The Chaos (27 page)

Nan reaches over the barrier as I’m led past. The guard blocks her and pushes me forward so I almost trip.

‘Adam …’ she calls out, but there’s no time. I’m out of there and down the steps and back in the cell. They uncuff me and then the door’s slammed shut, and I can hear the guards’ footsteps echoing down the corridor. 

‘What’s happening? What’s happening to me?’ 

I bang on the grill. They said I was gonna be taken somewhere, and now I’m back here again. 

The footsteps stop.

‘Quiet in there. We’ll move you when there’s a van ready. It’s fucking chaos in London today. Just sit tight and shut up.’

How can I sit tight? We’re running out of time. I can feel the seconds ticking away in my head, a non-stop countdown.
The clock in the court said half-past eleven. Just over twelve hours ’til New Year’s Day. What are Nan and Sarah doing now? What the hell am I going to do, banged up in a fucking cell?

Chapter 60: Sarah

N
ew Year’s Eve. Val and I spend the morning at the Magistrate’s Court and the afternoon on the phone. I’m ringing Children’s Services trying to find out where Mia is. Val’s ringing the police, Adam’s solicitor, anyone else she can think of. For both of us, it’s like talking to a brick wall. Everyone is telling us that there are procedures to follow, that procedures like this take time.

I’m told that I will be interviewed ‘within the next week or so’. It’s a Bank Holiday tomorrow, so there’ll only be on-call staff there, dealing with emergencies.

‘But this is an emergency.’

‘Your daughter is safe. She’s being cared for. After the Bank Holiday we will call you in for an interview. This will probably be one of a series. We need to get the full picture of you, your circumstances, your experience as a parent. Realistically, we’re looking at a case conference in early February, then a long-term custody decision sometime after that.’

‘Sometime? I need to see my daughter now. I need to see her tomorrow. I can’t wait.’

‘That’s the system, I’m afraid.’

‘Can’t I see her? Just see her. I don’t mind who else is there.’

‘We’ll be able to look at interim visitation rights after your first interview.’

‘At least tell me where she is.’

‘She’s safe.’

‘Please.’

‘Your daughter is safe. We’ll be in touch after the New Year.’

And the phone is cut dead. That’s it. Dismissed. Sit tight. Do nothing for a couple of days. Do nothing while the world crashes down around us. Do nothing while London is torn into bits. I stare out of the kitchen window. It’s got dark outside. People are putting their lights on in the tower blocks around us. Each light means there’s somebody home, but there aren’t nearly as many as you’d expect. I reckon a lot of people have already left.

Val doesn’t have any more luck trying to get to Adam or get him out of the Young Offenders’ place they’ve sent him to. I lean in the kitchen doorway while she talks. I can tell it’s not going well, but when she puts the phone down, she lets rip with a string of insults that even I’d be proud of.

‘They won’t even let me see ’im, Sarah, not for a couple of weeks. He’s a young lad. He’s going to be going mad in there. I know ’im. He’ll be worried about you, and Mia, and me. He’s got a temper on ’im an’ all. He could do anything.’

‘What can we do?’

‘I dunno, love. I dunno.’

We heat up some food, though neither of us eats much of
it. We sit and stare at the TV as it moves from news updates to reviews of the year to so-called ‘entertainment’ shows filmed weeks ago in studios with big clocks in the background.

‘Of course, it’s New Year’s Eve, love. I was on me own this time last year …’

‘I was at home. At my mum and dad’s.’

There are some big cans of worms here, and neither of us wants to open them.

‘Do you want a drink of something? I’m going to.’

‘I don’t really drink.’

‘I’ll just give you a drop then.’

She scuttles into the kitchen and comes back with two thin glasses with rich, dark liquid in, and a bottle tucked under her arm.

‘Drop of sherry,’ she says, handing me one.

‘Right. Thanks.’ I sniff it. Just the vapour catches in the back of my throat. I cradle it in my hands, with no intention of drinking the vile stuff. Val’s got no hesitation in getting stuck in.

‘Shouldn’t we be getting ready?’ I say. ‘For tomorrow?’

‘What do we think it is? Earthquake? Bomb? S’pose we should head for the Underground, that’s what they did in the Second World War.’

‘Shall we do that, then? Go and camp out there?’

‘Don’t fancy it much. They make me feel hemmed in at the best of times. What if we couldn’t get out again? I reckon I’ll take my chances here. Hide under the kitchen table or something. What do you want to do?’

Reckon I’ll take my chances.
I saw her number in Adam’s book. I saw mine too. We’re going to be okay, me and Val. It doesn’t matter where we are when it hits –
we're going to survive.

But Mia’s different. Mia’s only got hours left. My daughter. My baby.

‘I’ve got to find Mia.’

She pours another glass of sherry for herself, looks at mine, untouched, and puts the bottle down.

‘I’ve been thinking about that,’ she says. ‘I reckon you know where she is.’

‘What?’

‘It’s in your nightmare, your vision. You’ve seen it over and over. There must be clues to where you are. Tell me about it.’

‘It’s just flames and fire, a building collapsing around us. We’re trapped. Adam’s there. He takes her from me. He takes her into the fire.’

‘That’s what happens, but where are you? Think, Sarah, think. It’s in there.’

She’s staring at me now, willing me to remember. I look into her eyes, and they take me deeper into myself.

‘Think, Sarah, think. Close your eyes now. What do you see?’

Chapter 61: Adam

T
here’s no way out of here. You can’t bust out through the window. You can’t bust out through the door. My only chance is going to be when they transfer me.

When they brought me here my hands were handcuffed in front of me and I was in a van with several others. It’s gonna be difficult to beat up a guard and break away with my hands together. Would the others join in? The best time would be before I’m shut in the van, when they’re leading me out of here. I pace around the cell and I think about elbows and knees and feet – the damage I could do with them. I’ve got to do it. If I end up in Sydenham, I’m stuffed. I’ll spend New Year’s Day banged up. I can’t let it happen, a sitting duck, stuck in a cell. Not seeing, not hearing, not knowing what’s going on. Buried by the walls, maybe. My last resting place, a fucking prison. It’s not going to happen. I’m not going to let it.

They took my watch and my belt off me when they arrested me, so I don’t know how long it is before they come
for me. Must be ten or twelve hours, though, because they’ve brought me two meals, if you can call them that, and the little square of window in my cell got dark a long time ago.

It’s not what I’m expecting, though. This time I’m cuffed to a guard. He’s a fat bastard, about ten years older than me, with a smear of a moustache on his top lip. With two more guards in front and behind, we’re into the yard and locked in the van before I know it. The engine starts up and we’re away.

Damn, damn, damn. I missed my chance. What the hell am I going to do now?

‘What’s the time, mate?’ I ask him. 

‘Quarter to midnight.’

‘Shit!’

‘What’s the problem? Missing a party? You and me both. Bloody New Year’s Eve and they cancelled all leave.’

‘What they done that for?’

‘Where’ve you been? In a cave? The whole city’s gone mad. People clogging up the roads, trying to get out, and the rest of them, the ones that are staying are treating it like it was 1999. They’ve set up a field hospital in Trafalgar Square to deal with all the drunks. Jesus, people in this town are mental.’

‘I could do with joining them. Honest, mate, I need to get out of here.’

He looks at me, warily, and I catch his number. First of January. I’m handcuffed to a guy who’s going to be dead within twenty-four hours. I don’t get any clues from his number, though, it’s just blackness, blankness, that’s all. A strange one.

‘Don’t start with that,’ he says. 

‘It’s important. I need to get to my family.’

He shakes his head.

‘Not tonight, mate. You’re going to Sydenham, end of. We’re over the river now, take us fifteen minutes max. There’s no way out of these vans.’

‘They don’t stop for nothing?’

‘Nothing. No fag breaks. No comfort breaks.’

‘What if I hit you?’

He snorts.

‘One, I’d hit you back so hard you wouldn’t know what was happening to you. Trained, you see. Two, there’s a camera up there. The guys up front can see everything that goes on in here. You start getting out of line and they put the sirens on, put the pedal to the metal and we go to the nearest cop shop, and then you get the beating of your lifetime.’
But they’d have to open the doors to do that, wouldn’t they?
‘It’s not worth it, honest, mate. It only makes things worse and …’

I ball my hand up into the tightest fist that I can, duck away from him and thump him hard on the side of the head.

He lurches sideways, then reaches into his belt and brings out a baton.

‘Fucking moron!’ he shouts. He makes to swing the stick at me, but I scramble to my feet and jam the heel of my foot into his crotch. He crumples forward, and I snatch the baton out of his hand and bring it down on the back of his head. There’s a sickening crack as it hits. 112027. Is it past midnight yet? Is it me that kills him?

I drop the baton and put my hand to his neck, pressing into his skin to try to find a pulse. He’s still alive.

The alarm starts up then, a deafening sound, filling up the inside of the van, and we’re both flung towards the back as it accelerates sharply. I’ve got to get out of the handcuffs. The
guard is slumped over with his head between his knees. I push him off the bench, get on my hands and knees and start going through his pockets. I can’t find a key anywhere.

The baton’s rolled to the other side of the floor. I reach across, dragging the guard’s arm with me, scrabbling with my fingers ’til I can close them round the handle. Then I kneel up and heave his arm to the edge of the bench. I pull my hand as far away from his as I can so the chain of the cuffs is tight. I smash the baton at the chain. It dents the links but doesn’t break it.

‘Shit! Shit!’

The van’s lurching wildly now. I topple backwards, hitting my head on the floor. We rock back the other way. This thing’s unstable.

‘Stop the van!’ I’m shouting now, though I know they wouldn’t take any notice of me even if they could hear me over the siren. ‘Slow down, for Christ’s sake!’

I claw my way up to the front, dragging Fatboy with me and bang on the cab wall with the baton.

‘Your mate needs help! Get us to a hospital!’

I’m slammed against the bench as the van tips again, but this time it doesn’t right itself. With the siren still wailing we tip up and suddenly the wall’s the floor and the floor’s the wall and we’re over again. My travel buddy’s on top of me, crushing the air out of me and then everything flips and he’s underneath. The van’s bumping and banging and there’s an almighty noise and the floor – or it could be the wall or the ceiling – hits my chin and I black out.

Chapter 62: Sarah

I
 close my eyes. The telly’s blaring out the countdown. ‘Six, five, four …’ I can’t see anything. I can’t get there. ‘Three, two, one …’ Big Ben’s chimes ring through the lounge. ‘Happy New Year!’ Outside fireworks are going off like Kilburn’s a battlefield. 

   ‘Think, Sarah.’

The flames are behind me and in front. I can’t find Mia. I can’t find her. The building’s creaking, something’s breaking away. Oh God, the roof’s falling. It’s hot. Unbearable. The paint’s blistering on the stairpost. The stairpost.
The stairpost.
With the smooth curves carved into it, worn smoother by the hands that have swung round it as the children clatter downstairs and jump the last three steps. The children. My brothers and me.

I open my eyes.

‘It’s my house. She’s with my parents. They gave her to them.’

Val’s still looking at me, and her eyes are oceans of sympathy
and strength.

‘That’s where we’ll go then. We’ll fetch her back. Come on, Sarah, no time like the present.’

‘Now?’

‘Now. I’ll just fetch me bag from the kitchen.’ 

And then with a ‘pop’ the TV switches off, and the house is plunged into darkness. 

‘Bloody hell, not again!’

The fireworks carry on for a bit, brighter than ever now, and then peter out. It’s dark, but there’s something eerie about the darkness. I look past Val towards the kitchen window.

‘Oh my God!’

‘You all right?’

‘I’m fine. It’s the sky. Look at the sky.’

With the electricity out, there are no reflections to stop us seeing out. The tower blocks are black fingers, outlined by a sky that’s going crazy. Ribbons of green and yellow light are pulsing in the air. They shift in front of our eyes, glowing and fading, dissolving and reappearing.

‘What the hell …?’

‘It’s awesome, Val. What is it?’

‘Dunno, love. I’ve never seen nothing like it. Have you noticed something else?’

‘What?’

‘That bloody dog’s stopped yapping.’

She’s right. All day we’ve heard its constant yip, yip, yip through the walls, but now there’s quiet. Everything’s quiet.

‘Thank goodness for small mercies,’ she says. We lapse into silence again, and then a whining howl starts up.

‘Spoke to soon, love. God, that thing’s a pain. Don’t know what Norma was thinking, getting that bloody pug.’

And then there’s the biggest bang I’ve ever heard in my life, and the floor rears up underneath me, hurling me into the air, and I don’t know what’s up and what’s down, and my ears are full of banging and crashing and splintering, and my head and shoulder hit something hard, and there’s a red flash in my head and then nothing.