Still far behind her, but growing closer, Jennifer could hear shouts and pattering steps. She tried again to shake free of that iron grip. But the youth now had his arms about her waist. She twisted over on her side and pulled out her knife. She struck at random and almost lost the knife as it got caught in his padded anorak. He let out a cry of pain and relaxed his hold on her waist. Before she could take advantage of this, he’d made a grab at the knife. He missed, but pulled his entire weight onto her body and got both hands about her throat. She felt the plastic mask pressing against her cheek, and was aware of the smell of flesh that might not have been washed since The Break. She heard a low and expectant gibber: “Lunchie munchie—gooood!” She struck again with the knife. This time, it went straight through the anorak, but glanced off his ribs. Then, as the youth jerked briefly upward, she hit out with all the strength of despair and buried the knife in his throat.
And that did it. This time, there was no cry of pain or anger—no tighter grip on her own throat. All she felt was the warm, pressurised spray from severed blood vessels, and a convulsion that had the youth over on his back. She heard the kicking of his trainers on the road, as he went into spasms, and a buzzing, choking sound from his throat. He might have been a ghastly thing to see, but the lights on her fallen bicycle were pointing away, and she could see nothing. Jennifer scrambled to her feet. As if in a dream, she pulled the bicycle upright and got on. Her bloody hands slipped on the handlebars, but she wobbled slowly forward. She thought she’d fall off. But she righted herself and thrust harder on the pedals. She thought of changing gear, but found she couldn’t loosen her hold on the handlebars. There may have been the sound behind her of a woman screaming. But all she really heard was a pulse beating loud in her ears. Still wobbling, she strained to pick up speed in top gear. The next time she looked up, it was to see the lights of the street market that overspread the Elephant and Castle roundabout.
Beyond the jostling crowd, Jennifer huddled in a doorway and wept. With Count Robert, she’d put on a brave face, not even turning pale when he’d taken a stick to one of his men. Now, she’d just killed someone, and it was as much as she could do not to vomit. The police never bothered nowadays with actual crimes—not unless someone bribed them to take action, and it was an easy matter of sweeping a suspect off to Ireland. Regardless, though, of whether anyone would pay attention, she’d just cut a man’s throat and cycled away from the body. Shock struggled with plain astonishment. It was only with a mighty effort that she was able to understand the woman who’d come over to her, and, dressed in the ragged livery of an estate agency chain, was trying to recruit her for one of the strange, apocalyptic cults that had sprung up to compete with both official and underground churches. She was pointing at a line of her co-worshippers, who were starting a slow and penitential wailing that might end in a tearing off of clothes and the usual flagellation. Jennifer got up and showed her bloody hands and face in the light from one of the stalls. That scared the woman away. Alone, she sat down and pulled her bicycle closer, as if for comfort. She discovered that the front tyre was flat. She pushed her forehead onto her knees and wept again.
Chapter Nine
While the sun rose behind her, and the smog turned a kind of fluorescent grey, it seemed as if every factory whistle in London went off at once. Jennifer had heard that all the bridges had checkpoints at each end. She’d also heard there were times of the day when all the police could do was enforce a few basic rules for the traffic. On both accounts, she’d heard right. Vauxhall Bridge at dawn was a chaos of mainly human traffic. Most crossings seemed to be from the north, as industrial workers left their warrens in Victoria Street, and, still wearing the increasingly shabby suits of their old lives, hurried off to work in the factories just across the River. It was a comparatively thin stream of traders pushing through that wall of stinking humanity from the north.
Once past the shouting, gesticulating officers, Jennifer hurried across the junction with Millbank, and, propping her bicycle against a lamppost, had her first proper look in over a year at this part of London. Like the suburbs, it was much changed. Here, in particular, the maps she’d studied before setting out were obsolete. It was across Vauxhall Bridge that the crowds had poured on the fourth day of The Hunger. The idea, apparently, had been a peaceful demonstration outside Parliament. Almost a year on, it was useless to ask about activating causes. It was enough that the official response had flattened nearly the whole area between the River and the north side of Victoria Street. Now, from where she stood, Jennifer had an unbroken view across the shanty town that had once been Pimlico, right over to the still intact Westminster Cathedral. Looking right, there was a view, no less unbroken, towards Parliament. She would have heard Big Ben sounding the hour. But the factory whistles were insistent and never-ending—those and the lower but more dense flow of human chatter.
There was a sudden smell of petrol exhaust. In Deal, petrol had run out within days. Since then, it had been organic diesel at best for those with money or connections to get the coupons. This, however, was the great city of London. All things still happened here. All was still for sale. Jennifer straightened up and gawped at the large and shiny car that had purred gently from Grosvenor Road, and was pushing past her into Millbank. The driver sounded his horn several times, and the escort officers were rearing up on their horses to club and trample those workers who didn’t get out of the way. But this wasn’t the right time for a drive along the Embankments. Stuck in a crowd too solid for pushing aside, the driver came to a stop and turned off his engine. Jennifer pulled her bicycle into the relative openness of Vauxhall Bridge Road and ignored what she’d been telling herself about a dash into the Centre. Thought tired—though in a state of growing moral numbness—this was a sight and smell to remind her of the Olden Days.
She was still straining to see over the heads of the shuffling crowd, when an old man almost crashed his shopping trolley into her. “That’s capitalism, that is!” he said approvingly. Ignoring the car, he pointed at a couple of Orientals who, just inside a little park across the road, were selling unplucked pigeons. “More capitalism’s what this country needs,” he added, with a hungry look that suggested he might do with some of his own. He pulled his eyes off the queue that was forming and reached into the trolley for an old cloth supermarket bag. He looked up and pushed his spectacles further onto his nose. Jennifer smiled vaguely back, and was about to make her excuses, when there was a commotion over by the car. While she was looking away, the police had cleared a passage through the crowd. The car door now opened, and a thin man, dressed with a smartness she’d almost forgotten, was climbing out.
“General Rockville,” a young man shouted in a harsh and decidedly common voice—“this isn’t part of the schedule. It’s, it’s….”
“What in God’s name has happened here?” the General rasped in an American accent. He stopped about six feet from Jennifer and looked over what had been Pimlico. He took a few more paces, then got out a handkerchief. “And the air—what have you done with it?”
“General, please—get back in the car,” the young man whined. “Abigail did specify no personal contact.” The young man began hopping from foot to foot in his agitation. He took out a mobile telephone and began pacing about in search of a signal. Jennifer could see the dandruff on the collar of a jacket that was too small for him.