The other dark figure did exactly as instructed.
‘You. Teacher. Sit down.’
Donna sank into her seat, eyes glued to the gun, barely noticing when the second man came up behind her, reached over and slammed her laptop shut.
‘Hands where I can see them. If any one of you tries to do anything stupid, I’ll kill you all.’
Suppressed whimpers from the students as they all put their hands palms down on the desks.
‘Good. Right. My associate is going to come round and collect all your phones before anybody tries to be a hero.’
He turned to Donna and she could see the smile in his pale blue eyes.
‘Then we’re all going to have a nice chat.’
2
Cam Cleaver took another swig from the mug of coffee he’d just brewed with his state-of-the-art bean-to-cup machine. It was an indulgence, he knew, but he’d been able to persuade the governors that if visitors were offered good coffee it would ensure that they had a favourable view of Cam and his school. Nobody had yet complained about the machine being set up in the head’s office. Nobody would dare. His staff knew that he didn’t tolerate dissention and more than one teacher had found themselves on early bus duty for two terms in a row for challenging him. Not that they’d be able to prove that he’d engineered the change.
Cam liked these few minutes between staff briefing and the start of the school day because, with most of the teachers in registration, it gave him time to take stock and to plan. He’d sent other members of the senior leadership team to various points around the school: Penny, the deputy head, was in year twelve assembly and the two assistant heads were working with years seven and eight. This was his time and he felt entitled to use it however he saw fit. It wasn’t easy running a school this size – one that got amazing exam results and had been rated as outstanding twice by OFSTED – but he relished the challenges of the job. Normally.
A knock at the door distracted him from the mental preparation of his speech for the yearly prize-giving evening. A speech that invariably had some parents in tears and most of them full of praise for him and his staff.
‘What?’ he snapped. The admin staff knew that he didn’t like to be disturbed between 8.45 and 9am and the occasions when one of them had felt the need were extremely rare. They were aware of the consequences of interrupting his few minutes of peace and quiet.
The school receptionist who also worked as his PA, Ruth Warnesford, peered round the door, her usually ruddy face pale and frightened. Cam deliberately came across as abrupt at times, but he hardly felt that his response to the knock warranted a look of such utter terror.
‘We’ve got a problem,’ Ruth said. ‘You need to come to reception.’
‘What is it? Not another bloody irate parent?’ Cam had thought a few times about moving offices. Being just off the reception area made his room the first port of call if there were any difficulties at the front desk. He could easily persuade Penny to move – not that persuasion would be necessary. After all it was his school.
‘No. It’s more serious than that.’
In the six years that Ruth had been working for him, Cam had never known her to exaggerate a situation or to panic in the face of stress. She was an experienced administrator and always dealt with staff and students politely without being too familiar. As far as he knew the woman didn’t gossip either which was, without doubt, her best qualification for her job. He always thought that a PA should be like a priest or a doctor and never, ever give anything away about their employer. He could see now, though, that she was uncharacteristically agitated, and he knew that whatever he found in reception wouldn’t be pleasant.
‘Fine.’ He sighed. He slid out from behind his desk, took one second in front of the full-length mirror on the back of the door to fasten the jacket of his dark grey suit, covering the bottom of his waistcoat where a few extra pounds meant he had to leave the button undone, and smooth his thinning fair hair before stepping out into the school’s main reception. A sixth-form student was sitting in one of the seats reserved for visitors with Penny Bainbridge, the deputy head who was supposed to have been in an assembly. He was irritated to see that the woman had her arm round the girl’s shoulders; always too touchy-feely for his liking. And a bit too casual in her dress – her dark trousers looked a lot like jeans and the pale blue blouse she wore was baggy and ‘hippyish’. At least her chestnut hair was tied back in a tight ponytail which contained its unruliness – for now.
‘What’s going on?’ he asked, looking from Penny to Ruth and then to the girl.
‘This,’ Penny responded handing him a folded piece of paper.
He took it from her and read:
Armed men approaching humanities block. Call police. Now!!
‘What the hell…? Is this supposed to be some sort of joke?’
The girl looked up at him, her brown eyes magnified by tears. ‘Miss Frith sent me, sir. She seemed to be in a bit of a panic.’
‘And you read this private communication between…?’
‘Cam!’ Penny snapped, standing up and staring him down. ‘Not really the point. What do we do?’
He stared at the girl, trying to think. He had no idea. All the training he’d had regarding school invasions, all the hours of reading and roleplaying, and he hadn’t a clue what to do next. His brain seemed to be shutting down. He was panicking. ‘I… er… I…’
‘We need to call the police,’ Ruth said. ‘We need to get them here now.’
‘What if it’s a false alarm?’ Cam knew that she was right, but he couldn’t help but think about the local press; what would it do to his reputation if he called the police for a stupid prank?
‘We need to make sure this is real. How do we know that it isn’t just a student playing a sick joke?’
‘Sir,’ Keely’s voice was faint but firm. ‘Miss Frith gave me that note. I wouldn’t joke about something like this.’
Penny gave her arm a reassuring pat and looked at him expectantly. ‘Do you think I should call the police?’
‘Yes. Call 999 and explain the situation. I’m going over to the humanities block to see if I can see anything,’ Cam said, hoping he sounded a lot more decisive than he felt.
‘What about the rest of the students and staff? Shouldn’t we be evacuating?’ Penny asked.
‘Where to? The fire assembly area is right next to the humanities block. I can’t just get everybody out of class and send them home. If we have a shooter on site, we can’t have everybody running around in a blind panic. Penny, wait here and liaise with the police if they arrive before I’m back. I’m going to see if there’s anything going on in the humanities block. I should be able to get a good view from the art corridor. And look after that girl.’ He pointed to Keely who was looking paler by the second.
Ignoring any further argument, Cam keyed in the code that allowed him to pass from reception into the rest of the school. As he pushed open the door to the dining hall, the bell went for first period and a steady hum grew as students started to make their way to lessons. Cam picked up pace and nearly ran into two members of the site staff.
‘No time to explain,’ he gasped. ‘Stop any students from getting to the humanities block. Keep them well away. Put them in the dining hall.’
Trusting his staff to do as instructed, Cam jogged round past the PE changing rooms and through the corridor that split the art department from the drama studio. The door at the end of the corridor gave him an excellent view of the humanities block, enabling him to take stock of what was happening without being seen.
The history and geography departments had been housed in a dedicated suite of rooms for five years – paid for by a combination of government funding and donations from parents and local businesses. As it was the newest part of the school, it had been decided that it would be best suited to the sixth form for registration and lunchtime activities – they could probably be trusted to keep it pristine. As he surveyed the front of the buil
ding, Cam was thankful for that decision. If the block had housed lower-school forms, he might have been looking at up to 200 students being held hostage. He knew that year twelve were in assembly which left the four year thirteen groups in the building, with their form tutors and any humanities staff who didn’t have a register to take. Possibly eighty seventeen- and eighteen-year-olds and four or five adults. It could have been much worse.
‘Sir?’
Cam turned to see a year-seven student staring at him with a puzzled expression.
‘What?’
‘Sir, I can’t remember how to get to my maths room.’
Cam took a deep breath. ‘Which room?’
‘M7.’
‘M7 is in… is in…’ his mind was blank. He couldn’t picture any of the rooms in the maths department. He couldn’t picture any of the rooms in the school apart from the humanities block.
‘I’m busy!’ he snapped. ‘Go to student services and ask.’
The girl’s eyes welled up with tears, but Cam didn’t care. He didn’t have time for this.
‘Go! Now!’
The girl turned and ran down the corridor, her oversized school backpack banging the backs of her legs as she stumbled down the steps at the far end.
Cam approached the door at the end of the corridor, trying to make out anything unusual about the humanities block. There was a dribble of students still crossing the playground towards the main hall – year eleven boys, Cam thought – their casual, loping strides indicating that they’d not sensed anything out of the ordinary.
The headteacher shifted his gaze to the main door of the new block. Was there a dark figure just inside the doorway? He couldn’t be sure from this distance. Cam slid his mobile phone out of his pocket, keeping his eyes fixed on the door a hundred yards away across the playground, and dialled the school reception.
‘It’s me,’ he said, cutting across Ruth Warnesford’s cheery greeting. ‘Any sign of the police?’
‘Penny said ten minutes. Apparently they’re coming from Workington. Can you see anything?’
Cam explained how he’d had students diverted away from the humanities block to the main hall, but he couldn’t see anything to support Donna’s note.
‘Have the sixth formers left registration?’ Ruth asked.
‘Not yet. There’s no movement in the humanities block. It looks like all four form groups are still in there.’
As he spoke, he saw the door open and a group of students appear. There were around ten of them, a mix of boys and girls. They walked slowly through the door almost as if they were hypnotised, and then crossed the playground towards the main school building.
‘Hang on,’ he said. ‘Some of the students are coming out. Get somebody over to the main hall to meet them.’
The first group were followed by another, then another. It looked like whoever was in the building was letting the students go in small numbers. Cam hung up the call and watched as another dozen students crossed the playground, the ones in front breaking into a jog as they approached safety. Cam was baffled. Why take over part of the school and then let everybody go? It didn’t make sense.
Another group was set free – this time much smaller – and Cam was relieved to see that it was made up of members of his staff. Was that everybody? Was the building empty? Only one way to find out. Cam turned and ran back through the corridors making his way to the hall. The police could wait – he needed to see who had been released.
The main school hall was full to capacity with lower-school students and sixth formers as Cam pushed his way through to the doors that faced out on to the playground and found the small group of staff that had just come across from the humanities block. There were four of them, all pale and disorientated.
‘What’s going on?’ Cam demanded, marching up to Colin Styles, head of geography. ‘Is anybody still in there?’
Styles looked at him, his eyes struggling to stay fixed on Cam’s face. He ran a hand through his dark red hair and looked around. ‘I… I don’t know,’ he stammered. ‘Two men in ski masks. Armed. They let us go after the kids. My form went first. I think everybody’s here.’
‘No. There’s a class still in there.’ Paula Railton, PHSE co-ordinator pushed her way through the throng, her face pale beneath her customary heavy make-up. ‘A man in a ski mask with a gun came to my form room. He told the students to wait at the door to the building and then he put the staff in H3. I was watching from the classroom door – the kids were amazing. So calm.’ She took a deep, shaky breath. ‘He let them go a few at a time. Then the staff. But not all of us.’
Cam studied the small group of teachers. Donna Frith wasn’t there.
‘Miss Frith’s class?’
‘They’re still in there,’ Paula confirmed. ‘There was another man at the door to her room and I think there might have been at least one more inside. I’m sorry, Cam.’
Cleaver nodded and instructed Paula to get the handful of staff who had been in the humanities block to an empty room. The police would no doubt want to interview them about what had happened and about the people still being held hostage. One teacher and one group of sixth-form students. At least it wasn’t the whole school. It could be manageable. Less than twenty people held hostage – out of nearly a thousand. And nobody hurt so far. The police would be there any second. He kept repeating the numbers to himself – trying to block out the one thing that mattered now.
His son, Tom, was in Donna Frith’s form group.
Before
‘Andy, I’ve just taken out a huge mortgage. Do you know how expensive it is to live in the National Park and how lucky I was to find somewhere that I could afford?’ Donna had almost yelled in frustration as her brother tried again to explain why she needed to help him out with her mother’s care. It wasn’t fair. He had a decent job at Sellafield, good pay and plenty of bonuses – why should she have to be the one to compromise? She hadn’t chosen the expensive nursing home in Silloth. She hadn’t sold her mother’s house for a sum that was now looking like it would barely cover the first few years’ care.
‘Look, Donna,’ Andy continued, ignoring her objections. ‘I’ve been the one having to make all the decisions while you were living away. I’ve had to shoulder the responsibility. It’s not like I’m asking you to pay for everything.’
‘Andy. I don’t have the money. All my savings went on the deposit for the house.’ Donna turned to look out of her sitting room window. A frown of cloud was sitting across the northern fells, obscuring the summits. She did feel guilty, of course she did, but her brother had reassured her that he had things under control and now he was the one letting the family down not her.
‘It’s not that simple anymore, Donna. I thought I could manage it, but something’s come up. I really need your help. Mum really needs your help.’
The emotional blackmail was almost laughable it was so obvious. Donna wasn’t going to give in though – Andy was her big brother and he’d promised to sort out their mum’s care.
‘Look, Andy, we can always move her somewhere cheaper if the money’s running out. I never understood why you chose The Larches anyway – it was always going to be too expensive.’
Silence at the other end of the phone.
‘Andy?’
A heavy sigh. ‘Donna. Can we meet up somewhere? There’s stuff you don’t know, and I don’t want to talk about it over the phone.’
‘What stuff?’
‘My financial situation is a bit – complicated. Let’s get a pub meal somewhere and have a chat.’
This wasn’t like her brother. Ever since they’d been children, Andy had always been the one in charge, the one with the ideas and Donna had always trusted him, relied on him to some extent. Now he sounded unsure of himself, worn down and desperate.
‘Okay. Tomorrow at the Dog and Duck. Sevenish?’
‘Thanks, Donna. I’m sorry.’
Donna hung up on his apology and went back to her marking, determined not to
let his comments about their mum relying on her distract her from what was important in her life.
The Dog and Duck was a popular gastro pub high on a minor road above Caldbeck. A common choice for school gatherings and department Christmas events, Donna had chosen it for its location rather than the menu. She didn’t really want to run into any of her colleagues but the pub was almost perfectly located halfway between her house and her brother’s so she decided to risk having to make small talk with a colleague rather than have to drive further or listen to her brother complain about the distance.
As soon as she stepped through the imposing double doors, she saw that she needn’t have worried. It was mid-week in December – 6.30 obviously wasn’t the optimum time for dining or drinking. Donna looked round to check that Andy hadn’t arrived before her – she hadn’t spotted his BMW in the car park but she knew that he liked to change his car regularly so he might have been driving the top-of-the-range Merc or the brand-new Audi that sat near the edge of the road as if on display in an upmarket showroom.
There was no sign of her brother in any of the nooks and snugs of the main room of the pub and she doubted he’d be in the small bar where the pool table and dartboard were the main attractions so she strode across to the bar and ordered a lime and soda. She really fancied a cold glass of white wine, but she decided to wait and see if Andy wanted to have a meal while they ‘chatted’.
Making her way across to a table in one of the alcoves near the front of the pub, she glanced out of the window and saw her brother crossing the car park. He seemed to have come from a small hatchback, not at all the sort of car he usually drove. As he got closer, she saw him pause and study the Mercedes that she’d noticed when she’d arrived. His expression became wary and he glanced at the doors as though he were contemplating turning around and going back to his car.
Donna eased herself in behind the table, placing her drink carefully on a drip mat and waited.
Don't Breathe Page 2
