Ted made a discreet choice. He pulled his jacket tighter to hide his bandaged chest, and he hoped there was no blood on his face or hands. He could pass himself off as a “survivor” — at worst a walking wounded who could look after himself for now — and take charge of Jack. It had to be for the best; Christ alone knew what would happen if they got split up in this mess.

They had to queue up, in a long, tangled line at the door, to register. Jack clung to his hand, as he hadn’t since he was a small child, wide-eyed but silent; Ted felt proud of him.

He was surprised by the way the people around him endured this wait with stolid patience, even good humour — remarkable when he considered what had happened to them, the untimely ejection from their home, the catastrophe that was overwhelming the city barely six miles away.

There were mobile phones scattered along the lines of people. He heard people trying to contact family members, offices and business contacts, trying to rearrange meetings, talk about being delayed for the next few days. People didn’t seem to be grasping what was going on. Was this what the trick cyclists called denial?

After more than an hour he reached the front of the queue.

“I’m looking for my daughter. Jane Dundas. Is she here?”

He was speaking to a dumpy woman, no older than thirty, with a WRVS armband. Women’s Royal Voluntary Service. She was sitting in what usually served as the theatre box office. She had a stack of forms, hand-drawn and evidently hastily photocopied, in front of her on a rickety foldaway desk. “I need to take your details. Is this your son?”

“No, it’s my grandson,” Ted railed, “and today’s already been a very, very bad day, and now you have already kept me and the lad waiting an hour to go through this registration bureaucracy gash. Why can’t you just help me?”

The woman looked weak, her face round and soft, and — Ted noticed — she might have been crying earlier. But now she was all cried out, and at Ted’s tirade, she just looked weary. “Right now the only way I can help you is by having you fill in this form.”

Ted leaned forward, ready to attack once more.

Jack touched his arm. The lad looked up at him, solemn, making him think again.

She’s just a volunteer. Not very smart, not very capable, out of her depth. Just trying to do the job she’s given, in impossible circumstances.

Besides, she’s right. Registering here, letting The System know where he was, was likely the only chance he would have of finding his daughter.

He felt shamed. I should be helping here. Not making more trouble.

“I’m sorry,” he said, and he bent forward to fill out the form.