‘Er, I think I already said. I want to talk to whoever’s in charge of the students. I know that everybody from Fellbeck has been evacuated to the theatre.’
The man shook his head. ‘What makes you think that?’
‘One of my colleagues has been in contact with her son who’s in year eight. He said that the whole school was here.’
The man sighed. ‘Wait here.’
He opened one half of the double door behind the reception desk and slipped through, closing it carefully behind him. Natalie tried to remember the layout of the building from her previous visits – if she was right, the door led straight into the stalls. She took out her phone and navigated to the newspaper’s website – nothing about the school evacuation so far – and then to the Twitter feed of Cumbria Police. Nothing. If it hadn’t been for the receptionist’s odd attitude and the eerie sense of quiet at the school, Natalie might have been tempted to think this whole thing was a hoax.
She still had another contact in the police force who worked out of Whitehaven, but she hadn’t heard from him in months. Not since he’d asked her out for a drink and she’d made a pathetic excuse not to meet him. Was it worth a try?
‘Sod it,’ she whispered to herself as she scrolled through her phone to his number and tapped once.
‘Kit Pierce,’ he answered after two rings and had obviously deleted her number as he didn’t know who was calling.
‘Kit. It’s Natalie.’
‘Oh.’
This wasn’t going to be straightforward. ‘Look, I’m sorry to bother you but I need some information.’
‘Yeah, not very likely.’
‘I thought you might say that. I’ve not been very nice to you in the past and I can only apologise. I should have been honest with you instead of making stupid excuses. You’re a nice man, Kit, but I was never attracted to you.’
‘And that’s supposed to make me feel better?’
‘Well, it’s the truth.’
He laughed. ‘Sorry. I was winding you up. My ego’s not that big. I spent ten seconds feeling sorry for myself and then moved on so don’t worry that I’ve been pining over you for months. What do you want to know?’
‘I just need to find out if an incident has been logged at Fellbeck Academy. I’ve got a feeling I might be on a wild goose chase and I don’t want to look like a tit in front of my editor. Can you find out. I don’t need any details just a yes or no will do.’
‘Leave it with me. I’m on a break but I’ll have a look when I get back to my desk.’
‘Cheers, Kit. And I am sorry I was a bitch.’
He’d already hung up.
The manager reappeared followed by a man that Natalie vaguely recognised. Tall, well over six feet, and broad, he strode out from behind the desk, his large stomach and barrel chest leading the way.
‘You’re the journalist?’ There was a hint of disbelief in his voice as though he found it unlikely that she might have the skills and credentials needed for the profession.
Natalie handed him her card.
‘So, what do you want?’
‘You are?’
‘Jack Raynor, head of sixth form at Fellbeck. What do you want?’ The man’s tone was a challenge and his pugnacious stance backed it up.
‘Is it true that the school has been evacuated? I was there a few minutes ago and it looks deserted.’
‘It’s the morning of a school day, what were you expecting? At this time in the morning students would be in their classes, not out in the playground.’
Natalie noted his careful use of the conditional – would suggested that they may or may not be in class. ‘You’re denying that the students are here? A colleague had a text from her son suggesting that he’d been sent to the theatre as the whole school had been evacuated. I did wonder if it was a prank and he was just winding his mum up.’
The man’s face visibly relaxed – she’d given him an excuse. ‘Could be,’ he said. ‘You know what kids are like.’ He tried a smile, but it looked more like a grimace. It was obvious that he hadn’t been promoted for his people skills. ‘So, if that’s all…’ he handed her card back and she slipped it into her pocket.
‘Just a prank,’ Natalie said as if she were mulling it over. ‘Makes sense, I suppose.’
Rayner nodded enthusiastically.
‘There’s one thing that bothers me though.’
‘What’s that?’
‘It’s early morning on a school day, Mr Raynor, so what are you doing here?’
His mouth opened and closed like a fish caught in a net gasping for oxygen and then he smiled, a more genuine expression this time. ‘Nicely done,’ he conceded. ‘But I really can’t talk to you.’
‘How about I tell you what I know?’ Natalie suggested. ‘Can I get you a coffee? If the café’s open.’
The teacher nodded and led the way upstairs.
Raynor sipped his Americano and studied Natalie over the rim of the mug. She could see that he was still suspicious of her motives, but he could do little to deny that there was something going on with the school.
‘This morning I was checking the newspaper’s social media feeds and I found a cry for help from one of your students. He claimed to be trapped in a classroom and that a number of armed men were keeping him there. I asked one of my colleagues to text her son, who’s a Fellbeck pupil, and he confirmed that the school had been evacuated. There’s no movement at the school and nobody’s answering the phone. So, what’s going on?’
Raynor lowered his mug and held eye contact with Natalie for a few seconds. ‘Okay, here’s what I know. I was in assembly this morning when Cam Cleaver, the head, came in and told me we had an incident. He said there were armed men on site and we
