Free The Surrogate by Tania Carver

had been murdered and now the school had been invaded by police.

    DC Anni Hepburn had been a detective long enough to develop a detachment that enabled her to do her job effectively while still retaining sympathy for the victims of violent crime. She hoped she always would. Human debris, was how she often secretly referred to them. Broken remains needing - and hoping for - repair. But she had also been a detective long enough to know that that wouldn’t always happen.

    Emma Nicholls, she thought, would be all right eventually. She hadn’t seen what Anni had seen earlier that day in Claire Fielding’s flat, smelled what she had smelled. And, as the headmistress kept stressing, her relationship with Claire Fielding and Julie Simpson had been mainly professional.

    ‘Please understand,’ Emma Nicholls said, tipping her head back and appearing to audition words in her head before trusting them to leave her mouth, ‘that my primary concern is for this school.’

    ‘Of course.’

    ‘By that I mean everyone. The welfare of the children and the staff I consider to be equally paramount.’

    ‘Right.’

    Words chosen, she continued. ‘Having said that, I seldom interfere in the affairs of my staff unless they are personal friends or they ask for help.’

    Anni nodded, knowing a disclaimer when she heard one. ‘Okay.’

    Emma Nicholls’ office managed to be both professional and welcoming, with achievements and diplomas on the walls alongside schedules, year planners and pictures the children had made especially for her. She seemed to be popular and well thought of. It was how Anni thought a primary school head teacher’s office - and a primary school head teacher - should be.

    The school was old but had been modernised. Clean, bright and bursting with positive energy, and with children’s work and achievements decorating the walls, it was clearly a place where the children were valued and well taught. But then, thought Anni, this was Lexden. An affluent suburb of Colchester. She would expect it to be like that.

    The children, or at least most of them that Anni had come into contact with since she had arrived there, seemed so full of hope, of life, of potential and enthusiasm for the world. They had seemed thrilled by the arrival of the police. Something different, something exciting to break up the routine. But as Anni and her small team of junior officers and uniforms had gone about their business of interviewing staff and explaining what their procedures would be, the children, she knew, no matter how discreet her team or how careful the teaching staff in explaining things, would soon find out. There was no way the murder of two teachers - well loved, if the comments she had overheard were anything to go by - could not affect them. And then they would see what the police were really there for. And begin to understand that the world wasn’t like they saw on TV; that it could be a horrible, cruel place. That was why Anni had never wanted kids herself. Because no matter how hard you tried to protect them from the world, the world would eventually claim them.

    ‘So,’ she continued, her notebook open, ‘were Claire Fielding and Julie Simpson personal friends?’

    Emma Nicholls seemed about to answer but instead sighed, her eyes drifting off, her forced pleasantness slipping away to be replaced by a dark, depressive air. Like a cancer victim who had momentarily forgotten their predicament.

    ‘This is just terrible,’ she said.

    With nothing to add, Anni nodded.

    ‘Oh my God . . .’

    The dark, depressive air was increasing. Anni had to take control. ‘Ms Nicholls,’ she said. ‘I’m most terribly sorry about what’s happened. I realise this is an awful time, but I really do need to ask you some questions.’

    Emma Nicholls pulled herself upright. ‘I know, I know. You’ve . . .’ Her mind drifted again, her features taking on the appearance of approaching tears. She managed to pull herself