Bella tried to defuse the situation. ‘As I’ve said, Mrs Cole, no one’s in trouble. I just wanted to let you know what had happened. Both boys are fine, no harm done.’

‘Hmm.’ Her eyes ran up and down the length of Bella’s face, assessing her. ‘Come on Amias, darling. Let’s go home.’

Mrs Cole held out her hand to her son. If Bella wasn’t mistaken, he seemed almost triumphant.

The empty playground lay out before her and just as Mrs White was about to lock the small gate that joined the front playground to the back, Nick came running through.

‘Sorry, Mrs White,’ he called, dodging the gate.

‘You’re lucky I didn’t lock you out, Nick Cowley,’ she called after him, but Bella could hear the teasing note in her voice. ‘Or maybe I should lock you in.’

‘I’m not sure it’d help me learn anything, Mrs White. It didn’t when you taught me.’

Nick smiled as he raced to Nina’s classroom. The school was so small and the classrooms so close together Bella could hear the conversation from inside the door.

‘Sorry, Miss Radcliffe. Sorry, mate. The traffic was awful. Last one again, hey?’ He straightened up and Bella could see the embarrassment and pain in his eyes. She wished she could stop it, but a parent’s guilt could rarely be so easily assuaged.

‘I’m quite glad, actually, Mr Cowley,’ Nina said. ‘I just need to let you know about something that happened today.’ Nick’s face clouded with concern. His eyes shot down to Freddie, scanning him and mentally checking him over. They fell on the ‘I bumped my head’ sticker on the little boy’s chest and eventually raised to meet hers. ‘Is everything all right?’

‘Do you want to come into the classroom? There’s no one else here and it saves us freezing outside.’

‘Sure.’

For a few minutes Bella couldn’t hear anything more and sat at her desk, starting to tidy up. It wasn’t until they were leaving again, and he stepped back into the playground, that she heard his voice. Bella leaned back in her chair so she could see him through the still-open glass door. She really should have shut it. It was freezing. But her excuse was that the room smelled vaguely of feet and needed airing.

‘And was this other boy okay?’ asked Nick as he stepped outside into the cold wind. It whipped his hair up, blowing it over his head and Bella couldn’t help but smile as she turned back to her desk. It was so nice of him to ask. Amias’s mother hadn’t.

‘He’s fine. And he’s assured me it was an accident.’

‘These things happen, don’t they? Sixty kids in a playground all running around – someone’s bound to knock into someone else.’