‘It sounded just a little bit like you were coming on to me there, David.’
‘No, no, not at all … Don’t be silly.’
‘Why? Don’t you like me?’
‘No. Well, yes, obviously, but that wasn’t what I meant. I just meant that, well, you must admit, Nicola, that if we were together like that, not that that was what I was suggesting, but just consider it for a moment, if we were, it would really seal our union.’
Nicola raised her eyebrows.
‘You’re a dark horse, aren’t you, David King?’
David sniffed and became very businesslike, leafing through some pages of notes.
‘Why don’t you take the agreement away, study it and we’ll meet again in a few days …’
‘I don’t know if I really want to make some sort of official deal,’ Nicola interrupted.
‘What do you want then?’
‘I want to be safe. I don’t want the squatters to attack us again. I want to know we’re not going to, I don’t know, be invaded by you or anyone else.’
‘OK,’ said David. ‘Here’s the deal. To prove to you why we’d be better off working together, what if I promised to deal with the squatters, bring them into line, slap them down?’
‘Could you?’
David stood up and struck his manly pose. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘And, if I do, will you promise to sign the agreement?’
‘OK, sure. If you think you can do that. If you can really properly deal with them and stop them raiding us, I’ll sign, we’ll form an alliance. We’ll be king and queen of London.’
‘Of England, surely,’ said David.
Now Nicola stood up and came round to David. She stood slightly too close to him and he could smell soap and clean hair and something else. Something mysterious and feminine.
‘You’d like that, wouldn’t you?’ she said.
‘Yes.’ David’s throat felt dry.
Nicola leant even closer. ‘Me being your queen.’
‘Well …’
There was a knock at the door. Nicola laughed and backed off.
It was Pod again. David told him to come in. Nicola watched as he strode over to David and whispered something in his ear. David smiled, nodding his head happily.
Evidently it was good news.
‘OK, Nicola,’ he said, rubbing his hands together. ‘I don’t think there’s anything more we need to talk about. Pod will escort you back to your friends. Do what you need to do, discuss it with whoever you think needs to be in on it, and then we’ll meet again in, what? A week from now?’
‘OK, yeah.’
Pod led Nicola away and David hurried through the palace to the main function room at the front of the building where he found six of his boys waiting for him in their matching red blazers. David inspected them quickly. They had their rifles with them and looked smart and alert.
‘We’ll go out on to the balcony,’ he said, giving them a final once-over. ‘You know the drill. Look like soldiers. Look impressive.’
They all nodded. Straightened their backs. David took a deep breath and went out through the central French windows on to the balcony. His guards followed, falling into position on either side of him. David leant on the stone balustrade and looked down.
The other palace kids were gathered on the parade ground. They’d just let in a group of new arrivals who were marching towards the palace. David quickly assessed them. There were maybe twenty-five, thirty, armed boys and girls of all ages. Two of them were carrying a makeshift stretcher with a girl lying on it, her face heavily bandaged. At the head of the party was Jester, looking full of himself. There was no sign of the other kids who had set off with him two days ago.
‘Magic-Man!’ David called down to his friend, spreading his arms in a welcoming gesture. Everyone looked up at him. David. The boy who owned all this.
‘Well done, Jester,’ he shouted. ‘We didn’t think we were ever going to see you again.’
‘You didn’t doubt me, did you, David?’ Jester shouted back.
‘Never! But where are the others?’
‘They didn’t make it,’ said Jester, and the effect on the palace kids was immediate. A wave of moans passed through them, followed by mumbling. David tutted, chewed his lower lip, and then made sure he put a smile back on his face. It was bad news to lose anyone, but at least Jester had brought plenty of new recruits back with him. He wondered if they were any good or whether they’d be just more hungry mouths to feed.
As if Jester could read his mind, which David sometimes thought he could, he answered the question for him.
‘But this lot,’ he cried, ‘you should see them in action. They’re skilled fighters, David. They’re going to really make a difference.’
David’s smile grew wider. This was turning out to be a very good day all round.
‘Well, come on in!’
62
They never discovered Shadowman’s hiding-place in the burnt-out building, and he’d spent the long night there listening to them feed. St George and his gang first, and then the others, who fought over every last scrap of flesh and skin and bone. Finally, the most diseased, the weakest, had come to the table and Shadowman had had to watch them in the grey light of dawn as they licked the road clean of blood. Now he could see more clearly the mess they’d made. There was almost nothing left of Tom and Kate.
As the day dawned, some of them had started to drift away, first in ones and twos, and then in larger groups. Wandering off to find somewhere to sleep until it got dark again. The last to leave were the toughest, the ones who didn’t fear the daylight, St George and his boys. They trooped up the road past Shadowman’s hiding-place, looking pleased with themselves. St George at the front, his great fat head too heavy for his neck to hold upright. Then Bluetooth and the One-Armed Bandit, followed by Man U and …
Shadowman had to hold back a laugh. His bolt had hit something when he’d fired it into the night. It had hit the last member of the gang. The one he’d been struggling to name. It stuck out of his shoulder – either it was too deeply embedded to pull out, or he simply hadn’t bothered to try. He didn’t look too troubled by it. He almost seemed to wear it with pride. Like a medal. Shadowman wept with joy at this tiny victory. Not only had he wounded the bastard, but he’d given him a distinguishing feature. He was no longer just a faceless stranger.
When you named things you owned them.
A big smile spread over Shadowman’s face as he finally worked out what to call him.
Spike.
63
That bit there was a road. It ran beside the train tracks and led to the forest. Past the forest was the city, with all those houses and parks and fine buildings – the cathedral, the stadium, the row of theatres, the shopping centre. Next to the city was the farm. Where she lived. It was just like the one she’d made playing Farmville on Facebook. The hours she’d wasted on that! She tended her new farm just as carefully now as it hung above her. She planted seeds and pulled up vegetables. She milked the cows and fed the chickens and exercised the horses. Her sheepdog, Baxter, rounded up the sheep. She could look after this place, keep the animals well fed and safe and happy. Nothing bad was ever going to happen here. Not like in the real world. Not like the cold, heartless, unfair, unfair, unfair place London had become. Where she could do nothing to save her friends.
Her imaginary world was warm and sunny and bright. Everyone smiled all the time and there were no wolves to frighten the sheep, no foxes to get into the hen-house, no grown-ups to shoot the rabbits. No grown-ups at all. Anywhere. Not even healthy ones. And her farm was a private place. No one else knew the secret road to get there. There were just the three of them, Brooke, Donut and Courtney, sitting at the kitchen table, eating freshly baked bread and soft-boiled eggs and drinking cold milk. Sitting side by side, laughing and chatting.
Never mind that this farm didn’t exist, nor the city, nor the forest, nor the network of roads, that they were all just made up out of the stains
and cracks and blotches that covered the ceiling above her bed.
Never mind …
She could lie there for hours, suspended somewhere between wakefulness and sleeping, staring up and wandering about in that imaginary world. She’d sunk so far into her depression that she’d reached a numb place, where nothing mattered any more. Nothing was real. She was detached from her body, oblivious to the pain that blazed around her wounded head. They gave her painkillers now and then, but they did little to help. She sensed they were rationing them. Pills like these were rare and precious these days. They probably wanted to keep them for their own. They’d stitched her face, though. She had felt them tugging and gouging and gathering her skin together where it had been sliced through clean to the bone across her forehead.
At first she hadn’t known where she was. Hadn’t cared. Had simply drifted in her dream world. Slowly, slowly, however, despite her trying not to, she had started to tune in to what was going on around her. They’d brought her to Buckingham Palace, where David and his followers lived. They’d carried her upstairs to some kind of sick-bay. It was quiet and peaceful in here, lit only by the soft glow of tea candles. Girls came and went, dressed as nurses. It was one of them who had stitched her, a girl called Rose. She seemed to be in charge. She gave Brooke her pills, took her temperature, fed her, took her to the toilet …
How long had she been here? A day? Two days? A week? Years …
She had no idea. Time had ceased to have any meaning for her. She just lay on her back and stared up at the ceiling as the seasons came and went on her farm.
She had to stay up there, among her animals, because there were places she couldn’t go, memories she couldn’t face. Every now and then she settled into a deep calm; she would be floating on pink fluffy clouds counting sheep, sliding on a rainbow, or sitting at that kitchen table with her friends. There were times when she’d feel warm and safe and well fed, cared for, looked after …
And those were the most dangerous times, because her defences would drop and suddenly the memories would come screaming back at her. How Donut and Courtney had come all the way across London to find her. How she had been reunited with them only to have them snatched away from her. The friends she hadn’t seen for a year and had thought must surely be dead. Slaughtered by sickos.
Unfair. Unfair. Unfair.
Tears would well in her eyes and soak her pillow. Sometimes she woke up crying, and one of the nurses would come over and ask her how she was and wipe away the tears and stroke her hair and Brooke could pretend that everything was OK.
She would never reply when they asked her things. She hadn’t spoken a word since she’d come here. Didn’t think she would ever speak again. What was the point? What was the point of anything? Living or dying or talking or laughing …
All she could ever look forward to in the future was a life of pain and loss. They were all just children – what chance did they have? They could play at soldiers, or scientists, or nurses and doctors, but they were just as helpless as the cattle on her farm, the chickens and sheep, they were just farm animals, waiting to be eaten by the grown-ups.
She hadn’t dared look in a mirror at what a mess the mother had made of her face. To make it worse the wound had become infected. The nurses had covered it with disinfectant and antiseptic, but it had burned. At times she thought the infection must be burning right through to her brain. Sending her mad. She thought about Ed, once so handsome, remembered what the cut had done to his face, and she knew that she would look just as bad if she survived. She would be a freak, a monster, like the disease-ruined mothers and fathers who wandered the streets. Was this God’s punishment for how she’d treated Ed?
Or was it just shitty luck?
She knew she must look bad because when Rose and the girls inspected her wound they winced and grimaced and said things like ‘poor girl’.
Poor girl.
She also gathered that her whole face had swollen up from the bruising and infection. Her eyes were puffy and blackened. She must look more like a corpse than the old Brooke. The most beautiful girl on the bus.
They’d wrapped bandages round her head. She suspected it was as much to hide what she looked like as to keep the wound safe. They had to change the bandages all the time as they began to smell.
There was one good thing about being unrecognizable and not talking. Nobody knew a thing about her. Who she was. Where she had come from. David had come in once, glanced briefly at her, before turning away. He hadn’t recognized her and had talked about her as if she wasn’t there. Had told Rose to keep her here as long as possible and not let any of the newcomers see her again, or try to talk to her. That was fine with Brooke, but Rose had questioned him about it.
‘I want this new lot to stay,’ he’d explained in that snooty, slightly impatient tone of his. ‘At the moment they think that the palace is the only option. The less they know about the other settlements the better. Once they realize the benefits of living here, they’ll not want to go anywhere else, but until then we have to be careful. Who knows where that girl’s from, but probably from one of the larger settlements, Westminster or the museum. As I say, the less this new lot know about all that the better. And, besides, doesn’t that girl need rest and calm or something? Isn’t that how it works?’
‘I suppose so, yes.’
‘Good …’
Good.
That girl.
As far as he was concerned she was a nobody. If he ever realized who she was, he would come back to gloat. And probably worse. She knew he’d never forgiven her for abandoning him on Lambeth Bridge during the fire. And it wasn’t just him; there were other boys here who might remember her. The boys from his school who still wore the geeky red blazers.
For now she had to stay hidden, drift off into her cloud world where nobody could find her. And when she was strong enough, if she lived, she would think about maybe trying to get away from here. That was the one spark of life she had left. Getting away from David. When she was tired, when the memories came back to taunt her, she couldn’t care less, would have been happy to die, but now and then that one tiny thought popped into her head, and she felt her heart beat faster. Somewhere deep inside her something was struggling to live.
Gradually, as time passed and the burning in her head faded, she started to listen to Rose and the other girls, the nurses, who talked quietly as they went about their business. She gathered that the kids who’d saved her were from Holloway, in North London, and that David’s second-in-command, Jester, a boy she’d heard about but never met before, had gone off looking for new recruits and brought them back here to the palace. Four other kids had set off with Jester but none of them had returned. Things didn’t look entirely black, though, because the new arrivals were apparently great fighters. Well, she’d seen enough of them in action to know that, hadn’t she? Now David was hoping that they’d help him get rid of some hooligans who’d made camp in a nearby park and were causing a lot of trouble.
All this stuff was going on around her. People with their own lives, their own problems. And it meant nothing to her. She drifted in and out of sleep, lost herself in the marks on the ceiling, and the next thing she was aware of was a boy in the bed next her. He also had a bandage round his head. He, too, had had a blow to the skull. She thought he might be the muscly black kid who’d rescued her at Green Park, but she couldn’t be sure.
He was out cold, completely unconscious. Brooke listened to the girls and picked up that he’d been hurt in a fight with the hooligans.
David came back, this time with Jester. Brooke recognized him from his famous patchwork coat. The two of them talked to Rose, completely ignoring Brooke who might just as well not have been there. David explained that he wanted to keep the boy – his name was Blue – under guard. He left two of his red blazers to do the job. They sat outside the door and made sure nobody came in or out without David’s permission.
The boys didn’t take their job very seriously; th
ey spent a long time in the sick-room chatting with the nurses, flirting, drinking tea, playing cards. One of them was spotty and grumpy, the other one, who had a big nose and was called Andy, seemed quite nice and was obviously pretty bored with being a guard. Listening in on their chat, tuning in to another world, helped Brooke to tune out of her own problems. She could almost imagine that when she closed her eyes she was listening to a play on the radio or something. One of her mum’s boyfriends had listened to Radio Four all the time, and there always seemed to be a play of some sort on. He never worked, just sat at the kitchen table all afternoon rolling fags and listening to the radio. Said it was ‘far superior to television’ and that only morons wasted their time watching TV. The thing was he was a moron himself, happy to sponge off Brooke’s mum who was out at work all day, and the radio drove Brooke nuts.
Now, though, it was a useful, comforting memory of cosier times, and she could pretend that the disease, the sickos, the death and despair, were all just part of a radio series. Maybe, after all, nothing more would go wrong …
64
They’d been following the boy for ten minutes, holding back, not letting him see them. He’d been creeping round the wall of the Buckingham Palace gardens, going backwards and forwards, distracted, as if he kept changing his mind about what he wanted to do. Once he’d tried to climb over the wall, but had quickly given up. The wire and the spikes at the top had defeated him. He’d been round to the front twice, keeping low, and had peered through the railings of the parade ground, making sure he wasn’t seen by the boys on sentry duty in the boxes.
It was a dark night, so it was hard to see him clearly. All they could say for certain was that he was about fifteen, he was wearing dark clothing, he was very thin and his behaviour was odd, confused.
Now he was making a complete circuit of the wall, muttering to himself.