Last Light (34 page)

CHAPTER 68

4.05 a.m. GMT

Paul drove for several hours down the M6, bypassing Birmingham in the dark, marked not by city lights or the ever-present amber-tinged glow of urban light pollution bouncing off the night sky, but by the sporadic intervals of buildings on fire and the flickering movement of people around them.

Parts of Coventry, on the other hand, seemed to have power; they drove along a deserted section of dual carriageway that was fully lit by the arc sodium lights along the central island. To Jenny’s eyes the distribution of power seemed almost haphazard, as if some central switchboard had been overrun by monkeys who were now randomly punching the shiny buttons in front of them. She’d thought there might have been an even-handed distribution of powered time-slots, or if not that, then certain ‘safe’ regions - a little unfairly maybe - which would be allocated a constant supply of power to the detriment of the lost-cause big cities.

But no. There seemed to be no discernible pattern at all to it.

South of Coventry, the lights along the motorway went out and they once again adjusted to the pitch-black of night. Paul spotted a sign for a Travelodge ahead and swung Mr Stewart’s car down the slip-road as it came up.

‘What are you doing?’ asked Jenny.

‘I need to sleep. I’ve not slept since Monday night. It would be stupid if having made our escape earlier, we end up wrapping ourselves around the central barrier on the motorway.’

Jenny nodded. It made sense.

‘Let’s give it a look. If it’s surrounded by a baying mob, then we’ll push on, all right?’

They drove off the slip-road into an empty car-park in front of the motel. There were tell-tale signs that similar things had happened here as at Beauford Service Station; bits and pieces scattered across the parking area, some broken windows in the lobby at the front of the building, but that was all. The Little Chef next door to it on the other hand, looked like it had been more thoroughly seen to, every window smashed and a trail of detritus and trampled goods strewn in front of it.

‘Well, seems like whatever happened here has been and gone,’ said Paul.

‘I suppose everywhere that can be looted for food and drink has been emptied by now,’ said Jenny. ‘I wonder when all that’s been gobbled up, what people will do for food?’

‘I’m sure we’ll start seeing troops or police on the streets sometime today. It’s got to happen today,’ he said with less conviction than the last time he’d bullishly asserted things would right themselves quickly. He swung the car round and parked it just outside the entrance to the motel.

‘It seems okay to me.’

Jenny looked up at the two floors of dark little curtained windows. It would be nice to have a bed to sleep on, and the chance of stumbling across any wandering bands of thirst-maddened crazies here appeared to be acceptably remote.

There was no sign of anyone here and she wondered where exactly everyone was. Sixty-five million people on such a small island and since leaving Beauford Services, she’d seen hardly any.

They’re all tucked away in their homes waiting this out. Only fools like us and those with bad intentions are outside, roaming around.

Paul climbed out of the car and led the way inside. It was dark, of course. Pitch-black inside, with no ambient light from any source at all coming in through the cracked smoked-glass at the front.

‘Hang on,’ she heard him murmur, and a moment later, a pale square of light lit the foyer up dimly.

‘What’s that?’ she asked.

‘My organiser.’

‘Clever.’

In the absence of any other light, it was surprisingly bright.

‘Okay . . . stairs,’ said Paul. She watched the pale square of light float across in front of the reception desk towards a doorway, ‘Over here,’ she heard him say.

She followed him through, up one flight of stairs, through another door, and then they were standing in a corridor.

‘You seem to know your way around this one,’ she said.

‘They’re all very similar. And I use them quite a lot. Right then, first floor rooms. You choose.’

Jenny walked down the corridor, passing a door that was open. Jagged splinters of wood jutting out from the door-frame told her the door had been forced. She didn’t want to sleep in a room that had been picked over by someone. That just somehow felt . . .
clammy
. The next door along had also been kicked in, and the next. Finally towards the end of the corridor, she found a door that remained intact, locked. ‘I’ll have this one,’ she said.

‘You’re okay being alone? I spotted another locked one on the other side, up the far end. I can take that one.’

Jenny stopped to think about that. She wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to spend the night sleeping in the same room as this guy, but then . . . being alone down one end of the corridor, in a deserted motel.

‘Okay, maybe we should share this one.’

‘I think that makes sense,’ said Paul.

He lifted his organiser up towards the door to read the room number. ‘How does Room 23 sound?’

With one well-aimed kick at the swipe-card door lock, the door swung in and banged off the wall inside; the noise echoed disturbingly down the empty corridor.

Inside, it was how she hoped she’d find it, undisturbed, cleaned, bed made for the next customer. She opened the curtain and the blind behind it, then swung open the window. The room was hot, and a faint breeze wafted in.

In the sky the grey light of dawn was beginning to provide enough natural light for them to find their way around. Paul quickly turned his organiser off and pocketed it.

‘Okay then, sleep,’ said Jenny, sitting down on the bed; a double bed.

Paul pulled open a cabinet door to reveal a drinks fridge. ‘A-hah. We’re in luck.’ Inside he found it decently stocked. ‘There’s several cans of Coke, ginger beer, tonic water, and a pleasing range of mini-liquors: vodka, gin, rum, whisky. Some beer even.’

Jenny smiled in the pale grey gloom of dawn. After the recent hours, the last few days, a single stiff rum and Coke would be absolutely what the doctor ordered, even if it was going to be warm and without ice.

‘I’ll have a rum and Coke, please.’

‘Good choice, Ma’am,’ said Paul. She heard the pop and hiss of the Coke can, the click of a lid being twisted off and the gurgle of the rum being poured.

‘Here.’

The first one was a strong one. The second drink she asked for she wanted weak, but Paul’s definition of ‘weak’ didn’t seem to square with hers.

‘So, you mentioned something a while back,’ said Paul, ‘about your hubby
predicting
this?’

‘Well, sort of. He wrote a report a while back . . . lemme see, yeah it was back in 1999, because that was the year we did Christmas in New York. It was an academic paper really, he wrote most of it when he was at university in the States, but then when he got commissioned to write it again, he did some new research and updated chunks of it with new data he’d managed to track down.’

‘And it was about this whole thing?’

‘Well, sort of I suppose. Andy was very secretive about it, client confidentiality kind of thing. But I know it had something to with Peak Oil, and our growing reliance on fewer and fewer major oil reserves, and how that made us much more vulnerable to someone needing only to disable a few places around the world to hold us all to ransom. He described how it could be done . . . which were the most vulnerable places . . . that sort of thing.’

And that’s where Andy’s obsession had truly began. Wasn’t it?

The people who’d commissioned his work had paid him good money for that. Very good money - enough that they bought that house of theirs outright, and money left over that they were able to put both kids through fee-paying schools.

‘But after doing that job, you know . . . he started changing. Became I guess . . . edgy, very serious. He spent too much time obsessing about the whole Peak Oil thing. And a little paranoid too. Just silly little things like worrying about viruses on his computer that might be spying on him, noises on the phone line. Daft really. I don’t know, he used to be so much fun. Great company. And then, like I say, he changed after New York. And it’s been a slow steady roll downhill ever since. So much so, in fact, I was actually in the middle of organising our big split-up when this happened.’

‘That’s too bad,’ said Paul. ‘So, where is he now?’

‘Somewhere in Iraq. He’s been getting regular assignments there for the last few years. He was over there when this started. And my kids are alone in London.’

Jenny’s voice caught.

Shit, I should know by now drink does this to me.

‘You okay?’ Paul asked, placing a hand on her shoulder and squeezing gently.

‘Of course I’m not. I just want to get home. They need me.’

His arm slid across one shoulder, across her neck to the other. ‘Don’t worry Jen, I’ll get you home safe and sound. I’ve got you this far haven’t I?’

She felt the tips of his fingers slide under her chin, lifting her face up to look at him, and it was then that she knew where this was going.

‘Look, I . . . errr . . . I think I’ve had enough to drink.’

‘You’re kidding right? There’s loads more, and Christ we deserve it after the shit we’ve been through together. What do you say?’

‘I think we’ve probably both had too much. We need to keep our wits about us, right? Who knows what might happen tomorrow? ’

Jenny swung her legs off the bed. ‘And you know what? I might try one of the other rooms—’

A hand wrapped around her forearm. ‘Why? What’s up?’

It was a tight, urgent grip, and it hurt a little.

‘Look, I just think it’s a good idea, okay?’

‘What? Come on. We’re just talking here. No harm done.’

‘Can you let go please?’

His grip remained firm. ‘I’ve been looking out for you these last few days. It’s not too much to bloody ask is it? A little . . . conversation?’

She could hear the slightest slur in his voice. He wasn’t pissed as such, just a little tipsy. No worse than the couple of come-ons she’d fended off at the last office Christmas party she’d been to; harmless enough somewhere crowded, but a little disconcerting, alone like this.

‘I’ve been looking out for you,’ said Paul again. ‘Not asking much, for Chrissakes.’

‘I think Ruth looked out for me a little more than you did,’ she replied, and almost immediately wished she hadn’t.

‘Fuck you,’ he snarled.

‘Would you mind letting go please?’

He let her go, and she headed for the door. ‘I’ll see you in a few hours, when you’ve sobered up.’

She stepped out into the corridor, and strode through the darkness of it, the only light, the faintest pre-dawn grey coming in through a window at the far end. She picked a doorway halfway down on the right. It was a door that had been forced by someone, and as she stepped in, she could see that the room had been hunted through and the drinks cabinet emptied.

Good, hopefully all the other cabinets in this place are empty too.

She’d hate to see what Paul was like when he was fully loaded.

Jenny pushed the door shut behind her. And as an afterthought, she pulled the armchair in the corner of the room across the doorway. Not that she thought it was entirely necessary. Paul was like the other office Romeos; emboldened a little by the booze, but still essentially a coward. A sharp ‘no’, or a ‘piss off ’, did the trick for the likes of them . . . most of the time.

No . . . he’d probably drink himself into a stupor and fall asleep trying to whack himself off.

She lay down on the bed and then felt the tears coming - worried about Jacob and Leona, and Andy too, realising she’d been so wrong in the way she had treated him. She wished the robust, no-shit-taken Ruth was here with her right now, talking some good plain common sense, probably making her laugh too. If Ruth were here, they’d probably be raiding the drinks cabinet together right now and shamelessly taking the mickey out of Paul.

Jenny closed her eyes and was asleep within a minute.

CHAPTER 69

6.29 a.m. GMT

It was lighter when she opened her eyes again, fully daylight now. Jenny guessed she must have managed to get over an hour’s sleep. A shard of sunlight streamed through the gap in the curtain, across the bed and on to the carpet.

Her head ached slightly, the mildest of hangovers, and more probably attributable to her general fatigue than the two generous rum and Cokes she’d had earlier. Paul would be feeling a lot worse this morning, deservedly. She was going to have to drive this morning instead.

The smell of alcohol on her breath seemed to be strong, very strong. There must have been a hell of a lot of rum in that drink for it to still be on her breath like that. She decided she was fit enough to get up and start rousing Paul. That was probably going to take a little time.

She started to sit up, and then saw him.

He was standing beside the bed, silently staring down at her.

‘What the—’

‘Took me ages to find you,’ he said, his voice thick and slurred. He was swaying slightly. ‘Thought you’d gone up a floor, didn’t I? But here you were all along, just down the way from me.’

He was pissed out of his skull. He must have found another cabinet full of booze.

‘What are you doing in here?’

He reached a hand out and grabbed her. ‘For fuck’s sake! Why d’you have to be such a stuffy bitch!’

Jenny pulled his hand off her shoulder, his fingernails raking across her skin. ‘We were havin’ a nice drink, we’re both grown-up. There’s no bloody law against you and me, you know . . .’

‘Paul. Look, I’m grateful for you finding a way out of that service station . . . but it doesn’t mean I want to sleep with you, okay?’ said Jenny, shifting slowly past him towards the end of the bed.

Paul watched her moving, his head slowly turning, one hand reaching out for a wall to steady himself. ‘Well what about what I
deserve
? I’ve been good . . . looked after you. Could’ve jumped you anytime . . . but I didn’t. Been a perfect bloody gentleman, actch-erley.’

‘Yes, you have,’ Jenny replied slowly, beginning to rise from the bed. ‘And you don’t want to ruin that good behaviour now, do you?’

‘Just want a shag . . . that such a big fucking crime?’ he announced loudly, angrily.

‘It is a crime Paul, if the person you want to
shag
, doesn’t want to shag
you
.’

He nodded and laughed. ‘Oh . . . see what you mean.’ He took a couple of steps towards her, successfully blocking the doorway out of the room. ‘So, what’s so wrong with me? I’m what? Five or six years younger than you? I got all my hair,’ he paused for a moment, gathering his thoughts, and reaching out again for a wall to steady him, ‘not a fat bastard like most blokes . . . wear nice clothes. Shit, I’m top salesman at Medi-Tech Supplies UK . . . meaning I’m a rich bastard.’ He looked at her, arching his eyebrows curiously. ‘None of that good enough for you then?’

‘No. Because right now, sex is the last thing on my mind.’

He recoiled, hurt, irritated. ‘Guess you
are
. . . a stuck-up bitch, then. Thought you were a sport . . . stupid me,’ he said, taking a step forward. ‘You know, it’s been a lo-o-o-ong time . . . for me, a long time. My ex was a fuckin’ tease, ripping me off, spending my money, never let me near her though. Bitch. I thought you were different. Not another fuckin’ tease.’

Jenny pulled herself back on to the bed, there was no room to step past him. ‘Rape’s a crime, Paul,’ she said, knowing full well she wasn’t going to be able to reason with him. ‘Even now, whilst everything’s a mess out there, it’s still a crime.’

Paul giggled. ‘Oh, right . . . well you know what? I think this week in particular . . . maybe the
normal rules
don’t apply. I think, that’s what everyone else has figured out too. Know what I’m saying?’

Jenny shook her head.

‘That’s why everyone’s behaving so
un-British
. Eh?’ He giggled again. ‘No rules this week, ladies and gents . . . so you’ll have to amuse yourselves till normal service can be resumed.’

‘Come on. Let’s forget about this. You go lie down and sleep it off. And then we’ll get going down to London, when you’re feeling fit enough to travel.’

He pursed his lips, thinking about that for a moment.

Jenny realised how silly she’d been to allow herself to wind up in this situation; alone with a man who was essentially a stranger, who was drunk, during a chaotic and lawless time like this. She should have guessed that at some point travelling with him, there would end up being a moment like this.

‘Sorry love . . . need a shag . . . you’ll fucking well do.’

He took another step towards her. Jenny kept her distance, retreating back across the bed, putting her feet on the floor on the far side.

‘Think what you’re doing,’ she said. She hated the wavering, shrill sound creeping into her voice; it was a pleading, begging tone. To his ears that was going to sound like submission.

He smiled as he started to unbuckle his belt. ‘Maybe a fucking crime, love, but who’s going to know now, eh?’

He put a foot on the bed and stepped up on to it, wobbling precariously. ‘Here’s Jo-o-o-n-n-y!!’ he announced excitedly peeling his shirt off.

Sod this.

Jenny leant forward and slapped him hard across the face. It was more a punch than a slap. Her hand had been balled up into a fist. He fell backwards, rolling off the bed on to the floor with a heavy thump.

Not waiting around to see if that was a KO, or merely going to buy her a few seconds, she ran around the end of the bed and out of the room into the corridor.

What now?

She had decked him. But now she could hear him struggling to his feet. ‘You fucking bitch!’ she heard him shouting inside the room. ‘I’m going to bloody well get you!’

‘Who’s going to know now . . . eh?’

Those words chilled her. It meant the bastard had crossed a line. He was beginning to realise what every other potential rapist . . . bully . . . abuser . . .
murderer
. . . must be aware of. Here was a window of time in which he could do whatever he wanted, indulge
any
fantasy, certain in the knowledge that when - if - order was restored again, evidence of his deed would be untraceable; lost amidst the chaotic aftermath.

And I’d be that evidence . . .

She could imagine . . . her body stuffed in a cupboard somewhere in this motel, perhaps never to be discovered, or maybe chanced upon months from now when the clear-up operation began in earnest.

Paul? He’d do something like that?

Possibly.
She didn’t really know him at all.

She heard him stumbling across her room, into that armchair, cursing.

What now, come on . . . what now?

Jenny decided to go for the car and leave him behind. She really couldn’t trust him now, not even if he got down on his knees this instant and pleaded for her forgiveness, and swore he’d never even look sideways at her again.

Up the corridor for the stairs down -

‘Shit, the keys,’ she whispered.

Paul had them in his room, and she knew exactly where they were; sitting on the little writing-desk, next to the television. She remembered seeing him tossing them on there when they entered the room, by the light of his palm pilot.

She ran down the corridor to the open door of his room, 23. Behind her, he staggered out, calling after her every name he could drunkenly think of.

She stepped into the room, over to the writing-desk. They weren’t there.

‘No . . . no,’ she muttered, a desperate panic beginning to get a hold of her. She could hear him lurching up the corridor towards her, weaving from side to side, pissed out of his tiny little mind. Jenny decided she could probably take him on. He was all over the place, his judgement and reaction time shot to hell. But he had the ace card, as all men do over women - brute strength. If he got a good grip on her, it wouldn’t matter how much faster she could move. It wouldn’t matter one bit - brute strength was everything.

‘Come on, come on!’ she hissed. ‘Where are they?’

She looked all over the desk, trying both of the drawers, before finally spotting them on the floor. He must have knocked them off during the last few hours, during his binge. She scooped the keys up into one hand and was turning to leave just as he appeared in the doorway.

‘A-ha!’ he grinned and wagged a finger at her. ‘I got you!’ he cheerfully announced in a sing-song voice as if they were playing a game of playground tag.

‘Paul,’ she tried a scolding tone, ‘this is unacceptable.’

He laughed. ‘What are you? . . . My mum?’

He started towards her. Jenny realised this might be the last opportunity left to her, to catch him off guard. She ducked down low and charged towards him, crashing into him like a battering-ram, sending them both out through the doorway into the corridor, sprawling on to the floor together.

He was winded, but he still managed to grunt, ‘Bitch, bitch, bitch’, his hands scrabbling to get a firm hold of both of her arms, which she was frantically flailing, landing soft ineffectual blows on his face; slaps, scratches and punches that were achieving nothing.

He swung a leg over hers, instantly trapping them both in a vice-like grip on the floor.

Oh God, he’s getting hold of me.

She kept her hands and arms moving, but he managed to grab one wrist, and then very quickly the other. He rolled over, moving his body weight on top of hers, his face - stinking of every different liquor that could be found in the cabinet - was close to hers; close enough that the tip of his nose was touching her cheek.

‘Why the fuck . . . was this . . . such a big problem, eh?’ he whispered.

She struggled. There was no answer she could give that he’d understand.

‘Eh? I just wanted a one-night stand. You’d have . . . had a good time too. Now . . . look at us.’

Jenny realised she had one last chance.

She turned her head towards him, towards that breath, towards that face of his; a face at any other time, under different circumstances, from a distance, she might have even thought was vaguely attractive, but instead was now a vicious, snarling mask - one hundred per cent frustrated testosterone. Fighting to keep the sense of revulsion and anger inside; struggling to produce something that was almost impossible right now . . .

She managed to smile.

‘All right then, let’s do it,’ she whispered.

As if she’d uttered a magic password, the effect was almost instant. The thigh-hold he had on her legs loosened.

‘You sure about that?’ he muttered, his voice suddenly changed, the anger gone and now, in its place the considerate tone of a gentleman seeking consent.

Jenny struggled to keep the solicitous smile on her face and nodded.

He let go of one of her wrists, his hand travelling down to the zip on his trousers.

Her loose hand could punch him right now, scratch him, jab at one of his eyes. But she decided that just wasn’t going to be enough. She needed to really incapacitate him with something much more effective.

She head-butted him. Her forehead smacked hard against the bridge of his nose and she heard it crunch and crackle.

He rolled off her, both hands now on his face, blood instantly beginning to stream down over his lips on to his chin. Jenny was up on her feet and running before the shock of the blow had subsided enough for Paul to let loose the first enraged howl of pain.

Two-thirds of the way down the corridor was the entrance to the stairs. She flew down them, out into the foyer, through the doorway into the morning light and was heading towards Mr Stewart’s car before she allowed herself to believe that she had actually managed to escape him.

The car fob made it easy to single out the key from the rest on the key-ring. The headlights flashed and the car squawked as she unlocked it and quickly hopped inside.

She wasn’t going to scramble to insert the ignition key as danger raced towards her, as she’d seen in countless teen slasher movies. No. She sensibly locked the car first; all four doors responded simultaneously, securing themselves with a reassuring
thock!

Through the windscreen she suddenly saw Paul, emerging from the foyer of the hotel, a crimson stream of blood down his nice, expensive shirt, one hand cradling his broken nose, the other waving frantically at her to stop.

She started the engine.

He rushed over to the car. If he’d had a bat or a brick in his hand, she would have thrown the car into reverse and got the hell out of there before he could even try and smash his way in. But he didn’t. All he had were his two soft office-hands - good for tapping out emails on a Blackberry organiser, or shaking on a big deal - but not quite so good for smashing, bare-knuckled, through a windscreen.

He splayed his hand out on the driver-side window. ‘Jesus! I’m sorry Jenny. I’m really, really sorry!’ The thick slur was gone now, the adrenalin rush had instantly sobered him up. His snarling manner, now one of genuine regret.

She looked at him through the glass, and shook her head.

‘Please! I . . . it was the drink,’ he pleaded, ‘I’m . . . I’ve worked it off now! I don’t know what the hell came over me!’

His splayed hand was leaving blood smears on the window.

‘Come on Jen . . . we’ve got to stick together . . . you and me. It’s a . . . it’s a jungle out there!’

That’s right.

She felt a pang of guilt as she threw the car into reverse and pulled out of the parking slot. He stumbled after her. She could hear him calling, pleading, bleating, over the whine of the engine and the sound of her crunching the gears into first. But there was no way she could feel safe again with him - booze or no booze. She spun the steering-wheel round and headed towards a sign pointing towards the slip-road that led on to the M6, southbound.