Three Hours(35)

‘He was expelled a year ago for attempting to punch a pregnant teacher. A student grabbed him in time. It was an immediate expulsion. Malin has always had behavioural issues but Matthew tries to see the best in a young person, give them a chance to redeem themselves.’

‘How did Malin react to being expelled?’

‘He became uncontrollable. We had to have three male members of staff escort him off the premises, threaten him with the police. Hold on a minute.’

‘Are you okay? Mr Forbright …?’

‘He’s outside again, right outside the door.’

Rose presses the receiver to her ear to block out the other sounds around her. Neil Forbright must be holding the phone away from him, because she can hear a clicking sound. Footsteps, she thinks. She has a sudden glimpse into what it is like to be on your own, a gunman’s footsteps just the other side of a door. She admires Neil’s calm, his quiet courage.

‘Those are the gunman’s footsteps?’

‘Yes.’

‘Can you tell me about them?’

‘He just walks up and down this length of corridor, apart from when he has a cigarette break and then he sits right up against the library door; the kids in the library could smell the smoke. Does that tell you anything?’

‘Possibly, yes.’

She can’t share most of the information she has, but she will talk to him about the footsteps, because she thinks he’s owed that at least and because he might help build a profile.

‘I think that he’s either deliberately trying to intimidate you—’ she says.

‘Because we are less likely to fight back?’

Oh Jesus, please don’t let them fight back. There might have been a chance for some of them against a rifle but not against a semi-automatic.

‘You really mustn’t attempt anything yourselves, do you understand, Mr Forbright? We don’t know what weapons he has.’

‘Right … And the other reason?’ Neil asks.

‘It could be that he gets bored easily, he’s walking up and down to keep moving, to keep himself psyched.’

‘That helps actually. Makes him seem less in control.’

‘What can you tell me about Victor Deakin?’ she asks; the last in the list of expelled students.

‘Victor joined the school in Year Eleven and was expelled just over seven months ago.’

‘Why was he expelled?’

‘I don’t know, I was off sick again at the time; depression. I’m sorry.’

‘Did Mr Marr say anything to you about it?’

‘Just that he’d left. If it wasn’t an ongoing issue, then he wouldn’t have bothered me with it. Matthew tries to take as much off my plate as he can. But Victor wouldn’t have minded being expelled. It was his parents who made him stay here after GCSEs, Victor wanted to go to college. He felt he was being infantilized, his words. He didn’t want to be here. Hold on …’

Neil Forbright must be holding the receiver a little way from his ear again, because she can just make out the footsteps.

‘Mr Forbright …?’

‘I’d forgotten. Earlier, I heard footsteps going down the corridor, not just our stretch, but further, all the way to the front door. The only time they’ve gone that far. But I don’t think they were the same as these, I think they were lighter. I heard the front door. It’s heavy, makes a clang. Then footsteps came back and I think they were heavier.’

‘They swapped over?’

‘I think so, yes.’

‘When was this?’

‘Just after Matthew was shot.’

‘Thank you, Mr Forbright, you’ve been very helpful. Let me know if there’s anything else you think of.’

She ends the call.

‘The BBC warning was from a burner phone,’ DS Thandie Simmonds says. ‘Not traceable. The tech guys say he must have removed the battery. They’re trying to find the last position it was used.’

‘Anything on the voice?’ Rose asks.

‘He used a voice-changer app. They’ve got some background sounds that they’re working on.’

‘Thanks, Thandie.’ She turns to DS Ayari. ‘Amaal, can you look into the significance of today’s date?’

She’s using their first names to create intimacy because in this high-pressure situation they need to feel a personal relationship with one another to function best as a team.

‘Look out for anything a terrorist would ring in his diary,’ she continues to Amaal. ‘Anniversaries, religious holidays, birth dates of martyrs and leaders, and the number – day, month and year, both ways, American and English.’

The cowardly inadequate bastards do so love their special dates.

*

The wind makes the bolt on the shed door do shivery rattling and the dark creak. The eight-year-old boy is shuddering with cold, his knees knocking into his chin as he huddles; his fingers are numb. There’s a keyhole in the shed door with no key and a little bit of light like a magic wand comes through it.

The smell of the shed presses against his face, the rotting smell, but he can smell poo too, so an animal’s in here. He loves all animals, even the ones most people don’t, like rats. Maybe there’s a rat in the shed and they will become friends and he’ll take him with him in his pocket, like in the Indian in the Cupboard book, and no one will even know he’s there and he’ll feed him bits of cheese at lunchtime.