Don't Breathe

by Heleyne Hammersley

  ‘Hey, sis!’ He spotted her as soon as he stepped through the door. Donna wondered if he’d seen her watching him and that had been a deciding factor in him actually entering the pub.

  ‘Don’t call me that,’ she snapped, irrationally annoyed with him. She hated the epithet, and he knew it, but she didn’t normally allow him the satisfaction of seeing that he’d irritated her.

  ‘Okay, chill.’ He held his hands out, palms up and glanced down at the table. Was that relief in his eyes when he spotted her full glass? ‘You don’t want a drink, then?’

  Donna shook her head and watched as he crossed to the bar, weaving his way around the empty tables with the grace of a dancer. He was an attractive man, even as a sibling Donna could see why women liked her brother. Tall, slim with a full head of dark hair cut in a casual style that probably needed more gel in the morning than her own, he was an imposing figure. But none of the women her brother dated seemed to stick. There had been a Jackie or Judy a few years ago, Donna couldn’t remember the name, and it had seemed serious for a few months but then Andy told her that it had ‘fizzled out’. Since then Donna didn’t ask. It was easier.

  ‘So, how’s life at the chalk face?’ Andy asked, pulling out the chair opposite her and sitting down with a sigh.

  Donna started to tell him about her form group and her plans for teaching the A-level specification, but she could see that he wasn’t really listening. His eyes were being drawn to the window and twice he turned round as the pub doors opened almost as if he were expecting somebody else to join them. Eventually she gave up and threw a menu across the table.

  ‘What’re you having? I’m going to get a burger.’

  He flipped it open but, again, seemed to be struggling to focus.

  ‘Look, Andy, if you’ve got somewhere else to be…’

  He looked up at her, his eyes serious. ‘I haven’t. I’m just not very hungry and I don’t think you will be when I tell you what’s been going on.’

  Donna hadn’t known what to expect from her brother, but it hadn’t been this. He looked genuinely worried and she felt a thrill of fear as he continued.

  ‘I’m in a bit of trouble. Money trouble. As in, I don’t have any.’

  She started to speak, to ask how that could be possible but he held up a hand, silencing her.

  ‘You’re going to hate me, but I need to be honest. I’m up to my eyes in debt to some dodgy people and I need your help. I can’t pay for mum’s care and the money from the house has run out.’

  That made no sense.

  ‘How has it run out? I know the fees are high but there should be enough to last a couple more years at least. I thought you were keeping track of everything.’

  ‘I was… I am. But I’ve had to borrow money.’

  ‘Andy!’ This wasn’t right. They’d been brought up to despise debt and those who got themselves into it. Their parents had paid up front for everything they ever owned, except their house which had been paid off well within the usual twenty-five-year mortgage term.

  ‘So, you can’t pay for the care home?’

  He couldn’t meet her eyes, looking over her shoulder at the window and then down at the table. Donna noticed that his hands were shaking.

  ‘Andy? How bad is it?’

  Her brother took a deep breath. ‘I spent the money from the house – what was left of it – and I’ve had to borrow more.’

  Donna was stunned. How could he have spent thousands of pounds? ‘How… what have you spent it on?’

  Colour rose to his clean-shaven cheeks. He ran a finger round his collar and he was breathing heavily. ‘Oh, shit, Donna. This isn’t easy to admit. I’ve got a gambling problem. I’m getting help, though, counselling, and I go to a group.’ The words came out in a rush, tumbling over each other as he tried desperately to reassure her. ‘But I’m in so much debt. I didn’t know what to do so I borrowed some money from the care home account and then borrowed more to try to win it back. When that was gone, I went… elsewhere.’

  Donna felt sick. How had he hidden this from her? ‘Elsewhere?’

  ‘A friend of a friend. It’s not like I could go to the bank, is it?’ His sudden sarcasm made Donna want to punch him, hard. ‘Look, it’s an addiction. I’ve got a problem but I’m trying to sort things out.’

  His excuses and whining tone were beyond pathetic. ‘Andy. Who did you borrow money from?’

  As her brother opened his mouth to answer he was interrupted.

  ‘That would be me.’ A man appeared from behind the wooden partition separating the alcove that Donna and Andy shared from the rest of the room. Mid to late forties with thick greying hair and an unseasonal tan, the man smiled at Donna and held out a hand with perfectly manicured nails. ‘Gerry Montrose.’

  Donna stared at him completely baffled. He looked like a wealthy businessman in his dark navy suit and pale blue shirt, open at the collar. Now she understood why her brother had seemed reluctant to enter the pub – he must have recognised Montrose’s car in the car park. But how could Montrose have known that they were meeting at the Dog and Duck? Unless Andy had told him.

  ‘You must be the sister.’ He gave her a knowing smile which left her wondering what Andy had told him about her. ‘Or should I refer to you as the guarantor?’

  ‘The what?’

  Montrose pulled out a chair and sat next to Andy, pulling up his trousers at the knee to avoid unsightly creases. ‘I’m sorry. I interrupted before Andrew could tell you the whole story. Please, continue.’ He leaned back and smiled as though waiting for a particularly entertaining play or television programme to start.

  Andy pinched the sides of his nose and shook his head as Donna looked from one man to the other desperate for an explanation. ‘Andy?’ she prompted.

  Her brother sighed heavily. ‘I’ve borrowed a bit of money from Mr Montrose.’

  Montrose snorted and shook his head.

  ‘Okay,’ Andy conceded. ‘I’ve borrowed a substantial amount of money from Mr Montrose. I have a plan in place to pay it back – it’s not like I don’t earn a decent salary – but he needs a guarantor for the loan. That’s you.’

  ‘What? I’m not agreeing to that!’

  ‘Donna, don’t,’ Andy said, flicking a worried glance at the man sitting next to him. ‘I need you to do this for me. If… when I pay the money back, that’s the end of it but, until then, Mr Montrose will have the right to ask you for money if I default.’

  ‘I know a teacher’s salary isn’t much,’ Montrose said with an apologetic smile. ‘But I’m sure your lovely house is worth a substantial sum.’

  Donna opened her mouth to object and then realised the significance of what the man had said. He knew where she lived and knew what she did for a living – which meant that he probably knew where she worked as well.

  ‘I don’t own my house,’ Donna said.

  Montrose shrugged and ran his eyes from her breasts to her face and back down again. ‘Not to worry. I’m sure there are other ways you could pay your brother’s debt, if it came to that.’ He stood up. ‘But I’m sure there’ll be no need for me to ever see you again. Right, Andrew?’

  ‘That’s right. You know I’m committed to paying you back.’

  Donna had stared aghast at her brother’s obsequious manner. Who was Montrose? Donna had never heard of him, but she was certain of one thing. The man was dangerous.

  3

  Cleaver surveyed the pandemonium in the hall, wondering what the hell to do next. He had half of year nine and most of year seven crammed into a space that barely held a whole year group when they met for weekly assemblies. The students were noisily excited about missing period one and clearly speculating about the cause. Added to the mix were the sixth formers who had been allowed to leave the humanities building in small groups. Many of the girls were in tears, being consoled by the only slightly more stoical boys. The scene reminded Cam of the death of a pop star or the break-up of a boy band. None of the sixth formers appe
ared to have spoken to the lower-school students, instead choosing to keep to themselves in small knots and groups. A handful of staff moved amongst them trying to keep them relatively quiet and calm, but they were obviously as baffled as their students.

  It was time to take charge. He strode to the front of the hall and stomped up the wooden steps onto the stage, hoping that the noise of his movements would alert the students to his presence and encourage them to quieten down.

  ‘Right, listen up!’ he shouted as the hum only slightly abated with the awareness of his presence. ‘I said quiet!’

  This time more than a hundred faces turned towards him, some wary, some curious, others obviously worried that their routine had been disturbed for an, as yet, unknown reason.

  ‘I know this is unusual,’ Cam began, improvising. ‘But we have a problem with the humanities block, so those of you who are supposed to be in history or geography need to wait here until we work out the most sensible course of action.’

  A low buzz as the students digested this latest information. Cam noticed movement at the back of the hall. One of the sixth-form boys had broken away from a small group and was trying to push through the crowd to get to the stage. One of his friends grabbed him by the upper arm and pulled him back, whispering frantically and nodding towards the assembled crowd. The boy scowled but allowed himself to be led back to the rest of his friends.

  Cam knew that he was dangerously close to losing control of the situation. The year sevens and nines were probably imagining an electrical fault or a problem with the water in the new block. If one of the older students mentioned that there were armed men on the site, he’d have no hope of controlling the panic that would almost certainly ensue.

  ‘Year nine, I want you to put out the chairs in neat rows. Year seven, move to the sides of the hall and wait until there’s space to sit down,’ he took a breath. ‘Sixth-form tutors and students, I want you to meet me in C12.’ He nodded towards the door that led to the small suite of dedicated computer rooms behind the hall.

  ‘Mr Wilson, Ms Hope, a word.’ He pointed to the canteen hatch off to one side and indicated that the two members of staff should meet him there.

  It wasn’t enough. He couldn’t guarantee the safety of everybody on site, but it was all he could do for now. He instructed the two teachers to send a messenger to the staffroom to recruit any available staff who had a free period and ask them to come to the hall. If he could find another couple of adults, he might be able to contain the situation for a while longer.

  Cam checked his watch. Had it really only been a few minutes since Penny had offered to call the police? He needed help, urgently. Heart pounding, he pushed his way through the throng of students – he’d need to do more than a bit of shouting and improvising with the sixth formers and staff waiting in C12.

  The new computer suite had been squeezed in between two older wings of the school, filling in what had been a narrow courtyard. As they had no windows, skylights provided natural light in the corridor and in the rooms. They were notoriously hot in the summer months but in mid-December the skylights were milky white squares like undeveloped polaroid photographs waiting for something to come into focus.

  ‘Sir, what’s going on?’ one of the girls asked as soon as he stepped into the room.

  Cam closed the door gently behind him and surveyed the students crammed in between the computer desks. No sign of Tom.

  ‘Is anybody here in Miss Frith’s form?’ he asked, ignoring the girl’s question.

  A few students shook their heads and one or two mumbled, ‘No, sir.’

  Trying to quell the rising panic he snapped into headteacher mode. He needed information and he needed to get it without alarming the students. ‘Okay. I know you’re all frightened but you’re my best chance of working out what’s going on. The police are on their way and they’ll probably want to interview all of you, staff included, but I’d like to talk to you all while we wait.’

  Nods and sighs all round. Cam knew that the students liked and trusted him and the three year-thirteen tutors were all experienced teachers. He also knew that students were all more likely to be open with him and his staff than they were with the police. In his experience teenagers either became monosyllabic or nervously chatty when being interviewed by a police officer and he didn’t want to have to listen to hours of repetition and reluctance.

  ‘Okay,’ Cam began, perching on the edge of a desk. ‘I’ve heard that there are unknown men in the humanities block. It’s also been suggested that these men might be armed.’

  One of the girls at the back started to cry. Mrs Railton went to sit next to her, soothing her in a whispered voice.

  ‘Did anybody see any strangers in school?’

  Most of the group raised their hands while a boy who Cam recognised as a friend of Tom’s said, ‘Sir, there were at least two of them with guns. They came round the classrooms and told the teachers to let us out. One of them made us wait in the foyer and they sent us off in small groups. They kept the teachers somewhere else.’

  Colin Styles nodded his agreement but seemed inclined to let the students explain what had happened – probably in shock.

  ‘They did. But it seems that Miss Frith and her form group are still in their room.’

  A low buzz circled the room like a cloud of insects as speculation spread from student to student despite Cam’s best efforts to contain the situation.

  ‘Listen, guys,’ Cam said in his most reasonable voice. ‘I need you lot to stay calm. I know you’ve been through something horrific and we’ll get appropriate support for you as soon as we can, but I need to ensure the safety of everybody else in the school. If the lower-school kids hear that there are gunmen in school, it’s going to be full-blown panic. I want you to stay in here, with your form tutors, until I can send a police officer. Please, please, don’t tell any of the other students what you’ve seen – we can’t afford to have everybody panicking. And please, for the moment, phones off. We don’t want anybody to find out what’s happening until the police have assessed the situation. The last thing I need is for outsiders to turn up and end up in danger. So, no text to parents and friends. Just for a short while.’

  Some of the boys looked dubious, like he was asking them to keep some sort of dirty secret, but he knew that the more reasonable ones would be able to keep them in line until he could get an appropriate adult to sit with them. He was about to try more reassurance when a knock on the door interrupted him.

  Ruth Warnesford entered and scanned the crowd of students before fixing her attention on the headteacher.

  ‘Mr Cleaver, the police have arrived.’ The PA’s tone of voice and frightened expression told Cam everything he needed to know about whoever Cumbria Constabulary had sent to the school. They were inadequate and underprepared for a situation of this magnitude.

  4

  Harley Morton hunched down in his seat watching his classmates trying to contain their panic. He felt nothing but contempt for them all, even the lads. Especially the lads. He could feel the power of the armed men who stood to attention – one next to the door and one by the window – and understood completely the lure of such a life. He wanted to be the one to inspire panic and fear in others, the one to issue commands which he knew would be obeyed without question. His teachers had been no help. He’d hinted at his true nature in careers meetings and guidance sessions and the main suggestion had been that he joined the armed forces or try out for the police. As if.

  He was only here because his mum had promised him a car if he passed his A-levels. She wanted him to apply for university, but he hadn’t bothered. Not now everything had changed. What was the point? He was going to earn some serious money. He wasn’t even that bothered about the car, but it kept his mum off his back if he played along. It was crap here though. He’d come to Fellbeck Academy from a small school on the coast where there had been only sixty kids in his year group and, as the eldest, he’d been the cock of the school – e
verybody feared him. Here he was almost anonymous, despite his efforts to stand out and kick against the pointless rules and expectations.

  So far this year there had been one phone call home about his appearance and two about his punctuality. He’d deliberately given them the wrong mobile number for his mum, so the messages had been waiting on the answering service for their home landline – easily erased and easily forgotten.

  Miss Frith was useless with her sarcastic Good afternoon when he came in late every morning. He didn’t even bother to acknowledge the ‘joke’ anymore. He’d explained that the bus got in at a specific time and he wasn’t going to get up forty-five minutes earlier so he could get to registration on time. Sleep was more important – loads of studies had shown that teenagers didn’t function until mid-morning so why should he bother? Especially when he only had another six months left in school.

  His mum and dad allowed him free rein at home now as well. He could stay out all night, come home drunk or high, bring girls back with him, anything, and they didn’t so much as raise an eyebrow. Not that they had any right to tell him what to do with his life after what she’d told him two months ago on his eighteenth birthday.

  The room had an unnatural stillness, as though everybody was waiting for something to happen – like that feeling in the cinema when the lights go fully down, and everybody goes quiet in anticipation. Harley wasn’t waiting though; he was watching and assessing.

  The man by the door was obviously the one in charge, the one barking orders and keeping control and he fascinated Harley with a feeling that he’d never experienced before, part excitement and part hero worship. Watching events unfold in his form room, Harley Morton knew exactly who and what he wanted to be.

  The man next to the window was standing to attention, his automatic rifle held diagonally across his chest, the barrel upwards, absolutely still like an android awaiting further instruction. He reminded Harley of the time his parents had taken him to Buckingham Palace and he’d seen the guardsmen standing outside the gates in their ludicrous black furry hats. Harley had been desperate to get the attention of one of the soldiers, to make him laugh or even just to acknowledge his presence but their faces had remained stoically impassive.