storing?”
“The storerooms were almost empty, and the factory was just a remnant from Thacker’s day, something to keep Rona Scott entertained and out of my hair. As for the hotel … that was just a way to keep people quiet and keep them occupied. You know, all that stuff you said after you came back from Southwold that time, you were absolutely right. The world is well and truly fucked, and the only thing that matters now is looking after number one. No amount of farming, fucking, or fighting is going to change anything, I’ve come to realize that. I stayed in Lowestoft because it was my best option until now, but it was never anything worth fighting for. I knew it wouldn’t last.”
“What about your fighters?”
“What about them? They can make their own choices. They’ve got brains—some of them, anyway. Those who haven’t will just go the way of the Brutes.”
“What about you? What do you do now?”
“Well, that’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it? And it depends on you. Like I said, I always knew something like this was probably going to happen sooner or later. Didn’t think it would be quite so fast, though.”
“Wait, wait … what do you mean, it depends on me? What have I got to do with anything?”
“You’ve got a plan, haven’t you? You weren’t just showing those foul fuckers downstairs around your house, were you? You must have had a damn good reason to risk bringing them here.”
“I was giving them the food. I don’t need it.”
“Bullshit. Where were they going to take it?”
“How am I supposed to know?”
He shoots out his arm and slams me back against the wall again, winding me.
“Pissing me off is not a good idea, McCoyne. Tell me what you were planning.”
“I’m not telling you anything. Listen, just kill me if it’ll make you feel better. I’ll be dead soon anyway.”
He screws up his fist and pulls it back, and for a moment I brace myself, but he doesn’t hit me. In frustration, he turns around and kicks the abandoned board game across the room.
“You’re probably right,” he says. “You can’t talk if you’re dead.”
“I’m not going to talk.”
“You don’t have to. I’m getting to know you too well. I can tell when you’re lying.”
“Why would I bother lying now? What’s the point?”
“Depends how many more Unchanged you’re hiding.”
“I’m not hiding any Unchanged. Come on, Hinchcliffe—”
“Deny it all you like, I know you’re helping more of them.”
“Think what you want.”
“The taller guy downstairs,” he says, “just before I killed him, I heard him say something about a boat, and something about a guy called Joseph.”
I try bullshitting my way out of trouble. “The name means nothing to me. All I know is they were going to try to take a boat from one of the boatyards in town.”
“They’d never have made it.”
“That’s what I told them.”
“I still don’t believe you.”
“I still don’t care.”
He stands across the room and glares at me, and I can see him thinking, working through the options.
“So where is this Joseph?”
“I told you, I’ve never heard of him.”
“And I told you, I can tell when you’re lying. So if the Unchanged were trying to get onto a boat, it’s safe to assume this mystery man Joseph and his pals are close to water.”
“Hinchcliffe, I’m not going to tell you anything.”
“They’re not going to want to travel any farther inland, so the coast would have been the best option—and as the bulk of Ankin’s forces came from Norwich to the north, I’m guessing they’ll have wanted to travel south. Am I getting close now?”
My silence gives him all the answers he needs. He grabs my arm and drags me downstairs.
47
HINCHCLIFFE KNOWS HIS WAY around this place far better than I do. Bastard’s obviously had his escape routes planned for some time. He drives the fully loaded jeep at a frantic speed along back roads and side streets I didn’t even know existed, frequently skidding in the ice and snow, obviously as eager to get away from Lowestoft as I am.
The nauseous panic I’ve felt since he appeared in the house has finally started to reduce. I’ve spent weeks focusing on myself, my every decision made at the potential expense of everyone and everything else. Hinchcliffe is still doing exactly that, but now I find that I can’t. I know that the fate of Joseph Mallon and the rest of the Unchanged now rests squarely on my shoulders, and suddenly it matters. Peter Sutton told me they were all that was left of the human race, and I’m starting to think he might be right. If I don’t get to Southwold, they’re fucked. I might not have the boat we promised them, but this jeep full of supplies is their lifeline. This food will buy them a little time, and with all that’s happening in and around Lowestoft, that time might be enough for them to find another way of getting away. Then again, if I turn up there with Hinchcliffe, they won’t have a hope in hell anyway. I have to get as close as I can, then get rid of him.
“All this was inevitable,” he says as he swings the jeep around another corner, sliding across the road and just missing hitting a lone vagrant who scrambles for cover. Hinchcliffe doesn’t even flinch.
“What are you talking about?”
“The war, them and us—the human race has been on a downward spiral since the first caveman killed the fucker living in the cave next door because he’d stolen his woman or his dinner.”
“We were better than that. It didn’t have to be this way.”
“Yes it did. We’re all hardwired to want to survive, and when push comes to shove, we’ll do it at the expense of everyone else. I worked in the City, remember? I used to shaft people for a living. The Change came, and the war that followed was inevitable. There was nothing any of us could have done to stop it. We just did what we had to do, you included.”
“We’ve all played our part, I don’t deny that—but trying to rebuild a society based on power and fear? How was that ever going to be anything but a failure?”
“I was never trying to rebuild a society, you idiot. Don’t you listen? I was just trying to survive. This day has been a long time coming,” he continues, swerving around a traffic circle the wrong way and joining the A12. “Thing is, Danny, people have always been out for themselves, even when they made it look like they were cooperating. Look at this Ankin guy and all those other politicians you remember—elected into power to serve the people, but all they were doing was making sure their own backsides were comfortable and safe, lining their own nests. All the Hate did was accelerate things and help us all cut through some of the bullshit. Look back and you’ll see that everything’s always been built on power and fear. Think back to any story you remember from the news before all of this began, and you’ll be able to trace it back to someone, somewhere who wasn’t prepared to be fucked over by someone else.”
I don’t do what he says, because I’m sure he’s probably right to an extent. What’s gone is gone. The fact remains, though, I think he’s wrong, and that a small group of Unchanged has survived against the odds is proof positive. We pass a couple more people on the side of the road, fighters and underclass. They all look the same now—pathetically lost and alone, with nothing left to fight for. Hinchcliffe doesn’t even look at them. The bastard truly doesn’t give a damn about anyone but himself.
“It can’t all be as simple as you try to make it sound. Fighting doesn’t solve everything.”
“I never said it did,” he says, struggling for a moment to keep control of the jeep in the slushlike snow.
“That’s what you implied.”
“You can get people to do what you want without hitting them.”
