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‘I’ll come with you,’ Ava said during the interval.
‘You’ll lose your place,’ Sarah warned.
‘We can push through the crowd,’ Ava replied. Then, turning to Laura, ‘How’s your leg?’
Laura’s knee was sore, and a little swollen, from all the walking they’d done. She hadn’t wanted to say anything to her friends because she didn’t want to slow them down or complain, but she was hobbling noticeably by the end of their first day here.
‘Holding up,’ she lied. She was in agony. She’d take a painkiller when they went to the loos.
There were loads of people waiting for the toilet and Laura and Ava were at the back of the queue this time.
‘There’s no one waiting in line for the men’s bogs,’ Ava said. ‘Let’s go in there.’
‘Hé! Qu-est-ce que vous faites?’ a man yelled as they passed the urinals. Ava darted into the only free toilet cubicle and the man continued to shout at Laura.
Laura muttered an apology: ‘Je suis désolée.’ Then she ran out of the men’s and took her place at the back of the queue for the ladies’, which had grown a little longer.
‘You head on back,’ she said when Ava returned. ‘You’ll miss the start of the concert.’
‘You sure? I’m happy to wait for you.’
‘No, you’re all right,’ Laura said. ‘I’ll find you no bother.’
‘If you’re sure,’ Ava said.
Laura wasn’t, but Ava had already gone.
When Laura eventually came out of her toilet cubicle, she heard squeals of delight and applause. The Naturals must have come on stage. She took a packet of paracetamol out of her handbag and stuck her head under the tap so she could swallow down a couple of tablets.
As she was washing her hands, a man entered the toilets. Laura was about to point out that the men’s was opposite, but before she could come up with the words in French, she caught his eye in the mirror. There was something about the way he stared at her through his insistent dark eyes, something unsettling, and Laura’s half-formed sentence died on her lips.
She felt nervous suddenly. She was on her own now, alone with this stranger. She gave him a taut smile, but his expression didn’t change. He wiped his forehead with his bare arm and Laura realized he was sweating profusely. Laura, too, had sweated outside while they’d waited to get in, but in the toilets the air conditioning was on full blast and it was almost too cool.
His gaze did not waver and Laura wanted to run, but she was frozen to the spot for some reason, as this man’s reflection held her eyes. She noticed his arms were tanned, but his face was deathly white. He had a short, scraggly beard, but his hair was neat as if he’d recently had it cut. He was younger than her, of average height and build, wearing dark clothes. She watched, trembling now, as he walked purposefully to the cubicle at the end. She saw him struggle with the door, which was apparently locked. But he got it open somehow and entered, banging the door behind him. Laura heard him lock it from the inside.
Stuck to the toilet door with tape was a sign, a piece of white paper. Two words had been written on it by hand with a black marker pen, but in the mirror, the letters were back to front. Laura turned around, taking in the words. HORS SERVICE. Out of order. Without drying her hands, she hurried out of the toilets as fast as she could on her dodgy knee.
The band had kicked off with one of their most popular songs, “Always & Anyway”, and the audience was jumping up and down. Laura had difficulty weaving her way through the crowd towards the stage. She certainly wouldn’t be jumping up and down; her knee was killing her. The closer she got to the stage, the hotter it seemed to get. The lights had dimmed and she couldn’t see her friends. Where were they?
The Naturals finished playing “Always & Anyway” and suddenly Laura was swamped by a fog of dry ice. She stood still, waiting for it to disperse, hearing the opening chords strike up to her favourite song, “Don’t let this be the end”. She sang along and relaxed a little, even though she was still separated from her friends. They couldn’t be far away. There were only two or three rows of people between her and the stage now.
Then, as a strobe light flashed, she caught sight of Ava, her head above those around her thanks to her vertiginous heels, and next to her, a good few inches lower, Sarah’s blond ponytail swinging from side to side as she swayed in time to the music. She heaved a sigh of relief and trod on some toes as she elbowed her way towards them.
A hand tapped her shoulder. Whirling round, she found herself face to face with Claire.
‘I was coming to find you,’ Claire shouted in her ear. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Yes,’ Laura said. ‘Thank you.’
‘I was … worried. I thought maybe … lost or something.’ Laura couldn’t hear Claire properly over the music.
‘What? No. Long queue, that’s all.’
Just then there was a loud bang. Laura froze.
‘What was that?’ she shouted near Claire’s ear.
Claire shouted back. Laura caught two words. “Firecracker” and “percussion”.
Claire didn’t seem worried, so Laura tried not to be. But it had seemed a bit loud to be a firecracker. And it didn’t sound like the drums. It had sounded more like a pneumatic drill starting up and stopping abruptly. Or a detonation. But that was ridiculous.
There was another loud bang with a white flash somewhere to their right, followed by a screeching sound through the loudspeakers as Niall fell to the floor of the stage, clutching his mic in his hand. On one of the giant screens, Laura saw him fall. The whole crowd had witnessed it, too. People started running in all directions, pushing and shouting.
Laura wanted to run as well, but she was paralysed by fear, like a deer caught in headlights. She looked at Claire, whose hand was clapped to her mouth, wide eyes glued to the stage. The music had stopped abruptly, replaced by loud dissonant screams from the crowd. Glancing at the big screen again, she saw Connor kneeling beside Niall, his hands on the frontman’s chest. The other musicians – Tom and Rich – had fled. Was that blood? Was Niall bleeding?
Another bang – a gunshot. Then a salvo of shots. Four or five people fell to the ground, a few feet away from them.
‘Oh God! Oh fuck! Laura! Ava’s been hit!’
As hordes of people stampeded away from the danger, Claire pushed her way towards Ava and Sarah. Without thinking, Laura followed, oblivious now to the pain in her knee. Her head was ringing with the sound of gunfire even as the next burst broke out, momentarily drowning out the screams, Laura’s among them. Suddenly the lights went out. They came on again a few seconds later, but Laura could no longer see Claire.
But she saw them. Three of them. All wearing dark clothes. All armed. They were making sweeping movements from left to right, then from right to left, with their automatic weapons – Kalashnikovs? – shooting aimlessly. She watched, helplessly, as rows of human dominoes collapsed in front of her.
They want to kill as many people as possible, Laura thought, terror ripping through her like wildfire. She barely registered the deafening volley of bullets flying close to her before she went down. She would never know what made her drop to the ground. Shock? Survival instinct? She did know she wouldn’t have made it far if she’d tried to run. She wasn’t much of a runner, even without her bad knee.
Where was Claire? Where were Ava and Sarah? Claire’s voice came back to her: Ava’s been hit! Was she injured or dead?
Making herself as small as possible on the floor, Laura tried desperately to think of something nice. It could be her last thought. But her mind was blank with terror.
This time the firing was relentless. She had no idea how long it lasted, but it seemed interminable. Fifteen seconds? Twenty seconds? Bullets raining, hailing, all around.
Laura couldn’t be sure because she could still hear the shots resounding in her head, but she thought it had stopped. There were far fewer people now. Had some of them escaped? Had they all been shot?
‘Maintenant! Cours!’ She heard shouts and was conscious of people in the pit getting to their feet and running. She didn’t dare to move. Was it over?
No sooner had that thought entered her head than it started up again. They must have been reloading. That’s why it had stopped. Suddenly someone fell on top of her, someone who had been gunned down while trying to escape. She half-pushed, half-kicked the deadweight off her, her screams blotted out by the noise of the automatic weapons. But she’d reacted without thinking and she instantly regretted it. The dead body would have shielded her, acted as a camouflage as she herself played dead underneath it, and now she was exposed. She didn’t even know if the victim was a man or a woman.
When they finally stopped firing again, there was an eerie silence. No screaming, no crying. Or maybe Laura’s ears were no longer working. She was overwhelmed by a strong stench – sweat mixed with a pungent odour of powder from the weapons and something metallic, which Laura recognized as blood. The smell of fear; the smell of death.
Opening her eyes, through streaming tears she saw one of the armed men kick a body lying in a pool of blood on the floor near her. There was no movement, no sound. He moved on to the next person. Another kick with his black boot. This time a groan. More shots rang out and the body jerked suddenly. The man had shot him dead.
Oh God. He’s killing the ones who aren’t dead. He’s finishing them off, she thought. A whimper escaped as she willed herself not to scream. The shots continued to echo in her ears.
‘Bien joué, Zak,’ one of the other two called out, laughing.
These men – these gunmen – were having fun. Laura felt bile rise into her throat and it was all she could do not to retch.
Pretend to be dead. Don’t move if he kicks you. The thoughts in Laura’s head were loud and frantic. Even as she willed herself to stay still, she could feel herself shaking uncontrollably, as if she were cold in this stuffy place. She was sure her body trembling would give her away. She closed her mouth to stop her teeth chattering, but she kept her eyes open. One of the gunmen was pointing his weapon at a man and a woman. He shouted something Laura didn’t catch and the couple dropped to their knees. The man was pleading; the woman was crying hysterically.
‘Am. Stram. Gram …’ With each word, he moved the weapon, aiming it first at one, then at the other. He was playing Eeny Meeny Miny Moe! He would shoot one of them! Laura was horrified.
‘… Ce sera toi!’ And with that, he took aim at the woman and shot her. She fell with a thud, face down onto the ground. The man threw himself on top of her, crying as hysterically as the woman had just seconds earlier. The gunman shot him, too, in the back.
A sharp kick to her side. Laura was unprepared for it and cried out. The game was up. She curled into a tight ball, her arms over her head in a futile attempt to protect herself. But instead of shooting her, the gunman hauled her to her feet. Her legs were too weak to hold her up and she fell back to the floor, but he picked her up again.
That’s when she recognized him. The one they’d called Zak. It was the man who had gone into the ladies’ toilets as she was coming out. He had an amused expression on his face. He recognized her, too. A thought dawned on her then. Had he hidden his weapon in the ladies’ loos? Is that what he was doing? Getting his gun?
‘Laura!’ It was Claire’s voice. Laura turned her head to the left, then to the right, but she couldn’t see her friend.
‘Ah! Vous vous connaissez.’
Now she saw her. She was walking towards them, followed by one of the gunmen, who was pressing his weapon into the middle of her back.
‘Tu choisis,’ Zak said into her ear.
Laura sobbed. No translation came to her. The sentence was easy, but its meaning was way too difficult to grasp. She couldn’t even find the words in French to say she didn’t understand. What did he want her to do? ‘Oi … Irish,’ she stammered. ‘English.’
‘A toi de choisir,’ Zak said, loud enough for only Laura to hear. ‘You choose.’
Laura’s heart stopped as she grasped his meaning now.
‘Who should live? Who must die? You or your friend?’ Zak said. He pointed his gun at her, then at Claire, who was whimpering. ‘Toi ou elle, bordel! Choisis!’
Chapter 10
THE NIGHT THEY DIED
Laura
Laura shook her head frantically then covered her face with her hands.
It happened so fast. Zak swung the Kalashnikov to his right and fired two rounds. Peeping through her fingers, Laura saw Claire fall to the ground and lie, crumpled in a heap. Laura sank to her knees. The only noise now was her wailing.
Claire, oh God. He’s shot Claire. Claire’s dead. What has he done? What have I done?
Zak jerked his weapon upwards to indicate Laura should get to her feet. Laura noticed the two other gunmen had rounded up six or seven other people and were making them walk towards the stage. Zak pushed his machine gun into Laura’s shoulder, forcing her to turn round, away from him.
‘Move!’ he growled, pushing his weapon into her back now. ‘Walk!’
She had to step over – even step on – dead bodies as she did what Zak ordered. She told herself not to look around her, but she couldn’t help it. Death was everywhere. This was a massacre. Carnage. Mounds of dead bodies. She could only have looked for a second or two, but she knew these images would be etched on her brain for the rest of her life.
If she could get out of here alive.
She allowed herself a faint glimmer of hope when, backstage, she spotted an illuminated sign for an emergency exit. But the gunmen – the terrorists – made them go up a winding staircase, then through a door that led to the balconies.
They heard subdued crying as they came through the door. There were more spectators – more survivors here. Three of them. They’d been hiding behind the chairs, probably too terrified to take the stairs to the ground floor in case they found themselves face to face with one of the assailants. They, too, were forced to join the group.
Hostages. That’s what they were. They were hostages being held by terrorists.
‘Tu as le sac?’ Zak asked one of the other gunmen.
‘Quel sac?’
‘Le sac avec la munition, idiot!’
‘Ah, non. Merde! Je l’ai oublié en bas.’
‘Vas-le chercher, tête de con!’
Another tiny flicker of optimism as Laura understood they’d left the ammunition in a bag on the lower level.
They all waited while one of the gunmen went back down. They saw him, from the balcony, as he emerged onto the stage, then leapt off it into the pit where he jumped over bodies like he was playing hopscotch in a playground. He looked up at them all and laughed. Laura felt sick and looked away.
Suddenly more shots rang out and then a bigger bang. The commotion had come from below. Laura hadn’t seen what happened, but she did see the look of shock on Zak’s face. He recovered quickly.
‘Avancez! Pas un bruit!’ he hissed, and to Laura, ‘Move! Keep quiet!’
‘Putain! Ils l’ont eu!’ This from the other terrorist.
‘Oh, God. What’s going on?’
Laura didn’t realize she had spoken her thoughts aloud until the hostage standing next to her, a woman about her age, whispered to her in English, ‘It’s the police. They’ve killed the other one. The one who went to fetch the ammunition.’
They went through a door behind the balcony area and found themselves in a corridor, dimly lit by emergency lighting and the faint glimmer of a streetlamp through a small, dirty window. There was a staircase to the end of the corridor. Laura supposed it led to the wings. She was in shock, but her mind was surprisingly lucid. She was desperately trying to come up with a plan to escape. Could they make a run for it? If all of them ran, would some of them make it? The terrorists had no more ammunition. Except what was already in the magazines of their rifles. What could that be? Thirty bullets each, maybe? Two terrorists. About ten hostages. Laura’s chances were slim to non-existent.
‘Assis! Dos contre la porte!’ Zak shouted, indicating with his rifle that he was giving this order to Laura, the woman who had whispered to her and an older man. Laura didn’t move. She’d understood perfectly, but her body refused to obey. ‘Sit down, your back against the door,’ Zak translated when Laura didn’t move. ‘Do what I tell you,’ Zak said, locking his eyes onto hers, as he’d done in the toilets earlier that evening. He had a dangerous gleam in his dark gaze. ‘Do what I say and I won’t kill you.’
Laura grabbed on to that promise as if she was drowning and he was throwing her a lifeline. He had just slaughtered dozens of people, including Claire, but she had no choice but to trust that he would let her live. She sat down, her back against the door, as Zak had instructed.
But then the hostage next to her shattered any brief illusion she’d created in her head. ‘When the police begin their assault, they will come through this door.’ She had whispered, but Laura could still make out the panic in her voice. She took the woman’s hand and squeezed it.
One of the men issued another order. She didn’t understand, but the other hostages, who were sitting against the walls of the corridor were taking out their mobiles and sliding them across the floor towards the gunman. The women were handing over their handbags, too. Laura followed suit.
She tried hard despite her alarm to concentrate on what they were saying. Her life might depend on it. She understood they were looking among the hostages for a married couple. Two hands went up. They made the man stand up, asked him his name.
‘Henri,’ he said, his voice quavering.
Then he had to retrieve his phone from the pile. Zak asked Henri’s wife her name. The first time it came out as a sob and she had to repeat it.
‘Elodie,’ she said. ‘Je m’appelle Elodie.’
Laura listened as Zak told Henri what to do. She got the gist of what he was saying. She looked at Elodie, whose tear-streaked face was ashen. Laura knew her own face must look like that, too.
Unless Laura was mistaken, Zak had told Henri to take his mobile phone to the police inside the building. It occurred to Laura that the police probably didn’t know exactly where they were for the moment, and that their hiding place in the corridor would no longer be a secret. But that didn’t concern the terrorists. They wanted to negotiate. They told Henri if he didn’t come back, they would kill Elodie and throw her body out of the window.
‘Et Henri,’ the other terrorist added, ‘N’oublie pas de leur dire que nous avons onze otages ici!’
So there were eleven of them. Eleven hostages at the mercy of two terrorists. The terrorists were using them as a human shield.
Laura, the man sitting next to her and the woman whose hand Laura was still holding had to move away from the door to let Henri out. Elodie didn’t make a sound, but her wide eyes and open mouth reflected sheer terror.
While Henri was gone, two or three of the mobile phones on the heap in the middle of the floor started ringing at more or less the same time. The two terrorists looked at each other, then at each of the hostages in turn.
‘Ça y est! On doit passer aux infos!’
‘He thinks they must be on the news,’ her neighbour whispered, confirming what Laura had understood.
There were relatives and friends at home who must have seen or heard the news about the terrorist attack and now they wanted news of their loved ones. Tears sprang to Laura’s eyes. Another mobile began to ring as Henri knocked on the door and gave the terrorists some kind of prearranged password.
Laura looked at Henri’s wife as he came back into the corridor. Her face showed no relief. Did she and Henri have children? Maybe Elodie had thought if one of them could get away, that would be better than neither of them.
Zak ordered Elodie to find her mobile. She crawled over to her handbag, unzipped her bag and pulled out her mobile. She handed it to Zak and returned to her place, sitting against the wall. Henri wrapped his arms around her. Then Zak told the other gunman – Laura caught his name: Ali – to turn off the other phones. At least four were still ringing. One of the ringtones was the same as Declan’s. The tears spilled down Laura’s cheeks.
Ali stomped over the bags and mobiles and then bounced up and down on them like he was on a trampoline. He continued to jump, giggling all the while, even after the phones were all silent.
‘Arrête, Ali!’
Ali did what he was told and stopped jumping. He unzipped his cardigan, clearly hot after exerting himself. Underneath he was wearing a black T-shirt and, to Laura’s horror, a suicide vest.
Oh God. No one is going to get out of here alive, Laura thought. We’re all going to die. Them. Us. Everyone.
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