Afterwards by Rosamund Lupton Page B

Facebook.
    Tara is reading a text on her mobile. She sets off down the corridor, a sashay to her stride. Jenny and I follow her.
    Jenny smiles. ‘Starsky and Hutch or Cagney and Lacey?’
    But actually there is something a tiny bit thrilling about following someone.
    In the cafeteria Tara meets a man at a table. Older than her, a little paunchy. I recognise him.
    ‘Paul Prezzner,’ I tell Jenny. ‘He’s a freelance journalist. Not a bad one actually. He mainly gets his stuff into the
Telegraph
, has done for years.’
    ‘She’s got a
broadsheet
onto this now?’
    Both of us worry that it’s because you are a known face on TV; that your fame will attract more ‘press interest’.
    I see him leer at Tara and feel relieved rather than repulsed. So that’s the reason he’s here.
    We go closer to eavesdrop.
    ‘The fact it’s a school is irrelevant,’ Prezzner is saying. ‘The point is that it’s a
business
. A
multi-million-pound business
. And it’s gone up in smoke. That’s what you should be investigating. That’s the angle.’
    Next to me, Jenny is listening intently.
    ‘The
angle
is that it’s a
school
,’ Tara says, taking a teaspoon of cappuccino froth into her rosy mouth. ‘OK, so no children got hurt, but a seventeen-year-old girl did. A pretty, popular, seventeen-year-old girl. And that’s what people want to read about, Paul. Human drama. So much more interesting than balance sheets.’
    ‘You’re being deliberately naïve.’
    ‘I simply understand what readers want to know about. Even the ones who buy the
Telegraph
.’
    He leans closer to her. ‘So you’re just supplying their need?’
    She doesn’t back away from him.
    ‘It’ll be about the money in the end, Tara, it always is.’
    ‘Columbine? Texas High? Virginia Tech? No financial motive in any of those, was there? Do you know how many schools in the last decade have been subject to violent attacks?’
    ‘They were gun attacks, not arson.’
    ‘Same difference. It’s violence in our schools.’
    ‘
Our
schools? Pap. And totally inaccurate. Your examples are all in America.’
    ‘There have been attacks in Germany, Finland, Canada.’
    ‘But not here.’
    ‘Dunblane?’
    ‘A one-off. Fifteen years ago.’
    ‘Maybe school violence is a new import. An unwelcome immigrant into our leafy suburbs.’
    ‘Your next piece?’
    ‘It may be the start of a new trend.’
    ‘This guy you’re fingering, he’s not a deranged student or ex-student but a teacher.’
    ‘
Fingering?
You’ve been watching too many cop shows. And it’s
ex-
teacher. That’s the point.’
    ‘Well, you’ve got yourself a good story, I’ll say that for you. Fake, concocted and utterly libellous if you weren’t so sneaky with your layout, but a good story.’
    He smiles at her. I can’t take much more of this sickening flirtation.
    ‘And I like the pics. Bronze statue of a child as foreground when you couldn’t get any real ones to pose for you, and a photo of Jennifer, all on the same page.’
    ‘Let’s go and find Dad?’ Jenny asks.
    We leave the cafeteria and I remember DI Baker asking how the press knew to get to the school so quickly. Did Tara have something to do with it? But if so, what?
    ‘He’s right,’ Jenny says. ‘About the school being a business. I already told you that, didn’t I?’
    For a moment I see the flash of silver cups at the prize-giving; remember again the uncomfortable feeling that we were part of a successful business model.
    ‘But even if it is a business,’ I say, ‘I don’t see why anyone would want to burn it down.’
    ‘Some kind of insurance fraud?’ she asks.
    ‘I don’t see why. The school is full. And they keep onputting up the fees. In business terms it must be doing really well. So there’d be no point burning it down.’
    ‘Perhaps there’s something we don’t know about,’ Jenny says, and I realise that she’s grabbing onto this as you grabbed onto Silas Hyman. Anything or anyone but the