Chapter 67
NADEEKA
The interior of the Civic Centre is as utilitarian as its outside, with stark block walls and harshly lit corridors. In the main auditorium, purple acoustic panels hang on either side of the room and from the ceiling.
Nadeeka follows Bahnaz through the double doors. The chairs, once in neat rows either side of the wide aisle, are scattered haphazardly, some upside down or on their sides. Tied to the backs of several are red tags.
Bahnaz follows her gaze. ‘The tags show where the bomb disposal team found devices and disabled them.’
Nadeeka’s breath catches. Her children had been in this building. Their father would have been in the audience. They could all have died in the blast, along with dozens of other innocent people.
‘Maya!’ Nadeeka’s voice bounces around the empty hall. ‘It’s me. Mum. It’s safe now – you can come out.’
Silence.
She runs up the steps at the front of the stage. ‘Maya!’ There are no curtains, only a vast proscenium arch, and she runs her hands over the black paintwork, searching for a door. If only Maya had said where her hiding place was . . .
Fear builds in the pit of Nadeeka’s stomach. What if she’s wrong? What if Maya isn’t hiding, if she got lost in the crowds? What if she’s been taken?
‘Maya!’ She’s shouting louder now. She knows she should keep her voice calm – that Maya might not come out if she thinks her mum’s cross – but panic is squeezing her throat, forcing out Maya’s name in hard, frightened cries.
‘If you’re hiding, it’s time to come out.
’ She crouches at the back of the stage and runs her fingers along the edges of the wall, the joins between panels, but nothing moves, nothing gives.
‘Maya!’ Louder again, more panicked. ‘It’s safe now!’
She won’t come out. She’ll think it’s a trap.
Jamie’s voice is so clear it’s as though he’s in the room.
Nadeeka sits back on her heels, suddenly winded.
She thinks about him playing hide-and-seek with the girls; pictures Maya’s and Nish’s faces, flushed with excitement.
He was so great with them. Of all the things she had loved about Jamie, she’d loved that the most.
Maya must have been so scared when she came out of the bathroom to find everyone gone.
Separated from her sister and her classmates, the building echoing with shouting and heavy boots.
If she’s still hiding, it’s because she’s frightened.
She won’t come out until she can trust she’ll be safe.
More than anyone, Nadeeka knows how fragile trust is.
It’s not a trap, Maya! Nadeeka had shouted, that last time they’d played hide-and-seek, and Jamie had laughed – now she’ll definitely think it’s a trap – and instead he had called out something absurd . . . what had it been?
Must be a weird Golding thing.
Well, now it’s a weird Prasanna thing.
Nadeeka gets to her feet. She stands in the middle of the stage and – feeling at once desperate and ridiculous – she calls out to Maya. ‘Olly olly oxen free!’
Nothing.
What had Nadeeka been thinking? Of course Maya wouldn’t—
But then . . . a faint click.
A sliver of light.
And a panel at the side of the stage pops open.