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‘That’s the spirit.’

The thought of going over to the school filled him with dread, but his aunt—and later Daphne, who dropped in at lunchtime, going into a shoulders’ together conversation with Marjorie over cups of herbal tea and then announced that she agreed with everything Marjorie and Pete had said—was right. He couldn’t know the truth about seeing Charlotte with James unless he asked her straight out.

He had considered calling her, but while she was at work it was too easy for him to call at the wrong time, and if she didn’t answer that would set him wondering again. He had promised to go over to the school, and so he did.

It was already dark by the time he got there at half past four, after leaving work early with Marjorie’s blessing, and a paper cup of spiced latte to ‘put a bit of wind in your sails.’

He stood outside for a long time, trying to drum up the nerve to go inside, until finally he caught a parent glaring at him from a car window and started worrying that he looked like some kind of stalker.

In the reception, a mean-faced woman looked up at him as though he had spoiled her whole day.

‘Yes?’

‘Um … can I have a word with … ah … Charlotte Harding? The … ah … teacher?’

‘They’re all teachers here, lad. All except me. And out of the lot of them, I’m the only one who could find my way out of a paper bag without help.’

‘Oh, right.’

She sighed, and hauled herself up out of the chair as though she had been glued down. After the incident with the chewing gum and the bus shelter, Jacob could sympathise.

‘Hang on a minute, I’ll see if she’s still here.’

Jacob waited while she went through an adjoining door. He caught a brief glimpse of a cluttered staffroom before the door closed.

A couple of minutes later, the woman reappeared, with an elderly man in tow, whose face looked set into a permanent scowl.

‘You’re looking for Ms. Harding, is that right? She was expecting you, wasn’t she?’

‘Yes, she was.’

The man nodded. One side of his mouth twitched, as though he were trying to smile, but the other half wouldn’t allow it. ‘So, she knew you were coming?’

‘Ah … yes. I’m trying to get in contact with Billy Toad’s mother.’

‘Oh, right. Is that all?’ The man looked at the woman. ‘Well, I’m afraid we can’t give out personal information to strangers, but if you’re quick, the lad just finished afterschool club, so he should be about to head home. He’s the one with the … ah … dodgy shoes.’

‘Right.’

‘And is about this high.’ The man held a hand up to his chest.

‘Oliver Twist,’ the woman said, to which the man appeared to give a snort of laughter through his only working nostril. ‘He goes through the hand-me-downs box like a squirrel looking for nuts.’

‘Right,’ Jacob said. ‘At least I know what to look for.’

Feeling a little sorry for the boy while wishing a Krampus visit on the unkind headmaster and his secretary, Jacob hurried back outside. Several children were walking across the playground to the car park, and Jacob scanned them one by one, looking for one that resembled a diminutive Dickensian hero.

None that he saw fitted the description he had been given, however, so he reached the edge of the playground feeling downhearted, sure he had missed the boy. He had also missed Charlotte, but if he could at least find Billy Toad, then the day wouldn’t be wasted, and the crushed ruin of his broken heart might yet be able to make a few flittering beats. Spotting a small group walking up the street opposite, he hurried across the car park, dodging between mounds of shovelled snow and cars awkwardly parked in the spaces in between. Some pupils had built a huge snowman right in the middle of the road so that it blocked one way out of the car park, and there were signs that someone—perhaps a frustrated teacher—had attacked it with a shovel. The defiant snowman, however, still stood, although leaning somewhat precariously to one side like a toll booth worker, one twisted twig arm reaching for change.

As he reached the other side, soaking one foot in a slushy pothole in the process, he saw a boy walking alone behind another group, the back of one shoe flapping up and down with each step. The laces were untied, and the back of his jacket had a line of homemade stitches up the back.

‘Billy?’ he called. ‘Billy Toad?’

The kid turned, took one look at him, then ran off.

‘Wait!’ Jacob shouted, then immediately started chasing him, wondering as he stumbled through the snow, slipping and skidding like a drunken skater on every patch of hidden ice, how the boy managed to run in such tattered footwear without falling over.

Up ahead, he saw the boy take a left turn. Jacob shouted his name again as he went after him, skidding to a halt at the junction, looking up an empty suburban street.