Mrs Pearl

Mrs Ursula Eleanor Pearl (Born Eleanor Abott, 5 December 1965) was the Headteacher of Fare Isle boarding school from August - December 2008.

Early life
A pretty, pale girl, careful and cautious Eleanor Abbot was brought up in West London. An only child, she was educated at a private school but her parents were devoutly middle class. Both her father and her mother, however, had both died by the age of eighteen (in 1983). Her mother developed multiple sclerosis which slowly and painfully killed her while her father died simply of old age and heavy smoking.

The home was sold and with no source of income Eleanor left for university in Aberdeen to study psychology. It was here that she met future husband Joseph Pearl (also studying the same subject). He bought her a house after she finished university with a masters degree in 1987 but Joseph continued to do his Phd. He became a psychiatrist while Eleanor trained as a teacher. Joseph was not around he was still at University so she lived alone in the house living off his wealth that he had inherited from his parents. She went to work in a primary school in nearby Aberdeen and got on alright but was made redundant when the school closed due to a lag in the amount of entrants. (1995). After years of looking for a new job Eleanor found a post as a trainee science teacher at a secondary school (1998) but it soon became apparent that she couldn’t cope. She had a nervous breakdown and after returning to work was finally told to leave.

Terroised at Secondary School
On returning to her old school to teach GCSE level psychology in 1999 a school near Melton-Mowbray and a foundation level science class, she was confronted by her old pupils who hadn’t had a proper teacher in six months. The results were poor and most of the classes had gotten into the routine of messing about. But when she tried to confront this and asked the classes to calm down they just ignored her and continued texting. She went to go and grab a mobile phone from one of the pupils but he refused to let go. She dived for it but he grabbed her as well. Later the boy made accusations about what she had done, and after being sick all over the floor it was made quite plain that she could not continue teaching and the headteacher asked her kindly to leave for good. Realising she’d never been employed as a teacher again, Eleanor fell into depression and was resigned to her home.

Divorce
She spent weeks in bed, refusing to go anywhere or do anything and Joseph became more and more frustrated. He tried to get her professional help but she refused all of this. Occasionally she’d get up and try and make her way downstairs. After she had been in bed for a year and a half, late at night she crept from her room downstairs to go and see her husband but she stopped. She could hear he was on the phone. What she heard, however, was damming. He was speaking to someone else. It was clear to Eleanor that he had been having an affair, with who she didn’t know. But pretending she’d never heard any of it, she made her way back upstairs to her bedroom. She didn’t mention it at all but one afternoon Joseph persuaded Eleanor that she needed to leave the house to get some fresh air. It was the first time she had left the house in over six months (she rhad been ill for over a year) but she obliged. They’d gone to a theatre, Eleanor’s favourite place. But she lost Joseph during a massive crowd and when she finally resigned herself to go and look for him in the car park, his car was gone. She found it very odd but although she was worried she sat back down to watch the performance as if nothing had happened. (It was an Oscar Wilde play: An Idea husband). It took her most of the night to get back home and when she returned she found the house stripped of all her husband’s things. He had gone. Weeks later she sobbed as everything she owned was slowly reposed

Life of Crime
After the disastrous job she did at her last school, Eleanor realised she would never be able to teach again. She was sick of the mundane life she was now leading. As she sifted through the mountain of paperwork that filled the massive house, she came across a life insurance policy that he had failed to take with him. It stated that if either of them died, the other would get the money. Realising that Joseph had probably gone abroad to live with his parents in Panama, Eleanor decided she was going to report his “death” to the police. At first her lies seemed convincing. She told the inspectors she couldn’t bare to have any of Joseph’s things around because they upset her so much so she had thrown most of them out. The police became suspicious because Eleanor had told them that she he had gone out sailing in a boat and that it must never have come back. The police first wondered why Joseph would go out in a boat during the December months when the sea was obviously choppy and then found it odd when there was no boat. The case quickly got out of hand and the media wanted to know about the extraordinary case after the police made an appeal to find Joseph. He returned to Scotland quickly and made it quite clear where he had been. Eleanor was arrested and in front of a massive media scrum, she broke down. At court the judge described her as “villainous” and imposed a two year jail sentence for “attempted fraud” and “wasting police time”

In Prison
With televisions in many of their cells, people saw for themselves what Eleanor had done and they did not congratulate her. She was beaten up on a regular basis by the thugs of women who were in there. She managed to avoid taking drugs or becoming a “mule” as some women were forced to do but the experience scared her. After the experience she had been through her skin had become wrinkled and her hair had all but turned grey. Upon her release she was forced to wear a tag and live in a council flat. Nothing, for this once proud middle class woman, was more shameful.

A late night visitor
For five years Eleanor Pearl made no attempt to get a job, a boyfriend or any sort of life at all. It became all but common knowledge to the gangs in the surrounding flats, who she was and what she had done. Her windows were smashed in and anything she bought was looted. And there was no one to defend her, even the local police officers remained absent. They thought what she had done was equally as disgusting.

Her story had caught the attention of someone: Constance Hancock. Although Eleanor had never met her, she had followed her story closely in the paper, especially as she lived nearby.

When a strange man, dressed in a balaclava, came knocking late at night Ursula did not at first bother to get up. She knew that it would probably be just someone trying to burgle the house. When the man entered anyway, Eleanor was on her guard. He walked into her bedroom and laid down an envelope. She opened it in front of him- it was a simple letter that read: ‘If you want to re-claim the money and the life you once lead you will pack enough clothes to last you a year and use the tickets you have been given to board the stated plane. There will be car waiting and then you will be given further instructions.’ There were tickets for a plane in the envelope to one of the furthest most remote parts of Scotland. So desperate for money and to forget her terrible life, she did as she was asked and boarded the plane. No one cared where she was.

The plane left Aberdeen airport at 10:15 on the night of the 16th August 2008. She travelled first class and the plane touched down in less than an hour- 10:50 at Wick airport. A car with a small typed note below the windscreen was waiting: Eleanor Pearl it said.

Inside the back car was a sat nav. It had already been programed to her location. She followed it exactly until it told her to stop. For the entire journey there had been nothing about for miles. Then a town came into view- it was 11:40, she’d been driving for almost an hour. Past the town was an abandoned industrial estate, it was here outside one of the factories that she was told to stop. Tentatively, she made her way inside. She met another balaclavaed man. He told Eleanor that she was to go by the name Mrs Ursula Pearl and that she was to make sure that she could not be recognised as her former self. He then handed her a briefcase and told her she was going to become a teacher again.

She stumbled and admitted that she was not cut out to be a teacher. The man laughed, pulling of his balaclava. He was a handsome man and he asked “Do I look cut out for this? You’ll do it if you know what’s good for you. He then opened up an envelope and read out what it said. ‘You will proceed to 84 Mill Street where you will meet Arthur Hingsley. He is the Headteacher of Fare Isle boarding school. He will be expecting you. He should phone Governor Terrance Parry and tell him he is retiring immediately and that you are to succeed him. He will sign the relevant papers and hand them over to you- then he will expect payment. At this moment you will inform him that he will need to accompany you to deliver the papers before he receives any payment. You will bring Arthur Hingsley to this factory and then you shall kill him. The associate who is reading this now will be waiting. You will signal to him and then drive off. In the briefcase you are about to receive is your CV, enhanced CRB check and a plane ticket. You will present yourself as Mrs Ursula E Pearl to Governor Terrance Parry at his offices in Arizona, you will be interviewed and offered the post of Headteacher of Fare Isle boarding school. You will explain to Governor Parry that you intend to revolutionise teaching and that you will be removing all electrical equipment from the school. You will persuade him that they are necessary measures and that you will need a key to the building. You will then be flown from Arizona to Fare Isle boarding school three days before term starts. Once there you will then ensure that all televisions, computers and any other equipment that allows communication with the outside world is securely locked away from both teachers and staff. You will then disable the mobile phone mast located on the island and search all pupils on arrival. You will make sure that they only phone that still works is in your office. You will carry out your duties as Headteacher convincingly to both staff and pupils. You will endeavour to condition the pupils into behaving impeccably- you will timetable a lesson in which you they are told of their past misdeeds and punishments will be severe. You will make regular telephone contact with me when no one else can hear- during the middle of the night. The times and dates are listed. I will then give you further instructions. Approximately half way through the year, when I am ready, I will take over the island and will use it for my own purposes. Your duties will then conclude with sufficient payment.