The light blinded me. Bright, shining directly in my eyes. I raised my arm to shield my face as I tried to push myself backwards, across the stage and out of his way.

‘Please,’ I called out. ‘Don’t do this. Please.’

‘Miss?’ An unfamiliar voice spoke. ‘Miss. I’m not here to hurt you. I’m just … we had reports of a break-in …’

The figure turned the torch towards himself, and I saw a man wearing a slightly horrified expression and a security uniform standing just metres away from me.

‘Please, there’s a man here and he has a knife. He’s killed before,’ I stuttered.

The security man paled. Even in the darkness, I could see the colour drain from his face. He lifted a radio from the lapel of his work jacket and spoke into it.

‘Call 999 now. Police and ambulance. An armed man and a casualty, here at the old school site. I’m going to try to bring her out. It must be that missing woman they’re searching for.’

A disembodied voice muttered something in return as I nodded to him. I couldn’t make out what the voice was saying. My heart was thumping too hard. All I could think was that we needed to get out and soon. I was sure Michael, or whatever his name was, would be on us at any second.

The security man took a step towards me, reached out an arm to me.

‘Can you stand? Can you walk?’

‘Yes,’ I stuttered. ‘But he’s near.’

‘We’ll get you out of here,’ he said, but I could detect the shake in his voice. ‘The police have been looking for you.’

He took my hand in his and pulled me to standing, paused for just a second and took in the sight in front of him. I dreaded to think how alarming I looked. He turned, arm raised again with his torch and led me through the stage door to the corridor directly behind it. There was no sign of Michael, but I knew he could appear at any moment.

‘This way,’ the security man said, motioning for me to follow him towards the end of the corridor.

I knew there was a door there that led outside, but was sure it would be locked tight, too.

‘I have a key,’ he said, reaching for a large bunch of keys attached to his belt.

He started to fumble through them while I kept glancing at the other end of the corridor. I willed the security man to be quicker, but I could see he was nervous, too. His hands shook as he searched through the keys, which jangled together.

‘Can you hold the torch for me?’ he asked and I took it, shining it down on the keys as he continued his search.

I almost collapsed with relief when he said: ‘Ah, this should do it,’ and slid a key into the lock.