‘And what about Tom Cleaver? What had happened to him? Where was he?’
‘He was on the floor, leaning against the back wall of the classroom. When I got there Annie Bainbridge was squatting down next to him. I got the feeling that she’d been looking after him. She took the first aid kit and seemed to be bandaging him up.’
‘Bandaging what?’ Cam demanded. ‘How badly is he hurt?’
Pearson held up a hand urging Cam to be quiet, but Cam ignored him, pressing on. ‘Has he been shot? Beaten? What? I need to know, Ruth. Please, tell me about my son.’
Ruth looked at Cam and then back at the DI. ‘Tom Cleaver had been stabbed,’ she said.
Cam felt light-headed. Stabbed. That could mean anything – and everything.
‘Where?’ Pearson asked.
Ruth pointed to her left side, just above her waist. ‘In his side.’
‘Did it look serious? Could you see the injury or any blood?’
‘There were a couple of bloody sanitary towels next to Annie. I think she must have been using them to stop the bleeding.’
Cam was listening but he only seemed to hear certain words, the rest was just noise. Bloody. Bleeding. Injury.
‘You’re doing really well,’ Pearson said, placing a hand on Ruth’s knee. ‘Do you have any idea how the stabbing happened? Did any of the men have a knife?’
Ruth shook her head and glanced up at Cam. ‘It wasn’t one of the intruders,’ she said. ‘It was one of the students. I don’t know any details but one of the men said that Harley Morton stabbed Tom.’
‘Harley Morton?’ Cam collapsed into one of the chairs. This wasn’t making any sense at all.
‘That’s what he said,’ Ruth confirmed. ‘And Harley looked really out of it. Like he was in a daze.’
‘What did he stab him with? We have a zero-tolerance policy on knives in school.’
Pearson snorted. ‘As if that does any good. Do you know how many school stabbings there are in this country every year? And most of those are in schools with exactly the same policy. The kids just don’t expect to get caught. If we’re going to keep knives out of schools, we need to do what they do in the States and install metal detectors.’
‘Jesus, this is Cumbria not the fucking Bronx,’ Cam said. ‘Our kids generally follow the rules. Harley must’ve got the knife from one of those men. Who says he isn’t part of whatever’s going on?’ Cam could hear himself spinning out of control, throwing out wild theories about his son’s attacker, but he seemed unable to stop. To stop talking would be to start thinking and he could barely dance around the edge of his feelings about his son’s situation.
‘This isn’t helping,’ Pearson said, nodding towards Ruth. ‘We need to focus. She’s holding on by a thread.’
Cam folded his arms in a desperate attempt to contain his emotions and hunched lower in his chair. Pearson was right and Cam needed to let him do his job.
‘Ruth,’ the DI said, gently. ‘Can you tell us anything about the men in the room? Anything at all? Height, accent, eye colour?’
Ruth shook her head. ‘They were all dressed in black and wearing balaclavas or ski masks or whatever you call them. One of them seemed to be in charge, I got the feeling that the others were deferring to him. He had a low, deep voice. The others didn’t really say much.’
‘What about the one who dragged you into the building? What was he like?’
Ruth closed her eyes as though trying to remember. ‘Tall. About a foot taller than me – I had to look up when he spoke to me. He had blue-grey eyes. He might have been local – Cumbrian at least – but he sounded like he might have lived away or was trying to hide his accent.’
Pearson made a note. ‘Anything else?’
‘He was the most frightened. The others seemed on edge, but he was genuinely scared. The boss told him to get rid of me and he seemed to think it meant he had to kill me. He said that wasn’t part of the plan, or the deal or whatever. I think he was glad when they let me go. He walked me back to the door and, as he opened it, I’m sure I heard him say he was sorry. He said it really quietly and I wasn’t going to hang around and get him to repeat it but I’m almost certain it was an apology.’
‘You’ve done really well,’ Pearson said, closing his notebook. ‘Let’s get you somewhere more comfortable and see if we can find a cup of tea. I’m sure Cam’s grateful for everything you did to help Tom.’
Cam nodded automatically. The woman hadn’t been much help apart from giving him more to worry about. Where the hell were the rest of the police? He checked his watch – nearly fifty minutes since Keely had raised the alarm.
He was about to push Pearson again about backup when his phone vibrated. It was Jack Raynor – head of sixth form – texting from the theatre.
Call me. Things getting difficult here.
Cam waited until Pearson had escorted Ruth out of the hall before ringing Raynor back.
‘Cam. Are you still at school?’
‘Yes. I can’t leave until the police arrive. And, even then, I’m staying until Tom’s safe.’
‘Oh, shit. He’s still…?’
‘What do you want, Jack?’ Cam had no time for sympathy. ‘What did you mean things are “difficult”?’
‘It’s the kids. A lot of them are asking questions and they’ve been texting their parents.’
‘But they don’t know what’s going on?’
‘No. Only a handful of staff know about the situation. But we can’t keep everybody here indefinitely – it’s too crowded. We need a plan.’
Cam was tempted to tell Raynor to do whatever he thought was best, but he knew he’d be the one who got the blame if things went wrong.
‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Let those who live locally contact their parents and they can go home on foot. If
