Relax, he told himself. I’m safe up here.
But when he thought about it, he didn’t feel all that safe. The windows were single-glazed and one rock would have shattered them. They shook when a heavy lorry passed by out on the street.
It’s a rundown council estate, he told himself. Who’s going to target that?
But he wasn’t fully convinced. It sounded like all hell was breaking loose out there. He remembered the people in the supermarket, grabbing at anything they could reach. It was like he was in a dream. And where were the police? He hadn’t heard one single siren all night. It was only going to get worse if people thought they could get away with doing what they liked.
What were they even doing? He’d looked around for a pub on the walk home but they were all locked up.
He got up and walked around the flat. There was no point in trying to sleep; not with that racket. It wasn’t like he could even put the telly on to drown out the noise. He was buzzing now, from the alcohol and the sugar.
He thought about putting a saucepan out to collect rainwater, but didn’t have a clue where to start. He couldn’t put it downstairs in case the foxes knocked it over and there was no way to get up onto the roof. He pulled up the sash window in the kitchen and slid in the brick he used to prop it up. The noise was only slightly worse with the window open. He got a saucepan from the cupboard and held it in his hand as he tried to work out how to prop it up. The window ledge wasn’t wide enough to hold it without the risk of it sliding off.
He turned around and opened the second drawer. He rummaged around. He thought he had twine in there though he couldn’t remember why he’d even have that.
There was a deafening bang and the other noise died away for a couple of seconds. Terry gasped and hurried back to the window, though of course he couldn’t see a thing. He backtracked away after a couple of seconds, feeling strangely vulnerable to a danger he couldn’t see.
Was it a gunshot? Maybe fireworks? No. No, he’d never heard fireworks that sounded like that. A car backfiring? But no, all the cars had stalled for some reason no-one had been able to figure out.
There were guns all over London—everyone knew that. He’d never thought much about it before. Out of sight, out of mind. There was the occasional shooting around here, but it was usually gang-related and when you didn’t see it with your own eyes… There was still no sound of sirens. Why was no-one responding?
He thought back to earlier, to what the woman downstairs had said. She’d been so calm and confident when she’d said it was more than a power cut.
But what else could it be?
He laughed to himself. Was he really starting to believe the words of a madwoman?
The noise had picked up again. At least they’d been shocked into silence by the gunshot. That had to count for something, didn’t it? He wasn’t the only normal one left in the whole bloody city.
Whoa, he thought, alarmed at how much he’d hated London at that moment. It was the only home he’d ever known and he loved it—he’d never wanted to live anywhere else.
There was another deafening bang and Terry’s heart began to race. It sounded closer than before. What was to stop anyone just marching into his block and offing them all? Nothing, that was what. He’d frozen up at the thought of tackling a thief with a knife. How was he going to fare against a thug with a gun?
Terry started to pace again. He’d never felt so helpless in his life—and that was saying something.
III. WEDNESDAY
14. Annie
Annie opened her eyes and jumped out of bed to open the curtains. She had left them open to see if the street lights came back on, but closed them during the night. She hadn’t been able to sleep for thinking about intruders prowling around outside. She wasn’t usually so nervous, but the constant shouts and screams had been impossible to ignore. It didn’t help that her flat was on the ground floor. The windows were single-glazed and the wooden panes were rotting in places. It would take very little effort to break them.
She hadn’t slept well.
She clapped her hands. Stop it. Time to move. She’d fought fatigue before; she’d do it again. There was no time to sit around thinking.
Part of her just wanted to get on the road rather than wasting more time hunting for sleeping bags and shelter, but she knew it wasn’t wise to leave unprepared. After the carnage she had seen the day before, she knew it wouldn’t be a case of cycling as hard as she could for three days.
There were going to be obstacles.
She shivered. It didn’t help that she had no way of tracking down what she needed. She had always used the maps app on her phone to find shops and other businesses. She closed her eyes and tried to think.
She moved to the living room, where her backpack still sat, discarded in the middle of the floor. She hadn’t even bothered to repack it. She needed something better; something with support. Because if she’d thought it was heavy the day before, it was going to be a lot heavier once she was done. She’d brought the bike inside too: better than leaving it to chance now that it was her only way out.
Her body buzzed with energy and dread. It had seemed straightforward the day before, but now that the time had come for action…
She wondered again if she should just take her chances. If she left a bit later, she’d get fifty or sixty miles before she had to look for somewhere to sleep. There was bound to be somewhere out of the way. All she needed was a dry corner.
Then she thought of the petrol bomb the day before; the looks in people’s eyes.
No. Better to get there a day later than not at all.
She wished, and not for the first time, that she’d brought her camping gear with her from the farm, even though she’d done nothing but work, sleep and train since she got to London.
She turned to the window, not wanting to think about what had brought her to London. It didn’t seem so ominous out there now that it was bright. It was quieter, like all the people who had been making the racket were home in bed. There were a few men lingering on the green. It shouldn’t have rattled her—the estate had nine three-storey blocks wrapped around a rectangular green, and there were always people clustered on the patchy grass. But there was something different about these men. She’d never seen them before. She shook her head. That didn’t mean anything, of course. She’d never met any of the neighbours until the day before. But she would have remembered these guys. They had trouble written all over them.
She shivered. She’d had no way of washing the cold sweat off her skin the night before, and it still felt clammy. This was the right approach, she knew, even though leaving immediately would feel more constructive. She had thought of even more things she needed, like water purification tablets and heat packs for her hands.
She threw her jacket on and set off. There was an outdoor shop about fifteen minutes away in the opposite direction to the way she’d gone the day before. She’d never been inside, but it would have to do. She didn’t want to risk cycling any further than she had to after what she’d seen the day before. Even now, she worried that the army was around each corner. She’d had a lucky escape. She couldn’t count on that happening again.
There were still lots of people about, but it was less chaotic now. She tried to keep her wits about her. There weren’t a lot of people cycling around—she hadn’t encountered any yet—and she knew how much she stood out.