One

It was really little more than a false wall, but the space was big enough, and long enough to contain a fold-up camp bed, a chair and a narrow table. Jane had a candle burning on the table now. Next to it he'd rested his naked foot; he was prodding the tender flesh of his ankle. A purple bruise encircled it. In places the black indents of claws remained. He had been mighty close to being punctured, but all seemed OK. Regardless, Jane cleansed the skin – revolted by the memory of its filthy entrapment – with alcohol wipes and bandaged it. His foot wrapped in startlingly clean cotton, his fright and exhaustion allayed somewhat by a bracer of vodka, Jane rubbed his eyes and reached for his bible. The Ordnance Survey map was folded tight and secured in a home-made flap in the back cover with elastic bands. He spread it out on the table and plucked the envelope from his wallet. The candlelight shivered for a moment, as if shuddering in sympathy at the tedious task ahead of Jane. Sometimes it took mere seconds: the shape of the paper almost drawing itself to the conjunction of roads that formed its boundaries and from which it had been traced. Other times he would sit blankly for hours like a man with a piece of a jigsaw puzzle that he was convinced belonged to another box. Now he slowly slid that cipher across the map with the tip of his forefinger. Everyone who was committed to the resistance had a copy of this map, published in 1968, or a facsimile of it; teams of copiers had spent days tracing the streets and key features onto sheets of paper. He'd been treated with disdain when he suggested that all maps would contain the same basic shapes. Why not use those? Because they won't have this map, the Shaded told him. And what's wrong with being as cautious as you can be?

This particular fragment reminded Jane of a dog in full flight, its legs off the floor, its head out flat and intent. Three black dots signified buildings. One of the dots was circled with red ink: the next location for the temporary headquarters. Sometimes there were complaints about what appeared to be an overly cautious knee-jerk response to the threat of attacks that didn't necessarily occur. What was the point of this constant seven-day scramble for a new HQ when the old one was perfectly safe, perfectly serviceable? Jane knew it was all cosmetic, a façade to keep people busy, to keep their minds away from the open sore of a future not worth living for. None of the gardens they had tried to cultivate was coming on. Food was scarce. All of the talk at the meetings, of trying to grow phytoplankton in the ocean to absorb the carbon dioxide in the air, of building a machine to either blow away or suck in the cloud, countless other geo-engineering options from the possible to the outlandish, had come to naught. People had already spurned the rations offered by the resistance and had moved out of London, hoping to find richer pickings in Bristol or Birmingham or Manchester. Everyone was aware that to walk now was to go to your death, but that didn't stop people. There was the illusion of positive action. It was better than hiding out with a fistful of crumbs, not knowing if you were going to wake up in the morning with some vibrating shredded head trying to gnaw a path to your vitals.

'Got you,' he muttered as the piece of paper found its echo on the map. Some bright spark had decided to take everyone for a hike. Jane wished someone had decided to limit their travels to the A406 ring road rather than the larger ripple of the M25, but there had been a clamour for a greater range of options. There was the feeling of being constricted. That damned circle. A feeling of a noose around the throat.

'Heathrow it is, then.'

Jane napped briefly and woke up to find most of the night gone. He shifted in his chair, hoping it was the wood and not one of his own joints that was creaking. Fear cosied up to him and he stood up, wincing at the familiar aches and pains. He thought of that shambling tiger on England's Lane. Softlee, softlee, catchee monkey, the tortoise to his hare. He felt his skin pucker.

He had been dreaming about Fielding. A fan of cards that had steadily drizzled blood across the man's fingers as he spoke in his maddeningly calm monotone. Behind him the illuminated wings of the prison had darkened, block by block, the light snapped off as if someone were flicking an array of switches. Fielding kept talking despite night's casual pursuit, despite the clatter of locks as the cell doors were sprung and whatever had died within them came staggering out onto the walkways.