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to the same loose handshake as before.
‘Could we have a quick word with Ben’s teaching assistant before we leave?’ I asked. ‘Mr…⁠?’
‘Lucas Grantham,’ said the Head. ‘Miss May, could you show the officers where to find him?’
She walked with us down the corridor. On either side, the walls were plastered with work that the
children had done.
‘Lucas is in the classroom,’ she said. ‘Right here.’
Before I could ask her to fetch him discreetly, she pushed open the door. A class of kids was
working at low tables, in groups of four, sitting in those miniature chairs that you forget you ever
fitted into. A young man was overseeing them from the front of the room. He looked early twenties at
a guess. He had thick tufty ginger hair, and his face was pretty much one big freckle with a bit of
white skin peeking through here and there. He was perched on the desk.
The children’s eyes turned to us and they started to get to their feet. Chairs scraped and papers fell
off tables as they stood.
‘This is Mr Clemo and Mr Woodley,’ said Miss May. She whispered to me, ‘I’m not going to tell
them you’re policemen.’ Then she addressed them again: ‘What do we say, children?’
‘Good afternoon, Mr Clemo, good afternoon, Mr Woodley,’ they chanted.
‘Well done, class,’ said Miss May, and she favoured them with a big smile. ‘Sit down and carry
on.’
They sat down with a collective bump, duty done. The young man came to the door. ‘This is Lucas,’
said Miss May. ‘Or Mr Grantham, as the children call him. He’s our teaching assistant for Oak
Class.’
‘Nice to meet you,’ he said. No handshake, instead he held his hands in front of him, fingers
interlocked, and in motion, as if he were working his way along a set of prayer beads. ‘It’s just awful,
I can’t believe it.’ He had freckles on the back of his hands too.
‘We’ll need to have a word with you at some point very soon,’ I said.
‘Right! Of course, whenever,’ he said. Close up, he looked tired and slack-jawed. He had a weak
chin and he hadn’t shaved for a couple of days.
‘Have you noticed anything different from usual about Benedict Finch’s behaviour lately?’ I asked
him. I kept my voice down so the kids didn’t hear me.
‘No,’ he said. ‘Nothing at all.’
Behind him a space at one of the tables caught my eye, an empty chair where presumably Ben Finch
should have been sitting, surrounded by his schoolmates, having an ordinary day.
‘Nothing? Are you sure?’ I said. He was starting to irritate me.
‘No,’ he said. He shook his head slowly, his lips tucked in between his teeth. I felt my phone buzz
in my pocket.
‘We have to get going,’ I said. ‘Though we’ll need to interview you as soon as possible. Somebody
will be in touch to arrange that.’
The children were starting to fidget and talk. Miss May hushed them gently.
‘Whenever you like,’ said Lucas Grantham. ‘Of course. If it’ll help.’
In the car, Woodley said, ‘It’s a bloody nightmare how many people could have had contact with him.’
‘I know, and we’re going to need background and alibis on every single one of them. Plus we need
to check out the incident with the broken arm with the hospital.’
‘Do you think there’s anything in it?’
‘No, because it seems completely clear that Rachel Jenner didn’t inflict the injury on him. It was an