Page 19 of The Perfect Teacher: A completely unputdownable psychological thriller with a mind-blowing twist

I check myself in the rearview mirror, spying a white hair and plucking it out.

Everything is going to be okay. Positivity breeds positivity.

I check my watch. Ten to seven. My parents will be home. I should go. Rose isn’t going to show up here.

I message Lydia to tell her Rose definitely hasn’t just popped to the chippy and still isn’t home. I fumble closing WhatsApp and open my web browser by mistake, and the internet search I started this morning on Georgia pops up and I’m drawn to an unclicked link.

It’s an article Georgia wrote about the impact of grief on adolescents. The first line – We are never so vulnerable as when we are children but believe we are adults – feels like a stinging slap across the cheek. I click ‘back’ and I’m about to close it and try to call Jenna again when I see the link heading ‘Is Redmoor Worth It?’ and something makes me click. It’s a Mumsnet discussion of top private schools and what they’re really like. I skim some sordid tales from Eton then find the bit about Redmoor College, where Georgia was before PES. And I find this from October, just before Georgia came back here:

ComeDineWithB: Considering Redmoor for DS and DD. Is it really worth it? Love the sound of this Acting Up programme – DS a bit shy.

There are eight replies of glowing praise for the school, for Acting Up and Georgia Smith. And then this:

Yummummy25: Redmoor is a SCAM. They don’t care about your kids. They just want your ￡￡￡. They’ll do anything to protect their staff, even if it means covering up an actual crime. Georgia Smith is the worst of all of them. STAY AWAY.