Three Hours(44)

‘I think the school was meant to go into lockdown,’ she tells Stuart. ‘The bomb made the woods appear dangerous so that the decision was made not to evacuate children and staff through the woods but to stay inside school buildings. One gunman was already hiding in Old School. I think that the other gunman, who shot at PC Beard from the woods and then followed Mr Marr through the woods, wanted to reinforce the idea that the woods were too dangerous for the children and staff to go into. Again, he was keeping everyone inside buildings; corralling them inside.’

‘And junior school would have been a soft target if they’d stayed inside their building.’

‘Exactly. Pure bad luck for the bombers that it was Rafi Bukhari who saw the small explosion and knew what it was and got junior school evacuated; probably the only person in the school who’d do that. But I don’t think our bomber necessarily banked on it being seen by anyone – it’s a large woodland, and classes were about to start so most people would’ve been inside.’

‘But if nobody saw the explosion, shooting at PC Beard from the woods would make the point that the woods were dangerous.’

‘Yes. I think the explosion may be part of some kind of game we don’t yet understand, that links to the rifles as a misdirect. I think it tells us something about the mindset of one of the gunmen.’

‘And you’re working on the mindset?’

‘Yes.’

She ends the conversation.

‘Victor Deakin hasn’t turned up to college,’ George tells her. ‘And there’s no sign of Malin Cohen either. Teams are en route to all suspects’ houses.’

‘I’ve got an evacuated teacher on the line,’ Amaal says. ‘Gina Patterson wants to talk about Victor Deakin, one of the boys who was expelled.’

Rose puts the phone on speaker.

‘Gina, my name’s Detective Inspector Rose Polstein. What can you tell me?’

‘We all just thought it was for his EPQ, what Victor wrote, but maybe it wasn’t. Maybe that’s why Matthew expelled him, maybe it’s Victor doing this. I mean I don’t think it is, I can’t believe that, but he only joined us in Year Eleven and most of our kids have been at the school for years, since Reception, so we know them really well and they absorb the school ethos, but Victor—’

‘What did Victor Deakin write?’

‘It was a rape fantasy. He said it was for his EPQ, extended project qualification, which was on sex offenders. He told the teacher who found it that he was just getting into the mindset of a sex offender. His tutor confirmed he was doing an EPQ on that. He said he just chose the name Sarah because it was a common name. But there’s a girl called Sarah in the year below.’

‘Her surname?’

‘Jensten.’

‘Did Sarah and her parents want him gone?’

‘No, they believed him. He wrote to them, to Sarah and her parents, to apologize for any upset he might have caused. I saw the letters. He was genuinely sorry.’

‘But he was still expelled?’

‘No. Matthew let him stay on condition that Olav Christoffersen, head of IT, had daily access to his laptop and his tutor could conduct random searches of his study area. Victor said he understood. Most of us thought Matthew was being too harsh, all teenagers have things on their laptops they’d rather keep hidden, but Matthew said he was being careful.’

‘And then?’

‘I don’t know. Matthew didn’t talk to us about the expulsion. It was the summer term so we were frantically busy, focusing on our GCSE and A-level students, too busy to pursue Matthew about it. But what if Olav found something on Victor’s laptop? What if that’s why he was expelled?’

‘Did Olav Christoffersen say anything?’

‘No, but he wouldn’t. Olav’s very circumspect, never gossips. And like I said, we were all really busy so we just accepted the decision and got on with our jobs.’

‘Do you know if Victor is friends with Malin Cohen?’

‘They live close to each other, but I didn’t think they were friends. Victor’s off-the-chart bright, Malin struggles academically. But I suppose it makes sense. If any of this makes sense, Christ. Malin’s a thug. Always has been. An uncontrollable temper.’

This corroborates what other teachers have told them.

‘Is there anything that’s happened recently that’s been strange, even a small thing?’

‘Well, there was something, I suppose, but it was three months ago now.’

‘Can you tell me?’

‘One of the gardeners saw a man outside a maintenance shed. There’s a tractor and trailer, tools, that kind of thing. But nothing was stolen.’

‘Is the gardener here today?’

‘No, he works part-time in the winter.’

‘Did he say what this man looked like?’

‘No, I think he just saw his back. It was in the school holidays, so not a student. But like I said, nothing was stolen so we didn’t take it any further.’

‘Where is the maintenance shed?’

‘Just off the drive in the woods, near the high ropes course.’

‘Is there anything else you can think of at all?’

‘Just some silly pranks. In the last few weeks, someone cling-filmed the stools together in the science labs; someone put glow-in-the-dark slime inside the girls’ toilets in the art block; someone rang Old School’s doorbell really loudly and then ran away again before we could see who it was. That’s all.’