conglomerations, he surmised, was being left to its own devices. He could see farmers dusting off their old shotguns and changing the birdshot for something a little stronger, jealously guarding their modest crops, and cornershop owners - those that had yet to have their stores stripped bare - barricading themselves in, armed with baseball bats and butchers’ knives.
And how long would that state of affairs last?
His best guess was a month, perhaps two. That’s how long it might take to repair the damaged oil infrastructure; the sabotaged refineries, the blown pipelines.
And it might be some time after that before commercial freight ships and aeroplanes were flying once more, loaded up with oranges from South Africa, lamb from New Zealand, Brussels sprouts from Romania.
Oil companies . . . big business interests . . . they were the first culprits that had sprung to mind. But as far as Andy could see, this had devastated the oil market, irreparably. And when the world recovered . . . if the world recovered, it would be hypersensitive to oil dependencies, and the dwindling reserves that were left. There was simply no economic motive - for anyone - that he could see behind what had been happening. There were no winners.
The only way one could work out who might have been behind it all would be to look back in a few months’ time - or perhaps a few years’ time - and see who got hurt the least, or who benefited the most from this chaos. All Andy could see now was that millions, perhaps hundreds of millions of people, billions even, were struggling to survive, simply because somebody had temporarily grabbed hold of the world’s oil drip-feed, and squeezed tightly.
How fragile the world is, how very fragile.
There was that metaphor he had used in the report, one he’d been very proud of and thought quite clearly illustrated the tenuous situation of this interdependent modern world. Stopping the continual flow of oil, even for a very short time, was akin to an embolism or stroke a sick man might suffer. And that’s exactly what this oil strangulation had turned out to be - a global, economic heart attack.
His eyes grew heavy. The soothing rumble and hiss of the jet engines, carrying them over an unlit Europe, was as good as any sedative. A week of stolen sleep finally caught up on him with a vengeance, and as his chin drooped to his chest, his last conscious thought was that Jenny and the kids had probably fared better than most this week.
CHAPTER 75
10.05 p.m. GMT Shepherd’s Bush, London
The Bad Boys turned up as they had on the previous three nights, appearing, as they did, in surly twos and threes, just after the last glow of dusk had gone from the sky, and the darkness of night was complete. They were not so boisterous tonight she noticed, no catcalling, no wolf-whistling amongst them.
She sensed, for them, tonight wasn’t going to be about recreation. It was going to be about necessity; quenching their thirst and hunger. This little avenue was their larder. It had provided them with rich pickings since Tuesday. They were going to keep coming back until every last house had been plundered, and then, and only then, would they move on to somewhere else.
She had been in and out of the house this afternoon, using the few tools Jill kept in the cupboard under the sink to fashion the crudest and most basic of weapons and traps. Hopefully they would prove dissuasive enough to the gang tonight, that they might pick on someone else.
Just one more night.
Leona was certain Mum or Dad would come for them tomorrow. Instinct? Or wishful thinking? Or maybe the alternative, that they were gone for ever, was simply unthinkable.
After finding Mr and Mrs DiMarcio this morning, and worried about the chances of being broken into tonight, she had taken a count of the houses down St Stephen’s Avenue, and how many had already been looted. There were just over fifty homes along the short leafy avenue. Fifteen had been done over by the gang, including their home. Leona had been tempted to wander inside, but remembered Dad’s warning and steered clear of it. She was pretty sure six of the houses had been entered during the course of last night. It seemed like the gang of boys weren’t rationing themselves at all; just breaking and entering until they’d had enough. All of the six homes hit last night had