Where the Missing Go(54)

So I’ll just have to try something else. What else do I know?

They still remember me at the grammar school. Maureen, the secretary, comes out to have a chat with me on their nubby orange sofas, bright against the beige walls. She’s the same, her pale blonde coif towering upwards like a Mr Whippy ice cream. The pupils haven’t started back yet, so the place is quiet. She tells me they’ve been hosting summer schools over the holidays. ‘More trouble than they’re worth sometimes, but needs must. And then we’re back into term time! And … how have you been?’ she enquires delicately.

I sense a bit of embarrassment about my unexpected appearance today. Sophie, however you look at it, has not been another one of the school’s sterling academic success stories.

As I hoped, it was Maureen who called the police about the diary and she doesn’t mind chatting. But it wasn’t her who was handed the diary, but one of the cleaners, before the building had opened.

‘We had the young artists in that week. Or was it the gymnastic summer school? Anyway, of course when I saw that it wasn’t just one of our, um, current pupils’ names written at the front, but Sophie Harlow’s, I thought I must let the police know, just in case it was relevant, you see. Well, you never know.’

‘You were quite right,’ I say. ‘So, this cleaner, would they be about so I could have a quick chat, perhaps?’

‘Oh. Well.’

‘Just to settle a few questions in my mind,’ I say hurriedly. ‘Nothing official.’ Whatever that means.

‘I’m not sure … they come before school hours. They always seem to send different people’ – she lowers her voice a little – ‘and I’m not sure how good their English is either. You could give the agency a ring …’ She looks doubtful: you could stick a pen in your eye, but why would you?

‘If you wouldn’t mind giving me the number …’

‘I’d be happy to,’ she says, decisive now. ‘Just a moment,’ and she clicks away in her heels. That done, it will be my cue to leave, I sense: the grieving mother ticked off the list; now to sort the stationery order.

Perhaps that’s unfair, she’s trying to be helpful. But I’m gloomy now, imagining what lies ahead as I try to get past the company switchboard, the bemusement then guardedness at the suggestion of something unsavoury.

But what did I expect? ‘Yes, the man who handed it in seemed very suspicious, perhaps he knows something; I took down all his details’?

For something to do, I flick through the visitors’ book in front of me. For all the hoo-hah after Sophie left, I can’t see that they’ve updated their systems all that much; this is the book for guests to the school, more a relic of the school’s traditions than any real security log.

I recognise the odd surname as I leaf through the pages, going back in time; that’ll be the parent of a child Sophie must have mentioned. But schools renew themselves so quickly; Sophie’s year will have left this summer, A levels done. I wonder if many of the pupils still here even remember her now …

One name, neat caps in bright blue ink, catches my eye:

Nicholls, B.

I read across: Greater Manchester Police

This is pages back; ages ago. I check the date:

2 October, 2017 IN: 2.30p.m. OUT: 4.15p.m., his tight scribble of a signature.

‘Maureen,’ I say, as she emerges from the office, a piece of paper in hand, ‘I couldn’t help but notice, this DI Nicholls, I didn’t know that he …’ what? ‘… had a relationship with the school.’

‘Oh, do you know him?’ she says.

‘Yes, he’s been very helpful’ – that’s a push – ‘over Sophie’s diary; it was him who let me know that they’d found it.’

‘He’s very good,’ she agrees. ‘He gives talks to the students; safety and personal whatsit, part of the pastoral stuff. He’s done it for a while, now. He’s very popular with the teenage girls in particular. Tells them how to look after themselves.’ She laughs girlishly. ‘Of course it doesn’t hurt that they’ve all got crushes on him, they’ll all turn up to his talks.’ She’s a little pink herself.

‘Nicholls?’ This doesn’t really match the version of him I know; brusque at best, dour, if you’re not so inclined to be nice. ‘But why does he bother?’ I say bluntly.

She draws herself up a little. ‘Here at Amberton we take pride in maintaining alumni relationships, and we do think both sides get something quite important from—’

‘So he went to the school? Here?’

‘Of course he did,’ she says, mirroring my surprise. ‘Not while I’ve worked here, I’m not quite that old, gracious me. He’s quite the success story, he’ll be a chief constable yet, you know, he …’ I tune out, digesting this information. So Nicholls was new to Sophie’s case. But not new to the area; not at all.

And I don’t know why I assumed he wasn’t local. Of course there’s no reason for him to mention personal ties to the area, or to Sophie’s school; he’s a professional. Though he’s had every chance …

He gave the students talks. I wonder if Sophie ever went to one of them?

It’s funny how your brain works. How something jogs your memory, a little nudge and some synapse sparks, a connection is made. It comes to me as I’m driving home: what Danny said, that was niggling at me.