Harley could feel the tension in the room escalating. At least Larry had been diverted from Miss Frith for now – Harley had genuinely thought that Larry was going to do something to her. He didn’t want to think about what that might have involved, and he knew the other females in the room must’ve been having the same thoughts. He wondered what was ‘nearly over’. Was something going on in another part of the school? Had a ransom demand been made and met? Were they all going to be killed when this was over? The uncertainty was agonising.
Harley risked another look at his phone. No response from anybody at the newspaper. He wondered if they’d taken him seriously – the situation was so unlikely that they may have treated it as a prank. Or perhaps somebody had rung the school and been fobbed off. Surely the police were already on their way – it wasn’t like the men had sneaked in. Cleaver had probably evacuated the school by now – unless this was happening in every other building. The unknowns made him want to scream.
Larry had moved position again and was sitting on Miss Frith’s desk. His head was down, close to hers, and he was whispering something. Whatever he was saying was upsetting the teacher – her eyes were teary, and she was shaking her head. Harley felt sick.
He thought again about the people in the room. He knew them all, some were almost friends, others did the same A-levels. How could he use them to create a distraction – something to defuse the tension, to unsettle the men and maybe get them to leave? If this was nearly over, they must have been given a set time to be out of the building. If he could distract them until then he might save anybody else from getting hurt and he might divert Larry’s focus from Miss Frith.
Phones. He could use their phones. At least ten of his classmates were in his contacts. If he could text or ring their phones one of the men might open the filing cabinet and get them all out. It wasn’t much of a distraction but it might help. Unless… if he got the message right, he might just be able to frighten the men away earlier than they’d planned.
He dropped his right hand into his lap and rested his head on his hand again. Quickly scrolling to his messaging app, he withheld his ID and selected ten contacts to receive his text. Harley took a deep breath and hit ‘send’ praying that some of them had forgotten to put their devices on silent before they got to school.
The air in the room seemed to shift and fill with static as different text tones erupted, amplified by the metal housing of the filing cabinet drawer. Larry shot up from where he’d been perched and looked around in confusion. ‘What the fuck…?’
‘It’s the phones,’ said Mo, who was closest to the filing cabinet. ‘Looks like everybody just got a text message.’
Larry rummaged in his trouser pocket for the key and threw it to his colleague. ‘Unlock it. See what’s going on.’
Mo followed his instructions and took out the bag of phones. He reached in like a child at a lucky dip and produced Jess’s battered Samsung.
‘Who’s is this?’
Harley heard a noise from behind him.
‘Come here.’
Jess moved from the back of the room to where Mo was standing.
‘Unlock it.’
She tapped the screen a few times and passed the device back to Mo.
‘What’s it say?’ Larry asked.
‘Don’t worry, police are here now.’ Mo read the text slowly.
Larry shook his head. ‘Not possible. Try another one.’
Katie’s phone was the next out of the bag. Larry made her unlock it and obviously saw the same message.
‘Pass it to me,’ Larry said, reaching out a hand, palm upwards and wiggling his fingers. He read the text, frowning.
‘Who sent the first one?’ he asked Mo.
‘No user ID.’
‘Hmm, same here. Same message as well.’
Harley watched as Larry raised his head, mouth widening in a wolfish grin as he scanned the room and raised his semi-automatic rifle. ‘One of you little shits has got a phone. Does one of you want to confess or do I have to start shooting?’
22
‘What the hell are you doing?’ Cam stared at the police detective in utter incredulity. Why was he pointing a gun? Did he think Cam was involved in whatever was going on in the humanities block? ‘Why have you got a gun? Are you licensed to have that?’
The man’s mouth slowly curved into a smile. ‘You don’t know who I am, do you? You never found out.’
‘Found out what? Do I know you?’
The smile grew wider. ‘Not really, but I knew your wife. I knew Chrissie very well.’
The insinuation behind the DI’s emphasis on ‘knew’ was obvious. This man had slept with Cam’s wife.
‘I’ll fucking kill you!’ Cam leapt towards Pearson, hands outstretched, no thought in his mind beyond doing as much damage as possible to the man who was taunting him. Pearson simply sidestepped him and raised the pistol a fraction higher, leaving Cam stumbling towards one of the chairs on the ‘visitor’ side of his desk.
‘Don’t think so,’ Pearson teased. ‘I’m not sure how you’re going to take on a man with a gun when all you’ve got is… what? Nothing really.’ The smile turned to a snarl. ‘Now sit down and listen.’
Cam did as he was told, his disadvantage obvious.
‘Right. Let’s sort out this office,’ Pearson said, whipping the wires out of the phone and internet connections in the bottom of the wall next to the door. ‘And I’ll need your mobile.’
Cam reached into his inside pocket and grudgingly handed it over, watching as Pearson put it out of reach on the table next to the coffee machine.
‘Good. Now, hands out.’
‘What?’
‘Put your hands out. I don’t trust you not to make a run for it and I really don’t want
