Last Light (27 page)

CHAPTER 55

10.03 p.m. GMT
Shepherd’s Bush, London

It was dark.

Oh God, where the hell are you Danny?

She’d put Jacob to bed as early as she could, after sharing another unappetising meal of cold pilchards in tomato sauce and a slice of buttered bread. When she had tried to pour them each a glass of water, nothing had come out of the tap. It rattled and gurgled noisily, and produced nothing but a few drips. She realised that from now on they would have to start using their bottled water.

It was another hot evening, stuffy inside again. She opened some of the upstairs windows whilst keeping all of the ones downstairs firmly closed and locked. She patiently reassured Jacob that all was going to turn out well, that Dan, whom it seemed Jacob quite openly hero-worshipped, would be back soon and then by torchlight, she found a Harry Potter book on Jill’s bedside table and began to read that to him.

But it was all done in a distracted, worried stupor, one ear constantly cocked and listening out for Dan, whom she expected at any time to come rapping on the front door to be let in. Even though she had, in effect, taken charge of things since they’d left university in Dan’s van, she hadn’t realised how much she had been relying on him for support.

Just me and Jake now?

Already, she could feel herself beginning to come apart, sitting downstairs in the lounge, in the dark, waiting and listening. She knew she couldn’t do this on her own for much longer.

The noises started just before eleven.

The gang of youths were back again. She watched them from the lounge window, concealed as she was, behind the blind. There were twenty, maybe thirty of them, some looked as young as fourteen or fifteen, others somewhere in their mid-twenties. There were one or two girls amongst them. Leona thought they looked a couple of years younger than her. The gang arrived in small groups, gradually amassing in the narrow street outside, over an hour, as if it had been some loosely agreed rendezvous made the night before.

A car turned up, bathing St Stephen’s Avenue with the glare of its headlights, and the sound of a pummelling bass that had the lounge windows vibrating in sympathy. They were drinking again, presumably more of their haul taken from the nearby off-licence. Their voices grew louder as the evening advanced, and by midnight she could hear and see that most of them were pissed out of their skulls. One of them staggered into the front garden, tripped over a paving stone and fell on to Jill’s small, poorly tended flower-bed. He lay there, quite content to look up at the stars for a while before turning to his side and retching.

There was a fight between two of the lads. She watched it brewing, it was over one of the girls; one of the ‘smurfettes’, as she’d decided to call them. She couldn’t hear exactly what was being said, but from the gestures she could guess that the older-looking one wanted some squeeze-time with one of the girls, and the younger one wasn’t too happy about it. The girl in question, of course, wasn’t exactly being consulted about this. Leona had seen countless fights like this brewing outside the pubs and clubs she’d been used to frequenting in Norwich. Always the same pattern to them, a lot of shouting, chest beating, finally pushing and shoving and then the first punch is thrown.

This fight, though, seemed to escalate far more quickly. She watched in horror as it progressed from punches being exchanged, to a knife being produced by the younger-looking lad. It was hard to make out what was going on amidst the frantic movements of both of them, but caught in the glare of the headlight, she soon saw a bright crimson stain on the crisp white T-shirt of the older boy. They thrashed around together some more, until, suddenly, she saw the younger lad spasm violently. Some of the youths gathered round the fighting emitted a drunken howl of support. She noticed a lot of the others were silent, as they watched the younger one shuddering on the ground in front of the car.

One of the girls screamed.

Leona pulled back from the window, shaking as she sat in an armchair and stared instead at the undulating light from outside flickering across the lounge ceiling, as the gang gathered around in front of the car’s headlights to study the body.

The party didn’t break up though. It continued. The drinking went on, the music got louder. The party migrated up the avenue a little way and at about a quarter to midnight, she heard someone hammering on something repeatedly. She knew it was the door to one of the houses when she heard the splintering of wood, the sound of it rattling on its hinges and a roar of approval from the mob of lads gathered outside.

Then what she heard shortly after made her blood run cold, and her scalp tingle.

The house being ransacked, many things breaking, glass shattering . . . and the screams of a woman.

Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.

Leona raced to the window again and peeped out through the blind. She could only see at an oblique angle what was going on; a lot of movement, the pale flash of many white trainers and baseball caps picked out by those headlights and the less distinct muddy colours of T-shirts and bare torsos. They were milling around the front of the house, in and out the front door. On any other, normal night, it could have passed, at this distance anyway, as some kid’s house-party getting out of control.

But Leona looked at the body of the teenager, now dead for a half hour or so, lying forgotten in front of the car.

This is how it goes, like Dad said . . . like a jungle now.

Thursday

CHAPTER 56

7 a.m. local time
The Turkey/Iraq border

Driving north-west took them well clear of Mosul. They drove across the Ninawa region, a desolate and empty portion of northern Iraq. They passed between Sinjar and Tall Afar, two smaller rural towns, again managing to skirt them widely and avoid any unwanted contact. The arid desert swiftly gave way to irrigated farmland as they swung north through the second night, passing at one point within only a few miles of the Syrian border as they swung north-east crossing the Bachuk river and heading towards the border with Turkey.

From Al-Bayji they had traversed nearly 200 miles over two successive nights, and three siphoned refills. The truck, despite the dreadful noises it was making, hadn’t let them down as Andy had feared it might, but he suspected they were asking too much to expect it to get them across a second country.

They passed through the border control point into Turkey without incident. The barriers were unmanned and left open. The truck rolled over a fading red paint line across the tarmac and they were now officially in Turkey.

To one side of a cluster of low concrete buildings was a fenced compound containing a collection of various parked vehicles; trucks, a couple of coaches, some small vans, impounded for various reasons.

Private Tajican was on driving duty; he shouted out of the driver-side window to Andy, who was leaning across the roof of the cab.

‘We could take one of those for our new ride, chief.’

Andy looked across at the vehicles. This was probably the best opportunity they were going to get for a while to change their vehicle and perhaps scavenge for extra fuel, water, food; particularly water. In this heat they had quickly gone through the little water they’d brought with them.

‘Okay, pull into the compound,’ he shouted down.

Tajican steered the truck off the road and through a gap in the wire fencing on to the forecourt where the vehicles were parked up.

They dismounted quickly.

Lance Corporal Westley came over to Andy looking to him for orders he could parcel out to his men.

‘Right then,’ said Andy looking around, conscious of the fact their eyes were all on him, hoping he had some clear and concise instructions for them to carry out. ‘We need someone to check over those vehicles for petrol we can siphon off, and which one we should take. Taj is right, we can’t rely on that crappy old truck getting us much further, so we’ll need a new ride. And whilst we’re here, we should take a look inside those buildings, see if we can pick up some water and food. Westley?’

‘Sir?’

‘Whilst we’re checking this place out, let’s have some men on look-out duty too, okay?’

‘Right-o,’ said Westley and turned smartly around to bellow some orders to the eleven other soldiers of the platoon.

Andy smiled.
I sounded pretty convincing just then.

He caught Mike’s eye. The American grinned and nodded.

Westley put Tajican in charge of checking over the vehicles and sent six men off to help with that. He sent three of them out on the road to set up an improvised vehicle control point and keep an eye open for anyone approaching in either direction.

‘You want to take a butcher’s inside then?’ asked Westley nodding towards the building nearby.

Andy nodded. ‘Yeah. Let’s see if there’s anything inside we can grab.’

The young Lance Corporal turned to the two remaining men, Derry and Peters, who had both put down their rifles and were preparing to unstrap their webbing. ‘Come on, off your arses you fuckin’ numpties. This isn’t a bloody sit-down tea-party. We’re going to sweep the buildings.’

‘Hey Wes, go easy mate,’ muttered Derry.

Westley cuffed the back of Derry’s head as he sauntered past them. ‘Any more shit from you Dezza, and I’ll rip yer fucking cock off. Come on, get off your crap-’oles and follow me.’

They both groaned wearily as they got to their feet and headed dutifully after Westley. Mike, following in their wake, nudged Andy as he passed. ‘You just need to pick up a little of that colourful language Andy, and you’ll fit right in.’

Andy shrugged. Jenny might get a little buzz of excitement if she could see her nerdy husband playing - quite convincingly actually - at being a big tough soldier. He wasn’t too sure she’d be thrilled if he brought the locker-room language home though.

CHAPTER 57

10 a.m. GMT
Beauford Service Station

A bump woke Jenny up; somebody had squeezed past the two plastic chairs she’d been lying across in the eating area, but accidentally knocked heavily against them. She was awake in an instant and sat up.

The staff at the service station were being served a cooked breakfast; quarter-pounder burgers, fried chicken, fried eggs, milk - basically all the refrigerated items . . . made sense.

Mr Stewart was overseeing the distribution of this, carefully pouring the milk and counting out the helpings to ensure everyone was getting their fair share.

He spotted Jenny sitting up.

‘Good morning. We’re serving up breakfast,’ he called out cheerfully. ‘Join the queue.’

She had to admit it smelled pretty good. She dutifully stood at the back of the short, shuffling line, and very soon was receiving her rations from Mr Stewart, who beamed with what he must have supposed was a morale-boosting smile.

Or maybe he just gets off on this sort of thing.
She wondered if, outside of office hours, he was a Cub Scout leader or something.

‘Thanks,’ she said and wandered over to a table at which Paul and Ruth were sitting.

‘Load of bollocks, that really is,’ Paul was saying as Jenny sat down beside Ruth.

‘What is?’

‘Oh, according to this
Mirror
-reading moron here,’ he said jerking a thumb at Ruth, ‘this whole oil mess is the work of the Americans.’

Ruth shook her head and tutted, ‘I didn’t say that. I just said the whole thing seems to have been co-ordinated somehow. And surely the only country with enough clout across the world is America?’

Jenny thought about that. ‘But what do they gain by disrupting the oil like this? Surely they need it more than anyone?’

‘Maybe they have enough stockpiled to ride this out?’

‘I heard they had riots in New York, just like we had in London,’ said Jenny. ‘It sounds like they’re having just as tough a time of it.’

‘Exactly,’ scoffed Paul, ‘what a load of crap. I suppose you’re one of those nutters that think Bush and his cronies were behind the Trade Towers thing.’

‘Well, there’s a lot of stuff that didn’t add up there. I always thought the whole thing was very fishy,’ said Ruth. ‘It was all very convenient, wasn’t it?’

‘Oh you’d get on well with my husband then,’ murmured Jenny.

‘Lemme guess, they knocked the Towers down just so’s they’d have an excuse to go in and steal Saddam’s oil . . . is that what you were going to say?’

Ruth nodded. ‘Yup.’

‘You know that just really fucking irritates me, that. That stupid conspiracy crap. You can’t just accept that something happened the way it appeared, can you? There’s always some gullible idiots, that being you by the way,’ Paul smiled at Ruth, ‘who have to think there’s some big evil bogeyman behind it. Well yeah, okay, in this case there was . . . that Bin Laden bloke. But oh no! That’s not interesting enough is it?. No. Of course it would be far more interesting if say . . . the President is behind it.’

‘Well he was.’

‘Let me guess . . . you think Princess Diana was assassinated by MI5 too, love?’

Ruth’s face hardened, and her lips tightened. ‘You’re taking the piss out of me, aren’t you?’

Paul sighed. ‘I think the truth is a bunch of bloody Arabs got a little too excited with the idea of knocking seven shades of shit out of each other. It’s incapacitated the world’s biggest supplier at a time when we could have really done with their oil, and we’ve allowed ourselves to, rather stupidly, become so reliant on it, that we’ve all been caught with our pants down. Add to that a bloody government that couldn’t organise a shit in a bucket, and didn’t plan for anything like this. I don’t see any conspiracy there, I see a lot of stupidity is all.’

Jenny nodded in agreement with some of that - the stupidity. ‘We’ve been very short-sighted.’ She took a bite out of a burger, savouring the juicy fatty flavour, but instinctively begrudging the calories. ‘Really stupid,’ she continued, ‘for allowing ourselves to rely so much on stuff that comes through just half-a-dozen pipelines from around the world.’

‘How long do you reckon this’ll last?’ asked Ruth.

‘I’d say a few more days,’ said Paul. ‘Our dickhead of a Prime Minister was caught off guard and put the fear of God into everyone on Tuesday. It’s no wonder there were riots in every bloody town. But the police will get a grip on things soon enough.’

Ruth shook her head. ‘Where are the police though? I haven’t seen one since Tuesday.’

Paul shrugged.

‘See that’s what worries me so much,’ said Ruth, ‘not having the police around. And how long is it going to be before we see another? Meantime,’ Ruth pointed towards the two fast food counters, ‘places like this, where there’s still food and drink, pumping out nice yummy smells are going to become a target when everyone’s tummies start rumbling.’

Paul flashed an uncomfortable glance at the wide, empty car-park outside.

Jenny followed his gaze. It was empty now, but she imagined it full and a crowd of starving people surging forward, their faces and hands pressed against the perspex front wall, begging for a handout.

Only they probably won’t be begging.