Outside

Chapter Thirty Two

Leaves and branches swish and clatter against the windows of the AV.

‘A storm’s coming,’ says Luc.

‘Fantastic. We’re in a ghost town at night, with thunder and lightning on the way.’ My sarcasm is covering up an impending meltdown. Please God, let me manage to keep it together. ‘I hope he comes back soon.’

It’s a strange thing, but after only a few minutes in Denzil’s company, we’ve already been won over by his confidence and unpretentiousness. Luc and I have both adapted our attitudes to mimic his good humour, despite our nightmare situation.

A loud rapping on Luc’s window makes me scream.

‘It’s okay, Riley. It’s Denzil,’ Luc puts his hand on my arm for a second then he opens his window.

‘Mind if I drive a minute?’ Denzil asks.

‘Be my guest.’ Luc slides effortlessly into the back seat, whilst Denzil eases into the driver’s side.

‘I found the perfect place,’ Denzil says, reversing loudly onto the main track again.

We drive up to a large vine-covered concrete warehouse of some sort. It’s mainly intact, but hidden from plain view by the encroaching forest. The huge rusted garage door is open and Denzil drives inside. Luc jumps out of the AV and pulls the metal door closed behind us. Denzil kills the lights and turns off the engine. It’s dark, but a few holes in the roof cast a faint glow of moonlight into the AV.

‘Right,’ says Denzil. ‘We just have to be quiet and hope they don’t discover our hidey hole. Got any grub? I’m starving.’

Although we’re under the cover of the old warehouse, we stay inside the AV and Denzil and I share a very light unappetising supper of dry crackers, water and freeze-dried strips of meat, some of the few supplies still left in the footwell. Luc says he’s too stuffed to eat any more. He already ate a massive dinner at the Barracks. We push the boat out for pudding and share a slab of chocolate.

‘The main course was pretty ropey,’ Denzil says. ‘But I haven’t had chocolate for, well… must be ten years. I’m getting a good sugar rush. Thanks, guys.’

Once we’ve eaten, Luc asks the question we both want to know:

‘So, Denzil, how come you helped us to escape? And why do you want to leave the Barracks?’

Denzil Porter is thirty four years old. He grew up in the St Paul’s area of Bristol, in a steep unlovely terrace, with his large extended family. He spent his early teens trying to dodge the front-line drug-dealing activities all around him and, at the age of seventeen-and-a-half, he finally managed to escape inevitability, and took his eight GCSEs into the army with him.

He trained as a soldier in The Royal Military Police, doing his Basic Training at Winchester and his Trade Training at Chichester. Once trained, he was promoted to Lance Corporal, moving quickly to Corporal and he hoped to make Sergeant within the next six years. He loved army life, working hard and playing hard. I could tell from his cheeky humour as we fled the barracks, that he’s a good man to have around you in times of stress. His family was proud of him and he was happy in his career.

He undertook a six month operational Tour in Afghanistan, but only stayed for four, as he was pulled back to England during the prolonged terror attacks to put his Royal Military Police Training into effect.

‘The Middle East was bad, but England was worse,’ he tells us. ‘Afghanistan was this unknown foreign country and we were briefed on what to expect over there, but England…’ He exhales heavily. ‘To come home and face that level of chaos in your own country, well it was unreal. I managed to get most of my family out of Bristol and into a compound in Thornbury, just north of the City, but I lost a lot of my cousins and friends. I haven’t been able to visit my family for six years now – no fuel allowance, no leave. The last message I got from them was eight months ago, begging me to find somewhere else for them to stay. My dad’s really ill. I don’t even know if he’s still alive.’

‘Surely the army would help you to move them somewhere else?’ Luc asks.

‘You’re joking aren’t you?’ Denzil shakes his head. ‘I don’t know how they even have the nerve to call themselves the army anymore. They’re nothing more than legal terrorists. They’re corrupt and racist, and the decent one’s have either left, been driven out or are trying to get the hell out as soon as they can.

‘My life these last few years has been a nightmare. I don’t know how I’ve stood it this long, living with that bunch of ignorant… See, I don’t lick arse enough and I’ve got no money and no connections, which is how you get on in this game nowadays. I’m a bit of a joker though. I reckon that’s what’s seen me through. The lads think I’m pretty good for a laugh and it’s saved me from a few beatings.’

I’m shocked by what he’s telling us. If the army can’t be relied upon, that means nobody’s looking out for the welfare of our country.

‘Maybe it’s just the bunch of losers at Century Barracks,’ Denzil adds, reading my thoughts. ‘I don’t really know what the other bases round the country are like. Maybe there’s some good guys left. All I know is I’ve had enough and I want out.’

‘So what do you need us for?’ Luc asks. ‘Surely you could’ve escaped years ago if things are that bad.’

‘It’s not that simple. Like I said, I’ve got no connections. First, I needed a way to escape. But mainly I was waiting for a decent opportunity to take me somewhere good. I mean, if I just escaped, where would I go? What would I do? I’d be absent without leave, on the run with no way of helping my family and if they caught me trying to leg it, they‘d either shoot me for desertion or worse. I’ve got to be able to go where they can’t touch me. This way, with your help, I’ve got a decent vehicle to escape in and…’ He pauses and looked hard at us.

‘What?’ we both ask simultaneously.

‘I need your help.’

‘We are helping you,’ I say.

‘No, I mean I really need your help. I want to become a guard. I want to work in a perimeter town, far away from this shithole – ‘scuse my language – where I can keep my family safe. Your dad owns a security company.’ He turns to Luc. ‘I know he needs trained men like me, but I haven’t had the opportunity to meet him. Maybe… if you could get me a job with accommodation for my family? I’m a professional. I’m hard-working… loyal.’

He tails off and stares at us expectantly. I realise just how powerful our families are. We’ve got the means to make and break lives. This man’s hope rests in Luc’s hands.

Guards are usually made up of ex-police, military and security, but they are prized, if dangerous, jobs which pay well and mean your family will be well housed and provided for – a rarity nowadays. These positions aren’t given away easily as you have to be able to trust the guard you’re employing with your life. In our perimeter, any potential guard has to first have two sponsors, who are guards themselves, to vouch for him or her. These sponsors are hard to come by as they risk dismissal or even imprisonment if the new guard lets them down. In this way, we’re almost guaranteed to get trustworthy men and women looking after us.

Denzil obviously doesn’t know anyone willing to sponsor him and he has no other means of proving himself. The opportunity to help us was too valuable for him to ignore.

‘If we manage to escape from your lovely ex-work colleagues, then I’m sure I can sort something out,’ says Luc. With his flippant reply, he’s managed to lighten the atmosphere and give Denzil the hope he needs.

‘Man, you will never regret it.’ He settles back, a sudden sigh of relief smoothing out the lines on his satin forehead.

We sit in silence for a while, listening to each other breathing. Thunder grumbles in the distance and then, through the partially opened roof of the building, lightning illuminates our surroundings, shocking our gloom-adjusted senses. Rows and rows of clothes rails, covered in clear plastic, are briefly thrown into sharp relief.

‘Must’ve been a clothing warehouse,’ I mumble. ‘Ma would love to go rummaging around in here.’ Thunder again, nearer and louder. Again the lightning flashes, daylight bright. Then the rain comes. Widely spaced out, languorous, heavy drops gathering speed and then, finally drumming down onto the roof of the warehouse and on to our AV, as we’re parked directly under one of the roof’s enormous holes.

‘This should help keep them off our trail,’ Denzil says, loud enough for us to hear him over the insistent rain. It turns out to be a short storm though and within ten minutes or so the rain has eased to a gentle pitter patter.

I judge it an appropriate time to ask the question I‘ve been dying to ask Denzil since we met him.

‘Have you heard of a man named Ron Chambers?’

‘The killer who escaped? Yeah, I heard of him. Two of the lads nearly picked him up. Stupid tossers – they let him go off on his merry way. He probably bribed them. They were lying if they said they never knew who he was. Hold on.’ He raises his hand for quiet. ‘Here we go.’

‘What?’ I ask.

‘Sshh.’ He puts his fingers to his lips and I feel a snaking, creeping sense of dread. ‘Listen.’

Sure enough, I hear the unwelcome sound of helicopter blades whirring overhead.

‘They’re here. We’ll just have to sit tight and hope they pass us by.’

I want Denzil to carry on with his story about Chambers. I’m sure he can tell us something to lead us to his whereabouts, but it isn‘t the right time. I’ll just have to be patient and hope we got out of this predicament so I can question him further.

It’s chilly and damp now and I’d give anything for a warm jumper. I shiver. Denzil sees, takes off his jacket and passes it to me. I protest, but he shushes me and presses it into my hand. I think about our situation here and realise it depresses me. It’s worse than the raiders and it’s worse than Salisbury, even though James Grey was a psychotic megalomaniac and we knew we were going into dangerous territory when we entered the Close. But this is the army, our supposed protectors and law-and-order keepers. If they are corrupt then what chance does our country have? We really are living in a world gone to hell. And we’re trusting yet another stranger – Denzil – but will he also let us down like Fred and Jessie? Or whatever their real names are.

Over the intermittent drips of rain, we hear a convoy of vehicles drive past, close to our hiding place. Then voices. A shout. I shiver again.

‘Building-to-building search!’ We all make out the words and I feel sick.

‘Milligan.’ I don’t like the way Denzil says the name.

‘Building-to-building search?’ asks Luc. ‘Do you think we’ll be safe here?’

‘Not any more. Milligan won’t leave this village until every structure is searched thoroughly. He’ll have sent the Lynx ahead to check the roads.’

‘What should we do?’ I really don’t fancy our chances if we get caught, and I’m terrified for Luc’s life.

‘There’s no way we’ll all be able to escape together,’ says Denzil. His next words make my heart sink. ‘I’ll have to leave you here.’