Three Hours(52)

On Dannisha’s phone Victor has marked the text as read.

‘Okay, let’s try calling him,’ Dannisha says.

She phones Victor Deakin’s mobile; all calls are on speakerphone. The call goes through to message but he hasn’t recorded a message, just silence, wrong-footing the caller.

‘You said he didn’t want to be at the school for sixth form?’ Dannisha asks.

‘That’s right. Neil Forbright said Victor thought it infantilized him,’ Rose replies and she thinks the word is telling.

‘I’ve got a lad in the theatre,’ Amaal tells Rose. ‘He knows something about Victor but he’s in a state. Name’s Zac Benton.’

‘Thanks.’ She takes the call. ‘Zac? My name’s Rose. You all okay in there?’

‘Yeah.’

He’s breathing too fast; she needs to calm him.

‘You’re rehearsing Macbeth?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Where’ve you got to?’

‘Duncan’s palace in Act One.’

His breathing sounds a little slower.

‘You’ve got something to tell us about Victor Deakin?’ she asks.

‘I don’t know. I hung out with him and Jamie for a bit, but that was ages ago.’

‘Jamie Alton?’

‘Yes.’

‘Can you tell me anything you know about Victor? Can you do that, Zac?’

‘Jamie was Victor’s friend but then he wouldn’t see Victor any more. Said Victor was psycho. And now Jamie’s missing.’

The boy’s voice is jumpy and his breathing too fast again; so his fear is for Jamie not himself.

‘I didn’t make sure Jamie was okay. I’m his friend, used to be really close to him, but …’

‘We’re doing all we can, Zac. I promise you that. Do you know why Jamie called Victor psycho?’

‘It was after this thing in Exeter, at Halloween.’

‘Can you tell me about that?’

‘Yeah. Victor threw a brick through a shop window. Jamie said he’d brought the brick in his messenger bag, that he’d planned it, but Jamie didn’t know anything about it till it happened. The shop alarm went off. Jamie told Victor to run away, but he wouldn’t, even though Jamie kept saying the police would be there any minute. Victor peed through the broken window but Jamie said the police can’t have known about that because they didn’t charge them.’

‘Was that what upset Jamie? Vandalizing a shop and getting arrested?’

She thinks there’s more to this.

‘Victor made it look like it was all Jamie’s fault, but in a mind-fuck way – sorry. He told the police not to be hard on Jamie, not to blame him, that he was older and took full responsibility for it. Jamie said the police lapped it up. They didn’t believe Jamie when he said he’d had nothing to do with it, they thought he was pathetic and Victor was this really decent guy protecting him.’

‘And Jamie stopped being friends with him?’

‘Yes. Said I was right about him, because Victor had done all sorts of weird shit, Jamie just hadn’t really seen it before.’

‘What kind of weird shit?’

‘There was an after-party at Easter. Victor said he’d got Rohypnol and was going to put it into Aysha’s drink.’

‘Is Aysha at your school?’

‘Yes, but she’s been evacuated – because I wondered, when I heard about Victor – anyway, I got angry with Victor about the Rohypnol, but he said loads of girls fancied him so he didn’t need to use Rohypnol, said that was why it was a fucking joke. Jamie had believed that, most people did. But the thing is, I knew Aysha didn’t like him.’

‘What happened?’

‘I told Aysha and she left the party. Even if it was a joke, it was a sick joke. But after the shop thing, Jamie saw what he was really like.’

‘Did Victor have other friends at school?’

‘Yeah. But nobody close, nobody he stayed in touch with after he left apart from Jamie, and then not him.’

‘What about Malin Cohen?’

‘Not when they were at school but maybe after they both left, I don’t really know.’

‘Do you know how Victor gets hold of people?’

‘Snapchat mainly. I was on his group Snapchat for a bit, before he left.’

After ten seconds, a Snapchat message disappears.

‘Did you screenshot any of them?’

‘No. Sorry.’

‘Do you remember any?’

‘Not really, they were just weird. He used the Face Stealer app. Like, where you can merge your face into someone else, like Einstein or Hitler or whatever? There was one where he had shark teeth where his mouth should be, black holes instead of eyes. Freaky. Sometimes he used WhatsApp too, with a voice-changer app, like for a joke. Will you find Jamie?’

‘We’ll do everything we can, I promise.’

She ends the call with Zac.

An update comes through from a police officer at Victor Deakin’s house. This briefing is going to all personnel. In the background, they can hear drawers and cupboards being opened; the room’s being ransacked.

‘We’ve found ammo for a semi-automatic and ingredients for a pressure-cooker bomb,’ the officer says.