wood he was leaning against. Shaking off his fear of Devonport, Will surmised he had heard someone coming home to sleep in the shack. Homelessness was endemic in the city. Most of the empty streets of houses had shutters screwed onto the doors and windows as property speculators bought them up and waited for the financial tide to turn. Some were squatted and many of those were crack houses offering the most basic and squalid shelter to addicts. These were controlled by gangs, who protected their own patches under their overlord Spight with a brutal regime of violence and intimidation.
From the resonance of the snores, Will decided he was safe enough. It didn’t sound like the sleeper was going to be waking any time soon. He rested his back against the wall and yawned.
Other sounds roused him from a light doze.
These were simpler to decode. Sniggering, whispering, a harsh laugh. The sounds of young men out to do damage.
‘Stupid fucker’s left the door open, that’s gonna make it easier.’
‘Listen to ’im snore – like a pig!’
‘Who’s gorra light?’
The voices were young, male and drunk, their accents a mix of broad Devon and a hard, urban patois peculiar to Plymouth.
There were three of them. Will had done well in fight training, but he knew he was outmatched. What on earth was he supposed to do now? The significance of what was being said wasn’t really sinking in as he started to back away towards the chain link fence that delineated the dock. Surely the Major would understand if he carried out the rest of his mission from somewhere safer, with a reasonably clear view of the harbour.
There was the sound of flint being struck. A whoosh as something ignited.
‘There you go, stinking dickwad!’
‘Serve you right, pukin’ all over me trainers.’
A whump as flames caught hold.
‘F-u-c-k, look at it go!’ The dirty, cobwebbed window in the wall Will had been leaning against was aglow with flickering light. High-pitched giggling, on the verge of hysteria, told him the lads were still there.
No no no no no. What was he supposed to do now?
‘Shit, is that paint cans?’
‘What? Where?’
‘Back wall. We gotta go, they gonna blow the fuck out the place!’
Sounds of running feet and hoots of laughter.
Will was torn. He wanted to carry on backing away, he didn’t want to run into the burning shack and pull out an unconscious drunk. Any minute now he would get word from the Major and he couldn’t afford to be distracted.
But if he didn’t, someone was going to die.
But he could die if the shed blew up in his face.
But he had a duty; he’d sworn to follow the ethics of the resistance, co-opted from the international Permaculture movement. Earth care, people care, future care. If this wasn’t people care, what was?
The peeling paint on the back wall of the shack began to blister.
Swearing loudly, Will ran around to the front, where roiling black smoke was pouring out of the open door. Pulling off his hat and holding it over his nose, he switched on his torch and ran inside, keeping low to avoid the worst of the smoke. The fire had taken hold in a pile of old overalls and cloths to one side of the shed and was spreading fast. Casting the beam of his torch around the interior, he could see the tins of paint, but no sign of the drunk.
A hacking cough over to his right. Will crouched, peered into the beam of the torch, and spotted an old man lying on another pile of rags and overalls on the other side to the fire.
Stuffing the hat in his pocket and holding his breath, Will darted further in, grabbed the old man under the arms and heaved him off his bed of rags. An explosion of sparks as the blazing pile tipped, and now the flames were creeping closer to the paint tins and the temperature in the shed was rising rapidly. The old man struggled as he started coming back to consciousness and, startled, Will dropped him on the cement floor, where he flailed around. His eyes opened and he wailed in fear as he saw the flames and clambered to his feet. Instead of running to the door and safety, he rushed back towards his bed.
‘Nooo!’ Will darted after him and grabbed him by the shoulder, pulling him back. The air in the shack was foul with smoke and he was spluttering and choking as he shouted, over the ever-increasing roar and hiss of the fire, ‘We’ve got to get out of here!’
The old drunk swung back around and rummaged among the rags. Pulling out a rucksack, he started trying to put it on, weaving on his feet.
Shit! Will dived across and took the man out at the knees, sending them both sprawling, then grabbed the fabric of his coat, and pulled with every ounce of strength he could summon. The old man clutched his rucksack to his chest but at least he didn’t resist as Will inched him across the floor towards the door and safety.
The cool, damp night air that met them outside soothed Will’s scorched face but made him cough as it met the smoke in his lungs. He managed to haul the drunk’s dead weight another twenty yards before he collapsed onto his knees, hacking and choking. The old man seemed to have lapsed into unconsciousness again, but when Will forced himself to his feet to drag him further away, expecting the shack to explode at any moment, he fought back, slurring and shouting curses and insults that were too garbled to be coherent. Eventually Will gave up and dropped him, wiping the greasy feel of the coat onto his trousers and stumbling another dozen yards before collapsing onto his back and gasping for breath.
The shack was burning brightly, illuminating the whole of the dock. So much for the Major’s instruction to remain invisible. He grabbed the walkie-talkie out of his pocket, but he must have damaged it when he took down the old man; nothing happened when he pressed the button.
Now what should he do?
Flaming paint cans shot skyward like comets, trailing fire, as the shack exploded.
*
Alise was snoring heavily. The rest of the house was quiet. It was time.
Primrose pulled back the bedclothes and swung her legs out of bed, wincing and suppressing a gasp of pain. The poppy juice had worn off and she fumbled for the glass she had stashed behind the curtain, giving in to the urge to numb herself. The liquid was bitter but she choked it down and put the glass back on the sill.
The corridor and landing were empty and dark, all the candles burned out. Even though she could claim a need to go to the bathroom she couldn’t stop herself from scuttling furtively down the corridor. Once there and with the door wedged closed by a hand towel – there was no lock as Dorcas didn’t trust her charges not to hurt themselves either deliberately or accidentally – she carefully removed the stacks of linens from the cupboard and found the clothes she had stashed. It was too risky to get dressed in the bathroom, in case someone came in or spotted her before she got downstairs, so she bundled the clothes under her nightgown and held them in place over her stomach. Now she looked big again; unless someone got close enough to realise who she was, and knew she had just been harvested, she would look
