Click, Double-Click
Page 23
‘Don’t point it at me! Point it at Foye! Foye! Not me!’
It released Muir Foye from her mesmeric trance. She was able to withdraw her stare from the barrel of the Webley and turn it in the direction of Horton with an expression of utter disgust. Was it his appalling lapse in behaviour, or the pungent odour of ammonia? She had been undone by the sudden realisation that her last twenty five years had been wasted.
I heard myself speak. ‘Look at him. He’s finished. It’s enough.’ This was going right down to the wire. I had the notion that I might still diffuse this situation if only I could stumble on the right utterance, but that I would only get one shot at it.
The clock, the blood … tick … tick … drip … drip … I even thought I could hear the trickle of the sand in the glass. In the dazzling light the trigger of the Webley started to move.
‘Remember! Göring and the revolver!’
Stobo’s index finger stayed.
‘You’re not one of them!’
Ten excruciating seconds elapsed.
‘No.’ He relaxed his grip. He let his arm fall slowly downwards. He placed the Webley back down on the desk and turned it round, politely, so that the barrel faced away from Ms Foye, the way you might extend the handle of a knife when passing cutlery.
‘Enough.’
Stobo acknowledged my presence for the first time since I had entered the room. He nodded briefly.
I edged back round the hologram towards him and we moved together and in parallel towards the door. I still think we might have made it if we’d been afforded a few more seconds.
The judder of the telephone was submerged in a deep subterranean percussive thump from somewhere under the Joseph Black Building and the entire picture window hurtled in tiny fragments across the length of the room. Kosh playing Clerk Maxwell? The one o’clock gun? I couldn’t figure out why Miss Foye’s face had suddenly erupted in a bloody rash. Horton was on his feet, making a lunge for the revolver. Another inhuman sound was coming from the back of his throat.
‘Nhaarg’
Stobo pushed me forcibly to one side. I fell awkwardly between an ottoman and a davenport. It had been a firm push, but a curiously gentle one. For a moment I thought he was casting me to one side so that he could defend himself. God knows he had time enough. Horton made heavy weather of picking up the firearm, pointing it, finding the safety catch on, switching it to live, and pointing again.
Stobo smiled his serene, mischievous half-smile.
Then there was a series of deafening crashes, so rapid they almost elided into one another. They batted to and fro and died away to give way to Muir Foye’s strident and sustained scream.
And Horton kept firing. He had emptied the chambers but he kept firing.
Then the echoes and the crashes and the screaming died away to silence. But the man in the sports jacket and the stained cavalry twills, in the improbable double-handed commando posture, kept firing away.
Click … click … click … click … click …
XXVI
James Clerk Maxwell University College Massacre
Ck/geohack.php?pagename=ClerkMaxwellshooting
params=39_37_12_N_105_04_29_W_region:UK-Fyfe_type:landmark) Extract from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Location: James Clerk Maxwell University College, Fife, Scotland, UK
Date: December 24, 20__
Target: Students and faculty
Attack: Shooting spree
Weapon(s): Carbine, Savage 67H pump-action.
223 Norinco AK-47
Webley Mk IV .38/200 revolver
9kg propane improvised explosive device
Death(s) 13 (including two perpetrators)
Injured 4
Belligerent(s): Purchase Gentleman, aka Noxolo Pacharo and Alan Stobo
The James Clerk Maxwell University College massacre, or Christmas Eve massacre, occurred on the campus of a Scottish university located on the north side of the Firth of Forth. Purchase Gentleman, also known as Noxolo Pacharo*, a 19 year old liberal arts student from East Africa, was attending university on a scholarship under the auspices of Clerk Maxwell International (or ‘Climax’), an ambitious program of international student recruitment spearheaded by the University Vice-Chancellor, Professor Sir Douglas Horton. Gentleman’s background and provenance was of high social standing and wealth. Much was expected of him. He had previously however been admitted to hospital with a psychotic episode, and more recently had developed a behaviour pattern of frequent attendance at drop-in clinics and hospital emergency departments in central Scotland with presentations relating to substance abuse and self-harm. His academic credentials were undistinguished. When his academic performance began to suffer, he developed an inappropriate relationship with a faculty member. This was Alan Stobo, lecturer in English Literature, who initially befriended Gentleman but later attempted to disengage himself and may even have hampered his student’s academic progress in order to remove him from the University. Stobo, who had a history of bi-polar disorder, fell foul of the University authorities when he failed to submit an Action Plan in response to poor academic performance by his classes. He harboured a deep grudge against the University Vice-Chancellor and this may have resulted in a reconciliation between himself and his student, culminating in a joint act of revenge. Gentleman’s own position became precarious as his scholarship, and thus his UK visitor’s visa, depended upon his continued attendance at College. A failed academic module, with a subsequent appeal rejected, was thought to be the trigger propelling Gentleman on his brief but deadly rampage at the close of the Michaelmas term. The University campus might have been deserted on Christmas Eve, but a Research Conversazione had been scheduled for that morning in the University’s Colin Maclaurin Conference Centre.
Deaths and injuries
Gentleman arrived on site shortly after 8 am. He drove through a checkpoint on the campus south entrance where he was not challenged. He parked on a driveway on the north-west side of campus. He remained motionless at the wheel for an hour. At 9 am he left the car, wearing military combat gear. He carried a sports bag which contained a pump-action shot gun with a sawn barrel, a semi-automatic weapon, and ammunition.
Gentleman’s shooting spree is estimated to have lasted 57 minutes. It has been reconstructed as follows:
09.07 … Gentleman enters the student halls of residence on the northwest perimeter of campus, where a handful of foreign students remain in residence. Four fatalities**.
09.16 … crosses a bridge spanning an artificial lake to the science laboratories and lecture theatres where he pauses to reload. Enters the science atrium. Three persons wounded, one fatally.
09.27 … passes the University sports complex but does not enter. Approaches the Colin Maclaurin Conference Centre where the School of Information Technology are setting up stands to showcase research project work as part of the annual Conversazione. Gentleman is about to enter, when he encounters a student who had previously lent him a translation of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. She, thinking he is taking part in a paint-ball game, wishes him a merry Christmas. He in turn wishes her a happy New Year. She is unharmed. Gentleman elects to bypass the Conference Centre.
09.31 … turns towards the arts centre and students’ union. Encounters a group of students between the student union and the Joseph Black building, heading towards the Conference Centre. Four wounded, three fatally.
09.36 … enters the main cafeteria of the student’s union, firing indiscriminately. Two deaths and one major injury.
09.53 … First 999 call to the emergency services logged.
09.36 – 10.00 … Gentleman’s movements uncertain. It is believed he made a single, brief call on a mobile phone to an unlisted London number. (Citation needed here.)
10.03 … emerges from the students’ union and proceeds in the direction of Joseph Black building.
10.04 … Gentleman fatally wounded by a single bullet to the head from a high powered sniper’s rifle. At the sub
sequent inquiry, a member of the emergency response team was granted anonymity.
Activities of Alan Stobo
Shortly after 9 am, Alan Stobo had entered the Joseph Black Building housing the offices of administration of the University. Stobo gained access to the Vice-Chancellor’s office on the eighth floor, where he held Professor Horton and his Personal Assistant, Muir Foye, at gunpoint. Horton distracted Stobo and slowed his progress using techniques of negotiation. At 10.12 am, Horton succeeded in overpowering his assailant and fatally wounding him with his own weapon. Simultaneously, a suicide belt of high powered explosive worn by Gentleman and operated by a pre-set timing device, detonated, causing the death of an attending paramedic, widespread damage to neighbouring buildings, and the loss of valuable forensic evidence. Muir Foye sustained minor injuries from broken glass.
The University Vice-Chancellor, Professor Sir Douglas Horton, declined a bravery award. ‘It was a team effort. We were all in this together. The emergency services were sublime.’
Shortly after the incident, Muir Foye took early retirement from her position in James Clerk Maxwell University College.
Conspiracy theories
Shortly after the incident a correspondence ran in the letters column of The Herald newspaper in which it was pointed out that the 11 minutes that elapsed between the first 999 alert call, and the fatal shooting of the main perpetrator, could not possibly have afforded the emergency services sufficient time to be in place. This conjecture was angrily rejected by the police officer in charge of the operation, Chief Superintendent Brian Hoddle, with the terse remark, ‘Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.’
The Herald correspondence, and other speculations within the media, were unexpectedly and abruptly silenced when the Prime Minister intervened to inform the nation that such speculation was ‘not in the national interest’. Theories that the Clerk Maxwell massacre impinged on issues of high diplomacy (the so called Oil for Arms Theory) have effectively been silenced by the issuance of government Defence Advisory notices. Responding to a ‘third man’ theory, the police, the office of the Procurator Fiscal, and the government have been adamant that no such individual exists. The police are not looking for any other individuals in connection with the Clerk Maxwell shooting spree. The case is closed.
* ‘Noxolo’ means ‘peace’ in Xhosa. ‘Pacharo’ is a Malawi name meaning ‘on earth’.
** I redacted the victims’ names. Too painful. ACS.
Epilogue
Department of Emergency Medicine
Little France
January 6th
Mr David Walkerburn
Cardwell Walkerburn, Writers to the Signet
48 Heriot Row
Of this city
Dear David,
As discussed, please find enclosed Dr Cameron-Strange’s memo. This is one of two copies; he asks that it be held in perpetuity. The second copy has been forwarded to the MSP for the Clerk Maxwell constituency. There is no electronic record.
Alastair took a flight to Auckland on New Year’s Eve. Charges, incidentally, of violation of Civil Aviation Authority regulations, illegal possession of a firearm, found improperly secured in an abandoned aircraft, and, preposterously, child kidnapping, have been dropped. In fact he is quite airbrushed out of the official account. I suppose the security services wish to pursue enquiries undistracted by the glare of publicity. Purchase Gentleman could not possibly have composed The Bottom Line. He must have had sponsors. Perhaps he was even state-sponsored.
Ms Roy spent Christmas Day in Kyle of Lochalsh at the home of Hector Sutherland, Alastair’s third cousin, twice removed. She’s back at school in Gloucestershire now, rehearsing, I’m told, for auditions for the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain.
Alastair is very exercised that Alan Stobo’s reputation has been trashed. He says the official account is quite wrong; that he and Stobo both went to Clerk Maxwell on the same day in an attempt to avert a tragedy. How did they know? He says it’s all in The Bottom Line but blowed if I can see it. And he says he’s too tired to explain it. I’m afraid he has finally lost patience with us. Who can blame him?
I wonder if he’ll ever come back? I let him down. I suppose we all did. Why didn’t we listen? I am afraid we all seem to have lost our ability for thinking outside the box. All we seem to be able to do with boxes these days is tick them.
Oh well …
My best regards to Hester.
Cordially,
Forbes
The Rt Hon George Grierson MP
Ministry of Defence
Whitehall
Westminster
London SW1A 2HB
15th January
Angela MacVicar MSP
The Scottish Parliament
Horse Wynd
Holyrood
Edinburgh EH99 1SP
Dear Angela,
Thank you for your enclosure. The sensitive contents were
fully discussed at a recent COBRA meeting in Downing
Street. The documents will be protected under the terms of
the Official Secrets Act.
My current advice to you holds.
George
Appendix
The Bottom Line, by Bletchley
Twelve clues are “two in one” and code for twin solutions. One solution may be converted to its twin by dropping a letter. The shorter twin should be entered into the grid. The twelve redundant letters, when unjumbled, form The Bottom Line which is thematically related to and also predicted by four (unclued) lights.
ACROSS
1 Wrap up little Stanley in money. Some chance (12)
6 Gross gong to the Home Counties (5)
9 Succeed? I’ve collapsed in pain (7)
13 Back saint to confirm no-nos (5)
15 Expression of disapproval before golf start footwear … (6)
16 … or footballers’ retro haircut (4)
17 Muddle sly Lily, and break up first love? Yes, maybe (4)
18 Princess’ rubbish Frisbee record (4)
19 Mash an ugli, tongue of tongues, with Lagavulin distilled outwith the V & A (7)
20 Burst into tears over tulip, maybe (4)
22 Turn up poem (Nigerian) about the party makeover (4)
25 Hot spot: feel the pressure on TV (8)
26 First bake a French patisserie (3)
28 Three thousand make an arduous journey (4)
30 Stein from me because I deliver (6)
32 Maybe Abies and Picea, loud tax collectors, steady company (4)
33 Say oboe stop pianist, one fifty fifty indisposed (4)
34 Rubaiyat writer, in Cromarty, grants … (4)
35 … some wiseacre O level Spanish, French or Portuguese patois (6)
38 First person on a first holiday returning to city (5)
39 Paraphrase Hortens – the last shall be first (7)
40 Shrive Elena back (5)
DOWN
2 A ouija on deck (6)
3 Pause, audibly to assign greater importance to backing Spanish aunt an inch (4)
4 Grand Aberdeen ecstasy joint originally named straight from the horse’s mouth! (4)
5 Ernie Els at the finish can be electric (4)
7 Bedeck with blooms river beyond the outskirts of Elgin (8)
8 Reinvent satire along these lines (6)
11 After old man place a wax plant (4)
12 Obscure curtain – archaic Roman standard 59th backed after victory in Europe (5)
14 Noise level among three Bridge players – O boy, back numbers (4)
15 Light music for pinball (9)
21 Ends up in drab mini, topless panto girl; toe curling! (8)
24 Heavy metal executant, or maybe executioner (6)
27 Peacekeepers’ turn to disclose gradually (6)
29 Well off? Utterly ridiculous (4)
30 Cast lots for regular time on air (4)
31 Sound like a female deer, a bearer of brick back from Qatar (4)
/> 32 Formula 1’s about the purse (4)
36 Say Hamlet turn to the audience; caviar to 50% proles (4)
37 Run in – Emergency Room mistake (3)
Copyright
First published 2015
by Impress Books Ltd
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Exeter EX4 4RN
© James Calum Campbell 2015
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
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ISBN 13: 978–1–907605–72–7 (pbk)
ISBN 13: 978–1–907605–73–4 (ebk)
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