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JIM
Ben Finch’s primary school reminded me of my own: small neighbourhood school, hotchpotch of
portable classrooms clustered around a Victorian building on a cramped site.
Fraser told me to take DC Woodley to the school with me, which was annoying in one way because
he had a tendency to behave as though he had L-plates stuck on his back, even though he’d been in
CID for over a year. On the other hand, if anyone was going to witness my humiliation at being
demoted, however temporarily, to the role of school liaison officer, I suppose he was a good choice
because he was too weedy to gloat. ‘No gumption’ my dad would have said about him, and probably
worse.
The school secretary fussed around us, boiling the kettle, and looking disappointed when we didn’t
want tea or coffee. She wanted to talk. It’s not uncommon. When something traumatic has happened,
everyone connected to it has his or her own version of the story to tell. It’s why the press find it so
damn easy to fill columns; almost everybody wants to get their few minutes of fame.
The secretary told us she’d known something was wrong when Rachel Jenner hadn’t returned her
calls on Monday morning, because it was so unlike her. They automatically called parents, she said,
when a child didn’t turn up and there’d been no word from them. She clutched a mug that read, ‘Don’t
talk to me until this is empty!’ Fixed to the side of her computer monitor there was a photograph of
Ayers Rock under a pink and orange sunset, and a Bible quote, which claimed that faith moved
mountains. Both of them irritated me.
‘How often is Ben Finch absent from school?’ I asked her.
‘Hardly ever! He’s a lovely boy, ever so polite, ever so good. I couldn’t tell you what his
schoolwork is like, mind you, you’d have to ask Miss May or the Head about that, but I can tell you
he’s a lovely boy. He brings the register in to me in the mornings and he always has a smile. I say to
him, “Benedict Finch, you’ll go far with those super manners.”’
She got teary, removing her glasses to wipe her eyes.
‘Sorry,’ she said and followed that with a little outtake of air, a puff of distress that dispersed into
the room. ‘You will find him, won’t you, Inspector?’
‘We’ll do our best,’ I said.
The headmaster’s office was cramped. We sat around his desk on rigid moulded plastic chairs that
didn’t fit my body shape in any way.
‘I’m sorry, Detective Inspector,’ he said, ‘I was in the middle of a special assembly when you
arrived and I didn’t want to alarm the children by running off. They’re rattled enough already. Damien
Allen, by the way.’
He had a sleepy quality about him, heavily lidded eyes, a jowly face under hair that was in need of
a cut, and a ponderous voice that would have had me dozing off before the end of any assembly. I
shook his extended hand and found his grip loose.
‘I’m new to this job,’ he added. ‘It’s not ideal.’
I took that to mean the situation, not the job.
Ben’s teacher shook hands more earnestly; she had a bit of a pincer grip and she was one of those
people who shake for longer than you’ve anticipated. It’s an anxiety thing. They don’t want to let go of
you in case you disappear just when they need you.
Like the Head, she was holding herself together quite well, but there were signs of distress in the
way she clasped her hands tightly together and she looked on the verge of tears. She was a good-