Last Light

by Alex Scarrow

  ‘Can I hold it then?’

  ‘No.’

  They walked over the roundabout towards Holland Park where the homes came with an extra zero to their price tag, and looked a good deal grander than their humble terraced house. Here, she noticed, there had been less rioting and looting. The road, although still cluttered with some debris, was a lot clearer than it was back over the roundabout in Shepherd’s Bush. Leona guessed the people there had so much less need to loot. There’d be well-stocked larders in every home, and the chavs and hoodies who normally populated the corners round here, were probably up in those grand three-storey town houses helping mother and father work their way through the wine collection.

  ‘I’m sure we’ll find something to drink and eat round here,’ she said. ‘It looks much less messed up than back home.’

  ‘This is where the really rich people live,’ he said.

  She nodded, ‘Yeah, and they always seem to do all right when there’s a problem.’

  Five minutes later they spotted a small convenience store tucked down a cul-de-sac, lined with hanging baskets of flowers; very villagey, very pretty and largely untouched by the last week’s chaos. Metal roller-shutters had come down, probably at the first sign of trouble, and apart from a couple of dents in them where someone had tried their luck smashing through, and one of the large windows behind had been cracked but not shattered, it looked like the store had yet to be looted.

  ‘Is there food in there?’ asked Jacob.

  Leona nodded. ‘I think as much as we need. Stand back.’

  She aimed the pistol at a sturdy looking padlock at the bottom of the shutter, and grimaced as she slowly squeezed the trigger.

  Jacob yelped with excitement, hopping up and down as the gun cracked loudly. The padlock fragmented into several jagged parts and the glass door behind the shutter shattered.

  ‘Yeah!’ shouted Jacob, as the smoke cleared and the glass finished falling. ‘Wicked!’

  ‘Stay out here,’ she said.

  She pushed the shutter up and stepped inside the shop, holding the gun up in front of her, shakily panning it around the gloomy interior.

  ‘Okay,’ she called out to Jacob. ‘Looks clear.’

  He joined her inside.

  It was a small convenience store, a baker’s and delicatessen. The meat was spoiled, she could smell that and a few blue spots of mould had blossomed on most of the bread. There was, however, a heartening array of tinned produce on the shelves, and two large fridges full of bottles and cans, all of them of course warm, but that didn’t matter.

  She pulled out a bottle of water and gulped it, then handed it to Jacob. He shook his head.

  ‘Not thirsty?’

  ‘Yeah, but I want Coke,’ he replied, reaching into the fridge on tiptoes and pulling out a litre bottle.

  ‘Mum would have a fit if she saw you drinking that. It’s just sugar and chemicals.’

  Jacob shrugged as he twisted the cap off and slurped from the bottle.

  ‘I can’t believe this,’ she said, with a big grin spreading across her face. ‘We’ve struck a gold-mine.’

  ‘No more pilchards,’ added Jacob, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and belching.

  Leona looked back at the open shutter. ‘Let’s grab what we need quickly. Other people may have heard the bang.’

  They found a tartan wheelie bag nearby, one of those shabby things that only old blue-rinsed ladies seem to favour, and filled it with as many tins and bottles of drink as they could squeeze in. Leona found some wire hand-baskets and filled those with some more tins and bottles. She gave a couple of lighter basket-loads to Jacob to struggle home with, filled the wheelie bag, and stacked another couple of baskets full of supplies on top of it.

  As they emerged out of the convenience store on to the cul-de-sac, they saw several people warily approaching the entrance, presumably lured by the sound of the padlock being shot off and the glass shattering. The nearest to them, an old couple, eyed the pair of them cautiously.

  ‘Is the shop uh . . . open now?’ the old man asked.

  Jacob, grinning, piped up. ‘Yup, open for business.’

  The old couple nodded gratefully and quickly disappeared inside.

  ‘We should go,’ said Leona, ‘it’s going to get busy here.’

  They headed out of the cul-de-sac and turned right on to Holland Park Avenue, towards the Shepherd’s Bush roundabout. They passed a few people along the way, who eyed their plunder with interest, and hurried along swiftly in the direction they had come from.

  ‘We need to be careful,’ she said, ‘when we get closer to home, there might be some who will try and take what we have.’ She patted the bulge on her hip, the heavy, cold lump of metal there felt reassuring.

  Heading back past the grand town houses, Leona saw dozens of people curiously emerging on to their balconies and the twitching of countless curtains and blinds. The streets might have been all but deserted, but there seemed to still be plenty of people around, hidden away in their homes. At least here there were.

  They approached the roundabout, the crows still sitting atop the big blue thermometer in the middle, watching events with idle interest. Leona spotted someone in the middle of the road up ahead, walking around the central island briskly.

  A woman in a white, cheesecloth skirt, holding her shoes in one hand, her back to them as she rounded the grassy island and began to disappear from view.

  Her hair, her movement, it was all so very familiar.

  ‘Mum?’ she called out, but not loudly enough. The woman carried on, leaving them behind. Leona could only see her head bobbing around the far side of the roundabout’s island.

  ‘Mum!’ she shouted, her voice breaking. The cry echoed off the tall buildings either side of the road and the woman on the far side of the roundabout stopped dead.

  She turned round, and looked back.

  Even 200 yards away, her face just a distant pale oval, Leona recognised her.

  ‘MUM!’

  The woman looked around, uncertain where the cry had come from. Leona let go of the wheelie bag and waved frantically. The movement caught the woman’s eye, and a second later, Leona heard what sounded very much like her mother’s voice; a mixture of surprise, shock, joy and tears.

  ‘Leona?’ she heard the woman ask more than say.

  ‘Oh my God! . . . It is Mum, Jake! It’s Mum.’

  Jacob dropped his basket as well, some of the tins and bottles bounced out on to the road - unimportant to them now. She grabbed her brother’s hand and ran forward down the road towards the roundabout, completely unaware that her face had crumpled up like a baby’s and she was crying a river of tears, just like her little brother.

  They collided into each other’s arms a moment later, a three-way scrum of flailing arms and buried faces.

  ‘Oh God, oh God!’ sobbed Jenny, squeezing them both as hard as she could. ‘Thank God you’re all right!’

  Leona struggled to reply, but her words were an unintelligible syrupy mewl.

  ‘Mummy!’ cried Jacob, ‘I missed you, I missed you.’

  ‘God, I missed you too, sweetheart. I was so frightened for both of you.’

  ‘We’ve been in a battle,’ said Jacob. ‘It was frightening.’ Jenny looked into Leona’s face, and her daughter nodded, her lips curled, tears streaming down her cheeks.

  ‘Leona? Honey?’

  She swept a sleeve across her face. ‘Yeah, they attacked the house. We nearly . . . we nearly . . .’

  ‘We nearly died Mum,’ Jacob finished helpfully. ‘But we’ve got a real gun now,’ he added brightly.

  CHAPTER 81

  11.35 a.m. GMT Heathrow, London

  It could almost have been any normal midsummer’s morning there in Terminal 3’s departure lounge, thought Andy. It looked unchanged since last time he came through here two weeks ago, on his way out to Iraq to make that assessment on the northern pipeline and pumping stations. However, this time round, the sh
ops and places to eat were closed, the metal shutters pulled down, and beyond the large floor-to-ceiling viewing windows, the tarmac was a hive of activity.

  He could see soldiers streaming wearily out of military and civilian jets; a jumbled mess of units, some in desert khakis, some wearing the temperate green camo version. With so many men in uniform, looking lost, weary and confused, it was what the ports along the south coast of England must have looked like on the morning after Dunkirk.

  In the departure lounge with him, Andy guessed there were about two hundred people; civilians - mostly men, a few women and a handful of children. They were mainly businessmen caught out by events and some holidaymakers; a mishmash of the lucky few British nationals abroad who had managed to stumble upon the various efforts being made to repatriate military personnel. Most of them looked exhausted, dehydrated, and many of them lay stretched out and sleeping on the long, blue couches.

  They had been kept waiting in the lounge for several hours without any information. If they weren’t all so exhausted, he suspected a ruckus would have been kicked up before now. They had been promised that someone would come and talk to them, and tell them what would happen next.

  Finally some people arrived; a woman, accompanied by a couple of armed policemen, and a young man carrying a clipboard. She wore a radio on her belt, and had an official-looking badge pinned to her chest.

  ‘Excuse me!’ she called out. ‘Excuse me!’

  The people in the departure lounge, including Andy, quickly roused themselves and gathered round her.

  ‘We’re sorry for keeping you all waiting so long.’ She looked harried, flustered and almost as exhausted as the anxious people surrounding her. ‘We’re going to be moving all of you to a safe zone where we can supply you with food and water rations whilst the current situation continues.’

  ‘What’s going on out there?’ asked someone behind Andy.

  The woman, he could see from her name badge, was an emergency manager with the Civil Emergency Response Agency. She shook her head. ‘I’m afraid things are a bit of a mess out there, across the country. The emergency authorities have been establishing several safe zones where we can control things more easily and sensibly distribute rations. Outside of those, it’s . . .’ she shook her head again, ‘. . . well, it’s not good.’

  ‘Where are these “safe zones”? How many, how big?’

  Her head spun round to face the direction from which the query had come. ‘I don’t know how many exactly. But in the capital, the Millennium Dome is being used as an emergency mustering point and supply centre. We have another major supply and distribution safety zone based in Battersea and another at Leatherhead. These zones are being guarded by the police and the army to ensure . . .’

  ‘Guarded? From who?’ Andy raised his voice from the back.

  She turned to face him, and took a moment to think before answering. ‘We have supplies in the safe zones to keep some of the population going for the foreseeable future. But I’m afraid not all.’

  The crowd stirred, he heard voices murmuring, whispered concern amongst them.

  ‘Are people dying out there?’

  That’s a stupid bloody question, thought Andy.

  She nodded. ‘There’s a lot of instability, riots, chaos. The water system stopped functioning several days ago. People are drinking unclean water, they’re becoming sick, and yes . . . some will eventually die. We’re seeing what we’ve seen on the telly in the aftermath of disasters like the tsunami; infectious diseases, spoiled food and water . . . those sorts of things. Until the oil flows again, supplies of sterile water and food are the critical issues.’

  ‘When will the oil flow again?’ shouted another in the crowd.

  She shrugged. ‘I don’t have the answer to that.’ She put on a reassuring smile for them. ‘But when it does . . . we’ll be on our way out of this situation. And every effort will be made to distribute medicines and emergency supplies of food and water to those who need it most. In the meantime, we’re working hard to ensure we can help as many people as possible ride this out in, like I say, these safe zones.’

  She gestured towards the young man standing beside her with the clipboard. ‘We need to take all of your names, a few particulars, look at your passports if you have them . . . and then when we’re done, there’s a couple of army trucks which will be taking you to either the Leatherhead or the Battersea safe zone. So if you can form an orderly line here, we’ll get started.’

  The crowd of people around her shuffled compliantly into a long queue, and the young man pulled up a seat to sit on and another stool to use as a makeshift desk. The two armed policemen, wearing Kevlar vests and casually cradling their machine-guns, took a step back, perhaps sensing this crowd was too beaten and tired to pose any sort of security risk.

  The woman, meanwhile, disengaged from the process and found a quiet space between two large potted plastic plants and, ignoring the sign on the wall behind her, lit up a cigarette.

  Andy wandered over towards her. Closer, he could see how tired and drawn she was; there were bags beneath her eyes, and a nervous tremor shook the hand that held the cigarette shakily to her lips.

  Her eyes fixed on him as he closed the last few yards. She almost bothered to put her ‘we’ve-got-it-all-under-control’ smile back on for him . . . but clearly decided it was too much trouble.

  ‘Help you?’ she asked, blowing smoke out of her nose.

  ‘Do I get a choice?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Do I get a choice? I mean, if I don’t want to be taken into one of these safe zones?’

  ‘You don’t?’ She was genuinely surprised. ‘Why the hell would you not?’ she said, and then took another long pull on her cigarette.

  ‘I need to get home to my family.’

  She shrugged, ‘I can understand that.’

  Andy turned round. ‘These people,’ he said gesturing at the queue that had formed in the middle of the departure lounge, ‘are going to die in your safe zones. You know that, don’t you?’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘How many people have you rounded up at Battersea, Leatherhead, the Dome?’

  ‘Look, I don’t know off hand . . . I’m just a sub-regional coordinator. ’

  ‘Guess.’

  ‘Shit, I don’t know,’ she shook her head, too tired and strung out to want to get sucked into this kind of conversation.

  ‘A hundred thousand? A million?’

  She nodded. ‘Yeah, maybe half a million around London, and in other places too. Look, we’re doing our best—’

  ‘I don’t doubt you are. But do you have enough food and water to feed them for six months? Nine months? Maybe even a year?’

  ‘What?’ she said, her eyebrows knotted with confusion. She blew out a veil of smoke. ‘What the hell are you talking about?’

  ‘Recovery.’

  ‘Listen,’ she said flicking ash into one of the pots beside her and glancing casually at the ‘No Smoking’ sign on a wall nearby, ‘it’s not going to take a year for the oil to get flowing again. Some pipelines got blown, some oil refineries got damaged, right? That’s what happened.’

  Andy nodded.

  ‘So how long does it take to fix that? I’m sure there’re people out there working on it right now. We’ll have oil again in a couple of weeks, okay? So look, why don’t you give me a break, join the queue and let me have a fag in peace?’ She offered him an apologetic shrug. ‘It’s been a really long, fucking day.’

  Andy took a step closer and lowered his voice. ‘Somebody up there, in charge of things, is being very naive if they think it’s all going to be hunky-dory again within a few weeks.’

  ‘So . . . what? You want us to let you go?’

  Andy nodded, ‘Yup. I’ll take my chances outside one of your safe zones.’

  She stubbed her cigarette out and tossed it into one of the pots. ‘Okay then, your funeral. I’ll have one of our lads escort you out of the perimeter.’ She pu
lled the radio off her belt and talked quickly and quietly into it. ‘Somebody will be along shortly to take you out,’ she said to him.

  ‘Thanks,’ said Andy and then turned to go and sit down again.

  ‘Wait,’ said the woman.

  He turned back to face her.

  ‘You really think this is going to go on that long? Six months?’

  ‘Sure. The oil might start gushing again next week, but where’s our food going to come from? The Brazilian farmer growing our coffee beans, the Ukrainian farmer growing our spuds, the Spanish farmer growing our apples . . . think about it. Is his little business still functioning? Is he still alive, or is he injured, or sick? Or how about this . . . has his crop spoiled in the ground, uncollected because he didn’t have fuel to operate his tractor? And what about all those crop-buyers, packagers, processors, distributors . . . all the links in the chain that get food out of the soil around the world and into the supermarket up the road? Can those companies still function? Do they still exist, or are their factories looted, burned down? And what about their workforce? Are they alive still? Or lying in their homes puking their guts up because they’ve been drinking the same water that they’re shitting into?’

  The woman was silent.

  ‘Just a few questions off the top of my head that somebody up the chain of command needs to be asking right now,’ said Andy dryly. ‘It’s not just a case of handing out water bottles and high-energy protein bars for the next fortnight. The oil being stopped . . . even for just this week, has well and truly fucked everything up.’

  ‘It can’t be that bad,’ she replied.

  ‘System-wide failure. It’s all stalled. The world was never designed to reboot after something like that.’

  ‘And you’d rather take your chances out there? There’s no food, nothing. Whatever there was to loot has been taken by now. Do you not think you’re being a bit stupid?’

  ‘Six months from now, the Millennium Dome and all those other safe zones? They’ll be death camps.’