Last Light

by Alex Scarrow

  The woman looked at him incredulously. ‘Oh come on.’

  Andy noticed a couple of armed police officers enter the departure lounge and walk towards them.

  ‘Ah,’ she said, ‘here they are.’ She reached a hand out and placed it on his arm. ‘Look, why don’t you join the queue like the others? I can send them away. It’s dangerous in London right now.’

  He could see her plea was a genuine act of compassion. She meant well.

  ‘Thanks, but right now I’d rather find my family and get as far as I can from anyone else. The last place I’d want to be in six months’ time is crammed into a holding-pen with thousands of other people.’

  The police escort arrived, and the woman instructed them to guide him out of the building and through the guarded security perimeter around the terminal.

  She wished him good luck as they parted.

  CHAPTER 82

  2.32 p.m. GMT Shepherd’s Bush, London

  ‘Why?’ Jenny asked, looking at her daughter. ‘Why is it so important that we don’t go back to our house?’

  Leona shook her head. ‘It’s what Dad said.’

  ‘I know it’s what he said, but he thought Jill was going to be here to look after you. I thought that’s why he said to come here.’

  Jenny stared at the two bodies in the kitchen, at the pool of blood and splatter streaks on the walls and cupboards. ‘We can’t stay here. I don’t want Jacob having to see any more of this than he has alread—’

  ‘We have to stay away, Mum,’ said Leona. ‘We can’t go home.’

  Jenny grabbed her shoulders and turned her round. ‘Why?’

  Leona shook her head. Jenny could see there was something she wanted to say.

  ‘Come on. We can’t talk in here,’ said Jenny looking down at the corpses. She led her children through to the conservatory at the back of the house, where things were a little less topsy-turvy. She sat Leona down in a wicker chair, and pulled up another. Jacob climbed on to Jenny’s lap, holding her tightly. She rocked him without even thinking about it.

  ‘Come on Lee, this isn’t making any sense.’

  Leona was silent for a while, watching Jacob. His eyes quickly grew heavy, and after a couple of minutes the even sound of his breathing told them both that he was fast asleep.

  ‘It’s dangerous at ours,’ said Leona, in a hushed voice.

  ‘What?’ Jenny shook her head, confused. ‘It’s no more dangerous than here.’

  ‘Mum,’ Leona looked up at her, ‘I think Dad tried to tell me on the phone . . . tried to tell me someone’s after me.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘A man, or men - I’m not sure.’

  ‘What the hell are you talking about?’

  Leona slumped in the chair. ‘You remember our trip to New York?’

  Jenny nodded. ‘Of course, who could forget such an extravagant Christmas?’

  ‘It was a business trip for Dad, as well as a treat for us, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘Dad had written something important, and was giving it to someone very important.’

  Jenny nodded. She’d known there was an issue of confidentiality surrounding the work, and that had definitely put Andy on edge throughout their trip. She remembered thinking that there was perhaps something about this business that was . . . somewhat unusual.

  ‘I think it had something to do with that,’ Leona said, gesturing with both hands, ‘what’s been going on.’

  Jenny shook her head again. Jacob murmured, disturbed by the movement. She wanted to say that was crazy. But something stopped her. What Leona was suggesting sounded ridiculous . . . and yet, so many things over the last eight years began to make some sort of sense, if what she said was true. Andy’s paranoia - if she thought about it, yes - it did really start with New York; his obsession with Peak Oil, with privacy, his gradual detachment from the world . . . it all began then.

  And let’s not forget his very special area of expertise, Jenny, it’s always been specifically THIS - the choking of global oil . . . what’s happening right now.

  ‘Mum,’ said Leona. ‘Dad was never meant to see the important men he was dealing with, it was that big a deal. That’s what he told me.’

  ‘That’s what he told you? Why didn’t he tell me any of this? Why the hell am I finding out about this now?’

  ‘Because it wasn’t Dad who saw them . . . it was me.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘In that really posh hotel? Remember I went up to get something? I walked into the wrong room, the one next door. I saw some men. And I knew even then they were important, like . . . running-countries kind of important.’

  ‘Oh my God.’

  ‘And now this whole oil thing is happening, I think they . . .’ Leona’s voice quivered, ‘I think they might need me to be dead.’

  CHAPTER 83

  9 p.m. GMT Cabinet Office Briefing Room A (COBRA), London

  Malcolm looked at the other two members of the COBRA committee. ‘I think we’re in danger of losing control of this situation.’

  The other two looked at him sternly.

  ‘The longer this situation persists, the harder it’s going to be to pick up the pieces afterwards.’

  ‘This situation will persist Malcolm, for as long as they say it needs to,’ said Sir Jeremy Bosworth. ‘We don’t have a choice on this.’

  Malcolm sighed. ‘I know, I understand that we’re all in this together, but the level of attrition this situation is causing isn’t evenly spread, gentlemen. It’s hitting us much, much harder than others. I’m a little concerned that by the time the satisfactory conditions are met, there’ll be nothing left to salvage in this country.’

  ‘You’re exaggerating Malcolm,’ replied the other man, Howard Campbell. ‘We all need to remain calm whilst this is going on.’

  ‘Exaggerating? I wonder. You are aware of conditions out there aren’t you?’

  ‘Of course, it’s not pretty,’ said Sir Jeremy.

  ‘The safe zones we established to concentrate resources and manpower, are not forming up as we’d hoped. We simply don’t have enough manpower to maintain them; we don’t have enough troops on the ground.’

  ‘The troops are mostly back from our various commitments overseas, aren’t they?’

  ‘There are still significant numbers stranded abroad. And even if we had managed to get them all back home, we just wouldn’t have the numbers we need to do this properly.’

  ‘We have large numbers of territorials we can draw on don’t we?’

  Malcolm nodded, ‘But hardly any have turned up for duty, and of the few thousand that have, many have already abandoned their posts. I might add, we’re also losing a lot of police officers.’

  ‘It’s understandable,’ said Jeremy. ‘People want to be with their families.’

  Malcolm looked at him ‘Does that not concern you, though?’

  Sir Jeremy nodded. ‘It’s a concern, of course it is. But we have to continue looking at the bigger picture. That’s what this has always been about, the bigger picture.’

  ‘Look, I’ll be honest. I’m worried that once they are happy that the goal has been met, the time it will take to get things running again will be too long.’

  ‘Now is not the time to start being squeamish, Malcolm,’ said Howard.

  ‘I’m not being bloody squeamish, Howard. I simply would like to have something left that’s governable once we’re done with this!’

  ‘Come on, Malcolm, let’s not squabble like politicians. We’re better than that.’

  Malcolm nodded, ‘You’re right.’ He smiled at them. ‘I’m merely suggesting that we need to start thinking about applying the brakes to this thing. It’s picked up a lot more momentum than I think any of us really expected.’

  Jeremy shrugged. ‘I must admit, I was a little surprised at the riots on Tuesday. Your man, Charles, did a superb job frightening everyone.’

  Howard looked from one to the other. ‘You
know we can’t do that. We can’t effect any sort of recovery until we receive word. You are bound.’

  Malcolm sensed the veiled threat behind that one word. They did not readily forgive colleagues who acted alone.

  ‘It’s not starting a recovery procedure I’m talking about. I just believe we’ve perhaps been a little . . . over-zealous this week. We’ve achieved the 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 the front door of Jill’s home.

  ‘Oh God, please let them be okay,’ he whispered.

  His footsteps echoed down the empty street as his jog escalated in pace to a run, and he repeated that hypocritical, atheist’s prayer under his breath.

  Let them be okay, let them be okay, let them be okay . . .

  As he turned left off Uxbridge Road into St Stephen’s Avenue, his run was a sprint, and his heart was in his throat.

  And that’s when he saw them, standing ahead of him, blocking the road. Three people; three men, by the shape of their dark outlines. They were standing there, almost as if they’d been waiting all along for him, expecting him.

  Andy whipped out his pistol and held it in front of him in both hands. ‘I’ve got a gun, so back the fuck up and let me past!’ he shouted at them.

  There was no response. The three dark forms were motionless. The one in the middle then slowly moved towards him. Andy racked the pistol noisily and aimed it. ‘Another fucking step and I’ll blow your fucking brains out, mate.’

  The dark form stopped in his tracks. ‘Dr Andrew Sutherland?’

  CHAPTER 85

  9.51 p.m. GMT Shepherd’s Bush, London

  Jenny sat at the top of the stairs, the gun that Leona had managed to get hold of resting in her lap. After some resistance from them both, she had convinced them to go and get some sleep upstairs. They were exhausted and needed some rest. Only when she had assured them that she would stand guard at the top of the stairs would either of them leave her side.

  She was tired too, but there was much on her mind. There was no way she was going to sleep. Leona’s confession earlier on was the problem.

  On the one hand, it introduced a whole new level of fear to the equation - the thought that some shady characters might just be out there looking for her daughter, with one intention only. To kill her. On the other hand, she was angry that Andy’s business affairs had jeopardised their daughter’s life, their family. She was angry that he had never confided in her that their paths might have briefly crossed with those of some very dangerous people. She was angry that he’d sworn his daughter to secrecy.

  And finally, she was sad that he’d been living with that kind of unsettling, nagging anxiety alone, for so long. It explained so much . . . it even put into context all those little tics Andy had developed in the last few years; his irritating habit of checking the tone on the house phone immediately after ending a call, the ritual tour of the downstairs windows and doors before bedtime. Jenny had even begun to suspect he was developing a minor case of obsessive compulsive disorder.

  And now she knew why.

  Christ.

  It made her shudder. Rampaging chavs were one thing, Big Brother watching you, that was quite another.

  ‘Dr Andrew Sutherland?’ the dark form in front of him asked again in a quiet voice.

  ‘I said stay where you are, or I’ll put a bloody great hole in your head!’

  Andy wished Westley had decided to leave him one of those SA80 night-scopes. Right now the edge of those silhouettes were fast merging with the darkening night sky and, for all he knew, they were watching him through scopes of their own and lining up cross-hairs on his forehead.

  ‘Just take it easy, Andy.’

  The voice was familiar - very familiar.


  ‘Who’s that? I know you.’

  ‘Hi, Andy, it’s me.’

  Mike? It sounded like the American.

  ‘Mike? Is that you?’

  ‘It’s me. How’re you doing?’

  ‘What . . . what are you doing here?’ he asked, and then looked at the other two forms. ‘And who’s that you’re with?’

  The form in the middle, the one he guessed was Mike, took another step forward and Andy felt the weight of a hand rest on his gun, pushing it gently down until he was pointing it at the ground.

  ‘We have to talk Andy, and we have to talk very quickly about your family.’

  Those words chilled him to the core.

  ‘Oh God. What is it? What’s happened? Are they okay?’

  Mike hesitated to reply. ‘We don’t know. It’s your daughter Andy, Leona. That’s who we’re really worried about. That’s who we need to talk to.’

  Andy studied the dark form in front of him.

  Oh God, he’s with them!

  Andy raised his gun. ‘Stay back! Or I’ll shoot. I mean it.’

  Mike advanced slowly. ‘Andy my friend, I’m sorry, but I’ve got a gun trained on your head right now. And,’ Mike laughed, ‘I also know how bloody awful your aim is. Lower your gun or I’m afraid I’m going to have to put most of your brains out on the road.’

  Andy suspected the other two men were aiming at him as well. He lowered his gun.

  Mike addressed the other two sharply. ‘Get him inside.’

  They disarmed him, grabbed him forcefully by the arms and dragged him across the narrow street, through the gate of a small front garden and into a house that had clearly been ransacked and looted by someone in the last few days. They dropped him unceremoniously into an armchair.

  He could see nothing, it was so dark. He felt someone brush past his legs, and then a moment later a small lantern popped on - a handheld sodium arc strip light, that glowed a dim, pallid cyan. Mike was kneeling before him, his gun still held in one hand, not aimed at him, but not exactly put away either.