I watched Tyler for a bit at lunchtime. He was part of a football game that mainly involved screaming at the top of his lungs and denigrating the prowess of his team mates. I found myself wondering again about his home life so, when I saw Clare in the staffroom, I asked if I could have a quick word.

Clare was a small, serious woman in her forties. She had a couple of kids and a husband who, as far as I could gather, did as little as he could in their upbringing. She often seemed to be sighing at her mobile phone and generally had a careworn sort of air about her.

We sat down on the sofa. She peeled the lid of a tub of yoghurt and began to spoon the contents into her mouth in small, neat movements.

‘So,’ I said, ‘tell me about Tyler Bennett’s dad.’

She made a face and then said, ‘What do you want to know?’

I told her what happened that morning at the school gates. She sighed and put down her yoghurt and spoon.

‘Well, he’s an ex-soldier,’ she said. ‘His name’s Lee. Emily, Tyler’s mum, died of breast cancer.’

‘Shit,’ I said. ‘I didn’t know.’

‘Hmm.’ She fixed me with a serious look, and her next sentence came out in a rush. ‘I probably shouldn’t pass this on,’ she said, ‘but he’s an ex-offender. I think there were some issues with the mother after he came back from Iraq. Possibly PTSD or something like that. But whatever went on, they had got over their differences when she got sick.’

‘Right,’ I said thoughtfully.

‘I do find him a bit prickly,’ she went on. ‘But I think he’s just trying to cope on his own, so I generally cut him, and the boy, a bit of extra slack. Can’t be easy for them.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘Can’t be easy at all.’

As I made my way back to the classroom I thought about poor little Tyler and the big tough man who was trying to be both mum and dad in that sad household.

I felt sorry for him. But I didn’t like the sound of ‘ex-offender’ and the implication of domestic violence.

It was a little too close to home.

IRENE

There was a ginger cat lying across the middle of the carpet. It wore a grumpy expression and gave a silent, shivery mewl as she stepped over it and looked for somewhere to sit down.

A quite astonishingly ugly dog – a pug, perhaps; Irene didn’t really ‘do’ dogs – wandered over and made snuffling noises while pawing at her foot. It was almost spherical, neck wrinkles spilling onto its fat little body.

‘Come on, Elvis,’ said the woman, and scooped the animal up, ‘you need to be on good behaviour for our visitor.’