‘I’m okay,’ he said, shifting his position slightly so she could see that the bleeding had stopped. She nodded and gave him a weak smile.
‘Hey!’ she snapped, turning to the man at the door. ‘I need some of those sanitary towels.’ Curly stalked over to where she was crouched and Tom could feel a wave of anger preceding him. He understood why – Annie had made him look foolish in front of his colleagues; now he was dangerous. Tom was about to put a restraining hand on Annie’s arm. He knew how she could be when she’d got an idea or a fixation – single-minded and ruthless. That wouldn’t work here. She couldn’t browbeat these men into submission; she couldn’t bend them to her will.
The man stood over her and Tom could see the fury in his eyes. ‘Here,’ he said, holding out the wrapped towels.
‘Put them down there,’ Annie said, pointing to a chair that had been pulled out from behind one of the desks. ‘I need to check his wound first.’
Tom inhaled, expecting an explosion from the man but instead he followed Annie’s instruction and placed the sanitary towels carefully on the chair. As he backed away Tom heard him mutter something that sounded like ‘…don’t care who you are… little bitch.’ Annie just smiled sweetly. What the hell was going on?
‘What was that about? What happened while you were out of the room? What did he do to you – did he hurt you?’
‘Christ, Tom. One question at a time.’
‘Did he hurt you?’ Tom repeated.
Annie looked over her shoulder to make sure that nobody was listening. The room was oddly still and a sense of anticipation had replaced some of the tension. The man who’d been guarding the main door had been sent out to wait for more medical supplies and Miss Frith was looking stunned. She’d been really strong – demanding that something was done to help him but the arrival of the fourth man seemed to have unsettled her and Tom couldn’t work out why.
The students were silent, but they were year thirteens – they’d had years of practice at communicating in ways that were undetectable to their teachers. Every so often he saw an eyebrow raised in a question and a slight nod in answer. They were frightened but they had each other. Apart from Harley. He was still staring at the desk or his lap, refusing to look up, to communicate. He reminded Tom of how students pretended to look bored when really they were looking down at their phones. A small movement caught his attention. Harley had dropped his hand to his lap and then raised it again almost instantly. What was he up to? Did he even know he was moving?
‘I’m fine,’ Annie whispered. ‘Nobody laid a finger on me. I hid in a cupboard but the one who’s just gone out found me. I thought he was going to… well… you know. He grabbed me and put his hand over my mouth, but he was just trying to keep me quiet. He was nice. I don’t think he wants to be here – I’m not sure he’s really part of whatever’s going on.’ She looked over her shoulder again and seemed to be about to say something else.
‘Get him looked after,’ Larry barked. ‘And stop staring.’
Annie grabbed the packet of sanitary towels and made a show of examining Tom’s wound before placing one carefully on the injury.
‘That okay?’ she asked. Tom nodded.
‘What were you going to say before he snapped at you?’
‘Hmm?’
‘You looked like you were going to say something else about when you tried to escape.’
‘Did I? I can’t remember. It can’t have been important.’ She looked away, unable to meet his eyes. Tom had no idea why, but Annie was lying to him.
‘When you were gone the boss got a phone call and he wanted to know which of the girls was you. He knows who you are. Annie, why do they know who you are? Has this got something to do with your mum? She’s deputy head – do they want something from her?’
‘I’ve told you, I don’t know,’ Annie said. ‘This is nothing to do with me or Mum.’
Tom was about to ask her how she could be so certain when there was a knock at the door and Curly rushed to open it.
‘What the fuck…?’ he spluttered as Mrs Warnesford was propelled into the room followed by the man who’d brought Annie back. ‘Where did she come from?’
Mrs Warnesford was obviously terrified as she looked at each of the three men in turn before fixing an imploring gaze on Miss Frith.
‘She’s brought the first aid,’ the man said, nodding towards the bundle that Mrs Warnesford was clutching to her chest as though her life depended on it. ‘Bandages and sh… stuff. I thought you needed it for him.’ He pointed at Tom and Mrs Warnesford’s eyes followed the finger until they settled on Tom. The look of horror was briefly replaced with one of concern as she took in his bloody shirt.
‘W-what happened?’ she managed to stutter.
The three men who’d been holding the class captive all looked at each other. Finally, Larry said, ‘He got stabbed. That one did it.’ He nodded at Harley who still seemed oblivious to what was going on in the room.
Mrs Warnesford looked at Harley, an expression of complete disbelief and then turned back to Larry. ‘No. I don’t believe that. One of you must’ve done it.’
‘It’s true,’ Jess said. ‘Harley stabbed Tom. That’s why we need that lot.’ Keeping her eyes on Larry she stood up slowly and crossed the room to the receptionist. ‘Give it to me, Mrs Warnesford, so we
