Page 3 of Better the Devil

Or maybe that was just his growing impatience talking.

Still, three of six. Nearly halfway. This would all be over soon.

What was this one again? Shite. He should’ve been paying more attention.

He glanced to his left. Shona Maguire, his… He hated to use the word “girlfriend” at their age, but “partner” had other connotations in his line of work. Shona sat nodding along, a carefully annotated report card in her lap, fully engaged with the older woman on the other side of the desk.

Good. At least someone was listening properly.

Logan stifled a yawn and craned his neck just enough to be able to read the heading at the top of the report card page.

‘Maths.’

The conversation stopped. Shona and the teacher both turned to look at him, and he realised that he’d spoken the word out loud.

The teacher—Mrs Morrison, according to the wee card on her desk—was a small, anxious-looking woman in her mid-sixties. Although, Jack was sure that working with teenagers all day almost certainly aged you prematurely, so she could be anywhere from late-forties upwards.

‘Maths?’ she said, and the questioning note to her voice didn’t bode well.

‘What about it?’ Shona asked, her brow creasing in confusion.

‘Well, I mean…’ Logan shifted in the too-small seat. ‘It’s important, isn’t it?’ he ventured. ‘Numbers and all that.’

‘I mean, aye. I suppose it is,’ Shona agreed. There was a slight edge to her usual Irish lilt, though. The music of it was missing.

‘That’s all I was saying.’

‘Maths was the last one,’ Shona reminded him. ‘This is Olivia’s Guidance teacher.’

Logan winced, now dimly recalling a man with no chin and big glasses, talking endlessly about Pythagoras’s Theorem through in the main hall.

‘Aye. It’s, eh, it’s just that it’s hitting me now,’ Logan said. ‘About the numbers and that,’ he added weakly, then he steepled his fingers together in a way he hoped made him look interested, and urged the teacher to continue.

‘Ha. Right. Yes.’ Mrs Morrison looked Jack up and down, smiled artificially, and then turned all her attention back to Shona. ‘As I was saying, I’m aware that Olivia has had something of…’

She picked up a pencil and gripped both ends, rolling it between her fingers as she tried to formulate the end of her sentence.

‘…anunorthodoxupbringing.’

‘What the hell does that mean?’ Logan interjected.

From over on Shona’s left came a tut and a sigh. ‘It means unusual.’

Logan leaned forward a little until he could see Olivia. She had her hoodie up and her earpods in, arms folded, knees bent up in front of her so her heels were wedged against the front of her seat. It was a position he couldn’t have got into if he’d tried.

‘No, I know what the bloody word means,’ Logan said. ‘I meant, what’s she getting at?’

‘Jack,’ Shona muttered.

‘No, I want to know what she’s saying,’ Logan continued. ‘What’s so “unorthodox” about it?’

Across the table, the teacher flashed him a smile, even as she picked up a sheet of paper. ‘No offence intended, Mr Logan. But, in Olivia’s own words’—she tilted her head back and squinted slightly at the page she was holding—‘“My mum’s dead, my dad’s in prison for dealing drugs, and I now live with the cop who banged him up, and a woman who cuts up dead bodies all day.”’

Logan’s chair seemed to shrink another inch or two.

‘I mean… when you put it like that.’

‘It’s notallday,’ Shona said. ‘And, to be clear, it is my job. It’s not, like, a hobby.’