The Visitor | A Post-Apocalyptic Murder Mystery Read online

  I didn't want to answer it. I just wanted to drink.

  I texted her Back soon x, and sat down to enjoy my second pint. Which made me feel guilty, so I went outside to the garden to call Rexy. From him there was no answer, and that feeling of dread, like a heavy cloak around my shoulders and over my head, enveloped me once more.

  I took a deep breath and another gulp of beer, and called Daisy.

  Her mother was very ill indeed. "I rang the Virus Hotline, but all it does is tell you how to make the person comfortable―as if, right? Mum starts crying in pain whenever she wakes up, I'm just keeping her dosed up with anything I can find―Dad's in bits, and I think he's getting ill, too―" I could hear the fear in her voice. "They're both going to die, aren't they?"

  I didn't want to bullshit her and tell her they would pull through. There was no point in my telling her to stay away, either; I wouldn't, if I was with my parents. "You wear a surgical mask and gloves at all times, wash and disinfect everything, and if they die, you put them out to be collected or bury them in the garden." That made her cry. I felt bad for that. "And you can phone me any time you need to talk. You know that, don't you? How's Finn doing? Is he helping?"

  She sniffed; I heard her blow her nose. "Oh, Finn―he's shut himself in the garden shed, and he won't come out."

  "He what?"

  "He's got it all organised; he's got food in there and he's using the bottom of the garden as a lavvy. And all the local shops have been looted, there's hardly anything left―I'm down to the last bog roll, and I don't know what to do!"

  "Get him on the phone. I'll sort him out."

  "There's no point in me asking. He won't come near us, and if I go out to him he just tells me to go away."

  At which point I saw that Elle was calling me, and I knew I couldn't put it off any longer, even if we were going to have a repeat of last night. I couldn't blame her. I couldn't blame her at all.

  She was calm; she just wanted me home, so home I went.

  "Don't go into work tomorrow," she said, after we'd eaten dinner, at about ten p.m.

  I yawned. "I've got to. I can't leave Phil to do it all. It's bedlam in there."

  "Please don't. You're limping again, aren't you? You know you've got to rest it; it'll only get worse if you don't." She scrolled through that wretched phone of hers, always at her side, even at the dinner table. "Look. It says here that the army are going into the bigger hospitals to take out the dead bodies. They joined up to protect us; let them do it."

  I watched videos of soldiers taking out sheet- and bin liner-wrapped bodies, and laying them out in the car park.

  "Fucking hell." My head went kind of fuzzy. A combination of exhaustion, and the beers and Scotch I'd necked earlier before the wine with dinner, yes, but I felt a strange sense of unreality. Like this was all so awful it couldn't be happening.

  I was just about to say that, okay, I'd stay home tomorrow―I was off on Sunday, anyway―when I got a text from Phil.

  Not going in tomorrow. Yaz has got it.

  Yasmin. His wife of three years. They were trying for a baby.

  Unlike the families of doctors, surgeons, consultants and other senior medical staff, those of lowly porters, auxiliaries and trainee nurses did not automatically receive the vaccine.

  I texted Phil with some useless words that did not even begin to convey my sadness for him; as I sat back and watched Elle empty the wine bottle into my glass, I flicked through the TV. Scheduled programmes could not be shown. The same announcements appeared over and over, on all channels, and the news said nothing about any government plans. My guess was that they knew that the situation was way beyond their control.

  Sarah called.

  "Jack. Greg's dead."

  What? "Oh, my God―Sarah, I'm so sorry. But―I only spoke to you on, what, Tuesday night? That's only three days ago."

  "He woke up in the night. Being sick, shivering." She sounded oddly flat. Not upset, just distant and―yes, flat. "I'm just glad it was quick."

  "Sarah―"

  "Kevin from upstairs―he's had the vaccine―he helped me get him outside. To be collected. Couple of hours ago." She laughed, high-pitched, a bit crazy-sounding. "Weird, isn't it? I'm blooming with health. I've read that some people can be immune; guess I'm one of the lucky ones. I'll be alright. Kevin's here."

  Elle was gesturing to me, an enquiring look on her face; I mouthed 'Greg's dead'.

  "Hey," I said, "Tell me how you're feeling. Talk to me."

  "I'm just numb. I keep thinking I'm going to wake up soon."

  "Yeah. Me too."

  Elle took my phone out of my hand, clicked on speaker, and conveyed her condolences, to which Sarah said, "Thanks," in a dull kind of way.

  "I'm going to stay here for a couple of days, just to make sure I haven't got it, then I'll go to Hincham. God bless Uncle Jerry, eh?" She paused. "What about you two? Are you coming? It's what it's there for―oh, and I'm scared Rexy's dead, he's not answering his phone, and Daisy won't leave her parents or Finn―I don't want to be there all on my own, just Kevin and me―"

  "I hope we will," I said, ignoring Elle's furious look. "Elle's getting her shot on Tuesday; we'll reassess after that. It's impossible to know how things are going to pan out between now and then."

  Sarah did that shrill laugh again. "You think? Well, I can tell you. It's going to get worse and worse. You need to pack everything you can, and get up to Norfolk. It's bedlam in London. Arson, riots, shooting―the army are losing the battle. Get Elle's shot, and get yourselves here."

  Elle went ballistic as soon as I'd hung up, yelling that she wasn't going to leave her home just so that I could keep my girlfriend company, and if she was going anywhere it was to be with her parents. Of course I understood that, completely, but suggested we didn't make any decisions until she'd had her shot, because everything kept changing by the minute.

  What I really meant was that we didn't know if her family would still be alive by next Tuesday.

  "Well, I'm not going to fucking Sarah's, whatever happens, and that's final!"

  I reminded her that it might not be a bad idea―our food supplies would be gone in a month or so, and then what would we do? Which made her start crying again, but that night I couldn't deal with it. I just walked out of the room and locked myself into the bathroom, where the hot water and bubbles made me feel better than I had in days.

  Waking up without the alarm blasting off in my ear, I allowed myself a long time to 'come round'; I'd slept until ten-thirty.

  The other side of the bed was empty.

  I dragged myself up and stumbled downstairs, still groggy, needing coffee, expecting to find Elle scrolling through her phone or talking to her mum, but all was silent.

  "Elle? You here?"

  I tried all the rooms, including the utility room, and the garden, but she was out.

  Her car was gone.

  Crazy, crazy woman. I charged upstairs for my phone.

  "Where the hell are you?"

  "I'm okay. Honest. I just had to get out. I wanted to―look, don't laugh, but I wanted to go to church. There was no one in there; I just wanted to go and, you know, pray. 'Cause of Mum and Dad and Nicola―there was nobody around, I didn't see anyone, apart from the vicar. She was lovely, we sat on a pew and talked, and she helped me. A lot."

  I don't know why, but this made me feel all choked up.

  "That's good; as long as you're okay. But you could have woken me up if you needed to talk. Honestly."

  "When I tried last night you just walked out of the room." That petulant note crept back into her voice.

  "You weren't talking to me, you were getting on my case."

  She sniffed. "If you gave me half the consideration you give Sarah―"

  Back to that, then. "Have you spoken to your mum today?"

  "Mm-mm. They're all okay."

  I sighed with relief. "Are you coming home?"

  "Do you want me to?"

  "Of course I do. You s
houldn't be out."

  "Shall we do a movie day?"

  That was something that got on my nerves. Movie. It's not like she's ever been to the US or has any American family. Circumstances being what they were, I let it go.

  While I was waiting for her I rang Daisy. To my surprise, Finn answered; he said that his mother had died and her body had been taken away. Meanwhile, his father was ill, and Daisy had gone out for supplies.

  "So why have you got her phone?" I asked.

  "Because she forgot to take it with her." Strange fellow. That detached monotone.

  "I thought you were hiding in the garden shed."

  "I come in to get things I need when there is nobody downstairs."

  "You sound distant."

  "That's because I'm wearing protective clothing, which includes a full-face mask."

  "Did you check on your dad?"

  "No." Pause.

  "Don't you think it might be nice if you did?"

  "Everyone who gets it dies. The chances of me adding to that number will multiply if I'm in a room with an infected person, despite my protective clothing, which I bought from Amazon, and I suspect is not as effective as that which is worn in hospitals and laboratories, despite the claims of its product description; it had a number of lower starred reviews, but was the only one immediately available. I can't do anything for my father that Daisy won't be doing when she gets back, and I don't want to die for the sake of going in to speak to him for a few minutes."

  I couldn't fault his logic, but it gave me the chills. "Will you ask Daisy to ring me when she comes back?"

  "I won't see her."

  For fuck's sake. "Well, can you leave her a message asking her to do so?"

  "I can, yes. I'm going now. Goodbye."

  See ya, weirdo.

  So Elle came home and we had a lovely, cosy day, sitting in bed watching films, with the fan on because I didn't want to open the windows in case the virus blew in―I didn't know if it could or not, but thought it best not to take any chances.

  As we argued playfully about whether to follow The Hangover (her choice) with Joker (my choice) or Knives Out (Elle again), she showed me footage on her phone of a riot outside Northampton General Hospital and said, "I bet you're glad you didn't go in now, aren't you? Isn't this better?"

  I didn't want to look. I just wanted to forget about it, for a few hours. Pretend everything was normal.

  I didn't know it would be the last day like this.

  I didn't know, even as we snuggled up and stuffed ourselves with the popcorn that Elle considered an essential accompaniment to film-watching, that the virus was already creeping through her body, probably caught from the vicar who, I read on the church website a couple of days later, was not expected to live through the night, and wished to convey her fondest gratitude to all in her parish. She asked us to trust in the Lord and hold tight to our faith in life everlasting.

  I didn't know I would never see my mother and father again, or many of my friends.

  Or that Daisy had arrived home empty-handed after puking up outside a Tesco Local, at which point she was threatened at gunpoint and told to get the hell away.

  I'm glad Elle had that one last, good day. We didn't argue once; it was as near perfect as any time we'd ever spent together.

  And now it's Monday again, and I'm sitting downstairs with my green wristband on, eating one of her Linda McCartney vegan fishcakes with a Bird's Eye green vegetable 'medley', because she can't stomach proper food and I don't want them to go to waste. She is asleep; when she wakes, I will see what I can do to ease her suffering. When she's up to it, I will get her phone so she can talk to her mother, who fell ill yesterday, along with her sister.

  Later I will try to reach Daisy, before she becomes too ill to talk to anyone. I will speak to Sarah, still healthy, and safely locked down in her cottage at Hincham with her friend, Kevin. I assume Rexy is dead, soon to be followed by Phil's wife, and Angus and Davey from the pub; Shelley the barmaid rang to tell me they were ill, this morning.

  She also told me that our assigned vaccination unit, in the nearby retail centre car park, had been vandalised by people desperately seeking those tiny vials that would grant them life. The health workers were restrained while the vaccines were stolen; later, the unit was set alight. Its burned parts remain on the tarmac; there is no one to remove them. So Elle would not have got her shot, anyway.

  When she dies, I shall bury her in the garden. Then, when I feel ready, I will leave for Norfolk. Alone.

  Sarah tells me she's happy and relieved to be in Hincham after the horrors of London―a difficult journey, as they had to avoid the wristband-checking barricades—even though many in the village are dead or dying.

  "I feel like an intruder. The woman Jerry mentioned in his letter―Peggy Holcroft, the town crier―she must have seen us arrive; she came down to say hello. The virus reached here on the first Monday, via a couple who worked in London; more than half of them left, almost immediately, to stay with family till it's over."

  "I wonder how that's worked out."

  "That's what I thought. The doctor's been round to tell everyone to stay indoors, and they're burying the dead in a far corner of the churchyard. The owners of the village shop died on Friday, so they've divided the food out; the doctor and his family―they've all had the vaccine, and they filled big tubs with bleach and disinfectant to clean everything before handing it out."

  She and Kevin stay in the cottage, sleeping there, too, rather than in the bunker. So she can keep an ear out, she says; Peggy told her that certain lowlifes look on Private Life for details of local deaths, so they can break in and take any food that's left, and anything else they fancy.

  "Ghoulish as hell, and sometimes they don't wait for them to die first. I can't wait for you to get here―oh!" I could almost hear her putting her hand over her mouth. "I am so sorry, that's the worst thing I've ever said. Sounds like I'm wishing Elle will pass quickly―"

  "It's okay."

  "Have you got morphine?"

  "Lots. Nicked it from the hospital stores."

  "We've got a fair bit here. Morphine, other painkillers, sleepers, antibiotics. I can't imagine where Uncle got it all from. Dodgy prepper supply sites, I should think."

  I suggest she gives at least half of it to the doctor. I'll take with me what I have left.

  I don't think Elle will need it for much longer.

  Chapter 4

  Avalon

  The First Twelve Days

  I missed it by a couple of hours.

  I could have got home in time if Leilani wasn't such a fucking idiot; I made the phones-and-devices-off rule for her sake, so she wouldn't embarrass herself then spend the whole of the next day wailing at me for not stopping her.

  I've seen it all before. Demented messaging, pleading and begging, followed by the mantle of shame the next morning. She was worse than usual this time, because this Paul guy had scarpered a few months after saying he wanted to marry her.

  As usual, she'd pretended to be cool and elusive to hook him, but after a couple of months her true self surfaced, as it always did, and laid-back Ms Jekyll turned into whining Ms Hyde from Insecurity Hell. Which was when he suddenly remembered he hadn't got a free evening for the next seventeen years. Like they always do.

  I was only there because her mum, Kim, had rung me; she was on holiday and thus unavailable to stop her daughter 'doing something silly'.

  "I'm so worried for her this time, Avvy; she thought Paul was 'the one', you know? Could you spend the evening with her? Please? For me? She's in a really bad way; she needs her big sister!"

  Which was how Leilani saw me, as I'm a year older. We had zero in common, but our single mums were besties when we were small, and they pushed us together. I'd been trying to ease myself out of the friendship since I was about ten, but then Kim would call me and say, 'Leilani's upset 'cause you never got back to her about going shopping in Norwich last weekend'.

  No, I
didn't, because I don't want to trail round Topshop helping her choose nice little outfits for lame-brains who need marketing teams to tell them what their 'look' is this year.

  You should have heard the stick I got when I unfriended her on Private Life. I just got fed up with her stupid happy dances and emojis.

  So, anyway, at about eight-thirty I sneaked into the loo and rang Rexy, who told me that this bat fever that everyone was panicking about had appeared in Shipden, which was now under military lockdown. And I'd missed the cut-off point to get back home.

  "They say that anyone who's left town in the last twenty-four hours has got to go to some emergency unit to get a test."

  "Sod that," I said. "Who knows what else they might be looking for?"

  Rexy laughed. We'd had a mammoth smoke the night before.

  "The lockdown'll be over in a week, anyway," he said. "The ones who've got it have been whisked off to a special infectious diseases clinic, and they're keeping us in quarantine until they're sure it's safe."

  "So you're saying I can't come home for a whole week?"

  Rexy and I have hardly spent a night apart since the day we met. I wanted to be in our flat and walk for miles along the seashore, not be stuck out in crappy Fakenham. And I hadn't got any clothes or make-up with me, because I was meant to be staying the night then driving straight home in the morning. So I was wearing lounging round the house gear, i.e. leggings and a big old t-shirt of Rexy's. At least I had my favourite earrings on, and my favourite jumper in the car. Other than that, though, I was going to have to spend a whole week borrowing Leilani's nice-girl clothes and pointless cosmetics. Peachy lipsticks and subtle beige-toned eyeshadows. Not a bottle of black eyeliner to be seen.

  I'm not one to whinge about shit I can't change, though, so I went back to the living room and got stuck into the wine, considered how lovely it would be to have a week off from waiting tables for wanky tourists, and listened to Leilani spouting a load of melodramatic drivel she'd said twice already. I woke up on her sofa with a bitch of a hangover, and the realisation that I was stuck with Suicide Blonde for the next seven days.