Finally he reached dry land and collapsed gratefully onto the tarmac. He had never felt so exhausted in his life.
A six-seater twin-engined Piper Seneca in dark blue livery with white logos glided across the sky. One thousand feet up and doing a hundred and thirty knots, the Flying Eye was cruising much lower than passenger jets. That was the first thing that Meena Chohan had noticed when she had taken over as Capital Radio’s traffic reporter. If you came into London on a passenger jet, the city looked like a charming toy, jewelled with lights. If you came in on the Flying Eye you saw a bigger, grubbier London.
Today, looking out over the city was a shock all over again. Meena had never seen anything so forbidding. The sky was the colour of dark dishwater. The flooded area was an inky slick through the familiar city. Not one light shone. When the water poured in, it had extinguished all the office lights, traffic lights, car lights and shop signs, and left everything in darkness. There weren’t even any orange and blue flashing lights from emergency vehicles.
The darkness had even leaked out to the dry areas. But here at least there were cars: red brake lights and bright headlights trying to escape the capital on grid-locked roads. It was a ghostly sight.
Meena unbuckled her seatbelt and reached behind her. She unzipped her bag and pulled her phone out, then put it up to her eye.
Mike Rogers, the pilot, looked at her disbelievingly. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Take us down closer.’
‘Are you mad? We should be getting back.’
Meena had started her career as a journalist on a local paper. She had hung around outside hospitals, court rooms and pubs, alert for the tiny event that would turn into the big story, the scoop that she could sell to the nationals. Old habits died hard. She turned and gave Mike her most pleading look with her deep brown eyes. ‘Please, Mike. Nobody else will get pictures like this. It’s a historic moment.’
‘They’re not going to come out anyway, taken with a phone.’
Meena had the viewfinder to her eye as she leaned out of the open window into the rain. ‘This isn’t just a phone with a poxy camera. It’s a kick-ass camera with eight megapixels and four times zoom. And anyway, it doesn’t matter if the quality’s a bit rubbish if the subject matter’s unique.’
‘Meena,’ said Mike, ‘air traffic control is out. We can’t go flying around wherever we please. We need to maintain our height and go back.’
Meena wasn’t going to be put off. ‘There’s no one else out here. Who are we going to crash into?’
If Mike answered, she didn’t hear it.
‘Oh my God,’ she said. ‘Look at Westminster. Come on, don’t be a spoilsport. Just a bit closer.’
As Mike took the plane down, Meena saw plenty to snap. Sinking vehicles collided with boats, all coated with the muddy river water. Smoke curled out of buildings, sometimes accompanied by the orange glow of flames. There were people trying to get to dry land on whatever they could find. She saw three people on an orange raft and snapped that. Others remained in their buildings, looking out of the windows at the devastation and wondering what to do.
The bridges down the Thames were just small humps, crowded with stranded people. The high-level railway bridge that led into Waterloo was a thin line with a train standing on top. People lined its length like birds on a telephone cable. At the water’s edge people were crawling out amidst dead bodies and rubbish.
‘Take us over Leicester Square,’ she said.
Mike obliged and took the plane in a circle.
Leicester Square was where Capital’s studios were. Neither of them had heard from the radio station for a good fifteen minutes now. Normally they had it playing softly in the background, and Meena listened in with one ear so that she was ready for her bulletins. Although she received cues from the producer through an earpiece, it helped to listen to the show. It didn’t look good if there had been a running joke about getting up late, for instance, and the DJ brought it up and she didn’t get the reference. The listeners wanted them to be one big happy bunch of friends, sharing jokes.
‘What’s it like?’ said Mike. They were over Leicester Square now, but he was keeping his eyes on the controls.
‘It’s dark. Really dark. It’s not flooded but there seems to be debris everywhere. Umbrellas, bags, rubbish. As though there were loads of people there and they’ve run away. Probably all came out of the cinemas when the power failed. Imagine being in there when the lights went out.’
‘The lights are generally out in cinemas,’ said Mike.
‘You know what I mean,’ said Meena, and took a picture.
‘Bet no one’s in the office,’ said Mike.
‘I wouldn’t be so sure,’ said Meena. ‘I bet Jimmy’s still in the newsroom. A good journalist doesn’t desert his post.’
Mike made a disbelieving noise. ‘They’ll have gone just like anyone else. Just like we should.’ He took the plane round in a big circle towards the east, back towards the airfield in Essex.
As the plane banked Meena spotted the crowds walking up Shaftesbury Avenue. Everyone was heading away from the flood, trying to escape. Where were they going? That area of London was mainly offices or theatres or shops; nobody lived there. People were all deserting it, trying to get home.
A voice came over the intercom from air traffic control. ‘Hello, Flying Eye. Are you receiving? Sorry about the interruption. We had a power cut there. Are you OK? Over.’
Mike answered, the relief in his voice obvious. ‘We’re receiving you loud and clear. Over.’
Meena spoke into her mouthpiece. ‘Mike, ask them if they’ve heard anything from the guys at the studio.’
Mike asked the question. While Meena waited for the reply, she leaned out again and took a picture as they passed over Tower Bridge. The roads around it had vanished and it looked like a forlorn remnant of London, stuck in the upright position, the two halves of its road deck protruding into the air like a broken toy.
‘No, nothing. There are power cuts everywhere. We’re running on emergency generators. The National Grid’s completely shorted. It’s dark from Birmingham all the way to the coast. You’d better come back.’
Meena didn’t want to leave the action. ‘Mike, tell them there are still a lot of people trying to get out of town on the roads. Shouldn’t we stay out here to give them updates?’
Mike passed her question on. The reply was instant. ‘No point. The transmitter’s down. The emergency services want us to clear the airspace.’
The Millennium Dome came up, shrunk to the size of a saucer. Meena saw that there were people standing on top, waving at the plane.
‘Mike, tell them to report to the emergency services that there are people on the Dome who need to be rescued,’ she said urgently.
The next thing they saw was the Thames Barrier itself — the row of silver metal humps protruding from the water. The big ship was still stranded on one of them, a cluster of small boats tethered alongside it like doctors attending a bedridden patient. Meena snapped it too. ‘Wow. I’ve seen some traffic accidents in my time but that one’s got to win the prize.’
Mike spoke to Control. ‘Is there anything we can do before we come back in?’
‘No. Just be thankful and get the hell out of there.’
Chapter Thirteen
Ben was still sitting on the pavement, his back against the wall. Rain washed down over his face, his hands, his clothes. He let it; at least it would hose off the river water.
After a while he began to look around. He was on a road with grand-looking buildings on each side.