Chapter Twelve
Text sent from Hedley Lodestone Primary Academy to parents:
Because of today’s extreme heat, children are allowed on this one occasion to come in non-uniform. PLEASE REMEMBER SUN HATS!
The white Fiat threaded cautiously in amongst the afternoon traffic on the Durham bypass.
‘I’m still not really sure about this,’ said Liz, frowning through her driving glasses. ‘I mean what are we looking for?’
‘The next roundabout but one,’ said Thelma, frowning down at her phone. ‘Signposted Pity Me and Framwellgate Moor.’
‘I mean,’ said Liz, not without a hint of exasperation, ‘at the school. I just don’t see what’s to be gained by us going there.’
Thelma said nothing; the truth was she was none too sure either.
She clasped her hands and mentally repeated one of her favourite lines of scripture: seek and ye shall find.
Which was all very well – but seek what?
And how could one know they’d found something if they weren’t aware they were seeking it in the first place?
‘I mean, how is it going to look?’ persisted Liz. ‘Us just turning up there – with the place about to close?’
‘It’s hardly a case of us just turning up there,’ said Thelma. ‘Caro Miranda was very insistent we went and saw the place for ourselves.’
‘She was that,’ said Liz rather grimly.
‘Yes,’ said Thelma. ‘I’m not really sure what I made of her.’
‘I was,’ said Liz, still grim. ‘I know she was upset, but she was a bit of a pushy so-and-so. She reminded me of Jan.’
There was a pause as they both pictured Liz’s erstwhile friend and one-time colleague. Always so sure she was right.
‘Here,’ said Thelma. ‘The roundabout coming up. Third exit.’
Liz nodded tensely, feeling a sneeze brewing. For her, unfamiliar roundabouts were one of life’s trials.
They both stayed quiet as she focused. Roundabout successfully negotiated, Thelma said, ‘I really do appreciate you driving.’
‘How is your arm anyway?’ asked Liz.
‘Oh, you know.’ Thelma sounded vague. ‘A bit stiff.’ She made a half-hearted demonstrative claw.
Liz said nothing.
About half a mile down the road she braked as the telltale speed bumps and green security fencing of a school materialised.
‘Is this it?’ she said doubtfully. The school itself looked large and corporate, more like an office block than a place of education. ‘Wearside Primary Academy’ announced a sign, ‘Where young learners aspire!’
‘That must be the academy school,’ said Thelma. ‘The one Caro mentioned. The school we want is about a mile further on, just beyond a church.’
‘And have you been to the doctor’s?’ asked Liz. ‘About that arm?’
Thelma shook her head. ‘I’m going to see how it gets on.’
Again, Thelma sounded vague. Liz said nothing but continued driving down the long road of terraced houses that Pity Me seemed to comprise of.
She felt worried, more than worried and not just about their imminent visit to Pity Me school.
Thelma hardly ever lied, and when she did there was always some darker reason, making any untruth the more palatable option.
Some eighty miles away, Pat sat waiting in the lobby of Headley Community Academy listening to the sound of children singing: timeless, cheering and infinitely optimistic.
Through the doors, her friend Victoria could be glimpsed at the front of the assembled school, a green-and-gold whirl of energy and encouragement.
Pat smiled and returned to studying the video on her phone: her son Justin, tanned, teeth bared in an easy white grin, confidentially speaking against the backdrop of books (her books) and drapes (her drapes).
‘It’s all about facing these curveballs life chucks at us’ – on the phone his voice sounded tinny and insubstantial – ‘and please note, folks, I’m not gifting these things with the term “setback” – which automatically bestows a negative energy.
It’s about saying, “Hey, universe: that’s the way you’re working and I make a conscious choice to go along with that.
”’ Pat locked the phone. From all this talk about curveballs she was gathering that the job at ‘Eee Pet’ had not been such a ‘shoo-in’ after all, and that for the foreseeable future at least, the only place Justin would be gifting his positivity would be the Allied Insurance Call Centre, Northallerton.
At least she hoped that was all the curveball was.
She thought back to those raised voices coming from the guest bedroom the other night, when Justin arrived home from work. Rod had quickly and easily put them down to pre-interview jitters, and normally, Pat would have too.
Except … She thought again of the figure on Scott Hall Road … Tiffany-Jane’s tense unmade-up face … the faraway look in the girl’s eyes as she’d stared out over the fields the other day …
‘Pat! My best girl!’ Victoria surged into the lobby like a benign tornado and encased her in a sweet coconut-scented hug.
‘I’m so sorry to keep you! Leavers assembly – end of primary school …
they’re all on at least their sixth box of tissues, God love them!
’ Pat hugged back, drawing, as she always did, energy from her friend’s very presence.
As always with Victoria, the world seemed a brighter, more glittery place full of joy and hope.
‘I’ve not got long, my darling,’ said Victoria.
‘Even though it’s the last day of term the trust in their infinite wisdom have decided what all the staff need is some Goal Enabling.
Thank you, Trust! Still, it’s Bun Widdup, so it shouldn’t be too bad, whatever it is.
Anyway, how are you, my darling?’ She held Pat at arm’s length, surveying her critically, dark skin suddenly glowing in a girder of afternoon sunlight transecting the lobby.
‘And what’s all this about Neville Hilton? ’
Back in Durham, the white Fiat pulled in directly in front of Pity Me Infants school.
Where Wearside Primary Academy had been brash and new, this was Victorian old; twin gables of grey stone beyond an expanse of sun-baked asphalt, criss-crossed with the faded yellow and white ghosts of netball lines and hopscotch grids.
Sharp and incongruous was a red-and-black sign fixed to the school wall: Acquired by Berry Properties.
Parked up, steering lock on, Liz put a restraining hand on her friend’s arm.
‘Hang on,’ she said uneasily. ‘We’ve still not agreed what exactly we’re looking for.’
‘We’re looking,’ said Thelma, undoing her seatbelt, ‘for someone who could have had reason to confront Neville Hilton.’
‘But what do we say?’ There was a panicky edge to Liz’s voice. ‘It’s not as if we can just walk in the staffroom and say, “Hi, we’re just here to see if any of you caused your Ofsted inspector to have a fatal heart attack.”’
Thelma wanted to quote from one of her go-to passages of scripture, from the book of Luke, words to the effect of the Holy Spirit will give the words to say at the moment they’re needed, but before she could put this thought into words, Liz nudged her arm and nodded in the direction of the school gate where the Reverend Caro Miranda had emerged and was walking purposefully towards the white Fiat.
‘Just let me do the talking,’ said Thelma.
‘Oh my God!’ Victoria’s eyes were wide. ‘An inspector croaks!’ The mouth widened into a smile, hastily quelled as she slapped a generous hand over it, nails winking like jewels in the sunlight.
‘Ignore me,’ she said. ‘Poor old Nev Hilton. Though we all have to go some time and I have to say there’s worse ways. ’
They were sitting in Victoria’s office, which like the rest of Headley Primary Academy bore the unmistakable signs of the end of the school year; the noticeboard was a forest of thank-you cards, the desk was heaped with papers and no less than three crammed refuse sacks leaned lazily against the wall.
Victoria’s watch beeped and she quickly flicked it into view.
‘It’s okay,’ she said. ‘We’ve still a few minutes before we Enable Our Goals.’ She laughed. ‘I tell you, Pat, I remember the days when “Zoom” was a type of ice lolly. Anyway, the late Neville—’
‘Did you know him?’
Victoria shook her head. ‘No,’ she said. ‘That is to say I heard him speaking at some trust symposium on Ofsted awareness. You knew he was working for Lodestone?’
Pat nodded.
‘Anyway, he managed to make his sessions as dull as old ditchwater, which takes some doing, given how worked up us mere mortals get about Ofsted. But I know Pete knew him. He spoke to me about Neville Hilton quite a bit after we heard he’d died.’
‘Pete? This is your tame inspector?’
Victoria nodded. ‘I’ll let him tell you,’ she said. ‘It’s his story. Though having sat through Nev Hilton talking about “What Ofsted want”, I wish I’d shouted out Blood!’
‘Are you due an inspection then?’ asked Pat.
Victoria shook her silvery white head. ‘No, praise be. We’ve a couple of years yet – and I’ll be long gone by then.
’ She returned Pat’s cynical smile. ‘I know,’ she said.
‘How many times have you heard me say that? But I swear to God, Pat, it was bad enough before but now we’re in Lodestone Trust – they get their knickers in a right old knot! ’
Pat, remembering her meeting with Chris Canne, smiled knowingly.
‘I tell you,’ said Victoria. ‘When you’re due – the second that Ofsted window creaks open – the trust sends this team in.
The Ofsted Action Support Team – T.O.A.S.T.
, I know!’ She burst out into that rich chuckle.
‘Popping up all over the place they are! Honestly, Pat, if schools put a fraction of the energy into teaching, they did into passing Ofsted inspections, education in this country would be transformed overnight.’ Her face grew serious.
‘And you think Neville Hilton may have died because of this Ofsted he did?’
‘I honestly don’t know,’ said Pat. ‘The police say he died of natural causes, end of.’
‘But you, Thelma and Liz think otherwise?’