the onshore guard roster for tonight? I know the place looks deserted, but you never know, do you?’
Nathan smiled. ‘Sure, no problem.’
Maxwell could see he liked the idea of taking on the responsibility; being in charge.
Make him feel a part of things. Make him feel trusted.
‘I’ll leave the details to you. Just so long as the end of the pier is secure.’
‘What about Snoop?’
‘Oh, I think I’ll let Edward have a well-deserved night off. I imagine he’ll have a little fun with the girls.’
‘Okay.’
‘Good lad.’ He slapped the boy’s shoulder affectionately. Nathan nodded then turned away. Maxwell watched him weave his way through the funfair towards the pier. It stretched almost quarter of a mile out to sea; a long windswept and desolate ribbon of planking on rusting supports, lined with weather-worn arcades. At the far end, the tug-boat and barges were moored. The lad seemed reassured by their brief talk. He hoped so. He was relying on Nathan Williams to talk them onto the rigs; to have them drop their guard just long enough to get a few of his boys up there.
That’s all it was going to take . . . a few of these psychotic little bastards.
Beneath the dodgems’ low canopy the boys hooted with laughter as a couple of them upended one of the cars and turfed the driver inside out onto the rubber floor. He looked barely more than eleven or twelve. He railed angrily at them, pulling a knife out and flashing it around to the amusement of the others, who had been goading him on.
‘Hey!’ snapped Maxwell. ‘Don’t be bloody stupid!’
The young boy paused a moment, before nodding mutely. He tucked the blade back into his trousers as the other boys, still snickering, righted his car. They resumed their game, the incident already forgotten.
Chapter 74
10 years AC
M11, London
By the steel grey of dawn’s light they could see the number of people had grown.
‘That looks like a hundred of ’em easy,’ said Bushey.
‘More,’ said Walfield.
They remained fifty yards down the motorway watching them silently, warily. A wall of multicoloured faces, all lean, all smudged and dirty. All watching them with frozen expressions of hope and hunger.
‘It’s the smell,’ said Adam. ‘The smell of cooked meat that’s drawing them.’
The first dozen, Leona suspected, had been following them all the way from east London, but the newcomers, however, must have been survivors scratching a living amongst the streets either side of this road. She wondered how far the smell had travelled, how far word had travelled.
My God. So many of them.
She wondered whether a far greater number of people had managed to keep going than anyone suspected. A hundred people or so from the immediate area. She wondered how many others like these, across Greater London, were still alive in their dark homes, living like rats.
‘We should make a move,’ said Harry. ‘Sir?’
Adam didn’t seem to hear that. ‘So many of them,’ he uttered. ‘Jesus. Apart from the wild children, we thought the city was just dogs, rats and pigeons.’
‘What’s kept them alive?’ asked Bushey.
‘Dogs, rats and pigeons, at a guess.’
Leona studied the silent crowd; old and young, all of them far thinner than Adam and his men; by comparison they looked like they’d been gorging themselves.
‘You from the guv’ment?’ a voice from the crowd echoed up the roadway, breaking the silence.
The men looked at each other.
‘We can’t take them with us,’ uttered Walfield. There were nods of agreement from the other men.
Leona finally decided to answer. ‘Yes, we’re from the government!’
Adam turned to look at her. ‘What? Why the hell you tell them that?’
‘If all that’s left is your Chief, Maxwell, and my mum, then I reckon that makes one of them the closest thing we have to “the government”, right?’
Adam and the others exchanged a glance.
‘And I know I’d rather it was my mum,’ she added.
‘When is help comin’?’ the same voice in the crowd asked.
Adam cocked an eyebrow. ‘Well? It looks like you’re the spokesperson now.’
Leona turned back to the crowd. Her first instinct was to tell them what they probably already knew. That there was no help coming from anywhere. But in that wall of malnourished bodies she saw the faintest glimmer of hope; more than just a feral existence. She saw braided hair on one or two, she saw mended and patched clothes, she saw a baby cradled in a woman’s arms, she saw an improvised wheel cart. Not people who had given up, gone wild or gone mad, but people