Dying for Millions (20 page)

Except that Gurjit pointed silently, and, I'd like to think, apologetically, to a notice: NO FOOD OR DRINK IN THIS AREA.

‘Tough,' I said. And carried on eating, only to endure the embarrassing spectacle of one of my students crawling round on hands and knees after me gathering up my non-existent crumbs. Perhaps I'd better save the biscuits till later.

Right. The stolen goods.

Asthma sprays.

Generic antibiotics.

Painkillers – aspirin and paracetamol-based.

A variety of preparations I hadn't a clue about: vaccines, by the look of it. Never large quantities, but Swiss and German drugs don't come cheap, so even a small cardboard box might represent several thousand pounds.

I rubbed my hands across my face. The room was too hot and airless; Gurjit's relentless tapping would send me to sleep if I wasn't careful.

‘Is this the lot?' I asked, opening my marking bag – a Tesco's carrier, this week.

She jumped. ‘Yes. Sophie, you're not taking them away with you, are you?'

‘It's nine-thirty, Gurjit, and I've got to be at college at eight tomorrow for the field trip. I'll look at everything as soon as I can. Or you can tell Mark. Or you can call the police. Either would make sense.' And would spare me hours of work.

She looked at me, suddenly very young. ‘I'd like everything to make sense before I tell Mark.'

‘I still think you should tell him straight away.'

She shook her head.

‘And you won't tell the police in case it implicates – someone you don't want implicated.'

‘Maybe it will implicate
me
, Sophie.'

‘Of course it won't!'

‘The relevant dates …'

‘No! You can see for yourself it's been going on for months. You proved it to me, Gurjit! Come on, all you're doing is exposing it!'

‘Whistle-blowers are not always popular.'

‘Popular be hanged. Gurjit, please report this.'

She shook her head again.

‘Well, why not discuss it with your parents?'

No. Because their advice would be the same as mine, presumably.

‘OK. Have I got the lot? Because I'm off now. Are you coming?'

She blushed.

‘Or do you have to sign off with someone?'

I barely made out the name Mark. So I smiled, wished her well, and was on my way.

Andy was playing Chopin on my piano when I got back.

‘Like that Wilde character,' he said, ‘not accurately but with a great deal of feeling. Here, I got you this. The pharmacist said it was more effective in liquid form.'

As presents go, I suppose most people wouldn't rate too highly a bottle of antacid medicine, but I accepted in the spirit it was meant.

‘You look done in,' he said. ‘Tell me.'

I put my feet on the sofa, and did just that. From no lifts in the morning, to no lunch and no tea, to Gurjit gathering crumbs and the airport fraud. He looked as pale and drawn as I felt at the end of it.

He disappeared into the kitchen, returning with two glasses with ice and lemon. ‘G and T. People I know with ulcers seem to get away with that.'

‘I haven't got an ulcer!'

‘You soon will have, the way you're going on. This is a crazy life, Sophie.'

‘No worse than anyone else's.'

‘A lot worse than mine. Tell you what – why don't you take a sickie? We could nip off to Wales for a couple of days.'

God, it was tempting.

‘I'll get Griff to bring Ruth down too.'

‘I don't need a sickie. Nice easy day tomorrow – sheepdog to an Environmental Studies field trip.'

‘Where?'

‘Bewdley. Look.' I fished out an OS map and pointed out the track we were to follow.

‘Nice forecast for tomorrow. Bright and crisp. Tell you what, why don't I come too? I could buy a kagoul in Harborne. My spare wellies are in that cupboard in the garage, – at least, they were. And I wouldn't get hassled by your students – they'd never expect to meet me in a kagoul.'

‘Why not? I'll go in to work by bus, and travel to Bewdley on the minibus, as planned – you get your gear and drive my car out to meet me.'

‘Right!'

‘To be honest, you could save me a lot of embarrassment. The other member of staff is this guy with a thing about me. Carl.'

‘Didn't you have a bit of a thing about him?'

‘That was then.'

And then we remembered: simultaneously. ‘The fuzz.'

‘I've got to be at Rose Road by nine,' he continued. ‘More of the same. Glad I'm on the right side of the law.'

‘You are
now
! I mean, on Saturday they were ready to put you on the rack, weren't they?' I waited but he didn't reply. What had I said? ‘I'll turn in now, Andy. Thanks again for this.' There was no way I would be separated from that antacid.

As it was, it took longer than I liked for it to work enough to let me sleep. From downstairs came the sound of Andy's voice on the phone: the call seemed to go on for ages. Perhaps he was phoning Ruth again. Then he went into the kitchen. Presumably he was swilling the glasses – I'd never touched that gin. And then I heard him switching off lights, checking the lock on the front door, coming up to bed.

Then I was awake, and looking out of the window. Something had activated the security light. A fox? And then I heard footsteps, starting up the path.

When I stopped panicking I realised that the car parked across the road was a Panda, and that the figure was a uniformed policewoman. We were being looked after.

Not, it occurred to me, very carefully. What had changed? Why hadn't Chris pressed me to have someone living in? Why did no one insist on driving me everywhere? Once upon a time Chris wouldn't have let me step outside the front door without an escort under these circumstances – had that merely been because he fancied me back then, and now things were cooling I could go hang? But Andy was in the public eye. He was famous. Surely they couldn't afford to let anything happen to him! Damn it, he hadn't even got Griff to call on any more.

My stomach was thoroughly irritable by now, and I was so far from sleep I thought I'd have to clean the entire kitchen to get the pattern back. And then I thought of those homeopathic tablets Griff had given me.

I don't know whether it was the tea-towel drawer, the biscuits or the tablets. Whatever it was, I managed to sleep at last.

This must be a day for miracles. Tuesday broke fine and dry, if very cold, the minibus stood in its allotted place in the windswept car park, and all the students were on time. All except one: Pritpal. Since he was a bit of a poet as well as an environmental scientist, perhaps this was to be expected. He was no doubt knocking off an ode after breakfast. Since we'd actually planned all along to set off at eight-forty-five, we'd only told the students to come at eight-fifteen to urge them on a little – there was plenty of slack.

Carl and I loaded the bags into the minibus, which we were both trained to drive. Then we let the kids aboard. Most had made an effort to wear warm clothes, the girls crushing anoraks over their delicate
kameez
and
salwar
, but their footwear made Carl tear his hair – a mistake, since it was beginning to thin, badly.

‘How crazy can you get? I
told
them sensible shoes. Look at those girls – little slip-ons – no protection at all! And that lad –
sandals
, for God's sake!'

I was afraid his voice would carry.

‘It's not crazy – it's
poor
, Carl. Even trainers cost. And most of these kids have parents on the dole – or doing badly-paid piece-work in factories. Remember, two-thirds of them are coming free today because they couldn't afford the £3 for the bus. And I suspect their lunchboxes will be revelations.'

‘They should get their priorities right.' Carl's glance swept self-righteously over the Gortex and walking boots we both carried.

‘On an income like theirs, they probably have. Ah! Prit! How's the sonnet?'

‘Sorry I'm late, Sophie. Only it's my dad – he was bad and we had to call in the doctor.' And Prit would have had to translate.

‘His gall-bladder again?'

‘Won't stick to his diet. Or me mum won't let him.'

‘How much sleep did you get?'

‘Might have a kip in the coach.'

‘Good idea. It's OK,' I overrode Carl, ‘we're only just ready.' I ignored Carl's open mouth. ‘In you get.' I swung into the driver's seat. ‘Make sure you fasten your seat-belts. Right? Off we go!'

Where the sun had not yet penetrated, the verges were white with frost; skid marks in interesting places suggested that other drivers had had more faith in road grit than I did. In any case, the minibus was no rally car, and there were all those precious lives in the back. At least I didn't have to worry about Andy going hell for leather in a car he didn't know in order to meet up with us; and like it or not, he was probably safer in Rose Road nick than anywhere else.

All I had to worry about, then, was the icy road and Carl's emotions. While I was apparently chaperoning the girls, they were also chaperoning me: perhaps his wife realised that. I hoped so. I'd never seen her lose her temper, but it had always seemed to me that she was on the verge of doing so; part of my attraction for Carl was that I had shoulders broad enough to bear all his troubles, blow-by-blow accounts of their rows included. Now I was no longer in love with him, it did occur to me that perhaps he wasn't blameless, but my own conscience preferred to believe him at least more sinned against than sinning.

I enjoyed the Bewdley bypass, which was dry and encouraging, and then picked my way through narrow lanes until Carl stopped me: this was the lay-by where we were to park, and that the lane we were to follow. The sun was now warm, but the lane was frosty where it wasn't muddy: I laced myself into my boots, and considered all those cheap city shoes with cold feet within. Chilblains, that's what they'd get. Some of them didn't have gloves; I could hardly suggest they held hands inside each other's pockets.

They all had tasks to fulfil, and notes to make. The assignment was on the recreational uses of the river: later in the year they'd go and look at the Severn at Ironbridge Gorge. I appointed myself photographer, because I wanted to keep my distance from Carl; I helped with the odd spelling, but in general maintained a semi-detached relationship with both him and the students. So long as my feet kept steady, my mind was free to wander. We soon turned on to a path through the meadows on the west bank, the river's edge pitted with little hollows which would be occupied on warm Saturdays by Brummie anglers: another recreational use to add to the Severn Valley Railway already on their list.

While they wrote, I listened to the swirl and gloop of the river. It was all remarkably peaceful, and when one of the likelier lads attempted to improve nature with an overloud dose of his Walkman, I frowned him down. It wasn't just selfishness: goodness knows what such a volume directed straight into his ears would do for his future hearing.

I pointed across the river to some very choice residences. ‘I could manage one of those.'

‘I'd rather have a secluded cottage in the woods,' Carl replied, his voice just missing an embarrassing intimacy.

‘They must be pretty damp if they're round here,' Pritpal said. ‘Look at the far bank – you can see how high the water must go. Right up to their foundations.'

Carl beckoned everyone round him for a general discussion on floodplains, and I mooched along on my own for a bit. It was too cold to stand still for long, even if you were as warmly wrapped-up as I was, and the frost crunched under my feet under the trees. I took time to gaze around me – not something I managed to do very often – and breathed a cleaner air than the stuff surrounding William Murdock. The frost had thickened the branches, and they glistened against a deep blue sky. Idyllic. What about a job out here? There were further education colleges in other places than Birmingham, and apart from the choir I had no particular ties. Not any more, it seemed. Yes, I might start looking.

Eventually the others caught up with me, Carl contriving somehow to fall into step with me on a path barely wide enough for two. I could think of nothing to say: nothing at all. At last, biting back a yawn, and for want of anything better, I started to tell him about my work experience activities.

‘There's a scheme – though I don't know whether it would apply to us, now William Murdock's no longer under Birmingham Education Committee's umbrella – for staff to get work experience,' he said. ‘I was wondering about applying.'

‘What sort of experience?'

‘Something that'll clear the teacher's head, and also benefit the employer. I could simply do a stint in a pharmacy, I suppose, see if I liked it.'

There was a pregnant pause. I was supposed to fill it with an enquiry about how long he'd be gone.

‘D'you think they might find something for me?' Damn it, I sounded wistful. ‘English teachers might not be as marketable as pharmacists.'

His face suggested he agreed.

Another silence.

‘Are those the woods with the cottages?' asked Prit, bounding up beside us. He galloped off to have a look without waiting for an answer.

‘Nice kid,' said Carl.

‘Hmm. Can't be easy, being a Sikh amidst all these Muslims,' I said. ‘Oh, shit! You know what this is, don't you? It's Ramadan! The poor little beggars won't be able to have any lunch. Not even a hot drink when we get back to the minibus.'

‘So long as they don't expect us to fast with them,' Carl muttered.

I bit my lip: how could anyone possibly eat in front of people who'd not eaten or drunk since daybreak? And shouldn't we have made some arrangement for them to pray?

At least it wasn't me who'd goofed, but I should have thought of it.