Head Start Read online

  ‘If only we could create a dropping-off zone,’ I said, as Richard gathered up Rosie, his granddaughter, who’d been playing imaginary hopscotch in the windblown playground. Why no one had painted real hopscotch there permanently I didn’t know. ‘A place where cars could pull off the road … If we could move the staff car park somewhere nearer the school, and—’

  He raised a hand. ‘You’re talking folding money there, Jane. Not a chance in the current climate. Look, that’s almost the last car. Rosie’s frozen, aren’t you, sweetheart? Best get you back home for a hot drink.’ He tipped his cap to me, and headed off, another gargantuan vehicle narrowly missing him as it pulled out without so much as a helpful signal.

  Having spent so much time doing peripheral things, I knew I’d have to stay late to deal with proper head teacher work too routine to recount – though I did have one minor triumph with a local firm promising to fit security lights within five working days.

  That done, it was time for my prowl round to see that all was well. I took a roll of black sacks with me and key A. And my mobile, of course.

  At least the vile weather meant that no one had left any windows open, and this time I was fairly certain that I was the only one on the premises. Heartened, I opened the sports stockroom, taking in battered tennis racquets, a cricket bat minus a chunk of its toe, and several random socks and boots. The most obvious detritus was a pile of stinking muddy, mildewed football shirts, in a variety of colours, none of them school regulation; they were mostly Premier League strips at least two seasons old so I felt no compunction in stowing them in one of the black sacks. Outside the village hall was a charity collection point for fabric and rags. This would be my first bulging donation. Should I continue with the clear-out? No, not until someone – me? – had put a new light bulb in the empty socket in the centre of the room. Fishing in the shallows lit by the corridor lights was one thing; plunging into possibly shark-filled waters in semi-darkness was another.

  Shouldering the sack, unlocking and relocking doors on my return to my office, this time I kept eyes and ears open. And my nose shut. The bundle stank so much it couldn’t spend the night anywhere near civilisation, or whatever in a school might pass for it. Grabbing my bag and case in my spare hand, I let myself out of the main door and headed out into the night. I hadn’t bargained on its snowing as hard as it had been raining earlier, or I might have abandoned the stuff on my back. But I wasn’t, as Pat had reminded me, one to give up easily, so I trudged precariously on. I felt and possibly looked like a female Santa. It was only about fifty yards to the village hall, wasn’t it?

  The distance was just long enough to attract the attention of someone who crept up behind me and snatched not my Radley bag, nor my laptop case but – just as I was popping it into the hopper – the sack of clothes.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Snow. High heels. Giving chase was impossible. I told myself I was lucky that the thief had only stolen rubbish that wouldn’t fit anyone bigger than a slender ten-year-old. I still had my computer and my bag. But I was angry and uneasy in equal measures. Snow was falling very thickly now, covering his tracks. His. Yes, I was pretty sure that the figure disappearing into the whiteness was male.

  As I teetered back to the caretaker’s house – my house! – I was too busy staying upright to think. Once locked inside, however, I reviewed my options. Actually, I didn’t have that many. I hadn’t got round to stocking the fridge or the freezer with provisions for a country winter, and if I wanted to eat breakfast I’d have to save the bacon and heel of bread. I could risk a drive to the nearest supermarket, though I had little faith in the provision of grit and salt for roads out here. Or I could plod out to the pub. Perhaps if I took a book I’d not look as forlorn as solo diners usually do. But if I read, I’d not have my radar alert for Simon’s unpleasant associates. If any, of course.

  Furious with myself for even imagining such an unlikely scenario crammed with unbelievable coincidences, I dug out a rucksack, my walking boots, stable but incredibly heavy after the high heels, and my alpine poles. Waterproof trousers to go with the heavyweight cagoule? A head torch? Sure, I’d look ridiculous. But who would care? Who would laugh at me in this white, unlit place?

  My yeti outfit hung up on a hook in the porch, I joined the three other occupants of The Jolly Cricketers’ bar. They huddled round the open fire, backs to the room. I preferred the less romantic radiator, which warmed my back fitfully as I took up my usual position facing the room, with a keen eye on the door. My glass of Cabernet Sauvignon was acceptable; I’d had far worse chilli con carne. No one talked very much, either to their colleagues by the fire or to the landlady, a round-faced woman in her early sixties with hair cut so well I’d ask for the name of her hairdresser when I got to know her. To be honest, although she seemed pleasant enough, she didn’t go out of her way to encourage conversation. We exchanged a few sentences about the weather, that was all. One of the other customers called her Diane when he demanded another pint.

  I waited till I was ready to pay; as evening’s entertainment went, this hadn’t been great, so I might as well get something out of it.

  ‘A really funny thing happened to me on the way here tonight,’ I said.

  ‘We’ll have to rename it The Forum, won’t we?’ she responded, straight-faced.

  ‘We could. But no togas were involved.’ I gave the briefest of explanations.

  Result. ‘Someone steals your rubbish before you can bin it? What on earth were you throwing out? Christian Dior? How weird,’ she acknowledged, as I shook my head.

  ‘Just old stuff,’ I assured her, ‘that didn’t fit me.’

  ‘That’s all right, then.’ She turned away.

  Her lack of curiosity baffled me. Weren’t bar staff supposed to thrive on absorbing and disseminating apparently useless bits of information? She’d made no attempt to find out who I was, or why I’d turned out on a night like this. Perhaps she knew – perhaps she was Tom’s auntie, and already primed to loathe me.

  As I withdrew to the porch and my Arctic garb, she adjourned to the window. What she’d no doubt like was the men leaving too, so that she could call time on the whole uninspiring evening.

  I set off purposefully, grateful for the poles – by now I couldn’t tell the pavement from the road. Sometimes I was helped by the light from people’s living room windows, their lives framed for an instant as I passed. How strange to let the world into your home, like a mini reality show. Had no one told them that drawing curtains kept the warmth in? But really I envied them. I would never dare leave mine open. Probably never would. Putting my head down, I walked all the faster. I had a job waiting for me: to check the forecast and to decide if I should try to keep the school open.

  The best thing about snow is that anyone or anything crossing it leaves tracks. A couple of years back Simon had been either too arrogant or too stupid to realise this, and had succeeded in proving to the satisfaction of the police and then the court that despite all the warnings and banning orders, he had been not only in the neighbourhood of my house but actually peering through the triple-locked windows.

  I made myself pull back the curtain a crack to see how much snow had fallen overnight: about a foot. The V of light from my window showed that my overnight visitor had been of the four-legged variety, though in my townie ignorance I couldn’t identify it. A cat? Too sensible, surely, to leave a nice warm hearth. Would a dog be allowed to roam alone? Surely not. In a county renowned for its sheep. A fox, then, even though it wasn’t cunning enough to disguise its prowling. Why had it headed to the school? At least I could safely assume that it didn’t have free access to the place and would want to rummage in the stockrooms. The kitchen bins would be its target.

  My own breakfast quickly out of the way, like the fox I trekked across the playground. I didn’t wear quite all last night’s cold-weather gear but I carried the rest with me: if I had enough staff to keep the school open, any child turning up would have the time of
its life. We could look at snow crystals, calculate the weight of snowmen, work out why snow slides became slippery and then, with red fingers and noses, adjourn inside and write about it.

  As I let myself into the school a giant tractor appeared, snow-ploughing its way through the village. I gave what I hoped was a neighbourly and approving wave, but perhaps the driver was perched too high to respond.

  Top of my inbox was an email directive from Brian Dawes, the chair of the governors, to try to keep the school open. In fact it was nothing to do with him. Such decisions are the head’s only, and a major, major headache. Whatever decision – close or stay open – is the wrong one for someone. I’d have liked to talk to the union rep, but to my shame I didn’t know who that was – or even if there was one. So rather lamely I replied to Dawes that I would do my best, and got on with contacting as many parents as I could with the good news, adding a request for the children to bring waterproof clothing and wellies. The teachers got the same upbeat message, which perhaps not all would welcome. One job I’d endured had been so bad I’d actually sat and cried when I learnt I was supposed to be at work.

  Here I had more to do than mope. I had a school to run and a message about road safety to hammer home. Cones. Snow cones. Painted bright poster-paint yellow. Yes!

  But motorists did have some rights. Soon large notices appeared at intervals along the playground fence. DO NOT THROW SNOWBALLS OUT OF THE PLAYGROUND. I also produced some arrows pointing to THE SLEDGE PARK, in other words, the bike shed.

  To my surprise Melanie looked less than impressed by my efforts, but had no chance to say anything, as the phone started ringing the moment she arrived. I made her coffee and returned to my office to deal with emails. All nice, safe routine emails. So why was I so uneasy?

  About half the children had arrived by registration, most of them on foot or towed by their parents on sledges. More trickled in over the next half-hour. Of the staff, Tom was very late, and only Fearn, the student who hadn’t yet learnt about teaching’s Dunkirk spirit, was absent altogether. Soon kids and adults alike caught the spirit of the day, the only downside being an outbreak of welly-wanging amongst the oldest boys, already on the verge of puberty and inclined for a moment to challenge my stern demand for better behaviour. Some of the youngest were so tired by lunchtime that we set aside the hall as a dormitory; the rest had to go to their classrooms and do all the sums and writing and artwork I’d asked the staff to plan on the hoof. At the end of the day I maintained a silent presence in the cloakroom area, and not a single welly went anywhere except on the appropriate foot.

  Once the music and movement club was over, I decided not to stay on at school – I could always return in the evening – but to risk a quick foray for food. Sadly, the village shop had closed a year ago and still stood empty and unused, so I headed out for the nearest supermarket to stock up. Not surprisingly I wasn’t the only one: I saw several of my pupils as I trundled the trolley around. Most waved. A couple of parents stopped in midstream to congratulate me on the day’s fun. Several, to judge by the mountains in their trolleys, anticipating a siege, didn’t: was I being paranoid to sense a letter of complaint in the air? But I got round without any interruptions, and smiled happily at the checkout lad as I decanted all my goodies. I’d enjoy methodically filling the completely empty freezer, and pondering what to treat myself to when I’d finished.

  But those simple pleasures would have to wait. I got home to find that someone had been busy. Someone had garlanded my house with the rubbish that had been stolen last night.

  I wanted to scream and drag everything off. But that would be to destroy evidence. In a forced state of calm, I did indeed put away my shopping. Only then, with a hot mug of tea in my hand, did I call the police. Not 999: even I could reason that this sort of attack didn’t for other people rate as an emergency. 101. The non-urgent number. It took five minutes for my call to be picked up. I gave a succinct account to a pair of apparently disbelieving ears.

  The woman taking the call gave a little squeak. ‘What a cheek, stealing from a charity.’

  There didn’t seem any point in explaining again. But I did say, ‘You don’t think it’s a bit weird to hang what they stole all over my house?’

  ‘How did they make them stay there?’

  Good point, even if she seemed to be missing the main one. Why hadn’t I thought of that? Because I’d panicked and not thought things through. I’d check as soon as the call was over. ‘I didn’t want to disturb a possible crime scene,’ I said glibly.

  ‘I’ll make a note. But it’s a nasty night – I can’t promise to send an officer round anytime soon.’

  ‘Can I take everything down? Put it in the charity bin?’ I know what I’d have said to such a stupid question.

  ‘Well, you don’t want to leave it for everyone to have a laugh at, do you?’

  No. I didn’t. Not the headmistress part of me, anyway. But as someone who’d been on the receiving end of crime for a long time, I knew the value of putting everything on record. So, once again swathing myself as if for a polar expedition, I took as many photos as I could: thank goodness for a clever camera that didn’t object to the dark. Now what?

  Another black sack. Another harvest of unwanted clothes, though at least their unauthorised airing had diminished the stench a little. They were now wringing wet, however, and the mould and mildew already lurking would love the new improved environment. If I did consign it all to the charity bin, assuming no interruptions this time, some poor worker would eventually have to open the bag to see what recyclable treasure lurked within and find some vile mycelium that would scare even Doctor Who. It was too late and too cold to hang around pondering. Was it desperation or simply common sense that propelled me to the sledge park, aka the cycle shed? I tied the bag to a strut, with luck out of anyone’s reach. Perhaps inspiration would strike me over one of those tempting ready meals lurking in the fridge. Or more likely in a glass of Shiraz.

  ‘Picking up first ring? Sounds a bit desperate, Avo.’

  ‘Possibly. Even someone trying to sell me PPI compensation would have a human voice, wouldn’t they?’

  Pat snorted. ‘I’d have thought after a day surrounded by screaming kids and yapping parents silence would be – in the old cliché – golden.’

  ‘There’s a difference between country silence and city silence,’ I said. ‘In Leeds or Reading I could just nip out and be anonymous. Here – well, I’d leave deep tracks for a start. We’ve got a foot of snow, and my central heating doesn’t seem to be coping. I was just thinking of going across to the school and working there for a bit.’

  ‘But?’ Pat always knew when a but was involved.

  ‘But then I’d have to turn out of school warmth and come back to my lack of it.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Those tracks. People would know my house was empty.’

  ‘And?’

  Damn the man. ‘And they’d be able to have another go at decorating my house.’ I explained. The kind donations had simply been soaked and frozen into place, as I discovered when I opened an upper window and tugged.

  ‘But that begs the question of how they got put there in first place. Any signs of a ladder?’

  ‘Not necessary. There’s a nice strong trellis that would cope with a child’s weight, at least. And a stem of wisteria as thick as my arm shooting out from it – the whole tree has been carefully trained, I should think. It must smell lovely in early summer,’ I added to fill the silence of his thinking.

  ‘Weird. Dead weird. And are the shirts in the charity collection now? No? Good. Let me have a think about this, Avo. Remember the drill, now: all curtains drawn, lights on—’

  ‘—in every room,’ I continued for him. But he was right to remind me. It was what I should have done before I headed for the supermarket. And I should have left a radio on.

  We nattered for a bit about nothing much and then hung up.

  It was then that the depth of the silence
hit me. And the cold. Why wasn’t there a quiet hum from the boiler? And why were the radiators cooling quite palpably? The heating was supposed to stay on till ten. The timer had worked before. Why not now? You might have power cuts to knock out electricity, but you can’t have gas cuts; and then, slapping my forehead in frustration, I remembered. Unbelievably, in the twenty-first century, the village had no mains gas. Apparently it was too far – four short miles! – from civilisation in the form of a town. That’s why there were green tanks by every house – by the school, indeed. They held oil or LPG. The school used oil. I assumed this house did too: in fact the woman who had given me the keys assured me the letting agency had organised a delivery for me before I moved in. The school was nice and warm. Why wasn’t I?

  Because someone had emptied my oil tank, that was why. It was time to phone my friend on the 101 number again.

  I should have been reassured when she told me it was one of the most common forms of rural crime, and that half a dozen other people in the area had been robbed in the last week. She even managed to give me a crime number, so I could claim on my insurance. But tonight I didn’t want to be part of a crime wave, even a little one. I wanted to be warm. And safe. And not to have to huddle over an inadequate and probably hazardous electric fire, which had come with the house, knowing that the snow had started to fall again.