‘The man in the blue suit, front row. He’s the American. He’s next to the Jew. Both would be good.’
Hari nodded.
Binici moved first. He walked straight down the centre of the nave, following a line of sand-coloured marble, crossed with stripes of obsidian black. Each stripe was a stride, thirty strides to the altar. Hari stepped forward a few paces. The others, like sprinters waiting on the gun, agitated, bounced and muttered. But they stayed against the glass wall.
Now was the moment. There were fractions of seconds in play and Hari needed every one of them. He matched Binici’s steps, cutting right behind the fifth pillar. The bookseller and the white-haired man were crouched behind the bookshelves. They looked up, then quickly looked at the floor.
And straight ahead, he saw them. Thirty metres and three pillars away, Millie and Amara sat hunched, holding hands. Backs to Hari. They wore their pink ASOS tops. They had only cost Hari ten pounds, but they loved them like they were spun from gold thread.
The priest was speaking, reading from a book, his voice amplified by small speakers on each of the pillars. It was a prayer.
‘All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.’
His head was down, Binici was at the choir stalls. Hari was at the fourth pillar.
‘The hatred which divides nation from nation …’
Binici was at the altar rail. Hari had reached the third pillar.
‘The covetous desires of people and nations …’
Some in the congregation shifted uneasily, eyes narrowing. Troubled faces. This was wrong.
Binici stepped up to the altar. Don Hardin looked up, startled. He managed another line. ‘Our envy of the happiness of others—’ Then he broke away. His firm ‘Can I help you?’ was heard by all. The few in the congregation who had their heads bowed, looked up.
Hari edged his way along the east side, past a kaleidoscopic wall of stained glass and a boulder-like font, framed in colour. He stopped a few metres from the twins, praying they wouldn’t turn round. That, for these few seconds at least, they would be too scared to move. He stepped into one of the narrow spaces created by the angles of the zigzag walls. A floor-to-ceiling, green-to-gold window cast a shadow which no one saw. From here Hari could watch Binici, the priest and his sisters.
At the altar, Binici said nothing, Hardin said nothing. Between them, a cross of nails. Silence in the cathedral. Millie and Amara huddled closer. He saw Binici say his words. They were lost to the microphone, but Hari could guess what they were. He held his breath.
The cat toyed with the bird a few seconds more, then Binici lunged, stabbing Hardin under his ribs. The priest’s shocked, agonized inhalation played across the cathedral’s speakers. Screams from the congregation, many of whom stood. As the priest staggered back, Binici caught him, held him with one hand, stabbed his jugular with the other. The backward flourish of the knife threw blood in an arc across the tapestry, Christ’s feet and vestments now stained crimson.
There was a brief, shocked silence, followed by scattered, guttural howls. Then came the scraping, the pushing back of a hundred chairs, and Hari lurched forward. For this moment only, the advantage was his.
He rounded the pillar.
He ignored his sisters.
He pushed his grandmother out of the way.
He stabbed Amal Hussain in the neck.
83
EVERYTHING HAPPENED AT ONCE.
Horror. Joy. Terror. Hussain fell against the pillar, his knife clattering to the marble. One hand clawed at the concrete, the other his neck. Deep-red arterial blood seeped between his fingers. Hari kicked his feet away and he slid to the floor.
‘Guess what,’ said Hari in his ear. ‘It was a trick.’
Hari assumed Hussain’s ferocious stare represented rage and humiliation but he didn’t ask. And Hussain couldn’t speak anyway.
His grandmother had scrambled into a crouch where she put arms around her girls. One under each. They looked from Hari to Hussain and back, their gaze unsure where it was safe to rest. The looks of anguish, confusion and surprise played on repeat. Hari dropped to his knees, threw his arms around all three. His head clear, his mind racing, he barely registered the familiar smells of Pears soap and strawberry shampoo. He hadn’t known what he was going to do, didn’t have a plan. But since the glass wall line-up, it had all seemed clear. The real danger was now. If the other citizens saw what he had done, he wouldn’t make it outside. And neither would his family. Somewhere at the back of his thinking he was aware that he’d probably killed a man. But a man who had said he’d kill his sisters. Now, a new clock was ticking.
‘Stay close, Nana, stay close, girls. I’ll get us out.’
Their terrified faces held a thousand questions, but they asked none of them. Three swift nods.
The cathedral rang with screams. A man and a woman on the front row took a few steps forward to help the stricken priest but were pulled back by others. Their sleeves were tugged back with frantic gestures. The priest was dead, his killer wiping the knife on his vestments. So they turned and joined the surge for the exit. Those in the middle of the rows began pushing those on either side to move faster. Some tried to clamber over the chairs, forcing themselves forward. Most fell on top of the people already there, a few fell into gaps. A young woman in a denim skirt shrieked as a flailing man in a bright yellow T-shirt collapsed on top of her, both of them crashing to the ground. A snapping and
