Murder In Midwinter
Page 11
Across the yard, the sheep are stirring in the crackle from the fire next door, but the old stone roof of their barn seems fireproof despite the cascades of sparks landing from the stables. It looks safe in there. But we’d have to cross the yard.
The stones of the house are warm against my hands. The house feels solid. It wouldn’t burn down easily. We could hole up inside, until morning – if we could get inside.
Crack!
Bang!
The snowman disappears in an explosion of ice.
Crack!
The dogs bark louder and the ponies from the garden rush out into the yard, and charge round, neighing and stamping and thundering and stopping dead. Terrified.
They’re not the only ones.
Next to me, Ollie crouches behind the water butt.
Pfft! A bullet bounces in the mud right in front of us and skips off into the blackness.
They’re getting closer.
Crack!
“We can’t stay here,” says Ollie. “I’m going to make a break for the house.”
“Don’t,” I shout.
Zing!
Bullets fly from the other direction.
“Ah!” A cry comes from the gateway, and someone fires again from the garden.
Zing!
Zing!
“What?” says Ollie. “Is someone there?” he shouts.
Samson whinnies and gallops past us, followed by another horse and they head straight for the sheep barn. I can’t see well enough, but I think one of them leaps over the hurdles while the other skids to the side at the last second.
The dogs bark and jump and yelp. Zing!
Crack!
Zing!
We’re trapped between the fire from both sides.
“Who is it?” Ollie shouts towards the garden. “Who’s there?”
Zing!
Crack!
“Keep down!” someone shouts.
What?
Pieces of the jigsaw tumble into place. The way he followed me, the fact he didn’t shoot us when he came to the farm. The woman. The picture.
“Peter Romero,” I shout.
“Yes!” comes the answer.
Zing!
“How’d you get in?” Ollie yells towards the garden.
“Over the garden wall,” the voice returns.
Crack!
Zing!
I feel safer. And then I don’t.
Zing!
Crack!
We’re still stuck against a farmhouse in a hail of bullets. Just because someone’s firing in the opposite direction, it doesn’t make it any less likely we’ll die.
Crack!
Crack!
Zing!
“Is there a way out of the yard?” I say to Ollie.
“I’ve been thinking,” he says. “There’s a pile of straw blocking the back exit in the sheep barn – we might get through. We could take the Land Rover,” he says. “Except the tank is empty.”
“We’ll take ponies if we can.”
Bullets fly again and a figure hurtles out of the darkness, flattening itself against the wall next to me.
“Pleased to meet you. Peter Romero at your service. Glad you’re still alive, Maya,” he says. “Can either of you fire a gun?”
“Don’t ask them to,” calls Sergeant Lewis. “But I could do with another one, this is just a toy,” he says, his voice faint. “Ty Fawr rifle club champion – 1977,” Peter Romero hands a rifle around the corner of the porch, and the sergeant lets off a round.
Bang!
It’s so loud my eyes water. “Let’s get out of here,” I say, but standing completely still, feeling the comforting warmth of Peter Romero at my side, and wondering if I’ve got the courage to leave it.
“Good idea. Go,” he says. “We’ll hold them here as long as we can.”
Crack!
Zing!
Bang!
Crack!
“Ready, cuz?” shouts Ollie, pulling his coat up around his ears and pushing off from the side of the house. He charges through the yard, running straight for the sheep barn. Eight paces and he’s over the hurdles at the front.
Crack!
Bang!
Crack!
Bang!
“Come on, Maya!”
Zing!
Crack!
Bang!
I say goodbye to my family, blow them an imaginary and pointless kiss, and run, my head down, my body wired so that in ten paces I’m by the barn and springing over the hurdle is easy.
Zing!
Zing!
Zing!
I pile into Ollie, he’s crouched on the other side.
“I don’t think they even saw you,” he says.
“Where’s the gap we can get through?” I say, peering into the darkness, trying to keep the shake out of my voice.
“Here.” We wade through the sheep, the smell of singed wood from the burning stable next door, strong, but not overwhelming. The sheep shuffle and baa, hiding our movement. A white pony looms out of the darkness. Ollie grabs it and leads us both to a tower of straw bales. Together we shift enough to make a doorway.
“But we need two ponies,” I say. “We won’t make it on one.”
Ollie puts his fingers in his mouth and lets out a really loud whistle. In the yard, a pony pauses and gallops towards the sheep barn, easily clearing the hurdles and clattering into the sheep.
“Wow!” I say, grabbing his mane. “Samson?”
Chapter 25
Trying not to panic, we take badly fitting tack from the Land Rover parked behind the stables, we mount up and a few minutes later I realise that we’re on the track up the mountain. Even from up here I can smell the smouldering wood despite the snow circling around us, muffling everything. A lone dog trots out behind us and falls in with the horses.
“Megan, go back,” says Ollie.
But the dog ignores him and trots alongside.
I glance back. I can’t really see much except for the glow of the embers, although there’s a greyness to the sky that probably signals dawn.
More gunfire echoes below and Samson quivers with each shot. Peering through the circling snow, guns flash, both sides of the yard. A second later, the sound of the shots reaches us. Like lightning and thunder.
“S’all right, boy,” I mutter, heading Samson up the track, and he breaks into a desperate attempt to trot.
“How long before they work out where we’ve gone?” Ollie shouts.
“I don’t know,” I say. “It depends on Sergeant Lewis, and Peter Romero.”
“The gunman who isn’t the gunman, you mean?”
“Yes – the one who is currently shooting everyone on our behalf,” I say, almost making myself smile. “Do we stand any chance of getting over the mountain? Or should we try to go through to the main road?”
“The mountain’s our best bet – although we’re going to have to be very careful that we don’t ride straight over the cliff at the side.”
Despite the bulldozing yesterday, the snow’s fallen so heavily that the tracks have gone – it’s more like the depression in a mattress than a path and I remember the steep drop that lies to our left. I wonder if Samson would sense it.
The snow whips against my cheeks, very quickly removing the last scraps of heat from the fire and I pull my collar up. I’ve only got a T-shirt on under this coat and the wind’s cruel. Samson’s black fur is turning white and I realise that we may soon become almost invisible. Ollie’s pony is invisible.
Megan’s invisible.
Good.
We press on up through the snow, the ponies’ hooves almost silent, but each step is accompanied by a slight crunching.
Samson stops quite suddenly, his ears swivelling, listening. I listen too. Behind us, there’s shouting – and an engine revving. He grunts and strides out, following Ollie, as if he perfectly understands what’s going on and I lean forward along his neck hoping the thickening snow will bounce from my back rather
than collecting on my hands and face. We walk on up the track and I look back to see how clear our tracks are.
Too clear.
Samson picks his way up the path – I imagine he knows it as well as Ollie – and we’re quickly by Ollie’s side.
“They’ll be with us soon,” says Ollie. “What do we do?”
“We ride to the quarry,” I say. “Make a stand.”
The words sound ridiculously brave, ridiculously certain and I wonder if I’m determined enough to make this work.
“OK,” Ollie shouts. And he urges his pony on up the hill.
I let Ollie go on and hold Samson back for a moment, turning in the saddle to look back down the hillside.
The flashes are still lighting up the yard. Four from one side, two from the other. Then headlights play through the snow, two vehicles. Four-by-fours? They wouldn’t have reached the farm if they weren’t. They’re bouncing up and down, making heavy weather of the ground. Behind them are two sets of smaller lights. Also bouncing, but moving fast, like spiders. Snowcats? Quad bikes?
Samson pauses, moving his feet, anxious. He’s not the only one. But if we can hold it together, he can help me. He probably knows more than I do about escape.
I look up ahead. There’s no way of knowing how much further the quarry is. I know that if I keep the wall on my right, then the huge drop should be easy to avoid.
I wonder if our pursuers know that.
I flex my frozen fingers around Samson’s reins.
“Come on Samson,” I murmur. “Time to get going.”
* * *
I squeeze his sides and point him up the hill. He lurches forwards until we catch up with Ollie. Samson doesn’t try to bite anyone, and I wonder if he’s too cold to try.
“The little trucks, we need to use them,” I shout into the wind. “Do they run? Will they work through this snow?”
“On the rails you mean?”
“Yes.”
“Maybe,” he says. “Maybe, I don’t remember them ever working.”
We plug on up, the horses with shelves of snow collecting on their rumps.
“Good boy, Samson,” I say meaninglessly, and a load of snowflakes settle on my tongue. I can’t hear anything, only the wind, which cuts icily around my throat and wrists. My feet have long since frozen solid but Samson keeps plodding on and I keep my eye on the wall to the right, horribly aware of the huge drop to the left. I can’t see it, everything more than a metre away is just white and then I begin to see the top of the mountain, a grey mass ahead of me that must be the quarry.
Samson sees it too and attempts a trot which quickly turns back into a walk.
Stepping into the mine is like entering another world. The awful wind drops and although it’s still snowing it’s calm and beautiful in here.
I ride right into the mine, slip down from Samson’s back and try to hook the reins over a bracket. They hang loose. I don’t seem to have the co-ordination.
Samson carefully removes the reins from the ground and holds them between his teeth. He follows me as I walk to the trucks, standing a little way away and watching me.
Ollie leaps down to join me. All the trucks are snow-covered, but they’re also all filled with slate, as if about to leave for their final journey.
“What are we doing here?” he asks, his voice sounding as panicky as I feel. “They’ll find us really soon. We could just go straight through and down the other side.”
“I know,” I say, pushing at the first truck. “But they’ll catch us up on the way down, they’ve got quad bikes or something – we have to slow them down, we have to get them out of their vehicles.” The words are really hard to form, my jaw seems to have frozen. My tongue feels huge and useless in my mouth. “Give me a hand Ollie.”
I put my frozen hands on the truck and push.
The truck groans but stays put.
“What are you doing?”
“If we can set it rolling, we can send it down the mountain. All we need to do is get them to veer over the cliff.”
Ollie puts his shoulder on the other corner and pushes. The truck grinds forward but doesn’t rush to run away down the mountain.
“Oil!” he shouts and darts behind the bulldozer to get an oilcan. Something that looks like orange sorbet globs out and smears over the rusty wheels of the truck.
I rock the truck back towards me, and Ollie pushes it forward.
“Try again,” he shouts and I turn my back, pushing alongside him with my bum.
Digging my heels into the track I shove as hard as I can. The truck begins to roll freely and we turn, giving it the slightest shove with our hands, and by the time we leave the edge of the mine, it’s heading downhill at speed all on its own.
We watch it tip into the blizzard, rolling away in silence. There’s no sound, no crash or bang or anything.
“Again?” I say.
We take another truck and oil the wheels and then shove, and shove, and the second truck picks up speed and plummets into the blizzard.
This time there’s a crash and the sound of slate skidding over metal. Someone below us shouts and through a whorl in the snow, I see headlights sweep right across the mountain. Behind me, Samson shudders a little but stays close by.
“Again,” shouts Ollie.
The third truck’s harder to move, but we get it rolling and it shoots off. We definitely get a yell this time, with more metal sounds, and breaking glass and someone shouting in a language I don’t recognise.
Ollie lines up the last truck. “We could just send this one down and then run.”
“I think we should hang on to that one,” I say. “Just in case. How do we get out?”
“That gate, there.” He points to the back of the quarry.
“Where would we get to?”
“Down the other side you sort of find the village, but it’s not easy – certainly not in this.”
“Could they drive it?”
Ollie nods. “On quad bikes, I’d think so.”
I look towards the gate and I realise that it’s almost light. Everything’s colourless, but everything’s visible.
That includes us.
Crack!
“Duck,” I shout.
“What the…?” Ollie steps forward leaving the cover of the truck.
A puff of snow bounces into the air at the back of the quarry. Samson whinnies.
A third shot sounds, this time pinging off the last little truck.
“Bloody hell!” shouts Ollie, throwing himself down.
Crack!
A fourth bounces off the bulldozer cab. Megan yelps and runs for the back of the quarry.
“We need to get out of here and we need to get to the bulldozer to block the entrance,” I shout. “Have you got the key?”
“Totally,” says Ollie, crawling across the quarry floor.
Crack!
Another bullet races towards us and dings on the bulldozer blade.
Samson resists as I pull him towards the gate at the back, but the other pony can’t wait to get out so together they cram through the gap.
“Now stay here,” I say, hopefully, looping their reins over the gatepost.
Headlights swing into the quarry, lighting up the distance between me and the bulldozer. A four-by-four growls at the entrance.
Crack!
Zing!
Flashes light up the cab of the four-by-four and I realise Peter Romero has made it to the top of the mountain in the Land Rover. He’s there, firing down the hill. Protecting us.
But we’ve got our own plans.
A bullet ricochets off the cage on top of the bulldozer cab and pings into the snow in front of me.
“Now, Ollie!” I shout.
I reach down to find a piece of snowy slate.
Crack!
“Peter Romero’s in your truck on the left,” I shout, banging the fuel pump so hard the slate shatters in my hand.
And we start her up.
Chapter 26
I duck, tuck my arms under my armpits and head for the back of the mine. Samson stands there, his eyes white and rolling, his whole body trembling with fear as I race towards the gate. He snaps and pulls back against his reins. The other horse looks ready to run too. I stand with them, trying to say calming things, wondering if I’ve spoken to Ollie for the last time, wondering how I’ll explain his death to Auntie V.
“Maya!” shouts Ollie, hurtling towards me.
“But the bulldozer!” I say. “It’s still going?”
“I jammed the pedal down.”
I swing into Samson’s saddle, trapping fresh snow between him and my bum. “That means the entrance won’t be blocked.”
“No – but it’ll take them longer to recover from the bulldozer than to clamber round it.” He jumps on to his pony. “Listen.”
He’s right – I can hear the truck revving and someone screaming and the bulldozer roaring. All the gunshots stop.
Beneath me, Samson trembles. His breathing is heavy and panicked, but he seems to recover quite quickly once I wrap my frozen hands around the stiffening reins.
Ollie points, and I see a faint dip in the snow.
“If we can find it, there’s a path,” he says. “It’s about three miles down the mountain to the village.”
“You go ahead,” I say. “You know the way.”
He shuffles into the snow. The blizzard closes in around him, and I feel horrible watching him vanish, as if I might never see him again. I glance back into the quarry. The headlights are shining towards me now, but the bulldozer grinds forward, towards the other headlights, and there’s a terrible sound of metal on metal. The lights move from horizontal to vertical, rising into the sky, the snow slanting straight down the yellow beams towards a strange dark rearing shape, which as the bulldozer engine roars, tumbles away down the mountain, out of sight.
The bulldozer revs again and there are gunshots and I think I hear someone cry out.
“C’mon, Maya,” shouts Ollie. I look down towards him. They’re just visible.