Mr Clark corrects it to inhuman as he scrawls and lurches, finger-pointing wildly around the room. ‘Lovely!’ he says with each point. ‘Great stuff.’

‘Justifying something criminal,’ Amit says, ‘because it furthers a cause that is believed to be more important.’

‘Excellent. Conflating criminality with the cause. Remember this one, lads. We know Heaton was involved in acts of minor criminality against the Asian community in the run-up to his attack.’

‘Becoming desensitized to violence,’ Matt Alford says.

‘What sort of violence?’ asks Mr Clark.

‘Both violence towards you, and violence against others,’ Matt states, like he’s reading it from a textbook.

‘Spot on.’ He looks over at me. ‘I trust you’re getting these down, Morcombe.’

I scribble on the page: Radicalization. Earning status for something criminal. Justifying criminality. Inhuman enemy. Desensitized to violence.

Staring at the page, these points have the shape of familiarity. This information is already stashed in a filing cabinet somewhere in my brain, but it’s like the drawers aren’t labelled, and I know that in half an hour’s time it’s unlikely I’ll be able to find it again.

But still I write, assuming the look of a guy with the great luxury of having no worry in the world more immediate than whether or not he passes general studies.

Extracurricular Activities

Four weeks ago

‘They call that a classroom?’ Sophia said, unable to hide her amusement. ‘It looks like an old mobile home.’

I raised a finger to my lips and shushed her.

‘Ollie. Stop worrying. Who’s gonna be here on a Friday night?’

We stood beneath the cover of the enormous oak in the corner of the school field. The rain that had been so relentless earlier as we’d sat in the old works had abated to a haze of drizzle, but every few seconds a drip from a high branch would scythe downwards and splat on the mud. And, every time that sound came, I jumped, petrified that it was an approaching footstep.

Her suggestion had seemed an amusing idea ten minutes earlier, but a wariness had come over me the very second we squeezed through the Smokers’ Hole in the fence, crossing the boundary into the home of my misery. It certainly no longer seemed like something fun as Sophia had billed it. As silence fell between us, I became furious with myself for admitting to her that I knew a way in.

‘It’s a dump,’ I whispered, looking at the flimsy outbuilding. For close to two years, I’d lined up outside and sat through registration in that room, yet now it looked unfamiliar to me, its dilapidation so much rawer in the darkness and without the usual gleam of strip lighting emanating from the windows. ‘God, I hate this place,’ I said, feeling the same dull sickness I experienced every day as the gates loomed into view.