Robert Carmichael was sitting at the desk at the front of the room. He was of average build with dark brown hair. His face was as white as chalk, the smell of vomit lingering around him. He wore grey tracksuit trousers and a black T-shirt that was in need of an iron, obviously a spare. Grace knew that he would have changed out of his clothes regardless. Forensics would have bagged them up after he left the crime scene.
After introductions, Grace asked him to run through what had happened that morning.
‘It was another lesson, nothing out of the ordinary,’ Robert began. ‘Most of the pupils were in front of me, with only the lane to run. There was a supply teacher helping me out at the front.’
‘Name of?’ she asked.
‘Sarah Flynn. She’s only been with us a few weeks at the most.’
Grace wrote down the woman’s name for future reference.
‘There were a few girls at the back of the group who I’d had to cajole to finish,’ Robert added.
‘How many are in the class?’ Perry asked.
‘Thirty-one.’
‘So twenty-eight on the lane and three left in the field?’
Robert nodded. He held a hand over his mouth as he swallowed quickly a few times.
‘Are you okay?’ Grace asked, wondering if he was going to be sick. ‘Would you like a glass of water?’
Robert shook his head, faltering before speaking again. ‘I should have kept an eye on them.’ Tears welled in his eyes. ‘But when I looked behind me, I could see them on the lane, so I kept on going. I now realise there must have been only two of them. I was almost back at the school when Courtney came running down to fetch me.’
‘Courtney’s one of the girls who found her?’ Grace queried.
‘Yes, Courtney Piggott. She said that Lauren had collapsed in the field and that Courtney’s sister, Caitlin, was with her. She said I needed to hurry, as she didn’t think Lauren was breathing. I told her to go back to the school and let the headmaster know what had happened, but she was hysterical, so I rang Nathan on my phone while I ran back up the lane. When I got to Lauren, I realised that Courtney had followed me. The rest of the class had gone back inside the school, luckily.’
‘Did you notice anyone else around?’ she asked.
‘Not that I recall, but then I was worried about Lauren.’ He took a deep breath before looking at them. ‘When I got to her, I could see she wasn’t breathing, so I called for an ambulance. I know basic first aid, so I tried to resuscitate her. All the while the twins were crying by my side.’ He swallowed. ‘I tried for such a long time, but in the end, I knew I’d lost her. That’s when I noticed the marks coming out around her neck.’
Grace noted he was pointing at the floor, as if the body were at their feet. She couldn’t help but feel for the teacher. He was doing his job and this would probably scar him for the rest of his life. People would look at him differently, despite him doing nothing wrong.
Lots of people had regrets after things like this happened. It only took a second or two for something drastic to occur, for lives to be ruined: the child who wriggled out of its father’s grip and ran out into a busy road; the woman who decided to walk through a dark alley rather than the long way around; someone driving too fast because they were late for an appointment. While they weren’t in the right, Grace had sympathy.
‘I waited until Nathan arrived and he confirmed what I knew. The paramedics came quickly after, and they worked on her too, but we all knew she was dead. Then the police arrived and declared it a crime scene.’ Robert put his head in his hands and wept unashamedly. ‘It was my fault. I should have checked again to see there was no one lagging behind.’
Once Robert had gathered himself, he left the room. Grace turned to Perry and sighed loudly.
‘That poor man’s going to be haunted by this. He’s going to torture himself for not being there, for having his eye on most of the class rather than all of them; though how he was supposed to do that is beyond me. He’s going to think he could have stopped her death if he was behind them.’
‘He can’t see everything.’
‘Try telling him that when he wakes up covered in sweat after a nightmare in which he sees Lauren running and then being grabbed, and there’s nothing he can do about it.’
‘That’s a bit dramatic,’ Perry added.
‘I’ll bet it’s what happens. Carmichael didn’t do anything wrong and yet we both know he’s going to be made into a scapegoat until we catch the killer.’ Grace checked her phone for messages. ‘We need to move fast on questioning the twins,’ she confirmed. ‘First up on our list will be to find out if Lauren had a boyfriend.’
‘You think she might have been killed by another pupil?’ Perry frowned. ‘I mean, I’m not ruling it out. It could have happened, but really?’
‘Assuming that Lauren knew her killer, I’d say we need to rule out jealous peers first.’ Grace shrugged. ‘Maybe Caitlin or Courtney Piggott had a grudge to bear. Twins might cover up for each other, too.’
Perry pulled a face. ‘It’s a possibility – gruesome though.’
Although she’d seen some similarly awful things in the past, Grace shuddered at the thought.
‘I’d say anything is game at the moment, with no witnesses or camera footage to go on.’ Grace’s phone beeped and she retrieved the message that had been sent. ‘Nick’s after me. He wants you to speak to the Piggott twins while I go with him to inform Lauren’s mum and dad.’
After talking to Perry about what to say to the Piggott sisters, Grace rejoined Nick and they left the school. She then spent an uncomfortable few minutes speaking to Lauren Ansell’s father on the phone.
‘That wasn’t nice,’ she said after disconnecting the call. ‘The local police had already informed him. I could hear him crying, taking deep breaths to calm himself.’
‘What did he say?’
‘He passed the phone to a police sergeant. A Mick Attwood – he told me Mr Ansell was in a meeting at the time of the attack and for most of the morning, too. So we can rule him out; although living so far away, he’d hardly be a suspect anyway. What a way to learn your only child’s been murdered.’
‘I’m glad Nathan Stiller’s phone call to our victim’s mother went through to her voicemail,’ Grace added as they travelled along the D road towards Newcastle. ‘I hate the thought of an accident happening as relatives rush to wherever they need to be in a state of disbelief. I’ve seen it too many times, and I get that they’re questioning what they’ve been told because they want it to be untrue, but even so.’
‘I’ll need to get ready for the press conference,’ Nick said. ‘I’ll be giving a statement at four p.m. to camera. I’m not sure whether to do it outside the school gates or up in the quiet of the lane.’
‘I think you know the answer to that one.’ Grace knew that press wouldn’t be allowed anywhere near the lane, even if the field was a good five-minute walk from the general public. ‘Although for the viewing figures, they’ll want the cameras accessing as much as they can. Funny how they say that’s so the general public might be of more use, spot more, give us a lead. It’s always for their advantage, really.’
‘I hope some of them don’t try to go in to the field via the other entrance.’
‘All covered,’ Grace told him. ‘The search team are there, too. No one will get through. It