required result far more quickly than our colleagues have elsewhere. I take the blame for that. I underestimated the fragility of this country.’
Howard leant forward and placed a gentle, supportive hand on Malcolm’s arm. ‘This was never going to be easy, we all accepted that. Future generations will no doubt judge us harsh, ruthless, cruel. But they will understand, Malcolm, they will understand.’
CHAPTER 84
9.15 p.m. GMT London
Hammersmith without a single light? It was the proverbial ghost-town. On a normal Saturday evening, this place would be buzzing with people streaming out of the tube station, through the mall and out on to the pavement, ready to try and cross the busy ring road. The pubs would already be full and spilling merry twenty-somethings outside to discuss where they were going next.
It shouldn’t be like this; the tall buildings dark and lifeless, the opening into the mall, a gloomy entrance to a forbidding chasm.
There was a constant smell too. A smell he’d started to register on his way north-east from Heathrow, passing through Hounslow. It was the smell of bin-bags ripped open by an urban fox and left to fester in the sun for a few too many days. Walking through Kew, he noticed there was more to the odour than that; the faintest whiff of decay - the first smells of the dead. Andy had spotted only a dozen bodies. That was, perhaps, encouraging. In anticipation of what London would be like in this exact scenario, he’d painted a mental image of the dead and dying filling the streets. He’d imagined the gutters awash with the jettisoned fluids of those who might have drunk, in desperation, from the Thames, from the drip trays of air-conditioning units, or worse.
By the time he’d made his way into Hammersmith, there was a suggestion of the smell of human shit, added to all the other odours.
Of course, there aren’t any flushing toilets. There’ll be several days of that lying around.
Nice.
Andy had seen about fifty people since leaving the guarded perimeter around Heathrow’s Terminal 3. They had all looked very unwell, bearing the symptoms of food poisoning, having no doubt eaten things that had spoiled, or consumed tainted water.
The sun had gone down. And now only the day’s afterglow dimly stained the cloudless sky.
His foot kicked a tin can that clattered across the empty road, startling him and a cluster of birds nearby that took off with an urgent flutter and rustle of flapping wings.
He pulled the gun out, the gift from Lance Corporal Westley. He had to admit, it felt bloody good in his hands. That was something he never thought he’d feel and so whole-heartedly appreciate - the righteous power of a loaded firearm.
‘Thanks Westley,’ he muttered quietly.
It was getting dark, but he was so nearly home now, just two or three miles away. He walked up Shepherd’s Bush Road, towards the Green, passing a Tesco supermarket on his left. By the last of the light, he spotted about half-a-dozen people picking through a small mound of detritus in the supermarket’s car-park, like seagulls on a landfill site.
A few minutes later he was looking out across the triangular area of Shepherd’s Bush Green, and the dark row of shops bordering it. This was his neighbourhood, so nearly home now.
He had allowed himself to nurture a foolhardy hope that when he finally made it here, he’d discover an enclave in Greater London that had got its act together, blocked the roads in, and was sharing out the pooled essentials amongst the locals. After all, this area was home to the BBC. For every rough housing estate in the area, there were rows and rows of supposedly sensible middle-class, middle-management types and mediamoppets - the Guardian sold just as well as the Sunday Sport round here.
But then, that was clearly a silly supposition; blue collar or white collar, if you’re starving enough, you’ll do anything to survive; middle-class, lower-class, tabloid or broadsheet reader. You scratch the surface and we’re all the same underneath.
He walked up past the Green and turned left on to Uxbridge Road, seeing what he expected to see; the mess strewn across the road, every shop window broken . . . one or two bodies.
All of a sudden he found himself breaking into a run, the fatigue of walking the last fifteen miles forgotten now that he was less than five minutes from home. His heart was beginning to pound with a growing fear of what he’d find when he finally pushed open