black lad barked an order at two younger boys. They passed their guns to a colleague, stepped forward and scooped Jacob’s body up between them.
‘We takin’ him home, Snoop?’ asked one of them, a white kid who looked several years younger than the one with the bandanna - clearly their leader. He also sported a thick gold choke chain.
Snoop nodded. ‘Yuh, Tricky, we takin’ him back. We take him to get the doc’ see to him.’
He turned to Nathan. ‘You comin’, too.’
Not a request, it seemed. An order. He looked down at the assault rifle still clutched tightly in Nathan’s hands. ‘Hey, nice gun, bro. Lemmesee it.’
Nathan passed it up to him, looking over his shoulder as he stood up. The other two were hefting Jacob away between them up the concourse.
The black guy nodded approvingly at the weapon. ‘Army gun. Kept nice an’ clean. This your piece?’
Nathan nodded.
‘Good gun-care, bro. May be that the Chief will wanna make you a praetorian.’ He flicked his head. ‘Come.’
Nathan’s gaze returned to him. ‘Who . . . who are you?’
‘Me?’ he grinned. ‘You call me Snoop - the top dog. You?’
‘Nathan Williams.’
‘What about the white kid?’
‘Jacob Sutherland.’
Snoop shrugged. ‘Okay, Nathan Williams, we’re goin’ before them wild fuckin’ rugrats return. Like fuckin’ mosquitoes way they keep comin’ back here.’
He followed after the others, walking backwards swinging his torch to and fro and keeping a wary eye out for the feral children.
‘Where we goin’?’ asked Nathan, stepping smartly to keep pace with them.
‘Take you back to the Zee.’
‘The Zee?’
‘Yuh. Zee . . . the Zone. Where we live. Ain’t far.’
‘Jay . . . Jacob, my friend, he’s going to be all right, isn’t he?’
Snoop shrugged. ‘Fucked if I know. Doc’ll look him over when we get back.’
They stepped out of the main hall, down several wide steps into a foyer lined with registration desks and turnstiles and across a floor littered with glass granules that crackled underfoot. They pushed their way out through a row of rotating door frames, the panels cracked and lined with shards of glass.
It was almost completely dark now. Waiting patiently just outside the doors, beneath an entrance awning of canvas that stretched off down a long, covered approach promenade, were a pair of ponies harnessed to an improvised cart; the four wheels and a chassis of a car, with a flatbed of planks laid across.
‘We was inside there with someone else,’ said Nathan quickly.
Snoop shrugged again. ‘Well, shit, they’re dead or they run by now. Ain’t my business.’ He barked orders at the others. ‘Get him on the cart.’
The other boys in orange vests eased Jacob onto the cart then clambered on themselves. He turned to Nathan impatiently. ‘Well, get on, unless you want wait around for the rats to come back.’
Nathan cast one last glance back at the dark interior of the ExCel Centre, desperately hoping to see Leona come stumbling out of the gloom, barking at them not to go and leave her behind.
‘What you waitin’ for? Get on, fool, or we’ll go leave you behind.’
Nathan did as he was told, clambered onto the planks and settled down beside Jacob.
Shit. He shook his head and looked down at his friend’s face, criss-crossed with rivulets of tacky drying blood, his breath rattled out though clogged nostrils.
Shit, Jay . . . please don’t die on me, man.
Snoop hopped on the front of the cart and barked an order at one of the other lads. With a shrill whistle and the crack of a stick on their haunches, the ponies lurched forward and the cart spun out from beneath the awning and across the approach. Above them the last stain of dusk’s amber was gone and stars had begun to dimly pepper the night sky.
Nathan clenched his lips, thankful it was dark enough that none of the others sitting beside him were going to notice the silent tumble of tears on his cheeks as he squeezed one of Jacob’s clammy hands.
Please, mate.
Lee, what’re you going to do?
She remained where she was, silent, her hands grasped the overpass railing, her eyes locked on the building, scanning the empty car-park for any possible shadows of movement coming her way.
An hour might have passed. She had no idea. It could have been longer. In that time a yellow, sickly three-quarter moon had risen and arced some of its way across the night sky. Its wan light glinted off the water of Victoria Docks, smooth and sullen, and every now and then a soft