Don't Breathe

by Heleyne Hammersley

  Halfway through the lesson the door opened and a terrified-looking year-seven kid trembled on the threshold, his uniform immaculate and his expression one of total embarrassment. ‘Sir, I’ve got a note for you.’

  Mr Jackson glared at him from beneath his impressive dark eyebrows. ‘Well, I can’t read it from there. Bring it here.’

  The boy crossed the front of the classroom, the red in his cheeks deepening as he became aware of the eyes of thirty older students following every step. He passed the folded paper to the teacher with a trembling hand and waited until the man had read the contents.

  ‘Okay, off you go.’ The boy speed walked back to the door and closed it noisily behind him as Mr Jackson cleared his throat. ‘Tom Cleaver. You need to go to reception. Take your things with you.’

  ‘What…?’ Tom started to ask but Jackson cut him off.

  ‘I have no idea. I’m not your personal messenger service. Just go.’

  Standing up and stuffing his books into his bag, Tom eased his chair under the desk and stepped out into the corridor. Normally he liked being out of lessons while everybody else was working. The school was quiet and he felt like he was doing something covert, sneaking around and spying through classroom doorways. This was different. He’d never been summoned out of a lesson before other than for something expected like his year nine options meeting, and he just wanted to get to reception as quickly as possible. Something didn’t feel right.

  His disquiet was amplified by the presence of a police officer in the reception area. She had her hands in the pockets of her uniform trousers and she glanced up as he pushed the door open.

  ‘Tom.’ Mrs Warnesford, the receptionist greeted him with a warm smile. ‘Your dad wants to see you.’

  Tom looked at the closed door of his father’s office and then back at the receptionist. The closed door was usually a sign that the headteacher was in a meeting and couldn’t be disturbed.

  ‘It’s okay. Just go in,’ she urged with a smile.

  Something was definitely wrong.

  Tom tapped on the solid wood door and turned the handle before his dad had the opportunity to call him in. He was shocked to see another police officer in the room – this one a man – and his father in tears, proper sobbing tears. He looked from his dad to the policeman, not wanting to have to ask what was wrong, but a small corner of his brain already knew. Dan’s comment about an accident blocking the main road. The police. His dad’s tears.

  ‘Sit down,’ the police officer said gently, gesturing to the chair.

  Tom mutely obeyed, fixing his eyes on his father who was sitting on the opposite side of the desk, head in his hands. ‘Dad?’ His dad looked up and stared at Tom as though he’d never seen him before, searching his face for something.

  ‘What’s going on?’

  The policeman put a steadying hand on Tom’s shoulder and then knelt down so that his face was on a level with Tom’s. ‘Your mum was in an accident an hour ago. She was on the A595 and it looks like she swerved to avoid something in the road. She couldn’t correct the direction of the car and she hit the side of a house. I’m sorry but, despite the best efforts of paramedics, she was pronounced dead at the scene.’

  The words were forming sentences. Tom recognised what was being said in an objective way, but he couldn’t make them apply to himself, to his mum.

  ‘Do you understand what I’m saying?’ the police officer continued, his grey eyes clouded with concern. ‘Your mum’s died in a car accident.’

  ‘Dad?’ Tom tried again. ‘Is this right?’

  His dad’s eyes widened almost as if he’d only just fully grasped the full meaning of the policeman’s words. He nodded. ‘I’m sorry. Don’t know what to do.’

  Tom was stunned. This was more shocking than the news of his mother’s death. His dad didn’t know how to respond. His dad, who was always so in control of everything, so uptight, so organised, had no idea how to behave.

  ‘Do we need to do something? Go somewhere? Do we have to see her, identify her?’ Tom’s questions tumbled out into the room as he tried to break the awful stillness and silence with the sheer number of queries.

  The policeman shook his head and struggled to his feet. Tom’s mind wouldn’t let him think about what was happening; instead he wondered if the man’s uniform and stab vest were weighing him down. He almost got up to give the man a helping hand and then the enormity of what was happening hit him again, pinning him to the chair.

  ‘You need to go home. Everything else can wait. Just go home and be together. PCSO Hilton’s waiting in reception to drive you.’

  Tom’s dad smiled. ‘No need. I’ve got my car. We don’t want to trouble you.’

  ‘It’s standard procedure, sir. I don’t think you’re in a fit state to drive and we can’t have you causing…’ He stopped and closed his eyes, scrunching up his face as he realised what he’d been about to say.

  Tom giggled at the inappropriateness of his dad being told he might cause an accident and then remembered where he was and what was happening. What was wrong with him? There was nothing funny about any of this. He didn’t think he’d ever find anything humorous again.

  The wait until the funeral had seemed an indecent length of time. Minutes had stretched into hours, into days and still nothing seemed to happen. Tom stayed in his room as much as possible, playing on his Xbox or scrolling endlessly through messages on social media, none of which seemed to bear any relevance to anything that was happening in his life. Sympathy from friends and jokes made by anonymous strangers about unrelated subjects all seemed to blend into one and Tom was outside all of it. Suspended. He hadn’t been back to school and he hadn’t spoken to any of his friends. What was the point? What could they possibly say?

  And then the day finally came. He woke up after yet another restless night to the morning of the funeral, another day that he had to ‘get through’ before things could get back to normal. That’s what his dad had said but neither of them believed it. How could they? How could anything be normal after they’d sung a couple of hymns, said a few prayers, listened to people say how wonderful his mum had been and then watched her coffin disappear behind a curtain like the trick of a malignant magician who’d never bring her back.

  The worst part was the senselessness. Nobody seemed to know how the accident had happened or what she’d been swerving to avoid. The car’s steering had failed as his mum had tried to straighten out of the unexpected turn, but nobody seemed to know why. Tom had blamed everybody he could think of – in his head he’d shouted at mechanics, policemen, the ambulance crew and his dad. Especially his dad. He was closest, he was easiest to blame.

  When it was all over, when the last goodbye was choked out through the final tears, it was just the two of them. Tom looked at his dad, a shell of the man he’d been three weeks ago, and said, ‘I’m off to bed.’

  Sleep had taken him away for almost two days.

  10

  Annie flinched as she heard the door lock behind her. The sense of finality, of being cut adrift was disorientating; she’d gone from the locked room full of her friends to being alone in a deserted corridor with an armed man. Neither situation was safe but her tentative plan suddenly felt reckless. Could she really do this?

  ‘So, where’s the girls’ toilets?’ the man asked. Annie wasn’t sure if he’d been allocated the name Curly or Mo. Had he been the one who’d originally been at the window or the one standing guard by the door? The window, she was almost certain. That made him Mo. For some reason that had amused his colleagues, but she couldn’t work out why. Mo? Homo? Was it some sort of homophobic slur?

  Her thoughts were spiralling out of control – they seemed to be slippery and fleeting. She vaguely remembered that she’d been asked a question, but she couldn’t remember what it had been. ‘What?’

  ‘Left or right? To the toilets?’

  The words made no sense. She couldn’t remember which was which.

  ‘Hey!’ The ma
n grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her twice, hard. ‘Left or right?’

  The jolt seemed to free the blockage in her brain – she could focus again; the words made sense. ‘Left. That door down there, opposite the entrance.’

  There was a dark figure standing next to the door that led into the playground – another clone dressed in black and armed with a stocky rifle. Annie hadn’t anticipated this. Of course they’d have somebody guarding the main door. How could she have not thought of it? Rapidly, she reassessed her plan. It might still work even though there were now two armed men to avoid. All she had to do was keep her nerve and lie her head off.

  ‘Come on then.’ Mo grabbed her arm and pulled her for a few steps until she was walking on her own. ‘Haven’t got all day.’

  The other man had turned to watch them, but his ski mask prevented Annie from assessing whether he was curious or completely disinterested.

  ‘Eyes front,’ Mo snapped at his colleague who immediately stood bolt upright and shifted his focus back to his view of the playground.

  As they approached the entrance, Annie tried to lean round the guard to see what was happening outside. Did anybody out there know what was going on? They must do. There might be armed officers all around the humanities block just waiting for an opportunity to shoot one or all the men that were holding her class hostage. And any slight motion might attract their attention and put everybody in danger. What the hell was she doing?

  ‘In there?’ Mo asked even though there was a female symbol clearly displayed – black against the pale blue of the door.

  Annie bit back a sarcastic comment about the level of his powers of observation. ‘Yes,’ she replied, trying to make herself sound terrified – not difficult considering she was shaking with fear.

  ‘Right.’ He leaned round her and pushed the door open. Was it her imagination or was he deliberately rubbing up against her? What might he try if they were alone in the toilets? This wasn’t going to work.

  ‘Do you mind?’ she asked. ‘It’s the ladies. And I’d like to go to the loo while I’m there.’

  Mo stood still his eyes flicking from the sign on the door to Annie’s face as if he was trying to work out the appropriate etiquette. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m coming in. Or I’ll get the things myself.’

  ‘I still need the loo,’ Annie persisted. ‘And not for a wee. Please. I’ll be quick but I can’t do it if you’re outside the cubicle listening.’

  ‘Windows,’ the man said. ‘You might climb out and run away.’

  ‘They’re too small to climb out of,’ Annie said. ‘And they’re too high up. Go in and have a look.’

  ‘Don’t tell me what to do!’

  Annie took a step back as his spittle sprayed her face.

  ‘We’ll both go in. If you’re telling the truth I’ll give you two minutes to get the towels and do your business.’

  Annie led the way into the toilets almost in tears at the ordinariness of the dark blue cubicle doors and the shiny white sinks. Here Jess had confessed a pregnancy scare after the relief of getting her period three days late. Here she’d held Leanne’s hair back as she’d puked her first hangover into one of the sinks.

  ‘See,’ she said, pointing up at the windows. Barely six inches wide and two feet long they were spaced along the top of the wall, above the toilet cubicles. ‘They only open about that far.’ She indicated about four inches with her thumb and forefinger. ‘The sanitary towel machine’s there.’ She pointed to the back wall.

  ‘And what’s that?’ Mo walked over to the door that nestled next to the furthest sink.

  ‘Cleaner’s cupboard, I think,’ Annie said, watching as he opened the door an inch or so and peered inside before closing it firmly. He gave the area another scan, then grabbed at the drawer of the sanitary towel dispenser and roughly pulled it free. Brightly wrapped towels spilled over his feet and he grunted as he bent over to pick up a handful.

  ‘Two minutes,’ he said, walking back to the door. ‘I’ll be outside. If you’re not done when I shout, I’ll come and get you, finished or not.’

  The door closed behind him and Annie allowed herself a couple of deep breaths, thanking a God she’d never believed in that Mo wasn’t overly bright or observant. Keeping the exit in view, Annie tiptoed towards the cleaners’ cupboard and turned the door handle hoping that it didn’t make too much noise. Silently she stepped inside the cramped space, made smaller by the two buckets on the floor and the mops leaning against one wall. Overalls hung from hooks to her left and a sink with a grate covering it lurked at knee height, waiting to catch her legs and trip her up.

  What Mo hadn’t noticed was that the back wall of this cupboard wasn’t a wall at all. It was a door. The handle had probably been out of his line of view and it was painted dark blue so he might not have even considered that he was looking at a second exit. Annie knew that it had been constructed in this way to allow male cleaning staff access without having to go through the girls’ toilets, even though the school currently had no male cleaning staff. The outer door opened around the corner from the main entrance to the humanities block, out of sight of the door. If she could get out and hide somewhere the men couldn’t find her, she might be able to escape if they stopped looking or, if she could lock a classroom door behind her and find a window, she might be able to get away and find help for her friends. At least she’d be able to tell the police how many men were in the block, how they were armed and exactly where they were.

  Heart thumping, she grasped the handle of the cupboard’s outer door and pressed down on it. What if it was locked? What if one of the men had spotted it and was waiting in the corridor outside?

  The latch clicked quietly and then the door opened.

  Annie took a deep breath and stuck her head out into the corridor anticipating a yell or a rough hand on her neck. Nothing. They didn’t know. Just twenty feet away the corridor turned ninety degrees and the men would be standing waiting for her. Twenty feet, but they couldn’t see her. Annie stepped out and almost doubled over with fear and indecision. Should she close the door? Did it matter if they knew how she’d escaped? Listening intently, she could hear them talking in hushed tones and then one of them laughed and she used the noise to cover the sound of the door closing.

  Back against the wall, she crab-walked to the next corner and slid round. There was only one room here, a large geography room, and then a dead end. Annie had been taught here all the way through years ten and eleven. She knew the layout of the room and she knew that the windows only opened a few inches because she’d been among the students who’d complained vehemently during baking summer months when the room had felt like a greenhouse. The senior leadership team had responded by having air conditioning installed which had been a huge improvement but, before the aircon, one of her friends had taught her the trick to opening the windows further. The point of a pair of compasses could be inserted into a tiny hole in each hinge to release the locking mechanism. The problem was that Annie didn’t have a pair of compasses or time to look for them.

  At the back of the room was a store cupboard where Mr Tillotson kept spare paper, his DVD collection and a range of textbooks. The cupboard was generally kept propped open so students could help themselves to whatever was required for the lesson and Annie could see that the teacher had found time to unlock it at the start of the day. She crept inside, kicking away the wedge of rubber that propped the door open and groped for the lock. When the door had been installed it had been fitted with a latch that could be turned from the inside, locking the occupant in. Numerous boys of various ages had found it entertaining to hide inside and pop out when a teacher unlocked it to get supplies. She assumed that was why the teacher kept it propped open.

  Hopefully, if the men searched and couldn’t find her, they might assume she’d managed to sneak out. Once they’d looked in this room and left, she could find something with a sharp point, free the window hinges and seek help.

  Desperately t
rying to control her breathing, Annie flipped the latch and sank to the floor with her back against the door. Despite their recent arguments and recriminations, how she wished she had her mobile and could call her mum.

  Before

  ‘Why him though?’ Annie had yelled as soon as Cam Cleaver had left the house. ‘Of all the men in the world why did you have to shag Tom’s dad?’

  ‘Annie! Watch your mouth. Mr Cleaver and I are in a relationship. We’ve been seeing each other for a few months.’

  ‘So why the secrecy? Why wait until I was away to invite him round?’

  The look her mum gave her was familiar. Annie had seen her use it on new year sevens who’d dared to step out of line so early in their Fellbeck careers. Half disbelief and half disappointment.

  ‘This is why. I knew you’d overreact so I wanted to wait and tell you properly when Cam and I decided that it might be something permanent. You’re nearly eighteen, Annie. Can you really not understand that I’m still young enough to want a man in my life?’

  ‘Not this man,’ Annie snapped. ‘It’s like you waited until I’d finally managed to get together with Tom and then shat all over me.’

  ‘Annie!’

  ‘What? I couldn’t care less if you bring a fucking rugby team home for the night. I’m not stupid. I knew you’d end up with somebody else after dad left but why Cam Cleaver?’

  Her mum sighed and went to sit on the couch, the fight suddenly gone. In her faded blue towelling dressing gown with the remains of last night’s make-up still in the corners of her eyes and her hair dishevelled from activities that Annie didn’t want to think about, she looked much older than forty-five.

  It had been the two of them for the past six years, since her dad had left them for a sales rep who he’d met at an engineering conference. At first he’d tried to keep in touch and she’d been to stay with him at his new flat in Carlisle a few times but, as she grew older, Annie realised that she’d completely lost respect for him and didn’t want him in her life. Now she felt like she might lose her mum and her boyfriend at the same time – it was too much.