such a big rush, ol’ Billy-Boy would quite happily have slapped Daniel enough times to leave a spattered blood and snot trail down the side of his scruffy little van.
Daniel wheezed with relief. ‘Shit, I thought he was going to have me. I really did.’
‘Oh God, so did I.’
She surveyed the car-park. Whereas thirty minutes ago it was half full, now it was jam-packed, with cars, and people on foot, flooding in. She could see several minor altercations occurring in different places, as people squabbled over shopping trolleys, or jostled in the entrance to get inside against the flow of shoppers coming out.
‘Let’s get out of here as quickly as we can.’
‘Okay,’ said Dan, scooping up the last of the cans off the floor.
This is just the start of it. What are people going to be like tomorrow? Or in a week’s time?
‘This is how Dad said it was going to be,’ muttered Leona anxiously, as she resumed loading the last of their cans into the back of the van.
Dan wasn’t sure he understood what she meant by that. ‘What are you talking about?’
She nodded towards the 4x4 couple, now jogging with a trolley towards the entrance of the supermarket and finally shouldering their way through the customers surging out with groceries piled high.
‘Law of the jungle.’
Goldhawk Road, leading away from the bustling green at the centre of Shepherd’s Bush towards the quieter, more suburban end, was normally quite sedate in the middle of the afternoon on a weekday. Right now it was as busy as Leona had ever seen it. The pavements on either side were packed with people laden with plastic grocery bags, pushing trolleys and wheelie baskets. Traffic along the road was crawling, log-jammed with vehicles. Occasionally it got this bad during the morning rush-hour, or when there was a match on at the nearby White City football ground.
She looked at her watch, it was only three in the afternoon.
‘Everyone’s going home early,’ said Dan, ‘to get what they need from the shops.’
She noticed a news-stand outside a convenience store that had so many customers, a queue was beginning to form outside on the street. She saw a headline hastily scrawled across it, beneath the Evening Standard banner, ‘“Please Don’t Panic” - PM’.
Another stand next to it had another early edition headline, ‘Oil and Food Will Run Out!’
Leona pointed them out to Daniel. ‘That’s it then. Everyone knows now.’
Daniel looked at her. ‘Is it really going to get as bad as you say?’
‘I’m just telling you what my dad’s been telling me these last few years.’
She studied the desperate faces on the pavements either side of them. Most of the pedestrians were heading towards the Green or towards Hammersmith where the big supermarkets were. She wondered if there was still food on the shelves, or if they’d already been emptied.
‘Look at all these people Dan. How many of them do you think know how to do something as simple as grow a tomato plant?’
‘What?’
‘When they’ve finished stripping the shops clean, and they’ve eaten what they took home, they’re all going to starve.’
Daniel shook his head. ‘It’s not going to get that bad Leona, trust me.’
‘Yeah? So where’s all the food going to come from then, if the oil problem continues?’
Jacob leaned through the front seats. ‘Leona,’ he said, ‘is the world going to end?’
‘No, don’t be silly Jake,’ she replied, ‘but things are going to be a little difficult for a while.’
She hated the dismissive way she’d said that, because, in truth, it was going to be a lot worse than just ‘difficult for a while’. However, right now, she couldn’t face the twenty or thirty million questions she was going to be bombarded with if she’d answered him more truthfully.
Just then they heard a police siren, and a moment later a police van nudged its way through the traffic, the cars on the road obediently pulling over. As the van passed by she looked up, through the rear windows, and saw the grim faces of the officers inside. She could see the thin black stalks of what looked to her like gun barrels poking up from below. She suspected they were attempting to keep the guns out of sight as best they could. But failing . . . or maybe that was deliberate.
‘The police have got guns,’ she said quietly, as the van whisked by.
Jacob piped up cheerfully. ‘Oh cool!’
CHAPTER 32
2.45 p.m. GMT M6 motorway, north of Birmingham
The roadblock was only a dozen or so vehicles