Mummy’s Little Soldier: A troubled child. An absent mum. A shocking secret.

Carl bit his lip with his teeth and continued to scratch. And scratch with a ferocity that could only mean one thing – lordy, just what we needed: he had nits. I’d have put money on it, and also on the absolute inevitability that if I didn’t concentrate hard I’d soon be scratching too. I shoved my hands under my thighs and tried to focus. We’d have to talk about it, but it didn’t seem terribly polite for it to be the first thing I asked him about himself.

‘So,’ I said, ‘you live with Mum, right? Any brothers or sisters?’

‘I don’t got a dad, miss, but I got a brother. Sam. He goes to primary school an’ he’s just gone in year 5. He’s only little. Am I getting excluded, miss? My mum’ll batter me if I am.’

I shook my head. ‘No, no, you’re not getting excluded, love. Heavens – you’ve only just started! But that’s kind of why you’re here, too. To make sure that nothing like that happens. So you don’t get into any trouble or fights.’ I lowered my voice. ‘You got into lots of scrapes at your last school, didn’t you?’

Carl nodded and scratched his head again; a sudden, frantic action. ‘It was all the other kids, miss.’

I smiled. ‘Carl, you know that’s what they all say. But go on, try me. In what way? I’m here to listen, after all.’

‘Names an’ stuff. They always called me and my brother names and stuff. An’ it’s like, not too bad when it’s just you getting it, is it? But when they’d start on my brother …’

‘It used to make you angry?’

‘Like, tampin’, miss. So I’d always end up losing my rag.’ He looked anxiously at me, still sawing away at his scalp. ‘But I swear I’m tryin’ to be good this time, like I told Mr Brabbige –’

‘Mr Brabbiner.’

‘Yeah, him. An’ I mean it.’

‘Yes, I’m sure you do …’ I replied, struggling to keep my eyes off his hair, and what I thought I could see lurking within it.

‘Love, does your head itch?’ I asked him, finding myself unable not to, such was the ferocity with which he was currently attacking it.

‘It’s the nits, miss,’ he said, confirming my worst fears with disarming candour. ‘I can’t find the nit comb nowhere – I’ve been looking and looking – an’ we haven’t got no lotion left at home.’

‘Does your mum work, sweetie?’ I asked, struggling not to start attacking my own head again.

‘Nah, she’s on benefits. She said we’re on the breadline.’ He shrugged. ‘I don’t know what that means exactly, but I think it means we’re pretty poor, don’t it?’

‘Yes, that’s what it usually means,’ I agreed. ‘But I tell you what. Do you want me to ask the school nurse for some lotion for you to take home with you today? Would your mum would be okay with us doing that?’

Carl beamed at me. So much so that I might have been offering him a new bike. ‘Really, miss? That would be well good, that would.’

He looked so gorgeous when he smiled that I had to mentally sit on my hands. It was far too soon for hugs, but oh, I wanted to scoop this child up.

‘Go on then, that’s it,’ I said instead. ‘For now, anyway, because the lunch bell’s due. We can sit down and have a chat again later. But I’ll ask nurse for some stuff for you. Sort those pesky nits out.’

Which had my hand immediately heading towards my head all over again.

The bell for lunch duly buzzed, cueing a mass scraping of chairs, and a sharp rise in decibels as my little crew busied themselves gathering coats and bags. Well, bar Carl, of course, who apparently had neither. Leaving Darryl to get his coat on, Kelly joined me at my desk. ‘Well, Sherlock,’ she whispered, ‘did you uncover any exciting mysteries this morning?’

‘Only one,’ I said, finding my hands drawn inexorably towards my head. ‘The mystery of why you must rip your scalp to pieces at the thought of someone else having nits!’

‘Oh, gr-eat,’ she said. ‘Thought as much. We’ll need to get that sorted, won’t we? Anyway, I’m going to dash. Want to get Darryl down to the lunch hall early. See you in the staff room in a bit?’

I shook my head. ‘Possibly not. I have to head off to the medical room; see if I can get some magic potion.’ I grinned. ‘And then catch up with Mr Love potion number 9. Sorry,’ I added. ‘I should stop doing that, shouldn’t I?’

Chapter 6 (#u3d9ea8c9-bead-55f7-b9f7-a8162c54e9ad)

There appeared to be a bit of a kerfuffle going on in the corridor outside Gary’s office, and I slowed down my pace as I approached. I was hoping that whatever the problem was would be quickly sorted out so I could get to the important business of my new pet project – Gary and the developments in his love life. Well, a little bit of idle gossip never harmed anyone, and it certainly helped break up the day.

As, in my experience, did kerfuffles in corridors. Though generally not in a good way. Not wishing to interrupt what was clearly a tense situation, I held back a bit, a good few yards from Gary’s room, and pretended to search through my satchel. No point me wellying in unless required to, after all, but I was there, at least, if called upon.

But it seemed Gary was on top of things. ‘Calm down, Leo,’ he was saying calmly to the angry-looking blond boy who was at that moment struggling to get away from the grip of the male teacher who had him pretty firmly by the shoulder. I recognised the boy sufficiently to pull up his whole name. Leo Fenton. I remembered him because he was a striking, cherubic-faced, good-looking lad. The sort of lad who’d soon have girls giggling in his wake. Not that I really knew him; I more ‘knew of’ him than was properly acquainted, our paths having only ever obliquely crossed.

It certainly looked as if he’d upset someone now. ‘We can’t get anywhere while you’re in this mood,’ Gary continued. ‘How about you stop wriggling and give me your version of what happened.’

‘What’s the point, sir?’ Leo asked, spluttering indignantly as he did so. ‘You’ll only believe him, anyway!’ He jerked his head backwards to indicate the ‘him’ in question – the teacher – and once again attempted to shrug the hand off. ‘Just exclude me, or give me detention or whatever, and let me get on.’

There was something about the boy’s face, and his tone of exasperation, that made me decide to wade in after all. That and the expression on the accompanying teacher’s face. I didn’t know him, though I’d seen him around the school from time to time, and to my mind he looked a little bit too much like the cat who’d got the cream. As if he felt proud to be taking this errant child to the school’s CPO; almost as if he were waiting for some recognition for doing so.

It was that expression, more than anything, that decided it for me. I stopped pretending to fiddle in my satchel and approached them. ‘Anything I can do, Mr Clark?’ I asked, only now noticing that there was blood on the boy’s brow and a smear of it on his cheek. I leaned in automatically to take a closer look. ‘Perhaps I should take Leo to the medical room and clean this up while you two have a chat?’

Gary smiled at me gratefully. ‘Thanks, Mrs Watson,’ he said. ‘If you wouldn’t mind.’ He then looked at the boy, his expression long-suffering enough for me to acknowledge there might be some history there. ‘Leo, go get that cut checked out, and me and Mr Kennedy will be waiting in my office for you.’

Close up, Leo was pale and had the sort of slightly unkempt look that immediately made me take notice. Might just be one of those kids who’d manage to look scruffy in their birthday suit – he certainly had the sort of hair for it – or, on the other hand, there might be a lack of care at home. Either way, he seemed only too happy to get away from his captor, tucking in his shirt bottom irritably. He glanced across at me as we walked. ‘You’re that lady in the Unit, aren’t you?’

I nodded. ‘That I am.’

‘My mate used to be in with you,’ he continued, almost conversationally. Almost as if whatever had happened had been relegated to a minor irritation, along with the cut under his eyebrow. ‘He’s called Tommy. Tommy Robinson. Do you remember him, miss? He lives near me. We walk to school together some days.’

I smiled. I did indeed know Tommy. Another tousle-haired lad. And the cheeky-chappy Londoner I’d had with me the previous term. ‘Of course I remember him,’ I said. ‘Tommy’s lovely – one of my favourite pupils. I’ve not had a proper chat with him for a while though. How’s he doing?’

‘Yeah, he’s alright, miss,’ he said, nodding. ‘He’s good.’

We entered the medical room, and he then seemed to remember why he was with me. ‘You reckon this will take long?’ he wanted to know, glancing up at the wall clock. ‘Only I’m going to be late home, you know, after all this. I always go home at dinner time and now my mum’ll be worried.’

There was no one in attendance in the medical room, so I got some cotton wool and ran it under the tap. ‘I have no idea,’ I told him honestly. ‘I hope not.’

He glanced at the clock again. ‘You reckon I’ll get excluded, miss?’

Excluded? That seemed a bit drastic. ‘Again, I have no idea,’ I said carefully, pointing to the seat I wanted him to sit on. ‘I imagine that’ll depend on what you’ve done, Leo. In the meantime, let me take a look at that cut of yours. Looks like you’ve been on the receiving end of quite a whack. I take it you were fighting?’

He confirmed that he had been and then explained – again, quite conversationally – that he’d been going to an art class once a week down at the local youth centre, as part of a project I had helped set up a year or so back. Called Reach for Success, it was designed as a rolling programme of activities and lessons that were aimed at the more disengaged students in school, and those not deemed likely to pass many GCSEs. The idea was very much grounded in the practical. It offered an opportunity for those pupils to gain recognised qualifications in subjects such as cookery, woodwork, mechanics and so on, and, in doing so, enabled them to finish their time at school feeling as though they had achieved something worthwhile, while serving them well in the transition to college or workplace.

‘I’ve been doing art till the next mechanics course starts,’ Leo continued. ‘I go straight after break. An’ if I come back to school after it finishes, it takes me halfway into dinner time, which means I miss going home.’

‘And?’ I asked, brushing a flop of fringe back to inspect the still oozing brow.

‘And I decided I’d wait in the bus shelter for ten minutes, and then walk to the chippy and then go home. But anyways, this big older kid comes up, starts calling me tramp and that, and, I dunno –’ He looked up. ‘You know what it’s like, miss – I just flew at him.’

I tried not to smile. ‘You weren’t scared of him?’

Leo shook his head as best he could, seeing as I was still maintaining pressure on the injury. ‘Nah,’ he said. ‘My brother says the bigger they are, the harder they fall. He just chucked a lucky punch, that’s all. I could easily have seen him off, miss. Except next thing I know, I’m being dragged around the bus shelter by stupid Mr Kennedy – accusing me of twagging school – which I wasn’t, by the way – and the other kid ran off. An’ that’s it.’

I was inclined to believe him. I might not have known him well, but I’d seen him around school many times, and he just seemed to be a bit like Tommy, really. A bit of mischief about him – certainly the kind of boy you’d need to keep an eye on – but not really the type that caused any serious trouble. The fact that I didn’t know him that well only endorsed that. I tended to know the real rascals by default.