guess what? I got that wrong. This is looking nasty and I suggest we sneak out whilst there’s a chance.’
‘And leave them?’ she nodded towards the others.
‘It sounds pretty shitty, but yeah.’
Jenny shook her head. ‘I’m guessing you’re a bit of a selfish bastard in normal life, aren’t you?’
He shrugged. ‘Call me selfish, but I just don’t want to be lynched by the mob, all right?’ he said. ‘I just know we can’t take on all these poor sods. They have to look after themselves. We have to put ourselves first. That’s how things are now, I’m afraid. Who do you want to save? These strangers, these people who you’ve known for five minutes? Or your family?’
Jenny watched the silhouette of Platinum Blonde as she stirred up the crowd milling around the burning car.
‘It all came undone so quickly. Just a few days,’ she gestured towards those outside, ‘and look at us.’
Paul nodded as he watched the people outside. ‘I suppose, when the rules go, no matter which country you live in, we’re all the same. We’re just a few square meals, a power-cut, a sip of water away from doing things we never dreamed we would, from being a bunch of cavemen.’
Outside something was beginning to happen. Platinum Blonde had finished saying her piece and had stepped down off her box and merged with the milling crowd.
‘Shit, I think they’re about to do whatever it is they’ve been planning,’ muttered Paul. ‘We need to find a way out now.’
The thought of that woman breaking in to the service station and finding her sent a chill through Jenny. Paul was right, they had to think of themselves right now. Guilt, self-reproach, introspection - that could come later when there was time.
‘Find a way out? Where? How?’
He turned away from the perspex wall, looking back at the dimly lit interior of the pavilion. The emergency generators still running the food freezers were also supplying power to a few muted emergency wall lamps towards the back of the area. ‘My guess is there’ll be a trade entrance at the rear somewhere, maybe we’ll get lucky and no one’s thought to watch the back of this place.’
The crowd outside began to approach them. Jenny noticed some were carrying containers; buckets, bottles. She backed away from the perspex wall as they came round the front of the truck and squeezed into the gap between the truck and the wall. They peered through the scuffed surface, shouting angrily as they made their way along the narrow space towards the locked revolving door. The first to get there was holding a two-litre plastic bottle of pop. There was a three or four inch gap between the revolving door’s frame, and the door panel of one of the segments. He pushed his arm through the gap and poured something out of the bottle on to the floor inside.
The smell wafted through almost instantly.
‘Petrol,’ said Paul. ‘They’re going to burn the doorway down. That won’t take long to melt. Let’s stop dicking around and go.’
Jenny looked once more at the frightened huddle of staff. Paul grabbed her arm.
‘No!’ he said quietly. ‘If you tell them we’re going out the back, they’ll all get up and follow us. Those people outside will see that and suss what’s going on.’
He started towards the rear of the pavilion, pulling her arm. ‘Come on.’
She reluctantly followed him, looking back over her shoulder at the doorway. Several more of the crowd had squeezed their arms through the gap and poured the contents of their containers into that segment. The reek of petrol was that much stronger.
Then she saw Platinum Blonde standing at the front of the truck holding a burning stick in one hand, and peering through the scuffed perspex wall, her face pushed up against it.
She’s looking for me.
Jenny felt an even greater surge of fear take hold of her. For some reason, that woman had focused on her, as if Jenny personified somehow the desperate predicament they were all in.
I really … really, don’t want her to get hold of me.
She turned back to look at Paul. ‘Okay, okay, let’s go.’
CHAPTER 64
11.46 p.m. GMT Beauford Service Station
Paul led her back into the dimly lit rear of the pavilion, past the amusement arcade, past the closed door to Mr Stewart’s office. She wondered what he was doing in there. His staff, mostly older women, confused and frightened, needed him out there in the foyer, not hiding away like this.
There was a row