Donny dropped his head into his hands as he watched the prosecution team talking. They kept looking over at him and shaking their heads, judging him, looks of disgust.

When he’d seen all the evidence they held against him, he knew there was nothing he could do to deny it – he threw his hand in and pleaded guilty at the earliest opportunity. He claimed he had lost a load gambling, had to sell drugs to clear his debts. The coppers had laughed back in his face. Did he think they were born yesterday? He knew exactly what he was doing and now he was going to pay the price. He’d lived like a king for years, never wanted for anything, had the best of everything. But now he was going to face the music.

The news that their headteacher was a drug dealer devastated his pupils. If they couldn’t trust someone like him, who could they trust? He’d abused his role and let every one of the kids down. He’d picked off the ones who might be useful to him and groomed them as drug runners – in that way he was no different from the criminals they had been warned about on the streets. They’d seen Donny as a responsible adult – often the only one in their lives – who banged on every day about the choices they made and how they would affect them in the future, yet here he was licking shot. What a hypocrite. The shockwaves reverberated around the school.

Tina Davies, former deputy head, had been found dead. ‘Accidental overdose’ was the official line but darker rumours circulated the school. In fact the only person who’d seemed to have had any luck recently was the old cook, Rita. She wrote a postcard to tell them how she’d come into some money, and buggered off to a villa in Turkey. Said she needed the sunshine to recover from surgery for something.

After Donny’s arrest half the kids in the school had requested counselling. It was the last straw, too much for some of them to take in. They had a deputy head who’d died and a drug baron for a headteacher. Small wonder they needed someone to talk to.

Some pupils never made it back in. Amelia was occasionally spotted outside the school gates, but she’d never crossed the threshold since she’d reappeared. Pretty soon she’d be pushing a buggy by the looks of things.

Frankie had been nowhere to be seen since Donny had been banged up. Word on the street was that he’d been seen getting on a train to Blackpool.