Hater (Hater #1)

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 centre was quiet for a Monday and the office was too.

I'm glad to be home. I can see the apartment block 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 playing up all evening and I'll get it in the neck from Liz again.

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 sod 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 flat this morning. Still a long way off, mind, but possible.

I shuffle though the gloom of the lobby and open the door to the flat. I step inside and the warmth of our home makes me realise 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.

'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 further 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 Year Six. You should have seen him, Dad, it was brilliant!'

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 headteacher. 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 sat 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 Year Six,' 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 sat 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 towards 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 sat 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 towards him to try and stop him but he was running at her, swinging the chair round 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 mates. I've never known him 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 right the way through the school. He sounded terrified.'

'What about the Head? What about Mrs Shields?'

'They took her to 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.'