Three Hours(20)

He was away from the siren now, quietness around him. He used to think the ancient woods had a living pulse, beating back through time to charcoal workers cutting trees every fifteen years for iron smelting, so that sunlight could reach the woodland floor and continue the rhythm. And then the violent dissonance of those shots and the pulsing rhythm was stilled.

Footsteps cracked on frozen twigs. He listened again. Someone was near him. The gunman had come after him. He crouched between two hawthorn bushes. He’d already turned off the ringer on his phone, now he turned off vibration.

He ran from the hawthorns to a copse of rowan trees, pressing himself against their trunks, and then he was running again towards the pottery room. He’d thought he was pretty fit, but his muscles ached and his breath was laboured and it felt impossible that he could keep up this pace but he kept running to the next copse of trees; sprinting, hiding, getting his breath back.

Lone wolf, the expression coming into his head because that’s how he imagined him as he ran, a human finger on a trigger with a wolf’s face. But maybe there was more than one; a pack of the bastards.

He reached an oak, its bark covered in dense moss, surrounded by tall holly trees. He pressed himself between the oak and hollies. He couldn’t hear the footsteps, but maybe the snow was muffling his sounds.

Why would anyone do this? Madman, he’d thought earlier, lone wolf, but was that true? What if this was a terrorist attack? But why would terrorists attack this small, non-religious school in Somerset, miles from anywhere?

He saw the path that led to Junior School and ran along it, the snow heavier now. After a hundred yards it forked, the smaller fork leading to the pottery room.

As he raced towards the pottery room, sweat running down his face, he saw children through the windows, their small hands working with clay; one child looked out of the window, up at the snow.

Through the huge pottery-room windows Camille Giraud saw Matthew running – running – towards the pottery room and knew, a wire vibrating inside her, that something was terribly wrong. He came into the room, so much larger than everyone else, his hair and shoulders covered in snow, and he was out of breath.

He turned off the light, making the room abruptly dark. He whispered to her, ‘Code red,’ and then turned smiling to the children.

‘What are you making?’ He was still out of breath, his words sounding strange to her, but not to the children.

‘Acorns! Acorns!’ they all chanted, thrilled by his unexpected arrival.

‘Wonderful! We’ll make a display of them in Old School. Camille, you said there was a problem with a tap?’

They went into the tiny bathroom; her squashed up against the basin, him against the loo; children’s murmurs next door, a boy laughing; no one questioning their headmaster as impromptu plumber.

‘There’s a gunman in the woods,’ he said.

‘A gunman?’ She couldn’t take it in.

‘It’s too dangerous to evacuate them through the woods. Until the police arrive you need to keep them all here. Get them on the floor. Have you got a phone?’

‘Yes. What will you do?’

‘I think the gunman might have followed me. It might be me he’s after. I’m not sure. I think I make you a target.’

‘So, you need to leave.’

‘Yes.’

‘Be careful.’

She went back to join the children, Matthew behind her. He waved goodbye to the children, hesitated by the door for a few moments, and then slipped out.

Camille went to get her mobile out of her jacket pocket but there was only the keys to the minibus, a bag of Jelly Babies and a packet of Kleenex. The phone that she seldom used was in her handbag, which she’d left under the driver’s seat because she didn’t think she’d need it. Didn’t think about the phone. Should have thought. How could she have been so irresponsible? She hurried to the door to call to Matthew, but he was already out of sight.

The children’s heads were bent as they went back to their clay, their hair shiny despite the absence of the overhead lights; all oblivious as they made their acorns.

The dark trees outside the windows looked malevolent to Camille, hiding threat. The glass windows turned into weapons.

‘We’re going to make a house out of our tables,’ she said to them.





6.


9.01 a.m.


They arrived at Fulmar beach. Miss Kowalski’s phone made a cuckoo sound and Mr Lorrimer’s phone pinged – ping! ping! ping! – with messages. Miss Kowalski read her phone and did a little scream, then put her hand over her mouth like she could put the scream back in again and started crying and Mr Lorrimer said ‘Fucking hell’, and the children all laughed because it was such a bad word and if they laughed it would make it funny he’d used a bad word, but Basi just looked down at the beach which had snow footprints not sand footprints. Other teachers couldn’t get reception on their phones, so they all looked at Miss Kowalski’s and Mr Lorrimer’s phones, and Rafi did that too.

‘Everyone run under the cliffs as quick as you can!’ Mrs Cardswell shouted, like she’d got all excited about the game. ‘Each form will hide all together. My form with me, please!’ But the sea and the wind were too loud. So Mr Lorrimer, who had a big booming voice, shouted it too and they all ran under the cliffs, the teachers hurrying them along, like the teachers all really, really wanted to win.