tidying away the discarded beer cans and broken bottles.
They think this is all over.
Clearly that’s what they were thinking, that this was now the clear-up phase, that the hurricane had been and gone. She guessed that they and those shopkeepers were expecting the power to come back on sometime this afternoon, the police and the army to arrive shortly after to supervise the clearing up. And to be honest, Leona allowed herself to hope that might be the case too.
She picked up the pace down towards their end of St Stephen’s Avenue, guessing that Dan was already back at Jill’s with Jacob and no doubt fretting about her. As she approached their house, she noticed the people opposite - she didn’t know them by name - were out in their front garden nailing sheets of plywood over their downstairs windows.
She walked up the path to Jill’s home and knocked on the front door, expecting it to open almost immediately. But it didn’t.
‘Dan? Jake?’ she called through the letterbox.
She heard shuffling coming from inside, then a pair of legs came warily into view. A moment later she heard the bolt slide and the door opened. Jacob stood there, hugging a soft fluffy spotty dog he must have found lying around Jill’s place. His eyes were puffy from crying, his bottom lip quivered.
‘I thought you left me for ever,’ he managed to whimper.
‘Did Dan not come back?’
He shook his head silently.
CHAPTER 53
8.51 p.m. GMT South of London
Ash made slow progress south, out of London; the roads were cluttered with abandoned vehicles and the mess left by last night’s rioting. On several occasions he’d had to make an off-road diversion to avoid police and army roadblocks, knowing that driving a police motorbike, he was asking for trouble if he got too close.
Leaving the city behind and driving through into the suburbs he noticed that conditions seemed to fluctuate; some areas had been hit badly by last night’s rampaging, others looked largely untouched. He drove down a high street in a well-to-do area, not noticing a single broken shop window. It was quiet of course, everyone tucked inside their homes - and he spotted many a curtain twitching as he passed through - but to all intents and purposes it could have been tea time on any given weekday evening.
He also noticed that the power-outage, which had swept across the country last night, was not as complete as he had thought it would be. He drove through a dozen or so areas that demonstrated at least an intermittent supply of electricity; neon shop-signs still steadfastly glowing, and street lights - their timing mechanisms knocked out of sync by the chaos of the last twenty-four hours - casting down unnecessary pools of flickering amber light during the daylight hours.
Ash had assumed the emergency authority would have cut all power, everywhere. But then, he wasn’t privy to how the details were being handled in this country - that was for others to know. Each had their own responsibility, their own way of doing things. The bigger picture . . . that was the thing.
He finally managed to emerge from the extended suburban carpet around London, as the evening light began to falter.
Along the A road, heading south-west out of London, he came across clusters of pedestrians walking along the hard shoulder, most of them heading away from London. Ash presumed they were people who commuted into London to work and had been caught out by the suddenness of events, now wearily trying to make their way home. There were also a few who seemed to be heading into the capital.
I wouldn’t recommend that folks.
But then, they too were probably making for home - where else would they be going?
That’s where you long to be in a time of crisis, isn’t it? Home.
He found himself wondering again about the whereabouts of the Sutherland girl. This family friend ‘Jill’, this good family friend, a friend who could be trusted to look after Mr and Mrs Sutherland’s children, would she not live close by? Close enough to drop in regularly?
Probably.
But unless he had an address . . .
What if the girl decides to go home to get something? What if this ‘Jill’ decides she’ll quickly drop in to pick up some changes of clothes for the kids . . . a favourite toy for the younger one?
Ash was momentarily unsettled with doubt. Perhaps he should have just stayed put there and waited?
No. He could be waiting there indefinitely. Time