‘You have to trust me that this isn’t about you, any of you, and nobody will get hurt. Montrose said–’ He bit back the rest of the sentence as he realised what he’d done. He’d given her a name. A name she recognised.
‘Montrose?’
‘Forget I said that.’
‘Gerry Montrose?’
The man shook his head, but Annie could see that she was right.
‘I can’t say.’
‘I know him. Gerry.’
The man stared down at her, interest and wariness warring in his eyes. ‘How come?’
Annie took a deep breath, wondering about the significance of her admission. ‘Gerry Montrose is my uncle.’
15
Donna jumped as the door was flung open so violently it crashed against the wall. Was it only forty minutes since Harley had done the same thing? She glanced at the clock at the back of the room. Yes, just under forty minutes. She’d spent much of that time trying to wrestle with her feelings of fear and guilt, desperately trying to work out a way to get the men to release the students but her thoughts seemed paralysed with nowhere to go. She was convinced that this had something to do with her brother’s debts and that she’d inadvertently brought these men, and this danger, here.
‘Where’s the girl?’ Larry asked, taking a step towards the man who’d just barged into the room and peering round him into the corridor.
‘Gone,’ the man stated flatly as though the matter held no interest for him. He dumped a handful of sanitary towels on the desk nearest the door. Donna looked from one to the other trying to work out the implications of ‘gone’. She could see most of the students doing the same – one or two obviously fearing the worst.
‘What do you mean, gone? You were supposed to watch her. You were only taking her to the toilets. What the fuck happened?’
The other man, the one nicknamed Mo, looked at the students and then at Larry. Donna sensed his reluctance to answer. His eyes couldn’t stay fixed on anything for more than a second or two. He was embarrassed and didn’t want to admit his mistake.
‘What do you mean?’ Larry repeated.
‘I let her go to the toilet and when I went back in she’d gone. There’s a cupboard and it has another door into the corridor. I didn’t know – it wasn’t marked on the plan of the building.’
Larry clenched his fist tightly on the butt of his rifle and Donna half expected him to lift it and point it at Mo. ‘You didn’t think to check?’ Larry’s voice trembled with barely suppressed rage. ‘You just left her in there unsupervised?’
Mo dropped his head and fixed his eyes on the floor in a pose Donna recognised from numerous students who’d been caught out in some form of wrongdoing and were awaiting punishment.
‘Jesus!’ Larry hissed. ‘You do know who she is? The girl?’
Mo shook his head.
Larry scanned the faces of the other people in the room, several of which had turned to him, curious. ‘Doesn’t matter,’ Larry said, but Donna could see that it did matter. It mattered a lot. She thought back through everything she knew about Annie Bainbridge. Donna had been the girl’s form tutor for over a year and she’d also taught her in years seven and eight. The only significant thing she could think of was that she was the daughter of the deputy head. Was that what this was about? Was Penny involved in some way with these men?
Suddenly dizzy with relief, Donna struggled to resist the urge to put her arms on her desk and lay her head on them. This wasn’t about her and Andy – this wasn’t her doing, she hadn’t put her students in danger. The earlier paralysis of thought she’d been experiencing lifted and her brain seemed to come back to life. If this wasn’t her fault, she was in the same situation as the students – no more or less important than any one of them – and the realisation led her to believe she might be in a position to argue with their captors, to force a resolution.
Scanning the room, Donna searched the faces for a likely ally. If they could create a distraction, she might be able to get another student out or work out a way to get help.
The girls all looked terrified, apart from Jess who’d taken over from Annie and was looking after Tom who was still hunched against the back wall. Most of the boys looked equally frightened, pale faces and wide eyes staring at the men with the guns. Except Harley. Since the stabbing, Harley had been sitting with his head in his hands staring at either the desk or his lap. He looked lost, disconnected, and Donna wasn’t surprised. When this was over, Harley would be facing criminal charges. Whatever the resolution, whatever their captors did or didn’t do, nothing would change for Harley. He’d brought a weapon into school and used it on another student. He’d be permanently excluded and, quite possibly, jailed. Donna knew the boy was eighteen – he’d be tried as an adult and have to face the full consequences of his violence.
She looked over to where Jess was crouched next to Tom Cleaver. The girl looked frightened but determined to help her friend – she was whispering to him, the tone reassuring. Donna tried to focus on the hand that Tom was using to keep pressure on his wound. She could see the white surface of the sanitary towel between his fingers.
White.
Tom wasn’t bleeding anywhere near as much as Annie had suggested – it had been a trick. God the girl had guts! Or she knew more about the situation than she’d let on. At least one of these men knew who Annie was – was she in on their plans? Was it possible that the kind, dedicated student had helped to set this up? It didn’t seem likely given Larry’s angry reaction to her disappearance
