One

The tiger moved more circumspectly now that its quarry was in sight. Its bluster was spent; perhaps it was exhausted after expending so much energy on the door and the men. Perhaps it was wary of Jane, who had bested it once already. He heard movement behind him and Becky's voice: 'Oh.' She kept the door open for him and it was only as they were pulling down filing cabinets to block the entrance that the tiger charged. It hit the swing doors and half a dozen squares of glass punched out of their frames onto Jane and Becky's backs as they shouldered more furniture in front of the door. A paw came through, stinking of shit and rot, and almost swiped off Jane's face; he felt the wind from it move the hair of his beard. The other sleepers were up now, and hurriedly grabbing the things they valued most: food in the main, but also thick winter coats, old stained albums of photographs. They made their way silently to the stairs, veterans of any number of emergency evacuations in the past. Nobody screamed any more. Too tired. Too knowing.

'I shouldn't have come here,' Jane said. 'I put everybody at risk.'

'Shush,' Becky said. 'We can do all that later.'

They hurried to the small lift at the back of the room. During the years it had worked it had taken three people at most, and clanked as if about to disintegrate into a welter of hinges and screws. Jane had used it once, then stuck to the stairs. Now it had been hollowed out; a rope ladder hanging from the defunct overhead sheave. They descended it quickly in darkness, Becky going first. At the bottom they had to lever open the doors with a crowbar that was hanging by wire on the wall. They burst out through the fire doors into Salisbury Place and did not stop running until they were out of breath, leaning on each other. Spit dangled from Jane's throat, quicksilver mined from the pits of his lungs. It was so cold he felt as though he was running on the stumps of his shin bones.

'We should find Aidan,' Becky said at last.

'Maybe he'll be at Plessey's. It's worth a look. I can't think where else he might be.'

It was rare to see women on the streets, unless they were part of some captured chain being led off to the Western Avenue. Rumours filtered through that they kept the women in Wembley Stadium, but nobody had ever travelled that way to check. There were some zones that were off-limits because of the sheer weight of numbers. Any reconnaissance party or rescue squad would be decimated before they reached Willesden. Jane remembered, though, around three or four years ago, a woman who came limping down the A40, naked, her skin torn like strips of errant wallpaper on a well-sized wall. She had been struck dumb by shock. It was in the silver colour of her hair and the owlish protrusion of her eyes, as if she'd seen something of a magnitude too great for her brain to process. Her mouth had been messed around with: there were strange scars pitted in the cheeks, chin and jawline. Most of her fingernails had been torn off; people wondered if that was torture, or something that had happened during her bid to escape. People tried to talk to her. Some of the Shaded wrapped her in blankets and gave her what food was available, and in such a state as to be easily digested. You didn't want to be thinking of chewing your food when shock was threatening to put a brake on your heart. She ate some soup and was getting warmer by the minute, but she didn't say a word. Not then, not for the next five days, after which she died in her sleep.

Jane looked around. He didn't recognise these streets. No signs. No buses bearing destination boards. A row of skulls in rags leered at him from the melted plastic bench under a bus shelter like a comedy audience in between laughs, waiting for the next gag. The buildings had lost any detail that might have pointed to an era or an architect. Blunted, edgeless edifices. Polished office blocks of steel and glass were now riddled dark monoliths, floors bowing with rain.

They moved quickly, hesitantly, dashing to doorways in a bid to find some plaque that would tell them where they were, or a forgotten piece of post behind the door bearing an address. Jane hated the way they scurried around, like mice knowing there was a predator on the wing.

Behind one door was a lipless drop into a benighted chasm that Jane almost toppled over. Becky's hand on his belt saved him a fall that might have lasted minutes. It was like staring in on his own nightmares.

Eventually they hit a series of junctions that pulled at Jane's memory. He took a turning, then another, came back, stared and thought and went another way. With each step he felt knowledge return. It gave him the same sense of relief as an accident missed by inches.

'This way,' he said.

'Where are we?'

'Good news, I think,' Jane said. 'I thought we might be heading towards the Tower, and trouble. But we're further north than that. I think Liverpool Street Station is up here. Which means we're close.'