“Someone I passed on the road said something about another settlement? A little farther up the coast from here?”
“That’ll be Lowestoft.”
“What’s it like there?”
“Don’t rightly know,” she answers quickly, “and I don’t want to know, either. Warner talks to the people in charge up there when he has to, but he ain’t got a lot of time for them. We keep our distance. He says they’re going about things the wrong way.”
“How so?”
“What’s your name, friend?”
“Rufus,” I reply, remembering at the last second that I used a false name when I arrived this morning.
“You ask a lot of questions,” she says. That’s the second time I’ve been warned today. I need to make it the last time, too.
“Sorry. I’ve been on my own for too long. I’m just looking for somewhere to stop for a while, and if I’ll get a better deal here than in Lowestoft, then—”
“It’s not about deals,” she interrupts angrily. “That’s the difference between us here and them up there. We’re small enough and sensible enough to work together. Up in Lowestoft Hinchcliffe keeps people dangling on pieces of string. He uses them. Tempts them with promises and stuff, then gets rid of them when they don’t do what he says. He’s the only one who benefits. It might work for him, but he’s a bastard, and we don’t want that here.”
“Sounds bad.”
“It is bad. Fighting has replaced thinking, if you hadn’t already noticed—and until people start thinking again, we’re all in trouble.”
I drink more coffee to stop myself from speaking, sensing that I’ve pushed as far as I dare. She’s absolutely right about Hinchcliffe, and I’m precisely the kind of person she was talking about, sitting here in the cold and being manipulated by him from a distance while he sits in the relative comfort of his courthouse throne room. What choice do I have? Are things really any better here? Is Warner as honest and decent as she’s making him out to be? I doubt he is. I don’t think anyone really gives a damn about anyone else anymore. I certainly don’t. My gut feeling is still that Warner must be profiting from this somehow. Whatever he’s doing, he’s playing with fire. I wouldn’t want to risk doing anything that might piss Hinchcliffe off unless I had a foolproof contingency plan and an untraceable escape route mapped out first.
“I’m off,” Jill says suddenly, getting up and walking toward the door. “Got things to do. See you all later.”
Now my paranoia is going into overdrive. Have I said too much and is she going to see Warner to rat on me? Is it time to get out of here? I wait for a moment longer, staring into the embers of the fire, then glance up and see that the man with the comb-over and broken glasses is watching me from across the room. He looks away as soon as we make eye contact, and I know that I’ve aroused suspicions. I’ll shut up and keep to myself from now on. They’ll be watching me now. Despite all the bullshit I’ve just heard, I know that like everywhere else, no one here trusts anyone else.
11
THE WOMAN JILL WAS right about the food—it was warm and it was limited, both in taste and volume. I forced myself to eat, knowing that I needed to build up my energy after the unexpected exertion of the day. I never expected to have to do a full day’s physical labor here. Every muscle in my body hurts now and I feel half dead, even worse than usual.
I’ve been trying to walk off the food lying heavy on my stomach, determined not to spend another night throwing up. I walk slowly around the perimeter of the village square, trying to observe as much as I can without drawing attention to myself. There’s a very different atmosphere here, much less immediate tension in the air. Back in Lowestoft, you constantly feel that everyone’s on edge, that a fight might break out at any moment for any reason, often for no reason at all. Here there seems to be more tolerance and cooperation, and I’m surprised, if not wholly convinced. They must know something about Warner and his regime that I don’t, either that or this place is genuine and these people are trying to rebuild.
I do my best to avoid the crowds. Considering there are only around thirty people here (according to Hinchcliffe), it’s harder than I expected. Back in the center of Lowestoft, people often cram together in the same buildings. Here, though, they’re much more spread out. There are candles and lamps visible in many of the buildings around the square, and I feel like there are eyes watching me constantly. I know that’s just paranoia, because no one gives a shit about me, and that’s one of the reasons Hinchcliffe sent me here. If anyone asks I’ll just lie my way out of trouble and tell them I was looking for a place to sleep.
There’s a truck parked across the full width of a road up ahead, blocking it off. It’s an ex-army vehicle, I think—painted matte green save for some kind of crude emblem that’s been daubed on one side and on the hood. It looks like a target, red and white concentric circles with more red at the bull’s-eye. As I get closer, I realize I can hear voices in the street behind it. I walk right past the mouth of the road and try to glance around the back of the truck, but I can’t see much. There’s a small crowd of people there, but I can’t tell how many or what they’re doing. I keep moving, then take the next right turn, hoping that the side street I’ve just entered will somehow connect with the road that runs parallel. It doesn’t, but the houses I’m walking past now back on to those on the other road. I carry on a little farther, then stop, check again that there’s no one else around, then climb over the gate at the side of the house nearest to me. It’s quiet, and I can hear the voices in the blocked-off street as I walk the length of the overgrown back garden. There’s a hole in the end fence. I duck through it, squeezing through a gap I’d never have got through if I wasn’t so thin, and continue toward the house up ahead, which, to my relief, appears empty and dark. The back door is missing, its frame badly damaged. I go inside, checking yet again that no one’s there, then slowly creep up the stairs. From an echoing room at the front of the house, I look down onto the street below.
There are five figures waiting in the road. I can’t tell who any of them are from this distance, but I can see that they’re armed, although their weapons are held casually and they don’t seem to be expecting trouble. One of them sits down on the curb; another takes a swig from a hip flask.
It’s a few minutes before anything happens. I’m leaning against the wall, eyes starting to go, almost falling asleep, when the man sitting down gets up quickly and the posture of the others suddenly changes. They stand ready as a group in the middle of the street. Then I hear an approaching engine, and I see headlights coming closer. It’s another ex-army truck—similar in size and condition to the one that’s been left blocking the other end of the road. It stops a short distance away with a sudden hissing of brakes. The driver, along with two more men, gets out.
They move fast. The driver opens the back of the truck and climbs up into it, then starts passing stuff down to the others, who carry the heavy boxes and crates away toward another house and a storage shed near the blocked mouth of the road. They’re working steadily for a good few minutes, unloading a stack of food, some weapons, and other, less easily identifiable, supplies. It’s a decent-sized hoard. Suspiciously large, in fact. They won’t have got their hands on that much stuff anywhere around here. Within a couple of minutes the unloading is complete, and as quickly and unexpectedly as they arrived, the second truck, its driver, and the passengers all disappear. I catch a glimpse of that same circular red and white insignia as the truck reverses back down the street.