Tom Thumb

2-Coates Hill Preparatory School.

Edmund smoothly emerged from Cammie's Jag, I.D. in one hand and half empty cup of takeaway coffee in the other.

There wasn't anyone in sight.

"I said it was them we passed fifteen minutes back" Cammie called, from the driver's seat.

Edmund shrugged, smiled at Cammie, and shoved his I.D. back in his pocket, sauntering up to the front entrance.

Coates Hill Preparatory School was a huge, gothic style castle of a building, with arched black windows and all manner of stone creatures, carvings and edgings engraved into the sandstone walls, which looked like they had been standing for ages.

"Looks like a terrible place, Cammie" Edmund sympathised, leaning his coffee cup on the roof of the Jag.

"It was" Cammie agreed. "I lasted two weeks before I wanted out. Then it was a small case of persuading my peers that we could get free food from the kitchens if we could climb out of the dorms and over via the roof..."

"Is it easy?" Edmund asked curiously.

"Remarkably so" Cammie smirked. "There's a route out of the top floor of dorms, up a bit, over the ledge with the gargoyles on-that was a bit tricksy-and along the roof, then down the drainpipe. All very easy, other than the bit over the ledge. But I think if you shuffle left a bit, and grab onto the gargoyle's foot, it's feasible."

Edmund snorted.

"I'll make sure not to tell the boys that" he joked.

Both of them looked up suddenly, as a crocodile of young schoolboys dressed in black shorts, white shirts and hideous maroon jumpers was ushered out of the main entrance in twos. They all had little straw boaters on, and reminded Edmund of a line of little ducks.

"Just like I remember" Cammie murmured in distaste.

As the back of the crocodile filtered out, it was followed by a young lady, who seemed, as she was dressed in plain, smartish clothes, and had the occasional messy smear here and there about her, to be the teacher in charge of them.

Strange, Edmund frowned. She seemed awfully young.

Her hair was plaited, and blonde, and it was long, a little wispy, as the plaits, neat and precise, went all the way down her back, getting smaller and smaller and smaller until they reached her waist. She had a pale, oval face, big, baby blue eyes so faded they were almost white, long lashes, and petite little hands which were struggling to close the big front door.

Edmund was up to help her before he had even had time to consider it properly, and as he heaved the oak wood door closed, white-blue eyes turned to stare at him.

"Sorry" he muttered quickly. "You looked like you needed a hand."

"Thanks" the girl replied plainly, studying Edmund with a look of puzzlement on her face. "Can I help you?"

"Yeah" Edmund smiled briefly. "My name's D.S. Gray-I'm from Oxfordshire Police. I believe someone here called us?"

"Are you all that's coming?" the girl asked. She turned to the crocodile of boys, who had shuffled to an untidy stop and were watching them both keenly.

"No" Edmund replied, leaning up against the door. "I just got a separate lift. The rest of us will be here in ten minutes or so."

"Is that your boyfriend, Miss Mayfair?" a cheeky voice piped up from the crocodile. A hint of pink touched the girl's pale face, and she turned away.

"No, Charlie Berresford, this gentleman is a policeman" she scolded, somehow still managing to sound kind in her approach. He's going to find Tom."

Edmund nodded bemusedly as a ripple of chatter ran through the young boys. But the big, white-blue eyes were now back on him.

"You will find him, won't you?" Miss Mayfair asked quietly.

"We'll do our very best" Edmund replied, as honestly as he could without letting on that he had no idea what she was talking about. "I promise."

She smiled faintly, and it was only then that Edmund saw a hint of the strain she was under. He pitied her a little.

"Come along, boys" she then ordered, flapping her little dainty hands, and the boys all obediently shuffled back into their lines. "Let's not be getting under everyone's feet when the police arrive!"

The crocodile scuttled off, with Miss Mayfair at the rear. Edmund couldn't help but admire the girl's steadfastness. He frowned. Anna hadn't spoken a word to him since the slap in the hallway incident, which had left Edmund's emotions to run a little wild at times.

"Now" Cammie chipped in, leaning out of the car window. "That was not something I remember being here. I might have stayed if it had been."

"Cammie!" Edmund snapped, appalled. Cammie himself snorted off into wheezing giggles, slapping the side of the Jag.

"Piss off, old man" Edmund grumbled. "I can get a lift back."

Cammie bluntly wound up his window, and scowled playfully at Edmund as he shifted the Jag into gear and slid away.

Edmund downed the remainder of his coffee, and debated on the chances of there being a bin somewhere around the place where Miss Mayfair had disappeared.

But, as he stood, alone on the court in front of the main entrance of Coates Hill Preparatory School, a swarm of police cars buzzed around the corner, led by a robust-looking black Hyundai. Edmund didn't need to guess who would be driving it.

"Afternoon, ma'am" he sighed plaintively, as the door of the Hyundai opened and his ever-sleek, ever-strict boss emerged from it.

"Good afternoon, Detective Sargeant" she sniffed, striding past him and across the court to the front door. She opened it with no trouble (Edmund had barely expected her to struggle with it) and entered, him hot on her heels.

"Good afternoon" she snapped at the unfortunate receptionist behind the welcome desk, through a large, windowlike panel in the wall but with no glass. "D.I Hawes and D.S Gray, Oxfordshire Police. There's been a kidnapping reported?"

The unfortunate receptionist couldn't have looked more blown away if she had been hit by a tornado. She opened and shut her mouth like a goldfish a couple of times, but nothing came out. Edmund elbowed his boss not too unkindly in the ribs and leant across the sill.

"Can you perhaps ask for the Headmaster-or the Deputy Head, if you have one" he told her quietly, correcting himself before he sounded too full of his own importance. "Or whoever knows why we've been called."

The receptionist, a prim twig of a thirty-five year old with rather vibrant cherry-red hair, nodded nervously from behind her glasses and picked up the phone with a small smile.

Edmund turned to look at his boss with an eyebrow raise that implied 'there. That's how you handle this', and he saw her nostril flicker with a mixture of annoyance and impatience. He then wiggled his eyebrows wickedly at her, and she trod on his foot.

"Thank you" she nodded bluntly to the receptionist, and, ignoring Edmund, walked a few paces away and picked up her phone.

"The forensics team'll be trying to pick up a trail" she muttered to Edmund. "Go supervise."

"Is that you slyly telling me to bugger off?" Edmund smirked, checking the receptionist wasn't listening before he replied.

Hawes looked up. The receptionist was still on the phone, and clearly not listening.

"More like me bluntly ordering you to bugger off" she corrected him. "Now scrat."

Edmund, who had never been told to 'scrat' in his life, rolled his eyes to the heavens and made his way to the door.

"You sure you can handle this on your own?" he called back hopefully.

Hawes sighed.

"What sort of a stupid question is that?"

Edmund left instead of thinking of a reply.