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that have been built since the last World War, but I can tell you that there are at least six shelters on the Northern line tunnel system alone, below stations such as Clapham South and Stockwell...'

Culver had the feeling that however candid Dealey was appearing to be as he listed other sites in and around London, he was still holding back, still not telling all. He mentally shrugged; it would be hard to trust any 'government' man from now on.

'... and a National Seat of Government will be set up outside London, and the country divided up into twelve regional seats, with twenty-three sub-regional headquarters ...'

Was anyone in the room really listening to Dealey now?

'... county and district controls ...'

Did any of it make sense?

'... sub-district controls, which will liaise with community posts...'

'Dealey!'

Heads turned to look at Culver. Dealey stopped speaking, and the tell-tale tongue flicked across his lips.

'Have you told anybody about the creatures out there?' Culver's voice was level, but there was a tightness to it. Kate beside him stiffened.

'I hardly think it need wor—'

'It's got to worry us, Dealey, because sooner or later we've got to go out there into those tunnels. The main entrance is blocked, remember? The tunnels are our only way out.'

'I doubt they'll stay underground. They'll scavenge for... food ... on the surface. And in that case, they'll die from radiation poisoning.'

Culver smiled grimly. 'I don't think you've been doing your homework.'

Farraday broke in. 'What's he talking about? What are these creatures?'

This time it was Dr Reynolds who spoke. She removed her glasses and polished them with a small handkerchief. 'Dealey, Culver and Miss Garner were attacked by rats outside this shelter. It appears they were particularly large and, to say the least, unusually ferocious. They had attacked and were devouring survivors who had taken shelter in the tunnels.'

Farraday frowned and looked back at Culver. 'Just how large were they?'

Culver opened his arms like a boastful fisherman. 'Like dogs,' he replied.

More silence, more stunned dismay.

They will be no threat to us,' Dealey insisted. 'By the time we leave this shelter, most of these vermin will be dead.'

Culver shook his head and Dr Reynolds answered. ‘You really should have known this, Mr Dealey. Or perhaps you wanted to forget. You see, certain forms of life are highly resistant to radiation. Insects are, for instance. And so, too, are rats.'

She replaced the spectacles.

'And,' she continued in almost a sigh, 'if these creatures are descendants of the Black rats that terrorized London just a few years ago - and from their size, I'd say they were -then not only will they be resistant to radiation, but they'll thrive on it.'

A noise.

He listened intently.

A scratching sound.

He waited.

Nothing. Gone now.

Klimpton tried to stretch his body, but there wasn't room even to straighten his legs. He flexed the muscles in his back and twisted his neck from side to side, refraining from groaning, not wanting to wake the others.

What time was it?

The digital figures of his watch glowed green on his wrist. 23.40. Night.

There was no other way of telling night from day, not there, not in their small dusty prison.

How long? Dear God, how long had they been down there? Two days? Three? A week? No, it couldn't be that long. Could it? Time didn't count for much when shadows failed to move.

But what had woken him? Had Kevin cried out in his sleep once more? What did the boy think of the grown-up world now?

Klimpton reached for the small pen-light he carried in his shirt pocket and flicked it on, sheltering the small beam with his hand. The urge to switch on the larger lamp hanging

from a peg just above his head was strong, but he had to conserve the batteries; no telling how long they would have to stay down there. The candles, too, had to be saved.

He shone the light towards his son, the pin-point of light barely touching the boy's eyes. His sleeping hours had been erratic and restless enough without spoiling what now appeared to be a deep slumber.

Kevin's face was peaceful, his lips slightly parted, only a dust smear on one cheek giving evidence that all was not quite normal. A slight movement of the wrist and another face was revealed close to the boy's, but this was old, the skin grey, like dry, wrinkled paper. Gran's mouth was open too, but it held none of the sensuous innocence of his son's. The opening - hardly any lips any more - was too round, the cavern too black and deep. It seemed every breath exhaled let slip a little more of her life. And, face turned towards her, his son drew in that escaping life in short, shallow intakes, as though quietly stealing his grandmother's existence.

'Ian?' Klimpton's wife's voice was distant, full of sleep. He turned the light towards her and she closed her barely-opened eyes against it.

'It's all right,' he whispered. Thought I heard something outside.'

She turned from him, snuggling further down into the sleeping bag. 'It was probably Cassie,' she mumbled. 'Poor dog.' Sian had already returned to her dream before he switched the torch off, and he was hardly surprised; like him, she had only slept fitfully and not for very long since they had been ensconced in the improvised shelter.

Ian Klimpton sat there in the dark beneath the basement stairs, his ears sensitive, eyes watching the blackness. There had been many noises through the dark hours, the wreckage above them settling, distant thunder, far-away explosions that

still managed to make the remains of his house shiver. Sometimes it felt as though the trains were still running below the foundations, but he was sure this couldn't be so. Everything above - and even below -

must have been destroyed by the bombs. At the very least, there could be no more power to run trains.

Thanks to him, his family had been saved. Sian had scoffed when he had studiously read the Home Office's survival booklet and he himself had felt embarrassed by his own attention to it. Nevertheless, he had taken it seriously. Not at first, of course. His initial inclination when the booklet had fallen through the letter-box onto the doormat was to glance through it, then toss it into the waste bin; but something had made him keep it, to hide it between books in his study. A rational fear that someday the instructions might come in useful. And later, tension around the Gulf States had caused him to retrieve it and study the directions more thoughtfully.

The booklet had advised householders to find a protected refuge in their own houses, a cellar or cupboard beneath the stairs. Klimpton's house had both: the steps leading down to the basement area had a cupboard beneath them. To go to such lengths as whitewashing all the windows of his house would have made him the laughing stock of the neighbourhood, even when the world crisis was reaching breaking point, but internal measures could be easily taken without public knowledge. Things like collecting one or two plastic buckets (for sanitation purposes as well as storing water) and stocking tinned food, not upstairs in the larder where it would disappear through daily use, but down in the basement itself, on a shelf where it would be forgotten, unless (or until) it was needed. Keeping sleeping bags and bedding somewhere handy, somewhere they could be conveniently

grabbed from should the emergency arise. Having more than one torch - and a lamp - plus a supply of batteries. Candles. Containers. Portable stove. First-aid kit. Other items like magazines, books, comics for Kevin. Toilet paper. Essentials, really.

Of course the clutter under the stairs had to be cleared. And a tattered mattress brought down from the loft to lean against the outside of the cupboard door. He was thankful, too, for the old chest-of-drawers that stood battered and unloved in one corner of the basement; that would afford added protection with the mattress against the door. He hadn't blocked up the small basement window whose top half was at street level, and there had been no time to do so when the sirens had alarmed the district. But he had done the best for his family, and they had survived the worst.

Perhaps there was more he could have done. He could have built a brick shelter in the cellar. He could have piled up sandbags against the stairway. He could have reinforced the ceiling over their heads, kept the bath and sinks filled, built a stronger lean-to against the stairs. He could have moved the family up to the Scottish Highlands.

No. He had carried out his duty. Not many men would have done more. And most of all, he had been with his family when the bombs were dropped.

Klimpton was of the new breed of businessmen. His office was his own study, his master and tool the computer he kept there. He could contact every major office of the company which employed him in any part of the world with just a few deft finger punches of the keyboard. No office politics, no commuter travelling, no grovelling to the boss. Even so, it was a busy life and one he enjoyed. It meant he saw a lot more of Kevin.

The scratching sound again.

Somewhere outside, in the basement itself.

Was it the dog? Had Cassie found a way into the cellar?

Impossible. Klimpton had had to lock their pet out, much to the distress of Kevin, for there was no way they could have an animal living with them. It would have been too unhygienic - and Christ, it was bad enough already without having a dog messing all over the place. And Cassie would need precious food as well. They had had to listen to her howling after the bombs had fallen. Then the whimpering, the whining, for days - could it have been a week? - with Kevin more upset by the noise than by the holocaust. They hadn't heard Cassie for a long time now, though, and Klimpton wondered if the dog had wandered off to another part of the house, if there was another part standing. Or was she slumped against the cellar door, nose pushed towards the draughty crack beneath, weakened, frightened? Dead?

Maybe she'd got outside and was trying to get through the basement window.

He shifted his legs, groaning as bones wearily protested. The only way he could sleep was in an upright position; there just wasn't room for them all to lie down.

They were supposed to stay inside the refuge for at least forty-eight hours, and inside the house, preferably the basement, for much longer; two weeks at least, maybe more. The sirens would sound again when it was safe to come out.

He could risk leaving the cupboard now, he was sure. They must have been inside for at least a week.

And the stink from the plastic bucket, dosed with disinfectant and covered with a polythene bag though it was, would make them all ill before much longer.

The others needn't be disturbed. He could push the door open just enough to squeeze through with the bucket. The mattress, wedged against the chest-of-drawers, would provide an escape tunnel. He could check on the dog while he was out there.

Klimpton shrugged himself loose from the covering blanket and groped for the larger torch he kept by his side. His hand closed around Gran's bony ankle, but she did not stir. Her flesh was cold even though the atmosphere inside the cupboard was warm and clammy. She refused to get into the sleeping bag proclaiming it was too much like sleeping in a straitjacket and that she couldn't breathe bound up like that. So she used it as a mattress, having a blanket wrapped around her instead.

He found the torch, then groped for the plastic bucket with its full contents (it was embarrassing for all of them to squat over such a thing in front of others, even though they were family and despite having the lamp turned off - darkness couldn't cover sounds nor smother smells - but Klimpton would not give in to their protests and allow any of them outside the refuge). The bucket was easy to find in the dark -

practically everything was within reach - and he lifted it by its wire handle. His nose wrinkled in disgust.

Half-turning, Klimpton pushed against the small door to his right, only the pressure from the mattress outside giving some resistance. He leaned his shoulder more firmly into the wood and the gap widened.

Sian moved restlessly behind him. 'Ian?' she said, both weariness and urgency in her voice.

'It's okay, go back to sleep. Don't wake the others.'

What are you doing?'

'Getting rid of this damn bucket,' he whispered back.

'Is it safe? Isn't it too soon to go out there?'

We're all right in the cellar. As long as I don't stay out too long.'

'Please be careful.'

'I will. Sleep.'

He had to squeeze through the opening sideways, the chest-of-drawers allowing little more than a twelve-inch clearance. The bucket was pushed before him.

Once he had wriggled himself outside he switched on the torch, waiting for the dazzle in his eyes to fade before venturing further. The mattress, forming a soft, narrow lean-to over him, smelled musty and dank and he dismissed thoughts of what must be crawling around inside it; all those years in the loft must have turned it into a wonderful home for little creeping things. The concoction of smells from bucket and mattress made his stomach want to heave, but then the stench of his own vomit would have made matters even more uncomfortable for them all. Klimpton swallowed hard. The sooner he was out in the comparative openness of the cellar the better.

He wondered if there would be any cellar left. Perhaps the whole house had fallen in, leaving the basement open to the skies. To the fallout. Stupid. They would surely have known if that were the case.

It had been quiet down there. The distant rumbles were just that: distant. And the air was heavy, stale.

The old Islington houses were solid, built in a time when mixtures for bricks and mortar were not skimped. Foundations were solid. Walls were steadfast. Probably not too much of London was left up there, but Klimpton knew there was a certain protection in rows of houses, depending on which direction the blast or blasts came from. His own big terraced house was roughly in the middle of a block, so he might have been lucky, unless the front or the back was exposed.

With a sigh of relief, he was free. He pushed the bucket as far away as possible and rested for a moment, his shoulders clear of the protective corridor. Fearfully, he raised