‘So you’re the fascist!’ he yelled. He marched closer. ‘Traitor and fascist!’ His strides got longer. Each step fuelled his rage.
Hari pushed the girls and his grandmother behind him, reversing into the pillar. The girls were backs to the concrete, his grandmother was back to the girls, Hari was back to his grandmother. He held his knife in both hands. A knife with Hussain’s blood on it. He said nothing. He hoped that dying or dead Hussain, three metres away and lying in his own lake of blood, would speak for him. Give Binici a reason to hesitate. It seemed to work. Binici stared at a glassy-eyed Hussain then turned his head to Hari. His countenance changed again. He lowered his knife.
‘I should kill you for this,’ he said. ‘Gut you like a pig. But, actually?’ He looked again between Hussain and Hari, then nodded slowly, as though impressed by his own reasoning. ‘The boy who killed Amal Hussain? He will have a haunted, terrified and terrible life. So many will want to kill him. There will not be a moment of peace.’ He gestured with his knife. ‘For him, or his family.’
Hari felt his grandmother shaking behind him.
Saw shadows at the glass wall.
84
FAMIE WATCHED FROM the ruins. Hunter and Espie, backs against the cathedral wall, had hesitated. Probably, guessed Famie, at Espie’s suggestion. A few centimetres from the door, they had stopped, their sharply defined shadows falling just shy of the glass wall. Armed response was surely no more than sixty seconds away. There were heavy door slams coming from everywhere, the sounds bouncing around the walls making it impossible to judge numbers or direction. All they had to do was wait. But inside, the screaming continued, and when the glass door crashed open and three people escaped, Famie saw Hunter say some words to Espie. Espie nodded. They went in.
Famie had promised she’d not follow Hunter inside. Both women had known she wouldn’t keep her word. As soon as Hunter threw the glass door open, Famie ran to the top of the steps where Sophie and Sam had been. Jumped down four and crouched.
‘Armed police! Armed police!’ Hunter and Espie’s voices rang out together. Full-throttle, urgent, commanding. Even from outside, up on the steps, theirs were two voices echoing sharply above the fury. They weren’t armed of course, Famie knew that. They had tasers and cuffs, not Heckler & Koch MP5s. But they were disrupters. They would change the story. Famie wondered if she’d met braver women in her life.
Three more terrified escapees ran out. Two had head wounds, the other bled from the thigh. They too ran down the angel steps. Famie wondered if she should direct them some other way – the terrorists had all arrived from there, maybe there were more lying in wait. But what did she know? And why should they trust a stranger outside, when so many were killing inside? She kept quiet.
Hunter and Espie stepped out of Famie’s eye-line and she inched down to the bottom step. The repeated shouts of ‘Armed police!’ seemed to have encouraged those near enough or fast enough to make for the door. Four more now, running, almost tripping. They ran past Famie.
‘How many injured?’ she called after them. They ignored her. Kept running.
Inside, the screams continued. Through the open door she saw three men run towards Hunter and Espie. Both women crouched, fired their tasers. Famie heard the rattle, saw two men fall. The third slowed, dipped, picked up one of the dropped Böhlers. A knife now in each hand, he held his arms wide and advanced on the officers.
From her left, the old graveyard side, Famie at last heard the boots. Heavy steps. Running fast. Three men, black caps, body armour, submachine guns held at the ready. They pulled up just short of the glass wall. They saw Famie together, swung their guns together. She raised her hands, and spoke fast.
‘Famie Madden from IPS! Two officers just went in. They’re under attack. Eight men, all with knives, didn’t see any guns. I’ll back off.’ She stood and ran up the steps.
When she was at the top, she turned. The police were inside. Advancing as a unit, guns raised, more shouts, then they stepped out of her view. A single shot, then two more. Staccato, metallic thuds magnified into small explosions by the extravagant proportions of concrete. More escapees. Sirens. Cars arriving fast now. Three police vans screeched into the car park, two Range Rovers behind. Three more armed officers sprinted to the cathedral door. They took a beat outside the glass door, then ducked inside. More shots.
Famie followed. As she knew she would.
Inside was chaos. Smoky, acrid chaos. Hunter was down, stomach wound, Espie cradling her. Shouting in her radio. The tasered men had been shot in the head. Knocked-over chairs, bodies sprawled over and under them. Famie counted five. Some moving and crying, others silent. The first armed police group edged their way along the right-hand pillars, the second pushed from the left. Fallen orders of service served as stepping stones through the blood.
Beyond the chairs, in front of the choir stalls, the congregation. Corralled. Cowering. Retreating behind the knifemen, who were retreating behind the police. And above them all, a huge tapestry of Christ, now with an arc of blood splatter.
Where are you, Hari?
85
AT THE FIRST police shout, Binici had flinched, ducked. A final look to Hari. ‘This is your doing,’ he snarled.
‘I hope so,’ said Hari.
Binici ran towards the glass wall; Kamran joined him, to his left, Teeth to his right. Two officers, one black, plainclothes, the other white and uniformed, had run to the centre of the nave, lit by the blues and greens of the kaleidoscope
