Read Online White Rage by Campbell Armstrong - Free Book Online

down for the record.
    Perlman scanned the room where the kids were gathered. He knew very little about children. Their sensitivities, perceptions of reality. He’d never been exposed to them for any length of time. His one shot at marriage, a doomed nonsense, had been mercifully barren. He gazed at the small faces and heard quiet anxious voices tremble as narratives were stitched together out of confusion. He admired the tenderness and patience the uniforms showed.
    â€˜What kind of sorry bastard walks into a kindergarten and shoots teachers?’ he asked.
    â€˜The same kind who did it in Dunblane,’ Mary Gibson said.
    Perlman, like so many people, had shoved the events of Dunblane inside the pit at the back of the head where you stored the kind of unbearable human slurry you didn’t have the heart to re-examine. In March, 1996, a certain Thomas Hamilton had walked into a primary school in the quiet Perthshire town of Dunblane where, armed with an assortment of handguns, he’d killed sixteen children and their teacher; an atrocity unprecedented in Scotland. Even now, seven years on, Perlman found it difficult to picture this massacre. The country had haemorrhaged that day; and nothing had ever been quite the same since.
    Scullion said, ‘Hamilton killed kids, though. This one didn’t.’
    â€˜So his only targets here were teachers?’ Perlman asked.
    â€˜Teacher singular,’ Mary Gibson said. ‘From what I’ve been able to gather, Ajit Singh came out of his classroom only because he heard the gunfire.’ She looked in the direction of PC Murdoch and the photographer. ‘That’s where he was shot.’
    Perlman said, ‘Okay, the hooded man is only out to get Indra – why can’t he wait for a less public moment?’
    Scullion said, ‘He’s crazed. A lover’s thing? A falling-out? A heartbreak? He’s off his rocker.’
    Perlman sighed. ‘Or she dumped him. She was unfaithful to him. She was just sick of him and wanted to move on. He was blinded by rage. Any of the above.’
    Mary Gibson said, ‘Check Indra Gupta’s background. Family life. Boyfriends. The usual.’
    Perlman nodded. ‘Will do. Who’s in charge of this school?’
    Scullion said, ‘A woman called Amy Blyth. Her office is at the end of the corridor.’
    â€˜I’ll have a wee word with her,’ Perlman said.
    â€˜This school is her baby, and she’s shaken,’ Mary Gibson said. ‘Go easy, Sergeant.’
    â€˜I’m a sweetheart.’ Perlman was about to move when one of the uniformed cops, a WPC he knew as Meg Gayle, came out of the classroom. She was a very tall young woman who slouched in a self-conscious way. She wore her black hair cut short and fringed at the front. A pretty girl, Perlman thought, a good-hearted face.
    â€˜I need a wee break,’ she said. She looked at Mary Gibson for approval.
    â€˜It’s tough in there,’ Perlman said.
    â€˜Children shouldn’t see anything like that,’ Meg Gayle said. ‘This man comes in and starts calling the teacher names and then he whips out a gun and shoots her in the face from a couple of feet away. And these kids see it all. It’s sickening.’
    â€˜What kind of names?’ Perlman asked.
    â€˜Bitch. Bint. I don’t know what else. Words like that.’
    â€˜Did any of the kids say he gave the impression that he knew Indra?’
    WPC Gayle had shadows under her eyes. ‘It’s a difficult situation to piece together, Sergeant. The kids tell you different things. Apparently he said he knew her name. I don’t know how much stock to put in that, to be honest. The children are all … they just want to go home. They’re tired and upset and horrified.’
    Mary Gibson said, ‘Fine, if you think you’re finished, send them all home. We can contact them later if we need to.’
    WPC Gayle went back