The Sacrifice by Mike Uden

Author:Mike Uden [Mike Uden]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780719812231
Publisher: Robert Hale
Published: 2013-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

Job done, all I had to do now was break the bad news to Anna – we wouldn’t, after all, be quitting tonight. And talking of Anna, it was a measure of how jumpy I’d become that when I got back to the reception, only to find her gone, my heart skipped a beat. The receptionists hadn’t noticed her leave and it was only when I saw her through the reception windows, standing and chatting to Antoine, that I breathed a deep sigh of relief.

Anna was right. This couldn’t go on.

EIGHTEEN

I’D BEEN THINKING long and hard about what Anna had said to me the day before about having no life; being too tied to my apron strings. So logically, the last thing she’d want to do would be to go on holiday with me. But truths are only things we hold in our heads. They aren’t necessarily true. So yes, she found our current relationship claustrophobic – who wouldn’t? But working on this case would soon be over and then she could have her life back. Unfortunately, it wasn’t really about the case, it was about the situation surrounding it. How soon would that be over?

So I felt there was only one way out: Gatwick. And her going off alone would hardly be ideal, would it? I’d worry, she’d worry. As for going with friends, they were all working. That only left one option.

‘Tell you what,’ I said, over breakfast, ‘when we’ve finished these interviews, why don’t we go away for a couple of weeks? I’ll treat you. You can look on the internet, find somewhere cheap and cheerful – you know, last minute – Canaries, maybe?’

‘Oh, Mum, you can’t do that.’

Now given that within minutes of her reply she was holding up beachwear in front of the mirror, I think you could translate that as ‘Oh Mum, you can do that’ – which, in truth, made me feel a whole lot happier. Anyway, I could do with a break myself.

So driving to the college that morning, despite Anna’s radio choice of Kiss FM – mine would have been Silence FM – the world seemed a nicer place. And turning into the school, it was also reassuring to see just how much the police had upped their game. My normal space was taken by a panda, next to which was a squad car, next to which was a suspiciously Scotland Yardy-looking Beamer. The big guns were out.

Over the course of the morning, rumours of the police’s newfound zeal spread like wildfire. Apparently, both the caretaker and principal had been woken in the small hours, escorted to the school and made to witness the going over of every room in the building plus attic, cellars, adjoining students’ quarters and nearby lock-up. And during this raid, if I were to believe all I’d been told, files, boxes and a computer had been impounded.

And in keeping with this newfound keenness, just before the break I received a phone call from reception instructing me to attend a meeting with the police forthwith.

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