Prince Regent Lane. It reminded her of the main road near their home in Shepherd’s Bush; a party-mix of shops either side: halal butchers, Caribbean takeaways, a shop selling saris, another selling hijabs, a snooker club, a small open-air market with rows of empty wooden stalls, a video store, a supermarket, mosques and several off-licences elbowing each other for space.
Moments later, halfway down Prince Regent Lane, they caught sight of the top of the giant exhibition building above a squat row of two-storey shops; they could see sprigs of white support poles protruding above a long pale roof. Beside it they could see the tops of several quayside cranes that had, once upon a time, serviced the busy barges pulling into Victoria Docks.
It was still light, the combed-out cloudy veil now lit from below by a setting sun; a beautiful vanilla skyline of ripples and veins staining the world with a rich sepia warmth. Although Leona had secretly doubted they were going to find anything at all in London, doubted the city was busy rebuilding itself on the quiet, she found herself desperately hoping the waning light of day would trigger an automatic lights-on response from somewhere nearby. She almost began to believe that the pale roof of the exhibition centre was going to flicker to life at any second, bathed in the clinical glare of a dozen roof-mounted floodlights.
Their pace quickened.
Towards the end of the road the squat buildings gave way to flat open ground, a scruffy little playground full of waist-high grass and brambles growing up the rusting A-frame of a child’s swing. Beyond it was a railway track with a pedestrian bridge over the top that would lead them down rickety steps onto a large riverside parking area at the rear of the giant, warehouse-like ExCel Centre.
‘Oh, fuck!’ gasped Jacob. ‘It’s huge! I never seen a building this big!’
Leona remembered coming here once before, as a girl; she must have been ten or eleven, Jacob hadn’t even been born then. Mum and Dad had taken her along to some sort of horse and pony expo - to see whether she really did want to ‘get into horses’ or whether it was just another of her many passing fads.
‘We should leave the bikes and the trailer here,’ she said, ‘if we’re going over the bridge to get a closer look.’
‘I’ll get the gun,’ said Jacob. ‘Just to be safe.’
He retrieved it from the back of the trailer.
‘Give it to Nathan,’ Leona said. Jacob sighed before he handed it over.
‘Here.’
Nathan cocked it and slung the strap over his shoulder.
‘Okay?’ she said.
The others nodded silently, quickly kicking their bike stands down. As their feet rang noisily up the metal steps of the overpass she looked along the railway line below, sleepers lost beneath a carpet of tangled green, and at the small Docklands Light Railway station several hundred yards away. She recalled stepping out onto the platform down there, excited by the sight of the giant white building towering over her and the convergence of so many other mums and daughters looking forward to their day inside.
So quiet now, though. No bustle and hubbub of expectant young voices, just the soft rumpling of a gentle breeze and the distant tap-tap-tapping of cables against the white flagpoles above the ExCel roof. They crossed over the train track and down the steps on the far side and into the parking area - another deserted expanse of failing concrete divided by flaking lines of yellow paint.
Leona nodded at the looming, featureless rear wall of the centre. ‘This must be the service entrance.’
Across the car-park their eyes drifted towards a quay with a safety rail running along it and beyond that the water of Victoria Docks, subdued and calm. Dazzling golden shards rippling across the still surface reflected the bedding sun, fat, orange and undulating like the hot wax of a lava lamp, looking to settle for the night.
Jacob nodded towards the quayside rail. ‘Race you, Nate.’
The boys cut across the car-park, finally clattering against the railing on the far side, whooping with delight, claims of victory and counterclaims bouncing back at them from the rear of the ExCel Centre.
She joined them a moment later, gazing out across at the docks. On the far side, a row of antiquated cranes stood tall and aloof; an industrial-age silhouette of spars and counterweights, swaying rigging chains and the vaulted roofs of dock warehouses that cast a long deep shadow across the water towards them.
From where they