The store’s as empty as it looked from the street, probably cleared out just before the fighting began in earnest. Again, if this had been Lowestoft or anywhere else, the floor would be covered in crap, the furniture broken into pieces for firewood, the windows smashed, a couple of bodies left rotting in the corner … There’s a pile of papers on the end of a counter, neatly stacked next to an empty display unit as if the outgoing owners just left them there on their way out. There’s a local newspaper on top of the pile, dated last February, and I casually flick through it, this time happy to be distracted. The yellowed pages immediately take me back to a world that’s long gone. There are a few vague mentions of the beginning of the troubles that eventually consumed everything and everyone, but generally the paper’s filled with the kind of empty stories that used to be so typical and that used to matter in places like this: local merchants protesting about increased parking charges, the proposed merger of two secondary schools, an amateur dramatics group desperately trying to hawk tickets for their latest production, a new car dealership opening … For a while I’m hypnotized as I read through the TV and local movie listings, looking at program titles I thought I’d forgotten and the names of films I never got to see, but then I remember where I am and what I’m supposed to be doing and I make myself move.
On the floor by my feet, wedged under the counter, is a postcard lying facedown. I pick it up and flip it over. On the front is a picture of Southwold beach and the pier taken on a gloriously sunny summer’s day, way back when. The colors of the postcard are still remarkably bright and vivid. GREETINGS FROM SOUTHWOLD it says at the bottom, in large orange and yellow text. Maybe I should send it to Hinchcliffe? I don’t think he’d appreciate the joke.
I take the postcard outside with me and compare it to the real world. The original photograph must have been taken from somewhere very near to this exact spot, because the view of the pier is pretty much the same. I cross the promenade and a strip of muddy grass, then lean against the metal railings and look down toward the sea. Holding the postcard up, I can clearly see the contrast between the past and the present. Apart from the weather and the lack of color (everything today is disappointingly monochrome), the other major difference is the pier itself. There’s now a large chasm about two-thirds of the way along its length where part of the structure has collapsed and fallen into the sea. Bent girders hang down like tumbling weeds, and several supporting metal struts have buckled. It looks like something impossibly heavy crashed down into the pier from on high. A plane perhaps? Aware that I’m wasting time but not giving a damn, I start to walk down toward it, curious as to how it came to be so badly damaged. Was there a bomb? Did something hit it from below? Was there a fire or a battle here at some point? At the entrance to the pier is a large pale-yellow-painted art deco building that looks like it used to house the usual seaside distractions: an amusement arcade, cafes, and gift shops. Running along the length of the pier, straight up its center, is a line of what look like wooden shacks—yet more cafes and shops, I presume. I resist the temptation to get any closer, and instead I turn around and look back along the beach toward the town, knowing that I have to stop putting it off and start doing what Hinchcliffe sent me here to do. The normality of what I see takes me by surprise—the waves crashing against the shore, the breakwaters jutting up through the surf and spray, a long line of small wooden beach huts … it all fills me with unexpected nostalgia as I remember long-gone family holidays. The economy of pretty much this whole town, I imagine, would have been based on tourism. Summer vacations, ice creams, buckets, and spades … all gone forever now. Christ, the very idea of a holiday seems bizarre and out of—
“What the fuck are you doing here?”
The unexpected voice catches me by surprise. I spin around and find myself face-to-face with a tall man carrying a rifle. Dressed in ragged, mud-splattered fatigues with his head wrapped up in a bizarre checked hat–scarf combination, he looks like a cross between a farmer and a freedom fighter, like he should divide his time between milking cows and hiding in Middle Eastern cave systems. A bushy gray beard hides his mouth and makes his expression frustratingly hard to read. Christ, I’m a dumb prick. He could have killed me ten times over and I don’t even have my knife ready to defend myself. All I’ve got in my hand is a fucking picture postcard. I drop it fast, hoping he hasn’t noticed.
“Sorry … I was just looking. I didn’t know if—”
“I don’t know you. Where you from?” he interrupts. He doesn’t sound like he’s going to stand for any bullshit. Whether he’d use his rifle on me or not is debatable, but I’m not about to take any chances. I try to clear my head and remember the back story I’d thought up for myself on the way here from Lowestoft. Act dumb. Pretend you’re lost. You’re not here to fight, I make myself remember, just to observe.
“I’ve been working my way up the coast,” I lie.
“Doing what?” he sneers. “Taking in the sights?”
“Scavenging. Honest, man, I didn’t know anyone was here. Thought the place was dead like everywhere else. Just let me go and I’ll get out of your way.”
“Found much?”
“What?”
“On your travels … have you found much?”
“Not a lot. Not a lot left anywhere, to be honest.”
“You on your own?”
“Best way to be. What about you?”
“Nope. Plenty more of us in the village.”
“You live here?”
“Yep, if you call this living.”
He seems reasonably calm, although appearances can be deceptive. I don’t get the impression he’s looking for trouble, but I can’t risk making assumptions. For all I know, he could be head honcho of a family of cannibals or something equally unpleasant. Stranger things have happened.
“Listen, I’m starving. You got any food? I’ll trade for it.”
“You’ll need to talk to Warner,” he says, using the end of his rifle to gesture back toward the town. “He makes the decisions around here.”
8
HE TAKES ME BACK toward the center of town without saying another word, leading me all the way back along the beachfront promenade, passing level with the lighthouse, until we reach a pub. There we turn right and walk up a narrow road lined with odd-shaped, brightly painted cottages packed tightly together. The blues and yellows might have faded, but they still stand out amid the muted grays and browns of everything else. This place is in such relatively good condition that I still keep getting distracted, and I don’t realize we’ve reached the boss’s place until we’re there. It’s a large, grubby, white-fronted hotel, right in the very center of the town, overlooking a junction where one road merges with another and forms an open arrowhead-shaped space. The roads are completely devoid of any moving traffic, and this place has become a kind of makeshift village square, with several vehicles parked and other stacks of equipment left lying around. The frontages of some of the buildings have been fortified with wooden barriers and spools of barbed wire. There are two men standing next to a glowing brazier a short distance away, but it’s otherwise quiet and there’s no one else about. It’s still relatively early. No doubt I’ll see more activity later, providing I survive my meeting with Warner, that is.
“Is this it?”
The man disappears inside the hotel, both avoiding my question and answering it at the same time. I stand and wait in the middle of the street, feeling vulnerable but doing all I can to keep up the illusion that I’m a scavenger who just happens to have stumbled across this place, not a spy sent here by the local neighborhood despot. I can see movement through the ground-floor windows of the hotel, but I can’t make out who it is or what’s happening inside. I check my pockets and the leather holster on my belt, feeling for the reassuring shapes of my knives, and I try to prepare myself mentally for the inevitable quick getaway I’ll have to make if things turn nasty. I try not to look too conspicuous as a group of people emerges from around the side of a building behind me, dragging a trailer between them. Thankfully they pass by quickly, barely even giving me a second glance. I haven’t seen a lot, but I know already that this place is a world apart from Lowestoft. There you often can’t move along the pavement for swarms of useless underclass, loitering, begging, and squabbling. But their numbers can be useful, and I can disappear into the crowds when I don’t want to be found. Here I have no cover or protection
