Battleground by Chris Ryan

rifle. If the enemy are going to be bolshie, I’d feel a lot better knowing everything’s in good working order. Know what I mean?’
    The man from the British Embassy who arrived in Kampur was stiff-backed and stern-faced. Even the teachers looked a bit scared of him. He was accompanied by two others – a man and a woman, who had the bearing of police officers, even if they didn’t have the uniforms. The Embassy man spent a good deal of time with the teachers, explaining the arrangements he had put in place to get them all back home as quickly as possible, as well as consoling Aarya’s distraught parents. It was up to the other two to interview the pupils.
    Ed didn’t like the look of them. They were steely-eyed, no-nonsense types. He could instantly tell that pulling the wool over their eyes wouldn’t be like deceiving his friends, or his teachers. As they all lingered outside a classroom in the village school, waiting to be interviewed one by one, Ed felt the pressure mounting. His mouth was dry; he was sweating badly. Telling them the truth about Ben’s schoolyard antics was out of the question, of course. The lie was too deeply ingrained now. He was just going to have to see it through.
    The door opened. Rebecca, the first to be interviewed, walked timidly out with a slightly wild look in her eyes. The woman appeared, clipboard in hand. ‘Ed Hughes,’ she announced. ‘Ed?’
    All the others looked at him. Ed drew himself up to his full height and walked confidently past them, though his fingernails were dug deeply into the palm of his hand. The woman stepped aside to let him into the classroom, then closed the door and took her place behind the teacher’s desk, alongside the man.
    ‘Sit down, Ed,’ she said, indicating a seat opposite them.
    Ed did what he was told.
    A silence as the two adults looked at him.
    The woman peered over her half-moon glasses at him. ‘We just want to make sure, Ed, that there isn’t anything about Ben Tracey and his exchange partner Aarya that you’ve forgotten to mention.’
    ‘There isn’t,’ Ed replied quickly. Too quickly.
    The adults looked at each other. ‘You seem very sure about that, Ed,’ the man suggested. ‘Been thinking about it a lot, have you?’
    ‘Not really.’ Ed did what he could to withstand the man’s stare. It took some doing.
    ‘Sure about that?’
    ‘Of course I’m sure.’ Ed’s body temperature was rising and he knew he appeared flustered. It didn’t seem to worry either of them, though: they both looked at him calmly.
    ‘I suppose we don’t need to tell you how serious this is, Ed,’ the woman pressed. ‘If we don’t find Ben and Aarya, you’ll be having interviews with people a lot fiercer than us. Sure you don’t want to tell us anything?’
    ‘ I haven’t seen them, all right? ’ Ed was half shouting now, and his face had gone very red. Both adults raised a single eyebrow, and suddenly Ed heard himself gabbling. ‘Tracey’s an idiot, OK? He’s probably just hiding somewhere. You shouldn’t waste your time on him.’
    Another silence. ‘Do you really think we’re wasting our time, Ed?’ the woman said. ‘Or is there something personal between you and Ben?’
    Ed looked at the floor. This wasn’t going well and he knew it. ‘No,’ he muttered. ‘Nothing.’ He heard the scratching sound of pen and paper as the two grown-ups each wrote something down. ‘What are you writing?’ he demanded. ‘Look, I don’t know anything, OK? I haven’t seen anything.’
    ‘No, Ed,’ the man replied. ‘It seems to me that you may have mentioned that once or twice before.’ Again, the two of them glanced at each other.
    Ed felt a drop of sweat run down the back of his neck.
    ‘You’ll be leaving Pakistan tonight,’ the woman told him.
    ‘All of us?’
    ‘All of you.’
    Relief crashed over Ed. He didn’t like it here. Back in England he could pretend none of this had ever happened.
    ‘We might want to speak to you