by Louise Welsh
‘I can do better than that. I can give you whole bloody tankers of the stuff.’
Magnus got to his feet, the keys in his hand. ‘A tanker’s too much. We’ll be conspicuous enough in a van. A tanker would make us a target for everyone, not just Joe.’
Stevie was by his side. ‘It’d be a precious white elephant. We wouldn’t know how to get the fuel out of it.’
Col looked at Magnus. ‘Matti would have chopped you into chunks if it wasn’t for me.’
Stevie said, ‘Maybe he would have chopped you up, if we hadn’t interrupted him.’
Col grinned. ‘Aye, could be. Could be someone else will finish the job, if you don’t help me out.’
Magnus had been plagued by a recurring nightmare after his father’s death. He was standing beside the combine harvester, watching as his father stepped down from the cab, ready to clear a blockage in the machinery. In the dream, Magnus saw what his father had forgotten. The combine’s keys were still in the ignition. He knew that as soon as the blockage was freed, the blades would roar into life, slicing through his father’s flesh, pulling him into the machine. The atmosphere of the nightmare reached out and touched him now. He needed to save Shug, but there were obstacles at every stage.
Col was still talking. ‘… I planned a two-pronged attack – politicisation married with a bit of thieving. Whoever owns the means of production has the power. I thought if I could get command of the petrol supply, I might have some sway. So I took it, bit by bit, and hid it away. There’s only six guards including me and Matti and they’re mostly grunts. We’re meant to take inventories, but as long as the doors are locked, nobody bothers. I thought I was high and dry. I didn’t reckon to the level of passivity amongst the workers. I wanted to make a revolutionary cell, but no one gave a toss. I didn’t reckon with Matti either.’
Stevie was tempted to tell Col that if he had looked to the district’s young women he would have had his cell. But if all had gone as planned at Festival Fireworks the girls would be on their way to the islands by now and she did not want them caught up in Col’s mismanaged revolution. She said, ‘Matti took an inventory?’
‘Matti took objection to me talking politics with the lads. I was trying to unionise them.’ Col snorted. ‘I might as well have been talking to the birds, but Matti didn’t see it that way. I guess he took it into his head to watch me. I had a neat system going. Each time Joe told us to shift fuel, I shifted some for myself too – vehicles are quickly spotted on these roads. It was still risky, but if someone had stopped me I would have pretended to have got the order confused. You know how it is – people are prone to confusion since the Sweats. As it was, I stole in plain sight and no one noticed.’
Stevie said, ‘Until tonight.’
Col nodded. ‘Until tonight. But it was only a matter of time until the shit hit the fan. I’d got too successful, stolen too much and not managed to get anyone to join me. You guys are my saviours and I’m yours.’
He fished in his pocket, found a second set of keys and held them out to Stevie.
‘Either of you ever driven one of these big beasts before?’
Stevie kept her hands by her sides. ‘We’d like to help, but our kids have to come first.’
‘Do this and all being well you’ll be in Glasgow soon after dawn.’ Col was piling up empty cardboard boxes and bits of old packaging. ‘I knew my luck was running out, so I organised myself an escape vehicle. Drive two of the tankers out of here, I’ll set the rest on fire. Let me blame the explosion on you and you can have my van. I’ll be high and dry and you’ll be on your way. It’s the same plan as you had before, with a small detour attached.’ Col grinned. ‘I’ll still have my stockpile and who knows? If things get a little harder people might come around to the idea of a revolution.’
Magnus said, ‘You don’t think the Sweats were hard enough?’
‘More than hard enough for me.’ Col’s smile was gone. His mouth had a bitter set to it. ‘Maybe it was the speed of things that set us on the wrong path. Decent folk were left reeling and in the meantime the psychopaths took over.’
There was a noise from the other hall. The guards had grown tired of the fireworks and were returning to their posts. Or perhaps they feared that Joe might be on his way.
Col said, ‘It might take you weeks to get to Glasgow without a car. Who knows what will have happened to your kids by then.’
Magnus looked at Stevie. ‘I could take one of the tankers and come back for you.’
A faint light glowed in the previously dark adjacent hall; time was running out. Col glanced towards it, but kept his nerve. ‘It’s all or nothing.’
Stevie took the tankers’ keys from his hand. ‘I’m guessing we have to drive through the perimeter fence?’
Col grinned. ‘Already taken care of. The padlocks on the front gates are unlocked. Just drive right at them, they’ll give way.’ He tapped his head. ‘It’s all about psychology, people see what they expect to see.’ He took a nub of pencil and a notebook from his pocket and drew them each a quick map. ‘I’d put my foot down if I were you. The roads are winding, but it’s not like you have to worry about someone coming in the opposite direction.’
Stevie said, ‘Unless it’s Joe.’
Col grinned. ‘Then all your worries will be over.’
Magnus climbed up into the cab of the nearest tanker and settled himself in the driver’s seat. He adjusted his wing mirrors and glanced through the side window at Stevie, already in position in the next cab. She had found a baseball cap bearing the BP logo and set it on her head. Her hair was in a ponytail, the cap at a business-like tilt. She might have been one of the female models who used to liven up Formula One events, pouring glasses of champagne for laurelled racing drivers.
Stevie gave a quick salute, indicating she was strapped in and ready to go. Col had already opened the doors to the loading bays. They sailed through them and into a night that was still alive with flashes of rainbow-defying light.
Thirty-Four
Their headlamps were off but Stevie was aware of Magnus’s tanker rumbling close behind hers in the dark. They were barely free of the perimeter fence when the abattoir exploded. Stevie looked in her wing mirror and saw the flash of light, so close that she caught her breath, scared their own vehicles would spark into flame. The flare of the explosion drowned out the kaleidoscope of fireworks. She saw the white tanker behind her, the abattoir ablaze, trees and roadside verges wavering in the shimmering light cast by the flames. Men ran from the burning building. Stevie hoped that Col was with them. There was another boom. A second flash of light fed the fire. Then she rounded a corner and all that remained of the explosion was a halo of brightness above the treetops and the distant bang of exploding petrol cans.
Col had retained a postal worker’s fluency with roads and junctions. His map guided her off the main artery onto a network of minor roads pitted with potholes. The fireworks were a memory in her rear-view mirror, the view in front and beside her dark. The map took her onto a long, flat stretch of road. Stevie guessed they were crossing moorland and hoped she would not tip the tanker into bog and be sucked from one darkness into another.
She felt rather than saw the road rising and realised that there was a sheer cliff-side drop to her left and high, mountain rock to her right. The road was too narrow for the tanker to comfortably take the curves and she was forced to slow down on bends. She looked in her mirrors and saw the pale gleam of Magnus’s tanker, a ghost-shadow, following her. There was nowhere for another vehicle to pass and she wondered what she would do if she were to meet Joe or his men coming from the opposite direction. She reached the top of the rise and the fireworks reappeared, distant flashes of colour, in her rear-view mirror.
The interior of Magnus’s cab was black, but she knew he was there. Stevie remembered how Magnus had called to the man with the axe, drawing him from her, putting himself in mortal danger and realised that she had not thanked him.
A villag
e appeared, abandoned and crumbling. Stevie saw the dark shapes of neglected buildings and wondered if a stubborn survivor, roused by the sound of their engines, was watching the tankers’ progress from one of the darkened cottages. She thought of Pistol, Sky and the rest of the girls and hoped that they were well on their way to Scrabster.
A pink tinge crept across the sky. Stevie had an instant of panic, thinking that she had somehow turned back on herself and was catching the final glow of the fireworks. Then she saw that the sun was slowly rising. Col had lied when he had said they would make Glasgow before dawn. Soon it would be light. She wondered what else he had lied about. Her stomach knotted with hunger and misgivings. She was tired enough to envy the dead.
The road descended into a grassy valley dotted with sheep. The grass was frosted with dew, the morning fresh-washed and golden. She rolled down the driver’s window. Birds chorused-in the new day. The blazing abattoir was far behind and the air smelt sweetly of wakened greenery.
Stevie could see Magnus reflected in her mirrors now. His face set, hands cemented to the wheel. A mascot hung from his rear-view mirror, swinging jauntily with every lurch of the cab. She thought she saw his head nod and hoped he would not fall asleep at the wheel.
The map sent her left, onto a muddy track, rutted by the passage of other vehicles. She knew they were reaching journey’s end. The turn onto the track was tight and she took it slowly, rattling over one cattle grid and then another. The vibrations shook her to her bones and she was sure that the noise must have travelled across the valley.
Magnus misjudged the turn and had to back up and re-negotiate it. Stevie slowed to allow him time to catch up. The dawn was giving way to grey sky. She could see the farmhouse now. A flesh-toned building flanked by cattle sheds. A crack cut diagonally across the front of the house. It leant the facade an off-centre look, a scowling face.
Stevie adjusted her baseball cap. ‘Welcome to Cold Comfort Farm,’ she thought, and steered the tanker towards the cattle sheds marked with a heavy X on Col’s map. Their shutters were down. She turned her engine off and waited while Magnus drew his tanker in, close behind hers. Their eyes met in the rear-view mirror. Stevie picked up her gun from the passenger seat, put it in its holster and stepped down from the cab.
Six petrol tankers were already parked in the cattle shed and it was difficult to manoeuvre theirs inside. Magnus guided Stevie in first, both of them wincing at the beep, beep, beep of the tanker’s reverse warning, which neither of them could work out how to deactivate. They swapped places and Stevie helped Magnus slide the final tanker into place. He was pale with fatigue, but managed it on the second go.
‘It looks like a box of panatellas.’ He climbed down from the cab, stumbling on the final step.
Stevie caught Magnus by the arm. She saw what he meant. The cylindrical tankers stood side by side, inside the oblong box of a shed.
She said, ‘I wonder what Joe’s friend Machiavelli would say about this?’
Magnus gave a tired grin. ‘Christ knows, but I don’t think he’d be impressed.’
Stevie pulled out Col’s map. ‘The van’s parked in the shed opposite.’
They crossed the yard swiftly. The farm was eerily quiet, even the birds seemed to have deserted the place. Stevie and Magnus’s boots sounded loud against the gravel.
Magnus wondered why Col had chosen this place to store his plunder. If ghosts existed, the whole world would be haunted, but it seemed some places held on to the atmosphere of death more distinctly. He felt a prickling in his spine that made him remember Candice and Bjarne’s house. The dogs slaughtered in the yard, Bjarne dead in his chair and poor Candice, lying butchered in her bed.
He wanted to ask Stevie if she could feel it too, but she was striding ahead. He put a sprint on and caught up with her. ‘Let’s stick together.’
She looked at him. ‘I thought we were.’
It was the wrong moment, but he said, ‘What happened back at the castle, when I was in the woods?’
Stevie was about to tell Magnus to mind his own business, but she remembered again how he had drawn the axeman away to save her.
‘Some men tried to rape me. I killed them.’
‘Did they hurt you?’
Stevie’s body was covered in bruises. Her muscles ached from the violence of the fight, but she shook her head.
‘No, they would have murdered me, but I shot them before they got the chance.’
Magnus nodded. ‘I keep thinking, maybe that’s what happened to Bjarne. He tried to rape Willow and she killed him in self-defence, but it doesn’t explain why Candice would be shot too – not in her bed like that.’
The garage in front of them was padlocked. Stevie looked under a stone by the door as Col had instructed and found the key. Her back was to Magnus, her expression hidden. ‘Perhaps the kids will be able to tell us something, when we find them.’
‘I won’t tell anyone you shot those guys. They got what was coming to them.’
‘If we want to live in peace, we need a rule of law.’ Stevie looked across the valley in the direction of Eden Glen. ‘That’s one of the things wrong with Lord Ramsey and Joe’s set-up. If they suspected I’d killed their soldiers, there’d be no investigation, no inquiry, no trial. Joe would give me to the troops and when they were finished with me I’d be strung up.’ Her eyes met Magnus’s. ‘I want to make sure Willow’s safe. I want our community, everything we’ve worked together for, to be safe too. If we find Willow, I’ll bring her home and ask her to give an account of what she knows about Bjarne and Candice’s murders. If that involves putting her on trial, I’ll make sure it’s a fair one.’
She turned her back on him and slid the key into the padlock. Neither of them had mentioned Shug, but Magnus knew every word that applied to the girl applied equally to his son.
The van was a white Ford, the kind that used to be favoured by fast-driving, self-employed tradesmen. The keys were where Col had told them they would be, tucked beneath a wheel arch. She unlocked the back doors and took a quick inventory.
‘Extra petrol, mattress, blankets, toolkit … fuck.’
Magnus had pulled the shed door not-quite-closed and was keeping lookout, his ears pricked for the sound of any approach. ‘What?’
‘No food or water.’
Magnus’s stomach was tight with hunger, his throat parched. ‘You’re kidding.’
Stevie glanced at Col’s map, but there were no overlooked instructions about secreted supplies. She shut her eyes, trying to focus.
Magnus said, ‘I’ll check the farmhouse.’
Stevie closed the van doors. ‘I’ll come with you. We can drive round, if there’s anything we need to load.’
‘Sure, let’s stick together.’
It was the second time Magnus had used the phrase, since they arrived at the farm. Stevie glanced at him, but the stillness of the place was working on her too. She locked the shed and followed him into the yard.
Thirty-Five
The farmhouse’s kitchen door was unlocked. Magnus pushed it open and peered inside. The room was cobwebbed and dusty, but it felt alive, as if the owners had just stepped out on an errand and would be back soon. Magnus had never got used to trespassing in the houses of the dead. He took a deep breath and stepped over the threshold. Stevie followed close behind.
It was like entering one of the farm kitchens of his childhood. A large pine table occupied the centre of the room. Five chairs were neatly tucked around it, a sixth was pulled out, as if someone had just risen. Magnus slid it into place. He took in the old range, the Ulster sink, the jars labelled Flour, Sugar, Coffee, Tea, the flowery curtains, surely hung in the 1970s. The floor was the same red tile as the floor in his croft kitchen, the rag rug set by the hearth.
A calendar, gifted by a feed supplier and decorated with rural views, hung on the wall. It was years out of date; halted in the month of May. The neat entries reminded him of his mother’s handwriting and he could not stop himself
from reaching out and turning the pages; Dentist, Open Day, Jim’s Birthday, Angie’s Wedding (this entry was surrounded by little hand-drawn stars in another, more exuberant, hand), start of term … The reminders continued into June and on, towards the end of the year, by which time whoever had recorded them was probably dead.
Stevie was already rooting through the cupboards. ‘Looks like Col looted himself a decent stockpile.’
Magnus let the pages of the calendar fall back into place and turned around, just in time to catch the packet of crisps Stevie tossed towards him. The sell-by-date was years past. He ripped the packet open and started to eat – salt and grease. There was a time when he had lived off junk food bought from garage shops. Butterflies in his stomach as he sped along the motorway to the next gig. And afterwards, pizza and beer with other comics, adrenalin from the show keeping them high, bitching about venue managers and absent friends; each of them trying to top the last story.
Magnus went to the sink and turned on the tap. Water flowed from it, clear and magical. He drank some and splashed his face, trying to wash away unbidden memories. He turned the tap off.
‘Looks like the house is connected to a well.’
Stevie was filling a bag with supplies. ‘See if you can find some bottles to collect it in. A tin opener would come in handy too.’
Magnus pulled open cupboards and drawers, closing each one neatly. The crockery was the same oatmeal shade as the stuff he had inherited with the croft. It had been mid-range and popular when his mother had bought it, but it made him feel strange to see the same plates and saucers, same cups, same sugar bowl here. He found a plastic water bottle and a couple of flasks, sniffed them to check they had held nothing toxic and then filled them at the tap. The tin opener was in the cutlery drawer. Magnus grabbed a cotton bag from a hook in the pantry and stuffed his finds into it.
Somewhere in the depths of the house a door slammed. Stevie was crouched by one of the low kitchen cabinets. She looked up. Their eyes met. Magnus put a finger to his lips. He shouldered the cotton bag, and moved backwards towards the door, his gun in his hand. Stevie was ahead of him, carrying the carrier bag she had filled with food. She stepped into the yard and fresh air gusted into the kitchen, rattling the hall door.