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  “What the fucking hell’s going on?” he demanded. “You’re crazy, you are. One minute you’re all over me, now you’re pushing me away. Is this how you get your kicks? You’re a fucking prick-teaser. You’re a dirty fucking bitch.”

  Still staggering backward her foot kicked against the edge of a plastic crate filled with empty glass bottles. She instinctively leaned down, picked up one of the bottles by its neck, and smashed it against the brick wall behind her.

  His reactions dulled by drink, Newbury stood and watched her.

  “Now what are you doing? You’re fucking crazy, you are. What the fucking hell do you think you’re doing? I’m not . . .”

  He didn’t finish his sentence. She ran at him and shoved the broken bottle deep into his stomach. It sliced through his cotton shirt and plunged into his flesh. She pulled the bottle out and then shoved it into him again, this time lower, the jagged edge almost severing the bottom third of his still exposed but now completely flaccid penis. Then a third strike as she sunk the razor-sharp glass into his neck.

  She turned and ran and was out of the alley before he’d hit the ground.

  There were more of them out there, thousands more.

  She had to keep running.

  10

  SOMETIMES THE THOUGHT OF work is worse than the reality. All things considered, today at the office was just about bearable. After everything I’d seen and heard over the weekend I’d expected to have to fight my way into work through crowds of people battling with each other on the streets. Apart from a few broken windows and some other slight damage everything looked and felt disappointingly normal. The city center was quiet for a Monday and the office was too.

  I’m glad to be home. I can see the apartment building at the end of the road now. As usual there are lights on in the diagonally opposite corners of the building—our flat and the other occupied flat upstairs. As I get closer I can see shadows moving around behind our curtains. The kids are running around in the living room. No doubt they’ll have been acting up all evening and I’ll never hear the end of it from Liz.

  We shouldn’t be living in a place like this, I think as I walk up the overgrown pathway to the door. I know I’m a lazy bastard and I should work harder but it’s not easy. I do my best, it’s just that it doesn’t seem to be enough. I need a kick up the backside from time to time. But if every day could be like today, I decide as I pull open the creaking front door, then maybe things might work out. Today it actually felt like the effort I’d put in had been worthwhile. I didn’t have any screaming members of the public to deal with and I even managed to have a laugh with Tina Murray. Today, for once, I didn’t feel as if I was pulling in the opposite direction to everyone else. The plans that Lizzie and I have been making for years to move to a bigger house, change the car, and generally improve our standard of living seem a little more realistic and possible than they did when I left the apartment this morning. Still a long way off, mind you, but possible.

  I shuffle though the gloom of the lobby and open the door to the apartment. I step inside and the warmth of our home makes me realize just how cold it is outside tonight.

  “I’m back,” I shout as I take off my coat and shoes. It’s unusually quiet in here. I can hear the TV and the children but I can’t hear Liz. She’s usually yelling at one of them. I can’t remember the last time I came home and it was this quiet.

  Edward appears in the hallway in front of me. He’s grinning from ear to ear.

  “Everything okay, Ed?”

  He nods his head.

  “Had half a day off today,” he beams, looking pleased with himself.

  “Why, what’s the matter with you?”

  “Nothing. School was shut.”

  “Why?” I ask again as I walk farther into the flat, looking for Liz. I can’t see her in any of the bedrooms.

  “Because of Jack Foster,” Ed explains. I’m confused.

  “Who’s Jack Foster?”

  “He’s in fifth grade. You should have seen him, Dad, it was great!”

  I’ve reached the kitchen door. I can see Lizzie in there sitting at the table, drinking a cup of coffee and staring into space.

  “You okay?” I ask. She looks up, surprised.

  “Didn’t know you were back,” she says quietly, shaking herself out of her trance. She gets up, walks over to me, and hugs me. This sudden display of affection is out of character.

  “What’s that for?” I whisper, my mouth pressed close to her ear. “You all right?”

  She nods then pushes herself away and goes to fetch my dinner from the oven.

  “I’m fine,” she sighs. “Had a bad day, that’s all.”

  “Ed was telling me that the school was closed. Something to do with Jack Foster?”

  She puts my food down on the table and sits in a chair opposite to the place she’s laid for me. I start to eat and watch as she massages her temples. She looks tired and upset. I’m assuming that whatever happened at school today is what’s bothering her.

  “So what happened?” I ask. She doesn’t want to answer. “Talk to me, Liz . . .”

  She clears her throat and finishes her coffee. When she finally starts to speak her voice is quiet and full of emotion.

  “Do you know Jack Foster?”

  I shake my head. I’ve heard the name before but I can’t place the face.

  “You know Ben Paris? Short lad with black hair?”

  I’m sure I know who Ben is.

  “His dad’s the hairdresser?”

  “That’s the one. Jack Foster is his best friend. They’re always hanging around together. We sat next to Jack’s mum Sally at parents evening last term. He’s got a sister in Ed’s class. He’s tall and . . .”

  “. . . and he wears glasses?”

  “That’s him.”

  I’m pretty sure I know who she’s talking about. I say that I do just to keep the conversation moving.

  “So what did he do?”

  Lizzie clears her throat again and composes herself.

  “First thing this morning,” she begins, “the whole school was in the hall for assembly. The kids were crammed into the middle of the hall and Mrs. Shields was parading up and down doing her usual routine at the front.”

  “I can’t stand that woman,” I interrupt. Mrs. Shields is the principal. By all accounts she’s strict and old-fashioned and she speaks to the parents in exactly the same way as she speaks to the kids.

  “I know you don’t like her,” Liz sighs, “you tell me every time I mention her name. Anyway, she was just finishing off one of her bloody awful Bible stories. I was sitting at the back next to Denise Jones and . . .”

  She stops speaking and I stop eating. I look up from my dinner and put down my knife and fork.

  “And . . . ?”

  “Jack’s in fifth grade,” she continues. “The children sit on the floor in age order with the youngest at the front so Jack’s class was at the back of the hall near where we were. Mrs. Shields had just asked them to bow their heads for the final prayer before lessons . . .”

  She stops again.

  “So what happened?” I press.

  “I was sitting there at the back and Jack stood up right in front of me. Most of the children were in front of him and they all had their heads down so there wasn’t much of a reaction at first. Then he just started to run toward Mrs. Shields. He was kicking and tripping over the kids and some of them got hurt and started to shout and squeal. By the time everyone had looked up Jack had made it over to the side of the hall. He shoved Eileen Callis off her chair and she ended up flat on her face on the floor. All this happened in seconds. We were all just sitting there, too surprised to do anything. Jack grabbed hold of Eileen’s empty chair, lifted it up over his head, and ran at Mrs. Shields. She moved toward him to try and stop him but he was running at her, swinging the chair around over his head and just missing the kids sitting down at the front. He missed her a couple of times but then he hit her right across her
face, just under her eye. Jack’s almost as tall as Mrs. Shields. He kept swinging the chair at her and before anyone knew what was happening she was lying flat on the floor with him standing over her, smashing the chair down on her back again and again.”

  “Didn’t anyone stop him?” I ask.

  “Don Collingwood and Judith Lamb got to him first,” she answers, nodding. “Don grabbed him and Judith tried to wrestle the chair off him. Bloody hell, Danny, it was like he was possessed or something. It was horrible. Mrs. Shields was screaming and that was making some of the kids scream. She was curled up in a ball on the floor next to the piano with her hands over her head. Her hair was all over the place and her glasses were smashed. She had blood running down her face and . . .”

  “But why?” I interrupt. “What was the matter with him?”

  She shrugs.

  “Nothing as far as I know. I saw him before school started and he seemed fine. He was having a laugh with his pals. I’ve never known him to do anything like this. There are plenty of kids at that school who wouldn’t have surprised me if they’d done it, but not Jack . . .”

  “Doesn’t make any sense,” I mumble, my mouth full of food.

  “You’re telling me.”

  “So what did they do with him?”

  She shakes her head.

  “The place went crazy. Don dragged Jack off into one of the offices and locked him in. He trashed the place. He was screaming and shouting and . . . and God, it was horrible. The poor kid, you could hear him all through the school. He sounded terrified.”

  “What about the principal? What about Mrs. Shields?”

  “They took her to the hospital and had her checked over. I think she was okay, just a few cuts and bruises, that’s all.”

  I turn my attention back to my food for a second but it’s impossible not to keep thinking about what Liz has told me.

  “What made him do it?” I ask, knowing full well that she won’t be able to answer.

  “No idea,” she sighs, getting up to make another drink. “Makes you wonder if it’s connected to what we saw over the weekend.”

  “Can’t be,” I snap instinctively. “This was a kid at a school, how could it be connected?”

  “I don’t know. Anyway, they closed the school not long after it happened and it’s probably going to be closed again tomorrow. We tried to keep the kids distracted but you know what it’s like, Dan, it’s a small school. It’s a close school. Everyone knows everybody else. They had to call the police in to deal with him in the end. Christ, I felt so sorry for Sally. You should have seen her. She looked like she was the one who’d done wrong. And when they took Jack away . . .”

  “When who took him away?”

  “They took him off in an ambulance in the end. He wouldn’t speak to Sally, wouldn’t even look at her. He was screaming for help. Poor kid had lost it completely. He didn’t have a clue what he was doing. Wouldn’t let anyone near him. It was like he was scared of the rest of us.”

  11

  IT’S PAST TEN O’CLOCK before we know it. The children are finally settled and asleep and the flat is silent. The television has been off all evening but now the living room is too quiet so I switch it on just so that we have some background noise. Liz is subdued and preoccupied and we’ve hardly talked. It’s getting late. It won’t be long before we go to bed. Before we know it I’ll be up again and back to the grind. Sometimes I feel like I’m running at a different speed to the rest of the world. I feel like I’m always having to go flat out just to keep up.

  I go to the kitchen and make us both a drink. I take Lizzie’s through to her.

  “Drink.”

  She looks up and smiles and takes the cup from me.

  “You okay?” I ask.

  “Of course I am. Why do you keep asking me if I’m okay?”

  “Just want to be sure you’re all right. You’ve had a shitty day.”

  “I have but I’m okay,” she says, her voice a little edgy and tense.

  “Fine,” I grumble, overreacting, “sorry I asked.”

  “Oh come on, don’t be like that . . .”

  “Be like what? I only asked if you were okay, that’s all.”

  I sit down next to her. She stretches out her arm behind me and begins to gently rub my back.

  “Sorry.”

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  Same old junk on TV. I pick up the remote and work my way through the channels. The comedies aren’t funny tonight and the dramas are too dramatic. Nothing seems to suit the mood. I head for the news. I want to find out more about what’s been going on. Apart from hearing the odd snippet of information at work today this is the first chance I’ve had all day to catch up. What we see is more of what we saw yesterday—more trouble and more violence. What we don’t get is any explanation. Each individual report seems to follow a pretty standard format—one or more incidents take place in a particular area and they report how people react to the fallout. This is insane. I keep hearing phrases like “copycat violence” and “revenge attacks” being bandied around. Are people really as stupid as Harry tried to suggest yesterday? Would anyone really want to start trouble just because they’ve seen others doing it?

  “Look at that,” Lizzie says as we stare at the headlines together, “they’re even giving them a name now. How’s that going to help?”

  She’s right. I heard the word used a few minutes earlier but didn’t think anything of it. The minority who are causing the trouble have been branded “Haters.” It came from a tabloid newspaper headline that was published this morning and it’s quickly stuck. It seems appropriate because there’s still no mention of these people fighting for any cause or reason. Hate seems to be just about the only thing driving them.

  “They have to give them a name,” I mumble. “It makes it easier for them to talk about it if they give them a name.”

  Lizzie shakes her head in disbelief.

  “I don’t understand any of this.”

  “Nor me.”

  “They’re talking about it like it’s an epidemic. How can it be? It’s not a disease, for Christ’s sake.”

  “It might be.”

  “I doubt it. But there has to be a reason for all of it, doesn’t there?”

  She’s right, but like everyone else I have no idea what that reason might be so I don’t bother answering. Watching the news makes me feel increasingly uneasy. It’s making me feel like shutting the front door and not opening it again until all of this sudden violence and disruption has stopped. I instinctively start trying to come up with an explanation to try and make myself feel better if nothing else.

  “Maybe it’s not as bad as they’re making it out to be,” I suggest.

  “What?”

  “They always exaggerate things on the TV, don’t they? They’ve just been saying something about an increase in the number of violent incidents being reported, but that doesn’t necessarily mean there’s been any increase in the number of incidents actually taking place, does it?”

  “Not necessarily,” she says, sounding unsure.

  “There might have been just as many fights as last week, but they weren’t newsworthy then. Problem is when something like this makes the headlines people start jumping on the bandwagon.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “Maybe this whole situation is something the TV and newspapers have created,” I say. I’m making this up as I’m going along.

  “It can’t be. Something’s definitely happening out there. There are too many coincidences for . . .”

  “Okay,” I interrupt, “but if they haven’t created the problem they’re definitely making it worse.”

  “What about what happened at the concert on Friday? And in the pub? And whatever was going on with that car last night and what happened at school this morning . . . are you saying that all those things would have happened anyway? Do you think we’re reading more into them just because of what we’ve seen on TV?”

  “I
don’t know. There’s no way of telling, is there? All I’m saying is that we’ve seen things like this get out of control before.”

  “Have we?”

  “Of course we have. It happens all the time. Someone somewhere broadcasts a story, then a brain-dead section of the audience copy just to try and get themselves on TV or on the front pages of the papers.”

  Now I think I’ve really lost her. I can tell from the expression on her face that she doesn’t understand. Either that or she doesn’t believe me. I’m not entirely sure about this myself.

  “Don’t get you.”

  “Remember dangerous dogs?” I ask. She shakes her head and screws up her face again. “A few years back a kid around here got attacked by their neighbor’s pet rottweiler, remember? The kid’s face got all messed up and she needed surgery I think. They had the dog put down.”

  “So? What’s that got to do with what’s happening now?”

  “Point is until that story broke hardly anyone had heard anything about dogs attacking kids, had they? But as soon as it made the papers there were suddenly stories about the same thing happening all over the place. There was a bloody epidemic of dogs attacking kids. Now you only hear about it happening once in a blue moon again.”

  “What’s your point? Are you saying that those kids didn’t get attacked?”

  “No, nothing like that. I guess what I’m saying is that things like that must happen all the time but no one’s interested. As soon as it makes the news, though, people start to report it and before you know it you’ve got dogs biting kids on every street corner.”

  “Not sure if I agree with you,” she says quietly. “Still not even sure I know what you’re talking about. There’s never been anything on this scale before . . .”

  “I think that these idiots,” I explain, pointing at the TV, “are doing more harm than good. By giving these people a label and giving them airtime they’re glorifying whatever it is that’s happening and blowing it out of all proportion. People are seeing the violence and the glory and rebellion on TV and they’re thinking, I’ll have some of that.”