Three Hours by Rosamund Lupton
Rosamund Lupton is the author of Sister, a BBC Radio 4 “Book at Bedtime”, a Sunday Times and New York Timesbestseller, winner of the Strand Magazine critics award and the Richard and Judy Bookclub Readers’ Choice Award. Her next two books Afterwards and The Quality of Silence (also a Richard and Judy pick) were Sunday Timesbestsellers. Her books have been published in over thirty languages.
Three Hours
‘Three Hours is both a gripping thriller and a beautiful meditation on the nature of family, friendship, courage and unintended – lethal – consequences. Superb’ Kate Mosse ‘Three Hours is one of the most exhilarating reading experiences I’ve ever had. Rosamund Lupton takes a dark, painful subject and turns it into a novel full of hope and compassion. An amazing achievement’ Emma Healey ‘This is a stunner of a book. Staggeringly good’ Jane Fallon
‘ASTONISHING. Powerful, terrifying, heartbreaking’ Emma Flint
‘Propulsively plotted and full of vivid characters who earn our concern, Three Hours held me in its eloquent grip’ Emma Donoghue ‘So gripping, intelligent, timely, affecting and moving’ Marian Keyes
‘Utterly breathtaking and dazzling’ Jenny Colgan
‘Will chill your blood and break your heart by turns – a masterclass in suspense’ Cara Hunter
‘Rosamund Lupton’s best book yet, and that is high praise. A monster story for our fractious historical moment. Chilling, suspenseful, humane and brave’ William Landay ‘An incredible, unbelievably powerful book. It’s taut, it’s appalling, it’s uplifting, it’s extraordinary. Simply stunning’ Dinah Jefferies ‘This is an incredible novel: a heady combination of elegant writing, nuanced characterization, deep emotion and heart-stopping tension’ Elizabeth Brooks ‘Three Hours is exceptional – at turns hearbreaking, warm, terrifying, perceptive and grippingly page-turning’ Kate Hamer ‘I read Three Hours in two days, in awe. It’s breathtaking. A modern rumination on the issues that divide 21st-century life, a celebration of refugees, of mental health, of love and hope and bravery. I loved it more than I can say’ Gillian McAllister ‘Beautifully written, emotionally note-perfect and nail-bitingly tense. It’s brilliant’ Tammy Cohen
‘Three Hours is about hate crime, but what rings out from its pages – what is likely to stay with you long after you’ve read that magnificent last line – is love. I wanted to read Three Hours slowly to savour every beautiful word, yet it is so compelling that I couldn’t put it down. This one is destined for the bestsellers list, I reckon, and rightly so. It is phenomenal’ Fiona Mitchell ‘It’s mind blowing. It’s a horrifying story but told with such compassion and humanity. A large cast of characters and yet you feel genuinely emotionally engaged with each one … Amazing’ Francesca Jakobi ‘Three Hours is a brilliant novel – moving, relevant and honest. Rosamund Lupton takes us through the story of a siege in an English school, building on the tension and our emotions as the story speeds to its conclusion … An exceptional and heartbreaking read’ Jenny Quintana ‘Lupton tells her story with searing beauty and unbearable tension. Exquisite. Compassionate. Painful. Fantastic. A work of powerful imagination that wears its intelligence lightly. Don’t read this if you want to be able to put it down’ Kate London ‘Three Hours has a voice all of its own. Character and plot leap out at you from the first line. Rosamund Lupton makes you race through the pages with her irresistible storytelling. Impossible to stop until you reach the poignant end’ Jane Corry ‘Three Hours is phenomenal. Absolutely glorious, heart-rending and gripping!’ Gytha Lodge ‘Exceptional. I’m in awe of Rosamund Lupton’ Sarah Edghill
‘Three Hours is incredible. Haunting. Heartbreaking, relentless, beautiful’ Abi Daré
For Felicity Blunt
an inspiration and an exceptional person, thank you
Part One
* * *
And you? When will you begin that long journey into yourself?
Rumi (1207–1273)
1.
9.16 a.m.
A moment of stillness; as if time itself is waiting, can no longer be measured. Then the subtle press of a fingertip, whorled skin against cool metal, starts it beating again and the bullet moves faster than sound.
It smashes the glass case on the wall by the headmaster’s head, which displays medals for gallantry awarded in the last World War to boys barely out of the sixth form. Their medals turn into shrapnel; hitting the headmaster’s soft brown hair, breaking the arm of his glasses, piercing through the bone that protects the part of him that thinks, loves, dreams and fears; as if pieces of metal are travelling through the who of him and the why of him. But he is still able to think because it’s he who has thought of those boys, shrapnel made of gallantry, tearing apart any sense he’d once had of a benevolent order of things.
He’s falling backwards. Another shot; the corridor a reverberating sound tunnel. Hands are grabbing him and dragging him into the library.
Hannah and David are moving him away from the closed library door and putting him into the recovery position. His sixth-formers have all learnt first aid, compulsory in Year 12, but how did they learn to be courageous? Perhaps it was there all this time and he didn’t notice it; medals again, walked past a hundred times, a thousand.