Yet, Robert sought comfort in the fact that the school had survived for more than four hundred years – and looking through the records, he saw this kind of tragedy had occurred before. Perhaps the numbers would fall short term, but as time passed, surely what had happened last Friday would eventually be forgotten.

The last schoolboy death had been back in 1979. A boy had been found dead in the trunk room in the cellar. He’d hanged himself with a piece of cord tied to a hook on the ceiling. The incident had become part of school folklore. The kids loved to perpetrate the myth that the boy’s spirit haunted Fleat House.

Young Rory Millar had looked like a ghost himself when he’d been found hammering on the door, having spent the night locked in there.

Charlie Cavendish, without question the perpetrator, had denied everything as usual and, worse, found it funny . . . Robert Jones shivered uncomfortably, wishing he could find it in him to mourn the loss of his young life and finding he couldn’t.

That boy had been trouble from the moment he’d set foot in the school. And, thanks to his death, Robert’s future was now in question. At fifty-six years of age, he’d been looking forward to retiring in four years on a full pension. If he was forced to resign, there would be little hope of getting a position elsewhere.

At the emergency meeting of the board of governors last night, he’d offered his resignation. The governors, however, had stood by their headmaster.

Cavendish’s death was an accident . . . natural causes. He’d died of an epileptic fit.

This was Robert’s one ray of hope. As long as the coroner returned a verdict of death by natural causes and media coverage was kept to a minimum, it was possible the damage could be limited.

But until this was confirmed, his reputation and future were hanging by a tenuous thread. They had promised to call this morning.

The telephone rang shrilly on his desk. He pressed the speakerphone. ‘Yes, Jenny?’

‘It’s the coroner’s office for you.’

‘Put them through.’

‘Mr Jones?’

‘Yes, speaking.’

‘It’s Malcolm Glenister here, the local coroner. I wanted to discuss the results of the post-mortem conducted yesterday on Charlie Cavendish.’

Robert swallowed hard. ‘Of course. Fire away.’

‘The pathologist has concluded that Charlie did not die of an epileptic fit. He died of anaphylactic shock.’

‘I see.’ Robert swallowed again, trying to clear his throat. ‘And . . . what was the cause?’

‘Well, as you must know, his medical records show he was violently allergic to aspirin. Six hundred milligrams of it were found in his bloodstream, which would correspond to two over-the-counter tablets.’

Robert couldn’t reply, his throat now too dry to speak.

‘Other than traces of the drug Epilim, which Charlie took every day to control his epilepsy, and minimal alcohol levels, the pathologist found nothing else. He was perfectly healthy.’

Robert found his voice. ‘If he’d been found sooner, might he have survived?’