The head-teacher's voice piped at her, "Thank you for coming in, Mrs. Perry. Please sit down."
"Why am I here?"
"Just sit down, Mrs. Perry, please. You'll know everyone here, except Miss Smythe from the county's education department."
She remained standing.
"What's going on?"
The head-teacher fixed her with a glance.
"I am afraid I have something difficult to tell you."
"What?"
Bellamy grunted, "It's pretty obvious, Mrs. Perry, after yesterday afternoon."
"What's obvious?"
Carstairs tried to look sombre.
"There was a very disturbing ii vident affecting the school yesterday, Meryl, which cannot be ignored."
Her child, with the ferret's hand on his anorak, knew. Stephen was in the common room, and would be scared half out of his wits. She stood her ground, and glowered.
"So, which of you's queuing to use the knife?"
"That's not called-for. We have a responsibility-' "It's a responsibility we're not ignoring."
Barry Carstairs didn't look at her. He was playing with a pencil and he'd scribbled words on a pad, as if he didn't trust himself without notes.
"This isn't easy for us. As chairman of the governors, after consultations with our head-teacher and bearing in mind the feelings of the parents' representative, I have taken a most serious decision. Yesterday, your husband came to the school to collect Stephen. He was, we now know, accompanied by an armed bodyguard. It was not his intention that the presence of the bodyguard should be known, and that was an act of deceit. The bodyguard, after a grossly irresponsible incident with his pistol an incident that could have led to the gun firing in a crowded playground in the head-teacher's hearing, spoke to the local police after she, quite rightly, had called them. I~ his explanation to the local police, he spoke of a threat to your husband that necessitates his constant protection from terrorist attack. We feel, after very careful consideration, that a threat to your husband represents, also, a threat against your husband's family-' "You're blathering, Barry. Why don't you say what you mean?"
Carstairs pushed aside his notes. There was a curl of anger at his lips.
"I was trying to do it the decent way. What Frank's done, what's in his sordid past, I don't know and I don't care. What matters is that his family is exposed to bombs and guns, in our school. The children and staff here are all threatened by terrorists. Their safety is paramount. Stephen, as much as his stepfather or his mother, could be a target. If he is a target, then everyone at this school is a target. He's out, he's no longer welcome here."
"You can't do that, not to a child."
The woman, Miss Smythe, leaned forward to intervene, and spoke with a low, intense voice.
"We can do it, Mrs. Perry, and we are doing it. My department, after full consideration of the facts, has decided to back the governors' recommendation. We're foursquare behind them. As soon as is practical we will communicate with you on proposals for alternative education for Stephen, but I can't say when that will be. A thought, Mrs. Perry. Is it possible for Stephen to move away, stay with an uninvolved relative, and attend school elsewhere?"
"It is not. We are together, a family."
"Then he'll have to sit at home," Carstairs said.
"I'm sure Mrs. Kemp'll loan you some books but he's not coming back here."
"You are despicable. You are, Barry Carstairs, always have been, a second-rate rat, always will be."
"As of now, Stephen is no longer a pupil at this school. Take him home."
"And Frank thought of you, and your stupid wife, as a friend."
"Your problems aren't ours, they don't concern us, get off back home. And when you get home you should call for a removal van and take your problems away. You're pariahs, you're not wanted."
There was so much she could have said. Meryl thought, in that moment, that weeping and pleading would have shamed her. She eyed them with contempt and none of them could meet her gaze. Once before she had been through the business of shame, and she would not go there again. No begging, no cringing, not then and not now. Nine years before, she had resigned from the haulage business where she worked the logistics computer, four months after the Christmas party. Hadn't been drunk, incapable, before that party, or since. Too drunk, too incapable, to know which of the men had done it. It could have been any of the thirty-eight drivers, twelve loaders, three managers and two directors. She would have needed DNA testing to learn which was the father of the embryo baby. She turned. Living with Frank, loving him, bringing up her child together had erased the shame. She left them behind her, the silence clinging in the room, and strode down the corridor to fetch her son from the common room.
They would be watching her from the head-teacher's office as she led the child back across the empty playground towards the car, their faces would be pressed against the glass. She had shown them defiance, but by the time she reached the car the pain and the despair hit her.
With her boy beside her, she drove into the town centre to buy the length of net from which she would make the curtains.
Classification: SECRET.
Date: 4 April 1998.
Subject: JULIET SEVEN
Transcript of telephone conversation (secure using SB mobile at Juliet 7 location) between GM, G Branch, and Juliet 7.
GM: Hello? Mr. Perry? Good, got you. I'm Geoff Markham, I came down to see you with Mr. Fenton.
"Fraid I didn't make much of a contribution. This is a secure call. What I mean is, we can talk frankly. There's a bit to talk about… Are you there?
J7: I'm here. What is there to talk about?
GM: You appreciate my difficulty, the same as before. It's the same difficulty as Mr. Fenton had?
J7: You've a difficulty very funny. Try your difficulty on me.
GM: The difficulty is that I cannot share sources of information available to us.
J7: Join the queue nobody tells me anything.
GM: Let's try to keep calm. That way we make better decisions. J7: What decisions?
GM: This is not easy. Frankly, the situation around you and your family has deteriorated, we believe.
J7: Spell it out.
GM: That's my difficulty. As I've already explained, I cannot 17: Because you don't trust me. Nobody [expletivel trusts me -that's why I intend to make my own [expletive] decisions.
GM: Please, please, listen to me. My judgement, based on information I am privy to, is that you and your family should relocateJ7: Your judgement you can shove it up your [expletivel.
GM: I used the word 'deteriorated' – I'm not using that word lightly. You should go hear me out. We can make all the arrangements within a matter of hours.
J7: I provided information, and I am not trusted sufficiently to be told what use that information was put to.
GM: That, too, is one of my difficulties. I, too, am not need-to-know on that information.
J7: Then stop playing bloody errand boy and [expletive], well, find out Wait.
[Pause of 38 seconds] J7: Meryl's just come home. She took her son to school, and was told at school that they're barring the boy [expletivel bastards. You think I'll run away because of the say-so of those [expletive] bastards? Think again.
GM: It is a situation of grave danger.
J7: I'm not running, not again. This is my home.
GM: Perhaps you would reconsider when matters are less fraught.
J7: I make my own decisions. I am staying. (Call terminated)
The tanker, moored at the offshore jetty, had started to unload its cargo of 287,000 tonnes of crude. The master stood with his engineer officer on the small stern deck behind the tower of the bridge and accommodation block. The inflatable, covered by tarpaulin sheeting, was stowed beside them. They discussed a schedule. It was important for them to plan the length of time the tanker spent there for the crew to take shore leave, and the sailing time back into the English Channel. Time was critica amp; The great tanker should not reach the point in the Channel too early or too late to make the pickup. Neither man entertained the slightest doubt that he would be on the beach, and that an enemy of their country would, a few hours before, have been justifiably killed. They made calculations: because they had been delayed in taking their place at the offshore jetty it seemed unlikely that the crew would enjoy more than a few hours of shore leave in the Swedish port.