Afterlight

by Alex Scarrow

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I think . . . because deep down, we knew it was wrong. I know now there was a . . . a voice, a quiet voice telling me that bad things were coming. That the food we were eating was poisoning us. That the electricity we were using, the materials we dug out of the ground, were not going to last for ever. That there were too many of us being much too greedy.’

  Hannah thought she understood that quiet voice. There were times she’d been naughty, doing something she knew she shouldn’t be doing, and not even enjoying it, because that annoying little voice was telling her there’d be hell to pay when Leona or Nanna found out.

  ‘I think there were some who sensed that a . . .’ Valérie looked around for the right word, ‘that a storm was coming. And that storm would kill many people.’

  ‘A storm,’ she echoed quietly.

  ‘But we did not stop or change our ways.’ He looked sad. ‘We were like caterpillars.’

  ‘Caterpillars?’

  Valérie nodded. ‘A type of caterpillar that eats much too much. I remember reading about them - they are a species that live in some jungle. They eat and eat these green leaves, and then, when the leaves have all gone, they will just eat each other until only one of them is left on the plant.’

  ‘Oh.’ Her favourite picture-book in the classroom’s small library was The Very Hungry Caterpillar. She wondered whether she might start seeing that story differently.

  ‘God made such a beautiful world, Hannah. Then he put us on it and all we have done is destroy it. We have suck it dry of valuable resources and in turn fill it with useless things we do not need. We turn a beautiful thing into an ugly thing.’

  Hannah looked down at the decks below; rusting, cluttered and messy. He was right.

  ‘I feel this now, that the crash was like a judgement on us. Out there I have seen nothing but darkness and evil left behind, Hannah.’ He smiled. ‘But here, in this place, maybe I see goodness for the first time, in a long time. I see hope.’ He looked out across the rigs, pushing dark hair from his eyes. ‘This is a special place your grandmother has created; like an Eden. But . . . yes, the generator, it worries me.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Your friend, Nathan and your brother, Jacob?’

  ‘He’s my uncle.’

  Valérie shrugged. ‘They, and Walter and others will want more electricity soon. And they will want other things, more and more things. And so I think we will head back to the way we once were. We will not learn.’

  Hannah’s eyebrows furrowed as she thought about that.

  ‘Your grandmother, I think, sees that the past was very bad times,’ he continued, ‘and that is good. She is a clever woman. But, I wonder if she sees that the generator is not a good thing; the first step back towards the bad times.’

  ‘The bad time before the crash?’

  ‘Yes. Perhaps life is better here just as it is? You see that, yes?’

  Hannah could hear the wisdom in his voice, even if she didn’t entirely follow the logic. The jenny-rater rooms did in truth smell awful, and all that smell and hard work just to make a few light-bulbs glow? They had candles for that. She’d heard Leona and Jacob go on about the old world so much. Hannah often wondered what was really so bad about this world? The last time she’d actually felt genuinely sad was ages ago - when she’d accidentally lost a doll over the side and watched it tumbling in the wind all the way down into the sea, making hardly a splash.

  And Nanna said the same things as Mr Latoc. It sounded like people spent so much time being unhappy in the old days. Sad, and angry too, because they didn’t have the same shiny things as someone else had.

  ‘I think it is a mistake.’

  She sensed Mr Latoc was somehow disappointed in them, as if he’d hoped they were better people than they’d actually turned out to be. That thought burned her - like a telling-off.

  It’s the jenny-rater’s fault. That’s what was letting them down, that’s what really disappointed Mr Latoc. She wondered if that meant he was thinking of leaving them as soon as his leg was all fixed up, go and find better people to live with; people who could live quite happily without silly ‘lectric. She’d hate for him to go, especially after she’d worked so hard to make him better again. He seemed to be the only grown-up who really listened to her. When he talked to her, he actually looked at her. Other grown-ups always seemed to have their attention elsewhere, on things-that-needed-doing, they gave her an uh-huh, or a really?-that’snice.

  But Mr Latoc really listened; listened with his eyes as well as his ears.

  He was looking at her now. He reached out and gently held Hannah’s shoulder. ‘You are crying. I am sorry. I think I have upset you?’

  Hannah shook her head. ‘Are you going to leave us?’

  He shrugged. ‘I . . . I see things I would want to change if—’

  They heard the faint sound of a bell ringing out across the platforms.

  ‘You have school now?’

  Hannah nodded absent-mindedly, her face clouded and deep in thought.

  ‘You should go. Before you are late and get me in trouble.’

  ‘You won’t go, will you? I can ask Uncle Walter not to put the jenny-rater on tonight, if you don’t go.’

  His smile was warm as he gently squeezed her shoulder. ‘I do not think I am leaving today, Hannah.’

  Jenny admired Martha’s handiwork in the mirror.

  ‘Oh, blimey! I can’t believe what a difference it makes!’

  Martha beamed cheerfully, scissors in one hand, comb in the other. ‘I told you, Jenny. Didn’t I say? It’s the length that ages you. I been tellin’ you that since I don’t know.’

  She studied her image in the mirror. Her hair, long and coarse and frizzy, had been tamed by Martha’s hand into something she could be proud of. Instead of carelessly pulled back into a ponytail - out of sight, out of mind - it now framed and flattered her face.

  ‘A little conditioner, and a trim . . . you look flippin’ gorgeous now, sister!’

  Martha’s enthusiasm was infectious. Jenny found herself borrowing some of that smile for herself.

  ‘It does make me look . . . yes, younger.’

  She realised she looked a lot more like the old Jenny, the long-forgotten Jenny who once wore pencil skirts to work and looked good for thirty-nine with a little warpaint.

  ‘Oooh, he’ll love it, girl. He’ll be all over you like a bloody rash.’

  Her cheeks coloured ever so slightly. ‘What?’

  ‘Oh, come on, Jenny. You know who I mean.’

  ‘No . . . I—’

  ‘Our newcomer?’ Martha grinned in the mirror. ‘Monsieur Tasty?’

  Jenny’s jaw dropped. ‘You think I got you to cut my hair for him?’ Martha’s raucous laugh filled the cabin. ‘Oh-my-days! Of course you did, love! It’s obvious you like him. Lord knows, we all know you’re goin’ to let him stay.’

  Jenny was appalled that they actually thought she’d put her own desires before the good of the community; that she’d let her loins do the thinking.

  Desires? So, you’re admitting it, then?

  She shook the thought out of her head. ‘Look, Martha, no.’

  Martha cocked a sceptical eyebrow at Jenny.

  ‘Seriously, no,’ said Jenny. ‘If he stays, it’s because he can add something; knowledge, a skill set, a useful pair of hands, whatever. And that’s the only reason.’

  ‘Be nice though, to have a man ‘round who ain’t either some old goat or a young boy,’ laughed Martha, her broad frame shaking. She sighed. ‘A real man at last. Perhaps I’ll get a bit of the real t’ing between my legs instead of me trusty ol’ faithful.’

  ‘Oh, Martha!’

  ‘See, the batteries have been flat for years. I have to shake the thing like a salt cellar.’ Martha cackled again.

  Jenny found her own shoulders shaking. ‘God, too much detail!’ she snorted. ‘Were you always this candid with your customers?’

  ‘That’s why
they came to my salon, girl - for a little dirty talk an’ a cup of tea.’

  Jenny shared some of that infectious smile again. A raucous giggle with Martha every now and then was just about as good as any medicine Dr Gupta could hand out. She wondered whether she’d have gone mad years ago on these rigs if it weren’t for Martha.

  ‘Honestly, girl, if you’re not going to wiggle for him,’ Martha added, ‘then I gonna be the first one in the queue!’

  Their shared mischievous witch’s cackle was brought up short by the sound of feet clanking up the steps towards Jenny’s cabin. Jenny looked at Martha’s face in the mirror.

  Fast-approaching footsteps . . . something’s up.

  It was Rebecca who stuck her head in. She looked pale.

  ‘It’s Hannah.’

  Chapter 19

  10 years AC

  ‘LeMan 49/25a’ - ClarenCo Gas Rig Complex, North Sea

  Jenny felt her insides turn instantly to stone. ‘What’s happened?’

  Rebecca’s mouth hung open, panting for a few seconds, gathering breath to speak, but also the words she should use. ‘She’s missing, Jenny. She’s missing. She never turned up for the start of Leona’s class.’

  Jenny looked at the watch on her wrist; a clunky man’s watch with a winder and no need for batteries. It was 10.37 a.m.; classes began at ten.

  ‘Leona waited a while,’ Rebecca continued, ‘said Hannah woke up cranky this morning and was moaning about going to school today.’

  Jenny nodded. She most definitely had awoken in a funny mood. Very quiet and sulky.

  ‘Where is Leona?’

  ‘I don’t know. She’s out looking for her. I don’t know where exactly.’

  Missing. The word had a deadlier meaning out here on the rigs. ‘Get everyone looking,’ she said, getting up and pushing past Rebecca into the hallway, ‘everyone!’

  Outside, on the top deck of the accommodation platform, she could already see the flitter of anxious movement, people leaning over rails and scanning the sea below.

  Oh, God, no, please . . . not that.

  Word was already spreading. She could hear distant voices calling her granddaughter’s name over and over. Martha, standing beside her, instinctively followed suit calling out for her.

  Below, spreading out amongst the winding pipes, scaffolding and a mess of stacked Portakabins on the compression platform, she could see the children of both Leona’s and Rebecca’s classes crouching, ducking, calling, stretching, looking into every awkward recess for their missing classmate.

  ‘She knows to be sensible,’ whispered Jenny. ‘She knows not to play near the edges.’

  ‘Didn’t Lee say she could play on the tomato deck?’

  Jenny turned round to look up at the overhanging helipad. She could see movement up there. Could hear someone calling Hannah’s name.

  ‘Oh, God, Martha,’ she whimpered, ‘what if she’s—’

  Martha put an arm around her. ‘She’ll turn up, love. She just playin’ silly buggers.’

  Jenny heard the bang of a doorway below and then Walter emerged from the canteen onto the gantry beneath them. He turned round to look up at her.

  ‘There you are! Someone said Hannah’s gone missing!’ he called out.

  Jenny nodded, unable to speak for the moment.

  ‘I saw her earlier,’ he said quickly. ‘Not long after breakfast.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘I saw her with Latoc.’

  Their eyes met and wordlessly exchanged between them was every conversation ever had over a kitchen table on the subject of a missing child, taken . . . the type of monsters that prey on children and the punishment creatures like that deserved.

  She felt her blood flush cold, her scalp prickle at the thought that she might have stupidly allowed a monster in amongst them; that Hannah . . . ?

  ‘No,’ she uttered. Her freshly cut hair suddenly felt like a badge of betrayal, a dunce-cap of stupidity. If she believed in such things, why not a punishment from God for allowing herself a foolish moment of vanity? Whilst she’d been preening, outside, somewhere, the man whose eye she’d been hoping to catch had been busy doing God-knows-what with her granddaughter.

  ‘Where is Latoc?’ she barked.

  Walter shook his head. ‘I’ve not seen him since.’

  Then she saw it, half a mile away, the white blob of a sail. She leaned forward over the rail and looked down at the davit winches on the neighbouring compression platform. The chains dangled and clinked idly against the spider deck: one of their two boats was gone.

  Oh, God . . . he’s taken her.

  She sheltered her eyes from the glare of sunlight and the glints on the sea, beautifully blue this morning and reflecting the azure sky. The boat was turning lazily, only the mainsail up, no jib. It seemed in no particular hurry to put distance between itself and the rigs.

  A spark of hope ignited inside her. Perhaps Latoc had taken Hannah for a go on the boat? An innocent, but ill-judged kindness. That being the case, she decided she’d give him a very public bollocking for lowering the boat into the water without getting permission first. It wasn’t there for joyrides.

  They watched in silence for a few moments as the vessel slowly came about, the boom gently swinging across. Jenny squinted, trying to make sense of the distant flicker of movement in the cockpit.

  ‘I think the boat’s comin’ back now,’ said Martha.

  They were waiting down on the spider deck, perhaps a hundred of them, assembled like a lynch mob, many more lining the railing above, watching the boat peacefully carve a return passage across the docile tide, the mast tilted, the mainsail full.

  Leona was shaking with rage beside Jenny. Rage, and anxiety.

  ‘Come on . . . come on,’ she hissed under her breath. ‘Hurry the fuck up.’

  Jenny rested a hand on her arm. ‘I’ll deal with him, Leona. I won’t let this happen again.’

  Her daughter stared at her silently. Jenny wondered if some of that anger was directed her way. ‘If he’s touched a hair on her—’

  Jenny squeezed her arm. ‘She’ll be fine,’ she smiled. ‘I’ll let you deal with Hannah, though.’

  The boat’s return was painfully slow. Although Jenny didn’t say anything, she was nervously wondering if the boat might suddenly swing about and head away as soon as Latoc spotted the reception awaiting him. But it didn’t.

  As it entered the loom of shadow cast by the rigs, the mainsail dropped to the foredeck and the yacht slid slowly forward under its own momentum. William Laithwaite’s narrow frame stepped up from the cabin and into view. Eyebrows arched in surprise from behind his glasses as he finally noticed the sea of faces lining the safety railings.

  ‘What . . . uh . . . what’s the matter?’ he called out.

  ‘Hannah’s gone missing,’ shouted Jenny. ‘Is she with you?’

  William shook his head. ‘No.’

  ‘Oh, God . . . Mum,’ whispered Leona beside her.

  ‘Why’d you take the boat out, Bill?’ asked Walter.

  The boat softly nudged against one of the support-legs and Kevin emerged from the foredeck hatch, grabbing at the collapsed mainsail and pulling it down through the hatch to store it in the fore cabin.

  ‘I was changing over the sails, thought, uh . . . thought it would be a good opportunity to give young Kevin some practice. Also, Mr Latoc fancied a ride with—’

  ‘He’s on there with you?’

  ‘Yes! I am here!’ Valérie stood up awkwardly in the cockpit, leaning around the boom and the fluttering folds of sail.

  ‘What the fuck are you doing on there?’ snapped Walter.

  Valérie recoiled guiltily. ‘I am sorry . . . I . . . thought it would be—’

  Jenny waved impatiently for him to stop. ‘Mr Latoc, you spoke to Hannah last. You were seen—’

  ‘What has happened to the girl?’

  ‘She’s gone missing. Hannah’s gone missing,’ she replied. Next to her, she heard Leona’s br
eath hitch, followed by a quiet keening whimper.

  ‘You were seen talking with her last, Mr Latoc.’

  ‘What have you done with her?’ Leona suddenly screamed. ‘You fucking bastard . . . what’ve you—!’

  Martha reached for Leona, and held her tightly as her cries diminished to a whimpering.

  He shook his head. ‘Nothing. I spoke with her after breakfast, yes.’

  ‘We can’t find her anywhere,’ said Jenny, struggling to keep her own voice even. ‘She knows to be careful near the edges. There’s no sign of her on any of the—’

  ‘Did you try your generator room?’

  Jenny looked around to her left and right. Heads were shaking. She certainly had not thought to look down there.

  ‘The generator room,’ continued Valérie, ‘your children showed me this the other day. They are very proud of it.’ He shrugged. ‘That is all I can suggest.’

  ‘She knows not to play down there on her own,’ Walter said defensively. ‘None of the little ones are allowed in there without me or Jenny with them.’

  Leona shot an accusing glance at Walter then Jenny before hurriedly turning and pushing her way through the gathered crowd and up the steps. Jenny followed in her wake, wondering what accusation was wrapped up in that look.

  You should have had Walter put a lock on that room, Mum.

  ‘Stay back!’ said Walter to the others outside the generator room. ‘Hannah!’ Walter called as he pushed the door wider and stepped in. His voice bounced back at him off the hard metal walls. The room’s pitch-black darkness was pierced by the fading beam from his hand-trigger flashlight. He pumped the trigger several times, setting the dynamo whirring, the beam brightening once more.

  Behind him footsteps echoed noisily along the passageway outside and up the stairs at the end; a procession of the concerned.

  Walter turned round and raised a hand. ‘Stop! I don’t want everyone stomping around in here,’ he said. ‘There’re cables, pipes, and all sorts. Not to mention a couple of gas tanks full of highly flammable methane!’

  Jenny and the rest of the search party halted in the doorway.