In the flat, the answering machine flashed. Simon waited for the cathedral clock to finish striking before listening.

“You have two new messages. First message.”

“Duty Sergeant Lewis, guv. Report that the fire service have recovered another two bodies from the wreckage of the fairground ride. Also, the Chief is bringing the press conference forward to half eight. Thank you.”

“Second message.”

There was a pause. A breath.

“Oh—Simon. Hello. This is Jane. Jane Fitzroy. I’ve just been listening to the news. I didn’t think you’d be at home, obviously, but c I just wanted to say how awful. And my prayers and thoughts are with everyone. So, well c that’s all and I’ll c I’ll catch you sometime. And it’s Jane. If you didn’t hear that. Thanks. Goodnight, Simon.”

Fifty-seven

He laughed as he rode. He went the back way, not through the town but on a four-mile detour, so that he approached the road out towards the Moor from the far side. Had to. No risks. No one knew him out here. And he laughed. Sometimes he grinned. Sometimes he smiled. But mostly he laughed aloud.

It had been good. Better than good. There they had all been, dressed up and nowhere to go and they’d been waiting for him, expecting him. Had they? Had they seriously thought he would have shot a kid’s water pistol at the fair? He hadn’t so much as tried the shooting range though he’d walked past it and watched a couple of times, watched idiots who couldn’t have shot a barn door at ten feet. Didn’t matter. He’d enjoyed it. So had they.

What had it cost and all to catch a sniper who was never going to shoot? That wasn’t his way, ripping off into a crowd at random. People who were mad did that and he despised them. Youths in America who walked into a schoolyard and gunned down a dozen innocent kids, college boys who turned on their classmates with a machine gun. They were sick. They were crazy. They needed locking up for life, only they rarely saw the day out, they turned the gun on themselves. Almost always. Which was one thing he was never going to do because he was not sick, not crazy, not a weirdo, not high on drugs. He had a purpose, he had plans and targets and methods. He was different.

It had been good to know he could be at the fair and be certain, absolutely certain, that nothing was going to happen. He laughed.

But then as he accelerated on a straight bit of road, he remembered that eight people were dead and dozens injured because of some moron. He heard the screams again. He heard the shouts for help deep inside the collapsed ride. That sort of carnage was what deranged youths who rushed into churches and baseball stadiums and school classrooms caused. The electric chair was all they were fit for and he despised them for shooting themselves and taking the easy way out.

All the same. He smiled again, remembering.

He had timed it right today. It was cold and bright, no haze, no wind. Clear. He parked the bike out of sight in a dip, took his bag off the back and walked the rest of the way, up the steep slope. At the top he turned and looked out over the countryside. A pair of buzzards soared high, wings open flat and stiff like the paddles of windmills. The distant town was a faint smoky blue line. He thought he could fly himself from here, just open his arms, lift off and soar on the current of air.

He opened the bag and took out the roll-up tin and tobacco. Papers. Licked. Rolled. Struck the match. The smell of the smoke and the taste of the cigarette was like nothing else. Smoking in the open air. Eating something cooked in the open air. Nothing like it.

He never smoked indoors.

He lay on his back and blew a smoke ring at the sky. He thought about nothing, but he felt and his feeling was a diffused warmth and satisfaction which filled his mind and his body. He was happy. Things were going well. He was good at planning, and it showed. It was idiots who tried to do this sort of thing without a plan, opportunists who came unstuck because they had not thought of every possible error. Leave nothing to chance. He didn’t.

It was good to lie here knowing that every time he carried out a part of his plan he was doing it because Alison had made him. He was not a violent person. He didn’t need some sort of stupid revenge. That was for losers. But what Alison had done to him had caused all of this. Alison was responsible. If the time ever came for him to talk about it, that would be what he would say and he would give details, chapter and verse, so that it was absolutely clear. If he were ever caught c

He sat up. He took the roll-up out of his mouth and smiled. Laughed. Laughed and laughed and laughed.

He put the cigarette out carefully and picked up his bag.

It was beautiful inside the spinney. The light came sifting down through the trees and onto the fallen leaves, though there had not yet been one of the autumn gales to strip the bulk of them off. He knew the spot. Nothing had changed.

He opened the bag, took out the small white-painted cans and set them up in a row on the fallen tree. Then he went back thirty paces, carrying the bag.

A minute later he was lying on his stomach, carefully poised. The white cans were bright in the sun.

He levelled. Waited.

Fire!

Fire! Fire! Fire! Fire! Fire! Fire! Fire!

Every one.

He smiled.

Got up and replaced the cans and paced back again. Forty strides this time. The leaves made a soft crunching sound as he lay down. A conker in its prickly bright green ball was beside his hand. He smiled.

Levelled the gun again. The cans were smiling back at him. Beautiful. White.

Fire!

Fifty-eight

Statistics was the only class on Monday. They were out at half eleven.

“Coming into town?”

Tom hesitated, standing beside his Yamaha.

“Cheer you up, man, you need it. Look at you. Listen, your mum’s going to be fine.”

“I know.”

“Right then, so, what? Leave the bike, come into town. You got any cash?”

Tom shrugged. He had cash. At the hospital his mother had made him take twenty quid out of her bag. He had been going to say no when Phil had appeared and asked him if he was all right for money. Bloody cheek. Tom had taken the twenty-pound note and left without answering. What was it to do with Russell?

“Where do you want to go?”

“Rattlers?”

He knew what it was. Luke had always looked out for him, since they were in juniors. The only problem now was Luke had a tendency to rib him about the Jesus Gang. When he’d been at the camp in the summer Luke kept sending him filthy texts. Thing was, they were very, very funny. But three nights ago, it had been Luke who’d rung him, Luke who’d fetched him, Luke’s dad who’d driven him to the hospital and waited and then taken him back to theirs, Luke’s mum who’d fed him and handed him a clean cloth to cry into when it had all hit him. And hugged him. They’d all hugged him. He hadn’t known then if she would be alive or dead the next morning.

Rattlers was in a back street near the bus station and did pie and peas, pie and chips, pie and mash, pie and eggs. It was small and greasy and permanently full.

“You God-bothering this weekend?” Luke asked as they got mugs of tea and ordered food.

“Don’t call it that.”

Luke gave him a shove and grinned. They hung about by the counter waiting for a couple of workmen to leave their table.

“Didn’t notice God round on Saturday night. Maybe off duty?”

“Yeah, well, my mum might have died.”

“Right.”

“What?”

“Right, she got spared, the other eight didn’t.”

“Leave it.”

Luke elbowed his way to the table before someone ahead of them in the queue.

Tom sat down and stared out of the window onto the graffiti sprayed on the wall of the bus station. BRING BACK HANIGN.