A Place Of Safety Read Online Free PDF Page B

kids.’
    ‘But there was a shooting?’ Luella asked.
    Penny put her hand on Luella’s knee.
    ‘The headmaster specifically told us not to gossip about this.’
    ‘We’re not gossiping,’ said Luella.
    ‘He doesn’t want the press getting hold of this and descending on us.’
    ‘No one wants that,’ said Luella.
    Lilly could see she was desperate to extract information. That was the only reason she had come.
    ‘Is Sam in bed?’ said Penny.
    ‘Yeah, he didn’t really see what happened, but he was shaken all the same,’ Lilly replied.
    Luella persisted. ‘So what did happen?’
    Penny frowned a warning but Luella waved her away.
    ‘We’ve a right to know.’
    Lilly sighed. Luella would not be put off, so Lilly might as well fill her in before the school bongo drums went into overdrive.
    ‘Like I said, they were just kids.’
    ‘But they were armed,’ said Luella.
    ‘Yeah. Jack disarmed the girl, but the boy wouldn’t…’ She paused, unsure how to explain. ‘Jack had to shoot him.’
    ‘Dead?’ Luella almost screamed.
    ‘I don’t suppose Lilly took his pulse,’ said Penny.
    Lilly smiled. ‘You’re right, I didn’t, but I’d say he was dead. The wound to his head was too serious to survive.’
    ‘Jack must have thought the situation was pretty grave,’ said Penny.
    ‘It was. The boy might have shot someone else,’ said Lilly.
    Luella could barely contain herself. ‘Someone else! You mean he’d already killed someone?’
    ‘I don’t know. They took someone off in an ambulance.’
    ‘Who?’ asked Penny.
    Lilly squeezed her eyes shut, picturing the boy, white and still on the stretcher. ‘A pupil. One of the boarders. Charlie Stanton.’
    Silence fell on the three women as the enormity of what had happened at their children’s school sank in. At last, Luella stood up and dusted down her skirt. She had obviously processed the information.
    ‘I’m sure we’re all agreed that something must be done.’
    ‘The police are dealing with it,’ said Penny.
    ‘I mean about that hostel,’ said Luella.
    Lilly was puzzled. ‘Whatever do you mean?’
    Luella’s jaw was firm. ‘I mean we must get it closed down.’
    Lilly didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
    ‘It’s nothing to do with the hostel or the other people staying there,’ she said.
    Luella’s eyes were glinting. ‘How can you say that when those animals went up to our school with the sole intention of murdering our children?’
    ‘That’s not how it was,’ said Lilly. ‘I don’t think the girl intended to hurt anyone.’
    ‘You’re being ridiculous,’ said Luella. ‘People don’t carry guns unless they mean to do some damage.’
    Lilly looked to Penny for help but she shook her head. ‘It’s a fair point, Lilly. I mean, how would you have felt if Sam had been hit?’
    ‘I know what you’re saying, but you can’t lump the other residents together,’ said Lilly.
    ‘They sound dangerous,’ said Penny.
    Lilly was shocked. She expected reactionary politics from Luella, but Penny?
    ‘There were only two involved and they had their own reasons,’ said Lilly.
    Luella’s nostrils flared. ‘Like what?’
    Lilly knew she could not mention the rape. That information had been given to her in confidence and, anyway, she didn’t know for certain that it had anything to do with what had happened today
    ‘You see,’ Luella lifted her chin in triumph, ‘there is no explanation for what happened, other than the obvious. Those people are not like us. They hate us. And I for one am not going to stand around while another gang of them does any more damage.’
    Jack was still shaking when he got into bed.
    He’d been over and over it at the station. With a man down and the boy still wielding the gun, he had had no choice.
    ‘Couldn’t you have disabled him?’ asked the investigator.
    Jack shook his head. ‘I couldn’t take the chance. If I’d missed he would have killed me.’
    On and on it had gone, until they