Rafi reaches the wire-link fence round Junior School; the playground is deep in snow, everything different and strange. His phone has kept vibrating with calls: Benny and his foster parents – loads of times, as soon as they found out – and other friends and Rose Polstein, but he didn’t answer because how can any of them help him? And because he needs to conserve his phone’s juice for when he finds Basi. Rose Polstein has also texted him, telling him to ring her urgently, but she’ll just want to know that he’s hiding and he can’t, not till he’s found his brother.
The lock on the gate is broken and he walks through; no sight or sound of children, just the wind making the swings rock and the slide creak. He sees the hardback book on a swing, protected by the pirate ship canopy, a book of fairy tales, the jacket illustrated with woods and snow falling. He notices there’s a label attached – For Basi Bukhari – and remembers how kind everyone has been to Basi, giving him toys and clothes and books, and generous to Rafi too – a total stranger gave him a guitar, which he’s learning to play. When he sees Basi’s book he remembers all these strangers’ kindnesses; when they arrived, there’d been welcome banners, like arms stretching open.
He picks up the book to take to Basi and sees a wire. He throws it. The book explodes, birds startling out of the trees, and his right leg is alight with pain.
There are pieces of metal and burns through his jeans, a jagged piece of metal deep in his thigh. Feeling dizzy and sick, he takes hold of the larger piece of shrapnel and tries to pull it free of his leg, but it won’t come out. The startled birds have gone back to the trees but the air still hums with the shock of it.
* * *
Police surveillance UAVs are hunting for any terrorist drone over the pottery room. They have fifty minutes till Jamie Alton opens fire.
Lysander comes on to the screen.
‘We’ve deciphered a post Victor Deakin wrote on the 14 Words website, a month ago, which wasn’t so heavily encrypted. I’m sending it to you now.’
Rose reads: ‘The only good Muslim is a dead Muslim. If you’re a Muslim I’m going to enjoy shooting you in the head.’
Her first reaction is anxiety for Rafi and Basi Bukhari, their vulnerability stripped raw; but worrying about them won’t help them, do your job.
Victor taught himself ancient Greek and Latin for fun, so why’s he using such basic language?
She phones Stuart Dingwall in counterterrorism.
‘Stuart? Rose. You got the post? This doesn’t fit with Deakin.’
‘No, he’s copied it from a white supremacist called Patrick Stein.’
And that’s also strange, because why would Victor, a narcissistic psychopath who feels god-like, copy anyone?
‘What can you tell me about Stein?’ she asks.
‘Part of a terrorist organization in the US called The Crusaders, who planned to attack Muslims. Hold on, I’ll bring it up. Yes, their plot was uncovered by the FBI in October 2016; it was less than a month before the presidential election and it didn’t get a great deal of news coverage even in the US.’
But Victor Deakin saw it and must have followed it closely to be lifting words from Patrick Stein.
‘They saw themselves as “patriots resisting a Muslim takeover of the United States”,’ Stuart continues. ‘They planned to massacre as many Muslims as possible, who they called cockroaches.’
* * *
The door to Junior School has been shot off its hinges, lying on the ground covered in snow. Rafi goes inside but doesn’t call out Basi’s name, in case a gunman is in the building; in case Basi replies and gives his hiding place away.
He goes along the corridor, lined with shelves full of children’s books. His injured right leg is making him nauseous. He wants to try pulling the metal out again, to stop the burning pain, but then he’d bleed more and the man might see the blood; would find him, would find Basi.
He goes into Basi’s classroom and for a shocking, gut-wrenching moment thinks that there are children lying on the floor, but it’s scarecrows, just scarecrows in children’s clothing. Snow is being blown by the wind through the shattered windows on top of the mangled scarecrows and shards of glass. The rage of the gunman is a presence in the room.
He searches for Basi, looking in cupboards, under desks, going into every classroom and Mr Lorrimer’s office too. No sign of him.
There must’ve been a reason he’d thought Basi was inside Junior School, but he can’t remember the reason, his brain too unfocused with pain.
He goes back outside into the snow.
* * *
Thandie passes Rose a phone. ‘It’s Rafi Bukhari. Basi isn’t inside the Junior School building. And he’s been injured.’
As she’d thought, he hadn’t done as she’d told him and hidden and stayed safe.
‘Rafi, it’s Rose Polstein …’
To start with she can only hear the wind and then she makes out ragged breathing.
‘Rafi? Are you badly hurt?’
‘I don’t know where Basi is. There was a bomb meant for him.’
‘What kind of bomb?’
‘An IED in a book, there was a label with Basi’s name on it in the playground. Grimm’s Fairy Tales, I picked it up. Saw a wire and threw it. The book exploded. Fuck. Fuck. Sorry.’
‘It really hurts?’
‘I’ll be okay. It was there this morning on a swing, I saw it. He must have left it there this morning.’
And if a different child picked it up that was okay because collaborators will be punished.
She turns to Amaal. ‘Tell counterterrorism. And put out an alert to all officers that there could be IEDs; anything could be a booby-trapped bomb.’
She goes back to Rafi, hears the wind howling around him.
‘I thought there was someone following me earlier. He might be after Basi.’
He’s having to shout, but as if it’s hard, as if pain has taken strength from his voice.
‘Where did you see this man?’
‘I didn’t see him, just heard him, in the woods. And near Old School. But then I lost him. I might have imagined him.’
She doesn’t hear him the first time and he has to repeat it, and she thinks this conversation is exhausting him.
‘Can you tell me what you heard?’
‘Thought I was just being crazy. An anorak rustling and a couple of times I heard a twig snapping.’
He pauses and in between the strong gusts of wind she can hear the boy’s fast uneven breathing around his pain.
‘The thing you need to know,’ he says, ‘is that I have hypervigilant PTSD, with paranoia and psychosis. It was a real IED in a book for Basi, but the person behind me might not have been real. Most likely wasn’t, but I thought you should know, in case, for Basi. Even though I’m not reliable.’
‘You got all the children in Junior School to safety, hypervigilant PTSD or not. I think you’re pretty damn wonderful actually. When was the last time you thought this man was behind you?’
‘Not sure. Just after ten.’
At that time, Jamie was in position outside the pottery room, Victor inside Old School. So, if Rafi didn’t imagine him, this is evidence of a third terrorist here at the school.
The wind drops and there’s a moment of stillness at the other end of the phone.