by Claire Askew
The morning traffic had already peaked, but Birch found herself held up in a queue behind a bin lorry. She set up a mental abacus of regret: flirting with Danny, snapping at the dispatcher. Saying she’d go out to a crime scene that probably wasn’t a crime scene. As she fretted, she kept one ear out for the radio, chattering away between the static. What would she say to DCI McLeod? ‘I just wanted to check it out’? She’d be an hour late now, at least.
‘Charlie Alpha, this is CA19, Park.’
Birch’s senses sharpened: the voice belonged to a PC she’d worked with a while back. Nice girl. Green, when they’d known each other, but showing potential.
‘I’m at the Tweed Campus of Three Rivers College and I can confirm that shots have been fired; I repeat, shots have been fired, over.’
Without waiting for the dispatcher’s reply, Birch flicked on her siren. As often happened, the guy in front slammed on his brakes in surprise – a move that once upon a time might have resulted in the unmarked car going nowhere but the bodyshop. But this wasn’t her first emergency response rodeo.
‘Thanks, mate,’ she said aloud, flicking the car’s nose out into the road and punching up through the gears. The traffic peeled back like a pulled tarp: a sight she never tired of. On Park’s channel, the dispatcher was faltering.
‘What do I do?’ she heard Park asking. The girl’s voice was spiky with fear. ‘What do I do, over?’
‘PC Park, this is DI Birch,’ she said. ‘CA38. I’m on my way to the scene, over.’
A strange calm settled over her. She felt as though the car were driving itself: speedo hitting 60 and rising, tangle of cars whipping by like a film playing out. Even the siren seemed distant – the sound coming to her as if through a fog.
‘Ma’am.’ Birch coming onto the channel hadn’t done much to settle Park. ‘He went inside. He went inside, and I heard shots, over.’
‘Who went inside? Over.’
Park didn’t reply, but Birch could hear her speaking. Someone else was there, then. Good.
‘Charlie Alpha, this is Birch. If you haven’t already, you need to go to Gold command: repeat, Gold. Go to Gold, over.’
‘This is Charlie Alpha.’ His voice cracked. She imagined the panic there: they’d had to call it, and they’d called it wrong.
‘I’m sorry, ma’am,’ the dispatcher was saying. ‘But do you have the jurisdiction . . .’
‘Oh, now you’re following the rule book.’ It was cruel, but she’d said it before she could stop herself. ‘We have a confirmed shooting, and unarmed officers at the scene. This is a strategic command incident. Go to Gold. Over.’
As she approached the campus, Birch realised hers was the only siren she could hear. Fucking dispatch, she thought. She’d hoped that by the time she arrived, an armed response team would be there to wave her away: she’d heard the call go out. She flipped the siren off. If the gunman was still at large, she’d rather not become an obvious, noisy target – or worse, have him freak out at the sound and shoot a bunch more people. She calmed the car back to a normal speed, and eased into the campus car park.
The sight that greeted her was an embarrassing government inquiry waiting to happen. Students were streaming out of every building: most from the main reception doors, trampling over one another like cattle, many of them screaming. Others were appearing from fire escapes and side doors, with no effort being made to corral them. Some were running for the safety of undergrowth at the campus perimeter, stupidly crossing open stretches of tarmac and grass where they could have been picked off by sniper fire. Worse: many more were milling around close to the buildings, and staring open-mouthed at the upper floors. As Birch pushed open the door, the car filled with the shrill pinging of the college fire alarm: a sound seemingly designed to incite chaos.
A few metres away, Park and two male uniformed officers were crouching in the shadow of a police panda car. Park was talking on the radio: Birch could hear her voice. There should be four of them, she thought. That was who Park had meant when she said someone had gone inside: her partner.
‘Christ,’ Birch hissed.
She pushed her driver’s door out to its widest point, and stepped from the car in a crouch. The door wouldn’t do much to protect her from a bullet, depending on the type of gun, but being behind it felt better than nothing.
‘PC Park.’ Birch had to shout over the fire alarm and the general student cacophony. The girl looked up, her face a mask of terror. ‘It’s DI Birch. How long since the last shot was fired?’
There was a pause.
‘I don’t know, ma’am,’ the girl yelled. ‘I’m sorry. I think it’s . . . it might be a good fifteen minutes now.’
‘Okay.’ The car was alive with chatter: voices on every channel, dispatch communicating with ambulances, fire, and those all-important guys with guns. Birch reached behind her.
‘Charlie Alpha, this is Birch,’ she said. ‘I’m at the scene. Where the hell’s this armed response unit?’
A female dispatcher replied: it seemed all hands had been brought on deck, and in the midst of her panic, Birch felt glad the smarmy male voice was gone.
‘This is Charlie Alpha. DI Birch, are you the commanding officer at the scene, over?’
Birch crouched behind the scant cover of her car door. A male student whipped past, heading for a patch of trees.
‘Oh my God,’ the boy said, apparently to her. ‘I think Liz is dead. I think she’s dead.’
She watched him until he made it to a decent hiding place, then turned back to look at Park and the two constables. One of the men had begun to cry, though he was trying to hide it.
‘Oh Jesus, Charlie Alpha,’ Birch said. ‘I think I must be.’
14 May, 8.20 a.m.
Ishbel’s employer had their local offices in one refurbished quarter of what had been an old mill. Walking across the courtyard in the still-thin morning light, Ishbel let herself imagine a possible former life: that of a young mill-working woman, dressed in long skirts, coming to begin a punishing, physical day. The many windows in the buildings’ upper floors were caught by the early sun, and cast quivering rhombuses of light down into Ishbel’s path. Once upon a time there would have been no electricity, no heating, and certainly no water cooler or coffee room for the workers here. Walking in to clock on must have been a little harder with every passing day.
See, Ishbel thought. You don’t have it so bad. But she didn’t feel convinced.
As she reached the main door, someone called out to her.
‘That one’s not open yet.’
She turned. Joan, one of the mill complex’s cleaners, was standing in the building’s navy blue shadow, camouflaged in her navy blue uniform.
‘I havnae opened the main doors yet,’ she said, as Ishbel approached. Thick, white smoke curled from her mouth along with the words, and Ishbel smelled the strawberry tang of her chosen vape. ‘You’re fair early, hen.’
Ishbel smiled.
‘Didn’t do my homework last night,’ she said.
Joan nodded.
‘Ach, well, say no more. Side fire door’s open. Just leave it propped, hen – I’ll be in right after ye.’
Once upstairs, Ishbel dumped her handbag and armful of files onto her desk. The office had a hot-desk policy that everyone ignored: each of the little cubbies was personal territory, marked by photos and keepsakes. Two desks along, Ishbel’s colleague Dave still had a string of red tinsel Blu-Tacked along the top of his monitor. May as well leave it up for next year, he’d begun saying.
Ishbel’s own desk had no desk-tidy: she stored her pens, stapler, rubber bands and other random office bits in a series of coffee mugs, most of them lifted from company display tables at conferences and training days. She also had an ancient foam mouse mat – defunct now, but still there on the desk – emblazoned with the words My Mummy Is a Superhero, and a scribbled drawing by Abigail H, age 4. Aidan had had it printed for her one Christmas – a fact that Ishbel now found mind-boggli
ng. They hadn’t exchanged Christmas gifts at all in the past few years. Rather, they’d agreed to spend the extra money on Abigail, and then tried to out-invest each other, like two lab scientists competing over a shared project. Feeling a spike of anger, Ishbel flipped the mouse mat over. Its black underside was perishing: the mat threw a scatter of little black shreds across the desk.
In the coffee room, she watched the miserable drip-drip of the machine and tried to dissolve her anger. Admit it, she thought. You didn’t need to come in this early. She pulled in a long breath, trying to make a pre-emptive caffeine hit out of the room’s coffee smell. She had absolutely no stomach for the half-finished report. If she was honest, she could have made up some excuse and given the complainant an adjusted deadline. I just didn’t want to be there when Abigail woke up. I’m sick of always being the one who apologises. Ishbel clattered her favourite mug out of the dishwasher. Let her stew in it for a day, it won’t kill her.
The coffee was bitter, but it was hot and strong, and it would do.
Back at her desk, Ishbel listened to her PC click and whir as it booted up, and thought about Abigail. She couldn’t help it. It was nearing eight thirty – if she’d got herself out of bed on time, her daughter should be arriving at the college right about now. Though her first class wasn’t until nine, she liked to get there a little early. Ishbel had always put this down to studiousness, a desire to be properly prepared for a good day’s learning. But now the early starts seemed suspicious. Was Abigail really going to college early, or was she making some detour on the way? Was she even – Ishbel shuddered – was Abigail attending college at all? She realised that there was very little evidence, beyond her daughter’s weekday routine, to confirm that she was in fact showing up for her HND classes. Abigail’s chosen subject was Acting and Performance – a choice that, when it had first been made, Ishbel was sure had been designed as a personal slight. She’d done her best to make peace with it and not say anything, though she suspected Abigail knew of her reservations. She perhaps also suspected that Ishbel was secretly praying for a change of heart, a switch to a more cerebral subject, which was true. Now Ishbel cursed the Acting and Performance course anew. Any other subject would produce essays. Worksheets. Paperwork. Abigail was adept at leaving things lying around the house, yet Ishbel found herself wracking her brain for the last time she’d seen anything even vaguely college-related discarded on the kitchen worktop. I really have been distracted, she thought. How could you live in the same house with someone and not have any real sense of their daily movements? She knew even less about what Aidan did with his time.
This evening they’d need to talk. All three of them, ideally, but she and Abigail at least. Ishbel began to rehearse a speech in her head. I know you don’t like this, but I have to ask. If you’re lying to me about attending football practice, how am I to know you’re not lying about other things?
The PC played its little start-up jingle, and then Dave walked into the office.
‘Shit.’
Ishbel looked up at him.
‘Good morning to you too, Dave.’
Dave strode past her and threw his jacket across the back of his office chair.
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I was just absolutely sure I’d be the first one in today.’
She forced a smile.
‘There’s no trophy or anything, I’m afraid,’ she said.
Dave hit the power switch on his PC.
‘I’d settle for the short-lived feeling of pride,’ he said. ‘I hope you’ve been appreciating it.’
Ishbel dropped her gaze.
‘There’s coffee,’ she said. ‘I only just made some.’
He glanced over in the direction of the coffee room, and clapped his hands together, just once.
‘You’re a star, Bel,’ he said. ‘Why’re you in at this hour, anyway?’
‘Why are you?’ Dave usually trailed in as late as he could manage – and she was surprised to see that now, he was blushing.
‘Okay.’ He huffed his breath out. ‘I may or may not have acquired a new lady friend. She lives here in Musselburgh, so . . . my commute just got shorter.’
Ishbel beamed at him. In the time they’d worked together, Dave had married, divorced, lost a custody battle – and that was just the stuff he told her about.
‘Dave, that’s brilliant,’ she said. ‘I’m pleased for you.’
He made a pshaw sound and flinched a little, as though dodging her kind words.
‘Well,’ he said. ‘It’s early days yet. Look, don’t tell everyone, will you? Sorry – I mean, I know you won’t. But if Sheila – you know, admin Sheila? If she finds out it’ll be all over the place, and we’re just testing the waters at the moment. I don’t want to scare her away, you know?’
Ishbel reassessed her grin, toning it down to a toothless smile.
‘Of course,’ she said. ‘Mum’s the word.’
The word mum made her think of Abigail again, and she felt a little sting of anxiety.
‘Dave . . .’
He’d begun to move towards the coffee room and now turned, pivoting on one foot, to face her.
‘In answer to your question, I’m in early because . . .’
A tight little silence fell. Just say it. A second ago she’d wanted so much to tell him about Abigail. She felt a strong urge to just check with someone – to make sure she wasn’t being irrational, like Aidan seemed to think. But the silence stretched. What if Dave agreed with Aidan? What if he told her she should have been a more attentive mother? What if he told other people that?
‘Because,’ she said, ‘I’ve got this complaint, and – and I’m struggling a bit with the initial report.’
She watched Dave’s face relax. Okay, she thought, I was right not to tell him.
‘Do you think you’d have time,’ she went on, ‘to have a look at it for me sometime this week? Just to read it. See if you think I’m on the right track.’
Dave threw her an A-okay sign.
‘Sure thing, Bel,’ he said. ‘What are colleagues for?’
Ishbel tried to force herself to focus on the work. She opened up the half-written report, and read over what she’d done so far. She deleted the odd word; rephrased an occasional sentence. She slackened her gaze and allowed the text in front of her to swim. The temptation to open up her emails was almost overwhelming. No, she told herself, trying to snap back in. I have to get this done.
It was 8.50 a.m. – about the time she’d arrive in the office on a normal day – and she’d made exactly zero progress. The place was filling up: somewhere a few desks over, someone was being asked about their holiday. Behind her, the coffee room was a beehive of voices. Even Dave had begun typing away in earnest. Ishbel took a swig of her coffee, and made a face. It had gone cold.
‘Fucking hell.’
She glanced up. The voice belonged to Alison, the woman who worked at the desk facing directly onto her own. Their two PC monitors were back to back, and the women would be able to look one another in the eye, were it not for the partition of cloth-covered chipboard erected between them. At the sound of Alison’s profanity, Ishbel found herself looking instead into the eyes of Abigail, aged about nine, beaming down from a photo she’d pinned to that partition.
Alison’s blonde, permed head bobbed up above the chipboard.
‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Sorry for swearing, but – I’m on Twitter, and . . .’
‘Twitter, eh?’ Dave had stopped typing, and was leaning towards Ishbel. He looked at her and winked. ‘Now there’s a surprise.’
Ishbel threw him a You’re terrible look, but something in Alison’s voice caught her attention.
‘Stop it, Dave,’ Alison was saying. ‘This is serious. They’re saying that there’s a shooting. It’s happening now.’
A few more heads popped up between the cubicles.
‘Where,’ someone asked, ‘in America?’
Alison raised her voice so everyone could hear.
‘N
o, here. At the college in Edinburgh, it says. It’s happening right now.’
Ishbel felt a shudder in her chest, like a car stalling. Around her, other people were logging into their Twitter accounts – she could hear their gasps rising into the air like steam. A small hubbub was growing.
‘Which college?’ Ishbel spoke but no one seemed to hear. Alison’s head had disappeared behind the partition again, but Ishbel could hear her saying ‘Oh my God’ to herself, quietly, over and over.
‘Alison.’ Ishbel’s sharp tone brought her colleague’s face back up over the divide. ‘Which college?’
‘Three Rivers,’ Alison said, and then, ‘Oh shit, is that where your wee girl goes?’
Ishbel looked down. For a moment, her vision dropped out, and she could see only spots in front of her eyes. She thought of the way old photographs, the printed kind, could end up with light let in at the wrong time – it looked like that. She blinked, and then through the fog she could see the vague outline of her hands. The diamond in her engagement ring a point of white light.
She heard herself speaking.
‘Does it say which campus?’
Alison’s face dipped away momentarily, then reappeared.
‘Tweed Campus,’ she said, her voice like a wince. ‘The one over west.’
Ishbel blinked again. Her vision was becoming pixelated. The spots turned into churning patches of grey, with rainbow chimeras glinting in them, like flies’ eyes. A loud buzz began to build inside her head, as the sounds of the office around her dimmed.
‘Bullshit,’ she heard Dave say. ‘If it’s on Twitter it’s probably a hoax. People make shit up on there all the time, drives me nuts. About every six months they all say Bruce Springsteen’s dead, and I freak out. It’s never true. Bel, you all right? You’re looking a bit green.’
Ishbel closed her eyes, but the weird light show didn’t quit.
‘Her daughter goes there,’ she heard Alison say.
Someone grasped the rear of Ishbel’s wheely office chair, easing it backwards. Then she felt the soft pressure of a hand on the back of her neck.