Kate hurried along the corridor, surprised at the pace the wiry caretaker was keeping. He’d taken off from the office so fast that Kate hadn’t yet been able to confirm exactly what he’d seen. She followed him through a maze of darkened school corridors, only stopping when they reached the set of double doors leading outside. Light from a nearby lamppost flooded through the glass panels in the doors. Fishing into his pocket, a ring of keys jangled as he removed them and searched for the one needed to unlock the fire doors.

Mrs Kilpatrick and Patel joined them a moment later, each wearing looks of confused concern. Linus cursed as the keys fell from his hands and clattered to the floor and Kate seized her chance, stooping to pick them up for him and looking him dead in the eye. ‘Just take a moment and tell us what you saw, Mr Linus.’

His hands trembled as she placed the keys into his open palm. ‘It was like I said: a body.’

Kate rested her hand on his to steady it. ‘Where, Mr Linus? Where was this body?’

He closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. ‘I was doing my nightly rounds, you see; checking the school is locked up. I have a routine. I do all the outer buildings first, and then move to the main facility. But when I approached the sports hall… there was something not right… nobody’s been near the place in weeks – well, apart from the building inspector and project manager – but someone’s changed the padlock on the door.’ His story still didn’t explain the pallid nature of his face, or the sweat clinging to his temple.

‘Go on,’ Kate encouraged. ‘What next?’

‘Well, I know the lock was new, because it didn’t have any rust like what the old one did, and none of my keys fitted it. But I swear it wasn’t there a couple of days ago when I let the building inspector in. Someone has changed it.’

Kate spun and looked to Mrs Kilpatrick for support. ‘Is it possible one of the builders or teachers changed the padlock?’

But Mrs Kilpatrick frowned back at her. ‘I don’t know why any of them would. There’s nothing valuable left in there; we only have the padlock to keep the students getting in. It’s not safe, you see – the roof, I mean – that’s why it’s going to be knocked down. The council can’t afford to improve our budget, but it seems they can afford to put a swimming pool in its place. Work starts in a few weeks.’

Kate turned back to Linus. ‘And where is this body you saw?’

Linus’s skin seemed to pale further. ‘I continued my check of the building – there’s a fire exit and window at the rear – and it was as I looked through the window that I saw her.’

‘Her?’ Kate’s pulse quickened.

He nodded ominously. ‘It was covered by a cloth of some sort – but the shape… definitely female.’

Kate’s mind raced for a satisfactory alternative as to why Linus thought he had seen the outline of a female inside a locked and disused sports hall, but nothing fit. ‘Okay, Mr Linus. Take us to this window.’

---

Once outside, Kate shone the torch on her smartphone through the window into the dark hall, but it was almost impossible to see anything more than ten feet away. Pressing her nose to the glass, she studied the floor inside as she moved the beam around. Then she spotted it. Almost out of sight, a bundle beneath a blanket.

‘We’d better take a look inside,’ Kate muttered to Patel. She looked back to Mrs Kilpatrick. ‘You said it wasn’t safe to be inside, what exactly is wrong with the building?’

‘Some of the ceiling tiles are starting to come loose. The building inspector and I have been in several times without injury; I have hard hats you can use if you want to go in, but just be careful.’

Kate nodded for her to fetch the equipment, before facing Linus, who looked like he might keel over at any moment. ‘Do you have any kind of bolt cutters? Or something we can use to cut through that padlock?’

He didn’t respond at first, still staring at the glass.

Kate gently touched his arm. ‘Mr Linus?’

He looked up.

‘Do you have any kind of tool we can use to cut through the padlock?’ Kate repeated.

‘Uh… yes, yes I do. I have bolt cutters. They’ll work, right?’

Kate nodded. ‘Thank you. We’ll meet you back at the front door to the sports hall.’

She waited until Linus had moved away from the building. ‘Thoughts?’

Patel raised his eyebrows. ‘We’re in a secondary school as secure as they come. You saw the security cameras at the gate where we entered this morning? A girl is missing and everyone here is on edge. Do I really think there’s a dead body in that sports hall covered in a tarp? No, but it’ll only take us five minutes to know for sure.’

Kate cupped her hands and breathed warm air onto them. ‘Agreed.’

Patel and Kate completed a perimeter inspection of the sports hall building, finishing back at the entrance. Kate shone her light on the padlock. ‘It definitely looks new.’

Patel stifled a yawn, and nodded his agreement.

‘Here you go,’ Mrs Kilpatrick said, as she approached them holding out yellow hard hats. ‘I can call the building inspector out if you think it would help?’

‘Could you check whether he or any of his team know anything about this new padlock?’ Kate replied. ‘Between the three of us, I doubt there’s anything to be worried about inside, but we’ll check to put Mr Linus’s mind at ease. Tell me, how long has he been the caretaker here at St Bartholomew’s?’

‘He’s been here longer than I have,’ she replied, affectionately. ‘He’s part of the infrastructure.’

‘And is he prone to…’ Kate searched for the right word.

‘Delusions?’ Mrs Kilpatrick offered.

‘I was going to say overreacting.’

‘No, he knows his job and he carries it out with the minimum of fuss.’

Kate thanked her as Linus reappeared holding a pair of the bolt cutters. As he approached them, Kate was sure she could smell the faint trace of whisky on his breath. He passed the cutters to Patel, who quickly snapped the lock.

‘I’d like the two of you to remain out here,’ Kate warned Linus and Mrs Kilpatrick, before opening the door and reaching for the light switch immediately to her left. Darkness remained. ‘The lights aren’t working?’

‘Oh, power’s been cut,’ Linus confirmed. ‘Building inspector wanted everything switching off ahead of the demolition. I can find you a torch if you’d like?’

Kate shook her head, flicking the torch from her phone back on and encouraging Patel to do the same. ‘Never mind. What can you tell me about the layout?’

Linus pointed ahead of them. ‘The main hall is through those doors there. Off to the left there are doors leading to storage rooms where we used to house the vaulting horses and such. Oh, and there is a room to the right where the old gymnasium equipment is now kept; exercise bikes and the like. The window we looked through is at the far side of the hall. I’ll see what I can do to get some power back in there for you.’

Closing the door behind them, Kate shone the beam around the inside of the entrance. Immediately to their right were two doors, leading to what would have been the boys and girls changing rooms and toilets. Bypassing those, they pulled open the door to the hall and were greeted by a stale smell of dried sweat and varnished wood.

‘The window is over there in the south-east corner,’ Patel offered, shining his light ahead of them, ‘which means the tarpaulin should be ahead of us here.’

Walking side-by-side, their torch beams slid over the soft wooden floor following the faded painted lines marking out various courts. Kate shuddered as a draught overhead ruffled through her hair.

‘This place gives me the creeps,’ Patel muttered.

Kate could understand; there was a deathly silence, and their phone lights were throwing strange shadows across the walls where the beams hit PE apparatus on the walls. It was hard not to think of their own kids in a place like this; wondering if they were safe, tucked up at home and waiting for them. They crept towards the tarpaulin, the air suddenly feeling much cooler around them.

‘Shall I do the honours?’ Patel offered, nudging the material with his foot.

‘Together,’ Kate proposed, bending and clutching the end of the material. It felt damp.

She waited for Patel to grip an edge, and then the two of them carefully raised it up and over the mound. Kate’s phone clattered to the floor as she saw the lifeless eyes staring back up at her.