Chapter 4: The Reckoning

“I’m afraid there’s been a report about you and some of our Year 10 girls in the shopping centre,” Maggie told me gravely. “Is there anything you want to tell me?”

Jesus Christ.

“I did run into Sandra Philips and her cohorts,” I faked an amused memory, “trying to get passport photos done.” I stopped myself saying too much.

“And did anything improper occur? I just need to have the formal word from you Justin, after someone phoned in to say their son saw you in the photo booth with them and they weren’t fully clothed. The son recognised Sandra apparently and his cousin Oliver Sohl recognised you by his description, he says. Obviously I have no doubt the story is misleading, but the governors may insist on an inquiry of course - they may have to in these circumstances.”

Oliver had been at the school last year, intermittently. He’d been disruptive and I’d given him a lot of detentions and exclusions. It was no surprise one of those lads was related to him.

“Well the girls needed change, and then the machine kept rejecting the coins,” I explained with a smile. “They each had to have a try, and I suppose I probably did end up in the booth too because the coin slot is on the far side from the door.”

Phew, that wasn’t bad was it?

“And how about this idea the girls weren’t fully clothed? I have heard about kids using those photo booths for selfies ... I don’t know why when they all have phones.”

“Well they were fully clothed as far as I know. To be honest I didn’t ask what they wanted the photos for, they just asked me for change and then to help get it working.” I was pretty sure Maggie was a decade or more out of date, but I wasn’t going to look that gift horse in the mouth.

“Yes of course. And the boy also claims you threatened him and his friends...”

“I did come out in a bit of a rush, when I realised they were starting to harass Melanie Brown. But they ran away immediately.”

“Alright Justin thank you,” she smiled at me, “I knew there would be an explanation. Thank goodness - I’d hate to lose one of my star teachers. So there will have to be an enquiry but it will be a formality naturally.”

I managed a smile, and left.

God. I’d left the extra bit of curtain safety-pinned to the standard one. How to communicate with the girls now? I was paranoid about using the phone, or email, or messaging at all. And what about the texts and email we’d already sent and received?

In the event the girls found me at the end of my last class, and on reflection that was as safe as anything - it was only natural I would want to discuss it with them, and on school premises in a classroom couldn’t be suspect, if we were quick. I relayed my nerve-wracking interview with the Head.

“So if you wouldn’t mind,” I finished, “can you say doing selfies was what you were up to, with the curtain and everything? Just larking around?”

“Of course,” Sandra nodded, looking very guilty, “we’ll go back and take some, we can say we were interrupted can’t we, and if the curtain’s still there we’ll take it off. Gosh I am sorry Justin.”

“It should be okay,” I reassured her. “The school won’t be able to look at my personal things, like my phone and emails - those’ll only be a problem if the police are called in. That’ll only happen if the Board of Governors decide there was something going on, and luckily I’m on quite good terms with Bill Kettersley, the chairman, and he rules the board with an iron fist. They might not ask for the CCTV, fingers crossed because that’s critical obviously, but the Head said it was all just a formality.”

The girls said sorry again, several times, and we ended by agreeing not to be in contact until and unless I gave the all-clear.

Then, three days later, in my staffroom pigeonhole appeared a letter from the secretary to the Board of Governors. It asked me to attend a Governors’ meeting the following Monday, ‘further to the incident in the shopping centre’ and ‘having regard to the closed-circuit video footage’.

Shit. They’d asked the shopping centre for the CCTV. To keep their asses well covered, no doubt.

I forced my mind to work that through.

The video would show the damning attempt at disguise, the inexplicable minutes in the booth with each girl, one at a time, the boys pointing at the girls’ maybe not wearing anything under their coats ... then me shepherding my pupils away...

That would be enough to bring in the police and their scene-of-crimes team: expertly grilling the girls, forensically examining my phone, searching my house, analysing the quilt covers for DNA, the sofa, and the coats which could have bits of semen on them...

There was far too much to try and erase. The process was going to lead ineluctably, step by step, to my total downfall.

My life was finished.

I couldn’t think of anything I could do to avoid being convicted of having sex with underage pupils, multiple times, including in the middle of the shopping centre.

I looked up ‘position of trust’ sentences - three years seemed pretty normal. And with multiple underage pupils it would be worse than that. The judge would know the media would be having a field day with the story and would be protecting him- or her- self from any criticism for being lenient with such a sex fiend.

The next day the Head called me in to tell me she’d been advised to quietly suspend me while the matter followed due process. On full pay of course. Just a formality, so that if anyone ever checked the records no-one could say the school had been complacent. Not that she had any doubts herself, but the school had to be seen to be above criticism.

I slunk home. Suspended. And that was just the start.

What would my parents say? How would I live? Nobody would employ me once I’d served however many years in prison. How could I keep up the mortgage? I couldn’t. I hardly had any equity either.

I’d come out of prison with no home and no job, just a criminal record as a sex offender, making me unemployable. The slippery slope to homelessness beckoned: a cardboard box under a bridge, waiting to collect the pathetic minimum benefits once a week. Smelly and unshaven, to be avoided and despised.

I sank into depression. How could I have let it all happen? Been so weak? So besotted, walking so stupidly straight to my predictable damnation?

I don’t even know how I passed the time until Monday, I just moped the hours away in dull despair. The hearing would seal my fate, and I’d be started on the descent into oblivion.

The time finally came. I cleaned myself up, and there I was, sitting head down and trembling slightly, in the council offices’ waiting area. I cursed myself yet again for having thrown my life away. Why hadn’t I just called their bluff? Why had I taken so long to see that Sandra’s gang are too smart to get sucked into a losing proposition like taking on Deirdre’s lot at sex?

And why hadn’t I flatly refused to let teenagers’ crazy idea of risk take charge? What a ridiculous way to throw my life away, when I knew what the consequences might be.

A woman was walking towards me. Her thighs were a disgrace. “Dr Richards?” she smiled, “We’re ready for you now.” Perhaps I was being a bit unfair, judging her thighs by recent standards.

I rose and followed her into the lions’ den. There are twelve governors of various sorts, with a range of origins and responsibilities, but they are united of course in disapproving, in the strongest possible terms, of teachers taking advantage of their impressionable young pupils.

However fifteen-year-old schoolgirls are sexy, as everyone knows, and so the members were all there. They were seated round a large open-centred conference table, with Bill Kettersley at their head.

“Ah Justin, come in, come in,” he boomed. He’s a retired industry figurehead and it shows. A good six foot four with a huge nose and tiny, gimlet eyes, he likes to loom over people while he bullies them genially. I suppose my build helps me not to be intimidated and I’ve always got on well with him, while privately - very privately - disapproving of his terror tactics.

“Do sit down, we’re just ready to address this item,” he commanded. I sat hastily while his chest swelled even more with a long breath. “Now, this unpleasant business in the shopping centre. We’ve been reviewing everything, as you have no doubt realised. The CCTV makes it all very clear.”

I hung my head, sensing everyone looking at me.

“Maggie has spoken to the girls, naturally, and they’ve confirmed what we have all seen, Justin. Now I’m going to play the CCTV footage again...”

While I was trying to interpret his tone of voice I watched the video start playing on the big screen.

I appeared in shot, walking away from the camera towards the booth, in my silly hat. Well - it was an ordinary summer hat. The girls were just recognisable as they approached me and I handed over some coins. Things weren’t too clear at that distance - not enough to see if they were wearing tops under their coats at least. The clock was stuck at 00:00.

Sandra disappeared into the booth, then after a few seconds I went in after her. In another ten or fifteen seconds I backed out again.

Wait.

I hadn’t come out, in reality. Not then. What?

In a few more seconds Sandra came out, which was far too soon. Melanie went in, and I went back in. All the time I was facing away from the camera or side-on to it. My glasses weren’t really visible.

I was only in there for a few seconds again until I reversed out once more, Melanie came out, Jill went in, and I went in.

Then the youths arrived and the pace of events became more as I remembered. They gradually surrounded Melanie and Sandra. One of them reached towards Melanie - it looked as if he’d been trying to pull on her coat lapel to peer inside.

Watching it made me wish I’d been able to get hold of him to separate his head and limbs from his scrawny body, so it was just as well he’d been quick enough to escape, as things had turned out.

Anyway the video showed me erupting from the booth and reaching towards him. The picture blurred with my movement so the glasses still didn’t show up.

The youths fled towards the camera and the girls and I walked off in the opposite direction.

Back in the real world the meeting was clapping me.

Bill started talking and the clapping faded: “You did what we’d hope all our teachers would do, Justin - offer to help our pupils at any time, in any place, in school or out, and defend them if ever you should see them being threatened.