Three Hours(69)
Rafi told him about a devil in the Quran called Iblis, with immense hubris, but whose only power is to cast evil suggestion into men’s hearts. Why is he thinking of Iblis?
He sees the day with the blue sky, Old School bright with flowers, a bird calling.
He doesn’t know what this day means, but he sees the darkness surrounding it and it’s hiding something.
He feels someone gently stroking his face, and forces himself to go into the darkness, further and further, and it brings him to the school corridor with the photos of boy soldiers.
It’s darker than normal, the lights are switched off, the corridor dim. Hannah is with him; she was waiting for news of Rafi, maybe about to go and find him because she loves Rafi too. He’s talking to the policeman in their gatehouse. Tobias is next to him and he’s trying to hurry Tobias along.
A door closing.
Which door? Must be the door to the drawing room, which he thought was empty.
Footsteps in the corridor behind them.
Hannah goes into the library, but Tobias isn’t moving.
The footsteps continuing, getting closer.
A click. The cock of a gun.
He makes Tobias go into the library.
He turns to face the man behind him.
A balaclava covering his face. He’s pointing a rifle. Another gun, like a machine gun, strapped to his chest. The rigidity of hatred, so that the guns and his hate are the same. He takes a step away from the gunman, his back against the wall; by his head is the display case of medals.
‘Please,’ he says, dropping his phone, betraying his fear. ‘Talk to me. Tell me why you’re doing this.’
‘Collaborators!’
Jamie Alton’s voice.
Stillness, time waiting.
The subtle press of a trigger.
The bullet travelling faster than its own sound.
Collaborators
Shrapnel made of gallantry.
Collaborators
Those boys dying so that this wouldn’t happen.
The benevolent order of things destroyed.
He was outside Old School seven months earlier, the sky a perfect china-blue above him, the front of the building bright with white and purple clematis flowers, the call of a pied flycatcher; summer term, the start of the second week. That morning Olav Christoffersen had told him what he’d decrypted on Victor’s laptop, shown him the journal, and he’d instantly expelled him.
Jamie Alton came up to him, distraught, tears streaming down his face.
‘Please let Victor stay. Please.’
But he couldn’t possibly do that.
‘It’s not his fault his dad lost their money,’ Jamie said. ‘You have a bursary fund, use that to pay his fees.’
So that was the story that Victor was spinning.
‘They don’t look poor,’ Jamie said. ‘But their cars are on HP and the house is already remortgaged.’
‘Jamie—’
‘You pay for the Bukhari brothers, so why not Victor?’
‘This is nothing to do with money, Jamie. I can’t have him in the school. He’s done something wicked.’
‘He told me you’d come up with something. An excuse. Why should the Bukhari boys be here instead of him?’
‘Jamie—’
‘He said you’d rather pay for fucking Muslims to be here but not one of your own! They’re not even English! Don’t belong here!’
And he heard Victor’s voice in Jamie’s, in this boy who was normally gentle and quiet.
‘Like I said, this isn’t about fees. He’s done something unforgivable. You need to stay away from Victor.’
He’d attempted to comfort him, at one point trying to put an arm around him, but Jamie, silently tearful, had shaken him off. He’d just expelled his only close friend and at that moment he hated him. But Matthew didn’t think that would last. And without Victor at the school Jamie would surely rekindle his old friendships and make new ones.
And he hadn’t really thought Jamie needed to stay away from Victor, because even if Jamie wanted to continue the friendship he was certain that once Victor left the school he’d leave younger, shyer, more innocent, less clever Jamie behind him. A belief based on twenty-five years of teaching young people that was appallingly wrong.
They’d stayed friends; and the crying boy in April, loyal to a vicious older boy, vulnerable to him, had been turned into the man in the corridor, rigid with hatred.
Collaborators
The school is being attacked for taking in Muslim refugees.
But surely they’ll just target him, please God let them just be violent towards him.
*
Despite the open door, the command and control vehicle feels more cramped to Rose, people’s breath and body odour close up against her. It’s now been two hours and twenty-eight minutes since the first shots at the police car; one hour and fifty-seven minutes since the head teacher was shot. Victor hasn’t pushed at the library door again but she fears he will.
Lysander and Stuart, senior officer in counterterrorism intelligence, come on to the screen. This briefing is going to all senior officers.
‘On the dark net I have uncovered multiple communication channels between Victor Deakin and Jamie Alton and an organization called “14 Words”,’ Lysander says. ‘They are both members of this organization.’