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      ‘I think you’ve probably just answered Mr Clark’s question, then,’ Mr Gregory said. ‘And having looked at the notes you emailed, the picture seems reasonably clear. Imogen’s selective mutism is probably a post-traumatic coping mechanism. In which case the key thing is to find out what’s caused it. Which is the poser, of course – since, unless we find a way in, she’s not going to tell you.’

      ‘She did try to speak to me, actually,’ I said. ‘At least I think she did. Last Friday.’

      I told them both about the few words Imogen had managed to get out, and how I’d been pondering what they might mean all weekend.

      ‘The mother, perhaps?’ Gary wondered. ‘It would be interesting to find out more about that whole situation, wouldn’t it? What actually happened there. How rare must it be for a mother to leave her child so completely?’

      ‘And so suddenly, come to that,’ I agreed.

      ‘It certainly sounds as if the mother leaving might be the root,’ Mr Gregory said. ‘Though this happened a couple of years back, did it not?’ We both nodded. ‘Yet the SM is fairly recent – a matter of months, isn’t it? What about the grandmother? How do you think things are there?’

      ‘Difficult to tell,’ I said. ‘Though I know both grandparents are at the end of their tether. As I suppose they would be, given their age and state of health. And there’s also the step-mum, of course – she was apparently also at her wits’ end; in fact, it’s the step-mum who appears to have been the main target of Imogen’s distress. That’s why the grandparents have her living with them now – because she simply couldn’t cope with Imogen’s tantrums any more.’

      ‘Of course, what we most need,’ Gary said, ‘is for Imogen herself to tell us what’s wrong, isn’t it?’

      I nodded. ‘Which is only going to happen if we can get her to speak while she’s in school. Which is the problem. Because as soon as she was aware she had my full attention when she did speak, it was like a physical shut-down. Wham! Shop closed till further notice, you know?’

      ‘Well,’ said Mr Gregory, ‘that’s mostly what I’m here for. To give you a selection of strategies to try, in order to bring that happy state of affairs about. So, to start …’

      Now I did open my notebook.

      An hour and a half and four mugs of coffee later Gary and I were armed with what almost felt like an information overload – it seems there were as many ways of trying to crack the code of a child’s selective mutism as there were reason for them ‘choosing silence’ in the first place. I learned something else, too – that a lot of the strategies I’d been reading about on the internet, and which I’d thought sounded logical, were, in fact, absolute no-nos. I grinned to myself as I headed back to the staffroom, thinking how I might not run that particular one past Mike. Being non-digital-age compliant almost as a career choice, my husband was always sceptical about my internet browsing and the ‘facts’ it threw up. ‘The internet isn’t God, Casey,’ he’d often be heard pontificating from on high. ‘Just because bloody googly, or whatever it is, says so, that doesn’t automatically make it right!’

      But it was with that in mind that I took advantage of the hour I had to kill before the lunch bell; which I spent in a quiet corner of the staffroom, with both computer and books, to try and pull together – or at least make a start on pulling together – some sort of reference guide of strategies we could put in place for Imogen right away.

      I thought she might what? That was the first question I wanted to answer. Might come home again? Might send me back to Dad’s? Might have abandoned me? Answer that, instinct told me, and we’d be on our way.

Chapter 10

      I was buzzing by the time I got home from work that evening. I felt all the new stuff I’d learned whooshing round in my head, and on the verge of a very important breakthrough. I knew that all I had to do was to work out and apply the right strategy, and bingo. What that was going to be exactly, I hadn’t quite worked out yet, but I was determined to keep up the momentum.

      ‘So, after tea,’ I told Mike as he washed his hands at the kitchen sink, ‘I’m going to set up shop at the dining table and finish writing up my plans – I know I can do it.’

      ‘Do what?’

      ‘Get Imogen to speak, of course. Haven’t you been listening to what I’ve been saying?’

      He had not long got home from work and he looked tired – he’d had an early start. I huffed even so, but he didn’t rise to it.

      ‘Case, love,’ he said, ‘you know what your “strategy” should be? Give her a dose of whatever it is you’ve got. Not too much, mind,’ he added, moving prudently out of punching range. ‘Or the poor kid won’t know when to shut up!’

      Kieron, who was sitting in the lounge, ‘apparently’ watching telly, hooted with laughter. ‘Nice one, Dad,’ he called.

      ‘Nice one, my foot!’ I said. ‘This is important!’

      ‘Love, I know it is,’ Mike said more seriously. ‘And I’m happy that you’ve had a good day. But all this bringing your work home malarkey – I thought you said you were going to try not to do it? Not quite so much, at any rate. What about just sitting down and watching EastEnders for a change? You know, like we used to. In the olden days.’

      ‘Yeah, Mum,’ Kieron chipped in. ‘What about us? We’ll be neglected children soon. Officially.’

      ‘Oh, give over,’ I told them. ‘And you’re hardly children any more. And it’s not like I’m doing it all the time, is it? It’s just that this is a complicated case and I really want to crack it.’

      Riley, also home from work and dishing up stew and dumplings from the slow cooker, snorted in a derogatory fashion. ‘Case to crack! Mum, who d’you think you are – Columbo? Honestly!’

      Suitably chastised, I accepted my bowl of stew and began to eat it. It tasted surprisingly like humble pie. I knew they were mostly just ribbing me but perhaps I was taking my job just a little bit too seriously. Or maybe I wasn’t – maybe taking it seriously was what was needed, but perhaps I should try to shut up a bit more about it once I was home. I watched Kieron and Riley laughing with their dad about something they’d all been watching last night on the telly with mixed feelings. I’d been doing paperwork, and perhaps I should have taken a break from it, but, actually, parts of my job were quite serious. And none of it would get done by itself. So perhaps I just needed to manage my time better. Stay a little later after school, perhaps, so that once I did get home finally, I could sit down with them all and watch EastEnders.

      Which, once tea was out of the way, I duly did.

      I did manage to sneak an hour in later, however, so when I got to school the following morning I was raring to go – I just hoped there would be less in the way of soap-opera style drama when I got there. The big thing that I’d learned, amid all the medical terminology and jargon, was that I had actually been going about things all wrong, and actually unwittingly reinforcing Imogen’s refusal – or, more accurately – her perceived inability to speak. By allowing her to retreat and not encouraging her to interact better with her peers and with myself, I had given her the green light to remain silent.

      It had seemed logical to me, of course. I was used to using a softly-softly approach with a child who was traumatised and self-conscious; giving them time to get used to their new environment and settle themselves into it a little before expecting them to come out of their shells. According to Mr Gregory, however, this wasn’t helping at all. I needed to use behavioural therapy techniques to show Imogen that remaining silent wasn’t an option – well, not for that much longer, anyway. Her silence wasn’t to be rewarded – that would just reinforce the behaviour; instead I must lavish praise at

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