Mikey felt the box swerve, slow, rock so that he was thrown for a moment on his back, and stop.

“You can get out now,” said the woman’s voice.

He threw the rug off and got out and looked around. They were in a cul de sac, a terrace of redbrick houses visible.

He picked up the rug and folded it, rolled it and placed it on the seat of the cargo bike. He held out his hand to the woman. “Mikey Connors, ma’am. I’m deeply grateful, so I am, and if you ever need a favour, you can come to me.”

The woman took his hand. She had the soft, wrinkled face of an outdoors woman, blue eyes looking out from the wrinkles under bushy eyebrows, a tweed skirt and jacket and thick leather boots, and a hand as calloused as a labourer’s. “Thank you,” she said. “I may well. I’m Beatrice Fitzgerald, by the way.”

He stretched to get the stiffness out, and walked around the bike. There was a basket on the back with two white pups. They regarded him with a strict air.

“Are you selling them dogs, ma’am?”

“They’re sold,” she said. “Indeed, I’d better get them to where they’re going. Will you be all right from here?”

He walked down to the mouth of the road and looked up and down, saw the mountains and checked which they were, turned back to her. “I will, ma’am. Is there anything I can do for you now?”

“Just keep yourself safe,” she said laughing.

He looked at her consideringly. “Why did you help me?”

“Ah, I don’t like to see any creature hunted. Unless maybe it’s hunted for food.” And she put her foot under the pedal, ratcheted it back and lifted off, heading back down a road strewn with stopped cars and pitted with holes where the tarmac had been blown upwards.

It was only then that Mikey thought to look at the houses and the road surface. The place looked like a war zone. And not a soul to be seen.

***

Beatrice set off along the road. God, but it was lovely and silent. No noise of cars – it’s one of those magical moments when the constant din of engines and tyres falls away and you can hear the birds. There’s a blackbird – warble-warble-warble… skritch-scritch – and… wait a minute. There seems to have been some kind of a car crash. Several wrecked cars are strewn around the road. She got off and wheeled her bike over to the path and stopped by a row of Sheffield racks. She considered the bikes. All of them had flat tyres. Odd.

She’d take the coastal greenway, she decided. She could get to it by taking a series of lanes crossing roads then following the river, then it was that lovely wide path with its sea views.

One of the pups gave an enquiring yelp, and she turned around and scratched it on the head. “All right, Seamus, we’ll be over to your new home in no time.” She mounted and rode along the path, turned into a lane and cycled happily on.

***

Seven kilometres across the city Optima was crawling, exhausted, up the steps, her waterlogged jacket dragging at her, and her shin blazing with pain where a rock had taken a slice out of it.

“You can let go of me now.” Mohamed unwrapped her cold fingers from his sleeve. He crouched down and fell on his knees, arms around his head. Optima lay on her back, legs crooked, and let the gentle rain soak her. They stayed there for quite a while, just breathing, just resting. Optima slept.

She woke to feel Mohamed’s touch on her shoulder. “I must go home,” he said.

“Where’s home?”

“We live over the shop. My wife and my… well, I need not make a list for you!”

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“The shop those bowseys were attacking?”

“Exactly.” He was trying to conceal his worry, she could see.

“I’ll walk you over.”

“Oh, no, no, no, young lady, it is not safe for a young girl. I will bring you to your home.”

“Sure I live nearly beside you,” she lied. “We’ll go to your place first and you can settle your mind, then we’ll see.”

They argued it back and forth. Optima won – mainly because the rain was pouring down now and it was easier for him to agree than to stand here being soaked. Further soaked.

The streets were silent – perhaps the rain had driven people inside. The Fitzgeralds were the only people Optima knew who cycled and walked in the rain without being bothered by it. Some of the road surfaces were ripped up, and on what would normally be busy streets, cars, vans and trucks littered the roadway, some of them burnt out, others crushed, and some simply settled down onto their four flat tyres.

She kept clear of the lamp standards, not knowing whether the electricity was still live.

Mohamed had the same idea, it seemed; without comment he went in through the back lanes.

After they had walked for half an hour he finally spoke. “What do you think has happened?”

“With the plastic, you mean?”

“What do you mean, the plastic?”

She could have cut her tongue out. “Isn’t it… it’s like the plastic is all gone?”

“Eh? I don’t think so! My credit card is in my pocket…” He stopped and reached into his pockets. No card. Just a set of keys, and a keyring with a trace of Arabic writing on it. “It’s gone!”

“The card?”

“No… oh, yes, the card also, but my keyring that my wife gave me when we married, it had a blessing written on it…”

“What does it mean?”

“Al… God protect us.” He stared at the metal in his hand, desolate.

“You can still see it, though! And surely God will protect you without having to have a written blessing?”

“How do you think this happened?”

“I have no idea,” said Optima. She hoped he was not looking at her face. People always knew when she was lying.

“The Government will promptly set up a committee, and will pinpoint who is the culprit,” he said.

Optima’s stomach wrenched and she gulped back the vomit that had come up into her mouth.

“Perhaps those scientists in the nuclear place, over in the west,” he said.

“Oh, I shouldn’t think so,” Optima said briskly. “Look, there’s no point in worrying about who or why. For now, the important thing is to get you to your family.”

But when they turned the corner on to the street where the shop had been, it was gone, burnt out. Mohamed gave a cry of terror and pain. “Oh, my God, Fatima, where are you?”

***

On the greenway, Beatrice cycled along breathing the sea air and enjoying the view of the empty bay. Seagulls circled above her, crying out, but there wasn’t a Christian soul to be seen.

The sound of a horse clopping came down from the hill road, and she saw a big piebald cart horse, his pink nose nodding as he walked on drawing a flat cart with steel-rimmed wheels. A man wearing a flat cap was driving, whistling through his teeth.

The next thing a baying sound came from behind him and a crowd of dishevelled people descended on the cart. Beatrice diverted her bike over to watch. The horse reared and kicked out as one of them snatched at the reins. A big girl reached to try to pull the man down. The puppies on the back of the bike set up an ear-piercing yapping.

Beatrice took her walking stick from its clip at the side of the cargo box and rapped the girl sharply on the wrist. “Get away from there, you bold strap!” The girl screamed and staggered back, cupping her wrist to her chest and crying.

The crowd stopped momentarily, then one shouted – “Get the cargo bike! Get off there, you old bitch!” and they were on her like wasps on a chop.

The driver pushed his cap back, and leaned down, and lifted a wooden case that was at his feet. He opened it – one of the men tried to get the handlebars from Beatrice and she gave him a clout on the temple – then click-click-click and the driver said quietly, “Lads, you might want to stand back if you don’t want to be shot.”

The words cut through the noise and they turned to see. He was holding an odd gun, with a rifle stock attached to the back of a pistol. Holding it very steadily and sweeping it back and forth around the crowd. “Fook!” shouted one. “It’s a fookin machine gun!” – and they hesitated for a moment. Then one ran, and they all ran.

He put it down on the driving bench beside him. “The granda’s gun,” he explained to Beatrice.

She narrowed her eyes and looked at his face. “Would you be Dan Reardon’s grandson?”

“Great-grandson, yeah. This is his Peter the Painter.”

“Goodness, how time does pass,” she said. “Nice to meet you, son.”

“Well,” he said, “Would you like me to come with you?”

“No, no, I’m grand. What was all that about? I knew the city was getting rough…”

“I wish I could tell you. As far as I can see the world’s gone mad. Maybe it’d be an idea to keep that bike under cover when you’re not on it.”

“Ah, I don’t come into the city much,” Beatrice said. “But thank you. By the way, does that thing still shoot?”

“I doubt it very much,” he said. “The ammo’s a hundred years old now!”

She laughed and clipped her walking stick back on the side of the bike box and went on. When she reached the foothills of the mountain she turned inland and went up the long lane to the house where the dogs’ buyer lived.