The Hiding Place(29)

“Just having a quiet pint.”

And spying on me. The thought leaps into my head unbidden. Paranoid. Maybe. But why not introduce himself?

“I didn’t want to interrupt,” he says. A rehearsed lie if ever I’ve heard one.

“What does talking to Stephen Hurst have to do with anything?” I ask innocently. If we’re going to play Pretty Little Liars here, I bet I can win.

Simon smiles. I really wish he wouldn’t.

“Well, between you, me and the lamppost…Stephen Hurst might give the impression of being a respectable councillor, but rumor has it he isn’t averse to using less professional methods when people upset him.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning,” Beth says, “Jeremy Hurst had a run-in with our last head of PE. Before the guy resigned, he had a run-in with someone’s fists on the way home one night.”

She glances at me and I realize: she knows. She knew from the minute I sat—painfully—down.

“Well, you shouldn’t listen to rumors,” I say evenly.

“Good point,” Simon says, opening his chicken sandwich noisily and taking a bite, noisily. I bet he even sleeps noisily.

“Reminds me, though,” he mumbles, “d’you remember Carol Webster?”

“Sorry?”

“At Stockford Academy. She was deputy head.”

I try to keep a neutral face, even as my heart picks up pace, like a jogger with the finishing line in sight. Except I’m not quite so happy about where this road is leading.

“Afraid not.”

Actually, I do. She was a vastly overweight woman with a huge halo of curly dark hair and a face that looked permanently disappointed—with herself, the school or the world in general, I was never sure.

“Well, she and I keep in touch on Facebook.”

Of course you do, I think. Facebook is the place where people with no friends in real life keep in touch with people they’d never want to be friends with in real life.

“That’s nice.”

“She remembers you, or rather, she remembers you leaving.”

“Yeah?”

“It was about the same time all that money from the school safe went missing.”

I regard him steadily. “I think you’ve got your facts wrong—I heard the money was returned.”

He makes a pretense of stroking his chin. “Oh yeah. I suppose that’s why the police never got involved. Got kind of hushed up.”

Beth looks at Simon. “Are you accusing Mr. Thorne of something here? Because you’re being about as subtle as a frigging tank.”

He holds up his hands in mock-surrender. “Oh no. Not at all. Just saying that’s why she remembered him. Timing. Talking of which”—he glances at his watch—“I have a kid I need to see about a detention.” He stands, grabbing his sandwich. “Catch you later.”

“Yeah,” I say. “Catch you later.”

“Not if we get immunized against you first,” Beth mutters, smiling sweetly.

I watch Simon’s departing back and wish for a crater to suddenly open up beneath him or perhaps for the ceiling to cave in, or an instance of spontaneous human combustion.

“Don’t let him get to you,” Beth says.

“He hasn’t.”

“Bullshit. Simon is a bloody awful teacher, but one thing he excels at is getting under other people’s skin. If you have an Achilles’ heel, he’ll find it and nip at it like a starving terrier.”

“Thanks for the mental image.”

“You’re welcome.” She pops a piece of pasta into her mouth: “Not true, is it?”

“What?”

“You didn’t really steal all the money from your last school?”

“No.”

I intended to. I really had sunk that low. But when it came to it, I couldn’t.

Because someone else had got there before me.

“Sorry,” Beth says. “Shouldn’t have even asked.”

“It’s okay.”

“I mean, I know Harry was desperate for a new English teacher, because, let’s face it, the position is a bit of a poisoned chalice—”

“Like I said, forget it.”

“But even Harry wouldn’t—”

“Forget it.”

I’ve snapped. She stares at me. I don’t want to piss off the one ally I have here.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m just in a bit of pain and—”

“No, it’s fine.” She shakes her head. Silver earrings glint. “Sometimes I don’t know when to shut up.”

“It’s not that—”

My phone buzzes in my pocket. I’d like to ignore it. But then again, it might be Gloria. Gloria made it pretty clear last night that she isn’t about to be ignored.

“Sorry,” I say again. “I just need to—”

“Go ahead.”

I slip the phone out of my pocket and glance at the screen. It’s not Gloria. I stare at the text message. My skin prickles with a million tiny, icy pitchforks.

“Something wrong?”

Yes.

“No.” I slip the phone back into my pocket. “But I’ve just remembered, I have to be somewhere.”