I spent most of the weekend reading everything I could find about the suffragettes, which was quite an eye-opener. I stared at the photograph of Esther and her friends, in their long skirts and fancy hats, and tried to make sense of them being proper bad-asses, setting fire to buildings, breaking windows and climbing the fences round the Houses of Parliament.
It was all pretty impressive, but I still couldn’t see how it was going to help Elm Heath. After all, some of the things the suffragettes did were almost like terrorism today and I wasn’t sure bigging up our association with jailbird Esther Watkins was going to swing it for the council.
On Sunday evening, with rain lashing the windows and the first dark evening after the clocks changed bringing gloom, I decided to brave the weather and treat myself to some chips for dinner. I put on boots and a raincoat, and found my umbrella, and headed out to the chippie.
It seemed half of Elm Heath had the same idea, as it was busy and I had to wait for my order. I sat at a table and leafed through a copy of The Sun that someone had left behind.
‘Lizzie, how nice to see you.’
I looked up from a story about Ant and Dec’s new game show to see Sophie standing by my table.
‘Hi, Sophie,’ I said. ‘Great minds think alike, eh?’
She pulled out a chair and sat down. ‘I would never admit it to my French friends but I just adore proper chip-shop chips,’ she said. ‘Especially on a miserable evening like this. Winter is just around the corner, eh?’
I chuckled.
‘Your secret is safe with me.’
‘Busy weekend?’
I shrugged. ‘So, so,’ I said. ‘A bit of school stuff, and some research into the history of Elm Heath Primary.’
Sophie looked over my shoulder. ‘Did you see much of Danny?’ she said, ever so casual.
I smiled. ‘No,’ I said. ‘I’ve not seen him since Friday.’
She relaxed. ‘Great.’
‘Is it?’
Sophie looked a bit shame-faced. ‘Sorry, Lizzie,’ she said. ‘I know it’s none of my business.’
‘It’s not,’ I agreed. I fixed her with my best teacher stare. ‘I know things were difficult between Danny and your daughter so I understand why you want to warn me off. But, Danny and I are just friends. And even if we weren’t, I’m a grown-up and I’ve been through my own marriage break-up. I’m not some wide-eyed teenager and you don’t need to look out for me.’
Sophie swallowed. ‘You’re right,’ she said, looking down at her hands on the melamine table. ‘I think I just feel guilty that I couldn’t help Isabelle.’
‘I understand.’
‘I will butt out,’ Sophie added and it sounded so funny in her French accent that I couldn’t help but laugh.
As I walked home, clutching the warm paper package of chips to my chest, I thought about Sophie and Paula. They were both good people, I thought, and they both thought Danny wasn’t someone I should trust. And yet, my gut was telling me to believe him when he said how bad he felt about Isabelle.
As though I’d summoned him with the power of my thoughts, Danny messaged just as I was tipping the chips on to a plate.
‘All sorted for tomorrow,’ he wrote. ‘Still okay for three p.m.?’
‘Looking forward to it,’ I replied.
Danny had a meeting at the council office beforehand, so we arranged to meet in reception at three p.m. When I arrived, he was sitting on one of the low, grey sofas by the front desk talking urgently into his phone and looking harassed. I gave him a small wave to show him I was there, then signed in with the receptionist and clipped on the plastic pass she gave me.
Danny had finished his call and he came over to greet me.
‘Everything okay?’ I said.
A shadow passed across his face for a second, then he shook it off. ‘Just work.’ He gave the receptionist the full benefit of his smile. ‘Lovely Lauren, can you let us through? We’re heading to the archives.’
‘I’m supposed to wait until someone comes down.’
He rolled his eyes. ‘Claire knows we’re coming and I know where to go. Save her a journey.’
Lauren grinned and pressed a button under her desk to open the barrier. ‘Seeing as it’s you,’ she said.
Danny led the way into the lift and pressed for the basement.
‘Lovely Lauren?’ I said, raising an eyebrow.
‘I am firmly of the opinion that it’s best to be nice to everyone,’ he said. ‘Shop assistants, waiters, traffic wardens …’
‘Teachers?’
He laughed. ‘Yes, teachers too.’
The lift doors opened and we went out into a large room full of floor-to-ceiling metal shelves, stuffed with cardboard boxes and folders.
‘Archives,’ Danny said, spreading his arms out wide. ‘Anything you want to know about the history of Elm Heath Primary will be in these boxes. Somewhere.’
I looked from one end of the room to the other, taking in just how many folders lined the shelves.
‘I don’t know where to start.’
‘That’s where Claire comes in,’ he said. He tugged my hand and led me round to the left, past a pile of flattened boxes to a desk where a woman about my own age sat at a desk, tapping at a keyboard.
‘Gorgeous Claire,’ he said.
She looked up and beamed at him. ‘Danny.’
‘This is Lizzie, the head teacher of Elm Heath Primary. She’s the one who wants to know more about the history of the school.’
Claire smiled at me. ‘I can definitely help there.’
‘Did you find those boxes I asked for?’ Danny said.
She nodded. ‘I sent the first lot up to Marcus in planning,’ she said. ‘He was furious, by the way.’
Danny chuckled. ‘Good.’
‘And the Elm Heath bits are all by Gloria’s desk. She’s on holiday this week so she’s not around.’ She gestured to the side of the desk opposite her.
‘Have a root through, Lizzie. Take as long as you like.’
Danny touched the top of my arm gently. ‘I need to pop in and see Marcus in planning, but I’ll be back in a bit.’
Weirdly disappointed that he was leaving me, I nodded. ‘He’s furious with you,’ I said. ‘Be careful.’
‘I’m always careful,’ he said.
He disappeared off back to the lift, and I settled down at Gloria’s desk and opened the first box.
It was a treasure trove of information. There were old photographs, programmes from school plays, newspaper reports on pupils winning awards for music or sport – and in one case a bravery award for pulling a dog out of a canal – but it was all from the 1960s and 70s, nothing earlier.
‘Is there anything about the school being founded?’ I asked Claire.
She barely glanced up from her screen; clearly me on my own wasn’t nearly as interesting as me with Danny.
‘The boxes are dated,’ she said.
‘Oh.’ I looked at the side of the box I’d been rummaging through and right enough it said 1961–79.
With some effort I moved the piles around and finally found the one marked 1912–1925. Bingo.
It smelled dusty and old inside, but I got stuck in, pulling out the papers and laying them on the desk. This was more like it. I found more old school photographs, the original plans for the building, and lots of official correspondence from the education authority to Esther. Many of them were to do with building costs, and salaries, and while fascinating were not overly helpful. But then I found the letter giving Esther the go-ahead to open the school and let out a little yelp of joy. Claire tutted and I apologised, flattening the yellowed, ageing pages out on Gloria’s desk.
‘Dear Miss Watkins,’ the letter read.
‘I am writing to inform you that your plans to open a primary school in Elm Heath have been approved. As you know, I had some reservations about your character and whether it would be right to employ a woman with your history. However, the reference you provided from Sergeant Fairbanks of the Metropolitan Police assured me that your misdemeanours were youthful folly and would not be repeated. And your former employer, Mrs Agnes Oliver, provided a very positive character reference.
‘I was also reassured by your aims for the school and the clear way you set them out in the letter you wrote me. You are obviously a teacher of talent and I am willing to take a chance on you. I need not remind you that any return to your previous behaviour would result in immediate dismissal …’
I breathed out slowly. This was more like it. Clipped to the back of the letter were the references mentioned. Mrs Agnes Oliver enthused about how well Esther had taught her three children and how much they would miss her, while Sergeant Fairbanks wrote in stilted police jargon about how much Miss Watkins ‘regretted and apologised for her previous misdemeanour’ and how she had ‘learned a great deal from her time in Holloway’.
But what wasn’t there, was the letter Esther had written that had convinced them to take the chance on her. The letter setting out her aims for Elm Heath Primary that would be absolutely and totally helpful for me, more than one hundred years later, trying to find a way to save the school. I tipped the box upside down, ignoring Claire’s irritated sigh, and rifled through the papers but there was nothing there. Then I went through all the other boxes, looking for Esther’s mission statement, as I was thinking of it, but it was nowhere to be found.
‘Is this it?’ I said to Claire. ‘Nothing else on Elm Heath?’
‘No, that’s all of it,’ she said. ‘Is something missing?’
I showed her the letter from the council and explained the letter they mentioned wasn’t there. She shrugged.
‘Might have got filed in the wrong box,’ she said. ‘It happens. But it would be impossible to find it if so.’
‘That’s such a shame – it sounded like it would really have helped.’
Claire, to my surprise, looked interested. ‘There are normally ways round these things,’ she said. ‘Can I see?’
I handed over the letter and the references and she scanned them, looking more cheerful than she had since Danny left. ‘These people could be helpful,’ she said, pointing to the names of Sergeant Fairbanks and Agnes Oliver. ‘You’ve got an address for Agnes, and the police station where Fairbanks was based. You could try them.’
‘They’ll be dead, surely?’
She rolled her eyes at my stupidity. ‘Well, obviously,’ she said. ‘But Agnes had three children who might have families, or there will be police records. It’s something to follow up at least.’
I felt a tiny tug of excitement. ‘It is,’ I agreed. ‘Thank you.’