‘Okay,’ Abi said, unsure of what this had to do with her. She glanced at her watch. It was almost five o’clock and she still had two more online meetings with clients before she could climb into her car and drive home. Fleetingly, she thought of Mark preparing dinner or maybe idling in his studio, building one of his models, and she felt a brief but intense push of irritation. He was supposed to be the stay-at-home parent yet here she was fielding calls from the school.

‘There is no pregnancy, nor was there any French romance,’ Helen Bracken continued. ‘Sasha is, understandably, very upset by these rumours, and her mother is insisting that the school takes action.’

‘Of course. But I don’t see how—’

‘Comments on Facebook, and on Snapchat. A lot of WhatsApp chatter. Internet forums where this rumour has been dragged out. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you, Abi, how quickly these things escalate, especially among teenage girls. This is not the first time I’ve had to manage a pregnancy rumour and it’s my experience that this kind of gossip just rips through the school like fire in a drought. Unfortunately, this rumour has already gone out into the wider world, tarnishing Sasha’s reputation beyond the school.’

Abi pinched the skin at the bridge of her nose, a headache coming on.

‘Right, fine. I understand, but what has this got to do with Beth?’

She heard the slow intake of breath at the other end of the line, read the disapproval at her obviously tetchy intervention, and then Helen Bracken said: ‘It appears that Beth was the one who started the rumour.’

Abi exhaled slowly, a tide of weariness washing over her.

She listened then to a baroque explanation about internet activity and user names, as well as some interviews the principal had conducted with some of Sasha’s friends.

‘One of them was very helpful,’ Bracken informed her. ‘It seems Beth let slip to this girl how she was planning on getting back at Sasha over some recent slight. Apparently Beth made some assertion over how soon Sasha would know what it felt like to be ridiculed, or something like that.’

‘But that’s just idle tittle-tattle. Surely you should know better than to believe every word that comes out of their mouths—’

‘Indeed I do. But Lisa Ferguson has always been a decent and honest girl. I have no reason to believe she’d lie about this. If anything, she was upset and concerned about Beth.’

The fact that it was Lisa both stunned and chastened Abi.

‘I’ll talk to Beth,’ she said quietly.

‘An apology is required.’

‘Of course. I’ll get Beth to call Sasha—’