‘And you think he could be a problem if he gets his act together?’

‘No, probably not, to tell you the truth. As long as David doesn’t take his eye off the ball, John would never be able to storm this place. Not the way you’ve got it protected. Oh, he talks about it, yeah, tries to stir his troops up, but they’re just a rabble. He knows they’d be well battered if they tried to attack you here. You can forget any plans of developing St James’s Park, though. You plant anything there, or try to build anything, he’ll tear it down, dig it up, kick it over and piss on the remains.’

‘Where do they get their food from then?’

‘They forage, break into places, nick stuff off other kids if they can. They’re always raiding the weaker settlements, like the bandits in The Magnificent Seven. But that’s John’s biggest problem, actually – he can never get enough food to support that many kids. He’s always taking in fresh noobs, but every day two or three kids leave, melt away to join more organized settlements. If David wanted, I could easily persuade a few to come here.’

‘Maybe. I’ll talk to him. So are John’s numbers getting smaller?’

‘Nah. As many leave, more turn up. He’s got a high turnover, that’s all. Kids join him for the action, the madness and the fun and games, but then they get cold and tired and hungry and fed up with the non-stop partying, and they move on to something more civilized. Except for the crazies, of course – they stay. John’s people are getting more and more psycho and he keeps a hard core of nutters around him. As I say, he’ll never make a big enough army to really threaten you.’

‘We need the space in the park to expand,’ said Jester. ‘To grow more food. And the lake’s a good source of water.’

‘You’ll never do it as long as John’s camped out on Horse Guards Parade.’

‘So what we need to do is attack them before they attack us?’

‘You couldn’t do it,’ said Shadowman, shaking his head. ‘They’re mean, tough bastards. They’d take you apart. You’re strong in defence, but not in attack.’

‘That’s exactly what David thinks.’ Jester stood up again. He went to the window and looked out into the starlit night. ‘He wants to build up our army. Create an attack force. He wants me to recruit fighters.’

‘There aren’t any going spare round here,’ said Shadowman, kicking a log on the fire with his boot. ‘All the best fighters are already in the other settlements, or with the hunters.’

Jester turned back from the window.

‘We could pay hunters to do it for us.’

‘No. You’d have to pay them way too much. They won’t fight other kids unless they have to, if they’re attacked or something. Mothers and fathers, yes, but not other kids.’

‘David wants me to go on the road,’ said Jester. ‘He wants me to go and look for kids further out, fighters who might be tempted to join us when they see how much food we have and how safe and well organized the palace is.’

‘You’d have to go pretty far.’

‘What’s the furthest you’ve ever been?’

‘I mostly stay here in the centre of town where there’s less grown-ups. I’ve been as far as Regent’s Park to the north, I suppose. I’ve not been further than Notting Hill to the west, though, and that was some time ago. It’s the Wild West over there now.’

‘What about east?’

‘Never risked going much further than Holborn.’

‘And south?’

‘No one goes south of the river any more, not since the fire.’

‘So it’s north or east?’

‘North. Sometimes you meet kids who’ve strayed in from the east. Trying to get away. Apparently the city, you know, like the oldest part of town, is really diseased, heavy-duty mothers and fathers rule the streets there.’

‘Some kids came through earlier. They were from the east. They’re living at the Tower of London.’

‘Cool. I saw them, I think. Wondered where they were from. Where are they now? We should talk to them.’

‘They left. David tried to lock them down. I guess they didn’t go for it.’

‘Pity.’

‘Thing is, though. They’ve got the east sewn up by the sound of it. No use trying to recruit there.’

‘So it’s the north then?’

‘Yes. I couldn’t do it by myself, though, Shadowman. I need to ask you a really big favour.’

‘You want me to come with you?’

‘Yes. We need a scout. Someone who’s used to the streets.’

Shadowman sucked his teeth for a long time, mulling this over and staring into the fire.

‘How long do I have to think about it?’ he said eventually.

‘Until tomorrow. If you want to come, it’s usual terms, usual payment, meet in the courtyard when it’s light. I can find a bed for you here if you want.’

‘Nah, it’s all right. There’s a girl in John’s camp I’m interested in. They’re having a big party down there tonight. They jacked a load of beer and cider today.’

‘How can you hang out with those dorks?’

‘Oh, they have fun, you know, Magic-Man. F-U-N. Not like here. It’s boring here. It’s drab. It’s dull.’

‘Are you going over to the dark side?’

‘No.’ Shadowman laughed. ‘You know what it reminds me of down there?’

‘What?’

‘You remember when we went to Glastonbury? It was a laugh for the first day, then it rained and the toilets were foul, there was filth and mess everywhere, too many people, non-stop music all day and night, rotten food. By day two I was knackered and dirty and strung out and you couldn’t get away from it, the noise and the dirt and the crowds.’

‘I enjoyed it,’ said Jester. ‘It was well cool.’

‘Maybe. But, anyway, that’s what the squatter camp’s like. Noisy and dirty and dangerous. Fun to visit, but you wouldn’t want to live there. It’s like you’ve got two opposites – law and order here at the palace, and total chaos in the camp. You need a balance, I reckon, somewhere in between.’

‘Maybe that’s what we’ll find in north London?’

‘What? And not come back?’

‘So far, Shadow, this is the best deal I’ve seen in London, but if there’s a better one, well …’

‘You reckon there might be something out there?’

‘Only one way to find out.’

‘If I come.’

‘You’ll come.’

28

Somehow the girl had kept going for hours. Running round the pitch. Escaping their clumsy attacks. They’d brought her here soon after dusk and now it was almost dawn. The great oval of sky that showed in the open roof of the stadium was growing light to the east, turning from grey to pale yellow.

She’d had three friends with her when she’d arrived. Three other girls. They’d been snatched from the house they were sheltering in and carried back here.

Her friends hadn’t lasted long at all.

And once the grown-ups had eaten them their need to kill this girl had dimmed along with the hunger pains in their bellies. She was fast and she had fight in her, and one by one they had given up trying to catch her.

Now they were only playing with her.

She would wait until she thought they’d leave her alone and then run for an exit. They were always ready for her, however, and would lumber over to cut her off, slashing at her with their long dirty fingernails, snapping with yellow rotting teeth. Every time so far she’d managed to struggle free of them and return to the centre of the pitch and there she was now.

She was covered in blood from small cuts all over her body where her flesh had been torn. Her clothes were stained black with it and her long hair was matted around her face. Her mad, terrified eyes stared out from a red mask streaked with tears. She crouched in the middle of the football pitch, panting and gasping and trembling. Fear had taken all her humanity away and she was a pathetic animal thing, a mouse in a den of cats, liable to freeze with shock at any moment.

Most of the grown-ups, with food inside them, had wandered away to sleep, but some sat in the stands, watching her. A few remained on the pitch and one of them was watching her more intently than the others. He didn’t take his eyes off her. He had a great bald head on a short neck, a filthy vest with a cross of St George stretched across his belly and wire-framed glasses with no lenses in them. He had been poking his tongue into the eye socket of a severed head, trying to get at the warm brains inside. Now he threw it away into the long grass. Bored. Two skinny, starving mothers, too feeble to catch anything for themselves, had been watching him, dribbling down their fronts, and now they crawled towards the head and fought each other for it, snarling and hissing.