His catch-up meeting with Matthew had barely begun when Rafi phoned from Junior School.
‘Do you think it’s possible the school, or a person in the school, could be a target for terrorists?’
He wants to think the question ludicrous – but what would Daesh make of him? They’d stoned gay men to death in Raqqa and thrown them off buildings; beheaded women for not covering themselves top to toe. He has gay and lesbian colleagues who are married, a transgender student, and no one bats an eye, that’s the thing, nobody bats an eye and girls can wear miniskirts and boys a tutu if that’s what they want, because what you wear doesn’t matter, it is you who matters.
And they’re in the middle of woodland without even a proper fence; so an easy target.
‘You told a police officer earlier that you don’t believe any of your students have been radicalized?’ Rose Polstein says.
‘No. We have safe spaces for debate, democracy in action through the school council, everything that’s required; but tolerance is an integral part of the school. It’s why we don’t have a uniform here and the students are free to practise whatever religion they choose, or none. We have no head boy or girl and no prefects; every member of the school is equally valued and the children are respected by the staff as well as the other way round. We foster tolerance and mutual respect from Reception through to our sixth form.’
He looks at Frank’s email on his phone.
Mr Marr is still conscious. We are all ok. We have barricaded the door with books.
He thinks of the kids in the theatre rehearsing Macbeth; Jacintha and her class reading poetry. They have clearly also fostered courage. He wants to say that he is extraordinarily proud of them, but how will that be helpful?
‘Do you check what students are doing on the net?’ Rose Polstein asks.
‘We get alerts if anyone visits an inappropriate site but most of them have 4G and when they get home we can’t keep an eye on them. But we have equipped them to resist extremism.’
‘One of the students, Rafi Bukhari, is a refugee?’
‘Yes.’
‘How long has he been at the school?’
‘Just over two and a half years.’
‘How did he come to be here?’
‘Matthew, the head, met him and his brother at the Dunkirk migrant camp, they were unaccompanied vulnerable children. There was a huge amount of red tape, lots of barriers, but Matthew managed to bring them here.’
Matthew had gone as a volunteer teacher to the Dunkirk camp for the Christmas holidays and then spent months waging a one-man campaign against bureaucracy to get Rafi and Basi to England; sponsoring them himself, finding foster parents, getting them a bursary to come to this school; feeling guilt for the unaccompanied children he’d had to leave behind. Neil has sometimes suspected Matthew just hid the boys in his boot and drove them here himself.
‘The Bukhari brothers are from Syria?’
‘Yes.’
‘They’re Muslims?’
Neil thinks these questions are suggesting something ugly.
‘It was Rafi who knew what the bomb was and warned us, nobody else had a clue. He made sure the juniors were evacuated. He and his brother came to England because their father and older brother were murdered; they wanted to be safe.’
Outside his door, the footsteps are coming closer, as if they have followed Rafi and Basi here, the terror they fled.
‘Poor boys,’ Rose Polstein says and her tone is softer; she must’ve had to check.
‘Do you know why Rafi left the beach?’
‘Probably to make sure his girlfriend was okay.’
* * *
Rose thinks for a moment about Rafi Bukhari, evacuating Junior School then coming back to make sure his girlfriend was all right. Stupid bloody boy; stupid bloody brave boy.
She is now in her own command and control vehicle with her team of three: Detective Sergeant Thandie Simmonds, a black woman who’s young to be a DS; quietly spoken Detective Sergeant Amaal Ayari; and Detective Constable George Hail, the most junior member of the team. She would have liked time for proper introductions, a bonding cup of coffee, but they are getting to know each other on the hoof. Young DC George Hail looks nauseous, his freckles vivid against pallid skin, and she hopes he isn’t horribly out of his depth. Their job is to liaise with other officers and feed back to Rose, as well as endeavouring to collect any information she asks for.
Her conversation with Neil Forbright is on speakerphone so that they can quickly share and follow up any new leads.
‘I need to ask you about people who may have a personal grudge against the school,’ Rose says. She has a list of names that Neil has already given the police, and they are being investigated by other officers, but she wants to check for herself.
‘What can you tell me about Mark Henley?’
She expects Neil to tell her he’s said all this before, but to his credit he doesn’t.
‘Mark was a maths teacher here; he shouted at the kids, belittled them by reading out test results, that kind of thing. Didn’t fit the ethos of the school. He was sent on a retraining course but his behaviour deteriorated.’
‘And after that he was fired?’
‘Yes.’
‘A year ago?’
‘Yes. He stopped teaching after that, went into business, I think.’
‘What about Jed Soames?’
‘A PE teacher. He flirted with a girl in Year Thirteen and secretly asked her out. One of her friends came to me. He resigned before he was fired but we wouldn’t supply a reference. She was eighteen, so a grey area legally but not morally. That was nearly two years ago now.’
‘What was his reaction to not getting a reference?’
‘He tried to sue, sent Matthew and some of the governors abusive emails, but then he stopped the legal proceedings. I don’t know why.’
‘There’ve been three students expelled in the last five years?’ she asks.
‘Yes. Simon Shawcross, Victor Deakin and Malin Cohen. Simon was found dealing Spice eighteen months ago. We give second chances to users of drugs, but not dealing. We reported him to the police.’
‘And Malin Cohen?’ Other teachers have told the police about Malin’s aggression; Malin Cohen is the one name that’s been put forward, reluctantly, but put forward all the same.
‘He was expelled a year ago for attempting to punch a pregnant teacher. A student grabbed him in time. It was an immediate expulsion. Malin has always had behavioural issues but Matthew tries to see the best in a young person, give them a chance to redeem themselves.’
‘How did Malin react to being expelled?’
‘He became uncontrollable. We had to have three male members of staff escort him off the premises, threaten him with the police. Hold on a minute.’
‘Are you okay? Mr Forbright …?’
‘He’s outside again, right outside the door.’
Rose presses the receiver to her ear to block out the other sounds around her. Neil Forbright must be holding the phone away from him, because she can hear a clicking sound. Footsteps, she thinks. She has a sudden glimpse into what it is like to be on your own, a gunman’s footsteps just the other side of a door. She admires Neil’s calm, his quiet courage.
‘Those are the gunman’s footsteps?’