Trauma for all at St Andrew's

As Soham reels in the wake of the tragedy, thoughts are turning to the pupils, parents and teachers at Holly and Jessica's school.

With only three weeks to go before the start of the new term, St Andrew's Primary School has to face the fact that two pupils have been murdered, a former member of its staff and her boyfriend are being questioned as the chief suspects, and the school itself remains cordoned off as a possible crime scene.

"I don't see how St Andrew's will ever get over this," said teacher Delia Tickner, choking back sobs in her Soham sitting room. "What has happened is like an open wound and while I know it won't always be like this, I can't see it ever healing properly."

Like many of the school's 32 staff, Mrs Tickner is dreading the start of term. Not only will she have to help the pupils come to terms with the horror of what happened in the summer holidays, but she will also have to help the parents and other staff while coming to terms with her own grief.

"Everyone will miss them dreadfully. They were just going up into the final year and they were the sort of children you would ask if you wanted a small job doing, like if you wanted something taken round the school.

"There will always be a gap where those two little girls should have been."

The pain of the girls' shocking deaths is made all the worse by the proximity of the crime to the idyllic-looking school. Its manicured grounds are now bordered by blue and white police tape, tape which encircles Soham Village College next door, where police found "items of major significance" - and the tied cottage shared by suspects Maxine Carr and Ian Huntley.

Former St Andrew's classroom assistant Carr, 25, who is still in police custody, was known to all the children. Her 28-year-old boyfriend was a familiar figure through his job as caretaker at the school next door.

Mrs Tickner, 49, whose husband David teaches at Soham Village College, said: "This is a unique situation. Have you ever heard of a similar story where the accused have come from within your own community? That is what makes it so difficult.

"The real problem is that the children's trust has been broken. We taught them about 'stranger danger', and gave them lists of people they could and couldn't trust. Now their basic trust has been shattered and we are going to have to re-establish it."

A team of 15 trained counsellors, brought in specifically for all three schools in Soham, will work in shifts manning telephone helplines.

Bob Pearson, spokesman for Cambridgeshire local education authority, said: "We have spoken to other local authorities where they have similar experience of tragedy, such as Sussex where Sarah Payne was murdered and Surrey where Milly Dowler disappeared, and they say the community will need people they can talk to."

The lines opened at 8am today and will operate 12 hours a day, or for longer if needed.

"Professional counselling is vital," Mrs Tickner said. Soham is the sort of place that will cope, but it will be tough."

When term begins on 9 September - just over a week after what would have been Jessica's 11th birthday - the toughest job of all will fall to Geoffrey Fisher, head teacher at St Andrew's.

General consensus has it that if anyone can lead the little school in its desperate hour of need, Mr Fisher can. A 54-year-old father of three grown-up children, he has been a head teacher in Soham for 21 years, and head of St Andrew's since it officially opened 12 years ago.

One parent with a child at the school described him as "a wonderful man, a real father figure to the children, who all love him to bits."

"Nothing can prepare you for this," Mr Fisher said at the weekend. "I was completely numb when I heard the news. It gave me a terrible feeling in the pit of my stomach."

In the two weeks since the girls disappeared, hopes have been raised and dashed but the discovery of two bodies meant the end of hope. Sunday had begun with thunderstorms and an anguished church service where hundreds upon hundreds of people crammed into St Andrew's parish church which usually sees no more than 50 worshippers.

Throughout the day families kept on coming as the churchyard became the focus for all of those who had invested so many prayers for a happy ending even while remorseless logic told them the worst had probably happened.

Last Friday, it was Jessica's mother Sharon who summed up so perfectly the impact of this tragedy, when she told a press conference just how quiet and empty her home seemed without the youngest of her three daughters.

That emptiness is now tangible throughout Soham as this small Fenland town, which all of the locals still call "the village", unites in grief.

The sight of flowers, teddies, toys and children's poems spreading across the grass on either side of the church door is unbearably moving. Pooh and Piglet, Teletubbies and characters from A Bug's Life, have been left by boys and girls too young to truly understand, brought here by mothers and fathers whose children have never felt quite so precious.

Inside the church, people queue silently to sign a book of condolences. In an era where organised religion seems increasingly irrelevant to so many lives, the vicar of St Andrew's, the Rev Tim Alban Jones, has been a rock, struggling to give voice to Soham's anguish.

One week earlier, he had given a sermon full of hope in adversity, speaking of a community "in the midst of a terrible storm", sometimes battered and sinking, full of "appropriate anger at whoever has done such a vile deed".

At that time, Kevin and Nicola Wells, and Jessica's parents Leslie and Sharon Chapman, sat in the first two rows with their other children, drawing strength from the great show of public support and sympathy.

One week on, both families were at home after another long night waiting with family and friends for the dreadful news which would confirm that their daughters had been murdered. And yesterday the shift in tone was unmistakable as Mr Alban-Jones spoke of their "searing, heart-rending agony".

"We in Soham know all too well an appalling example of the depravity to which humans can sink," he said. " The whole town feels violated." Methodist minister the Rev Alan Ashton led the congregation in prayer, seeking "resilience and courage in the dark days that lie before us".

In the churchyard, simple sentiments written in childish scrawl moved people to tears.

Alongside a pink teddy a child had written: "Now the girls have gone to heaven, I say a prayer every night about Holly and Jessie. I hope you will look after them. I say a prayer so their mums and dads also have a prayer for them."

Many people left two matching floral tributes, miniature roses in pink and cream, or pots of white lilies. Someone else had left a picture of David Beckham, the girls' favourite Manchester United player. Messages speak of two English roses, precious angels.

One young mother, who placed a joyous mixed bouquet full of vivid pinks and purples, sobbed her heart out as she crumpled into her husband's shoulder while he cradled their baby boy in his arm.

Last week, people in Soham wished for an end to the waiting. But closure has brought only further torment.

On the edge of town, two police cars barred the entrance to the car wash at the Q8 petrol station amid speculation that the killer may have tried to remove traces of the diabolical act.

Police will hope that indelible forensic traces have survived. For Soham, the horrible truth is that nothing will ever erase the memories of this terrible episode

As teacher Mrs Tickner said: "The one question all the children are going to ask is: 'Why?' And that is the one question none of us will be able to answer."