences’ from Cheryl’s mobile, things started to drop into place. I began piecing it together in those toilets on that Wednesday lunchtime. Just under a year, you’d been teaching. Eighteen month’s my Dad’s been inside. According to the papers, at my Dad’s trial, the CCTV company admitted they’d received a resignation from one of their operators for ‘failing to comply with company policy whilst monitoring the immediate area around the warehouse.’ That was you, wasn’t it, Sir?
I reckoned you left the job, took a quick teacher-training course somewhere, then turned up here. But like I say, it was only a theory. I could have been wildly wrong. So, I decided to do what Hamlet does, and devise a test (another conscience-pricker) to see if I was right. Here’s what I did...
Firstly, I texted you back on Cheryl’s phone. You remember that one, Sir? The one where she asked to meet you that very night at The Wellington Arms? That was me, not her. But less than a minute later the phone buzzed in my hands with your reply, something about having to be really careful as it was such a public place.
And I was giggling now, as you replied back again, insisting we must meet, that I had something to tell you I might need to see a doctor about. I remember having to stop myself from laughing out loud as I pressed Send.
Next, I deleted the messages and dropped the phone in the toilet cistern. Now, even if Cheryl and her mates did find it, the thing wouldn’t work, and you wouldn’t be able to contact her before meeting up in The Wellington. You were most likely going to turn up, and she had no idea about any of it. Quite a scheme, eh? I think even Hamlet would have been proud of me, don’t you, Sir?
It’s a good play, Hamlet, and has often been interpreted in many different ways. It seems to me that the central question — does he fake his madness to get revenge on those who’ve betrayed him? — is almost impossible to answer. Perhaps Shakespeare was trying to say that all revenge is a form of madness, as it can consume our minds if we’re not careful.
I think Dad’s the sanest man I know. Yes, he did a stupid thing and got caught, and now he’s being punished for it. But he’s never talked of revenge — even though I reckon he’d probably want to get that CCTV operator who spent too long watching young girls getting drunk, rather than catching the apprentice on the night of the robbery. The police never found any fingerprints or anything, but the fact is that Dad couldn’t have done it on his own. Someone else must have helped him, been inside the warehouse, handing him boxes to load into the van just out of sight of the camera. But when the police when through the tapes, Dad was the only person on them. Doesn’t seem very fair, does it, Sir? My dad in prison, and the other man going free because you didn’t do your job properly.
Chances are, Sir, you never made the connection between Dad and me. Judy Harris, I mean it’s not an uncommon surname, is it? Sort of invisible to you, aren’t I? The swotty kid who complains about the others, tells tales on them; the easy one to ridicule. The plain one, the one that doesn’t wear make-up or giggle as you pass by in the corridor. Just invisible old Judy Harris, does her homework, tries her best. Strange how life can turn out, isn’t it, Sir?
Back to my conscience pricker. Having arranged for you to be in The Wellington, I decided that Mum and Uncle Tony needed a little more culture in their lives. I went to the shopping precinct on the way home and bought myself a copy of the Hamlet DVD, telling them after tea that I thought it would be a really nice idea if we all sat down and watched it together. Well, of course, Uncle Tony — already a little drunk at this point — raised a few objections, saying he didn’t mind watching Mel Gibson stuff, Mad Max and the like, but he was buggered if he was going to sit down and watch ‘a load of Shakespeare shit all night’. (See? Another quotation. Makes two so far. Doing right well, aren’t I, Sir?)
Anyway, I made a bit of a fuss, and eventually Mum decided to smooth things over and ask Uncle Tony really nicely if he’d do this one thing. I said it’d make us all feel more like a proper family, and Uncle Tony sort of made a throaty noise, shrugged and gave way, saying he’d give it half an hour, and if it was bollocks, then he’d leave it.
So, Sir, just after half-seven that night, I put Hamlet on. Imagine that, a real bit of culture in our grotty house. Amazing, eh? And then I did what Hamlet does, watched my mother and uncle real close as the story unravelled...
It didn’t take long, twenty minutes at the most, and that’s even with all the old language to cope with. Mum and Uncle Tony soon go the gist of it — the betrayal of Hamlet’s father — and sort of began shifting uncomfortably and giving these sideways looks at each other. Honestly, Sir, it worked a treat.
Uncle Tony started coming out with all this stuff about Mel Gibson going ‘poofy’, and he was much better in Braveheart and all the Lethal Weapon stuff. I knew he was just begging for an excuse to leave what was becoming more and more embarrassing for him. So, at that point I decided to tell him about you, Sir. Not the Cheryl Bassington stuff, or even the way you were so mean to me; instead, I told him some other stuff.
Yeah, I know. I lied. But just a white one, really. And Hamlet himself does that, doesn’t he, when he tells Ophelia that he doesn’t really love her anymore? I told Uncle Tony that when I was buying the DVD, a strange bloke had come up to me asking me my name and wanting to know where I lived, and when I told him, he asked if Tony Watts lived with us. When I said he did, the bloke said he’d wanted to speak to him about the ‘favour’ he’d done Uncle Tony with the security cameras, and as far as he was concerned, he was owed ‘big style’, and that he would be waiting in The Wellington at eight-thirty to ‘sort it all out’.
Well, my Uncle Tony being the sort of bloke he is, you don’t have to try too hard to imagine his reaction. He was well angry, and began swearing and cursing, telling me I should have told him much earlier, asking for a description of you, then grabbing his coat and storming off, slamming the front door so loudly the walls shook. Mum looked right ashen, turned the DVD off, then ordered me up to my room saying I caused quite enough trouble for one night. Uncle Tony didn’t come home that night.
That was two weeks ago, and you’ve been off school ever since, haven’t you, Sir? At Thursday morning’s assembly, the Head told us you’d been attacked the previous night, and you were staying away to recover. Two broken ribs and a fractured jaw, the local paper said, with a couple of witnesses saying you’d been beaten up by a Tony Watts (unemployed) in the car park of The Wellington Arms. Police, apparently, are still trying to find a motive, but I’m sure with a little ‘help’ they’ll have a clearer picture of why he did that cruel thing to you.