Read Online Strike a Match (Book 1): Serious Crimes by Frank Tayell - Free Book Online Page B

west. They took disease with them. SARS, Maggie had said it was called. Antibiotics had stopped it spreading throughout Britain. They’d been made in the laboratories built during the nearly catastrophic meningitis outbreak a few years before. But there hadn’t been enough doses, or there had been too many refugees in the camps around the Channel Tunnel’s entrance, or the medicine hadn’t been administered in time. Or perhaps it was all three. Ruth’s family had died, but she’d survived.
    After that, the flood of refugees turned to a trickle, and not all made it as far as a camp. Increasingly, fishing vessels or the growing Navy picked up those who came by boat. Those refugees often found work, and a home, with them. As more farmland was reclaimed, there was employment in Kent for those who made the more treacherous land crossing through the pitch-black nightmare of the Channel Tunnel. Without an employer as a sponsor, no ration book was issued, no healthcare was provided, and no schooling was found for the children. Those refugees were relocated to The Acre. As the numbers had dropped, The Acre had become too big a site, and so the camp had been closed. The refugees were moved to a resettlement centre on the other side of the wide road. Maggie still taught, but she was paid based on how many pupils passed the pro-forma exams. As they often moved on after only a few months, her salary had shrunk.
    The Acre, and all the buildings that stood on it, were now the property of Mr Foster. Officially – and it had been very official – the government gave Foster the land in exchange for a similar sized plot the man had owned before The Blackout, and on which the main railway depot had been built. From the moment the first judge had been sworn in, Foster had fought a protracted legal battle to have that land returned to him. Ruth didn’t know if he’d been a bitter man in the old world. After fifteen years of legal wrangling, and with the prize of a few dozen houses at the wrong end of the metropolis, Foster was certainly bitter now. The newspaper coverage hadn’t helped. During those early years there had been little news that wasn’t full of gloom and despair. Updates on Foster’s legal battle had become a regular fixture, prompting letters and opinions from anyone who could find pencil or pen.
    The Acre was too far inland to be home to any fishers. It was too far from the factories for the salaried commuters, and it was far too far from the electrical grid to appeal to those with higher incomes. It was a place for the poor until they could afford something better. The new rents were low, but as high as Mr Foster was allowed to charge. As such they were more than most tenants could afford to pay. Especially Maggie and Ruth.
     
    As she passed the new watermill that marked the boundary of the old town of Christchurch, exhaustion overtook Ruth, as did many other workers cycling to the shops before the evening rush. Soon the houses she passed were as often partially dismantled shells as they were occupied. The roads emptied, and she was alone except for an occasional rusting car deemed worthless even as scrap.
    The sun was low on the horizon when she finally caught sight of their home. It was a rambling double-fronted semi that would have been completely detached if it wasn’t for the joists and props holding up the house next door. Maggie had put those up herself and used the ground floor as the schoolhouse.
    The wooden gate squeaked as Ruth pushed it open and wheeled her bike into the garden. Maggie paused from digging over the potato patch at the front of the house.
    “Evening,” Ruth said.
    “What on Earth happened to you?” Maggie asked.
    “It’s from a train,” Ruth said. “I rode in the engine.”
    “I could guess where the soot came from. I meant your jacket. Is that blood?”
    Ruth glanced down. She’d not noticed before, but there was a stain around her sleeve and another across the waist.
    “It’s