The toilet door opened. A frightened-looking boy with wonky glasses exited, accompanied by one of the targets: T7, the smallest, who seemed to have taken over this duty from T16. The boy scurried back to his group. The target turned to Max and made a ‘get inside’ gesture. Max made a show of meekly obeying. As he passed the target, however, he scanned what he could see of his face. Only his eyes and mouth were visible behind the balaclava, but they told him a lot. The target had a cleft lip, and there was an uncertain look in his eyes. It occurred to Max that letting kids in and out of the toilet was the worst job available to the terrorists. That meant this guy, along with T16, was bottom of the ladder.

He remembered Angel’s advice. If you can, form a rapport with them. 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.

Weak link? If there was one, maybe this guy was it.

The toilet door closed behind them. They were in a locker room, with lines of dented metal lockers and pegs. There were three doors. One led to the girls’ toilets. One led to the boys’. The third was the locked door through which they had tried and failed to enter. Max headed to the boys’, but then stopped to look at his new companion. ‘You, er … you look like my brother,’ he said, aware that he sounded very nervous. The idea had just dropped into his head. He pointed to his own lips. ‘He has that thing you have.’

T7 stared at him through the balaclava. His eyes had widened slightly. Max had his captor’s attention. Something told him nobody had ever talked kindly about his appearance before. He even felt a pang of sympathy for him …

He heard Hector’s voice in his head. Watch out for the signs of Stockholm Syndrome in yourselves. It’s a very real thing. If you start feeling sympathy for any of these terrorists, remember: these people woke up this morning intending to kill children.

‘I got in trouble the other day,’ Max continued. ‘Some boys were giving my brother a hard time. I got in a fight with them.’ He shrugged. ‘They won’t mess with my brother again, anyway.’ He smiled and stepped towards the boys’ toilet.

‘What is your brother’s name?’

‘Bruce,’ Max said. It was the first name that came to him. ‘He had a sore throat when he woke up today, so he couldn’t come to school.’

T7 looked momentarily at the floor. ‘I have brother too,’ he said in broken English. ‘Back in Chechnya.’