Three Hours(81)
Rose thinks that even if there was a third man up there this morning, Victor Deakin was probably up there as well at some point, surveying the school from high in his eyrie; he’d have enjoyed the feeling of elevated power. But he’d have also got bored, probably wouldn’t have hung around being lookout.
‘The third man’s job would be to watch for the police arriving,’ Bronze Commander continues. ‘He watches the road and drive up to Old School, which are in the opposite direction to Junior School, half a mile away, so he doesn’t see the junior school children evacuating. Meanwhile, Victor Deakin is on the ground. The third man alerts Deakin when the police car is coming so that he can take the shot.’
If this is the case, Rose thinks, then there was no scramble. No flaws.
‘The third man, still up the high ropes, sees the head teacher leaving Old School,’ Bronze Commander continues. ‘He goes after him. But the head returns to Old School and their original plan can go ahead. Then what does he do?’
‘As well as being lookout, he’d have a second job,’ Stuart says. ‘To murder Basi and Rafi Bukhari. The other children and teachers are collaborators but the object of their hatred is Muslims. So he goes to Junior School. A lone police constable who’s been shot at won’t go after him, and it’ll be a while before more police arrive, so he won’t be caught. I think he wants to kill Basi Bukhari first, as a message.’
‘But the Junior School building is empty,’ Bronze Commander says. ‘He doesn’t see the children from the top of the cliffs, doesn’t know they’re sheltering underneath. He thinks Basi Bukhari has been evacuated along with the others. He shoots up a classroom in a rage, not knowing Basi is watching him.’
‘And then he hunts for Rafi,’ Stuart says.
‘My guess is that he went back up the high ropes,’ Bronze Commander says. ‘Used his military-grade binoculars and spotted him.’
‘It wouldn’t be hard,’ Safa Rahman says. ‘Rafi was the only person moving, everyone else was in lockdown, and the snowfall wasn’t yet that heavy.’
‘But how did he know to look for Rafi outside?’ Rose asks. ‘How did he know that he wasn’t in a building or evacuated?’
‘We know at least one teacher on the beach phoned a colleague at the school and said Rafi had left the beach,’ Stuart says. ‘Rafi himself phoned a friend with that information, maybe more than one. So other staff and kids knew and information leaks. It’s probably out there on the net, a news site or social media, and this organization will be scanning everything to do with the school, gleaning information.’
‘Or he could have just got lucky,’ Rahman says. ‘He went back up the high ropes, keeping watch again, spotted someone moving in the woods and went after him. If he hadn’t already seen it was Rafi Bukhari, he did when he got closer.’
‘And then Rafi managed to lose him,’ Rose says.
‘But he knows that Rafi is out there, not protected,’ Rahman says. ‘And he’s hunting for him now.’
Talking as if he exists because the scenario makes too much sense; it points, almost conclusively, to a third terrorist on the school campus. After the purchase of the silencer and subsonic ammo was discovered, there was little doubt, but now Rose thinks there’s none. She needs to check anyway.
‘With a suppressor and the subsonic bullets, would firing the gun make any noise?’
‘Yeah, a bit,’ Safa Rahman says. ‘But hard to detect from any distance.’
‘What sound would it make?’ Rose asks, but she thinks she already knows.
‘Like a twig snapping.’
*
Rafi limps through the blizzard, yelling Basi’s name and waiting for Basi to call back, but there’s just the sounds of the storm. His face has been cut by shrapnel, stinging as he wipes blood and snow away so his eyes are clear to look for his brother. Maybe Basi was outside Mrs Cardswell’s classroom when he saw the gunman, maybe he’s still there.
His phone vibrates, Rose Polstein, and he answers.
‘Do you know something about Basi?’ he asks.
‘No, I’m sorry. Not yet. Rafi, you absolutely have to hide until it’s safe. There is another terrorist in the school grounds who we think is armed. We think that you are a target.’
Rafi hangs up and tries to run round the side of the building to outside Mrs Cardswell’s classroom, his leg so painful he gasps in snow.
But he’d have seen Basi when he was in her classroom earlier. Unless Basi was crouched down outside the window, hiding.
He reaches the outside of Mrs Cardswell’s classroom; a yellow life jacket is lying half buried in the snow under the window frame. Where’s he run to? Which direction? But Basi’s light shallow footprints have long since been filled in.
Rose Polstein wants to help, he rates Rose Polstein, but the police can’t help find Basi, he was stupid to even hope that they could. They can’t fly a helicopter in this snow, and even if they did, Basi would run away because helicopters drop barrel bombs. And if they send in police to look for him, Basi will hide from them, because of France, because they set dogs on him and a dog bit his cheek, and the policeman waited before calling the dog off. He’s terrified of police.
He phones Mr Marr; he’s wanted to talk to him all through this, since he first left the beach, but thought that he mustn’t because Mr Marr has so many other kids to look after. In the camp, he’d thought about Mr Marr’s kind face, remembered his thoughtful eyes and his reassuring voice and what he said, the promise he’d made, and even though Rafi didn’t think he could, he’d kept it. And he’s not a kind face in their memories but a loving man in their lives.