of DVDs from a ransacked HMV. It was something to keep his people distracted for a short period every day.
‘So, Sinita, tell me what’s going on over there.’
She looked up at him sitting behind his desk, flanked by Brooks on one side and Morgan - Maxwell’s deputy supervisor - on the other. Alan insisted they both remained on their feet when they had their daily briefing with him; a small thing really, just a gentle reminder that he was the one in charge here. The Chief . . . as it were.
‘Things went bad there,’ she said, after gathering her thoughts for a moment. ‘I . . . I was one of the medical team. A ward nurse before the crash . . .’
‘Good. That will be useful. Please . . . carry on,’ said Alan patiently.
‘We took in roughly sixty thousand at Cheltenham. Plus the thousand emergency workers, soldiers and government people. There was talk from the first day the safety zone started taking people in, that this . . . this crisis would blow itself out within a month. So they told us to distribute standard maintenance allowances—’
‘How much?’ Alan was intrigued.
‘Fifteen hundred calories per adult female, two thousand calories for men. It was about nine weeks after the crash that my supervisor was telling the government people that it was better we started lowering the allowance.’
Alan nodded. His people had been on twelve hundred calories from day one.
‘They agreed a while later,’ she continued. ‘But then it had to be a big cut. We were handing out eight-hundred-calorie nutrition packages for a month before they suddenly started rounding people up at . . . at gunpoint and removing them from the safety zone. They . . .’
She shook her head and closed her eyes, clearly willing herself not to cry, or appear weak in front of these strangers. Her jaw clenched. She took a moment before continuing. ‘They . . . the soldiers were selecting non-essential workers. Old people, unskilled people. It was awful. Then, there was news from . . . from, I think it was Heathrow first, then Wembley.’
‘What news?’
‘The riots. Riots inside.’
Alan frowned. He’d heard rumours from several groups of people who’d tried their luck here. But nothing confirmed by GZ-C.
‘They lost control in those places,’ the woman continued. ‘The soldiers were overrun by the refugees, the storage areas ransacked . . . completely gone in just a few minutes. The news made the government people at Cheltenham panic. One morning they started evicting the civilians that were left, just pushing them towards the exit. And then I think someone heard that all the other safe zones were rioting, and that news spread like wildfire . . .’
Her lips trembled, curled - her chin creased and dimpled.
‘It’s okay, Sinita,’ said Alan. He got up, walked round and sat on the edge of the desk and patted her shoulder reassuringly.
She took a deep breath. ‘It was a massacre. I saw hundreds of women, children, and boys and men . . . lying on top of each other. Those that didn’t get killed . . . they ran.’
‘And you?’
‘I . . . I’m an essential worker,’ she said with a humourless smile. ‘I got to stay.’
She wiped her wet cheeks with the back of her hand. ‘We lasted another two weeks, I suppose, on what was left. Then the soldiers turned on everyone else.’
‘On the emergency authorities?’
‘Oh, yes, the civilian emergency volunteers, the civil servants, the cabinet members . . . everyone not in their unit.’ She looked up at Lieutenant Brooks, her wet eyes narrowing ever so slightly. She reached for her ID card and held it up. ‘This piece of plastic didn’t mean anything all of a sudden. Several other women I was working with were raped and . . .’ Her words ground to a halt. ‘I . . .’ She started and faltered.
‘It’s okay, my dear, take your time.’
‘So,’ she wiped her nose on her sleeve, ‘so, I left before they did the same to me.’
Alan stifled an urge to turn around and study Flight Lieutenant Brooks’ expression. During the first few weeks he’d been haranguing Cheltenham to send him more soldiers to help guard the dome. Now he wondered whether he’d actually been fortunate not to have a regiment of troops sharing the dome with them. Too many men in uniform and a more senior ranking officer than Brooks might have been something for Alan to worry about if supplies eventually