‘He’s not here. His bag’s not here. What else do you think could have happened? Go on, get Sasha, tell her what’s happened.’

As Mike turned away from him, Steve’s phone vibrated. He saw Mike’s jaw clench at the sound of it, pulled it out of his pocket and frowned.

‘Hang on. I need to go out.’

Mike looked outside. ‘In that?’

‘I’ll look for Leon.’ Steve already had his boots on, so grabbed a coat and stepped out into the swirling snow before Mike could argue.

Chapter 34

Tuesday 4th December

I woke around six in the morning and found myself curled up on the sofa with a blanket over me. Squinting blearily at Singh sitting on the opposite sofa, I yawned and sat up.

‘The snow stopped a couple of hours ago, and the ploughs are out as we speak,’ he told me. He must have woken up earlier and put the blanket over me before going to find out what was happening. ‘I’ve told Liz I think it would be reckless to open the school today, but at least we can get home.’

I wandered into the kitchen and made coffees for the two of us and the PC who had returned at some point in the night. When I came back in, Singh was on his phone.

‘Already?’ he asked, then made a frustrated noise. ‘Okay, I’ll see what I can do.’

He hung up and turned to me. ‘The road outside must be clear, because there are journalists and even a TV crew at the gate.’

‘They were quick,’ I said. The murder of a member of staff on school grounds during the school day was bound to be the news story of the week, but I was still surprised at how soon they’d appeared. Maybe they’d been contacted by the same person who had leaked the story about students being groomed.

I hung around for the next hour, waiting for instructions, then Singh and I went over to the main building to find Forest. Even though she didn’t look like she’d been awake all night, I couldn’t imagine she’d had so much as a quick power nap. The staff who’d been stuck overnight drifted over to gather in the staffroom to find out if they could go home or if the school would be open that day.

‘Anyone not accounted for?’ I asked Singh, after he’d had a long chat with Forest.

‘We haven’t checked yet. We’re going to ask Liz Marcek to assemble all the staff and any students who come to school today in the hall at nine o’clock, then we can check.’

‘Do you think any parents are going to let their kids come to school today, after what happened here? If it were me I wouldn’t want to take that risk.’