The corridor led to a large rectangular hall. There was a stage at one end, covered with clusters of collapsible music stands, and various kinds of gym equipment were attached to both long walls. The sight of the benches and ropes and wall bars mingled with a smell of dust and floor polish. It left me half expecting one of my old teachers to appear and start barking sarcastic orders at us for moving too slowly, but when I did hear a voice it had an altogether more helpful tone.
“Can I help you?” a short, white-haired woman said, emerging from a square archway in the far corner. “You look a little lost.”
Melissa moved towards her, holding out her hand, but before she could speak we heard a loud whirring sound behind us, then a solid clunk. I looked round, and saw the doors we’d come in through had swung shut on their own.
“Don’t worry. It’s just our security system. It’s automatic. The entrances are open for half an hour in the morning, and again at home time. Other than that, except between lessons, they only unlock with one of these fobs,” the white-haired woman said, holding up a black tear-drop shaped piece of plastic on a cord around her neck.
“Very impressive,” Melissa said.
“Our parents are reassured by it,” the woman said. “It shows how seriously we take the safety of their children. That’s always been our top priority at St Ambrose.”
“As it should be.”
“Absolutely. Now, you were telling me what I could do to guide you?”
The woman escorted us out of the hall, past the staffroom, and asked us to stay in a waiting area while she tracked down the admissions secretary. I helped myself to coffee from a machine on a table between a pair of Barcelona couches, but Melissa went straight for her phone.
“The first batch of MPs are there,” she said, when she’d hung up. “Traffic’s at a standstill outside. No one’s approached the sprinkler system, or any of the other vulnerable points.”
“No one’s going to,” I said. “The action’s going to be here.”
She didn’t reply.
“What about the caesium container?” I said. “Is it still at the fire station?”
“It is,” she said. “No one’s touched it since it was delivered.”
The rest of our morning was taken up with a guided tour of the premises. The admissions secretary turned out to be a sharp-suited guy in his late twenties. He showed no sign of being upset at our unannounced appearance, and from the moment he set eyes on us he was in full-on selling mode. The smile didn’t fade from his face, and he didn’t miss a single opportunity to stress the benefits of the school. The obscure Scandinavian architect who’d allegedly designed the buildings. The mentor assigned to every child. The daily reviews, to ensure every lesson was fully absorbed. The breadth of the curriculum. The after school clubs. Music. Drama. Sport. Foreign languages. And though he didn’t mention them, I also noticed the CCTV cameras that covered every inch of the grounds. The panic buttons every twelve feet in the corridors and behind every teacher’s desk. The diplomat’s son – known at the school as Toby Smith - playing happily in the Kindergarten. The two burly ‘teaching assistants’ who never strayed more than six feet from his side. And the two men dressed as electrical contractors, who were working outside his classroom with tell-tell bulges under their coveralls.
Melissa spent most of the tour with her phone pressed to her ear.
“The last MP’s arrived,” she whispered to me as we were leaving the Year One classroom.
“The Lords are ready,” as we inspected the musical instrument storeroom.
“One Bishop’s missing,” as we were handed sample menus from the canteen.
“They’ve found him,” as we left the head teacher’s office.
“Black Rod’s robed up,” as we paused in front of the trophy cabinet.
“The Queen’s ten minutes away,” as we examined the selection of books in the library.
Five minutes later we were back at the waiting area, listening to the admission secretary’s footsteps die away along the corridor. I wasn’t expecting a further update for another five minutes, but before I could even reach for a paper coffee cup Melissa’s phone rang again. She answered, and immediately I could see the tension course through her.
“A man just entered the Medway Street fire station,” she said, when the call ended. “He was wearing a hazmat suit, and emptied the contents of the caesium container into the main tank of one the fire engines.”
“Excellent,” I said. “They’re about to make their play.”
“Not excellent,” she said. “Because we still don’t know where the rest of the caesium is.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
Melissa paced relentlessly for the next three minutes, crossing from one side of the waiting area to the other, her path perfectly parallel with the lines of school crests woven into the dark blue carpet. She was holding her phone out in front of her, staring at the screen, willing it to ring. But when there was a sound, it was louder than any ringtone. And it came from the ceiling, above her.
It was the fire alarm.
“To the kindergarten,” she said, a look of half surprise, half shock, on her face. “Quickly.”
I didn’t need to be told twice. The staff room door flew open as we rushed past, but we ignored the angry shouts telling us to change direction and carried on along the corridor towards the classrooms. The two electrical workers were on their feet, standing squarely in front of the kindergarten door, and as we approached my nose picked up the first hint of smoke. It was leaking out below the door they were guarding.
“Stop,” the guy on the right side, reaching into his overall and drawing a pistol. “Armed police. Stay where you are or I will fire.”
We stopped.
“Hold it,” Melissa said. “Blue on blue. I’m going to reach into my pocket and take out my ID. Is that OK?”
“Go ahead,” the guy said, as his partner also drew his weapon. “But do it slowly.”
“What are you doing out here?” Melissa said, when they were satisfied with her credentials. “Where’s Toby Smith?”
“He’s fine,” the first guy said. “The others are taking him out to the assembly point. It’s outside, on the playground. All the classes have an allocated spot to wait in. As soon as we get word they’re set, we’ll go around the other way and meet them. We can’t get there through the classroom, like they did. It’s too full of smoke.”
“We need to go now,” Melissa said. “We have to move the kid. He’s not safe there. The fire’s a ruse to get him out in the open.”
“What do you mean?” the guy said. “What do you know that we…”
Melissa’s phone rang and she held up her hand, cutting the guy off and indicating she needed to take the call.
“OK,” she said, hanging up a minute later. “They stopped both engines from leaving Medway Street fire station. Both crews, and everyone inside the building, are under wraps. Two other engines are en route from Victoria, in their place. ETA is four minutes. Let’s make sure we have our hands on the kid before they get here.”
“Are you going to tell us what’s going on?” the first guy said.
“I will,” Melissa said. “Off the record, anyway. But only once the kid is safe. So come on. Lead the way.”