She gets out her phone and looks again at the photo she snapped of the image of the man with the harelip watching football that was on display in the gallery.
It’s surely too much of a coincidence, she thinks, that the man who caused her mother to faint had a scarred top lip. Does this mean that the man in the photograph is in Bristol? Could that be why Abdi was asking about the photo on the recording? Or is she seeing impossible connections?
She opens Facebook Messenger. The café has good Wi-Fi.
She clicks on Abdi’s name and attaches the photograph to a message.
“What does this mean?” she types below it, and presses send.
She has no idea if it will get to him, but she prays that somehow it will.
It’s six P.M. when Woodley and I arrive at the boys’ school to interview Imran Fletcher-Kapoor about his friendship with Noah and Abdi. We’re able to kill two birds with one stone because Alistair Hawkes, the teacher Abdi emailed about his essay and his scholarship concerns, will also be present.
We meet with the headmistress first, to inform her of Noah’s death, but ask her to keep the news to herself for the time being.
Once she’s composed herself, she shows us into a meeting room just off the school’s foyer, where Imran’s waiting with his mother and the teacher.
“Sarah Fletcher,” she says, standing to shake our hands, adding, “I’m a solicitor,” as if we were planning to charge her son instead of chat.
A man in chinos, a dark jacket, and a club tie introduces himself as Alistair Hawkes.
Imran’s a fairly slight boy, though I expect he would have dwarfed Noah Sadler. He smiles nicely at us when we’re introduced, but bites his fingernails continuously, except when his mother lays a warning hand on his arm. He wears trendy black-rimmed eyeglasses and glances out of the window frequently and longingly.
Before I can begin to ask questions, Sarah Fletcher gets in there: “Do you want to tell them in your own words, Imran?”
He looks at Woodley and me. It’s an assessing glance, which makes me curious as to whether he’s going to cough up about the essay he sold. I think he’s wondering how much we know.
“You can tell us anything,” I say. “Everything helps.”
He looks at his mother. She nods encouragement.
“Noah Sadler stopped Abdi from being friends with me.”
The headmistress draws her chin back into her neck and inhales audibly through her nose. It’s a reaction either to the slighting of a boy who can no longer tell his side of the story or to something she considers untrue or perhaps exaggerated. I’m not sure which.
Sarah Fletcher notices and counterstrikes.
“We complained about it at the time, but nothing was done.”
“Can you tell us a bit more?” I ask.
Imran describes a series of small but slightly unpleasant behaviors that Noah Sadler engaged in when he returned to school after a spell in hospital. They all seemed designed to put an end to a friendship that had developed between Abdi and Imran in Noah’s absence.
“If you take each incident separately,” his mother says, “they’re little more than a bit of wrangling over friendships, but taken together there’s no question that they constitute low-level bullying.”
Alistair Hawkes shifts in his seat but says nothing. The headmistress remains tight-lipped and still.
I’m not too worried about how these things affected Imran, because he looks like a pretty resilient kid to me, but it’s interesting to hear more about the power play that was going on between Noah and Imran for Abdi’s affections. It’s a complicated little triangle.
“How do you think Abdi felt about it?” I ask.
“He really hated it, but he felt like he had to look after Noah.”
“Do you know why he felt that way?”
“Because nobody else likes Noah.”
“Why do you say that?”
“He’s quite arrogant. He’s all right if you do what he wants, but he tells his mum if you don’t and she rings school and says you’re bullying him.”
Alistair Hawkes clears his throat and interjects. “This did happen on one or two occasions.”
“Did you investigate?”
“We looked into it, but the behavior was more what we would consider high jinks than bullying. Some parents can be very sensitive to that kind of thing, though, and especially with Noah’s medical history, I think his mother felt that he might suffer more than some of our more robust students. Mr. Jacobson spoke to the boys involved.”
The big man we interviewed previously, by the squash courts.
I catch Imran’s eye. “How did Abdi feel about his friendship with Noah? Did he talk about it?”
He shrugs. “Not really. A bit.”
“Can you remember what he said?”
“He said it was intense sometimes.”
“In what way?”
“Because Noah was clingy.”
“Anything else?”
“Maybe Noah was competitive sometimes.”
“Competitive over what?”
“Chess, and sometimes schoolwork.” He looks at his mum. “I didn’t get involved in that.”
“Were they good friends to each other as well, or is it all competition?”
“They’re best friends. They make each other laugh. It’s kind of annoying sometimes.”
“Are you jealous of their friendship?” I’m having to make a conscious effort not to refer to Noah in the past tense.
Imran shakes his head. “When I started at this school, I wanted to be friends with Abdi, but it wasn’t really worth it when Noah got back from hospital because he made it difficult.”
“Did you feel cross about that?”
“A bit at first, but I made new friends.”
He smiles, and I believe him. He gives the impression of being pretty socially adept. I’m guessing he finds it fairly easy to make friends.
His mother looks from me to Woodley and back again, and straightens her back.
“Is that everything? Imran has a karate lesson to get to.”
“There’s just one more thing I wanted to ask you about, Imran,” I say. “It won’t take a minute and then you can go. You’ve been a brilliant help so far.”
He relaxes into a Cheshire cat smile, pleased that he’s aced it, sensing freedom.
“It’s about an essay.”
The smile falls from his face.
“Do you know what I’m talking about?”
“No.”
“Did you ever write an essay and sell it to either Abdi or Noah?”
A shake of his head, but he’s not an accomplished liar. His eyes dart around the room as he tries to assemble an explanation. His mother slumps back in her seat, looking as if she’s sucking a lemon. There’s no surprise on her face or the faces of the teachers in the room. They all know about this already, just as I thought.
“I helped Abdi with an essay” is what he comes up with.
“Can you explain exactly what you mean by help?” I want details.
“Abdi was behind with his work and he didn’t have time to do the essay.” Imran glances at the staff. “So I helped him.”
“Once again, how exactly did you help him?”
He chews a nail. “I wrote the essay for him.”
“And you were aware of this?” I ask the headmistress.
“Indeed. We dealt with it according to our procedures, and Imran’s mother was informed.”
Sarah Fletcher-Kapoor confirms this with a curt nod.
“Did you do that often?” I ask.