Jack disarmed the girl, but the boy wouldn’t…’ She paused, unsure how to explain. ‘Jack had to shoot him.’
‘Dead?’ Luella almost screamed.
‘I don’t suppose Lilly took his pulse,’ said Penny.
Lilly smiled. ‘You’re right, I didn’t, but I’d say he was dead. The wound to his head was too serious to survive.’
‘Jack must have thought the situation was pretty grave,’ said Penny.
‘It was. The boy might have shot someone else,’ said Lilly.
Luella could barely contain herself. ‘Someone else! You mean he’d already killed someone?’
‘I don’t know. They took someone off in an ambulance.’
‘Who?’ asked Penny.
Lilly squeezed her eyes shut, picturing the boy, white and still on the stretcher. ‘A pupil. One of the boarders. Charlie Stanton.’
Silence fell on the three women as the enormity of what had happened at their children’s school sank in. At last, Luella stood up and dusted down her skirt. She had obviously processed the information.
‘I’m sure we’re all agreed that something must be done.’
‘The police are dealing with it,’ said Penny.
‘I mean about that hostel,’ said Luella.
Lilly was puzzled. ‘Whatever do you mean?’
Luella’s jaw was firm. ‘I mean we must get it closed down.’
Lilly didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
‘It’s nothing to do with the hostel or the other people staying there,’ she said.
Luella’s eyes were glinting. ‘How can you say that when those animals went up to our school with the sole intention of murdering our children?’
‘That’s not how it was,’ said Lilly. ‘I don’t think the girl intended to hurt anyone.’
‘You’re being ridiculous,’ said Luella. ‘People don’t carry guns unless they mean to do some damage.’
Lilly looked to Penny for help but she shook her head. ‘It’s a fair point, Lilly. I mean, how would you have felt if Sam had been hit?’
‘I know what you’re saying, but you can’t lump the other residents together,’ said Lilly.
‘They sound dangerous,’ said Penny.
Lilly was shocked. She expected reactionary politics from Luella, but Penny?
‘There were only two involved and they had their own reasons,’ said Lilly.
Luella’s nostrils flared. ‘Like what?’
Lilly knew she could not mention the rape. That information had been given to her in confidence and, anyway, she didn’t know for certain that it had anything to do with what had happened today
‘You see,’ Luella lifted her chin in triumph, ‘there is no explanation for what happened, other than the obvious. Those people are not like us. They hate us. And I for one am not going to stand around while another gang of them does any more damage.’
Jack was still shaking when he got into bed.
He’d been over and over it at the station. With a man down and the boy still wielding the gun, he had had no choice.
‘Couldn’t you have disabled him?’ asked the investigator.
Jack shook his head. ‘I couldn’t take the chance. If I’d missed he would have killed me.’
On and on it had gone, until they finally let him go at two in the morning.
‘You’re lucky,’ said the investigator. ‘He doesn’t have any family so no one’s likely to complain.’
In the dark, his duvet wrapped around him, shivering uncontrollably, Jack didn’t feel bloody lucky.
Snow White came from a long line of brave soldiers.
Grandpa had fought in the Second World War and Father had worked bomb disposal in Northern Ireland for over ten years. Taking difficult, often unpalatable, decisions was in her blood.
By her father’s sixth posting and her corresponding move to the sixth different school she had stopped blubbing and discovered that a swift smack in the mouth made the loudest of tormentors keep their distance. Her transition to boarding school had been softened by this knowledge.
Whenever one of Daddy’s platoon was blown to smithereens he would get as pissed as fart and sing at the top of his voice: ‘No surrender, no surrender, no surrender to the IRA.’ He’d go back to work the next day nursing a sore head and throat, and a new man would be learning the ropes.
She turned on the local radio station and went on to the Internet. The home page told her that a singer, whose head reminded her of a round sweaty cheese, had overdosed on drugs, a wildly talented footballer had been found in bed with an eleven-year-old boy, and the Chancellor was warning of another hike in interest rates.
The Manor Park shooting had not made the headlines. In fact, Snow White could find no mention of it anywhere. It had been well and truly hushed up.
No doubt it was better for all involved if matters remained as they were. Questions from the press would only be painful and intrusive for the parents involved.
She logged on to her favourite site and started a new post.
Asylum Seekers Gun Down Children Snow White at 8.10
Yes, you heard correctly.
Yesterday afternoon, two asylum seekers armed themselves and shot at pupils at Manor Park Preparatory School in Hertfordshire.
She sat back and waited for the thread to start buzzing. Sometimes, for the greater good, difficult decisions had to be made.
The noise was overwhelming. At least fifty clients, solicitors and barristers were crammed into the narrow corridor, and every single one of them seemed to be shouting. Lilly grimaced and searched for a clear space to devour the sandwich that was burning a hole in her pocket.
Only the prayer room was free.
‘Figures,’ she muttered, and slipped inside.
She pushed the Qur’an to one side and laid out her bacon butty. She wished now that she’d gone for cheese, but hunger dispelled her guilt. She opened her mouth for the first salty bite when the door opened.
‘Are you looking for Jesus?’ asked Jack.
‘I think the poor man’s got enough on without Luton County Court.’
Jack looked old and sad and tired.
‘Jesus, I’m starving,’ he said.
‘If you think I’m sharing you’re hoping for a miracle,’ she replied. ‘And the man in that line of business is out.’
‘You’re a heartless woman.’
She looked from Jack to the sandwich and back again and split it in half. ‘This is a true mark of our friendship.’
They chewed in silence until Jack wiped his hands on his jeans.
‘Everything okay?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘You?’
‘Been better,’ he answered.
She touched his thumb with her own. ‘You had no choice, Jack.’
He nodded. ‘Doesn’t