One

Jane told him about his experience on the seabed and the violent deaths that had followed. 'I don't know what happened. I wasn't around to see it. But you . . . you were on the surface. How did you survive it? Did you even see what it was?'

'I don't know. We were walking out in the fields. Long walk. We were tired, and we were looking for a place to sit and have something to eat. We found these tunnels, concrete tubes just coming out of the hillside. I don't think they were meant to be open, but the grille on them was all broken and rusted to hell. There was a sign, burnt white, rusted. Could hardly read it but you could just make out NO TRESPASSING. I don't think the tunnels had been used much recently . . . whatever it was they were for.'

'Maybe a decommissioned lead mine,' Jane said. 'We're in the right part of the country for them.' 'Lead. OK. Whatever. So anyway, we went in. We had a torch with us. It looked like it might rain so we had our packed lunch inside. When we'd finished we felt better, you know, so we were shining the torch deep into the tunnel, asking each other how far it reached. We were always going to have a look, but we were dicking about, daring each other.'

'You went in? Deep?'

'We walked for about twenty minutes. Straight in. It went on for miles. It got colder. At one point I turned the torch off, having a laugh with Nance, pretending the batteries had gone flat. It was so dark you couldn't see . . . you know the colour of your own blood behind your eyelids? None of that. Nothing. Nance freaked out. I freaked out. Torch back on. We decided we'd pretty much had enough after that. There was that worry – what if the batteries did fail? What if I dropped the torch and smashed the bulb . . . so we were just heading back when this enormous tremor hit us.'

Jane waited. He had held his breath. He let it out now in a steady quiet stream, not wanting to interrupt Chris's flow. Chris was looking at his hands; his too were tigered with thin, sore-looking weals, as if they had been stung with a whip. He picked at the dry flaking skin around the marks.

'It put us on our arses. I thought the tunnel was going to collapse on top of us. We were both screaming, and I think that put us in more of a panic than what was going on. After it had stopped we were still screaming. It took a while to realise it was over. We weren't hurt. Maybe a bruise or two. And then we felt this enormous heat. It just came charging down the tunnel. Where it had been cool, cold even. Damp. Now it was roasting. It was like being in a sauna. Steam everywhere. We started running. We just wanted to get out.'

'What did you see when you got outside?' Jane's voice had become a narrow choked thing. He kept thinking of Stanley. Maybe he had been on the balcony when the tremor hit. Five flights up. Maybe he had fallen. Maybe not. Maybe he had been burnt to a crisp up there. His lungs turned to leather.

'What you see now,' Chris said. 'Only there were fires in the woods. The sky was on fire too. Sheep were still standing in the fields, but they were burning. The whole place was burning. I thought we'd bought it. We hid at the tunnel entrance, trying to breathe. After a while – I don't know how long . . . hours maybe, maybe only minutes – there was a difference. There was rain. Horrible, burning stuff. Like acid. Oily and orange. But the fire in the sky went out. There was just this disgusting coloured smog. It got everywhere, coated the back of your throat like lard. Nance was sick.'

Chris picked up his penknife and fiddled with the hinge. He did not look at Jane. 'We came back here. We buried a farmer we found in the car park. He was . . . Jesus. He was . . .'

'Yes,' Jane said. 'I know. It's OK.'

'It's not OK, though, is it?' Chris asked gently. 'Nothing's OK. I mean, how big is this? I tried using my phone to call 999. To call home. No signal. Nothing is working. No TV. No radio. I mean, how fucking huge is this thing?'

'I'm revising my estimates almost every day. Upwards.'

They sat in silence for a while. Eventually Nance came out of the bedroom, pausing at the threshold as if to check on the content of their conversation.

'Did you see any other survivors?' Jane asked.

Chris shook his head. 'I thought we should head for Newcastle, but Nance . . . she isn't ready yet.'

'It's a good idea. Newcastle. Hospitals. Someone must have survived there. From what you described, it seems that exposure was the danger up here. In Newcastle there's more shelter.'

Chris seemed infected by his enthusiasm. 'If it even reached that far,' he said. He got to his feet. 'It's got to be localised. Some awful offshore fuck-up. A nuclear sub. Those things carry heaps of warheads, don't they? Hiroshima times ten or something. We're just wrong place wrong time.'

'I don't think so,' Jane said, quietly, shooting a look at Nance. Her attention volleyed moistly from one man to the other. 'It doesn't matter,' he added.