Mark sat in his classroom marking books until five, then he was driven away by the distant thud of pop music from the sixth-formers’ aerobics class. It started as a mild irritation but after twenty minutes he was completely distracted, so he packed up and left. The corridors were empty. Outside it was nearly dark.
The front entrance of the school opened directly on to a suburban street. It was all steps and pillars like a municipal town hall, and would have been more in keeping facing a busy road in a town centre. Mark stood on the pavement wondering what to do next. There was hardly time to go home and still be in the pub for Brian. He felt ridiculously conspicuous and undecided. He looked at his watch to suggest that he had an appointment, a real purpose in lurking on this street corner, then he set off.
Almost immediately he thought he was being followed. There were footsteps which he was certain were not an echo of his own. When he turned round no one was there, but he imagined the pursuer flattened into the shadow of the high wall which marked the boundary of the school grounds. He felt his hands sweat and his heart pound. Occasionally Sheena had been the victim of panic attacks. Objectively, he recognized the symptoms, but still he was convinced that he was on the verge of a heart attack, that he was about to die. He stood still and forced himself to breathe deeply. There were no scuttling footsteps. When he turned round again the street, better lit now, was empty.
He told himself he had been imagining things. It was his guilty conscience. He deserved, after all, to have nightmares.
Brian Coulthard arrived at the Tap and Spile five minutes late, expecting to find Mark already there. Mark’s punctuality was legend. He checked both bars then settled down with a pint at a table by the fire. He had a view from there of the door. At seven, another pint later, he was beginning to become concerned. He was debating whether he should drive to the Taverner house in case there had been some sort of accident when Mark came in. He stood inside the door, dazed and blinking, like someone just woken from sleep and did not see Brian until he called out, ‘ Hey. Over here.’ Then he stumbled to the table, his hands stretched ahead of him in apology.
‘I’m really sorry. I left school early so I called into St Mary’s Church for a few minutes. Just to sit, you know, and think. I lost track of the time.’
‘No sweat,’ Brian said. He did not ask what Mark had to think about. ‘You’ve waited for me often enough. Drink? I’ve only got half an hour left, though. I promised Em I’d be in at eight.’
‘It won’t take long.’ But now he was here it seemed even more difficult than he’d feared, his dreadful betrayal was impossible to put into words. And Brian didn’t make it any easier with his bustling approach to the bar, his demand to be served. It was as if he were trying to avoid any serious discussion. By now the pub was filling up with men in suits needing a quick drink before facing their families, and there was a queue.
‘I’m sure that cop will get in touch with you,’ Brian said, as soon as he sat down with Mark’s orange juice and his half-pint. ‘Ramsay. He was asking all about you.’
‘I hope he doesn’t come to the school.’ Mark had a picture of flashing lights, a uniformed policeman standing at the classroom door, children sniggering.
‘He’s not daft,’ Brain said. ‘He’ll be discreet.’
‘Look,’ Mark leant forward across the table, felt spilled beer seep into his jersey at the elbows. ‘There’s something I have to tell you.’
But the noise of voices around them was now so loud that Brian had not heard. Or so it seemed because he jumped up suddenly and pushed his way through the crowd to the gents. When he returned he did not sit down.
‘I’d better go.’ He was holding his Burberry mac by the hook over his shoulder and his car keys were already in his hand. ‘Em’ll have my supper in the cut if I’m late again.’
‘Yes,’ Mark said. ‘Of course.’
‘Can I give you a lift?’
‘No. I’d rather walk.’
They left the pub together, and standing briefly on the pavement Mark made one more attempt to say his piece. Brian cut him off with an excuse that he was already late, but Mark was certain now that he did not want to hear.
‘Give Em my love, then,’ he said.
‘Sure,’ Brian answered. ‘Sure.’
When Mark walked home he stopped several times to listen, but there were no following footsteps.
Chapter Fourteen
The Shining Stars Day Nursery stood at the end of the street. Its corner position meant that there were gardens on three sides of the house. Marcia Frost, the proprietor, was a great believer in sending the little ones outside to let off steam. Now, however, it was dusk and too late for outside play. From her office on the first floor Miss Frost watched a group of high school students cross the road and make their way towards the town centre. They were late. Miss Frost realized that she had lost track of time. The lighter evenings had confused her. Already there was an adult standing by the high wooden gate. A father, presumably, waiting to collect a child, though he stood in the shadow and she did not recognize him.
Miss Frost hurried downstairs. She liked to be on hand when the parents arrived, to reassure. Fees for the Shining Stars Nursery were substantial. Clients were entitled to a personal service.
The nursery took children from newborn infants to four-year-olds ready to start school. Invariably the parents were professional. They liked Miss Frost because she was flexible and accommodating. Offspring could be dropped off at any time after seven thirty in the morning and collected as late as eight o’clock at night. She drew the line at weekends, though this service had been requested on a number of occasions.
Miss Frost, who had never suffered any maternal stirrings, wondered occasionally why some of these mothers chose to put themselves through the process. They saw their babies so infrequently. Hardly ever awake. She was very fond of cats. Her cat recognized her whenever she arrived home from work. Did these children recognize the parents who collected them, sleeping, from the baby room? What pleasure could there be in that?
At five thirty a rush of parents arrived. They stood in the hall, chatting to Miss Frost while the nursery nurses went to collect the children. Later Miss Frost identified this as the time when Tom Bingham must have escaped. One of the parents must have failed to shut the door properly. The staff had all been very carefully trained. She was emphatic that none of them could be responsible.
Tom’s mother was fat and cheerful. She worked as a reporter on the local newspaper. There was no father, at least no one she would admit to. Miss Frost thought she was feckless and a little slovenly. It had been known for Tom to arrive wearing odd socks and without his packed lunch.
‘How’s he been today, then?’ Jan Bingham asked, when she arrived at six o’clock. ‘A terror as usual?’
‘No,’ Miss Frost said. ‘He’s been much more settled.’ Though when she considered it she realized that she just hadn’t been bothered by Tom. Usually he was running backwards and forwards into the hall at this time to look for his mother, getting under the feet of other waiting parents. She was looking forward to losing Tom to the infants school.
She called to the nursery nurse in charge of the three-year-olds, ‘Tom Bingham, please, Hayley. His mother’s here.’
Hayley returned a few minutes later, anxious and blushing. This was her first position after completing her training and she still found her boss daunting.
‘I’m sorry, Miss Frost. I can’t find him.’
A search ensued. They looked in the toilets, in the baby room and the garden. Eventually, at Ms Bingham’s insistence, the police were called.
By chance two policemen in a patrol car found the boy on their way to answer the call. He was standing in the middle of the road, shivering because he had left the Shining Stars without a coat. He was lucky that a car had not hit him.