Afterlight by Alex Scarrow

‘I am not so confident with a boat - not to go out of the Mediterranean into rough sea.’ He grimaced like a naughty child. ‘I cannot swim. So, I go through France instead. And then I find another boat at Calais. I sailed across the Channel this last summer. To Dover. I walk towards London hoping to find one of these safe places. Order, you know?’
    She nodded sympathetically.
    He scratched at his thick dark beard. ‘But I soon see that this country is no better; just like Belgium, like France. Empty towns, burned homes, abandoned car and trucks.’
    She leant forward, almost tempted to reach out and comfort him. ‘Tell me, did you see any signs of rebuilding going on? Did you see anything like that?’
    He shook his head. ‘I saw . . . very little. Smoke a few times. I saw horse . . .’ he looked up at Walter standing just behind him.
    ‘Shit?’
    ‘Oui, horse shit, on some roads. You know? There are some people, like yours, surviving. But nowhere as big as this place.’
    ‘And no lights?’
    He shook his head. ‘I saw no lights. There were no safe zones.’
    There was a sombre stirring amongst the crowd gathered behind Jenny. A long silence punctuated by the soft rumple and languid thump of the sea below, and the steady patter of rain on the plexiglass windows of the mess.
    ‘Those men that were after you at the harbour,’ said Jenny after a while, ‘why did they want you dead?’
    He shrugged. ‘I do not know.’
    ‘There must have been a reason, Mr Latoc.’
    ‘Really?’ He glanced up at her, his tired voice pulled taut with irritation. ‘I have come across too many men who kill you for a . . . for a fresh egg . . . or a rusty tin of food. Or just because you are a stranger to them, look different. Or because for fun.’
    ‘I want you to tell me what that was about,’ she insisted, feeling the slightest pang of guilt for pressing him.
    ‘Okay, so, I found a settlement. They let me stay for a while. But then . . .’ He looked up at the sea of faces standing behind Jenny. Eyes judging him silently, waiting for him to give them a reason to ask him to leave.
    ‘Please go on,’ urged Jenny.
    ‘But then a woman was . . . was killed.’ He lowered his voice slightly. ‘You understand before she was killed she was . . .’ He paused and Jenny knew he was omitting the word raped . She nodded silently. ‘Go on.’
    ‘They pull me out of my bed at night and did a . . . a trial . They decided I am guilty—’
    ‘Why would they do that?’
    He shook his head, genuinely exasperated. ‘Why do you think?’ He laughed. ‘Maybe it is because I support the wrong football team, uh?’
    Jenny acknowledged the naivety in her question. The dark ringlets of his hair and a black beard long enough to lose a fist in reminded her vaguely of the sort of firebrand mullahs who once preached outside the overcrowded mosques in Shepherd’s Bush. She could easily imagine how that made him a target.
    ‘They take me in a truck, away to be killed. To the town where your people found me . . . to Beckton?’
    ‘Bracton.’
    ‘Yes. The men said if I manage to get to the water and jump in and start swimming back to Paki-land , they will let me live.’ Valérie sighed. ‘I tell them I am actually Belgian. But do they listen to that? Of course not.’
    ‘Mum,’ called out Jacob. He was standing at the back of the small crowd. He squeezed his way forward until he was standing beside Walter. ‘Mum, it was just like he said. Those men were hunting him, you know? Like it was a sort of game.’
    Valérie nodded; he recognised Jacob from the quayside and offered him a hesitant smile. ‘Hunting, yes . . . I suppose. Like your fox and hounds hunting.’
    Jacob nodded. ‘Yeah . . . that’s what it looked like.’
    ‘I would be dead now,’ Valérie added, looking up at Jacob and Walter, ‘if not for you. Thank you.’
    Walter shrugged. ‘That’s okay.’
    It was quiet for a moment, save for several whispered exchanges