‘I beg your pardon?’ says Hosmer.
‘You heard.’ I turn to face her. ‘You made a racist assumption about Murad and it turned out to be wrong. Just because he’s got brown skin, that doesn’t give you the right to tell him he shouldn’t be eating bacon. If you saw a white kid eating chocolate during Lent, would you assume he came from a family of devout Christians and tell him he was letting his parents down, and Jesus?’
‘Miss Hosmer is adamant that she said no such thing to Murad, Mrs Leeson,’ says Stevens. ‘That’s where the dishonesty comes in.’
‘True, if you mean Miss Hosmer’s dishonesty,’ I say. ‘Before she grabbed Zannah’s phone out of her hand, Zannah had had the presence of mind to email me the film she’d recorded of the incident. Would you like me to play it for you now?’ I brandish my phone.
Camilla Hosmer’s mouth has dropped open. Stevens looks at her.
‘Miss Hosmer? Shall I play the video for Mr Stevens?’
Hosmer bursts into tears and runs out of the room, slamming the door behind her.
‘She deleted it from Zannah’s phone without permission, then lied about it to you,’ I tell Stevens.
He nods slowly, playing for time while he decides what to say. Whatever it is, it’s not going to start with the words, ‘I’m so sorry,’ which means I’m not interested in hearing it.
‘Mr Stevens, one of my regular clients is the editor of a local newspaper that has a circulation of 8,000. She’s become a good friend over the years. She’s fond of Zannah, too. If I ask her to, she’ll run a story about Bankside Park’s racist head of History who lies and tries to punish pupils who call her out on her racism. The little film Zannah made would go up on the newspaper’s website and get loads of hits. It could easily go viral. Do you think OFSTED will be impressed? I don’t.’
‘Mrs Leeson, there’s no need to make unpleasant threats. Why don’t we all calm down a bit, and then, once the dust has settled, I’ll talk to Miss Hosmer and see if we can—’
‘No, that sounds like bullshit,’ I say. ‘If you don’t want me to contact my friend, you need to tell Miss Hosmer to apologise to Murad and Zannah. Right now. Go and find her in whatever toilet cubicle she’s crying in and let’s get on with it. I’m not leaving until I’ve heard those apologies.’
‘Nothing is going to happen right now,’ says Stevens, in the most patronising tone of voice I’ve ever heard. ‘Why don’t you and Zannah go home, and I’ll contact you once I’ve had a chance to—’
‘Give Zannah back her phone and we’ll go, if that’s the way you want to play it. But then I will be contacting my friend, and some of the national papers too, I think – the ones that have education supplements. Pieces will run, and the video will be shared far and wide.’
‘All right,’ Stevens snaps as he springs out of his chair. ‘All right. Wait here.’
He leaves his office at speed. I turn to Zannah. Tears are streaming down her face. ‘Mum,’ she whispers. ‘What happened? Did we just … win?’
17
An hour later, we’re at Mario’s, the nearest half-decent café to Bankside Park. It’s far enough away to guarantee that no one from school is likely to walk in, and the coffee and cakes are from heaven, even if the owner isn’t. Silvia thinks she’s a ‘character’ and sings loud arias from operas whenever she feels like it, sometimes making it hard for customers to continue their conversations.
Zannah and I are eating her magnificent iced orange and cinnamon rolls, to celebrate our victory. ‘You’re a ledge, Mum,’ Zan says. ‘I can’t believe I got my phone back and an apology.’
‘Neither can I.’
‘Hosmer wasn’t really sorry, you know.’
‘Who cares?’
‘Ugh. She’s such a … there’s no word bad enough. I can’t even insult her any more. It’d be an insult to insults.’
‘Dad would have done the same as I did, you know.’
Zannah wrinkles her nose. ‘No, he wouldn’t. Would he have pretended to have a client who was a local news editor? I don’t think so! He’d have said they were being unfair and asked for an apology, but he wouldn’t have got creative and blackmailed them. And he’d have let them give me and Murad detentions for having our phones in school and being cheeky, when you were, like, “That’s not happening.”’
She’s probably right.
‘They gave me back my phone too late, though.’ Zannah giggles. ‘I wish I could have recorded you saying, “Tell you what, Mr Stevens – why don’t you and your staff work on your own behavioural problems for a few weeks first and then maybe I’ll allow Zannah to accept a detention from you.” Mum, you know what I’m gonna do?’ Zannah brushes crumbs off her hoody. ‘Revise the fuck out of my GCSEs from now till they’re done.’
‘That’s great, don’t swear, and how come?’
‘Nothing will piss Hosmer off more than me doing better than they all expect me to.’ Zannah peers at me. ‘What?’ she asks. ‘What was that funny look?’
‘You made me think of Tilly.’
‘Who?’ Zannah says. ‘Oh, Rubis Tilly who got me drunk?’
‘You got you drunk. Yes, that Tilly. And Lewis Braid. If the true explanation for someone’s behaviour is unusual enough, it’s the easiest thing in the world to hide it behind a more obvious explanation.’
‘What’s that got to do with me revising the fuck out of my—?’
‘Imagine you get all 9s in your GCSEs, because you work really hard.’
‘Never gonna happen. But I could get all 6s and 7s, maybe.’
‘You would know that you’d only made the effort in the hope of ruining results day for Camilla Hosmer, but that would never occur to most people. If you said to a stranger, for example, that you did nothing, and did nothing, and did nothing, and then suddenly started revising like a maniac in the run-up to your exams, why would any stranger think you might do that?’
‘Weird question. They’d probably think I suddenly panicked and was worried about failing.’
‘Right. So if you told them that was why, they’d believe you without a second thought. They wouldn’t question it. Just like, if Lewis is hanging around outside Tilly’s house in his car when he should be in Florida, what’s the obvious explanation there? If you keep turning up outside someone’s house, and lie about why when they ask what you’re doing there … well, it looks as if you might be an obsessive stalker, doesn’t it?’
‘So?’
She’s impatient for the conclusion, but I’m not quite there yet. ‘Lewis Braid is the father of Thomas and Emily Cater. They have his eyes, just like older Thomas and Emily do. Flora was with him when she rang me last week. That means he’s still around, still involved in whatever’s going on at Newnham House.’ I raise my hand to stop Zannah asking questions before I’ve finished. ‘But he’s not supposed to be. Think about the lies he and Flora have told me: Georgina’s twelve and doing great; they have no young children, only the three they had when they moved to America, where they now live; they have no connection with Hemingford Abbots any more.’