that was the woman’s mugshot.
‘Okay, you better come in,’ he said waving her forward.
Before the others rip you to pieces.
He nodded down at the soldier manning the gate to slip the bolt. ‘Keep your shoulder against the door, though.’ His torch beam swung across the others. ‘The rest of you stay back!’
‘Fucking bitch!’ shouted a man. ‘You’re a guv’ment worker? And we shared our food with you!’
The woman eased herself through the snarling faces towards the door, grimacing as someone spat in her face; another man, barely more than a lad, mimicked headbutting her. So close, in fact, that Adam thought he’d actually done it as she recoiled, raising her hands to protect her face.
‘Fucking fat-cat bastards like you an’ the guv’ment left us outside to starve.’
‘Taking care of their own, again.’
‘Go on, then, fuck off . . . bitch!’
She reached the rough rusted metal of the gate and looked up at Adam. ‘Please! Open the gate! They’re going to kill me!’
Adam swung the assault rifle off his shoulder and cocked it noisily. ‘Please, everyone, back off . . . right now. Or I will shoot.’
The crowd made some space, reluctantly drawing away from the base of the wall.
‘Please! Let us in!’ someone called out. ‘It’s dangerous out here.’
He ignored the voices. ‘All right, open it,’ he uttered down to the lad by the gate. It cracked open on thick rusty hinges that creaked noisily. The woman saw the gap and squeezed hastily through it, just as the others, yards away, instinctively stepped forward, some of them no doubt hoping to file through in her wake.
‘I said stay back!’ Adam shouted.
The woman was in and the soldier swiftly rammed the thick bolts back in place.
‘The rest of you,’ said Adam, ‘should disperse. I’m sorry, there’s nothing here for you.’
There was abuse hurled back. He could deal with the ‘fuck-you’s, the ‘fascist bastard’s . . . what he struggled with was those who desperately tried to appeal to his humanity.
‘What do we do now?’ an elderly woman asked. ‘Please? I don’t know what to do.’
‘You should get out of London,’ he replied. ‘All of you! Get out whilst you’re still fit and able enough. The city’s dead space. You’ve got a chance out in the country.’
He heard the heavy clump of boots on tarmac and jangling webbing approaching. Sergeant Walfield and a section of their boys emerged from the dark.
‘Everything all right up there, sir?’ Walfield bellowed.
‘You people really should go now,’ he said to the others outside. ‘We’ve got orders to fire upon civilians if they attempt to get over the barricade.’
The people drew a few steps back into the thick darkness; a pitiful mob that he suspected were all going to die sometime over the coming winter. If the cold or bad water didn’t get them, then one of the many armed gangs would find them.
‘Good luck,’ he called out. Someone replied that he should go fuck himself.
Sergeant Walfield stood below him, eyeing the woman suspiciously. ‘Don’t we have standing orders to let no one in, sir?’
Adam stepped down off the crate to join them. He panned his torch across the woman’s ID card again; the mugshot in the corner looked like her.
‘Yes, Danny, but I think Mr Maxwell might be interested in talking to this one.’
Chapter 23
Crash Day + 27 weeks 6.15 a.m.
O2 Arena - ‘Safety Zone 4’, London
Alan Maxwell stared impassively at the woman. The name on her ID card was Sinita Rajput.
‘You say you’re from GZ, Cheltenham?’
She nodded. ‘Yes.’
He steepled his fingers beneath his bearded chin, deep in thought, his bushy brows locked together like two links of a heavy chain. The emergency contact line he’d had with them had finally failed eight weeks ago. If he tried dialling now he didn’t even get the busy tone, just static. In the weeks leading up to that, his calls were only being answered with a pre-recorded message informing him that all communication officers were otherwise engaged and that he should call back at another time.
Maxwell offered her a warm smile by the light of the lamp on his desk. Its glow flickered slightly as the solitary generator hiccuped momentarily. Come dawn it was turned off. Daylight they got for free. For an hour in the early evening he allowed two of the four generators to turn over, giving them enough power for cooking and to run a couple of flat-screen TVs and DVD players. One of Lieutenant Brooks’ foraging patrols had brought back a supermarket trolley full