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‘Yes, yes, I know that isn’t always the case, but as I say, I had to cut it down somehow.’ He looked a little crestfallen. ‘As a matter of fact, that cut them all out, so I had to backtrack. This time, I asked myself if any of them had ever been involved in any cases of child abuse outside of the family and, as they say in the Modern Languages Department, voilà ! Matthew Hendricks.’
    Jacquie bit down on a pickled onion in a rather threatening manner. ‘Ah ha, Mr Clever. Matthew Hendricks has no record of being involved in child abuse.’
    â€˜No indeed, Woman Detective Inspector. But he does … did … have a record of accusing someone of child abuse.’
    â€˜Really? We didn’t know that.’
    â€˜It wouldn’t have helped, I don’t expect. We dealt with it internally – it was clearly a pack of lies. He accused the whole SLT, male and female, of doing unspeakable things to him when he was in detention. His mother threw a wobbly and came in ranting at Legs and so we had to have an enquiry but it was clear from the startthat it wasn’t true. On the other hand, he showed a remarkably accurate knowledge of some rather strange sexual practices which alarmed us. We did send a report to Children’s Services, but I’m afraid at this remove I can’t remember what happened.’
    â€˜Well, it must be ten years ago now, surely?’
    Maxwell pursed his lips and did some maths in his head. ‘How old was he?’
    â€˜Twenty-seven.’
    â€˜Sixteen years ago, then.’
    â€˜He was eleven ?’
    â€˜Possibly twelve, but he was certainly in Year Seven, yes.’
    Jacquie slumped back in the chair. ‘Oh, great. If this comes out …’
    â€˜Well, no one will hear it from me,’ her husband assured her. ‘So, did the wife do it? Mmmm … Linda, was it? Mousey hair, blobby nose?’
    â€˜Yes, Linda. But, how did you know that?’
    â€˜Control freaks mate for life, you should know that. We had trouble with them from the start. Linda McGarry she was, then. Inappropriate behaviour in class, that kind of thing. She would do anything he told her to, without question.’
    â€˜No change there, then,’ Jacquie muttered, taking a big swig of her drink. ‘Why did we not know this stuff? Isn’t there some kind of procedure?’
    â€˜Of course,’ he reassured her. ‘Reams of paper get filled with reams of information every week. Pages and pages of concerns, questions, requests for feedback. Butat the end of the line, there has to be a human to deal with them and that’s what we’re short of. It takes a whole load of people to make a perfect world and sadly only one to spoil it again. And after five years we have to bin the lot anyway. So,’ he thought he would try again, ‘did the wife do it?’  
    Jacquie thought of confidentiality. She thought of children crying in the night with no one to hear. She thought of Linda Hendricks’s black eyes, one superimposed on another and on another. ‘No,’ she told him. ‘The wife didn’t do it.’  
    â€˜Got anyone in the frame?’ Maxwell asked her, gathering up the plates and making for the door.  
    â€˜No, not really.’  
    â€˜It sounds like a mousetrap situation to me,’ Maxwell said from the doorway.  
    â€˜Mousetrap?’ Jacquie was tired and the evening had taken a very unfestive turn.  
    â€˜Yes, you know, the mousetrap. The mousetrap. Agatha Christie. The Mousetrap – the policeman did it.’  
    Jacquie went pale. Yet again, Maxwell had read her mind.  
    Â 
    Boxing Day was, as Boxing Days tend to be, a bit of an anticlimax. Nolan’s hamster still worked, which was an unexpected relief, and so he and Metternich played happily with it for most of the morning, CBeebies burbling happily along in the background. Jacquie had gone off to work before