But Basi doesn’t speak, just breathless hiccuppy crying.
‘One elephant, two elephants, count your breaths, that’s it, slowly, three—’
‘I left the beach. I wanted to be with you.’
Rafi feels sick; his hand holding the phone is shaking.
‘You didn’t get on the boat?’
He’s shouting at Basi, like he’s angry, but it’s because otherwise Basi won’t hear him above the sound of the wind. Basi’s voice is very quiet.
‘No. I didn’t.’
He tries to sound calm so Basi won’t know he feels sick and his hands are shaking.
‘It’s all right. Don’t worry. I’ll come and find you.’
‘There was a man with a gun. He shot our scarecrows.’
‘Did the man hurt you?’
‘No. I kept still as a statue and then I hid. You have to be careful of the man.’
The connection ends. He dials Basi but it goes to voicemail.
He hurriedly phones Rose Polstein. Someone else answers, but then he puts Rafi through to Rose.
‘My little brother, he’s not on a boat.’
He’s now running through the woods towards Junior School.
‘We just heard. I’m so sorry, Rafi. Did he say where he is?’ Rose Polstein asks.
‘No, and he’s run out of charge, but he saw a man with a gun shooting at the scarecrows which are in Mrs Cardswell’s classroom window, and then he hid, so he must be in Junior School.’
He’s having to yell above the wind and run at the same time and it’s making him breathless.
‘Did he describe the man?’
‘No, just said he had a gun.’
‘Do you know what time he saw this man?’
‘I think he left the beach just after I did. So I think maybe about nine thirty.’
Basi came after him and Rafi didn’t know. He never turned round to look. Even though Basi’s a fast runner, he’s much smaller than him and would have taken longer to get to the top of the path.
‘We only know of two gunmen, Rafi, and neither of them is now anywhere near the Junior School building. I want you to find a place to hide and then stay put till this is over.’
‘Okay.’
He ends the phone call with Rose Polstein and keeps running. He’ll hide when he’s found his brother.
Basi is frightened, but he said he wasn’t hurt. And Rose Polstein, who he trusts, doesn’t think there’s a gunman near Junior School any more. Besides, surely they wouldn’t spend time looking for one little boy?
It’s all right. Don’t worry. I’ll come and find you.
He remembers, suddenly and vividly, men with guns and dogs pushing Basi and him face down into the sand on the beach by Abu Qir harbour. They were separating the refugees into three different groups. He’d squashed up tight to Basi, put an arm around him, as if they were just one person lying on the sand. One of the men had put a gun between them, using it to prise them apart. Rafi had bunched Basi’s damp T-shirt into his hand and held on tightly and the man moved on to the next group and they hadn’t been separated.
The last time he ran to Basi through the woods it was barely snowing; now the trees and path are covered in white. Only half a mile to Junior School. He will get to him soon.
* * *
Rafi will find it really funny that’s he’s inside a boat inside a shed because they’ve been in a boat before and in a shed before but not at the same time! The boat was really squashed and Rafi had to stand on one leg so Basi had room to sleep, but the shed in the Dunkirk camp was nice; Rafi called it their castle because it had a bolt on the door. His friends call places homey when they play ‘It’ and he always thinks of their castle-shed when they say homey.
In the camp, the girls and the women slept in nappies and the boys had bottles, because it was too dangerous to go out at night if you needed to wee. In the day Rafi had to leave their castle-shed-homey to get food and they had their own special knock – rat-a-TAT-tat; rat-a-TAT-tat.
‘But why can’t you just say it’s you?’ he asked Rafi.
‘I think there’s a place giving out food.’
Which wasn’t an answer; Mr Lorrimer would say that was slippery. Once when Rafi had gone out someone had knocked, THUD THUD, not rat-a-TAT-tat, rat-a-TAT-tat. He didn’t unlock the door and then he heard men’s voices shouting but they’d gone away again. Later he heard rat-a-TAT-tat, rat-a-TAT-tat and knew it must be Rafi and when he’d opened the door. Rafi was there with the Soup Sisters. The smiley-eyes sister held his hand all the way to their soup kitchen, and they stayed with him and Rafi, even when the food had all gone, so that nobody would hurt them.
Rafi’s a really fast runner. And he’ll be here soon and then he’ll be all right.
12.
10.17 a.m.
‘I’ve checked with all other units,’ Thandie tells Rose. ‘There’s been no sighting or indications of a third gunman.’
They all want to believe there are no more gunmen; that Basi and Rafi are safe.
‘It must’ve been one of the two gunmen we know about who Basi saw in the Junior School building,’ Thandie says. ‘He shoots at the first copper to arrive then follows the head teacher through the woods. The head goes to the pottery room but the gunman goes on through the woods to Junior School and hunts for children, which is when Basi coming up from the beach sees him.’
‘But Junior School was empty so he went to the pottery room?’ George asks.
‘Yes. There was still a class of young children left to terrorize.’
‘What I don’t understand,’ George says, ‘is why didn’t he shoot the head teacher in the woods? Why allow him to come back to the school?’
‘I think this was very carefully planned,’ Rose says. ‘But the plan didn’t include the headmaster leaving Old School to warn anyone in the pottery room, because they didn’t predict anyone being in the pottery room. I think the gunman followed the headmaster, hoping he’d return and they could continue with their original plan.’
‘Because shooting him in Old School would cause more terror to the children and staff?’ Thandie says.
‘Yes.’
‘The tech teams have got mobile phone numbers that are on in the theatre and Old School,’ Amaal says. ‘The numbers have all been matched to kids and staff, as well as PC Beard’s personal number that’s on in the gatehouse. They’ve got one number in Old School which doesn’t match students or staff, so must be the gunman’s. They’re trying to trace an ID.’
If they find out who he is, Rose has a chance of predicting what he’s going to do. But the gunman in Old School will be using a burner. He won’t use his own mobile; not going to make their life easy like that. Bastard.
She watches the feed from the police surveillance UAV above the pottery room and can just make out the teacher pushing her clay tiles against the window; protection against flying glass but useless against bullets. The teacher’s name is Camille Giraud, Rose has found out. Camille’s colleagues say that she’s sensitive and artistic; their surveillance footage shows that she is also brave and indefatigable.
It’s snowing harder, making it more difficult to spot a hostile surveillance drone. Rose had hoped if one was watching from the sky snow would get into its motor or blades and bring it down, as happened with the amateur drones, but apparently not; not if they’ve got one of near-military grade.