School Run

by Sophie King

  ‘I’m sorry, Leonora,’ she whispered.

  ‘Me too.’

  Evie felt a wave of happiness despite the cramp in her bottom. She held the girl tight – and smelt her own shampoo, but now wasn’t the time to accuse her of pinching things. ‘I’ll try to be a nicer step-mother. Promise.’

  Leonora sniffed. ‘And I’ll be nicer too, if we ever get out of here.’

  Evie still held her close. ‘We will. Somehow – don’t ask me how – I’ll make sure we do.’

  38

  ‘Quick. Now!’

  Jason waited until Curt walked out of Room H, then pushed him into a smaller room next door and locked him in. He and Julie ran to Room H. ‘Everyone out, now!’ he yelled.

  Evie stared. It was the couple she’d seen on the stairs and now they were rescuing them. Was it a trick?

  ‘Quick,’ hissed the girl. ‘Before they come back. Get out. Just get the kids out!’

  Evie helped the children up. ‘Go on, Lennie, out.’

  ‘No! I’m helping you find Nattie.’

  ‘There she is – look!’

  Another youth was helping more children out of the room next door. Natalie ran towards her sister and hugged her.

  ‘Come on, everyone,’ called Evie, to the children who were still in the room. She glanced nervously up the stairs. Someone was shouting at the top. ‘Let’s get out before they stop us.’

  Evie ran out into the street behind the girls. The car was where she’d left it, but it was empty.

  ‘My little boy!’ She ran up to one of the waiting policemen. ‘My little boy! Where did you take him?’

  ‘Sorry, madam? I don’t understand.’

  She pointed to the car, almost unable to speak for the fear that had engulfed her. She’d been so certain that he’d still be there or that someone would have rescued him. ‘My son, Jack. He’s two. I left him in the car. Before all this. Before the siege.’

  The policeman looked worried. ‘Madam, as far as I know the car was empty when we arrived. Could a friend have taken him?’

  ‘No!’ Evie felt her bowels loosen with fear. ‘No. Jack! Jack, where are you?’

  HARRIET

  ‘Over and out. Over and out.’

  The policeman turned off his crackling radio. ‘Stand back, everyone, please, let the children past.’

  Harriet was still standing by the school gates, hugging Bruce and Kate, her face wet with relief. Another policeman walked past, holding a teenager by the collar of his leather jacket. The boy scowled at her as the policeman pushed him into a car, and she shielded the children’s faces.

  Nick was standing a little away from her and she tried not to catch his eye. She was sure he would feel as embarrassed as she did about what had happened between them in the car.

  Now he was cuddling Julie, who had finally finished sobbing into his coat. From what Harriet could hear, Julie was refusing to go until Jason had finished talking to the police. There was still some doubt as to whether he would be taken in for questioning even though Julie had assured them he had nothing to do with the gangs who had fallen out over drug dealing and unpaid debts.

  ‘See that woman over there,’ said Bruce. ‘She’s lost her child. I heard someone say he got taken from her car.’

  Harriet was appalled. ‘How awful.’

  Nick strode up. ‘That’s Evie Brookes. She’s a magazine editor. I do some work for her. She’s the mother of that child I told you about. The one I found with that odd woman in the pink coat I pointed out this afternoon.’

  ‘The crazy one who tried to stop me this morning?’ asked Julie, wide-eyed.

  ‘Yes.’ Nick’s brow furrowed. ‘I’ll just have a quick word with the police.’

  ‘I’m coming too,’ said Julie, grabbing his sleeve.

  ‘Why don’t you go back to my car, Harriet? The police might not let us go for ages. There’s quite a queue up there. You’ll find some drinks in the boot – I always keep them there for emergencies.’

  She smiled gratefully, understanding the unspoken implication behind his words. It might be reassuring for them – and their kids – to have company until they could leave.

  She watched Julie hanging on to her father’s arm as they walked up to an officer. She doesn’t want to let him out of her sight, poor child, thought Harriet, taking her two back to Nick’s car. What a good father he must be.

  ‘Are you sure you’re all right?’ she asked, opening two small cartons of orange juice, which had been in the boot as Nick said, and handing one each to them. She felt awful now, for originally thinking Bruce might have caused trouble.

  ‘Fine.’ Bruce seemed quite excited, although Kate was subdued. ‘This big bloke came in and said we had to sit in another class. Then we played word games on the blackboard. It was brilliant. We didn’t have to do any work at all.’

  Some teachers, thought Harriet admiringly, were truly dedicated. ‘I just want to switch on the radio to see if there’s any news.’

  ‘We’ve just heard that the siege at St Theresa’s School in south London has ended, seemingly without casualties.

  Reports suggest that some of the teenagers involved managed to release the children and lock up the gang leaders. More details when we get them.’

  ‘That’s us,’ said Bruce excitedly. ‘Will we be famous?’

  Harriet smiled wryly. ‘Maybe.’

  Kate snuggled up to her. ‘Do you think Daddy’s heard? Is he coming over too?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ said Harriet. ‘Maybe later.’

  ‘Ring him now.’

  ‘All right. Actually, Bruce, can you show me something? How do you work out who you’ve rung before? I can do the last number but what about the ones before that?’

  ‘Honestly, Mum, don’t you know?’

  He took the phone from her and she watched admiringly as his fingers flew across the buttons. ‘Not so fast, Bruce. Slower. Oh, I see.’

  ‘Why do you want to know?’

  Harriet shrugged. ‘It might come in useful.’

  Eventually Nick came back. ‘The police are allowing everyone to move on now.’

  ‘Right. Come on, you two. Let’s get going. Dad will probably be at home waiting for us.’ She turned to Nick. ‘Thanks for the company. I’m not sure how I’d have got through this without it.’

  He gave her a meaningful look. ‘Nor me. I’ll ring some time to see how you’re doing.’

  Harriet flushed. ‘OK. Thanks. Come on, Bruce. No, don’t start fiddling with that cordon or the police will come over.

  Let’s go home. You must be exhausted.’

  39

  EVIE

  ‘Can you give me an update, please? Over and out.’

  Evie’s mouth was dry with fear as she sat in the back of the police car. The driver was speaking urgently into the microphone on the dashboard and the replies were distorted by crackling. Evie strained to hear but it was difficult to make out what the person at the other end was saying. Something about reinforcements, she thought.

  Fancy thinking she’d sorted out her life during all that time in the classroom. Now she really knew what her priorities were. Not Robin. Not her job. Just the kids. In particular Jack. How could she have left him in the car? ‘What’s going on?’ she said, feeling her voice disintegrate into the air. ‘I don’t understand.’

  The policeman in the passenger seat turned round. ‘Mrs Brookes, I have to be honest with you, we’re not sure. All we know is that one of the other parents saw an older woman waiting outside the school during the siege. He thought it was the same woman who was with your son earlier this week.’

  ‘So you think she’s got him,’ interrupted Natalie.

  ‘Shut up, Nattie, you’re scaring Evie,’ said Leonora. ‘It doesn’t mean that, does it?’

  The policeman ignored her question. ‘We’re waiting for reinforcements and then we’re going into the house where the suspect is thought to live.’

  ‘Why can’t we go in now?’ Evie’s
voice rose hysterically. ‘The longer we wait, the more danger there is of her doing something terrible to him. Oh, my God, Jack! I should never have left him.’

  ‘It’s all right, Evie.’ Natalie put an arm round her. ‘We’ll find him. He’s so sweet – no one will hurt him.’ She burst into loud sobs. ‘Will they?’

  Evie gripped her hand so tightly that her wedding ring cut into her own fingers. Dear God, please, I’ll do anything – anything – if you just let Jack be all right. I will never, ever be awful to the girls again. I’ll give up work to be a proper mum to Jack. I’ll—

  The microphone burst into more frenzied crackling.

  ‘Right,’ said the driver. ‘We’re off. Mrs Brookes, I want you to wait in the car with me, round the corner from the house.’

  ‘Bugger that,’ said Natalie. ‘We’re going in too.’

  The policewoman gave Evie the sort of look that wanted to know what kind of a mother she was to allow her daughter to come out with such expletives. At any other time Evie would have put them straight. ‘She’s right,’ she said, looking the woman hard in the eye. ‘They’re not kids. We want to come too.’

  The main road was suspiciously quiet. They must have blocked it off, thought Evie, as the car pulled into a side street. If there were reinforcements, they’d kept themselves well hidden. All she could see was the lamp post on the corner with its bouquet of roses.

  ‘We’re waiting here,’ said the policewoman, firmly. ‘The officer who’s going in will contact me as soon as he finds anything.’

  Evie whimpered. One of the girls stroked her hand. ‘I want to be there,’ she sobbed. ‘I want to be with my little boy.’

  She tried the handle of the rear door. It was locked. Childproofed. If she had locked Jack in properly, none of this would have happened. But she had been sure she had.

  They waited in almost unbearable suspense.

  ‘Isn’t it weird?’ whispered Natalie. ‘No cars.’

  ‘Shut up,’ said Leonora, tersely.

  ‘Why? I’m scared too, you know. Supposing this woman—’

  ‘Shut up,’ repeated Lennie.

  Evie put an arm round each girl and pulled them to her.

  ‘It’s all right,’ she said quietly. ‘Say your prayers.’

  ‘Prayers?’ Leonora was incredulous. ‘We don’t say prayers. That’s for kids.’

  ‘Anyway, we’re Buddhist like Mum.’

  ‘Well, I’m Jewish and your dad is . . . well, whatever he is. But, frankly, I don’t think it matters. Just do it.’

  Evie watched the clock on the dashboard. It had to be wrong: it couldn’t possibly be only seven and a half minutes since they had parked here. Seven and a half minutes. That small amount of time alone was enough for the woman to do anything to Jack. Was he screaming for her? Tied up in a corner? Slumped, lifeless, on the floor? Already in a shallow grave . . .

  ‘No,’ she screamed. ‘No, I’ve got to go in!’

  She dived towards the front of the car.

  ‘Stop it, Evie!’ yelled Natalie.

  At the same time, the microphone burst into life.

  ‘Shut up, everyone,’ commanded the policewoman. ‘I can’t bloody well hear.’

  They stopped. The voice was urgent and desperate.

  ‘They’ve got him.’ The policewoman was calm.

  ‘Is he all right?’

  ‘I don’t know. The reception was terrible. We can go in but I must warn you, Mrs Brookes, I don’t know what we’re going to find. It’s inadvisable, in my opinion, to bring your daughters with you.’

  ‘But—’ began Natalie.

  ‘Shush.’ Evie’s eyes flashed. ‘She’s right. It is inadvisable. But you’re still coming. Now.’

  Following the policewoman, they ran across the road towards the shabby end-of-terrace house. Breathless, Evie pushed open the rusty metal gate, which was hanging off its hinges. The front door was open. She stopped. Her little boy was in this place: she could feel it. But that gut instinct inside her – the one that had made her fall for Robin and warned her against Janine – was telling her something she couldn’t ignore. This hideous little house, with its peeling brown wallpaper in the hall, stank of stale cabbage and death.

  ‘Mrs Brookes?’ A dishevelled policewoman took her arm. ‘He’s through here.’

  She allowed herself to be led along the dark hall and into the narrow kitchen at the back. She gasped. Plastered on every inch of the wall were newspaper cuttings, many yellowed and curled with age and sunlight. Each one bore a gruesome headline: ‘Killed On Killer Road’; ‘Third Child In Year To Die On Busy Stretch’.

  The sink was overflowing. The kitchen table had five cereal packets on it, all open. Next to them was an array of the free plastic figures that had come with them. At one end there was a high chair, the old-fashioned type with a wooden tray and plastic seat, and at the other, a wooden chair with a boy’s blazer draped round it. In the corner a box of child’s building bricks lay next to a bicycle with stabilisers. On the floor was a pile of what looked like school exercise books and a black school-bag with a child’s name written on the tag: Terry Holmes. On the old-fashioned yellow-and black-flecked plastic work surface she saw a large rectangular brown radio with round knobs. It was still on, as though someone had recently been listening to it.

  ‘Where is he?’ demanded Evie hoarsely. ‘I want to see him.’

  She was taken to a small door at the end. Someone opened it and Evie dimly remembered thinking it was like her grandmother’s lean-to conservatory. There, on a policewoman’s lap, in a rickety old chair, was Jack.

  ‘Mum!’ he said delightedly. ‘Look! ’Eggo!’

  He was holding up a piece of Lego, triumphantly.

  Evie let out a howl, dropped to her knees and clasped him to her. ‘Jack, Jack,’ she crooned, smelling his hair, drinking in the scent of his skin.

  ‘Jack!’ said Natalie, crying. ‘Are you all right?’

  Jack’s face was wreathed in smiles over his mother’s shoulder.

  ‘Lennie, Lennie,’ he said, holding out the piece of Lego.

  ‘See,’ said Lennie, sniffling. ‘I told you he loved me best, Nattie. I told you.’

  Evie wasn’t sure how long she stayed there. She didn’t want to move. It was so comforting just to hold Jack even though he was wriggling to escape.

  ‘Why?’ she said, through his hair. ‘Why did she take him?’

  The policewoman – the one who had driven them there – knelt down beside her. ‘Her son was killed in a road accident two years ago. She’s never got over it. See all these newspaper cuttings? The house is full of them. Apparently she’s got quite a name as a local campaigner for child safety.’

  ‘That doesn’t mean she’s entitled to take someone else’s child,’ said Evie, angrily.

  ‘How old was he, the boy who was killed?’ asked Natalie.

  ‘Sixteen,’ said the policewoman.

  ‘Only two years older than us,’ said Leonora, quietly.

  ‘I’m sorry we couldn’t tell you immediately that Jack was all right,’ said the policewoman. ‘The reception was bad and they couldn’t find him at first. She hid him in the conservatory when she heard them coming in. But it looks as though she’s been taking care of him.’

  She pointed to the kitchen table on which, Evie now noticed, there was an egg cup with the remains of a hard-boiled egg in it. ‘Jack hates eggs,’ she said shakily.

  ‘Where is she now?’ asked Natalie.

  ‘We took her down to the station.’

  ‘Are you going to arrest her?’

  ‘We’re waiting for a doctor’s report first. We’ve got to get Jack checked over too, just to make sure.’

  Evie held her son tightly. ‘Just to make sure of what?’

  ‘That he hasn’t been abused in any way.’

  Evie gasped, holding Jack tighter. ‘But she wouldn’t . . . I mean no one would . . . Oh, God, how awful.’

  ‘It’s all right, Evie,’ said Natal
ie. ‘He’s here, isn’t he? Besides, there’s a girl in my class who’s been abused and she’s fine about it . . .’

  ‘Shut up,’ said Leonora. ‘For God’s sake, don’t you know when to stop?’

  We ought to take Jack to hospital now,’ said the policewoman. ‘It won’t take long. Then you can go home.’

  ‘Home!’ said Jack. ‘Dad?’

  Evie felt a stab of pain mixed with anger. ‘I don’t know, sweetheart.’ She hugged him again. ‘But Mum’s here. And Lennie and Nattie. We love you, Jack.’

  Jack gave her a slobbery wet kiss on her cheek in return. Why wasn’t he crying? Jack had never been one of those clingy two-year-olds who refused to go to other people. Nursery had encouraged him to be sociable. But she couldn’t help feeling hurt by his acceptance of the situation.

  ‘And us, Jack,’ said Natalie, picking him up and jiggling him in her arms. ‘You love us too, don’t you?’

  In answer, he laid his head on her shoulder and yawned.

  ‘He’s tired,’ said the policewoman. ‘Come on. Let’s get this over with.’

  BETTY

  ‘Three blind mice, See how they run . . .’

  No, please, don’t turn that off. He likes it. Terry always liked that one best. I haven’t hurt him. Honest. See? I let him watch a video with Terry until I heard a noise and had to hide him in the conservatory. He’s had his boiled egg and soldiers, he has, so he won’t need no tea tonight. Give us a kiss goodbye, then, love. I wish I could keep him. You’d like that too, Terry, wouldn’t you, duck?

  FRIDAY P.M.

  ‘Duck down, Josh. And you, Alice. There are cameras outside. Right. You can come up now – we’ve gone past them. Are you sure you’re all right?’

  ‘Y-yes, Dad. I told them who you and Mum were but they didn’t believe me. I s-said you’d name them on t-television but they j-just laughed.’