passing through a lifeless outer London, still and silent; terraced houses and three-storey blocks of flats lined both sides of the road, every last window smashed leaving dark eye-sockets out of which tattered net curtains fluttered.
Leona noticed how quiet the boys had become, particularly Jacob. The spirited chattering about computer games and comics had dropped down a notch as they’d left the motorway. Now they pedalled in sombre silence, listening to the soft whisper of a breeze whistle tunelessly through empty office windows. They exchanged wary glances every now and then when they heard the clatter of loose things caught by eddies inside.
They crossed a bridge over a wide estuary, watching the afternoon sun emerge to sprinkle dazzling shards of light across the still water. Tugs and barges lay askew on mud flats either side, gulls and terns stepping delicately between them across the silt looking for an evening meal. Over the bridge, the road dipped south bringing them ever closer to the Thames which they would have been able to see by now if it wasn’t for the buildings on their left: shopfronts with floors of office space perched on top and riverside warehousing.
As they rattled and weaved along the road, the office blocks either side of them grew taller and more claustrophobic, pressing in on the road and towering over a seemingly endless parade of gutted news-agents, pubs, pawnbrokers and bookmakers. The sun was hidden by the tall buildings, every now and then a winking amber eye staring at them through first-floor windows, across the offices of abandoned call-centre desks and cubicle partitions.
‘Hang on,’ said Leona quietly. She stopped and pulled out her road map once more, orienting it to match the direction they faced.
Nathan looked around, frowning as he did so. ‘Hey, I think I know this. This is, like, right near that big exhibition place.’
Leona nodded, her eyes on the map. ‘The ExCel Centre?’
‘That’s the one.’
‘What’s the eck-sell?’ asked Jacob.
She looked up at the junction they’d stopped at. Like every other, it was littered with all manner of pilfered junk, dragged out, examined and dumped some time during the last decade; tall weeds poking opportunistically up through gutter grilles, cracks and bulges in the crumbling tarmac road. Amongst the debris, the occasional small bundles of stained and sun-faded clothes, from which dark leathery twigs and tufted scarecrow heads protruded.
She spotted a rust-peppered street sign above a KFC. ‘Prince Regent Lane.’ She checked her map again. ‘The exhibition centre is just down at the end of this road.’
Jacob squinted. ‘Maybe that’s where the lights were coming from?’
Nathan nodded. ‘Could be. It’s a big-huge place, Jay, right on the Thames.’
‘They did those big exhibition things there,’ added Leona. ‘Ideal Home exhibition, a boating thing . . . it’s enormous. It might have been used for one of the safe zones.’
The three of them stared down the street.
Jacob looking from one to the other. ‘So, we should go and see, right?’
Leona debated whether, with the daylight they had left, they should settle themselves in for the night. They hadn’t seen a single soul since entering London, yet she felt the urge to find somewhere secure, somewhere they could barricade themselves in. Even if there were no people around she’d seen plenty of dogs of all shapes and sizes scattering nervously away at the sound of their approach and watching them warily from dark doorways as they passed. She certainly didn’t fancy camping out in the middle of the street tonight.
Looking at the others, neither did they.
On the other hand, she felt a burning urge to go take a look-see. According to the map the exhibition centre wasn’t far away, perhaps another ten or fifteen minutes down the road. And then they’d be there, right on the bank of the Thames, with a clear line of sight up and down the river for miles. If it wasn’t the ExCel building Mr Latoc had seen glowing at night, it could possibly be the O2 Arena, or perhaps one or other of the towers of Canary Wharf? Whichever building it was, if somebody was generating light enough to reflect off an overcast night sky, surely, from there, right on that famous bend in the Thames, they’d have the best chance of seeing it.
It was quite possible that they could be sleeping beneath powered lights tonight.
‘All right,’ she said. ‘We’ve got time to go check out the ExCel. It’s not that far from here.’
They climbed back on their bicycles and turned left into