Nearly a minute later, the typing is still going on, or so the jumping dots indicate. Maybe it’s both of them together. What are they doing, writing an essay?
The message that finally lands has no name at the bottom, so I can’t tell who wrote it. It contains directions for how to find the Art room on foot. The school has 2,000 pupils and is spread over four buildings if not more. Each one is a labyrinth of corridors. I’m to meet Zannah at a particular door, which she’s waiting at.
What’s she doing in the Art room, when she gave the subject up two years ago? She’s supposed to be at a History revision day. And why can’t she come and meet me in the car park?
I cross the wide rectangular yard and knock on the prescribed door when I find it, planning to ask all these questions. Zannah’s voice calls out, ‘Mum?’
‘Yeah. Open the door.’
‘I can’t. There’s an intercom, and I don’t know the code.’ Her face appears at the window next to the door, which is open. She opens it wider. ‘Quick, climb in.’
‘What? Are you kidding? I’m nowhere near agile enough to—’
‘Mum, it’s a ground-floor window. It’s easy. You might not be able to do it gracefully, but you can do it.’
‘All visitors are supposed to go through reception. If someone sees me …’
‘They won’t. Why d’you think I chose this room? In Bankside Park terms, this is the middle of nowhere. No one’ll see you, unless you take four years to climb in.’
‘Can’t you climb out?’
‘No! Someone might see us together. Just do it, now.’
I manage to get inside, but not quickly and not without injury. I land inelegantly on the large table that’s pushed up against the wall beneath the window – perhaps by Zannah, to catch me – then roll onto the floor. The room I land in doesn’t look like an Art room. It looks disused, like a semi-derelict space awaiting redecoration. There are no pictures up on the peeling walls.
‘Please tell me this isn’t really the Art room,’ I say.
‘Was. This whole block’s unsafe or something, so it’s going to be done up. Oh, my God, have you ripped those trousers?’
‘And grazed my knee.’ I bend down to inspect it. ‘Do you want to tell me why these indignities were necessary? It had better be good, Zan.’
‘Have you watched it yet?’ she demands.
‘Watched what?’
‘You haven’t!’ She looks aghast. ‘I emailed it to you!’
‘I was with a client, then rushing to meet you. I haven’t had time to check my emails.’
‘Get your phone out,’ she orders, nodding at my bag. ‘You need to watch it now.’
‘All right, but … can you calm down?’ Her rapid-fire manner makes me think someone’s going to burst through the door at any moment and try to kill us both.
‘Calm down, yes. Slow down, no,’ she says. ‘It’s a time-sensitive situation. You’ll need to log into school Wi-Fi, there’s no 4G here. It’s BanksideParkStaff, no spaces, capital B, P, and S and the password’s—’
‘Wait, there’s no … Oh, I’ve got it. Password?’
‘banksideparkers, no spaces, all lower case.’
‘Okay. Done. How do you know the staff Wi-Fi password?’
‘Everyone knows it. Solid spy network.’
I go to my email inbox, open the message from Zannah and click on the link that’s the only thing in it.
It’s a video clip of extremely poor quality, with muffled, shaky sound. I can just about make out Zannah’s jeans and trainers, the ones she’s wearing today, and another pair of legs that also end in Nike trainers – red ones that I recognise, with orange laces. ‘Is this you and Murad?’ I ask. Zan nods. They’re allowed to wear their own clothes when they come in for revision days.
In the film, Zan is laughing, telling Murad that he’d better put his panini away because ‘She’s coming. I can hear her.’ A close-up of the panini fills the screen for a second. Then we’re back to the trainers.
