Hostage to Murder by Val McDermid Page A

fluttering in her stomach, a physical manifestation of an undefined fear. Now, no more children emerged. It was time to panic, she realised. Bernie walked through the gates then, as she neared the school doors, she broke into a trot.
    Unnoticed by her, the man leaning against the bus stop twenty yards down the street suddenly shifted. Michael hastily put away the knife he’d been using to clean his nails and began to stroll up the street towards the school. Whatever was going on with Bernadette Dooley, it wasn’t in the script. Not as he understood it, anyway. Where was the boy? What was going on?
    What he couldn’t see was Bernie running down the school corridor to the classroom where Mrs. Anderson taught Year Two. She grabbed the lintel and swung herself into the room, her breath catching in her throat. “Where’s Jack?” she demanded, her voice shrill.
    Mrs. Anderson, a comfortably plump woman in her mid-forties, looked puzzled. “It’s Mrs. Gourlay, isn’t it?”
    â€œWhere’s Jack?” Bernie was shouting now, not caring what the teacher thought of her. “He didn’t come out when the bell went. Where is he?”
    Mrs. Anderson’s face sagged. “I don’t understand. Mr. Gourlay came and fetched him at morning interval. Didn’t you know?”
    â€œTam?” Bernie looked thunderstruck. “Tam came to the school and took Jack away?” She shook her head incredulously.
    â€œThat’s what Jimmy Doran told me. When the children came back after break, Jimmy came up to my table and said Jack Gourlay
had told him to tell me that he’d had to go away with his dad.”
    â€œAnd you thought he meant Tam,” Bernie’s voice had dropped to a whisper. Staggering, she collapsed into a child’s chair, leaned her head on the desk and sobbed in wild, uncontrolled gasps that made her whole body shudder.
    â€œOh, my goodness,” Mrs. Anderson said, suddenly understanding that there might be valid reasons for such distress. “I’d better get the head teacher.”
    Â 
    At that precise moment, Jack Gourlay—né Cavadino—was thirty-five thousand feet above Germany. He looked up from his Nintendo, an anxious frown on his face. “Mum won’t be angry with me, will she?”
    Bruno Cavadino gave his son a hug. “Why would she be angry with you? I told you, she said we could go away together.”
    â€œShe’s never let us go away together before,” Jack said suspiciously.
    â€œShe thought you were too little to be away without her. She thought you would cry because you missed her. But I told her, he’s old enough now to understand that a holiday is a holiday, not forever. You won’t cry, will you?”
    Jack gave a tight, apprehensive smile. “No, papa. Can we phone her when we land?”
    Bruno shook his head. “You don’t want her to think you’re a big baby, do you? She’ll call us in a couple of days. Don’t worry.”
    The siren call of Nintendo dragged Jack back from the conversation to his screen. Bruno looked down at him with a surge of affection that surprised him. He was a good kid. Bernie had made a decent job of bringing him up. But she’d had her chance. Now it was up to him to do his best for the boy. It wouldn’t be easy, but he had plans for Jack.
    Â 
    Bernie was sobbing into a handkerchief while a woman police constable patted her awkwardly on the shoulder. Mrs. Anderson sat at her table, fingers twisting round each other as Sergeant Meldrum took her through the events of the morning.
    â€œI thought nothing of it, you see. I mean, obviously you don’t.

    The boy, Jimmy Doran, he said that Jack had told him he had to go off with his dad. Naturally, I assumed he meant Mr. Gourlay.”
    Sergeant Meldrum nodded, scribbling something in his notebook. “So, the last you saw of the boy would be when, exactly?”
    â€œWhen