A man and woman from the Dept for Cushions and Soft Furnishings turned up investigating the disappearance of £50,000. 

I asked them to sit outside the head’s office to watch the dentists and pizza delivery drivers come and go, and was about to ask Havoc-Blythe to send his two most disgusting pupils to stand next to them when the deputy head arrived with the four cashless caterers.   He looked in at us, paused, said “ah school office” and left. 

I asked Janice what the word is for when that deju vu thing that happens all over again, happens all over again, again, and she agreed to look it up later.

First, we decided to approach the man and woman from the ministry, intimating that we didn’t know quite what was going on (which was true), but we had heard a lot of talk about some sort of project under the codeword “cashless” (roughly true) and that no matter who we asked, no one would tell us what it was about (spot on), and that we had recently taken over by a dubious looking outfit known as “Columbus” (up to a point) and that we thought the mafia might be involved (not quite accurate, but Havoc Blythe had started to term as a hostage in a bread shop in Columbia so maybe there was a connection).   

We also suggested that we thought perhaps there might be a link with the disappearance of the head teacher and/or their money.   (Which of course wasn’t quite right but the ring of truth emerged somewhere in our utterances and that’s as good as it gets when dealing with a government department.) 

They said they had no idea what we were talking about and shuffled off into the playground.

At lunchtime I think I must have dozed off for a moment because I suddenly felt as if I was in London on 22 January 1910.   I had a really strong image of an office, with desks and people looking very pre-first-world-war.

Janice said she thought it must be something to do with my not eating enough iron, or maybe I genuinely had the ability to move between time zones like that rather nice David Tennant.

The event left a strange feeling in my head and I felt rather like I have always supposed Binky must feel most of the time.

Clarius dropped in, mid-afternoon, and I realised I had not seen him since the opening day of term when he was involved in the dead-bird-in-the-staffroom affair.   He said he was just passing by on his way to the head’s office.

When we asked what he was doing there Clarius said that he and Derek were dismantling the dentist surgery as the dentists were going back to Latvia.  It seems to the collapse of the pound against the Euro (in Latvia it seems the pound is worth two old biros and a paperclip) means they can’t afford to work in a poor country like the UK any more.

I felt suddenly sad – and got in turns another flash of London 22 January 1910 and the utterly unexpected thought that Clarius was rather nice and if he asked me out for a meal I would say yes. 

But he didn’t.