6. Cassian
SIX
Cassian
“ I ’m assuming your cooker’s been disconnected, sugar.” Amelie put the steak in front of me and shook her head. “As much as I’m enjoying how my takings have increased this last week, I’m not sure how good this is for your health.” She took the seat opposite me and made herself comfortable. The ends of her hair were different today, a shade that gave her an air of busyness.
“The cooker works. So does the fridge. But single man version two point one hasn’t been properly installed so I’m hating being on my own in the house.” I wasn’t the sort to try to be mysterious, so I’d removed the mystery about why I was single before the rumours started, which they always did with parent groups.
She sat back and folded her arms. “Get a housemate. I have a step son I’m willing to lease.”
“Thanks, Mills. I’m the best tenant you’ve ever had, so don’t lie.” Caleb walked past her, which she would’ve been well aware of because Amelie was aware of everything, so I’d learned over the last few days.
“You’re not a tenant if you don’t pay rent.” She shook her head and pointed at him.
“I can always move back in with you and my dad, but then you’d need to put a pin in your extra-curricular activities.” Caleb sat down next to me at the table and stole a chip, one of the triple cooked, future heart attack causers.
“Don’t put Cas off his dinner.” She slapped Caleb’s hand.
He just grinned.
Caleb was on the football team too, and we’d spent Sunday training and then enjoying a sunny day in the beer garden, some paddle boarding on the Strait somewhere in between that. He was in his early twenties, studying for a PhD in something to do with marine biology at the local university, where that was the specialism or one of them. Caleb was relaxed and friendly, something of a magnet for women – the rest of the team had taken the piss out of him for having three different girls cheering him on at training, none of whom was his girlfriend.
“You don’t pay rent?” I tucked into my steak.
Caleb shook his head. “I work here for free instead when Mills is short staffed.”
“Mainly so you can chat up Alys. Let’s not pretend you’re a saint, son.” She shook her head. “Alys isn’t into younger men though, so she’s safe from your charms.”
“I’m going to take that as a compliment, even though I think it was you being sarcastic. Anyway, did you hear about the police searching Cara’s house?” He stole another chip.
I sat up, putting my steak knife down. “Cara’s house? Why were they searching there?” I’d only been away from school for an hour, and an hour before that Romy had been collecting Mia and Heidi. I hadn’t spoken to her because another parent had kept me busy – not with anything important – but I would’ve thought that if something had happened, Romy would’ve messaged me.
I’d walked to Cara’s house on Saturday after I’d left Romy and the girls in the cakery, wanting an idea of what it was like where Mia had been growing up. I’d seen plenty of houses like it, my best friend when I was a kid had grown up in one just like it. But Mia’s home hadn’t been looked after. The garden resembled a jungle, just not an exotic one. The curtains at the window looked old and tatty, and there’d been a collection of unwashed pots that I could see through the kitchen window, all in different stages of being left after eating.
Don’t get me wrong, I could leave a pile of pots for a couple of days without any guilt at all, but not much longer than that. The state of the house made me wonder what life was like for Mia there, how much she did for herself because her mother for whatever reason wasn’t able to. I didn’t know where her dad was, and there’d been nothing in her records to suggest he was around.
“I think they’re concerned that Cara isn’t back yet,” Caleb said. “Not that I know her, but I heard Rhea Adams talking about it before and they’re treating it as a missing person.”
“What’s happening to Mia? Is she staying with Romy?” I’d need to let my school’s safeguarding lead know, as I’d no doubt there’d be a strategy meeting called with all the professionals that were involved.
Caleb shrugged. “No one said. There’s been a bit of gossip about what Cara was up to, and Mavis mentioned that Cara had left Mia overnight before.”
I’d met Mavis the day before, a little old woman who looked like she was due a sainthood until she opened her mouth. She seemed to consider herself a football coach as well as everything else I’d heard about, shouting instructions at us while we were training. Apparently, she took match day very seriously and I’d been warned to expect more criticism from her than our manager.
I was yet to find out exactly what that meant.
“That’s just rumour though.” I had notes on our safeguarding system that suggested the same thing, but there’d been no evidence for the school to take to social care, so it wouldn’t have met the threshold to be looked into.
“Rumours come from somewhere,” Amelie said, smacking Caleb’s hand before he could steal another chip. “Stop eating Cassian’s food and go and get yourself something.”
“Can’t. I’m out for dinner.” Caleb managed to thieve one.
Amelie frowned. “Again?”
He nodded. “Going to the Chinese in Bangor.”
“Who with? Please tell me it’s not another date.”
Caleb shrugged. “Might be.”
“With the same girl from last night?” There was something akin to disbelief on her face.
“I wouldn’t say that. I might get something to eat actually. I’m sure I’ll still be hungry later.” He glanced over to the door to the kitchen.
“Get Cas another bowl of chips then, seeing as you’ve eaten most of his.” She looked from him to me. “I do apologise for him. He has his father’s genes and occasionally it shows.”
Caleb got up, laughing, and headed to the kitchen.
“How’s the start of your second week gone then?” She stretched out some. “Have any of the parents tried to tie you up in their bedrooms yet?”
I almost choked on a piece of steak.
Amelie laughed, the sound reminding me of bells at Christmas. “You’re the talk of the town. Three or four of the mums come in here for a coffee before they pick their kids up from school, and you were the headline topic this afternoon. There was a lot of speculation going on. One of them has a cousin she thinks might know someone whose kids were at your old school, so she’s apparently going to get all the dirty details.”
I groaned. “Why?”
“Because you’re fresh meat. You’re single. You’re the new headteacher and you’re under forty – or so they’re guessing, and you’re not from the island, so you’re mysterious.” She toyed with the charm bracelet around her wrist. It was delicate and the charms were small, which made me suspect it was handmade rather than an expensive piece from a jewellers.
“I’ll only be mysterious if they stop trying to dig up dirt. Which they will find.” I didn’t have anything horrendous in my past, the breakdown of my marriage hadn’t been instigated by me, and there were a few interesting diversions before teaching in the form of some now embarrassing DJing and a brief modelling stint, where the photos now made me cringe.
“They’d find it if they dug back far enough with any of us. My suggestion is to come up with a girlfriend, a long distance one, then they’ll leave you alone and they won’t be able to find anything.”
I shook my head, carrying on eating. The other reason I’d been here probably far too much was because the food was good, and as much as I was into staying fit and all that jazz, I liked my food. Cooking for one seemed pointless, so I was left with the option of going shopping for convenience foods or eating out.
“I’m not making up stories.”
Her smile suggested she was planning something. “No reason I can’t. We can have some fun with this.”
“I feel like I should be scared.”
I was definitely scared when I saw the sweetness of her smile.
“Maybe just a little.”
I didn’t hang around the Puffin Inn for long after eating, having made plans with myself to sort out the gym equipment that’d been delivered, plans I probably wasn’t going to stick to because it was such a nice evening, too good to be spending it inside a garage, which was where the gym stuff was going to go.
In order to procrastinate, I took a longer walk home, along the beach and through the elder woods, along an overgrown pathway to an ancient stone monument from the Neolithic period that had an odd atmosphere to it that didn’t make me want to linger. The sky was full of yellows and soft pinks, a sunset that the holidaymakers would be gasping over. I had another six weeks of term before I could gasp over anything to do with holidays, which wasn’t fazing me like it would usually, because the freshness of the new role and place was keeping my adrenaline going.
The school was in an okay shape, but it was old fashioned in many ways. The previous head had retired at the age of sixty-six, having been at the same school for forty of those years, since he’d qualified as a teacher. Some of his ideas would’ve been what he’d been taught about in teacher training and most things had definitely moved on since then.
I thought about my work and the to do list that was growing infinitely, some of the HR issues I’d inherited and how we would cover the increase in wages for the next academic year if they weren’t fully funded by the government. I thought about my ex and my ex-best friend and how I hadn’t heard anything from them or about them in the last couple of weeks and how good that silence felt.
I thought about Mia and where her mother was.
I wasn’t na?ve enough to think that bad things only happened in cities. Crime was rife in small towns too, just not as obvious, or maybe people subliminally chose not to notice it.
It was as if the universe conjured up Mia and Heidi at that point, ‘Mr Caddick’ ringing through the air above the cry of the gulls. I could already recognise Heidi’s voice after just a week and a day in the job. Mia’s voice I still wasn’t sure about yet.
“Mr Caddick have you come to see us? Do you want a drink? I have blackcurrant cordial and Mia has got orange and mango!” Heidi was way too enthusiastic about cordial. What it was to be nearly six.
The molecules in the air changed and I turned around. Romy McAllister stood there, hands on her hips and her chin tilted up like she was a warrior about to embark on a battle.
“Girls, I said to stay in the back garden.” There was too much calm in her tone for it to be true.
“But we wanted to - ”
“Heidi, I meant what I said.” It was a voice I recognised from tired teachers and exasperated parents alike.
Heidi looked irritated, her eyes flashing and I wondered if she’d argue with her mum. Mia looked upset and tugged at Heidi's sleeve to pull her towards the garden.
“If you’d like a drink, come through,” she said once the girls had gone through the gate, the chink of the clasp sounding as it banged shut. “They’ve offered you cordial. I’m offering you wine because if a day needs wine, it’s today.”
“That bad?”
She exhaled hard enough for me to see her shoulders relax. “Unexpectedly nasty.”
“I heard that the police were in Cara’s house. It came from Caleb who’d heard it this afternoon, so it could be gossip. That’s not why I’m here though.” I wondered why I was being about as coherent as half-drunk teenager.
“Why are you here then? Is something the matter?” Worry came back in a tidal wave.
I shook my head and grinned, hoping I looked cheerful rather than weirdly stalker-like, which I definitely wasn’t.
Was I?
Romy was attractive and intelligent, and it’d been good to talk to her on Friday night, to have an adult conversation that wasn’t about education or divorce. But divorce was a topic because that was what I’d been going through and going out with the first woman I found attractive who seemed to be interested in me – judging by the way she was blushing right now – wasn’t the best idea for anyone.
“I went for a walk after dinner. Which was at the Puffin Inn again. I didn’t know where you lived – or at least I didn’t know how to get there. I found you by mistake.” I was definitely waffling.
But she was laughing now, which was a win given she’d looked almost terrified before.
“Wine?” Was her response.
“It’d be rude not to. As long as it’s not crap? Do you drink the stuff out of boxes?” I had my own fear of boxed wine, one stemming from being drunk as a sixteen-year-old and puking my guts up for the remainder of the night.
“I definitely don’t. You can chose between a sauvignon blanc or a rosé – the red isn’t open, I’m afraid.”
“What are you having?” I followed her having already walked into the front garden, through the gate into the back where Mia and Heidi were playing in a mud kitchen.
“Rosé. I’m hoping my mood turns rosy with it. Come through and excuse the mess. I could say having two children around makes it messier, but this is Heidi’s work. She’s like a hurricane.” She led the way through the back door into the kitchen, which was much tidier than my own and I hadn’t been doing any cooking.
The fridge was a retro style one, the kitchen large and modern, a surprise given how the front of the house looked. Romy produced the wine and poured two large glasses, offering me one at the same time as taking a mouthful from her glass.
“So Cara’s house?”
She swallowed and nodded, sitting down at the kitchen table which had a neat pile of colouring books on it and a pot of pens.
“The police got the key off the landlord – which they possibly should’ve done on Friday. For all we know she could’ve had an accident indoors and we wouldn’t have known.” She toyed with a pencil crayon from the pot.
“Although Mia did say Cara had told her she was going away.”
“True. Anyway, Cara wasn’t in the house, but someone had been. The place had been ransacked. We were meant to go in and pack some of Mia’s things, her toys and clothes that she wanted to have with her, but we weren’t able to go in because they needed to get forensics in. My friend – Liv – is a detective sergeant and she was there when we turned up. She said it looked like someone had been in there looking for something.” Romy took a smaller sip. “That’s nice. I feel guilty for having a drink in case I need to take Mia somewhere, but I think she might be staying with me for a while, so –” she shrugged.
“If you need a lift anywhere, I’m sure there’d be someone who could help out.” It couldn’t be me as I’d now had a drink, but any other time I’d offer.
“There would be. And I checked with the social worker who said it was fine, I could carry on like I was when I just had Heidi here. Liv’s coming round in a bit with some of Mia’s things and an update – I take it school hasn't been told anything?” She put down the crayon but I could tell she was itching to carry on fiddling with it.
We had fidget toys for the children in school, especially for those who found fiddling with something helped them to concentrate or made them feel calmer. I made a note to get some for Romy.
As a friend, or potential friend. The parent of a pupil in my school.
That was all.
“We’ll probably be called to a meeting tomorrow. Could it’ve been Cara who was looking through things in her own home? Did it look like anyone had broken in?”
“Not from the front, although someone could’ve gotten in from the back. Cara could even have left a door unlocked, or she might’ve left the key like she promised Mia and someone else got it. Shit – I should’ve mentioned that to the police.” She sounded irritated.
“Tell your friend when she gets here. Did she mention when they thought someone had been in?”
Romy shook her head. “Nothing and I didn’t think to ask. The social worker – Sue - was with us and I’d just had a meeting with her about Mia staying with me, so everything had been a bit, well, everywhere. She took Mia and Heidi for ice cream after so I had an hour to myself, which was good because I could do a food shop without Madame Sugar Addict asking for chocolate every two aisles, and I’m rambling.”
I was also smiling.
“You’re allowed to. You’ve had a busy day.” A strange one too, I guessed. “So Mia’s staying with you on a special guardianship order?”
“She is. I think a judge has to approve it, and they have to do checks on me and Joel’s mum because she’ll help out babysitting sometimes, and there were lots of questions, which I get, because they need to make sure I’m not some unsavoury character.”
So far, I thought she was pretty sweet, and many years ago I would’ve dropped that line, only it was as cheesy as fuck and I wasn’t thinking of Romy as someone I wanted to chat up.
“So she’s staying with you. Are you okay with that?” Kids were hard work. Romy was a single parent with a career, having another kid in the house that she had to look after was no small undertaking.
“I’m fine with that. If it goes on longer than a few weeks, there’s a spare bedroom I can clear out and Mia can have her own space. They’re loving having bunk beds at the moment, but that’ll only last so long.” Her face shadowed.
“I’m sure people will help you get that sorted.” It was a skill of a head teacher, or senior school leader to have a go at being soothing without committing to help out. I felt bad for using that now.
Romy shrugged. “It’s where Joel’s – Heidi’s dad – things are. The silly things I couldn’t throw away. His mum’s been trying to get me to get rid of it for years and because I’ve not needed the room for anything, I’ve left it.”
“That’s going to be tough.” What else could I say?
“Not as much as it should be. The important stuff that was his is already through the house, photos of him, an award he got, things like that. This is his clothes and other things that I should’ve thrown away.” She looked out of the window where the girls were still playing. “I accepted years ago he wasn’t coming back and I miss him – I miss having someone to share things with, and some days I’m angry that he’s not here because our lives would’ve been so much different if he’d lived. I’ve just never gotten round to clearing out that room.”
“Will his mum help?”
“With pleasure. She keeps trying to set me up with dates.” A knock at the door stopped whatever she was going to say next. “That’s probably Liv, which is good timing. You can hear what she’s got to say straight from her.”
“Useful,” I said, not sure if I was glad of the interruption or not, but I was sure I was going to have to work out why I wouldn’t be glad of it later.