Three Hours(43)
*
In the leisure centre cafeteria, Beth Alton has one hand holding on to the edge of the Formica table, as if she needs to keep hold of something, everything physically precarious, her other hand holding her phone that Jamie doesn’t ring.
The large room around her has come more into focus. On the far side, at the tables of junior school parents, a mother tries to rock a baby to sleep, her movements jerky; a father has a toddler on his lap who’s watching cartoons on an iPad, headphones much too big for him. It’s only when she sees how young the junior school mothers and fathers are that she realizes how long ago it was since Jamie and Theo were that age; since she was. It goes in a blink, she wants to say to them, warn them, all of it, just a blink.
The older male police officer asks a group of junior school parents to go with him. Beth watches them leave the room, footsteps springy with relief. She assumes that these elect parents have children who are now safely evacuated, what other reason could there be for them to leave? Elect, why did she think that? As if there was some kind of Calvinist salvation and the cafeteria is purgatory. Do Calvinists believe in purgatory? Or is that just a Catholic thing? She absolutely believes in purgatory now, knows first-hand all about purgatory, and it has a linoleum floor and Formica tables and no windows and a phone that doesn’t ring. Doesn’t ring.
Calvin, Mum? Really?
His voice is smiling and it feels so real that for a moment he’s here in this terrible place.
At the table next to Beth there are two mothers who are clearly friends, clutching at each other’s hands, both manicured, so that their long shiny nails in different bright colours interweave, their faces pale. She can’t hear what the dark-haired woman is saying, but she catches ‘Antonella’ a few times; so, she is Antonella’s mother. She feels fury, hot and urgent, with this manicured woman as if it’s her fault her daughter broke up with Jamie. Wrong. Wrong. She just wishes Jamie was still in love and happy, so that he’d have that to hold on to while this terrible thing is happening.
Steve, the young man, holding his mobile, raises his voice: ‘My fiancée is on one of the boats with the children, they’ve got away.’
The room quietens instantly, as if for a moment it’s all their children who are safely on boats. And then questions erupt from junior school parents whose children are on the boats, and the parents whose children are still in danger feel the contrast.
‘Milly’s terrified of the sea,’ a young mother says, crying.
‘They’re being very well looked after,’ the woman police officer says. ‘The boats are very stable and they’re all wearing life jackets. The lifeboat men will take good care—’
‘We never go on seaside holidays,’ the mother says. ‘We go to the Dordogne. There’s a river and Milly likes rivers and she’s been canoeing with the school on an inlet, but the sea really frightens her.’
Beth doesn’t want to listen; doesn’t want to feel blazing outrage that this woman can be talking about her Dordogne holiday and canoeing when Jamie is hiding and in danger.
You worry too much about me, Mum, you really do.
I know. You’re right. But now I am really worried and it makes all those other times seem so stupid.
Worrying that his ex-girlfriend, this Antonella, had broken his heart, and him being lonely and too shy and not confident, and none of those things matter to her, not one bit. And never will again.
11.
10.10 a.m.
The police still do not know if the gunmen intend to make demands and negotiate or if they are waiting for a yet larger audience, perhaps for more countries around the world to wake up and follow the siege (siege the word being used by the media).
Four drones, all operated by off-site amateurs hoping to cash in by selling photos, malfunctioned because of the snow and crashed to the ground; but there may be more above the school. A severe weather warning has been issued; the storm is closing in with blizzarding snow and strong winds which will hamper the search. It will also make flying helicopters virtually impossible and impact their hunt for a possible third gunman.
Hopefully, there’s no third attacker to be found and Rafi is safe. But Rose will keep her word and give him a bollocking when this is over for not being evacuated with junior school, for adding to the stress of their job, for being so bloody inconsiderate. Do you have to be sixteen to be so idiotically, wonderfully courageous like that? She wonders if she or Jonny would leave safety and return to face a gunman on just the supposition that the other might be in danger. She thinks that they would, but it’s hardly likely to ever be put to the test. Jesus, Rose, focus.
Stuart Dingwall, senior officer in counterterrorism intelligence, comes on the line.
‘Rose? Stuart. One of our surveillance UAVs found the remains of the bomb and sent us footage. It’s pretty much covered in snow but there’s enough to confirm our guess that it was a pressure-cooker bomb; but not powerful. Two teachers heard it and thought it was firecrackers. A girl on TV said she thought it was a bonfire and a pigeon scarer. What I don’t understand is why set it off in the first place? Do you have any idea? Because logically I can’t think of a reason.’
Rose has wondered that too, because apart from Rafi, it didn’t frighten anyone, if that’s what it was meant to do; all it did was alert the school and the police. But she now believes the woods were significant.