Hostage by Clare Mackintosh

TWENTY-FOUR

PASSENGER 1G

The first time I broke the law was at the Women’s Peace Camp at Greenham Common, where I was sandwiched between my mother and an octogenarian with a pocketful of flapjack. I threw a stone, and it hit a policeman. Good shot, my mother said. I was nine, and my age absolved me of my act. I remember the surge of power I felt as the policeman turned around, rubbing his shoulder and searching for the culprit. He never once looked at me.

Hiding in plain sight. Beyond suspicion. That’s been my aim ever since.

Believe it or not, it isn’t in my nature to inflict pain or suffering, but there comes a point where you have to weigh up the consequences of action against inaction. In times of conflict, for example, it is accepted that violence will be used against enemy soldiers and that civilian casualties are a tragic but inevitable side effect of warfare. A bomber plane that fails to meet its target will soon become a target itself.

And we are fighting a war—make no mistake about that. It might not feel like a war, just as the Second World War was a different beast from the First, but it is nevertheless a war, and all the more dangerous for those who do not recognize it as one.

The Criminal Law Act entitles all of us—not just police officers—to use “such force as is reasonable in the circumstances in the prevention of crime,” which begs the question: What is a crime? The dictionary would have you know it is an act or omission punishable by law, but the law of one country is not the law of another. Gambling, for example, is not a crime in the United Kingdom, yet Islamic law forbids it. Chewing gum is illegal in Singapore; unmarried couples may not cohabit in the United Arab Emirates. So you see, a “crime” can be many things to many people.

Those of us who have freedom of speech, of movement, have the luxury of choosing how to respond to a crime that takes place before our eyes. Either we can walk on by, or we can call upon the powers issued by the law of the land and act. I choose to act, and I know you would make the same choice. We might not have known each other long, but I can already tell that you wouldn’t be able to stand idly by—it isn’t in your nature.

As for what is “reasonable” force, that surely depends on the crime. Taking a life is unreasonable in many circumstances—most circumstances, we might say—but what if that stolen life was the life of a murderer? A rapist? What if, by taking that life, you could stop further murders, further rapes?

You see—right and wrong aren’t so clear-cut, are they?

Let me tell you something about the war we are waging. It is the greatest war of all time, the biggest, the most dangerous. The crimes are many and their effects far reaching, so that every life already born and still to be born will be at risk.

Doesn’t that sound like a crime worth stopping?

What is a death compared against offenses of that magnitude?

Nothing. It is nothing.