Three Hours(91)

‘It’s been posted on to Aryan Knight’s Instagram and YouTube accounts,’ Usman says. ‘We closed it down, but it had already gone viral.’

A man in a balaclava pointing a gun at children, of course it went viral. Victor has not only orchestrated the violence but also how it is shown; releasing this footage to heat up already febrile news coverage, guaranteeing airtime around the world.

*

In the theatre, they are all on screens watching a repost of Aryan Knight’s YouTube video. Most kids are sharing, even if they have a working mobile of their own, because they want to be close to someone else. Daphne and Sally-Anne watch on Sally-Anne’s iPad.

From high up Daphne sees their school, the snow falling, the beautiful woods, and then further in to see the pottery room where Anna and Davy are. It must be taken from a drone with a camera; but why?

The camera moves down through the falling snow. Through the branches of trees, she sees the pottery room’s huge windows, with something filling them, tiles she thinks, but the snow is too thick to be sure. And then the drone turns and she is looking at a man in army clothes, his face covered by a black balaclava, ammunition belts looped round his body. His gun is pointing at the windows of the pottery room.

The large theatre is silent. Daphne has never heard it so quiet, even when she’s been alone here. And in the quiet, all their phones and iPads play the sound of the wind outside the pottery room.

‘Mr Marr is dying,’ Hannah says. ‘He’s bleeding and he can hardly breathe, he won’t be able to, not for much longer. Frank lied to protect you all, we all did, but I think you should know.’

On stage Caitlin, playing Lady Macduff, and Josh, playing Ross, start their scene, jumping ahead; perhaps they don’t care or perhaps they can’t remember – as if it matters.

‘You must have patience, Madam,’ Ross says.

‘He had none,’ Lady Macduff replies. ‘His flight was madness … Our fears do make us traitors.’

Little Anna is meant to be holding Lady Macduff’s hand, Davy scampering around and not doing as he’s told, while First Murderer waits in the wings, and Daphne must stop this rehearsal. She stands and gestures to Caitlin and Josh to stop but they ignore her. Normally she’d like it that they are not biddable, that the kids here think for themselves, are not in awe of authority – even kids like Caitlin who you’d think would do as they’re told are not like that at all – but she really needs them to do as they are told now.

‘You know not whether it was his wisdom or his fear,’ Ross says and the audience are glued to the stage now, as if it really matters to them, as if a play can make any difference at all.

‘Wisdom? To leave his wife, to leave his babes,’ Lady Macduff says. ‘His mansion, and his titles in a place from whence himself does fly?’

Daphne goes towards the stage. ‘Enough now,’ she says, but Caitlin as Lady Macduff ignores her.

‘He loves us not,

He wants the natural touch, for the poor wren,

The most diminutive of birds, will fight

Her young ones in her nest, against the owl.

All is the fear, and nothing is the love.’

‘Please,’ Daphne says, going to Caitlin, and putting her arm around her. ‘Enough.’





19.


12.11 p.m.


A live feed from a police surveillance UAV shows the terrorists’ drone above the pottery room and the police attack drones moving closer. Another police surveillance UAV gives a wider view. Through the snow, Rose can make out lines of police and counterterrorism specialist firearms officers in their grey uniforms. For the first time, she sees how huge an operation the rescue is.

‘We stay back till their drone is down,’ Bronze Commander says. ‘Then move in fast and take him out.’

A police attack drone moves closer. It shoots out a white net, a spider’s web in the sky that’s barely perceptible in the snow; the net wraps round the terrorists’ drone and brings it plummeting to the ground.

‘Move in,’ Bronze Commander says.

Rose knows that Silver Commander, although off site, is linked into the briefing and will be providing leadership and direction to Bronze Commander.

The first surveillance UAV shows the grey-uniformed armed counterterrorism officers moving swiftly through the snow towards the pottery room.

It will take four minutes until they’re close enough to shoot accurately. Nine minutes till he starts firing. There’s enough time, Rose says to herself.

The snowfall has lessened a little and a second UAV shows Jamie Alton in more detail than Rose has seen before, his converted semi-automatic braced against his right shoulder, hand on the trigger, and then the camera turns to the pottery room and for the first time Rose sees Camille Giraud’s face at the window.

Do your job.

Rose stands back at the open doorway, her face frozen by the wind and the snow, separating herself physically and mentally from everyone else. She has to focus on the thing that’s been bothering her, examine it.

It’s not just the question of why Victor, a narcissistic psychopath, would borrow language from other people less intelligent than himself, but another question that arises from it. What is the link between Patrick Stein, a terrorist who hates Muslims, and Eric Harris, a teenager whose agenda was world infamy? Alone in the cold doorway she sees the link.