Mr Clark lets the register flop closed. ‘Full house,’ he says.

The minute hand above the door snaps round to the ten. Eight fifty.

Six hours from now, everyone in this classroom will be dead.

Sophia

Five weeks ago

It was on the first day back at school after the Easter holidays that I met Sophia. It’s hard to believe it was barely more than a month ago – so much has changed.

On the afternoons that I just couldn’t face the alley, I’d take a detour across the park and kill an hour or two sitting by the pond on the edge of Perrett Woods. Eventually, the park would empty and fall quiet and I’d have a chance of making it home in peace.

I was sitting at the bench in the far corner, shredding my sandwiches and feeding the geese, mesmerized by the perfect triangular wakes they left as they darted across the water in pursuit of a soggy packed lunch. I had no appetite myself – the lump in my throat made eating hard work. It had been that sort of day.

I’d been there maybe twenty minutes when I saw her walking a slow lap of the pond. I stared down at my shoes as she wove through the willow branches that stroked at the shallows alongside the bench. Then I looked up for a second and she slowed.

‘Hey,’ she said, looking a little surprised. She clearly wasn’t expecting to run into anybody here any more than I was.

I didn’t say anything, just flashed an awkward smile and returned my gaze to the ground.

For a moment, she stood there, facing the water, scrolling on her phone. ‘Room for a small one?’ she eventually asked, letting her phone fall into her bag.

I shuffled myself to the very far end of the bench until one of my arse cheeks was half hanging over the edge. I gave some emergency consideration to the business of looking normal, casually parting my legs until I felt I was sitting in an acceptable man-stance. I only dared watch from the corner of my eye as she sat down. She let her head fall backwards, her long hair tumbling over the backrest. For a while, she was silent, just sitting with the sun playing across her face.

‘Beautiful spot, isn’t it?’ she said, her eyes resting closed.

‘Guess so.’

‘You get the sun right here in the evenings. I love it.’ Her voice was soft, little more than a whisper. It was not at all how I’d expected her to sound. I’d seen her in the newsagent’s a hundred times, pictured her when alone in my room more times than I’d care to admit, but I realized now that I’d never heard her speak.