‘In fact,’ Angel added, ‘talking to your captors is a good idea, if they let you. Hostage-takers don’t want to think of their hostages as real people. If they do, it makes it harder to kill them when the time comes. Try to make friends. Talk about your family – real or invented. Talk about your hobbies and your life outside the siege. Don’t allow them to dehumanise you. It won’t work on all of them, but there’s often a weak link somewhere in the terrorist team. You might be able to use that to your advantage.’

‘Just be smart,’ Woody said. ‘Think carefully about whether you’re softening the terrorists up or making them more aware of you – and therefore more likely to kill you when the shooting starts.’

‘How do we know?’ Sami asked.

‘You don’t,’ Hector said grimly. ‘You have to think on your feet.’

The police sirens stopped. Hector checked his watch. ‘We should be there any moment,’ he said.

A minute later, the van came to an abrupt halt. The side door slid open and an armed man in a black flak jacket, wearing a helmet with a boom mike, barked at them to follow him. The recruits bundled out. Max took in his surroundings. They were at the perimeter of the school. It was a network of ordinary-looking brick buildings surrounded by high green metal railings. They were alongside a playground with hopscotch and football pitch markings painted on the tarmac. Against a far wall was a huge, colourful painting that looked like it had been done by children. The area outside the railings was a mass of police cars and armoured military vehicles. There were perhaps thirty men and woman, all armed and flak-jacketed, talking into radios and calling instructions to each other. This area was cordoned off. There were no civilians. But Max could see, at the end of the road leading to the school, a guarded barrier. Here, members of the public were being held back. Max could see a couple of TV cameras. Instinctively, he turned away from them. He didn’t want his face appearing on any news reports that the terrorists happened to be watching.

There was a newsagent’s on the other side of the road. Hector led them into it. It had been turned into a makeshift operations centre, manned by about ten adults, some in police uniform, others in military gear. Cables snaked all over the floor, laptops had been set up in every available space, and a display board was propped up against the newspaper racks. It showed a set of building plans. They gathered round it.