Lost Girl Read Free Page B

summer, the fear of another flood-routing winter, cliff erosion, soil erosion, soil degradation, blackouts, and the seemingly endless influxes of refugees.
    Up above, the sky began to bleach white-blue from blue-black. When it became silver-blue with sharp light in an hour, the heat would boil brains. It was already twenty degrees when he parked one
street down and covered the car’s plates, before moving on foot through the trees opposite Victory Close. Nerves as much as exertion made him sweat harder.
    It was a quarter past five and after driving up the hill to get here, the father hadn’t seen a single moving vehicle. Not much work in the town now and never much work traffic in this part
of the town anyway. These were the homes of the over-sixties who didn’t need to slave until they dropped cold in a warehouse aisle or a field. Senior management, retired executives and some
gang lieutenants up here, but no real high rollers. These residents had never made the top two per cent, though they’d tried, and had mostly checked out of the labour market to slide through
the grim and steady collapse in as much comfort as they could hope for. They endured power cuts and a diet of synthetic meat with seasonal vegetables, but still enjoyed lifestyles far beyond the
reach of most. They’d done all right. Even then, spot-check security patrols would be all that most budgets covered here. Maybe one would roll through every hour; that was all the local
Torbay groups offered. But in the heat?
All services are experiencing difficulties . .
.
    The near-impossibility of a citizen enlisting help in a crisis was also in his favour. Community spirit was thin on the ground, even in the better parts of town. People heard shots popping and
they locked down, grateful it wasn’t their turn. In many parts of the country, who even knew who lived next door? The national characteristic was mistrust.
    That summer, the elderly poor had lain dead in their beds from heatstroke all over this town, often discovered by smell alone. The acknowledgement made the father uncomfortable, but the way of
things had a big upside on a ‘move’. This hour of the day was also the low tide of crime. Hard cases were up all night and slept late. Not the father. He was no pro but he was getting
better at this.
    The father checked his kit: rucksack on his chest, immobilizer, mask and stun spray in the front pockets of his shorts: easy access left and right. He hoped to be in and out by six. He checked
his watch. Sipped tap water from the bottle he kept in a rear pocket of his combat shorts. Pulled the bush hat low and slipped on sunglasses to make a visor across the top of his face; indoors he
would mask up in cool cotton.
    But, for a while, he couldn’t move his feet towards the bungalow, and pissed against a tree instead. His guts slopped and reared and his underwear clung wet with sweat around the waistband
and between his buttocks. His breath was loud around his head as if a man with asthma was standing at his shoulder.
    Shivering with nerves, he forced himself to visualize his approach: brisk and confident on a straight line down the left side of the close, face lowered. And then he was off, almost before
he’d made the decision to move, going through the trees, onto the road.
    Buildings and trees jumped in his vision, and his legs didn’t feel too good over the first ten feet of tarmac. All he wanted was to sink to his knees.
    He cleared his mind of everything but the hardwood door at the end of the street. Number 3: unlucky for some.

FOUR
    As the father moved through the refrigerated gloom of Robert East’s bungalow, the newsreader’s solemn voice seemed to boom in each empty room like the intonation of
a curse.
    Following Spain, Italy, Turkey, the Benelux and Central European countries’ decision last month to reclose their borders, the newly formed French government is now considering the
reclosure of its own borders, claiming its