Terry fetched keys and a towel from the office, then opened the doors and stood back as hot air escaped. The towel was wet, and when he wiped the steering wheel it sent up steam. He did the same to the seats, then got in and tried the engine.

It ran. He asked for five pounds a day. Kane gave him cash up front for the vehicle and to fill the tank.

“Don’t forget to register it with the police,” Terry said. “Where are you wanting to go with it?”

“Not sure. Just exploring the island.”

“You won’t be able to take this one off-road. And mind the crabs. The claws puncture.”

“And mind the drunkards,” the doctor added. “There’s enough of them.”

Kane drove slowly at first. The steering wheel felt loose. The Check Engine sign came on, then turned off again. On the plus side, driving was on the left, British-style, and he could now cover the island in a few hours.

Occasionally another car would pass him, sometimes military, sometimes civilian. The drivers waved in a ritualistic way, eyes lingering on his unfamiliar face. He understood now: Not to wave would be odd, like being stuck in a confined space with someone and not acknowledging them. So he started to wave too. But as he headed to the north of the island, the other cars disappeared.

He continued to the place Rory Bannatyne had been living and where his body had been found.

11

English Bay was located at the extreme northwest point of the island. It was home to the BBC’s relay transmitter complex and the island’s power station and desalination plant, and not much else. The road leading there was in good condition and didn’t have another vehicle on it.

That suited Kane. He kept one eye out for police, the other for the British military and their subcontractors. But as he progressed, the idea of stumbling across other humans felt less and less likely.

The island’s north was flatter, even more desolate, and when volcanic cones did arise they carried an eerie majesty. Vast cinder fields stretched between them and the road, plains with nothing but small jagged mounds of rock that looked as if someone had modeled a war-torn landscape in miniature. You could see where the crust of lava had cooled, then broken up as the flow beneath it continued. The process left strange shapes, like casts of once-familiar objects that had been shattered in rage. Black sticks of lava had curled like the handles of enormous teapots or twisted like the branches of trees. Kane stopped the car to feel them with his hands and they rang with the hollow chime of porcelain. He looked back down the road to see if he was being followed. Nothing moved but the heat.