Page 4

Hunter Leader has just finished taking yet another look through the periscope. "No sanctuary for the next two days," he reminds her. "We’ll be self-contained. Two and I have packed rucksacks for you all. No eating or drinking unless you’re told to. Remember that."

Ross and the third tourist, a plump black man with receding hair, are already struggling into their rucksacks. Hunter Two adjusts the straps and buckles, makes sure they’re not being chafed, and helps them sling their guns. He comes over to aid Jasmine with hers, his eyes flicking across her breasts.

"Let me fix that up for you," he says, his eyes still lingering on her chest.

"Thanks," she replies, a shade too brightly, her hands on the straps, resisting the impulse to cross them protectively over her breasts. "I’ll be fine."

He hesitates, glances towards Hunter Leader, and moves away with a slight shrug towards his own pack. She doesn’t look back at him.

They move out after a last peek through the periscope shows the coast is clear. The last of the twilight is leaching from the sky, and the air is heavy with the heat of the day. Far to the east, towers of black cloud are climbing into the sky. Lightning flickers, too far away for the thunder to be audible.

"What do we do if it rains?" the plump black man, Odili or whatever his name is, asks.

"We go on, of course," Hunter Leader replies, not even bothering to look back. "Weather conditions make no difference."

Complete darkness falls with the suddenness of a closing door. Tonight there is none of the sense of closeness to rescue that they now realise that they had had the previous evening. Now they’re truly cut off, on their own. The ruined city around them might as well be on another planet from the other side of the Wall.

"Keep a close look out," Hunter Leader murmurs. "We’re almost certain to come across something tonight."

Jasmine can already feel her imagination working. Every shadow seems full of hidden menace, every wrecked vehicle hiding unseen eyes. As they get closer to the river the clouds move in, blotting out the stars. The lightning flashes every few seconds, the thunder a sullen background mutter. The stench of the river’s overpowering.

And then they see it.

Once, many years ago, Jasmine had been on a trip to India and had visited an industrial estate built on the banks of the Ganges. The holy river’s water had been a coruscating mass of colour under the spring sun, violet and black and shimmering pools of brilliant green and oily red, all floating slowly downstream. The air had been so thick with smoke that her eyes had begun tearing uncontrollably, but not so much that she hadn’t seen the corroded pipes gushing yellowish effluent out into the holy flow. The sight had held an almost hypnotic beauty for all that it was so terrible. Jasmine still has the photographs somewhere.

She’s reminded of it now, irresistibly. In the darkness the river’s water glows with dull greenish phosphorescence, laced with swirls of other colour, brighter greens and traces of golden-yellow. A capsized cabin-cruiser still bobs up and down on its anchor, the rounded hull showing like the humped back of a breaching whale. Far away upstream, to the north-west, a dim bluish glow clings to the horizon, as if of gigantic lights, but of course there are no lights there.

"We’ll go across," Hunter Leader says, pointing. The bridge is a ruin, a tangle of sagging steel and concrete pointing across the terrible river, but there are walkways that are still intact, far above the shattered road surface. They climb a narrow winding steel staircase, not speaking. Odili, just behind Jasmine, is breathing heavily, the sound harsh in her ears.

From high above the river the view is even more spectacular, the water a glowing green-gold pathway below them, the lightning ahead stabbing down, white and violet. A roll of thunder cracks overhead, so loud that they can feel the vibration through the metal of the bridge and the soles of their boots.

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