Conrad Williams - One

'A hundred?' Jane spluttered. 'On a raft? Get some grub down you, Alex. You're delusional.'

'It's what we've heard.'

'Well, it's what I've heard too, now, and I think it's bollocks.'

'We have a duty to check it out.'

'Right. Is this the same duty we have to follow the rainbow to its end, or put a tail on someone who may or may not be a leprechaun?'

'We've got men on it right now. There's a reconnaissance team on its way to Kent. Another doing the rounds here, collecting evidence.'

'Evidence? Hearsay, you mean.'

'We're trying to ascertain where the rumours are originating.'

'And then what? Punish the kid who's been making this stuff up?'

'It might be true. And even if it isn't, it's a good idea. We've got the manpower and the smarts. We need to be more proactive, Richard. We're getting overrun.'

Gerber and Simmonds had quietly placed their cards on the table and removed themselves from the room. People tended not to chip in when Fielding was in full flow.

'We have options open to us here,' Jane countered. 'We have secure bases all across the capital. We know the zones where the Skinners tend to congregate. Surely, once they discover that this place is not the free buffet they thought it was they'll move on.'

'Secure bases, you say?' Fielding mugged, one eyebrow raising. Jane felt like an opposition politician who has let slip a crucial piece of information. He felt skewered. 'Let me show you something.' He led the way to what had once been the prison governor's office. Any decoration – bookshelves, paintings, framed certificates – had been removed. The floors and walls displayed a series of pale parallelograms where things had once been. There was a map of London spread out on the floor, anchored at each corner by a shoe. Much of the centre of it had been whited out with Tipp-Ex.

'Our main base at Elephant and Castle was attacked last week,' Fielding said. 'We've moved out. Burned it down. Their net is closing, Richard. We're vastly outnumbered.'

'And the answer to that is to play cards?'

Fielding did not look up from the map. He sighed. He was a big man, or had been once. Everyone was a shade now, a blueprint of what once was. 'I just finished a twelve-hour shift burning dead bodies and scouring bad zones in south Tottenham. I watched Alan Poole get trapped in a loop of fire of his own making. Burned right through the oxygen hose on the tank on his back. We pulled him out – he'd been breathing fire for twenty seconds. He's going to die. At the moment Doctor Sinclair is making a decision as to whether to let that happen without painkillers, as we really can't spare them. Go down and have a listen to Poole breathing and then tell me what I should do to take my mind off things instead of playing cards.'

Jane chewed at his resentment. 'I'm sorry,' he said.

'Forget it.' Now Fielding raised his head, and there was spice in his eyes as he regarded Jane. 'What have you been doing?'

Spoken as if he was in charge. The implicit needle: Whatever it is can't be as important as what I've been up to . Jane felt disgust rising. The best part of sixty million people dead and here they were playing office bitches.

He tried to keep the resentment from his voice as he said: 'Recon. We have a vermin problem in Mayfair. No more than anywhere, I suppose. No Skinners that I saw.'

'And how about Maida Vale? Skinners there?'

'Not my patch.'

'No, it isn't. So why were you seen there? Three times in the last week. At least.'

'You know why.'

'We need you elsewhere. We don't have the numbers. The resistance has many weak spots. Only by adhering to the tight disciplines and schedules we've set ourselves can we hope to keep ahead of the Skinners.'

'Spare me the team talk, Alex. I do my job. Anything outside of that I do in my own time.'

'But you have to face up to the facts. It's been ten—'

'Shut up. I'm warning you to shut up. I haven't slept well. I haven't eaten today. I am in no mood for this discussion.'

Fielding gazed at him, his face a serene blank. Jane waited. He could see this inspection was meant to unsettle him. Let Fielding make his silent judgements and evaluations. Let him report back to his stupid committee with its imaginary powers.

'The pills are running out, Richard,' Fielding said. His voice had cracked – it was nothing like as calm and assured as the face that delivered it. 'The booze is running out too. Someone – a Skinner, I hope – ransacked one of the warehouses. There's nothing left: no grain, no barley, no potatoes with which to make any new stuff. There's nobody with the knowledge, or the machinery, to synthesise new prophylactic drugs either. When we run out, we've had it. And I don't intend to hang around long once that happens. Our only chance is to get off this island, find someone, a health team that can cure us, a surgeon who can cut this out of us, I don't know, but staying here is sitting in a waiting room for a GP who isn't coming into work any more.'

The soft tang of footsteps on a distant walkway. Jane thought about the cells. There was dried blood on some of the bars where inmates had tried to squeeze through or tear a way out. He could almost believe that the echoes of their cries were flying around the heights of the prison, like trapped birds.

'How can you stand it in here?' he asked, but he was only filling the silence. Fielding knew that. There was no answer to the question. Anywhere was better and worse than the place where you were. You'd still be trapped inside yourself, with yourself, with what you were likely to become. 'I haven't heard anything of these rumours. You mentioning the raft just now, that's the first I've heard of it.'

'It could just be a rumour, like I said. We have to take it seriously. But if it exists I don't want us sitting on our arses here while people are paddling to safety. We have to hope it's real and we have to hope that anywhere other than here is a safer, better place to be.'

'It might be worse.'

'I know you have more optimism in you than that, Richard.' 'You want me to find out what I can?'

Fielding nodded. 'We've got the whole of recon on this. Depending on what you dig up, we could be out of this shitpit within two weeks.'

'Or up to our chins.'

'There you go again. You know, this unremittingly sunny disposition of yours is beginning to get me down.'

Jane had to smile, despite his feelings towards the other man. He kept trying to convince himself that it was in order to prevent the muscles of his face from atrophying.

'Come and find me if you get any leads,' Fielding said. He curved his lips into a cold smile and held out his hand. Jane shook it. 'Come and find me if you don't.'

* * *

Jane struck north-east, consulting his bible. There was a much folded and annotated patrol map of the city glued into the back cover. He opened it on the lam and studied the zones he had whited out. No real rhyme or reason to their location, other than a preference for areas that contained Tube stations, especially those that serviced the deep Northern Line. There were a lot of Skinners in Camden, Oval, Kennington and Leicester Square. They congregated too in open spaces; pretty much all the parks were off-limits. But rogues had been spotted too. Including the tiger. There was talk of the tiger being a leader, but there was no understanding of who he was leading, or to what end.

Jane visited buildings across Crouch End. He found a terrace of boarded shops near Finsbury Park. Behind the blinds of corrugated iron and chipboard were empty rooms. No rat spoors. No evidence of Skinners. He chalked the walls orange and moved on. It was getting dark. Another day lost to fear and suspicion; work was the only way to carve a way through the hours without dropping to your knees, screaming and crying, immobile until the moment they came and drilled their fingers through your skull. It seemed pointless sometimes. This was no winnable war. It was running from shadows and shivering in the dark until morning, hoping you weren't uncovered. It was hide-and-seek played for unspeakable stakes.