A Lovely Way to Burn

Forty

The satnav had stopped working. Stevie drove towards the industrial estate that housed Buchanan’s lab, slowing the Jaguar frequently to consult a dog-eared A to Z she had found in the glove compartment. She had sealed the car’s vents and made sure that its windows were closed tight, but an acrid smell that tasted of burnt cinders and melting plastic slipped inside and caught the back of her throat. The sky was full of fluttering lights and strange glows, and she was forced to alter her route twice to avoid fires that had taken hold of whole city blocks. There were fewer looters now, though traces of them lingered in smashed windows and abandoned booty. Shoals of carrier bags cartwheeled along empty streets, like plastic tumbleweed. Once she saw a man hanging from a railway bridge. The bridge spanned a main road and she had no choice but to drive beneath, aware of his body gently swinging above her, his feet pointing towards the earth like the arrow of a compass directing the way to Hell.

Stevie had programmed the car radio to scan the stations, but there was only one voice on the airwaves, a recording of a Scottish woman repeating a mantra about the need to remain calm . . . stay indoors . . . drink fluids . . . avoid contact with anyone showing signs of infection . . . observe the curfew . . . Stevie turned the radio off.

Dusk was shifting to full dark. The occasional streetlamp still glowed warm and miraculous, like a message from God, but most were out, and Stevie navigated by the beam of the Jaguar’s headlights. She wondered if John Ahumibe had been right about the virus originating in outer space, and pictured an asteroid, plummeting to earth, the way it must have lit up the sky. Stevie wished that she had witnessed the thrill of its arrival, before anyone knew what it would bring. Occasionally her headlights picked out figures by the side of the road, but she didn’t alter her speed, except once, when a man who looked like Simon stuck out a hand, hailing her as if she were a cab, and her foot hit the brake of its own accord. The man ran towards the Jaguar, but Stevie saw that he was a stranger, and left him behind in the darkness.

Her mobile sat charging on the dashboard. It glowed with calls from Alexander Buchanan, but she left them unanswered. She wanted her visit to be a surprise.

The industrial estate was a series of warehouses, factories and trade outlets housed in ugly low-rise buildings. Stevie dipped her headlamps and slowed the Jaguar to a crawl. The estate looked deserted, like a vision of death: the nothing that followed the pain and convulsions of dying. But she was sure Buchanan was inside his lab, fussing over a cure he would never find, and waiting for her to arrive. The chemist was a poisoner, a creep who killed slyly or got others to do his dirty work for him. She could feel his cowardice in his reluctance to admit his flawed calculations. She would do what she should have done before, point the gun at his head and make him tell her the truth about Simon’s death.

It took her a few circuits of the industrial estate, but finally she found Buchanan’s lab, the name Fibrosyop discretely etched on a sign attached to a locked and bolted gate. The laboratory was guarded by high railings that looked more permanent than the kit-built box they enclosed. A security camera, fixed too high for her to throw a blanket over the lens, was trained on the entrance. Stevie hoped it had succumbed to the power cuts sweeping the city. She got out of the car, walked to the gate and examined the padlock securing it. A heavy bolt cutter might be able to bite through the chain, but she had not thought to arm herself with one. Stevie felt a quick tremor of fear at the thought of all the things she had left undone. The city was falling apart and she was as unprepared as a lamb trotting blithely behind a Judas goat.

Stevie got back into the car and drove to the fence’s perimeter, hoping for a gap to slip through, but she had kept her headlamps off and the fence was just a presence in the blackness. She whispered, ‘Bloody useless,’ her words a hiss in the dark, but even as they escaped her lips, she saw a way in.

A lorry loaded with a shipping container was parked next to the perimeter fence. She drew in beside it and closed the Jaguar’s door quietly behind her. The only tool in the boot was a wheel jack. Stevie shoved it in her bag and climbed on to the car bonnet. The moon was full, the stars visible in a way she had never seen in London before. Stevie looked up at them for a moment, wondering if their sparkle heralded more asteroids, more viruses, and then scrambled on to the car’s roof. It was a stretch, but she managed to hop from there on to the bonnet of the lorry. A man’s head was resting against the steering wheel, his features slack, his mouth and eyes open. Stevie’s balance wavered and for an instant she thought she might fall, but she managed to regain control and clambered on to the top of the cab. She took a deep breath, climbed up on to the shipping container and ran along it, her footsteps ringing against the metal. She was level with the railings now. Their prongs curved away from her, hard enough to bruise, too blunt to impale. It was a long drop on to the tarmac on the other side and once she was over, there was no guarantee that she would be able to escape. Her phone buzzed in her pocket. Stevie took it out, saw Buchanan’s number glowing on the display and knew that he was inside, waiting on her. She left the phone unanswered. Let the chemist wait. It was her turn to set the agenda.

Stevie tossed her bag over the fence, took off Simon’s jacket and spread it over the railings. Then she moved back, as far as she dared, to the edge of the lorry’s roof, stepped into a short run and launched herself over the fence in a rolling leap, half recalled from high jump at school. Stevie landed on her feet, staggered and fell flat against the tarmac, skinning her hands and knees. Simon’s jacket was snagged on the railings above. A breeze caught the sleeves and it twisted gently, a broken silhouette, too much like the hanging man on the railway bridge for her to look at it for long. Stevie spat on her palms, trying to get some of the dirt out of her grazed skin. There was no point in regretting things that were beyond reach. She swung the strap of her bag over her shoulder and jogged towards Buchanan’s laboratory.