I found Zoe in the staffroom, looking unreasonably fresh and awake in a bright orange printed dress. As I slumped into a seat next to her, I said, ‘Got any shades I can borrow?’

She nudged me, a bit painfully. She had sharp elbows.

‘Are you being rude about my dress, you bloody Philistine?’ she said.

‘No, just got a headache,’ I said, then quickly, ‘and no, before you say it, I’m not hungover.’ That wasn’t really true. But I had good reason to drink a little too much, with everything going on right now.

‘You do look a bit crap,’ she said. I laughed, despite myself.

‘You really know how to make me feel like a million dollars, Zo.’

‘Come on,’ she said with a grin, ‘you know I’m not one to sugar-coat the shit. What’s going on?’

I told her everything. I could almost feel my muscles unknotting with the relief of unburdening myself. Anya wasn’t a teacher and so she didn’t completely get what this had felt like. Zoe made horrified or sympathetic noises in all the right places, as I described the stupid non-row with Bennett; being forced off my bike. Then what happened the night before last.

‘God, do you think you should go to the police?’ she said once I’d exhausted myself. I took a swig of lukewarm instant coffee.

‘I’m wondering about that,’ I said. ‘But I feel like I ought to speak to Jackie about it once she’s read my report on what happened.’

‘Well,’ said Zoe as she began to retrieve the pile of exercise books she’d been marking from the table in front of us. ‘I’d get on with it. This all seems to be escalating a bit quickly, doesn’t it?’

Jackie was not one to hang about, as it happened. I was summoned to come and talk to her at the end of the day.

I made my way down to her office, in the relatively new part of the school that had been added just last year. Even the carpets were better here, and I could smell proper coffee coming from her assistant Elaine’s office.

‘Elliott!’ said Elaine, a friendly, smiley woman in her early sixties. ‘You’ve got a meeting with Jackie, yes?’

‘Yep.’ I took a seat in one of the armed chairs just inside the door. Even though I was a thirty-two-year-old married teacher, sitting here still had the effect of making me feel like I was about to get a massive bollocking from a grown-up.

Which, as it turned out, wasn’t a million miles away from what happened.

Jackie didn’t beat about the bush. She told me straight away that she was ‘very concerned’ to see me talking to Tyler that morning and wanted a full account of what had been said to him.

I hesitated, and the moment seemed to stretch for ages between us.