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      ‘Yes, we were,’ he said, ‘weren’t we, Ben?’

      Ben nodded. ‘Just so you know we’ll keep an eye on things for you. You know, till you get back after dinner … you will be back after dinner, Miss, won’t you?’

      I was quite sure that was the most Ben had so far said to me in one go, without prompting. Which was very pleasing. I’d not personally found him that challenging so far but he was a boy whose reputation for causing trouble among his peers definitely preceded him.

      I was also pleased that these two were clearly forming some sort of bond, and I made a mental note to check if they shared a route to school, since this wasn’t the first time they seemed to have arrived in school together.

      ‘Yes, I will,’ I told him. ‘And thank you so much for reassuring me. It always helps to know there will be a few people who’ll help things run smoothly.’

      ‘And we’ll keep an eye on Imogen for you, Miss,’ Henry added. ‘And I won’t get into nothing with Shona, neither. Just in case you were wondering, that’s all.’

      ‘Well, that’s good to know as well, Henry,’ I said, trying to suppress a laugh as I ruffled the hair of first the taller and then the shorter of the boys’ heads. ‘I can go off to my meeting without worrying now, can’t I? Thank you both.’ I glanced at the big clock on the wall. ‘But, if I’m not mistaken, the bell is going to go at any minute, so if the two of you are going to be my undercover helpers you’d better scoot off. You won’t be able to help me if Mr Dawson sends you out for being late, will you?’

      They scooted off and I headed off to the staffroom for a coffee. I had 20 minutes to spare and I intended to make the most of them. The staffroom was heaving, as it always was at that time of the morning: everyone dashing around, collecting internal mail from their pigeon holes, grabbing paperwork, scribbling last-minute notes, marking last-minute books – all of them trying to cram a quart’s worth of organising into a pint-pot, before the ringing of the dreaded bell. It didn’t seem to matter how passionate any of us felt about our jobs – when your day was dictated by the tyranny of that buzzer, your response was exactly like that of one of Pavlov’s dogs; it meant ‘Showtime – you’d better be ready!’

      The room cleared as if by magic moments later, leaving me with a steaming mug of instant and an upbeat frame of mind. It was the little things that brought on that happy mindset, and this was one such – the simple matter of Henry and Ben’s thoughtfulness was enough to lift my day.

      Despite their well-documented penchant for disruption and violent outbursts, I had a soft spot for both of these boys. Which was probably part of my job spec – being keen to unearth the positive in a difficult child was pretty much essential – but it was still pleasing to be feeling it, rather than just doing it.

      Both boys lived chaotic lives and both had huge self-esteem issues, and I was particularly pleased to see Ben, who I was only just getting to know, showing potential for having more productive relationships with his peers.

      I tried to imagine what it must be like to be him. According to his notes, it was his birth that had precipitated his mother’s death. She’d been a non-attender at her antenatal clinics and had suffered from undiagnosed pre-eclampsia, which, tragically, was caught too late and resulted in her death. This left her newborn child to be taken home by his shocked and grieving father – the only child of a man who hadn’t the first clue how to raise one.

      But with no other family in the area, it seemed Ben’s dad lacked either a choice in the matter or much support and, from what Gary Clark had told me, had taken to drinking too, in recent years, and when drunk would regularly point out to his frightened, bewildered son that if it hadn’t been for him his mother would still be alive.

      What a burden for a child to carry. No wonder poor Ben was angry all the time.

      It was Imogen who was bubbling to the surface of my mind again as I walked the short distance between the staff-room and Gary’s office. Imogen had actually started to say something to me on Friday, something my instinct told me might be important. I was therefore itching to see what the specialist had to say and what kind of strategies he might be able to suggest to help me coax her to say something more.

      Mr Gregory was an experienced speech and language therapist with a special interest in selective mutism, and I was pleased to see he didn’t look too scary. It was silly, and I always berated myself for it, but without a string of letters after my name I had always felt a little intimidated when faced with suited and booted professionals. I was confident in my abilities, I worked hard, and knew I was good enough to justify my position – I just couldn’t get past the feeling that I didn’t have the credentials to prove it, I supposed. Not a chip on the shoulder – I had nothing but respect for my colleagues; just that nagging voice – that women in particular are so good at – that I was lucky to count myself as one of their number, despite Mike endlessly telling me not to be so daft.

      But there was nothing to fear here, and I felt immediately at ease. He was a genial man in what I guessed was his early sixties, and straight away I realised the meeting wouldn’t be as formal as I’d thought.

      ‘You can put those away,’ he said, chuckling, seeing me and Gary both arming ourselves with pens and notebooks. ‘I haven’t come here to deliver a lecture; just to chat about what we already know about the girl and see if I can suggest some techniques you could try in order to get her to start talking again. Of course,’ he added, ‘whether that happens – not to mention when – will depend to a great extent on what made her choose silence in the first place.’

      ‘So that is a fact, then,’ I asked, ‘that the child actively chooses not to talk?’

      Mr Gregory made a yes and no gesture with his hands. ‘It’s probably too simplistic to talk in those terms, but, to an extent, yes – in that it’s an anxiety disorder rather than a physical one, whether it’s conscious or not. It’s usually something that happens to a child who already has a nervous disposition, and that in itself is often inherited from a parent.’

      Which parent in this case? I found myself wondering. Mum or dad? That in itself would be a useful thing to know.

      ‘Children with SM,’ Mr Gregory went on, ‘are characterised by their ability to speak normally in an environment in which they’re comfortable – say, at home – but unable to communicate in stressful social situations, of which school, for most children, is the most obvious example.

      ‘It often starts young, too – typically when a child first encounters school or nursery, and it needs careful, consistent management if it’s not to become a self-fulfilling prophecy. It’s one of those mental health disorders, sadly, that feeds off itself, so the last thing to do is to leave it to sort itself out in the hopes that it will get better, because generally it won’t.

      ‘There is another type of SM, however, that can be brought on by a specific stressful life-event or sudden trauma. This is slightly different in that it tends to be more conscious a withdrawal of speech; they are choosing not to speak as a way of retreating from the reality of an unbearable situation. Again, if this is left unchecked, the prognosis tends to be poor, as it can then morph into the former type of SM, with all the negative ramifications that has.’

      Mr Gregory paused for breath, then smiled. ‘Does that all make sense?’

      Gary nodded, and I resisted the urge to reach again for my notebook. I was itching to write all this down. ‘Yes, it does,’ Gary said. ‘And I suppose the first thing we need to do is identify exactly where Imogen fits into this. She’s obviously not been mute since pre-school – well, as far as her records show, anyway – and from what we’ve heard from her grandparents’ – he glanced across at me – ‘she’s the antithesis of the shy, nervous type at home.’

      I nodded. ‘And I’ve seen that for myself, when I visited. From what I’ve seen, Imogen isn’t an anxious child, particularly – just a challenging and deeply unhappy one.’

      ‘So you heard her speak, then?’ Mr

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