Free Death of a Teacher by Lis Howell

really feel caring was her bag. She hired an agency for getting John up and putting him to bed. Her brother Kevin was such a godsend, sitting with John a lot, especially on Wednesday evenings when Liz had her Spanish lessons. Kevin had been John’s business partner in the past and he certainly owed the Rudders a lot. But even so, what he did now was above and beyond the call of duty.
    ‘Hi, Kevin, hello, John,’ Liz ruffled her husband’s dark hair and bent to kiss him, missing his face by an unnoticed half-inch.
    Kevin watched her approvingly and said cheerily, ‘Was it bad? The attack at the school?’
    ‘It wasn’t an attack, Kevin. Just a broken window. We had rather an inexperienced teacher in there, doing extra-curriculum art without the proper procedure. Asking for trouble.’
    Liz saw her brother out, and then went back inside and made herself some fresh coffee. Just before the agency workers were due to arrive that evening, she would put out a microwave shepherd’s pie from the freezer with a glass of juice. Till then John would be all right. He was grunting at her as she passed the sitting-room door, but she ignored him. How was she supposed to know what on earth he was mumbling about?
    She went up to her own bedroom, redecorated in the Easter holidays. It was her favourite room. John now slept on the ground floor in what had been his office. The little dim room was quite adequate for his needs. John had been bothered with night blindness before the stroke, and he still had a bright Anglepoise lamp. Liz was glad to be rid of it. She’d hated having the light on in the night, and now she had the prettiest of pale-pink bedrooms, with soft cherry lamps.
    She pressed a button on her cerise landline phone.
    ‘Hello, Callie,’ she said in her brightest teacher’s voice. ‘Have you got a minute? I think I may have something of yours. Are you missing a hammer?’

Chapter Six
    For he hath regarded the lowliness of his handmaiden.
    Magnificat. Luke 1:48. Folio 59v. Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry
    A t half past twelve on Saturday morning, after the police had gone, Alison MacDonald set off to drive to her fiancé’s flat in South Manchester. Mrs Rudder had dealt with the police constable, while Alison waited in the staff-room. But the PCSO woman had come to chat to her. Alison had said, ‘At first I thought it was a boy from my class. But now I can’t be sure.’ As Mrs Rudder had said, she couldn’t be really sure, could she? But she felt vaguely ashamed. She had been convinced it was Jonty McFadden running away from the smashed window. So why had she been persuaded by Mrs Rudder that she might have made a mistake, or even have wanted it to be Jonty?
    Alison picked up speed once she reached the M6 and turned south. It was a fine spring day, the blue sky and sage green hills momentarily lifting her spirits. But she couldn’t stop thinking about the ‘minor vandalism incident’, as Mrs Rudder had called it. If mere vandalism had been the aim, why hadn’t the vandals smashed the staff-room window or the big glass doors? Alison had experienced working with disruptive children in Manchester, but this was different. She felt personally victimized. Not for the first time in the last few weeks, she thought about handing in her notice at St Mungo’s.
    But the Police Community Support Officer had put a different point of view. Alison felt the woman had been older, friendly, non-judgemental; and she had been the only person to ask how Alison felt.
    ‘You shouldn’t let these people affect your behaviour,’ Ro had said. ‘They’ve won if you change things. Make sure the school takes security measures . We can help you on that. But get back to normal and don’t let it stop you.’
    Get back to normal, Alison thought. Right … That meant putting the incident out of her mind and looking forward to seeing Mark. He needed to relax at the weekends and had a very determined idea of how to do it. Sometimes