The Good Teacher: A gripping thriller from the Kindle top ten bestselling author of ‘The Perfect Neighbours’. Rachel Sargeant
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Chapter 8
Zelda’s eye goes straight to the towering figure exercising at the barre. Her heart skips. The prodigal has returned – for the second time. She takes in the shiny blonde hair scooped into a ponytail and the baggy blue T-shirt that matches the friendly eyes. And the woollen legwarmers, of course – so old-fashioned and yet so becoming on Pippa Adams.
“Just join the end of the line, Pippa. We’re starting with ‘Happy Feet’,” she says, offhand, doing her utmost to her hide her delight at seeing Pippa back in class. She hasn’t been in a lesson for over three months – ever since Zelda mentioned doing a veterans’ number at the summer show. She’d misread the look of horror on Pippa’s face, putting her reluctance down to false modesty. “You’ve still got it, you know. Three years pounding the beat hasn’t made you completely flat-footed.”
“I’ve retired from performing,” Pippa had replied, and now Zelda hates herself for frightening her away. She had thought that time had put a safe distance between Pippa and her unknown demon. But how wrong she’d been. Pippa stopped attending the class after Zelda mentioned the summer show. She still comes to the studio sometimes but after-hours and she dances alone. Zelda has never talked about the show again or Pippa’s absence from class, too nervous of opening the old wound. But tonight, for whatever reason, she’s back in a dance class.
Zelda sets the iPhone in the speaker and looks along the line of dancers, all poised with their backs to her. Her gaze lingers on Pippa. She knows her statuesque presence will dominate this line-up as it has every other one for almost twenty years. Tears prick her eyes as her thoughts turn for the thousandth time to what might have been. What should have been. Until three years ago.
Zelda has been Pippa’s dance teacher since she was five. She seemed an unlikely ballet dancer at first – big for her age even then, thighs chubby in white nylon tights, her round face as pink as her ill-fitting leotard. But Zelda spotted the child’s innate sense of rhythm and ability to interpret the music. She looked beyond Pippa’s sturdy build and saw that special sparkle. She coached Pippa to the position of lead junior, tutored her in the holidays during her boarding school years, encouraged her dance degree and finally recommended her for her first professional role on a national tour with Marcos Productions.
Never before or since has she used a friendship to further a student’s career. But she went all out for Pippa, calling in a favour from her old flame, Barry Marcos. He wasn’t at all keen to see Pippa because of her height, but Zelda badgered him until he finally agreed to go through the motions of an audition. Zelda knew he still didn’t intend to take her on, so she set to work on Pippa. Her coaching, always thorough, became intensive. Hour upon hour of time steps, line after line of Suzy Qs, shuffle to shuffle of Buffalos, Zelda hammered out her demands like an overzealous drill sergeant. Pippa, the eager recruit, responded with pinpoint precision.
They both made sacrifices. She knew Pippa missed her brother’s fifth birthday party and incurred the not inconsiderable wrath of her young stepmother. For her part, Zelda cancelled two summer workshops to concentrate on Pippa. The loss of earnings and dent in her reputation seemed worth it. There was no doubt of their ultimate synergy: the expert coach teasing out the best performance and the talented pupil always willing to give it.
And Barry Marcos was so impressed that he not only accepted Pippa but also rearranged his chorus line to give her a solo spot. All of Zelda’s efforts seemed to have paid off until Pippa walked out on the opening night of her first professional show and rushed headlong into the police force. After all Zelda had done to get her the job, the betrayal ripped at her insides and she didn’t even know the reason. She still can’t believe it was down to acute stage fright, as Pippa’s mother suggested whenever the two met to mourn the loss of their golden girl.
“I’m so sorry I’ve let you down,” is all Pippa ever says if Zelda broaches the subject. Zelda has stopped asking. It’s like the most terrible bereavement. For Zelda, knowing that Pippa would never again perform on stage was like being left with only the photographs of a departed loved one. They drifted into a distant teacher/pupil relationship and things settled down until Zelda was stupid enough to mention the summer show. Now with her mouth firmly shut, she watches Pippa heel-toe smoothly over the dance floor, grateful for the third chance her reappearance offers.
I kick high. After the day I’ve had, staying in with a book, as Sergeant Sarcasm suggested, is the last thing I want. I needed to get out and do something I’m good at, but I didn’t want to practise alone tonight. I wanted to belong again, to be part of a dance troupe to get the companionship I used to love.
It’s great to be back, even in this improvers’ tap class. I owe it to Zelda to keep a low profile. By joining the advanced group I might force her to mention the summer show and neither of us wants that conversation again. I’ve caused Zelda enough hurt over the years. Besides, in this class, I don’t have to concentrate too hard on arms and legs. I can let my ears take the rhythm and my mind is free to wander.
As I grapevine my way across the studio, my thoughts turn to Gaby Brock. How must she be feeling – wrenched from her bed in the dead of night, beaten up and chained to a chair in her own home while her husband suffered an even worse fate? I miss a step as my insides drop. Gaby Brock has been through an ordeal. Ordeal, agony, trauma, nightmare – whatever they want to call it, I know how every single one of those words feels. Gaby Brock’s pain lasted several hours, which seemed like they’d never end, like time had stopped and there was no way out, no one else there except you and … My heart rate rockets and I miss another step.
I pull back from the precipice of my past and keep my thoughts on the case. What went through Gaby Brock’s mind as she sat bound and gagged in the darkness? She must have waited in complete dread of the brutal kidnappers returning. What kind of monsters abducted Carl Brock but let him bring his shoes with him? Matthews thinks it’s drugs. Was Carl Brock, schoolteacher, leading a double life: public servant by day, drug dealer by night? First rule of detection: know your victim. DI Bagley will get us digging into his past. Maybe we’ll find out he led a blameless existence. Then what will be the motive? A bungled kidnap, perhaps; the killers hoping to extort money from the Brocks. But what kind of money would a schoolteacher have?
DI Bagley seems battle hardened enough to find the men who did it, and so does DS Matthews – ready for a long fight, knowing the rules of engagement, but with a complete disregard for those on his own side. Is he as brusque with the other detective constables, or has he singled me out for special attention? I seem destined to be his whipping boy just as he appeared to be Bagley’s. Maybe, he doesn’t like women. I can see how spending time with DI Bagley might colour his view of the opposite sex.
The dance routine switches to a series of single time steps. With every shuffle, hop, step, I hear Matthews: Ag A Tha. A nickname on day one. It took three weeks for one to ferment at police college but that was worse: Lady Double-Barrel.
It was my fault then, too. I joined the police force as Philippa Woodford Adams. That was the name on my birth certificate and it had been unremarkable at boarding school. But the name and my private school accent nearly led to an early exit from the police course. The jokes and pranks from the other recruits became less funny and more merciless, but I dug in. No way would I give up. Never again would I cower or sob or beg. Police officers took control. They stood firm and stopped bad things, bad people. I needed that.
So I stuck it out and found a new use for my drama skills. By the end of the course I’d flattened my vowels and beaten my diphthongs into neutrality. I didn’t try for a regional accent. It wasn’t like the theatre where an actor learnt and repeated the same lines every night for the duration of the play. This had to be for my entire police career. Sounding more BBC than Berkeley Ball was enough to get me off the hit list by the time I joined my first police station. I also took the precaution of consigning “Woodford” to the “Middle Name(s)” box on my staff form. Thus I became Pippa Adams and fitted in.
Now I’m depressingly visible again. The only way to re-establish my anonymity will be to prove myself a good detective. That’ll mean sticking