Night School: Resistance (Night School 4)

Stiffly, Allie lowered herself into the chair next to Dom, who didn’t look up from the screen.

Sylvain perched on a low cabinet at the back of the room. Raj stayed by the door. Otherwise, the room was empty.

Isabelle pushed a button on her phone and set it on her desk. ‘Everyone is present, Lucinda. Allie is here with Sylvain Cassel.’

‘Good.’ Allie’s grandmother’s voice rose from the device, resonant and authoritative even through the medium of the small speaker. ‘Thank you all for coming. Allie?’

‘Uh … yes?’ Allie sat up straighter in her chair.

‘I understand you and another student were very brave this evening in your attempt to stop Jerry Cole, and your friend was injured.’

In her head, Allie heard again the cracking sound Jerry’s fist made against Zoe’s face. Unconsciously, she flinched.

‘I thought,’ Lucinda continued, ‘under the circumstances, you’d like to be here when we caught him.’

Allie blinked. ‘Caught who?’

‘Jerry Cole,’ her grandmother said.





27





Twenty-seven





Confused, Allie looked around the room, waiting for someone to explain what was happening. She couldn’t understand what her grandmother was talking about. Nobody here seemed to be catching anyone.

‘I don’t understand …’

Dom looked up at her. ‘I’m watching him,’ she said. ‘Right now.’

Her narrow spectacles glittered in the light.

Everyone else in the room had gone very quiet.

‘How?’ Allie asked.

‘Tracking device. In the ankle of his trousers.’ Dom turned back to her computer. ‘Very tiny. Impossible to detect.’

She spoke with the careful precision of a well-educated American – like the scientists Allie had seen on the news. She found this comforting, somehow. The tech sounded capable. Knowledgeable. Like she could put an astronaut in space. Fix broken things.

‘Where is he?’ Allie’s voice was cold as ice.

‘Here.’ Dom pointed at a red dot on her screen, moving slowly and steadily. ‘He is on a train to London.’ She turned her wrist; a heavy silver watch gleamed. ‘He arrives at Waterloo Station in seven minutes.’

‘My guys are there, Allie. Waiting for him.’ Raj spoke with the curious calmness he always displayed when an operation was under way.

Allie turned in her chair so she could see his face. ‘Jo liked Jerry, Raj. She trusted him. Don’t let him get away.’

Holding her gaze, the security chief inclined his head once. She knew he understood. He’d cared about Jo, too. They all had.

‘Jerry,’ Dom said, typing, ‘is not going anywhere. Look.’ She pointed to the screen. Five green dots had appeared around the red dot. ‘See the green dots? Those are our guys.’

It took Allie a second to realise what she was saying. ‘They’re on the train with him?’

Dom nodded.

As she stared at the screen, Allie’s heart beat out a rhythm so fast and uneven it hurt.

Pressing a fist against her chest, she pushed back at her heart’s painful pounding as she watched the screen.

’Isabelle,’ Sylvain’s voice was preternaturally calm. ‘What the hell happened? How did you know it was him?’

The headmistress cleared her throat.

‘Lucinda’s MI5 connection was very helpful,’ she said. ‘With access to extensive information, she checked all of the suspected teachers’ backgrounds more thoroughly than any of us ever could. Zelazny and Eloise both checked out – everything was just as it should be. With Jerry, though, there were … issues.’

‘What kind of issues?’ Sylvain asked.

‘His banking and financial records are perfect, up to a point,’ the headmistress explained. ‘In fact, everything’s fine up until seven years ago.’

Sylvain frowned. ‘What happened seven years ago?’

‘Before that point there are no records,’ Isabelle said. ‘No birth certificates. No taxes. No bank accounts. Seven years ago, as far as we have been able to determine, there was no Jerry Cole.’

A stunned silence followed her words.

Allie felt a chill, as if a breeze had blown through the windowless office.

‘How is that possible?’ Sylvain’s tone was sharp. ‘How did this go unnoticed until now? What about our security checks?’

It was Lucinda who replied. ‘It would appear our Jerry Cole is an invention. His work history, his references, everything he brought when he applied at Cimmeria Academy – cleverly falsified. A brilliant job, really. Nathaniel used the best for this. And, to answer your question, Sylvain, we do very good background checks but nothing as thorough as MI5. We did not, for example, check his DNA.’

As they talked, Allie kept her eyes on Dom’s laptop. More green dots had appeared on the screen. Catching her eye, Dom tapped them. Allie nodded to show she understood. Those were Raj’s men in the station. Waiting.