‘Yes. Departments all have their own accounts for their budgets, but this is the one for the school. It could be for a big project, but I can’t recall anything that expensive in the last few months. The science department bought a load of new equipment and DT got that 3D printer but that’s not £200,000-worth.’
Penny stood up. ‘Can you search the account number – see if any other money has been paid to it?’
Ruth copied the digits and pasted them into the search box. ‘Three years ago. It wasn’t nearly as much though – only 5,000. Oh, and there’s another transaction.’ Ruth stared at the numbers trying to force them to make sense. ‘That’s weird.’
‘What?’
‘The money was paid into this unknown account and then exactly the same amount was paid back two months later.’
‘Using the same account number?’
‘Yes,’ Ruth said, her hands trembling as she moved the mouse and clicked further down the list of transactions. ‘Only there’s a name this time.’
‘Whose?’ Penny asked. ‘Let me have a look.’
The deputy head leaned in again and inhaled sharply as she saw what Ruth had seen. ‘That makes no sense at all.’
Ruth agreed but it was there on the screen. The account that had been paid £200,000 appeared to belong to Cameron Cleaver.
24
Jack Raynor stared out of the café window, his eyes fixed on the distant view of Skiddaw with its fresh covering of snow. Natalie was still looking at her phone as though she were expecting a follow-up message suggesting that what she’d just been told was a joke.
‘You’re sure?’ Raynor asked, still facing the picture window.
‘My source works for Cumbria Police and has access to the daily log. There’s no way he’d miss an incident as big as this one.’ Natalie was as puzzled as Raynor appeared to be. How could an incident on the scale of this not have been reported to the police?
‘You said the police were already on site. Did you see them?’
Raynor turned to her and shook his head. ‘There was a man with Cam, definitely not a member of staff. He seemed to be in charge.’
‘Was he in uniform?’
Raynor’s eyes narrowed as he tried to remember. ‘No. He was wearing a suit. There was nothing to identify him as a police officer, no lanyard or anything. He didn’t have a school visitor lanyard either. It was like he’d just walked on site and taken charge.’
Natalie thought about the implications of this. It was possible that somebody posing as a police officer had turned up at the school before anybody had thought to ring the police – claiming to be responding to an anonymous tip-off or something like that. But his timing would have had to be down to the split second which just wasn’t feasible. Unless…
‘Who rang for the police?’ she asked.
Raynor shrugged. ‘Cam, I assume. Or Penny Bainbridge, the deputy head. Possibly Ruth Warnesford on reception.’ The pace of his speech was speeding up and Natalie could see that he was starting to panic as he realised the implication of what he’d been asked. ‘You don’t think one of them orchestrated this? What sense does that make? Cam would never do anything to jeopardise the students, and his son’s in the class that’s being held. Same as Penny: her daughter’s in there.’
He continued quietly musing about who might be involved as Natalie tried to work out the probable timeline. Cleaver had been with a supposed officer when he’d spoken to Raynor about evacuating the school. That had been during the first half hour of the school day so Cam must have been made aware of events fairly soon after all the students had arrived. Was it even possible for a police officer to have been on site so quickly? It didn’t add up at all.
‘Jack,’ Natalie said to Raynor who had his eyes fixed on the tabletop and was shaking his head. ‘It doesn’t matter who called the police – what matters is that the police aren’t there and that means those kids and staff are in danger. You need to call 999 now and get help.’
Raynor looked doubtful. ‘I should call Cam first. He might have everything under control, and I don’t want to confuse the situation.’
‘And if he doesn’t answer? Or he says everything’s fine? You need to take control here, Jack.’
‘No. I’ll call Cam.’ He’d already raised his mobile phone to his ear and he turned away as he spoke. Natalie clenched her fists in frustration. How could Raynor be taking so long to see what obviously needed to be done?
‘No answer,’ Raynor said, staring at the screen of his phone as though it had let him down. ‘I’ll try reception.’
‘I’ve tried, several times,’ Natalie reminded him. ‘Call the police.’
‘I don’t–’
‘Jack, you have to do something. The kids and staff who’re here are safe but there are others in danger. Could you live with yourself if anything happened to them and you’d been in a position to do something about it?’
Raynor was about to respond when Paul Scott, the man who’d been on the main desk when Natalie had arrived, appeared at the top of the stairs looking agitated.
‘Mr Raynor, the school buses have arrived. I have two drivers downstairs; the remainder are waiting in Main Street with their coaches. What would you like me to do?’
Raynor looked at Scott and then back at Natalie. ‘I’ll come down and speak to them. The staff should have organised the students by bus group so it should be fairly straightforward to get them onto the coaches. Ms Beckett, I’ll be back in a few minutes.’
Nat watched in disbelief as Raynor followed the theatre manager back downstairs as though his only concern was getting a few kids on the right bus. How had he not seen the urgency of the situation? Unless he knew something that she didn’t.
The cloud was lowering over the fells and, as Natalie stared out of the window, the first fine flakes of
