Free Reconstruction by Mick Herron Page B

towards the window. ‘Remember those streets? Walking the beat?’ He stood. ‘I’m the man who’ll have you back doing that if you even think about interfering with my job.’ He produced a card and tossed it on to Fredericks’ desk. It showed a mobile number; nothing else. ‘Immediately. Got that?’ Then he left.

    Out on those streets he’d mentioned, Sam Chapman took a deep breath: petrol fumes, mostly. They didn’t mention that in the tourist guides. Crossing at the lights, he headed up to the city centre. Cup of coffee: first place he came to. He hadn’t been offered any at the copshop; the whole encounter had not been wisely handled. But he’d never been good with uniforms. And besides, the thing about making enemies was, they worked harder to fuck you up. Jaime Segura wouldn’t be on the streets long. Fredericks would have him collared, just to show who ran this place.
    And then Fredericks would hand him over, because one thing a ranking officer wouldn’t risk was his status.
    The grey morning was breaking up; shafts of sunlight slicing through cloud mass to pick out local landmarks – a tower here, a spire there; a DIY superstore over to the west. Might turn out a good one, but you couldn’t base judgements on passing interludes. The day so far had been full of deceptive appearances. The op, for instance, had been a collect-and-comfort, or that’s how it would appear on the books.
    But Jaime Segura had never been meant to survive it.
    So far, she’d been operating on remote. That part of Louise Kennedy that had made her run towards the Gun instead of away wasn’t a part she was in daily contact with, though she could recognize it as a survival instinct, appearances to the contrary notwithstanding – if she’d reached that gate first, she wouldn’t be in this room now. The chances of leaving which didn’t look pretty. Guns and schools didn’t mix.
    And there were other parts of her, too; parts which hadn’t done anything brave lately, not even to save herself – one was curled into a ball in the darkest room her consciousness could find, waiting until this was over. Another part was blaming her mother – there was a good solid reason for this; an unbreakable link in a chain of logic she couldn’t lay a hand on right now – and another still was blaming Eliot, whose undeniable guilt was scribbled all over the fact of his presence. She hadn’t blamed the boys, though their turn might yet come. And curiously, she was-n’t blaming the gunman, either – the gunman was a given right now; above criticism, because he was what every-thing else was about.
    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