by Mick Herron
All of which might have her screaming any moment but she had to take a grip because nobody else was going to, that was clear –
Five of them, then. Thrust into this room built for twenty: one had a gun, another had two boys, and only she had a voice it seemed, because nobody else was say-ing anything, though the boys were whimpering in a peculiarly syncopated way. She had to speak because whatever made the silence collapse, she didn’t want it to be the Gun.
Emotion triggers emotion. Keep calm. There was a formula for this; you took control –
‘Who are you? What do you want?’
he had a gun he had a gun he had a gun
‘You’re the lady?’
he had a gun
‘I’m – who are you, what do you want, this is a nursery school –’ And bit her tongue: don’t tell him that. As if, by not mentioning its purpose, she could disguise the school’s reality, and thereby neutralize his intent. You didn’t carry a gun into a nursery for fun. If they could all pretend it was a barracks, a Territorial Army hangout, somewhere this might pass for a practical joke . . .
He said, ‘The lady is the teacher, yes?’
Louise said, ‘I don’t know which lady you mean.’
Eliot caught her eye but said nothing.
The gunman looked around. He stood between them and the door, and seemed to become aware of this as he took in the surroundings: with his weapon, he waved them further inside, reducing – Louise supposed – the chances they might rush him . . . yeah, right. Maybe Eliot could pick up a twin and throw it. Draw his fire. Eliot, who was hobbled by his boys; they clung to his legs like a pair of clown’s trousers as he shuffled backwards past the hamster cage, whose occupant chose that moment to push her snout through the bars – please don’t shoot Trixie. The chances of a second successful substitution were not good. Perhaps Trixie caught Louise’s thought wave, or perhaps gun-recognition was filtering down the food-chain; either way, she retreated into her straw-castle without even a token spin on her wheel as they all edged past to the soft-play area, a more optimistic setting for an armed siege. If that’s what this was.
Against a rising red panic, Louise tried to mentally clamp down: she was on home territory; these were familiar surroundings. There must be a way of establishing control, because that’s what she did here every day – the Darlings weren’t armed, of course, or not so far, but a battle or two of nerves had occurred, and she hadn’t lost hers yet. There was an overlap between what was happening now and what ought to be, and she knew – because this was the golden rule: in teaching, in business, in sport, in love – that whoever took charge in the first few moments stood the best chance of coming first. Every other cell in her body was screaming at her to give up, lie down, take shelter, but the moment she did that it was over. She had to do what she could before events took control, and the natural momentum of catastrophe splashed the four of them across the furnishings.
She looked at him. He had the gun, but he wasn’t only a Gun; before he’d picked that weapon up he’d been a boy, and she doubted she’d have noticed him – there was beauty here, true, but it was the beauty of youth, and it had been a while since that was of anything but theoretical interest to Louise. He wasn’t looking back – was taking in the surroundings: the exits; the windows – but the intensity of her gaze must have registered, because his eyes were suddenly on her, and they weren’t just deep and brown, they were bottomless. It was like staring down a well. Her first reaction was to pull back in case she dropped, but that would be to let the situation slide . . . She spoke instead. ‘My name’s Louise.’
He didn’t reply.
‘Louise Kennedy. I’m the nursery assistant. Second in command.’ Second in command? Words were like that – they escaped without warning; attached themselves vaguely to the meaning you’d intended, then burst into the open air. This could be a nightmare at dinner parties. Here and now, though, it wasn’t likely there’d be arguments about nomenclature. He still didn’t reply.
‘And this is Eliot Pedlar. He’s one of our parents. And these are his boys, Timothy and Gordon. Timmy and Gordy. They’re twins.’
Twins and terrified, but quiet now – one each side of Eliot; Timmy clutching his right knee, Gordy his left. Eliot had an arm round each; was trying to divide his attention three ways – two parts for his boys; the third for the gun.
‘They’re nearly four years old.’
Become a person. Wasn’t that the mantra? She’d read an article; an interview with a woman who’d disarmed a multiple-killer after he’d taken her hostage. She became a person, a risk-control expert had concluded – odd phrase; as if the process involved effort. But the point was, she made it difficult for him to treat her as an object . . . She’d managed this with God on her side, Louise recalled – well, Louise was going to have to cope without God. Any God that fell for a conversion under these circumstances wasn’t as omniscient as She ought to be.
‘Maybe you should tell us what you want. Maybe if we talked about this, we’d find . . . ’ Find what? Find a useful noun: answers, resolution, peace. ‘Maybe we’d find a way out of this. Nobody has to get hurt.’ And again came that clunking feeling, as if she were putting put ideas in his head.
Absurd. He’d crashed into her nursery, gun in hand. The idea of causing harm was not new to him.
‘Are you going to tell us your name?’
That way you’ll be a person too.
‘Or tell us what you want?’
Or show us what’s under your jacket? A Semtex bandolier; a jury-rigged belt of plastic explosives?
There was sudden clarity in the image that reached Louise then; of how this was going to look later, all over the world. Views of the school she’d elected as a refuge from personal strife would be beamed into homes in Paris, Sydney, San Jacinto; less a sanctuary than an object of pity and terror, with a scrolling newstext updating channel-hoppers as to what they’d missed so far. In Wimbledon Crispin would watch, and just for a moment his eyebrows would knit – Oxford? Wasn’t that where that girl ended up – what was her name again? ‘Oh, nothing, darling. Just wool-gathering.’ His eyebrows proved that.
‘Please . . . ?’
‘You’re the lady?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said honestly. ‘I don’t know which lady you mean. Who are you looking for?’
He released a snort of air through his nostrils, making a bullish, frustrated noise that recalled one of her Darlings: a sweet troublemaker; happy as Christmas, right up to the moment things stopped going his way. Then there’d be tears, and broken bits to sweep up; cross words and necessary admonishments. If any of that happened now, the broken bits might be a bit more difficult to tidy away.
‘Please?’ she said.
In the back of her mind, the clock was ticking . . . Dave would arrive. The gate would be opened. Parents and children would flock in, some of them coming through the door behind the Gun: he would turn in alarm, his hand would clench, the trigger would squeeze . . .
And then came a sudden calm, as if the world wound down for a second – she’d heard of such moments; moments of crisis in which time slowed so you could appreciate its subtler workings. She was looking into his eyes, and there might have been understanding there; a nanosecond in which the bigger picture asserted itself, teaching him that whatever twisted motive had propelled him here was wrong; that he shouldn’t do what he planned on doing . . . Whatever that was. Anything might happen.
He opened his mouth to speak.
Please, she thought, in a sudden access of desperate clarity – please don’t ask if I’m the fucking lady again . . .
Something collapsed.
He fired the gun.
The trouble with Louise Kennedy was –
(The trouble with Judy Ainsworth was, too many of her thoughts began The trouble with somebody else –)
The trouble with Louise Kennedy was, she was too big for her boots. Hardly been here a year, and acting like she was in charge the mom
ent Claire wasn’t about.
I’m sure she’ll only be too happy to listen to your latest grievance.
Judy had a routine, same as everyone had a routine. The difference between this routine and the one she’d once had was, this one was imposed on her by other people. A checklist had been drawn up for her – not for her, even; the checklist had already existed when she took the position – and what she was supposed to do was, well, check it off. Do this, then do that. This is the order you do it in.
Which, right there, was life in a nutshell. You did one thing, then moved on to the next. Except you didn’t always – you hardly ever – got to say when you wanted one thing to stop and the next to start.
What had happened to Judy was precisely that: one thing had stopped, then everything else had started. She hadn’t been ready. Still wasn’t. And while it would never have been true to call her a happy woman, she had the trick, in common with the rest of humanity, of painting a different picture when the canvas demanded. Looking back on how life used to be she saw a picture of content, in which even Derek had been a welcome fixture. There’d been a wedding photo on the mantelpiece of the home she’d thought they owned. She’d burned it after finding out about the other woman; burning being the appropriate response, given everything that came after.
First one thing, then the next. That was the order things always happened.
So this morning, after Ms Up-Herself Kennedy’s only too happy to listen to your latest grievance, Judy had mentally torn her checklist up: if Louboodyise didn’t like it, she could complain to Claire; then we’d see which way the wind blew. Claire was a fair woman, with the sense to know that bad luck visited everyone, even those who didn’t deserve it. She’d sense the injustice in Kennedy playing high-and-mighty just because her name appeared on a staff register while others were reduced to mopping and dusting.
He had been in construction. Derek had built things. That, too, was an injustice, when you considered the wreckage he’d left in his wake.
So anyway, where was she? Adjusting the checklist was where; she’d do things in her own order, especially if that meant keeping clear of Louise Kennedy in the meantime – she didn’t trust herself, Judy didn’t, not to give her a piece of her mind; and Louise needn’t think Judy hadn’t noticed that little spectacle by the school gates. The pair of them having a nice little chat: don’t tell Judy there was nothing going on. Something else Claire was fair and commonsensical about. She wouldn’t be putting up with any of that nonsense from the staff, no matter what high-powered job in the City they’d come from.
Run from, you wanted Judy’s opinion. Who surrendered money like that to come and teach in a nursery school? Guilty secrets hid everywhere, and you weren’t telling her Louise Kennedy didn’t have a peach.
So where Judy was was in the annexe, where she wasn’t supposed to be until after she’d done the kitchen in the main building (which was how it worked on the checklist: kitchen, toilets, cloakroom: tick tick tick. Then the floors). And what she’d been doing was examining Louise Kennedy’s desk, in the tiny office up the far end; the office the same size as the toilet it shared an adjoining wall with. It wasn’t as if she expected to find anything revealing – sly cats like Kennedy don’t leave secrets in the open – but that was no good reason not to look. But the desk had been bare. Just registration sheets, a few pages scrawled with indecipherable jottings, and bits and pieces of desk-junk: paperclips rubbers pens pencils, like that. A small collection of pencil-top gonks and gremlins; an occupational hazard of working with children – the things they thought were precious, they sometimes gave away. Even Judy had something: a one-inch plastic bear, moulded to look like it wore a leather jacket and sunglasses. It had come from a cornflake packet: did the child not think Judy realized that? She didn’t even know why she’d kept it, but it sat, anyway, on the table in the corner of her room. But no secrets here. The drawers just held supplies: elastic-banded bundles of crayons and felt-tips; old Christmas cards, ready to be cut up for next year’s decorations. Judy skimmed a few, but they were donated; none addressed to Louise herself. Too sly for that –
Someone entered the annexe.
No: some people entered the annexe. More than one. It was too early for parents and children; too early for Dave too – he was another: timed his arrival to get here with the mothers, though Judy thought that was him being clever; there was something light-of-tread about Dave . . . It must be Kennedy, with company. They didn’t know Judy was here, and she was about to open the door – just march out: this was part of her job, cleaning the office – but stopped. There was a man out there. Judy didn’t know who, but then Judy didn’t know the parents; it wasn’t like they formed a queue to meet the woman who cleaned up their kids’ mess. But whoever it was, Judy wanted to hear about it, so instead of opening the door she leaned against it, ear to the wood, her right hand holding the door tight shut, the way an expert eavesdropper might.
Who are you? What do you want?
You’re the lady?
I’m – who are you, what do you want, this is a nursery school – It had the quality of a TV show that had been going on some time, and wasn’t the one she’d been expecting; as if Judy had switched channels in search of a romantic comedy – because what was funnier than romance? – and found instead a brutal moment from a soap opera, in which familiar surroundings became the backdrop to the latest issue: rape, domestic violence, terrorism . . .
My name’s Louise Kennedy. I’m the nursery assistant. Second in command. And this is Eliot Pedlar. And these are his boys.
Something was wrong. The words fit an ordinary con-text – an inspection; a model parent rolled out, with appropriate children – but when that happened there was preparation involved; extra polishing required. And Kennedy’s voice wasn’t normal. In place of that confident tone – the one that said she was doing you a favour, just breathing your air – something wavered, and nearly broke.
Judy pressed closer to the door.
Maybe you should tell us what it is you want . . . Nobody has to get hurt . . .
Judy snatched her hand from the handle: what was going on? There was danger behind this door, and if she’d kept to the checklist, she’d be out of its reach – yards and walls away, with iron railings between her and whatever Louise had brought into this nursery.
I don’t know which lady you mean. Who is it you’re looking for?
One moment Judy was by the door, ear to the wood –
You’re the lady?
– and the next she was falling through it, because her grip on the handle had slipped, or her knee gave way – it was hard to tell the precise order of events; the exact thing that happened that preceded the next thing happening . . . And barely mattered, in the long run. Whatever: she lost her balance. Gravity took control.
She fell through the door.
And somebody shot her.
That moment Louise had noticed – the one in which time slowed, allowing insight into the inner workings of stuff – didn’t stretch far; serious confusion followed the gunshot, and Louise’s main concern was whether or not she was hurt. It was as if a curtain had fallen between one event and the next: she’d been watching the boy, but couldn’t work out whether the gun had been pointing at her when he fired – if she’d been shot it would hurt, yes? But she suspected, from having read a regrettable number of thrillers, that when you were shot, the hurt came later – as if bullet-pain were a subtle social slight; the sting register-ing afterwards, on your way out of the room.
But Louise wasn’t leaving the room, and it wasn’t her he’d shot at . . .
All of this, of course, took no time; noise was still bouncing off the walls, looking for an escape route, and there was screaming from various sources, herself among them. The boy, though, was silent. Only a tremble at his lips betrayed emotion. His eyes were still black depths, fixed on a point behind Louise’s back – the point from which another noise was issuing, she realized at last; a screaming that
wasn’t herself, or the boys, or Eliot . . . She turned.
It was Judy.
Something collapsed, she’d thought, a second before the gun had gone off, and Judy was what it had been: Judy had collapsed through the door into the office, and in falling on to this larger stage had drawn fire from its principal player. She looked like baggage was Louise’s unkind thought, and then her second reaction took over, which was that Judy wasn’t shot at all – only one bullet had been fired, and above the door frame where she now crouched a small round hole had been punched. It was leaking plaster dust, a tiny cloud of it dancing around its circumference. Judy’s screaming diminished all at once, as if she’d come through an inverse of Louise’s journey moments ago, and had worked out, from the absence of pain, that she wasn’t in fact dead.
And just like that, the noise all ceased.
The boy with the gun looked at Louise. ‘I did not shoot her.’
‘I know.’
‘She is not shot.’
Before this could turn into a grammar lesson, Louise knelt by Judy’s fallen form. Judy’s eyes were open, but right that moment she wasn’t seeing anything – they were dark holes; broken windows in an empty house.
‘Judy?’
Then the usual human light filtered to the surface, and Judy’s eyes were hurt, frightened, hateful, confused, shocked . . .
Timmy looked up at his father. ‘Is that lady dead?’
‘Hush.’
Louise said, ‘Nobody’s dead. The gun went off, that’s all. Nobody’s hurt.’
‘But –’
‘Hush.’
Judy moaned something unintelligible, then licked her lips, leaving a faint white sheen on them. Louise sup-pressed a shudder.
‘Wha’ –’
‘You’re okay.’