If, he thought through his pain, they ever were.

Ted called by a camping gear shop, but it was as empty as if it had been looted. Same with an Army surplus store.

He queued at a petrol station. Fifteen minutes; not as bad as he’d feared, and there was still some supply. He got Jack to fill the tank while he limped inside. He tried to pay with a credit card. The tills were working but the operator wouldn’t take his card; there was no line to the card operators. No phone lines either; it sounded as if a telephone exchange had gone down.

Christ, he thought. Lose a telephone exchange and suddenly you can’t buy petrol. Everything has got too complex. Too interlinked. We’re too fragile.

He paid in cash, and through the nose too, the sharks.

The traffic moved a little more easily once they reached the A1 past Duddingston, heading east. But at the roundabout at Bingham they ran into a queue of traffic, all of it heading east. It was like holiday traffic, cars crammed with kids and grandparents and pets and luggage.

The westbound carriageway was kept empty, save for fuel trucks and emergency vehicles which raced into the city. The traffic inched forward, so slowly he wasn’t sure if it was really moving, or just compressing.

A couple of cars ahead, he saw a driver, a fat middle-aged man in a suit, get out to look up the road for the obstruction. He slammed his fist into the roof of his car with frustration, and yelled at somebody in the car. His wife, maybe.

The day was getting hotter.

The western horizon, in the rear view mirror, was turned orange by a smudge of smoke and dust, underlit here and there by the crimson glow of fires.

Ted tried the radio, looking for some guidance from the police. But there was only a stream of lurid on-the-spot reports from the trouble spots in the city, which didn’t do either of them a damn bit of good, so he pressed buttons until he found what sounded to his antique ears like a modern pop station, and left the radio there.

It took an hour to move the half-mile or so to the next roundabout. There were police in yellow ponchos, he saw, walking into the traffic stream and directing it; all the exits from the roundabout save one had been blocked off by police cars, their lights flashing.

A tall black policeman — just a kid — reached the car.

“What’s going on, officer?”

“When you get to the front of the queue, follow the diversion signs, sir—”

“What diversion?”

“To the college at Brunstane, the Jewel. That’s designated as the Evacuation Assembly Point.”

“What?”

“You can park your car in the side streets there. You have to register with the Police Casualty Bureau, and transport will be laid on to take you to the Rest Centres.”

“Transport laid on?” He slapped the steering wheel. “What do you call this?”

The copper looked strained and tired. He’d clearly been through this spiel a hundred times already, and no doubt had the same reaction from every driver.

Ted said, “Let me talk to your commander.”

“The super? I don’t think that’s necessary, sir. If you’ll just—”

From his chest pocket Ted dug out his old warrant card, now — melodramatically — stained by blood. “I can help, son. I won’t cause you grief.”

The copper hesitated. “Come with me.”

Ted beckoned to Jack, and then clambered out of the car.

So they walked through the traffic, Ted leaning on the copper’s arm, clutching Jack’s hand, all three moving at the stately pace enforced by Ted’s weakness. There were coppers everywhere, trying to get irate drivers to cool down and be patient.

…You’re telling me I’ve got to leave my car up there? What gash is this? I’ve got three kids here. How am I going to carry this luggage? Are you going to help me?…

…Why do I have to go to the Rest Centre? I have a sister in Prestonpans. If I can get to her house…

…You guys don’t know what you’re doing. Do you? You don’t fucking know…

The control centre had been set up on the roundabout itself, in the back of a police Land Rover which had been bumped onto the grass, leaving untidy scuff marks. The local commander turned out to be a superintendent, a thin, forty-ish man surrounded by a ring of officers, and beyond that by a wider, untidy crowd of irate drivers There were maps of the area opened over the back of the Rover, Emergency Procedures Manuals spread out on the grass.

The atmosphere was tense: the crackle of lapel radios, officers watching the crowd nervously, eyes sharp.

Ted knew that look well. Trouble brewing.

With an effort, Ted’s tame copper got him through to the centre of things.

Finally the super made eye contact with Ted.

“Billy MacEwen,” Ted said.

The super’s thin face creased. Ted knew what he was thinking: I don’t need this complication. “Ted Dundas. I haven’t seen you since—”

“Since you were a buck-toothed copper on the beat. You’ve done well for yourself.”

“Is Murphy here trying to get you to the Rest Centre? Ted, you should—”

There was blackness around the edge of his vision. Just a little longer…

“Listen to me,” Ted rasped. “You’re not going to be able to keep this up.”

“What?”

“Christ, boy, this isn’t 1940.”

“The Procedure Manuals—”

“ — are out of date. Just look around. This is how people behave now, Billy They have their cars. They aren’t going to get out to be processed by us, and herded onto buses. Get out of the way. Let them leave. Back off, and just keep the roads open. Manage the traffic, Billy, not the people.”

“But the registration—”

Ted sighed. “We always assume people are going to panic, and have to be herded and registered. Bullshit. I tell you, if you bottle people up here you’ll have a riot on your hands, Billy boy.”

As if on cue, there was a tinkle of glass somewhere. Raised voices. The coppers around Ted straightened up further, peering out like meerkats. Some of them bustled off towards the disturbance.

“I mean it,” Ted said gently.

Billy MacEwen was thinking hard. Evidently this wasn’t the first time he’d had advice like this. “Ted, you know how the command structure works. I’m only a silver commander. Gold says—”

“Gold isn’t here,” Ted said wearily. The blackness was closer, like a curtain closing. “Just do it while you still have control.”

MacEwen didn’t respond.

Ted closed his eyes, and let himself lean a little harder against the young copper, Murphy.

“I think it’s the Rest Centre for you anyway, sir,” Murphy said.

Christ, he could barely see. Taste of iron in his mouth. The sunlight seemed remote, and at least the pain was gone. The vertical, marked out by these pillar-like young coppers, was tilting sideways.

Where was Jack? Still here. Safe.

He didn’t fight it. He’d made his point. MacEwen wasn’t going to lose face by changing his strategy in front of him. Not a bad time to pass out.

Not Billy’s fault anyhow, he thought. They just weren’t ready for this. None of them were. How could they have known?

Time to leave the stage for a bit, he thought, and he smiled, and gave himself up to the darkness.

The policewoman gave Henry directions to the police authority headquarters in Fettes Avenue, on the north side of the New Town.

Traffic was snarled everywhere, and Henry had to walk. So he stomped his way north along the Mayfield Road towards the city centre.

Close to Arthur’s Seat the smell of smoke, the wail of sirens, the clatter of helicopters filled Henry’s sensorium, masking the outlines of the familiar world. But away from the zone of the immediate disaster — just a few hundred yards — normality seemed undisturbed. True, the traffic was clogged, but there were people walking, coming to and from work — they were even carrying shopping, for God’s sake. In his torn and bloodied clothes, he felt out of place. Ill-mannered. People stared at him.