Paul Gitsham - The Last Straw

The evening had ended on a sour note, after a whispered argument with Susan about Bernice and Dennis’ decision to stay for another week. Warren had completely misjudged the situation, assuming that Susan would be as dismayed at the prospect of her overbearing parents staying for another week as he was. On the contrary, Susan welcomed their decision, since she was feeling overwhelmed with single-handedly organising the new house, whilst trying to prepare for a new job at a new school in less than a month.

Whilst he was sitting at his desk early on Monday morning, memories of the argument rang in Warren’s ears and his gut twisted with guilt. Susan was absolutely right, of course, and he had been very selfish over the past few months. In all the turmoil of his promotion and now this murder case, he had forgotten completely about Susan.

Confirmation of his promotion had come through towards the end of May, meaning that Susan had been forced to hand in her resignation at her current school immediately to meet the period of notice required for her to start a new job in September.

Her resignation, from a school she loved, had come out of the blue and her head teacher had been very unhappy at the need to find an experienced science teacher to replace her at such short notice.

Although Warren would be getting a generous pay-rise on his promotion and the couple had always been sensible with money, Susan had nevertheless found it very stressful knowing that she would be unemployed from September. Eventually, she had found herself a new position at a local comprehensive school on the outskirts of Middlesbury. In retrospect it would probably be a good career move — she was now Head of Biology, wearing a second hat as the person in charge of boosting the school’s less than stellar GCSE science pass-rate — but the preparation required was massive. With the need to tie up all the loose ends at her old job, then the stress of moving house, before preparing herself for her new role, she had been working flat out since May, Warren realised, with barely a weekend off. A proper holiday was out of the question unfortunately — a small unit like Middlesbury had to operate a strict policy regarding booking time off, especially for senior officers, and almost every week over the summer holidays had already been booked by staff with school-age children or spouses who worked in schools. Next year, Warren would join that group of staff and be given first refusal of those choice dates, but this year it was too late.

Nevertheless, Warren felt he had to try something and so he scrolled through the online holiday booking sheet. He had at least managed to snag the October half-term week, but Susan really needed to get away sooner, just to unwind. Suddenly he spotted it — the last weekend of the school holidays was available. Warren did some quick mental calculations. If he started work early on the Friday, he could probably leave a little after lunch, then perhaps arrange to start work later on the Monday, giving them perhaps three nights away. The timing couldn’t be better: a couple of days away before school started — the calm before the storm, so to speak. Feeling pleased with himself, he booked them off immediately, deciding that he and Susan could spend a pleasant evening deciding where to go.

With that done, Warren turned to his to-do list. He had scheduled a briefing for eight-thirty again and was deciding who to assign to which duty. There were a lot of loose ends to this case and the sooner they got them tied up, the better. He and Sutton would also take a trip to Stevenage Magistrates court for Severino’s hearing. By ten-past eight, he had done as much preparation as he needed and he was struggling to concentrate.

Early in their relationship, Susan and Warren had vowed never to let arguments simmer for long periods of time. Warren had planned to announce the holiday booking that evening as a nice surprise, but memories of the previous night’s argument still weighed heavily on his mind.

He glanced at the clock again. Eight-fifteen. When he’d left the house that morning, Susan had been awake and reading a book. She’d offered up her cheek for a perfunctory kiss, but had clearly still been brooding.

Sod it! Warren decided. A quick phone call would no doubt cheer her up and perhaps she’d be in a good mood when he arrived home. He keyed the speed dial on his mobile, ringing the house landline. It rang so long that Warren almost hung up. Finally it was picked up, the voice on the end heavy with sleep.

“Jones house.”

Bloody hell, Bernice again! Warren suppressed a groan.

“Hi, Bernice, it’s Warren. I hope I didn’t wake you up. Is Susan about?”

Bernice ignored the first part of the question, but her tone of voice betrayed the answer. “I think Susan is in the bathroom. The shower stopped a moment ago. Can you not call back?”

Warren thought for a moment. Susan was already out of the shower and Bernice was now awake. The briefing started in less than fifteen minutes after which he wouldn’t have time to make a personal phone call. The damage was already done; he’d be better off trying to fix it now rather than letting Susan simmer — no doubt with the aid of Bernice — for the next few hours.

Bernice gave a world-weary sigh, before calling up the stairs to Susan. A few seconds later, Susan picked up the bedroom extension. Warren waited for Bernice to replace the downstairs receiver before starting. First of all he apologised for the previous night’s argument; Susan sounded marginally less annoyed and grudgingly apologised for being over-sensitive. Glancing at the clock, Warren saw the time was eight-twenty. Outside his office door, he could hear the chatter of officers passing by on the way to the briefing room. Cutting to the chase, Warren announced proudly that he’d managed to secure a weekend away before term started again and Susan should choose wherever she wanted, cost be damned.

The reaction was not exactly what he was hoping for.

“Are you bloody mad? The weekend before school starts? I’m going to be working flat out! The school is reopening that weekend after the summer building work. It’s the first chance I have to get into my new classroom. And on Tuesday’s staff training day I’m supposed to be delivering a short address on how we are going to improve our GCSE pass-rates. I haven’t even started planning that yet. And don’t get me started on the A level Biology schemes of work — there aren’t any. It’s no wonder that some teachers have a hundred per cent A to C and others, teaching the same sort of kids, have barely fifty per cent — every teacher is doing it differently. I need to sit down and work out a common teaching strategy, especially since it’s rumoured that OFSTED will be in this term.”

She paused for breath, but Warren was too stunned to do any more than mumble, “Sorry, I didn’t realise.”

“Don’t you listen to anything I have to say? I can’t believe you sometimes. That’s the worst possible weekend to be away.”

Warren sighed; the clock ticked over to eight twenty-five.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart. I didn’t think. Look, I’ve got to go. My meeting starts in a moment. I’ll phone you after lunch and we can see if there are any other weekends that we can do.”

Silence, followed by the phone being hung up.

“Just like her bloody mother,” Warren groaned quietly, letting his head thump lightly on the desk.

“Problems, guv?” Sutton leant against the doorway, barely covering a smile. Saturday’s brief bonding session over the woes of mothers-in-law appeared an age ago and Warren didn’t feel in the mood for small talk.

“Nothing a few months’ holiday wouldn’t solve.”

“Thought your missus was a teacher. Isn’t six weeks enough?”